Son, Father, And Now, A Grandfather

After weeks of writing, setting up websites and learning new skills, today I decided to stop and smell the flowers. Well, not quite, I spent the afternoon with my five year old grandson.

It wasn’t what I’d call an idyllic time, spent whiling away the hours in the garden. No, the young master wanted to make pizza, but not your normal pizza.

These were meat lover pizzas…

The first was a chicken, salami and bacon creation with fresh tomato sauce topped with a mountain of cheese!

The second was truly unique: spaghetti bolognaise, topped with fresh tomato and bacon, (hey, we love bacon here, ok?) and finished with yet another mountain of cheese.

The sauce was made with ground beef, and a sauce base of tomato and garlic with a healthy helping of Cajun spices! (We’re a bit multi cultural here, and loving it!)

Getting the spaghetti to stay in place took a bit of doing, but it worked.

And that summed the whole thing up. It worked, and was delicious to boot, much to the amazement of everyone else!

The whole afternoon took me back to another Father, and Grandfather: My Dad.

It’s almost 10 years ago now that he passed away, and even though I’m all grown up, with kids and a grandson of my own, the little boy inside me still misses him like crazy!

Anyway, the reason for the post is not to be morbid.

Rather, I was reflecting on the continuity of life. My family has lived in this area for quite a few generations, and it’s been an interesting experience to return to the town that I grew up in to raise our own kids.

I still remember getting around the neighborhood when I was my grandson’s age, going down to the creek to catch tadpoles and explore.

And looking up the road that is now a main urban thoroughfare and seeing my own grandfather herding a mob of sheep with his dog, and his horse trotting along behind.

He had a small covered wagon, and at different times I’d get up in the morning to see it parked at the side of the house, and the horse grazing in the back yard.

It’s definitely not a common sight around town now!

Back then though, even the baker and milkman still used horses and carts. I guess that it was convenient – the horses were trained to plod while the vendors raced from house to house!

You just had to be careful where you walked when they’d been!

It’s only just occurred to me how fit they must have been.

Life has certainly changed around here in just a few short decades.

And going shopping, making pizza and hanging around with a turbo powered five year old reminded me just how special life is!

(The above image is from www.picturequotes.com)

Sometimes we need to get off the treadmill and do something different, even if the work we do is something that we really enjoy doing.

Who knows, one day another man may sit and tell the story of how he and his pop used to chase dragons, and cook pizza!