#and when he drove me home to dublin (after 12 weeks of working together) that was his first time in ireland?

[thehighestmountains]

ho ho ho. this was a very special christmas, it was the first real christmas we got to spend and celebrate together. i drove up there and surprised him with a jamba juice (not a huge surprise since i asked what his favorite flavor was - aloha pineapple with whey protein, for future reference). one of my favorite things of napa are vallegra’s sandwiches. you custom-make your sandwiches at the deli of a grocery store, and they are the number one voted napa sandwiches. i got one for lunch, and two to take home on the last day. another notable place is squeeze inn, where their burgers have pancake-sized crispy cheese in your burger. they call it a burger skirt, and you tear off the surrounding cheese. you also shoot your burger toothpick flag at the ceiling - their whole ceiling is covered with colorful toothpicks. 

christmas eve, we hung out with his mom, played oregon trail, and watched downsizing the movie. on christmas day at his maternal grandparents house, his mom and i made deviled eggs, a first for me, had a full on snack spread to accompany the conversation, opened presents, and had a beautifully festive and tasty christmas dinner. more on presents later. the day after, we hung out with his paternal grandmother with his dad and stepmom. was my first time meeting his dad, and since he introduced himself as greg, i actually had no idea it was him until 40 mins later, when i was just secretly staring at him and was so shocked by the resemblance. then it hit me - ohhhhh. his parents are just so young, i forget that theyre not supposed to be old turds. honestly, i creepily stared at his dad all night, because thats what he will look like at forty.  

his grandma, step mom whos super awesome and not at all step-mom-ish, and i made baklava (a traditional greek pastry). you put a layer of filo, butter it, a layer of chopped and grinded nuts, another layer of filo, butter, more nuts, and repeat for like 5 layers before baking it. homemade is nothing like the store bought kind. it was so special to make it with his grandmother. she was passing the recipe down to me. we also made sweet potato casserole, making recipes with her so super fun. the next day, we drove to davis, had ikes and paesanoes’ fettuccine arrostiti, before driving further to sacramento for duc huong’s banh mi. all very important foods he had to have while in california. 

gift timmmee: to be fair, ive never ever had christmas or any holiday gifts like this. it was an incredibly treat to be spoiled this way. on entering our hotel room, he surprised me with a huge bouquet of orange roses, pink lilies, and baby’s breath, in a glass vase tied with an orange ribbon. ive never had flowers like this before, i cant get over how beautiful they look and SMELL. our hotel room, my car, and now my home smells amazing and sweet like the flowers. on christmas day, i opened up a wireless drawing tablet !!! and accompanying autodesk sketchbook subscription, which i didnt even think of - i was honestly going to use paint.net. itll be so fun to experiment and illustrate on. surprise number 2, which came later in the week because he weirdly likes to spread out his gifts, animal crossing on the ds !! i played the app day and night when the mobile version came out, and its supposedly nothing like the actual game, im excited to design my house. surprise number 3, if you remember back in october, i was obsessed with bear claws by the academic (its basically my number one song of the year, and i wanted to learn rock band just so i could play that song) and he purchased for me and my two friends tickets to their first ever california concert in march. i didnt even know they were touring in the us, that itself is a huge surprise, last time i had checked they were only playing in dublin, ireland. for him, i got a fake avocado as a gag gift (he allergic to avocado), a nanoblock lego set of a giraffe (fav animal), a metal earth sheet of the millennium falcon, a squeaky giraffe toy for snoot, those xtreme sour candies he likes, and as my final gift, i designed a calendar, 12 months of different illustrated drawings of snoot printed on sturdy card stock and a bamboo stand to hold the whole thing up for his desk at work. really impressed not only him but his whole family, made me very happy. 

yay, mery jesus birth

[talesofgrace]

12 months ago today I went to see my granddad. We sat and chatted, I told him about work and the dogs and other bits and bobs. When I was leaving I gave him a hug, told him I loved him and started to cry. He told me not to worry and he’d be ok. He smiled a big beaming smile and gave me the double thumbs up like he always did to say he was ok. I told him to take care and said goodbye and went home.

That was our goodbye. I had a feeling it was which is why I said what I did. Granddad died the next day on my nans 80th birthday. I’m convinced he waited for then so he could be there for it.

Jimbo was the best. I’m slightly bias I know, but he was. Ask anyone in the family. His only fault that I knew of was that he was a daily mail reader…. he used to save the papers and clippings of stories if they had any relevance to you or if he thought you’d be interested in them. There was never a shortage of stuff for me because of my job. One of the best things about Granddad was genuinely interested in knowing stuff about you, He’d sit and listen to you and take in all the detail and then worry about it for you too. He was a worrier. He worried over everything. We couldn’t tell him in advance of things like my sister showjumping because he’d worry about that.

I find myself doing stuff now and thinking “if granddad could see me now he’d go mad” like when I decided to cut the grass in my garden with a strimmer (I had no lawn mower, in my bikini with my converse on and no eye protection. I used 3 extension leads piggybacked onto each other. When I got hit by a stone and the dogs tried to join in and attack the strimmer to “save me” I remember thinking granddad wouldn’t like this its something I wouldn’t of told him all the detail of.

