THE week has brought not just good news, but the best and happiest of news – the birth of our sixth grandchild.
The little one is a ‘rainbow’ baby several times over, and I think none of us has dared to breathe during the past few months lest Fate be tempted, and hopes dashed...
If ever a baby were much-wanted it is this one, and she had scarcely been plucked from her poor mum in Dubai before she was grabbed by her beaming father, wrapped in a towel and making her first appearance on Skype for the folks back home.
She squints one sleepy dark eye in our direction - is it brown? Or dark blue? Impossible to say...
But pinked-cheeked under a full head of dark hair she is impossibly and irresistibly beautiful...
And, most importantly, here...
Later on, when her big sister arrives at the hospital to meet her sibling for the first time, we see the “gender reveal”.
Sophie has said from the outset that, delighted as she is at the prospect of being a big sister, she wants no part of a “smelly boy”.
So the baby, lying in her crib and swathed in two layers of shawls, is introduced to her sister for a ceremonial unwrapping.
Wide-eyed, Sophie looks curiously at the new addition and then at her parents, before asking the all-important question.
“But what sort of baby is it?”
Smiling, they profess ignorance, and tell her she must check things out for them, which she does, unwrapping the precious little parcel with gentle care.
First one shawl, and then the second, is stripped off, the babygro unpopped, skinny chicken legs revealed, the tiny nappy peeled back - and then a whoop of joy.
“It’s got girl bits,” says the delighted big sister, planting a gentle - and relieved - kiss on the soft cheek of her not-at-all-smelly new doll.
Beaming with delight and pride it is evident that she has fallen in love...
...and 6,000 miles away, thanks to the miracle of Skype, so have we.
The happiest days are indeed the days when babies come...
Congratulations on your new addition, how delightful.
And how ironic I was only thinking this afternoon that I was due more of your excellent Midsummer Madness and up you pop. Thank you x
It also inspired me to write today’s blog about the miracle of life