IT is barely 8am and I am sitting in a beautiful garden - a very beautiful garden - under the bluest and most cloudless sky I have ever seen.
At the top of a ladder propped against a nearby palm tree, a gardener is placing protective mesh bags over fat green bunches of dates, while in the Manila Tamarind flocks of bright green parakeets are competing noisily for the long red seed spirals hanging in abundance among the lime-coloured leaves…
Closer overhead a tiny sunbird - little larger than a humming bird - flies in and out of the nest she has been assiduously building for the past few days, seemingly unaware of the rapidly building heat which by noon will have soared effortlessly above 100 degrees…
It is the stuff of dreams, not least because until a few days ago I had fully accepted the idea that I would almost certainly never go anywhere more exciting than the garden centre ever again….
But here I am in Dubai - the innocent victim of an international mum-napping…
Like James’ move into residential care three weeks ago, it has all happened so fast I can scarcely believe it.
But nevertheless here I am in the turreted white home of number 2 son, trying to reconcile myself with actually being somewhere that until now has only been familiar to me through the kind offices of Skype.
My hatred of flying is well known in the family but I was so exhausted by two years of caring for James that numbers 1 and 2 sons conspired to take matters into their own hands and plot an intervention.
“Hi mum,” number 2 son announced cheerfully one afternoon a week ago, “You are going to need your passport because I am coming over on Thursday to see dad, and then I am taking you home to Dubai for a rest…”
And just in case I imagined there was to be any wriggle room in this alarming proposal, he added the clincher that number 1 son would be flying out three weeks after me to spend a week in Dubai and escort me back home….
The chief merit of this plan was that I had no time for dreading the flight - although for the record my opinion that flying is hours of boredom interspersed with moments of utter terror still stands.
So a panicked few days saw the garden hastily tidied, health insurance checked, appointments cancelled and friends drafted in to visit James in my absence…
And suddenly I was on my way…with the reward for my ordeal-by-aviation the new granddaughter whom I had not hoped to see for very many months hence.
It has been a few years since we have had a newbie in the family, and I had forgotten the blissful weight of an armful of plump baby, the irresistible fresh-from-heaven scent, and the utter joy of a little warm head nestled gently between shoulder and cheek.
And as I held her for the first time I felt the tears start to my eyes and something in my heart start to heal...
So pleased for you, enjoy every second, savour every cuddle and what wonderful sons to have thought all this through x
Ohhh this made me all teary eyed! ❤️