1.

Grumps and the owl

 

 

One warm spring Saturday evening, I went to visit my grandfather after a spell of absence.

It was at the weekends, and more usually on a Saturday when I would spend time with him, but I had been unwell with a cold for ten days and had not wanted him to come down with it.

Pushing through the matted brambles that were covering the garden path, I found him in his den at the end of the garden.

It was looking run down, and I offered to spruce it up in the holidays for him.

“Spruce it up! What’s wrong with it?” he huffed. He was adamant that it was fine as it was, “thank you very much.

"How long have you been coming down here, talking about how you would get those brambles sorted?” I joked.

“Oh, I forget exactly, anyway, don’t matter at my time o’ life, I always manage to get through to my den. I built it before you were born lad? And many stories it would tell if it could talk, yes, many stories,” he said, patting the timbers as if they were an old friend. Then he added. “Anyway, you’ve got enough to do with your college work to worry about my shed, although a bit of help with the garden would be nice.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have a go at the brambles next weekend,” I told him, not thinking that they keep on growing, and I would probably have a job for life.

“Do you remember coming here as a youngster?” he said, gazing out of the cobweb-covered window with a faraway look.

“I remember, and do you recall I thought then that it was only children that had dens?”

Grumps let out a huge laugh, saying,

“A lot of men when they get married will have a place that they can hide away in, and I have also heard that there are some women that have a room where the husband ain’t allowed. Now you’re here, how about I tell you about the time I discovered an enormous owl?” (Follow the rest of the story in my book, My Saturdays with Grumps}