Cars I have owned - No 15: Nissan Serena 2.0 SGL 1994

The Nissan Serena - about to transport French-exchange visitor, Marc.

The Nissan Serena was one of those vehicles adapted from another model to try to take advantage of a new trend or fashion.

Renault designed the Espace from the ground up and it was a fantastic car. It defined the people carrier market and sold like hot cakes. Nissan wanted a slice of the action, so it took its panel van, inserted windows and seats and – hey presto – you have a people carrier.

In the US, they called people carriers ‘minivans’. In the UK, a Minivan is the car-derived van version of the Mini, so it’s a little confusing. However, the Serena was a van and little had been done to improve the ride, handling or performance. It was no Espace, but it was in my price range; in fact, I could afford the top-spec model.

There was a normally aspirated diesel, which was incredibly slow, and a 2-litre petrol, which was the version I had. It was very thirsty (below 30mpg) even on a long run and it still wasn’t what you’d call fast. Thankfully, I was able to put a fair bit of petrol into the car on the company’s account, so I wasn’t unduly concerned about mileage. Auto Express named the Serena as the slowest passenger car in the benchmark 0-60 mph (now 62 mph) test, with the 2.3 diesel version taking 27.8 seconds to reach that speed.

There were some odd quirks about the vehicle. Soon after we got it, Margaret called me one day to say the battery was flat. I told her she’d left the lights on, she swore she hadn’t. I didn’t believe her, but then it happened to me and I definitely hadn’t left the lights on. There was clearly an electrical leak that was flattening the battery over around three days. I checked all the interior lights, none were staying on and I also checked for odd things like bonnet lights – nothing!

The car went to the Nissan dealer in Peterborough and, almost in mockery, they gave me a Nissan Micra as a replacement car. From an eight-seater people carrier to a four (five at a push) seater supermini – now that’s what you call customer service!

They said they’d check over the car, it was fine. It was probably a faulty battery, so they changed the battery.

Of course, it happened again and Nissan’s (then) high reputation for reliability was looking a bit suspect. The car went back and I suspect this was a rare, but not unique, fault on this model. They kept the car for a couple of weeks and flew in a technician from Japan to look at it. When it came back, they couldn’t tell me what the fault had been, but they promised it was sorted (and so it was).

The Serena was tall and thin and, dynamically, it was not a good car to drive. It felt heavy, accelerated slowly and overtaking had to be carefully judged. It wasn’t the sort of car you’d throw into a bend. It was front engine/rear-wheel drive and the car had a live rear axle, mounted on leaf springs – crude by passenger-car standards in the mid-90s.

Oddly, the engine sat quite high between the driver and front passenger. The almost mid-engine design would have helped handling, but the engine was set too high for good weight distribution. To check the oil level, you had to lift a cover inside the car and hinge it forward to expose the engine. It was a faff and, despite a heat shield and noise insulation, you were always aware there was a big engine sitting alongside you. There was a short, stubby bonnet and that lifted to allow access to washer fluid and coolant levels.

It did have a radio/cassette player, electric windows, power steering and two electric sun-roofs. No air-conditioning back then. I never liked sun-roofs, they are noisy when open, reduce headroom and often leak. However, pulling back the cover on the Nissan’s main sun-roof gave you a tinted glass roof that made the car seem really light and open. If you did open the roof and drive at any speed, all kinds of severe vortexes and whirlwinds would be created inside the car and you couldn’t hear yourself think!

We didn’t take the Serena abroad, but we did clock up quite a few miles around the UK. It certainly went to Somerset a couple of times and also to the Lake District. I remember doing the Hardknott and Wrynose passes in the Lakes. These two lead into each other and have some really steep roads, which were quite wet on the day we did them. The rear-wheel drive Serena lost a bit of traction on some sections. It was possible to lock the differential by pressing a button, but this wasn’t needed.

It was hard to like the Serena, but there was no denying its practicality. It was an eight seater 2+3+3 and, unlike other people carriers I’ve owned, it was possible to fold all the rear seats out of the way (there was no need to start unplugging them like the Galaxy, Sharan, et al. The middle seats tipped forwards and upwards (like an estate car) and the rear seats (a bench seat) split in the middle and folded into the side.

We didn’t have to do any removals, but the eight seats came in handy a few times, and Tom and I managed to get a motorcycle in the back. We took the Derbi Senda to a moped endurance race at Cadwell Park and it just about squeezed in (along with our other gear).

