Jilly Cooper

What ever I think of her and her books I fully agree with her views on this subject. As I was posting a letter this morning an elderly and not very fit lady walked past with 2 under fives.She looked exhausted. My immediate re-action was, she is far too old to be coping with childminding toddlers no matter how much she loves them. They were too young to be in nursery or school so it clearly wasnt a half term week assignment.

Sounds just like my daughter! I do the school run, collect the 3 gs after school, feed them 2 nights a week, babysit, take them on long weekends but she STILL
expects me to drop everything to help out,no matter what my arrangements are, and if I don't, I get the silent treatment!

No I get the feeling they are trying to keep their whole existence a secret. I don't blame them, I'd want to keep it a secret if I lived in such a beautiful area Are there any gransnetters from there I wonder?

You don't hear many Cumberland accents on TV do you? Apart from one half of the Hairy Bikers I can't think of anyone else

nightowl . Of course but sometimes I can't help hearing her voice in my head when I read something charming like petallus' poem.

I love your poem petallus. Very astute. But merlot, wouldn't she have had a Cumberland accent rather than a Pam Ayres one

Bags terminology flower, terminology .

petallus - lovely poem. I really like the way you work in the references to Ww's poems.

Madam, as my DG"S like to say to me , you are not being obstrepulous by any chance ,phew can"t believe it

That is fabulous petallus

no double entendre there, so don't dare accuse me, you minx!

nonu, I don,t 'take' any newspapers.

I'd use an article in a widely read newspaper to promote a book too. Wouldn,t anyone?

Didn"t know u take the DM !!

Book? What book?

And she sounds like a nice gran.

Well, I read the JC article in the DM and I was so interested in reading what she was saying about grandparenting that I didn't notice (at least not enough to remember if I did) that she was promoting a book.

Don't know what that says about me, but maybe something like not giving a damn what or who someone's parents were, just taking them on face value. I took her books on face value too (I know one isn't supposed to judge a book by its cover but it's difficult not to sometimes) and didn't read them.

Anyway. My conclusion?

She writes well.

That is quite charming Petallus , you should be proud , wish I could write poetry

I like that, petallus I do hope you won't be offended if I say I read it with a Pam Ayres accent

Oh dear, I know I'm indulging myself. I think I had to write it to the specifications of a sonnet or something.

But shows I was thinking along these lines some years ago.

To Wordsworth from his Maid

Oh how I wish that I could write a poem
about the beauty of the countryside
I'd wander lonely as a cloud of feathers
or stand upon a bridge at morning time
I'd marvel at a host of yellow flowers
all dancing in the mellow evening air
then take my little notebook bound in leather
and scribble down my thoughts about the weather
and then I'd stroll back home and write a poem
before I bathed and dressed myself for tea
if only I were master here or mistress
instead of maid, all day on bended knee
No time for me to pause to write a poem
I'm far too busy looking after thee

You beat me then Ana

Why did the D.M give her space then ?

That doesn't mean JC isn't entitled to her opinion about grandparenting

Jilly Cooper may be middle class but she's hardly landed gentry, and as merlot says, she worked her way up as a journalist and doesn't appear to have had a huge inheritance to fall back on. So what if she has a book to promote - she's not advocating her way of grandparenting (or not!), just giving her view.

Wonder how many of them were women though.