There's now't so queer as folk.

Stop, start. Stop, start - this moving business involves quite a lot of hanging around. Everyone is filling in forms and talking to their solicitors. Emails are flying back and forth. Paperwork proliferates. I'm only hoping that we can keep it on track and complete before Christmas. That would be so perfect.

Daughter and I were talking about Grandson and food again today. And I was reminded of my Father's second wife, Joan. She was a strange woman with witchy black hair and a square, jowly face. She also had a pronounced limp because she had one leg shorter than the other, so you could always hear her coming down the hall in the flat. She was clever, in a foxy way, but not very bright. This was not the sort of woman I expected my Dad to end up with, but he reckoned without her wily ways. She spotted him at a vulnerable moment, when he had just returned from Australia (having lost his previous partner to a brain haemorrhage), and set about catching him. She was working as a waitress and he was a Banqueting Manager. Joan was undoubtedly clever, and my Dad wasn't that bright at avoiding women. Anyway, she managed to get pregnant and produced a son, Jeremy John.

Now my Father had always wanted a son - and he had two daughters. We were already grown up, so a young son was completely irresistible. The upshot was, Joan and young Jeremy moved in with my Father, and Sister and I were ousted. They did eventually get married, and we went to the wedding. But the thing I was remembering today, was that Joan had two daughters (younger than we were) and always asked them what they wanted for dinner. This meant that in practise she often cooked two or three different meals every evening. I always thought this was dumb - we had never had a choice of food, and ate practically anything. Still do. But Joan produced three children who were all picky. A rod for her own back. Daughter and I thought this one over, and decided that Grandson is going to grow up eating what everyone else eats. Like it or lump it..

Just to finish the story, when my Father died, Joan obviously decided that she didn't want anything more to do with Sister and me. We tried to keep in touch after the funeral (he was buried in August and my Daughter was born in December 1981), but she was determined to keep us out of their lives. I'm sure she had her reasons.
The end result is that I have a wicked stepmother out there somewhere - if she is still alive - and a half-brother called Jeremy John. He would now be about forty-something. I wonder if I would recognize him?