Catch up

Caught up with the girls tonight. I know a school night - what were we thinking. Well we don't need booze (although there was a bit) and we don't need a late night (I was home by 10:30) but we do need somewhere to chat.

The stories we share always amaze me and make me laugh.

Tonight my favourite was the grandad who fakes dying for attention.

Aimi's grandad live's with her mum in a granny flat, or perhaps it should be called a grandad flat. Anyway he's 90 and exceptionally bright, lucid, with it. His weekly shopping frequently includes items like mussels and champagne, far more sophisticated than my shopping.

Anyway at home he wears an alerter so that should he be taken ill and be unable to dial 999, all he has to do is push a button.

In the summer Aimi's mum nipped to the local shop and while she was out grandad pressed the alerter. Aimi got a call saying "Your grandad's been taken ill." To which she responded "He can't have been - I've just seen my mum go past our house to the shops." So, convinced that all was not well, Aimi dashed out of her house in pyjamas, to her mum's house to find grandad complaining he was unwell and had trouble breathing. Aimi phoned for an ambulance.

Well by the time the ambulance staff had finished discovering that nothing was wrong, one of the crew fetched a Guinness from the fridge for Grandad.

This wasn't the first, or last, time Grandad faked it. Apparently just recently he faked it again.

This time Aimi and her mum rolled their eyes and said "Grandad, you're not having an ambulance." Eventually they wondered whether he wasn't faking it and they called an ambulance and Grandad was taken to hospital at 11pm.

Aimi's Dad missed a flight to Dublin in the morning after a night on a plastic hospital chair by Grandad's bedside.

At 6am Grandad was seen by doctors who could find nothing wrong and packed him off home.
Aimi's sister called at lunchtime to see how he was and he said "On your way over, could you pick up a cod and chips from the chippy."

Aimi called round in the evening and said "Grandad, if you want a night out, just ask us. You don't have to call 999."