i'm looking at a photo of my

grandfather and i that was taken in september 2007 when i was in the UK visiting him and my grandmother...

so as i sit here and look at the photo of my granda and me (which was taken in a pub - him having a guinness and me a vodka) i feel both happy and sad - it makes me smile and cry all at the same time...and now you think i'm a bit crazy, but as you get older you realise that it's possible to have opposite emotions simultaneously (remember when you were a kid and some adult cried with joy!)...and i'm sad because i'm not sure i'm going to see him again, and like i have the last 2 times i've visited, i wonder when i say goodbye to him (and he hugs me harder each time), whether or not it will be the last time...

see, he's 96, lives in yorkshire and has had a few mini strokes in the last few months (actually they are called TIA's but I'm not a fan of medical jargon that nobody understands) and i guess the stark cold reality is becoming more and more inevitable...he's just not going to be around forever, despite me wishing it were so (and this is selfish i realise and of course i don't want him to suffer the indignity that death sometimes is)...and as much as i try to mentally prepare for this and console myself that he's had a good innings (most things in our family are put in sporting terms, and as he's a huge fan of cricket, so this particular analogy seems fitting) i just know that when i eventually get the phonecall i'm going to be devastated...and a part of me knows that i will probably never meet anyone like him or find a mentor like the mentor he's been to me...

so granda, this is my thank you to you:

thank you for being my inspiration, my encouragement and my teacher. for teaching me how to count (without a calculator), for helping to shape the person i am today, for teaching me how to think for myself, for your storytelling, for our chats, for sharing your memories with me, even though i've heard some of them so many times i could probably tell them myself, for the day trips when i was a child, for always making a special trip to get me ginger cake before i came to stay, for the times when we just sat for hours watching cricket on the teletext, for teaching me how to play dominoes, for always being excited when i call to talk to you and for your unwaivering love...

i love you...