Now that my daughter has a child of her own (and a very good one I hasten to add) she is now begining to realise that he has certain claims on something she always took for granted- Sleep.

When Sile and I worked in The Wife of Bath Restaurant in Kent in the 1970’s we had a couple who were fery frequent customers in the restaurant.
I will call them the Mc Kays.

They were very wealthy Canadians who had decided to retire to the old country.
They had decided that he was the head of the Mc Kay clan so he always wore a kilt, but as he did this with style it passed unnoticed.
They were a most amiable couple, I remember them giving a present to Sile when Caitriona was born.
They were however completely out of touch with how the rest of the world lived.
As part of their retirement they were building themselves a modern stately home in Kent near the restaurant.
I remember Mrs Mc Kay chatting to me at the kitchen door one night and telling me that “Things have gotten So expensive, I have just had to pay £2000 just for the downstairs doorknobs! (At this time that sum would have bought a sizeable house) on further enquiry it turned out that these doorknobs were cut crystal.
Her finest moment however was in the restaurant one night when she turned to one of the waitresses and asked kindly why she looked so tired.
Janet explained that she had just adopted a little boy and he was a very poor sleeper.
Mrs. Mc Kay then delivered herself of her piece de resistance.
“I will tell you what I used do ” she said “And I never had that problem As soon as they were in bed I always went up to them, tucked them in, read them a story and then I just left them to their nannies!”

I think that it was the plural of the word nanny that we liked most.