We had the Serena for four years. I changed it in 1999 for another people carrier – a VW Sharan.

Also see:

Ford Popular - click

Bedford HA Van - click

Morris Mini - click

Vauxhall Viva HC - click

Citroen GS Club - click

Morris Marina 1.3GL - click

Talbot Horizon 1.1 LS - click

Vauxhall Cavalier 1.3L - click

Datsun Stanza 1.6GL - click

Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6L - click

Peugeot 405 STi - click

Ford Escort Mk IV 1.6D L - click

VW Polo Mk II 1.0L - click

Vauxhall Cavalier Mk III 2.0GL - click

Brothers meet for the first time in 80 years

Tony Burrows (left) and Keith Sanders - brothers reunited after 80 years.

Here’s a picture of Margaret’s two half-brothers – Tony Burrows and Keith Sanders – who met for the first time this month.

The brothers were from Margaret’s dad’s first marriage. He married Amy Sanders in 1934 and they had two children – Tony in 1935 and Keith in 1937. Keith was born in July and Amy died in August.

Tony stayed with his father, although Norman joined the Army at the outbreak of the Second World War, and he was brought up by Edith Burrows (nee Mason), his grandmother.

John Joseph Keith Burrows went to live with his mother’s family and his name was changed to Keith Sanders.

It’s not unusual for children to be divided between the family in the event of such tragedy. What is unusual was that there was no contact between the two brothers or, to the best of our knowledge, between father and Keith.

Tony knew he had a brother and Keith knew he had a brother, but that was it. None of the children of Norman’s second marriage knew anything about Keith (their half-brother). Tony, brought up by his grandmother, was a visitor two or three times a year.

The first Margaret knew of another half-brother was when it was uncovered during research on our family tree and her cousin Gillian was able to fill in a few gaps and provide a picture of Amy and now this picture of Tony and Keith.

The 1939 Census shows the Burrows family living at 15 Morris Drive in Weaverham. There was William Burrows, wife Edith, sons Norman and Walter and grandson William Thomas Anthony Burrows (aged three-and-a-half). William and Norman are working as Roadmen and Walter is a Labourer.

John Joseph Keith Burrows, by now called Keith Sanders and two years old, is living in Chapel Lane, Action Bridge (maybe two miles away) with Gladys Esther Sanders (aged 25). We don’t know if she’s his mother’s sister or wife of his mother’s brother. We assume she was a relative of some kind.

Norman Burrows - aged about 60

It seems extraordinary to me that I might live a couple of miles away from one of my sons and never see him. Of course, I don’t know any circumstances or background. One assumes there was some bad blood, but it might simply be they thought it best to bring the child up as a Sanders and sever all connections. We’ll never know. There was also the small matter of the Second World War ...

Anyway, the story has had a happy, if poignant, ending. Aged 82 and 81, the brothers are reunited for a photograph and may get chance to catch up some more in the future.

There’s an amazing similarity between the two of them and also with their father Norman.

Three months - three holidays

Mt Tiede, Tenerife's volcano, from the
EasyJet window.

This is a first for me. I've never had a week's holiday in the sun during the middle of winter, normally I'm heading somewhere colder for skiing.

The holiday was Sam's idea, he arranged it and asked if we wanted to come along. Tenerife was chosen because you can fly directly from Jersey. We had an early flight from Gatwick (bag drop 6am), so we stayed overnight at the airport to avoid a miserable 3am start.

Tenerife is a popular winter destination for we Brits. I didn’t realise how popular until I mentioned I was going on holiday there. So many people seem to own property in the Canaries, or have mates who let them use properties or go there every year for a break from the gloomy British winter.

I was particularly looking forward to going to a Spanish-speaking destination, so I could practise my language skills and (perhaps) even show off. As it turned out I didn’t get much further than hello, good morning, please and thank you; although I did ask for a spoon once. The only place where I could have let rip, the waitress had gone to university in Cardiff and relished the chance to practise her English!

We stayed at the Roca Nivaria, part of the Adrian Hoteles group, at Costa Adeje. We didn’t book all-inclusive as we expected to get out and about a little (perhaps to the top of Mount Teide, the volcano that dominates the island). As it happened, we found everything we needed inside the hotel, so we emerged only to buy water, snacks for Arthur, wine and beach stuff. We  also found a small play area, which Arthur liked, Margaret and I went to a restaurant one evening and we had a short walk around the coast promenade. That was it.

