when i get older

(The Beatles - When I'm 64)

Text conversation with my Grandad yesterday:

ME:

hope you are ok lots of love xx

GRANDAD: 

Just practising snorkelling on the carpet love you loads xxx grdad

ME: 

It's if you spot any fishes you need to worry!! xx

GRANDAD:

Just swam past a tin of salmon, going faster than me xxx

One of my favourite memories of last Christmas is that I had an advent calendar with a joke on each window. Each day I would text him the first part, and invariably the punch line he would send back would be far more entertaining than the one I had to offer. My Grandad isn't just funny, he is one of the kindest, most sociable people I know. It is well accepted in our family that you can't go in to town with him without him seeing at least three different people he knows. He was reading the local paper at our house the other day and knew two of the people who featured in different articles.

via emotionsforever

In the last few years he has built us an extension from scratch, cut down trees, re-paved our patio, and only this week he replaced a door and offered to put coving in our hallway. Not bad for someone who turned 80 a few years ago. As someone who worries easily about the worst case scenario I see my Grandad getting ready to come travelling to Australia with us, getting excited at the prospect of seeing parts of the world he hasn't seen before and see how much better things are when you focus on the positive parts of a situation instead of worrying about what could go wrong. If I am lucky enough to reach my eighties with as much health, humour and happiness as my Grandad has I will consider it a life well lived.