It was a morning for final shopping errands and packing, and an afternoon visit to Gill. Having recently broken a wrist she needed help with ordering Buckingham Palace visitor tickets on-line. It's rather a disadvantage to be in a cast with a painful injury, especially when you're a newcomer to computers at seventy one. I acted as her scribe for answering emails yesterday, which was less straightforward than I'd anticipated, as it involved using MS Outlook, which I've hardly ever resorted to, as I began on Pegasus Mail nineteen years ago and was an early adopter of Mozilla's Thunderbird client - both easier to use, to my mind.
We went with Manel out to Meyrin for supper with the Hester family. Alec and Ann-Marie had their three grand children from Paris, staying for summer holidays, as they often have done over the past decade. They also had their newest grandson with them, adopted from an Ethiopian orphanage by Dagmar and Guy, whom I married in Geneva a dozen years ago. Both are doctors in Geneva, and Samuel is their first child. We saw photos of him last year, just before he arrived. Now he's a very lively, charming and curious three year old, who gets on well with his three French cousins. It was such a delight to be at Alec and Ann-Marie's huge and ever hospitable table with all four of their grandchildren together for the first time.
Ann-Marie observed how Samuel had grown so rapidly during his first year in Switzerland, and that he was never finicky about food, but willingly tried new things and ate whatever he was given with enthusiasm. Also, when taken on occasions to play at the CERN day care nursery, he never showed the least sign of nerves or reticence, but enthusiastically joined in with a large group of strange children. After his early years spent in an orphanage, playing in a large group of children would for him be normality. He's already bringing the gift of great joy to his parents, and it's wonderful to see.
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