The hotel has restaurants, pools, sports and games areas, shops, nursery, soft play, gardens, walks, putting green and a lift down to the beach. It was a bit like an upmarket Butlin’s (very upmarket, but the principle was the same).

Arthur tucking into breakfast

Food was great, staff were nice, decor was lovely, and the weather was pleasant (up in the low 20s). It was good to be able to spend some time with Arthur. He recognised Margaret straight away at the airport, which she was rightly pleased about. I was also to form more of a bond with him, which was great. Because of distance, Arthur knows us a lot less than Julia or Aureliano and so it’s good to have some quality time with him.

We’d taken some books along and Arthur had a new book each day. He loved Bear Hunt. Our routine soon settled into a pattern:

1.     Breakfast would be taken in turn so that Sam and Lucy got Arthur some food, then we went up for ours (help-yourself buffet). Arthur would soon be full or fed up and so I’d take him for a walk around the gardens and pools for 20 minutes or so while the others ate. There was a fish pond with some large fish and terrapins. That was out first port of call, then there was a wall to balance on, a cave bar/restaurant (that may have contained a bear) and a waterfall that you could walk behind. Back at the restaurant, Sam, Lucy and Margaret would be on the cava and their third coffee; so I’d tag Margaret to take Arthur to the soft-play area and I’d grab some cake, cava and coffee myself. Soft play was a life-saver!

2.    We’d then do the pool or football. Arthur doesn’t really like swimming pools, he isn’t confident, or particularly happy, in the water, but he does love football, throwing things and chasing around. There was a big five-a-side pitch, basketball court, volleyball court and giant chess and draughts games. We bought a ball and Arthur was in his element.

3.    He would normally have a sleep late morning or early afternoon, generally with Sam or Lucy, then we’d have time for pool or more play afterwards. We tended to snack for lunch and then have dinner quite early. Dinner would be similar to breakfast, with us working in relays to amuse Arthur and keep him provisioned. He does have a good arm for throwing and will hurl food, cutlery or crockery once he’s done with it. You have to watch him closely and soft play was again a facility that was very much appreciated.

I tried to teach Arthur buenos días, hola and gracias, but only ‘hola’ stuck and he shouted it loudly to staff and fellow guests, which was very cute.

Playing in the sand at the Volleyball court.

Tenerife was the second of three holidays I was taking in the first three months of the year – quite an impressive record. With grandparent duties for Aureliano and Julia, allotment and Thorney Post, it was a very busy start to the year.

My first holiday was skiing with Sam in January. We got a very cheap late deal at La Rosiere and ended up in a catered chalet with four firemen, a dad and his two sons, a couple from Worcester and a couple from Essex. It wasn’t a bad mix and our chalet host (a public schoolboy called Josh) was aimiable, if a little disorganised.

We went with Ski Beat for the second year running and it’s a flight to Lyon, then a pretty long coach transfer to the resort. Sam and I both stayed over in Gatwick the night before our outbound flight and so the early start was quite tolerable.

Very snowy - La Rosiere

There had been huge snowfalls in the Alps and we had more snow during our stay. Some resorts had closed due to avalanche threat and at La Rosiere, the link to Italy wasn’t open until the last day. I really enjoyed the skiing. I managed to persuade our resort rep to sell me an over-65 ski pass, which saved some cash, and then signed up for four days with the ski school. I had nice instructors and small groups and I was twice promoted to higher levels, which was good for my confidence.

One of the ski instructors lived in the village and worked as a golf pro and carpenter during the summer. I asked him whether he was busy and had classes in the afternoon and he said he was going to spend the rest of the day clearing snow from his chalet roof. All the roofs had a good three or four feet of snow on the top and I asked if they were designed to cope with that weight. He said this year was particularly thick and said he knew he had to move some snow off when they couldn’t open the windows upstairs. The weight of the snow bends the window lintels downwards and you can’t open them. He also showed us the golf clubhouse up on the slopes at La Rosiere. There’s a nine-hole golf course in the summer, but now the top of the roof of the clubhouse was just visible. That’s quite a thickness of snow.

On the last day, Sam and I skied across into Italy, which involves a couple of reds and two long drag lifts and I managed to survive all that. Quite a contrast to the year before at St Martin de Belleville, when I’d crashed hard a couple of times and was pretty sore by the end of the week. The end of my left thumb is still numb – nerve damage from one of the falls.

