Generation Gap

~~~~~~~~Grandgirl and Ansa playing on the beach.~~~~~~~~

The grandgirl has landed for her two weeks with me. I cherish these times more as the years go by, for the end of her high school years is fast approaching and I think summer jobs and everything that goes with that scenario will end these annual precious days together.

But she surprises me. She always has. She asked me about summer jobs here for next year when she will be sixteen. Maybe at the local golf club. If I were younger I would turn handstands at the idea of her spending the WHOLE SUMMER here. As it is, I look at her soberly, trying to suppress my delight, and tell her, yes I'll check out the contacts I have at the golf course and see what the possibilities are between the proshop, the restaurant and the caddying.

We talk of many things. The books we both enjoy, her new interest in cooking, her recent writing stint - she has written some very interesting stories that she shares with me. And poetry.

We share fresh I-pod additions and she listens with delight to a song my mother sang as a teenager: Little Sir Echo and by the time the last verse rolls around she has it off by heart.

In turn I listen to her rap collection and the new R&B - more like hip-hop to my uneducated ears - and we plan our next day of adventure. This time to Brigus, a marvellous old village, then to a merino farm where I can buy exquisite hand wrought wool and she can play with the animals, and a drop in on Cupids and their 400 year anniversary.

And the generation 'gap' is in our heights, she has now surpassed me by a good two inches. And I was considered tall in my time.