THE INN AT WHITEWELL

Our Christmas present from our London-based son was a voucher to be spent at The Inn at Whitewell near the Trough of Bowland. This is one of our favourite areas and is only an hour's drive from home, so I don't know why we don't go there more often. The Lancashire scenery is beautiful and quite different to that in Yorkshire - I was trying to decide what made it feel different as we drove down the country lanes, past banks of snowdrops. I think it's cosier than the Yorkshire Dales - as if all the beauty is crammed into a small space - waterfalls, fast-flowing rivers, old stiles, little villages, hills and lambs. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in front of a log fire, had a walk round Whalley and then visited Boundary Mill, where I managed to pick up a £197 skirt for a tenner and a top marked down from £97 to £5. A good day all round.

ORANGES AND LEMONS - AND GRAPEFRUITS AND LIMES

When we visited my aunt and uncle in Kent I admired their citrus trees - each one was bending under the weight of magnificent fruits. Never did I think that within a few weeks I would be the owner of four fantastic specimens. Together with my cousin, they sent them as a 60th birthday present and I now have a new hobby - talking to the trees! They have become an obsession. I study them, water them and feed them as though they were children and I even have a citrus app on my new ipad. My uncle rang to ask how they were doing and wanted to know what names I had given them - no, really?

WHERE DID THE TIME GO?

I had just about decided to abandon this blog. Who on earth am I writing it for? Who does anyone write their blogs for? Why should anyone be interested in someone whom they've never met's life (is that even English?) ? My family read my words (when they're at a loose end) but they know what happened - they were there at the time and from my observation, people outside the family seem to prefer to follow blogs where the writer is either unhappy or ill. Why is this, is it to sympathise or is it morbid fascination?
I am certainly not unhappy and as far as I know I'm not ill so there can be little here to interest anyone! However, I'm here, writing this, so I presume my conscious searching has concluded that I must continue informing whomsoever lands here about my life.

Well, I was 60 just before Christmas and not only did I receive my bus pass and my first free prescription but I was given a most beautiful ipad 2 from the three children. This was completely unexpected and I'm still discovering new and interesting things about it. For instance I can now find out where every plane that passes over our house is going to and I can discover the name of every star and planet that I can see from each window of the house. Three-year-old Oscar seems to know more about it than I do and can successfully crack open eggs and lead chickens into the correct hutch with a single swipe of his finger.

Both Oscar and Hugo were too poorly to bother with much present-opening on Christmas Day but made up for it a few days later and dinosaurs, airports, board games and rattles made walking across the carpet very hazardous.

 Oscar and his uncle play elves

while Hugo goes for a Christmas pudding look

We may as well have held our New Year party in A&E. Not only did my mother decide it would be a good place to spend New Year's Eve but two neighbours agreed. They say things come in threes, so let's hope that's it!

Oscar now attends his little pre-school class every morning which makes him seem very grown up. He has super powers up his sleeve and tends to express this by racing towards people with his right arm outstretched while making shooting noises. This can be a bit disconserting and not everyone takes kindly to it so his daddy told him that it would be nicer to have a rainbow up his sleeve which would make sad people happy. This is all well and good but the recipient will be none-the-wiser because the action of racing around with his arm outstretched while making shooting noises remains the same, be-it for super powers or rainbows. I'd witnessed this super power business while Oscar was at a local play area and had seen a number of little children running away from him pretty speedily, screaming as they did so. This, combined with fearless behaviour on the play equipment made me think he was turning into a bit of a toughy (good for him) so I was surprised when, on the way home, while he was sitting in his car seat he said : "I'm very delicate aren't I Grandma?"

CLIFF

Something not altogether pleasant must have happened in my brain. I can only put it down to the fact that I am definitely aging. Today I was playing a Cliff Richard Christmas CD (a give-away from the paper) in my car and I was enjoying it!  "Mistletoe and Wine" is (was) my all-time most hated song and yet there I was singing along! I fervently hope that this new-found Cliff groupiness has something to do with me being a bit of a rebel. If the radio stations aren't going to play his music then I am. But a big part of me is very worried that this is the new me. Next month I shall receive my bus pass in the post - then what? Heaven save me from Barry Manilow.

Oscar has already identified all the age spots on my hands and face, although I call them beauty spots. This week when I was sitting next to him in the car he stared at my neck. What is it this time, I thought. "What's that red thing on your neck?" he asked. "Is it a beauty spot?" I said. "No it isn't", "is it a line?" "no".  I told him to point to it on my neck. "Well, if it isn't a beauty spot or a line,  it must be dirt," I told him. He leant as far away from me as he could, within the confines of his car seat, looked at his finger and wiped it on his jumper. I should think that the entire pre-school fraternity now believes that Oscar's grandma has a dirty neck.

Oscar's mummy says that when she was last shopping with him, he saw a toy that he fancied. "Put it to the back of the shelf and we'll tell Father Christmas to save it for you," she told him, cleverly thinking on the spot. She carried on shopping but began to wonder what the supermarket shelf-stackers were looking at. When she turned round she saw that Oscar had pushed almost everything to the back of the shelves in preparation for Santa's visit.

UNBELIEVABLE

A couple of weeks ago I decided to sell a painting that had been hanging on our dining room wall for all of five days. It was bought in a charity shop for not very much by my mother.

I put it on ebay and over the ten days that it was there it hovered around the £100 mark. Five minutes before the sale was due to end it went through the roof and then into the clouds, came out the other side and almost hit the sun! It was my Antiques Roadshow moment. And the profits will see me through Christmas. Well done ebay - but now I'd like to discover what it was the bidders knew - and I'm a little afraid that the next time I see it might be on the real Antiques Roadshow when it will be valued at £10m

LONDON

Just back from a lovely fast-paced weekend in London during which we saw The Jersey Boys, took in a wonderful illuminated manuscript exhibition at the British Library



looked round our son's Covent Garden office, visited family members in Kent and had a guided tour of beautiful Muswell Hill.

I find it amazing that areas of London which are only minutes from the centre by tube can be so villagey, hilly and attractive. Even the chewing gum, so ugly on pavements elsewhere, has been turned into an art form in Muswell Hill.

  What a brilliant idea



Our travels have also taken us to Hull recently where our daughter lives. I knew nothing about the city apart from what I'd read - and generally that wasn't very complimentary so I was very pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful marina full of magnificent yachts

as well as a fantastic fish restaurant, where we had lunch, overlooking the harbour.

Meanwhile, Hugo is desperate to be as grown up as big brother Oscar

ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS

After the Bob Dylan let-down I hardly dared hope that One Man Two Guvnors would be as good as all the reviews had claimed - but it was. It was the funniest thing we'd seen, possibly ever. It got off to a bit of a slow start and as usual other audience members were falling off their seats at things we couldn't raise a giggle at. I began to despair. However, pretty quickly it turned into a real old-fashioned slapstick farce with a waiter like Mrs Overall on Acorn Antiques almost stealing the show. There was ad-libbing with the audience and James Corden was just brilliant.

I'm sure Oscar will keep the laughter going when he comes to play today

.....someone has already taught Hugo his first party trick