First job: buy a sledge!

My third holiday, a second ski holiday, was in March and this time we went to Arc 1950 with Sam, Lucy and Arthur. We had decided to drive, even though I was a little worried about whether the BMW (220,000 miles) would make it there and back. Sam was flying and we said we’d pick them up on Sunday morning from Chambery. It was a bit of a squeeze, but we managed it. Margaret was pleased to see Arthur and even sat in the back without complaining.

Sam and I had gone to Arc 1950 last year, and we thought it would be good for a family holiday. The car park (a massive underground construction) took some working out, but the BMW had performed effortlessly and we managed to unpack and get in our accommodation by late afternoon. I’d got a dozen bottles of wine stashed over the wheel well, plus gin and sherry, so we were well provisioned for booze. We’d also bought essentials from home and there was a Huit a 8 in the resort.

Like La Rosiere, there was plenty of snow and it snowed several times during the week. I was back on my old red skis and boots. My boots were hurting (surely my feet haven’t grown) and the skis were dragging. I got the skis waxed and hired some boots for the rest of the week.

Arthur got a sledge on the first day and enjoyed being dragged around the village in the snow. It must be a massive culture shock for a toddler to swap his regular St Helier nursery for mountains, cold and deep snow.

I am very familiar with Les Arcs resorts and it was good to be back on those slopes. Sam and Lucy tried to trick me by taking me back onto Renard. They thought if they brought me in a different way and didn’t say anything that I wouldn’t know where I was. There’s no forgetting Renard for me, I knew exactly where I was, but went along with the ruse. It was OK actually. It is a tough blue, but I’ve done worse.

They were waiting at the bottom cackling like a couple of old crones.

Skiing was good most days, but there was quite a lot of snow during the week and on a couple of days visibility was pretty poor. I struggle a bit when I can’t see the contour of the slope. I find myself speeding up when I expect to slow down. Sam says I need to relax and feel the slope. I think I might feel the slope with my bum.

On the final day, we all went out in the morning, but the visibility was so poor I packed it in on the first run and turned for home.

Apart from revisiting Renard, I did the Mont Blanc run, which I’ve not done for a couple of years. That’s probably a tougher blue than Renard, but the toughest blue of all is the last run in to Arc 1600. I always managed to fall on that and although I managed it OK several times, it did catch me out once.

My friend David is dying

David and I at St Bees. We have selected pebbles to carry
to the east coast and throw into the sea.

My friend David is dying.

He is not the first friend I have lost to death. When I was 17, my friend John Hall fell out of the back of a van (drunk) and died on the road; when I was in my thirties, my friend and best man Robert Broomfield died after a long struggle with kidney problems caused by spinabifida (a condition rarely seen in the UK today).

But David is different: just over two years ago he and I walked Wainwright's Coast-to-Coast route together. We planned a follow up – Offa's Dyke or Cleveland Way – but instead he has taken the long walk from being a healthy and fit man to the edge of death.

I've known David for about seven years. His wife Joyce and Margaret became friends through helping at the old folk's club in the village and then David moved into Berberis Close so became our next-door-but-one neighbours.

David worked Knarr Farm, around 350 acres to the east of the village, but sold up around four years ago to retire. When I started running the Thorney Post, I wanted someone to write a farming column, so he became Rambling Sid.

One day at a party in the garden, he said he'd always wanted to do the Coast-to-Coast walk, but no-one would do it with him. I said I'd do it and about a year later we thought we'd better get it sorted.

It was a terrific two weeks. We bonded as friends through the challenge, found humour in adversity, made fun of people who were annoying and of each other.

Around 18 months ago, the winter after our spring walk, David got pneumonia and it knocked him for six. It took ages to recover and he had tests which showed a slightly leaky heart valve and an enlarged spleen. The tests went on for ages and they finally discovered he had leukaemia.

The discovery came more or less at the time that it turned from a liveable-with, self-managing condition to an aggressive, destructive cancer.

I wasn't at all worried. I thought leukaemia was treatable. Perhaps the treatment would be unpleasant, I could envisage David losing his hair, having a tough six months and then enjoying another 15 years or so.

He did have an unpleasant course of chemotherapy, but it wasn't effective and a bone-marrow transplant was not an option because of his age and general fitness. David turned down a second course of chemotherapy – not a cure but an unpleasant way to get a few more months – and has been visiting the hospital two or three times a week for blood transfusions. These provide him with the platelets and red-blood cells which the cancer destroys.

