Chapter Three of the Aged Ps Holiday Special

Lovely Sis has to leave this morning. She has a mammoth train journey to do with her two little ones, so she has to start off after breakfast.
"I suppose you've had enough of us," says Mother, arms folded defensively.
"No, no, not at all," says Lovely Sis. She is crawling around on her hands and knees, giving the house a final professional mine-sweep for miniscule Lego pieces.
Mother sighs. "Well, you haven't stayed for long," she says.
Not-So-Small Boy frowns and whispers to me, "I thought Grandma wanted them to go. I thought she said that it was Total and Utter Chaos here and that she didn't have enough room for us all?"
"Shall we go for a swim later?" I ask him, in a lame attempt at changing the subject.

Mother returns from ferrying Lovely Sis and her brood to the station. 
"So can we go swimming now?" asks Not-So-Small Boy.
I look out of the window at the gathering clouds and curse myself for not thinking of a better way of diverting my son from offending my mother earlier that morning.
But I am going to have to do something with him as he has become worryingly bouncy, having been kept inside for twenty-four hours. He is, in fact, performing a particularly bouncy routine perilously close to the infamous Pink Sofa.
Mother leaps in between him and the precious piece of furniture. "Don't jump on the--!"
I cut in. "He's just getting a bit cabin-feverish. But it's OK," I reassure her. "I'll take him to the pool. You stay here and have a rest."
"Why would I want to have a rest in the middle of the morning?" snaps Mother.
"I, er, I just thought, what with your operation and everything--"
"Don't be stupid. I'll come with you."
Which is how I find myself swimming up and down the outdoor pool under a lowering, grey sky, trying to think of yet another variation on the game "let's swim under water for as long as we can without drowning" while Mother swims length after length alongside a woman of about the same age as her. Occasionally I catch snippets of their conversation.
"So they all come to visit and once and make a mess and it's frankly exhausting."
"Oh, I know! It's dreadful . . ."
"And I'm having an operation next week . . ."
"Oh, my husband had to have his feet done and they kept him in for weeks . . ."
"And the doctor said, 'I can't tell you to have this operation, I can only advise you . . .' And what good is that?"
"Oh I know! Doctors . . . they don't make you feel very good about yourself, do they?"

"Well, that was a lovely swim," says Mother once we are out of the water. "And I met such a nice lady."
"Oh, I thought you two knew each other," I say.
"No, no, but it was just nice to meet someone who is actually interested. I told her all about the fact that I am having an operation next week, and she was so kind." She glared at me pointedly.
Not-So-Small Boy and I make our excuses and go to have a shower. I am hanging up the towels and getting our shampoo when I feel an insistent tug on my arm. It is Not-So-Small Boy, trying to drag me away to see something.
"Come and look and this!" he says in hushed tones. He gestures to a class which is going on in the indoor pool. "What are they DOING?!" my son asks, his eyes wide.
I stifle a giggle. "I think that is Grandma's Aqua-aerobics exercise class," I say. "She would normally have gone today, but she didn't want to because of her operation."
"Exercise class?" my son echoes. "But they aren't DOING ANYTHING!" he protests. "They are just floating. Anyone can do that."
"Ssh!" I hiss, as Mother comes to find us.
"Oh thank goodness I didn't go to Aqua-aerobics today," she says, looking in on the class. "I feel worn out just watching them, don't you?" 
I glance back at the rows of silver-haired, rotund sixty-somethings as they bob merrily up and down on coloured woggles to the tune of "Tears of a Clown". I picture Mother doing this while telling everyone about how her daughters never come and visit and when they do they make a mess and how they just don't understand that she is having an operation next week . . .
"Yup," I nod. "It makes you feel like lying down and never getting up again."

Chapter Two of the Aged Ps Holiday Special

I wake up, bleary-eyed and fractious after a night broken on the hour every hour by the sound of traffic roaring past beneath my bedroom window. For a second I think "I have spent the whole night on the M25!" Then I remember: I am at the Aged Ps' and I am taking Daughter to a residential course today, which is closer to the Aged Ps than to our own house. This is the principal reason why I have committed myself to eight days at their house ("committed" feels like a strangely appropriate word, under the circumstances). I leave Not-So-Small Boy and his cousins quietly watching TV; they are sitting on the forbidden Pink Sofa which now has a woollen rug spread over it to prevent these apparently out-of-control grandchildren from wrecking it.
"See you in a couple of hours," I say to Mother. "If you go out, text me and I'll come and join you."
"Yes, yes," says Mother, eyeing her small relatives anxiously. "I hope they won't spill anything on the Pink Sofa. I'm having an operation next week, I can't cope with any extra stress you know."
"I know," I say. "See you later."

