FROM the distant perspective of my younger days, I always thought being a grandad would be relaxing. I expected to potter rather than dash.
Well, that’s not quite how it worked out when we had a family trip to the theatre in York for my 63rd birthday present.
My daughter, Hannah, had kindly bought me tickets to see Sunny Afternoon – the story of The Kinks. A relaxing afternoon beckoned, with Hannah, my wife, Heather, and youngest son, Max.
With last Saturday’s matinee performance scheduled to start at 2.30pm, we headed to York in plenty of time for a spot of lunch at a nice restaurant.
Now, I’m a man who hates being late to anything. I don’t like rushing, so I was getting a bit anxious when it got to 2.10pm and we still hadn’t paid the bill amid the family chatter.
“I think we need to get going,” I said, getting up to grab my coat.
“The theatre’s only a five-minute walk – relax,” insisted my wife.
She was right – she always is – and we duly rolled up at York Theatre Royal at 2.15pm. We queued for our seats in the dress circle, and my daughter handed the tickets to the usher.
He looked puzzled: “Er, you’re in the wrong theatre,” he said, matter-of-factly. “You need to be at The Grand Opera House.”
We looked at each other, briefly, then Hannah shouted: “RUN!”
It was 2.20pm and it’s 0.4 miles from York Theatre Royal to The Grand Opera House, so we ran like hell, with Max leading the way, following the directions on his phone.
It wasn’t easy with my newly diagnosed arthritic knee that aches all of the day and all of the night, but I did my best to slalom in and out of shoppers and tourists on York’s bustling streets.
Surely, it wasn’t meant to be like this: Racin’ on a gloomy afternoon…in the wintertime.
“Come on, Dad!” Hannah shouted as I started to lag behind on the city’s historic but tricky cobbles.
Girl, you really got me going! I sang to myself as I tried to keep up while taking a puff of my inhaler. You got me so I don’t know what I’m doing.
We made it to The Grand Opera House at 2.28pm, just in time for another puff to stop the wheezing, before we dropped, exhausted, into our seats and the performance began.
A very good show it was too. It had a running time of two hours, 40 minutes, including the interval. Just as well – I needed the rest.