He was expected to die before Christmas, but has been doggedly hanging on to life and I expect that soon, he will decide he's had enough.

Leukaemia destroys your blood, it leaves you with no energy, no ability for the blood to clot and no immune system. It will kill you by either an everyday infection or virus that most of us would shrug off or by an unstoppable haemorrhage or stroke.

It's not the emasculated, treatable condition that I thought. It's a dangerous and devious disease with many weapons in its arsenal.

I don't know how long David has left. I saw a slight change in him this week, which leads me to think it won't be long, but I don't know. I hope his end, when it comes, will be quick and painless – and I will miss him.

Footnote: David died on February 4, 2018 at the Sue Ryder Hospice, Thorpe Hall.

A week in Jersey

Selfie with granddad

Margaret and I are just back from a week in Jersey where we have been visiting Sam and Lucy and getting some quality time with Arthur, our grandson, who is just 18 months old.

He's quite a handful, a lot more wriggly than Julia and much more daring. He will charge down steps, even quite high ones, and is obsessed with jumping.

We picked a bit of a bad week weather-wise, but Arthur was also a bit below par – he had a cough, which woke him (and his mum and dad) every night and he is also getting two teeth either side of the two he already has at the front on his bottom jaw.

He's been walking for a few months now and is really fast on his feet. You can't leave him for a second, although if he's about to do something he knows he shouldn't, he generally says “bye” - that sets the alarm bells ringing.

Like Julia, he's a real mimic, although he hasn't done any impressions of Margaret yet.

He can say “daddy”, "ga-ma" and also “mummy” but he wouldn't say “mummy” when Lucy was about.

He says “no” with a strange accent, almost like “niow” with real expression. He also says “go” and “there” when he wants you in a particular place. Arms held up mean “pick me up please” in universal toddler talk.

He looks like a real little lad, especially after his latest haircut (on Friday) and his favourite thing is to have books read to him. Mr Tumble was a popular choice, also a first words book with lots of pictures, Incy Wincy Spider and Piggy plays hide and seek. He's also allowed a spell of TV, so I was introduced to Something Special (a signing show featuring disabled and able-bodied children), In The Night Garden and Teletubbies.

These are all on BBC iPlayer. I think that In The Night Garden must have been written while the author was high on drugs and Teletubbies also has something of the mind-altering about it.

Normally Arthur is at nursery on weekdays. He gets dropped off by Sam in the morning around 8am and does a full day to 6pm. He's now in the older toddler group and he's one of the smaller ones in there. 

At home, he wakes up around 6am and likes a cup of cow's milk first thing, breakfast at 8am and then playtime until 10am when he really needs a sleep. He won't sleep if we put him down, but if you push him out in his buggy, then he goes out like a light for a maximum one hour (or until the buggy stops). Sam was just the same.

After the morning sleep, he likes a fairly early lunch, more play, an afternoon sleep (same rules as the morning sleep), then play or book and then dinner about 4pm, play, some TV and sleep around 7pm.

Sam and Lucy both had the sleep-deprived, harassed look of toddler parents. It was ironic to hear Margaret re-assuring Sam (Sam who was such a difficult baby) that it wouldn't last long. It does seem hard work (because it is hard work) and you have no time for lots of other things, but it does go by so quickly.

Margaret and I know how they change and grow and how these precious moments of life's first steps, words and discoveries go past so fast. It seems not so long ago that we were doing things with Sam that he's now doing with Arthur.

Arthur enjoyed my company, especially a gee-gee, but he really loved ga-ma. He would always choose Margaret to read him a book and occasionally come to me for a second opinion. I'll have to try harder next time.

We drove to Gatwick and then flew to Jersey by easyJet. It's a familiar route by now and is the cheapest way to do it (although I got my suitcase weight really wrong and ended up paying another £40) It cost more to get the suitcase there and back than it did for our tickets. We arrived around 8.30pm on Wednesday.

Thursday was a nice day. Arthur had to be at nursery because Sam, Margaret and I were booked on a boat trip to the Écréhous, which is a reef and string of tiny islands between Jersey and the Cherbourg peninsula. It's about six miles from Jersey and the same from France, but is part of Jersey and has been since the Normans conquered the whole region in the first millennium. France laid claim to the Écréhous, but in 1953 the International Court of Justice ruled they were part of Jersey.