I come back to the house two hours later to find the house is empty. I check my phone. No text. I call Lovely Sis, but her phone goes straight to voicemail. I envisage her juggling two small children and an enormous bag full of spare nappies, spare clothes and spare patience. I phone Dad instead.
"Hello, love! Where are you?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," I say.
"We're in the park, by the sandpit, having lots of fun. Can you drive down, though, as I think it's going to rain?"
I get back into the car and drive down the High Street at the pace of a snail which has lost the will to go at a snail's pace. After a lot of steering wheel banging and talking to myself I see the reason why I am driving slower than even my two-year-old niece walks. There has been an accident and the road to the park is blocked. I am forced the long way around the one-way system and park in an over-priced car park and then run to the park to meet the others, who are now convened in the swimming pool cafe.
"You took your time," says Mother.
"Yes," I say. "Can we find somewhere to have lunch now, please?"
"We're having it here," says Mother.
I look around me. The air is so thick I am sure it would not pass the basic standards of environmental health and the menu is so deep fried it clogs my arteries just to read it.
"Here?" I say.
"Yes. What is the matter with here?" says Mother.
"How about everything?" I say.
"Ah, now, let's not get cross with one another," says Dad.
"How about we go to Pizza Express?" says Lovely Sis.
"Yay! Pizza Express!" says Not-So-Small Boy.
"Humpf," says Mother. "I don't know why you have to boss me around so much. I'm having an operation next week you know--"
"We know," chorus Dad, Not-So-Small Boy and I.
"Which is why Pizza Express will be so much better for you," says Lovely Sis, patiently. "You can have a salad there."
Lovely, Lovely Sis. You have saved the day again.

Bumper Action-Packed Summer Holiday Aged Ps Special: Chapter One

Star Wars vs Classics For All

We arrive at the Aged Ps' house, hot and flustered after enduring an extra hour of that particular brand of hell which only the M25 can offer.
"You took your time," says Mother.
"Hello, lovely to see you," I say. "Where's Dad?"
"Y'father is at Classics For All up at the Mansion House," says Mother. "I was invited too, but I didn't want to leave you all here unsupervised."
"Oh, we would have been all right," I say.
"No you wouldn't. It's total chaos here," says Mother. "We haven't really got enough room for everyone."
Lovely Sis and her children are staying too. After many complaints from Mother that "I never see you these days" we made a pact to come down together.
But now the reality of a house full of Lego, Playmobil, dolls in various states of undress (and in some cases decapitation) has hit Mother hard. It is not a scene that bears much resemblance to the happy picture she had in her head of everyone sitting round, watching the kids play quietly, stopping briefly to cuddle their Grandmother and tell her how much they love her.
"Auntie Anna! Auntie Anna!" My nephew hurls himself at me in an enthusiastic embrace and explodes into a coughing and sneezing fit, wiping snot down my front.
"They both have colds of course," says Mother. "Typical. I'm having an operation next week and I don't want to get a cold."
"They're not infectious," says Lovely Sis, with infinite patience. She expertly scoops up a litre of snot and disposes of it cleanly and efficently while preparing a snack for one child and dressing a Barbie doll for the other.
Daughter, Not-So-Small Boy and I are swiftly dragooned into a complicated Star Wars Lego-building session in which I am told by a five-year-old that I am "not very good at this". He is a perceptive child.
"No, Auntie Anna. That piece is the wrong colour. And this is Auntie D2. Stop calling it a robot! And I am going to be Dark Vader. OK?"
After much eye-rolling on the part of my nephew, the Lego is complete and the battles commence.
"Honestly, you are just like y'father," says Mother, watching me fire ammunition at "Auntie D2" and make asthmatic attempts at imitating "Dark Vader". "You always were obessed with Dr Who."
"Actually, this isn't Dr Who," says my nephew, shooting his grandmother a withering look. "You are all a bit rubbish at this, aren't you?"
Mother sighs dramatically. "Well, it is obvious no one needs me. I mean, I am the one having an operation next week, but no one seems interested."
"Watch out!" shouts Nephew, as his two-year-old sister decides she is not shy of us any more and careers across the room, knocking the Lego flying.
"Don't sit on the pink sofa!" shouts Mother.
"I hate Lego," says Daughter.
"I hate you," says Not-So-Small Boy.
Just as the War of the Worlds is about to erupt in the Aged Ps' living room, a cheery voice booms, "Hello!"
"Dad!" Lovely Sis and I shout in unison.
"Grandpa!" yell four grandchildren.
"Oh, it's you," says Mother.
"I've had a wonderful time, drinking wine and talking to the author Tom Holland about The Homeric Tradition and also how Sophocles would view the modern banking system. Fascinating," says Dad, slurring his words slightly. "Brandy anyone?"
"You - met - Tom - Holland?" breathes Mother.
Tom Holland is, in Mother's eyes, the sexiest thing on two legs: a young(ish) man who loves Classics and has had books published about the Romans.
"Yes," beams Dad. "But I'm sure you've had much more fun here."
Mother snarls.
Lovely Sis and I scoop up our kids and leave the room. Fast.
This is going to be the longest eight days of my life, I think, as I listen to Mother tearing strips off Dad. I regret not taking up the offer of a brandy while I had the chance.