Hiccups and shivering

Dear Invisble granddaughter,

Noelly is in hospital!

To get around Malvern, and in order for your Grandad to visit his clients, we left my little Ka, Noelly, with a friend here. Matt used to be our Saturday boy when we had the bike shop. He bought Noelly over to us when we arrived. Noelly was fine the first day but then he got hiccups and started to shake. I was with your Grandad and we just managed to get Noelly to the garage before anything worse happened.

Mark, at the garage, lent us a very old Astra. It’s got all sorts of cosmetic problems but it drives which means Grandad can get to his clients and earn some money.

We’re waiting for Noelly to be diagnosed.

When I went for a shower that night two women (of the braided hair and multi-coloured/multi-patterned clothing variety) were in there. The one said she was making apple crumble because she’d found some apples by the road. The other told her to check they weren’t red all the way through this time. Then they asked me if I’d like to share their crumble. Is that a euphemism for some lesbian activity? Probably not. It’s just my writer’s mind working overtime. They were lovely and friendly but I said no thanks anyway.

This is turning out to be an expensive trip – car repairs, bits for the motorhome, a trip to the dentist… That last one was to get Grandad’s bridge fixed. It broke when he was eating crusty bread. Not my fault this time. Apparently it was my fault when I offered him my last Rolo. There used to be an advert on telly which said, ‘Do you love someone enough to give them your last Rolo?’ I thought he’d love me enough not to take it! He’s learned his lesson and doesn’t eat Rolos any more.

Grandad snores. It’s all right at home because I can tap him lightly and he stops. He says it’s never a light tap and he has the bruises to prove it. But I’ve never seen any bruises. We can have a double bed in Sid or use two singles. Last night we were too tired to organise the double which meant the centre aisle was between us so when he began snoring I couldn’t reach to ‘tap’ him. It was a cold night and I was wearing bed socks so I took them off and threw one at him. It hit his head and dropped onto the pillow when he swatted it as if it was a fly. Ten minutes later the snoring started again. I threw the other sock. This time he woke and he threw both back at me which was really good of him as, at this point, I’d run out of ammuntion.

A little later I woke him up so that he could listen to the rain pitter-pattering on the roof. It’s such a soothing sound. He didn’t think so. Good job all the ammo was on my side.