The name comes from two Norse words – Esker and Hou, meaning 'stony' and 'island'. The Vikings didn't miss much and this tiny string of islands, most of it only visible at low tide, was certainly on their radar.

All but the three largest islands are submerged at high tide, there are no permanent residents and no fresh water there. Due to erosion, they are now much smaller than they may have been within historic times. Maîtr'Île, the largest of the islets, is about 300 metres long. There are about eight buildings, some used as holiday residences, on the largest islets, and one official building, a customs house, on La Marmotchiéthe.

The Écréhous also attracted the notice of the early Christians in Europe. Being remote and grim, it was considered the perfect place for a monk to live and for a few hundred years there was a chapel and priory there. It was also a staging post for smuggling.

According to Wikipedia, there have been permanent residents on Les Écréhous in recent times. Philippe Pinel lived on Bliantch'Île from 1848 to 1898 and exchanged gifts with Queen Victoria. He styled himself king of the Écréhous. More recently, in the 1960s and 1970s a man called Alphonse Le Gastelois sought refuge in the islands from unfounded public suspicion of being a sexual attacker. He home in Jersey was attacked, so he left for the Écréhous and lived there for more than 20 years, even after the real culprit was arrested.

Now the islands are a protected conservation zone.

We took a rib from St Catherine's. It was a powerful craft that sped across the short stretch of water and easily navigated the many submerged rocks and sandbanks. It would have been a much more dangerous trip for the Vikings, who depended on oars and sails. Inside  Maîtr'Île, there is a sheltered inlet and small sandy beaches. We only had an hour or so on the island, but Sam was keen to have a swim and so I went in with him. The water was about 18 degrees, so it felt cold until you splashed about a bit and then it seemed warmer than the air above. I haven't swum in the sea for well over 10 years and it's easy to forget how much easier it is due to the extra buoyancy of salt water. Other people who had come across with us thought we were a little crazy.

It's amazing to swim in a little sheltered inlet like this, miles from anywhere and think of Viking longships laid up there with some protection from a high sea. There was a fair bit of wildlife about. We saw dolphins, seals, gannets and terns.

Once back, we picked up Arthur from nursery and headed home.

Breakfast at El Tico's always goes down well.

On Friday, the weather was getting wet and windier. We wouldn't have been able to get to the Écréhous this day, so it was as well we had gone when we did. Instead, we had breakfast at El Tico, a favourite location for breakfast when we're in Jersey and then did a supermarket shop at Waitrose in Red Houses and Sam took Arthur for a haircut (his second). Having a 'big boy' haircut really makes him look grown up and older than his year-and-a-half. Arthur's routine isn't as rigid as Julia's. She goes to bed for a two-hour sleep at about 12.30pm, but Arthur seems to catch some zzzs when he can. A trip in the car or the buggy, soon sends him off to sleep.

On Saturday, we all went to Jersey Zoo, which had an open day for 'friends' – including people who have bought a year-long subscription. I don't really like zoos and, especially zoos that have birds in cages, but I acknowledge that my dislike is perhaps not based on sensible science but rather putting myself in the position of the animals. We bought Lucy a subscription to the zoo, so that she could take Arthur along there any time and it has been fairly well used. It's in a nice parkland setting, so it's a pleasant place to walk around and there are some interesting plants as well as the usual animals. I had a nice chat with the politically incorrect gorilla keeper and went to say hello to the fruit bats. Arthur wanted to run downhill (any hill).

We had lunch in the zoo cafe, but plans for my first taste of Jersey ice-cream were thwarted when the ice-cream machine had broken down. There are two types of Jersey ice-cream (made with Jersey milk) – soft or hard. I rather like ice cream, but for some reason I've never had one on holiday in Jersey. Perhaps the weather has always been too wet.

Nice ice-cream for Arthur

After the zoo, we drove out to the north shore and had a little stroll along a beach and slipway. A party was just setting off on a coasteering trip and it brought back horrific memories for Sam who was terrified when he took Max and Inna coasteering this summer.

In the evening, we were babysitting so that Sam and Lucy could go out for dinner. It had been their wedding anniversary (ninth, I think) that week and they went to Ormer, the Michelin-starred restaurant in St Helier. Arthur was very good for us, but woke up just before Sam and Lucy arrived home. Margaret was able to get him down again. Poor lad has a cough and spits his dummy, then needs comforting. Sam and Lucy were both stuffed with food and wine. They'd had a taster menu with a different glass of wine with each course!