Or the time I was painting my landing. I used his old step ladders, fashioned a platform and climbed up. I remember looking down thinking I’m pretty sure granddad wouldn’t approve of this…

Or the time where I put up my Ikea wardrobe doors on my own. Note to people doing this alone. Don’t. They’re ducking heavy and hard work. I had to use a stack of books to help me keep them at the right height as I climbed up and down my office swivel chair trying to use a drill to screw the hinges in. As I pressed onto screws the chair kept twisting around. That was hard work and I got dizzy. I did it all though. And I’d like to point out They’re still up!! I remember thinking after that I wish I could tell granddad what I’d done. He’d be really impressed.

When I got my permanent job as much as I was happy I was sad too because I couldn’t go round and tell him. The fact I’m back doing my masters too I can’t let him know about that either. I forget sometimes and I think “ooo I can’t wait to tell him” and then I realise he’s not here. But I tell him anyway. Just in case he’s listening.

The last Christmas we all had together was at nan and granddads. Granddad couldn’t come down stairs and we didn’t want him to feel left out so we got and iPad and he used his to FaceTime us from his bed. We passed it around the room all chatting as we ate and then put him on the mantelpiece so he could see everyone. He was like our very own Holly watching us from the screen (red dwarf fans will know what I mean by that). That memory will aways make me smile. Us all together enjoying ourselves with him there too. It was perfect.

As head grandchild I wrote a eulogy for his funeral. It took my ages to get it right and this what I said about our wonderful Jimbo…

Granddad

As head grandchild I have been asked to say a few things about granddad.

I have so many wonderful memories of him and I just wanted to share a few of them with you all.

I use to go to Ireland with Nannie and granddad from the age of about 6ish. Each summer and easter holiday we use to get the ferry over. Now one thing you will all know about Jimbo is that he was a cautious man, health and safety executive of the family and eternal worrier. Which meant that the car was always packed up at least one night prior to leaving and that if the boat was due to sail at 9am we had to be there an hour earlier for boarding. This mean we left Ridley drive at about 400am. Holyhead is 2 hours away. we would be there for 630am for a 9 sailing. Now I’m not sure how many of you have ever said from Holyhead but 20 years ago there wasn’t that much to do there! one year we arrived at Dublin nice and early as usual and parked up and watched the boats sailing out. However granddad had got his times wrong, the boat we watched leave was the one we should have been on. needless to say that never happened again!

I drove there once and only once. granddad was so nervous for me getting there I got a full debrief when I arrived to make suer i had followed his instructions to the letter. I daren’t tell him i took the wrong turn out of the docks and drove around in circles until i accidentally ended up on the correct road!

Now as a crane driver all of his life granddad was never a fast driver, slow and steady was his pace. So imagine our shock when he received a speeding fine and points on his licence! When asked what happened Granddad said ‘well he was slowing down and i just over took him’

Grandad loved to read the paper. The daily Mail especially. If it wasn’t in there it wasn’t newsworthy or correct according to granddad. He use to save pages to show me anything to to with health related stories when I went round. And in the daily mail there were always a few of those!

We use to share what we called ‘Jimbo quotes’ with each other. These were little bits of wisdom only granddad would say. on his wood burner fire in Ireland and he was heard saying ‘you know i don’t really like it that much because you cant turn it down’ on large chain store ‘let me tell you now – stay away from Tesco, bloody rubbish’ And as for one way systems and directions don’t even get him started on those!

Before he got ill granddad always use to be pottering in the garage or fixing something when I came to see him. He us to wear a blue coverall when he was pottering always reminded me of a train driver for some reason

Granddad loved all of his grandchildren so much and he was so proud of all of us. He told me a few weeks ago that he was so lucky to have a family like us, he told me he was blessed and that he’d lived a good life and that he couldn’t ask for anything more. And he’s right, he got to 82 without his GP even knowing his name!

My wonderful kind Grandad Jim, with those grey eyes, kind smile and white curly hair. He was the first to praise you and let you know how proud he was of you.

As you all know granddad was very risk adverse and was very vocal about letting you know his concerns so we all knew we could only tell him selected information as not to worry him. Madeline and Jimbo shared a love for horses and they chatted for hours about everything about them except the part that included Maddi riding or jumping them. When I was younger I drove and old car to Ireland and although I got lost on the way I never mentioned it to Grandad, just told him we’d had a wonderful drive down and all was ok. I got the bus from then onwards because I never wanted him to know I’d got lost or worry like that again!

one thing that always remind me of granddad and I know the cousins share this too is the symbol of a Harp, not just because of him being Irish but because of the tattoo on his forearm. For someone so risk adverse to have a tattoo on his arm where everyone could see it makes me smile, he mustn’t of always been so cautious!

Granddad was one of those wonderful people that when you spoke to him for hours he would actually listen to you and also remember all of it and then pick it up next time. He often kept cuttings from papers on subjects you’d previously shared and loved to go through them with you

A few weeks before he died he told me he felt lucky to have a family like us, he was blessed and he had had a good life and couldn’t have had a better one. Especially as he’d got to 80 before the GP got familiar with his name.

We love you so much granddad and you will be missed by all. But how lucky am I to have had something that makes saying goodbye so hard

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The hardest goodbye 12 months ago today I went to see my granddad. We sat and chatted, I told him about work and the dogs and other bits and bobs.