One for the grandchildren!

[gray_marian]

Meet the world's ugliest endangered animals | Daily Mail Online

[Doc Vernon]

Oh dear poor Grandkids! Some of these would give the little mites Nightmares Marian LOL!
Cheers

[gray_marian]

#3, Ahh Doc, My seven year old grandson loves this! We play a game, whoever squeals first is a wuss....it's usually me........ and it's educational

[Richard Quartermaine]

Ah Marian!
"All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small."

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
And you are obviously a 'Great' Grandmama.
Keep up the good work.
Richard

[john sutton]

#3, Ahh Doc, My seven year old grandson loves this! We play a game, whoever squeals first is a wuss....it's usually me........ and it's educational

try this

A SHORT STORY ESPECIALLY FOR GOOD GRANCHILDREN
Written by Grandad Sutty
Graphics by Granny rox


Grandad and the butterfly

One day grandad was sitting in his armchair thinking”what shall I do today?”It was a lovely day, the sun was shining and spring was in the air. All the flowers in the garden were starting to show little buds and the breeze was rustling the leaves.Grandad loved to sit and look at his garden and watch all the little insects going about their lives and gathering food and building nests.
Suddenly a butterfly came fluttering into the room and grandad sat quietly watching it as is slowly fluttered round looking for somewhere to land.Grandad watched quietly and didn’t move a muscle until the butterfly decided where he wanted to land. The butterfly suddenly decided that he would land on some flowers that grandad was given as a present by his grandaughter for his birthday .They were in a big vase by the window and the sun was shining on them making them look very pretty. They were special flowers as they were picked in the shop by his little granddaughter, as she knew he liked flowers so she had saved her pocket money and gone to the shop all on her own to buy them. The lady in the shop was very kind and she had picked out some special pretty flowers and wrapped them in pretty paper so the little girl could take them to grandad on his birthday. She didn’t know how old he was because grandads were always very old and the numbers needed to describe how old, were beyond any numbers the little girl knew but
the lady in the shop said that it didn’t matter how old he was, he would like the pretty flowers.







The butterfly landed on the flowers and sat looking at grandad and grandad sat looking at the butterfly. The butterfly had flown a long way and was very tired and really wanted a sleep but didn’t know whether he should sleep in grandad’s house or not. He knew that sometimes humans chased butterflies to frighten them, or worse, but when he looked at grandad he thought that grandad looked kind and gentle and not like the sort of person that would chase butterflies, or worse so he closed his eyes and gently dozed for a minute.Grandad sat very still so he wouldn’t disturb the butterfly because he knew that the butterfly had flown a long way and he looked very tired, so he just sat and looked at the butterfly gently sleeping. What pretty colours he thought. I wonder how butterflies get to be such pretty colours. Maybe at night they paint each others wings so that in the morning they look pretty for children to look at. Of course nobody knows where butterflies go at night and then granddad thought “wouldn’t it be nice if I could go and see where they go at night and what they do” He sat very quietly so he wouldn’t disturb the butterfly because he could tell that the butterfly was very tired and he didn’t want to disturb it. He just








looked at the pretty wings and very slowly dozed in his chair so he was sleeping quietly and the butterfly was sleeping quietly. After a while the butterfly stirred and very slowly and quietly woke up. He looked around to see if there was danger, because butterflies must always be careful, because there were many humans who would love to chase butterflies, or worse. There was only granddad in the room gently sleeping and very quiet. The butterfly looked at granddad and thought “I wonder how old that old man is?” but of course he would never know because butterflies can only count to two as they have no fingers or toes on which to count, they only have their wings and there are only two of those.
The butterfly looked around at the flowers that he had slept on and thought what pretty flowers they were and how lucky grandad was to have pretty flowers to look at all day. He didn’t know that grandad was given the flowers by his little grandaughter as a birthday present because butterflies don’t have birthdays, because there is nowhere that they can buy flowers and birthday cards for each other. While the butterfly was looking around grandad stirred and then slowly awakened, he looked around and saw the butterfly so he said “hello butterfly” and the butterfly said “Hello old man”







Grandad was very surprised because he’d never heard a butterfly speak before and he looked around to see if anyone else had come into the room while he was asleep and was playing tricks on him, maybe his grandaughter, she was always playing tricks on him like all grandaughters do but there was nobody else in the room. “Did you speak to me then butterfly?” grandad asked. “Of course I did” said the butterfly.” There is nobody else in the room, unless you count that spider sitting in the corner of the room but it can’t be him because everybody knows that spiders never speak. Except of course to other spiders. “Well why did you call me old man?” asked grandad. “Well” said the butterfly, “you look like an old man to me and I don’t know what else to call you”
“You could call me grandad” said the old man
“How was I to know that you were called grandad?” said the butterfly. He didn’t really know what a granddad was because, as everybody knows, butterflys don’t have grandads. “What is a grandad?” asked the butterfly
Grandad had to think about that because it is easy to explain to somebody who has a grandad, what a grandad is. It is very; very difficult to explain to somebody who doesn’t have a grandad what a grandad really is. So grandad thought how to explain.
“Its like this “he said” when you get very, very old like me, it is nice to have a special friend who will send you birthday cards and who you can send birthday cards on their birthday”
The butterfly looked very sad. Although grandad had never seen a butterfly looking sad he knew that this butterfly was sad because a little tear appeared in the corner of his eye. It was lucky that