It was good that they could go out. It's hard with a small baby and no family support nearby, so they depend upon Maureen or Margaret being in town to have a social life.

There have been lots of changes to the house since I last visited. There are new wood floors, wood-burning stoves in both living rooms, the kitchen units have been painted and the garden is much changed and restocked. Lucy has some lovely grasses, which I rather coveted. She found me some seeds for one variety, but the other is not hardy enough to grow in our garden. I do have its name, so I might try anyway. Perhaps I could find a warm corner.

On Sunday, I helped in the garden by sorting out the pile of wood from various trees that have been cut down. I persuaded Sam to put the bigger logs in his wood-store and stacked the smaller pieces in a neater pile at the bottom of the garden. They should be good for insects and birds. Sam says he isn’t scared of spiders any more, but he wasn’t in any hurry to dig into the woodpile.

We also fixed the lock on the front gate, so Arthur could be locked in the back garden (he could open the gate and get out onto the road) and also did some general tidying.

Windy day at St Brelade's

In the afternoon, Sam and Lucy took advantage of grandparent day-care to visit the gym, so Margaret and I walked Arthur around St Brelade's. Soon after we set off, the rain blew in on a strong wind and so we decided to carry on across the beach to the Smugglers’ Inn at the end of the bay. Arthur was snoozing happily, but Margaret and I were soaked on one side and completely dry on the other. The rain was coming on horizontally.

I like the Smugglers’, it has fires and allows dogs into the bar. We got Arthur some fish & chips and apple crumble with ice cream. He ate fish, licked tomato sauce off the chips and ate the ice cream. Thankfully, the rain had stopped for the walk back.

St Brelade’s is probably the nicest beach on Jersey. It’s not as long as St Ouen’s, but has good sand and it’s very pretty, with a rocky clump of granite dividing the beach (and the bay) in two. At low tide, you can walk around it; at high tide, you have the scramble over the top.

Jersey isn’t very green. All household waste gets incinerated and there’s no organised recycling. Electricity comes from France, so I guess that’s nuclear and it’s either green or the end of the world, depending upon your point of view.

Well, on Monday I went with Sam to the recycling centre. I’ve been before, but a new one has opened just north east of St Helier. It’s very impressive. There’s a recycling shop, where you can drop off things that might be useful and they are then sold for charity; also different skips for different types of rubbish. It’s all clean, very easy to park and very quick. We also took some garden waste, which is composted and you can buy topsoil/compost by the bag or giant bale. The best thing about the old site was a pile of “possibly useful” things which you could help yourself to. That’s no longer there because the charity shop takes them all. Trouble is, the stuff that might be useful to someone, but is a little shoddy, now tends to get dumped.

Foamy sea off St Ouen's Bay

As we drove to the recycling centre, the waves were crashing over the sea wall, so afterwards, we went round to St Ouen’s Bay, which faces west, just to see what it was like. The sea was foaming and waves were breaking over the wall – not a day for a walk on the beach or a sea crossing. If we’d come via ferry, we might have been wondering if we’d get home on Wednesday.

St Helier was windy, sunny and wet – all in the space of a couple of hours. We had a look round the shops, bought some Jersey Pottery for Emilia and Julia and met Lucy for lunch at Pizza Express. Arthur was good, but needed a dance with Margaret to keep him amused. He does like to dance, but other diners might not have noticed the small toddler and thought: why is that crazy woman dancing in the middle of the restaurant?

Tuesday was our last day with Sam, who had to return to work on Wednesday. We had a quiet day, with a couple of walks for Arthur so Sam could spend some time sorting out his broken boiler (leak, then short circuit when it was turned on), the blokes who had come to dig some tree roots out of the garden and also looking at the John Lewis website. Sam wants a new oven and hob to complete his kitchen makeover and his favourite reading is currently the Bosch catalogue and the John Lewis website.

The gardeners did an OK job and there’s now lots more space for new plants. We rounded our day off with a trip to Waitrose. I took Arthur to see the fish on the fish counter and the shop-assistant (it being a slow day) thought he’s entertain us by picking up a mackerel and making it swim towards Arthur’s face. Arthur was not amused.

I let him have a run around after that and he found the toilet roll aisle bewitching. I realised that all toilet rolls and paper towels have pictures of puppies or teddies on them.

