An Apple Crumble Family...

Do you ever have days where you wish you still lived “at home”? Or that your mum was just over the road? Or that you could just pop round for Sunday lunch with the in-laws?

We have those days. Quite often actually.

Frog’s Northern Granny came to stay from Up North this weekend. And now we miss her. We live four hours away so popping round for Sunday lunch isn’t really an option. This makes me sad.

But then, if we did live Up North, we would be even further from Frog’s Southern Granny, (and Grandpa too, if you’re reading this Dad) who we also love.

It’s a lose-lose situation. And one that makes me go all misty-eyed for those bygone days where families lived on the same street and you could just pop round to Mum’s with an apple crumble. Not that those days have ever actually existed in my family. My Nana lives two hours away and my other Gran wasn’t really the apple crumble type.

But you know what I mean, don’t you? Is it something that actually exists anywhere other than Corrie and Neighbours?

I keep reading about the Modern Family. About how today, it’s common for new parents to be “geographically isolated”. It’s all because of work and jobs. We move to where the jobs are, rather than making our life around where our extended family is. It’s not rocket science.

But I don’t want to be a Modern Family. I want to be an Old-Fashioned Family (I have yet to find this term, but you get where I’m coming from). I want the Apple Crumble dream.

This is something that is never going to happen though. I chose to have a family with a man from the North, while I’m a girl from the South. Whichever way you look at it, one of us is going to be a fish out of water. So we’re choosing to compromise and have neither family on our doorstep.

And actually, I don’t think that’s a particularly bad thing. It means we get spoiled rotten when we go to stay at Northern Granny and Southern Granny’s house. It means we always have places to visit during the holidays. It means every time we see them it’s that little bit more exciting.

And just between me and you, I was never that good at baking Apple Crumble anyway.