Eccentric Grandparents.

By the time you become a teenager, even the most normal of grandparents suddenly become 'eccentric'.  You start to notice their little ways and think them just a little weird.  That fact that they sing, "Kay Rose sat on a pin, Kay Rose rose again," every time they see you and your sister has stopped being cute and is now just odd.  Constantly being on a diet but dipping into a bag of toffees every 5 seconds suddenly seems ridiculous, as does making pictures out of sequins, having dolls in Crinoline dress cover the toilet rolls and resting a cup of tea on an over-abundant cleavage (and that was just my Grandad!).

They sell these on e-bay!

Having an eccentric grandparent is the stuff of novels and anyone who writes seems to have been blessed with at least one. On holiday in Wales this year, I overheard two groups of teenagers discussing their eccentric grandparents.  It took me a while to realise that they were cousins because the old people in question were the same.  They lived on a farm in Bulkinton (somewhere near Wiltshire, I think) and living on a farm seems to be a criteria for novelists eccentric grandparents.  Their Grandfather, or Pompah, as they called him, had a study, stuffed head to toe with books and papers and shelves with jars of preserved animals and an old gramophone player with a handle.  He would put on some 'raucous classical stuff' and make the children march around his study keeping time. (I really warmed to this man).  He was a great advocate of 'free food' and would eat road kill  berries, wild mushrooms from the wood near where they lived and pickled pigeons feet, which he also made the children try. He owned a gun, which he had never fired but grandma had, the time when she shot a stranger coming up the farm path.

The book I'm reading at the moment features an eccentric grandmother, who invites her children over to put post-it notes on the things they would like when she dies.  Being very posh, also seems to help eccentricity.  This grandmother and I have something in common, though.  In her house she has a 'red', 'blue' and 'yellow' bedroom that the author (her grandson) assumes must have once been painted that colour because they weren't now.  In our house we have a 'green room'.  It's not painted green, nor has it ever been.  It's not a terribly pretentious theatre reference either.  It's not a waiting room.  It's just our spare bedroom but we've called it the 'green room' for at least 15 years.  It contains the ironing board, iron, a TV, some bags that are waiting to go in the loft, a fan and a clothes horse (I mean an exercise bike).  We put the washing that is waiting to be ironed in there.  When someone shouts, "Mum, have you seen my PE kit?" the reply is always, "Have you looked in the green room?"  I have been trying to remember why we called it the green room and I think I've finally got it.  It used to be my son's room and his current room (which was the spare room) was painted green.  If I keep this fact quiet, keep making things out of courgettes, make children march in time, say, "Oh, I say," a lot then I think with practise I could become an eccentric grandmother and be an inspiration to future generations who might, one day want to write a novel - or am I thinking too far ahead?