It's In The Genes, Grandpa

Grandpa would have been a brilliant blogger. True, it's hard to know where he would have found the time (he built bookcases and dollshouses, he entered competitions, he won everything from a car to a coffee table); but he would have loved it. He wrote whenever he could. When I went to London on my first-trip-away-from-home he sent a poem to keep me company. When I started a family magazine he was an enthusiastic subscriber and contributor. And when I won a school poetry competition he made me feel as if I'd scored a Nobel Prize. At roughly the age I am now he looked like this:

which is about as handsome a Grandpa as any girl could wish for. We all change, of course, because on the day I really want to tell you about I looked like this:

and together we looked a little like this:

It was a fine summer's day. My first birthday, in fact, and Grandpa had taken me out for a walk in my pram. Just the two of us. I expect he was chatting or singing when suddenly his foot hit something and he bent down and picked it up. It was an old coin; and he put it in his pocket as we went on our way. But when he got home he took out that coin and he sat down and he wrote this:

I came across it again the other day when I was looking for something else. Perhaps that's why I scrapbook. That need to pin down a moment? I think I was born with it.