Our last day was Wednesday and we could have packed Arthur off to nursery and had a quiet day, or given him another day of books, buggies and Teletubbies. We chose Teletubbies. It was nice to spend time with him on our own, although we did need two long walks to get him to sleep. Sam arrived back from work in time to take over and to take us to the airport.

Not happy today - needs some Calpol

Discovered the joy of watering plants

Building a tower ...

Trip to the seaside

Julia definitely has a mind of her own. In the summer, we took her to Hunstanton for the day. We envisaged running on the beach, paddling in the surf, building sandcastles …

Julia wasn't keen on sand, she hated the feel on her feet and she was no happier with shoes on. She viewed sand as you or I might consider dog poo – something to avoid stepping on at all costs. The fact that hundreds of other children were having a great time counted for nothing.

She was carried to the sea a couple of times, but paddling was out as there was clearly sand under the water. We did collect a few shells, which are now something of a treasure,

Much later in the year, in December, it snowed heavily in Thorney and Tom and Lucy bought Julia up to enjoy this rare treat. Julia puts snow in the same class as sand – not to be trodden. She didn't mind looking at it from the safety of my arms, she thought it quite funny to throw a snowball at dad, but she yelped when a snowflake went down her neck.

I'm sure, in time, Julia will enjoy a day at the beach and (if she gets chance) will love to make a snowman – just not in 2017.

Aureliano was so impressed by Hunstanton that he fell asleep and I kept
him company.

Do you speak Julia?

It is interesting hearing a child learn to speak and particularly interesting for me as I am learning a language (Spanish) myself.

Julia has two languages to learn - Spanish from her mother and English from the rest of her current world.

She also makes up words of her own to fill in the gaps, so the result is a blend of Spanglish toddler talk. It’s quite creative and often quite funny.

Here are some of her words:

Buo - is milk (hot or cold). I don’t know where this one came from. The Spanish for milk is ‘leche’ so there’s no obvious link there.

Wei-wei - that’s her word for me, grandad. I think it came from ‘abuelo’ the Spanish word for grandad and I think she picked up on the ‘welo’ sound within the word. I rather like being Wei-wei

Ma-ma, not to be confused with Mammy  - is what she calls Margaret. The ‘ma’ sound, obviously comes from the ‘ma’ in grandma. Often Julia shouts it very loudly indeed.

Wei-wei - Nina - is her word for grandma Nidia and (just recently) Wei-wei Lala for grandad Carlos. Wei-wei is now her word of choice for grandparents.

Memes - are socks. The Spanish for socks is ‘calcetines’ but in Latin America they are medias (as in halves) and memes is obviously a corruption of medias.

Tu - is you (of course), but Julia uses it for ‘me’ (as herself). Lucy would refer to her as ‘tu’ and she thinks that’s her name. I tried to get her to say me, but it’s far too confusing for a toddler (or a granddad).

Ollybolly - is Holly, our dog. She does call her olly when issuing a command, which she has started to do. “Olly, no!” is a common one.

Oh-Oh - means there’s a problem and it’s such a useful word. Anything from a pain in the foot, a lost item or something dropped on the floor. There was an incident when Julia was climbing on a chair and grandad told her to be careful and come down. She didn’t heed his advice, slipped and banged her ear. This incident was reported to mum and dad with the damning sentence: Oh-oh, wei-wei ear.” Recently, she has had a cold and this was called ‘oh-oh nose’.

Bee - this is a bee, but also any other insect from a fly to an ant, although I think I’ve now taught her ‘ant’.

Beeba - is bib, the thing you wear for dining when you’re two. She is very fussy about her bibs or beebas and many have names. Plane beeba is a freebie from KLM. It is also a hairclip, from the Spanish ‘horquilla’ and ‘bedcover’ from ‘cubrir’.

Dada isn’t dad (that’s daddy) but is does mean poo, house and spoon. Tom told me about the first one and I haven’t heard it. Normally when it’s a No 1, she gets anxious and points to her belly. That’s the sign to run for the potty. She was saying ‘caca’ so perhaps that’s corrupted to dada. House is ‘casa’, so close-ish and spoon is ‘cuchara’. A lot of words are picked up and used because they sort of rhyme - I guess they sound right. Bee dada is one of her favourite spoons - it’s a spoon with a big yellow handle and a picture of a bee on it.

Mano is brother, from the Spanish hermano.

Babbies - are strawberries or raspberries.