Another Advent child ...

My older grandson's birthday today - another Advent child, another birthday  which in a way was celebrated at the beginning of the month when we were in Edinburgh. He's very much changed from the little boy we used to visit in London; he now towers above me and picks up my suitcase with ease when he sees me getting it out of the car, but I shall never forget the first time we went to see him, a couple of weeks after he was born, and wondered at the miracle of being given a second generation of children to love. I'm going to succumb to temptation and put the poem I wrote on that occasion at the foot of this post - it speaks of that moment without the haze of theintervening years.

Talking of haze ... tonight when I went to shut the door I realised it's become really foggy, with that strange silence that the fog brings, and now that I'm in the study all I can see in the grey gloom are the faint orange spots from the few remaining sodium streetlights on the seafront. After a trying morning with the gas man (he's not trying, but the struggle to fix what seems to be a faulty valve on a gas fire is trying for us all), I felt like escaping for a bit, and went to meet Di for a short but rather lovely walk around the strange low-lying area at the entrance to Glen Massan, which takes its name from the big house, Ballochyle. The sun was just about to go behind the hills, and as it did, we could see the mist rising from the wet fields like smoke. You can see this happening in the bottom left photo in the collage.

After that I had to hasten home for the most unusual occurrence of a flying visit from my younger son, father of yesterday's birthday girl, who'd been working in Dunoon for the afternoon. We opened his gift of an amazing Advent calendar, marvelled at its contents, fed him coffee and fruit cake, and talked non-stop with the background of music he wanted us to hear ...and then he was off, driving to the ferry and home again. 

I told birthday boy Alan that I was going to post the poem about him today, so that's my excuse. 

ALAN

That first day, the day we met, 
when he lay quiet in my arms
I gazed at his small, sleeping face
and willed that he should look at me
and know. Yet when the black eyes blinked
and opened on the world I was
quite unprepared for such a dark
profound solemnity as if
this tiny boy could see into
the whole immensity of life
and claim it there, and know it his.

C.M.M. 12/08