full circle

Spent part of the weekend with my 95-year-old grandmother and (surprise surprise) spent a lot of it talking family (though her memories of zeppelins on fire over London in the Great War were pretty good value too). It's striking how time seems to flatten out for her (in spite of being still sharp as a pin and full of good cheer). Once or twice chatting to my 35-year-old brother she clearly had him confused with my 71-year-old Dad ("that was 1938, so we'd had you already"). Apparently she occasionally confuses my uncle with my late grandad, which sounds more disturbing ("you and I were courting then....").

Anyway, she could be forgiven for that, given the stability over time of our family roots; I'd always known my Dad was born at home in Balham, just a few miles away from our current base. On Saturday I discovered that grandad's was a home birth in Sydenham - so with young master Shorter Romero due for delivery in a Forest Hill living room near us, it turns out in the long view that I (hospital on 5th Avenue, Manhattan) am the anomaly. Though of course my little one will enjoy the distinct advantage of having shaken off three quarters of his old world genes (thanks to three American grandparents).