his grandaughters mummy had bought him a new pair of stronger reading glasses from the petrol station last week and he had been wearing them when he fell asleep otherwise he would never have seen the little tear in the corner of the butterflies eye and known that he was so sad.
Grandad wondered how he could make the butterfly happy, because there is nothing in this world worse than an unhappy butterfly.
“Don’t cry butterfly .Tell me what will make you happy and I will see if I can help.”
The butterfly didn’t know what grandad could do to make it happy because he had never been unhappy before because normally butterflies are happy all the time and it was only because he realised that he would never have a grandad that made the butterfly unhappy. Finally the butterfly said it would make me happy if I had a grandad
“I’ll be your grandad” said grandad but I need to know your name because you can’t have a grandad who doesn’t know your name.
Now anyone who knows anything about butterflies knows that they are not like us where names are concerned. They all have the same name which can be confusing for us but for butterflies it works because there are so many butterflies and also butterflies have very bad memories and they could never remember all the names so they all have the same name which is “Chiselwit” this year. Next year they will have another name because this years butterflies fly away after one year and you never see them again. New butterflies come along and pick a new name together. They do this by all shouting out a name and the one that is loudest is the name that is chosen for that year. If you listen quietly just before you go to sleep at night and you nave been very good all day you might hear all the butterflies calling out the name they want to choose.
“ Alright Chiselwit I’ll be your grandad for as long as you want me to be your grandad and you can bring me flowers and I’ll tell you stories before you go to bed.”
This made Chiselwit very happy and he jumped up and flew around the room, all excited because he’d never had a granddad before. Unfortunately he tried to fly out of the window to tell his friends but he didn’t realise that he was flying into a part of the window that was closed. Bang he went right into the glass window pane and bumped his nose.
It is not a very well known fact that window panes are called panes because when they were first invented not only insects but also animals and humans used to bump into closed windows and it always gave them pain in the spot that they bumped. Years ago they changed the way that panes in windows was spelt so that it would be more work for children to learn at school.(There are a lot of words like that and one day they will change all these words back so everybody will not have learn how to spell as many words)
Chiselwit said “do you have any other grandchildren, grandad?”
“Yes” said grandad,”I have a little granddaughter called Polly.We named her Polly after nobody, so that none of her uncles or aunties could say that she was named after them and make the others jealous”Grandad continued “her full name is actually Polly Polly, just in case we get someone in the family later called Polly. If we get anyone in the family later called Polly Polly, we will change her name to Fred”
Well, Chiselwit didn’t know what to make of all these names but he didn’t like to say anything because he realised that Grandad was very old and very old people say funny things, also, Chiselwit had just bumped his nose and he could have been a bit dizzy and not understand properly what was said.








Suddenly he had a bright idea.”Grandad” he said.” Would you like to see where butterflies go at night?”
“I really would like that” said Grandad.
“I’ll take you there” said Chiselwit”but you must promise to keep your eyes tightly closed until we get there, and never, never tell anyone about it. Because a lot of humans chase butterflies, and worse.
“OK”said Grandad and closed his eyes really tightly so he couldn’t see any thing at all.
“Now” said Chiselwit”count to two, twice”






Because we know that butterflies can’t count to more than two because they don’t have fingers or toes, but they can count to two twice.
Grandad counted to two, twice”One two, one two” he counted and kept his eyes really, really tightly closed.
Nothing happened.Grandad held his breath waiting for something to happen but he didn’t feel anything.
“You can open you eyes now” said Chiselwit and when Grandad opened his eyes and looked around he found that he was no longer in is room at home but in a little wood by a pond. There were trees and all sorts of flowers in every colour you could imagine. Even the pond had brightly coloured flower growing on it. All around were butterflies in every colour imaginable. There were yellow butterflies, red ones, green ones, blue ones brown ones and lots of butterflies with wings all the colours of the rainbow.
Grandad looked around in wonderment and said to Chiselwit”I have never seen so many different coloured butterflies. Why are they all different colours?”
“Well “said Chiselwit “it depends on which flowers they like to visit and what they eat. If they only visit one kind of flower they become the colour of that flower and if they only eat one kind of food their wings become the colour of the food they eat...
“What colour wings would I have?” asked Grandad.
“What do you eat?”Asked Chiselwit
“I eat all sorts of things”Grandad replied.”Meat, vegatables, sometimes I eat lettuce and sometimes chocolate ice cream and puddings because to get to be very old you have to eat all the things that keep you growing”
“In that case” said Chiselwit you would have lovely many coloured wings. Would you like to try some wings on and see?”
“I really would “said Grandad.”Can I choose the colours of my wings?”
“No” replied Chiselwit”You get the ones you are given”
Then quick as a flash Grandad had a pair of wings on his back and they were really lovely. They were all the colours of the rainbow and were quite the best wings that anyone could have.
Chiselwit looked at them with envy and said “Your wings are much better than mine and I always thought that mine were the best. You must really eat a lot of salad and tomato and greens because you have all those colours in your wings”
All the other butterflies looked at Grandads wings in amazement and started saying “Chiselwit what lovely wings. I wish I could have wings with such lovely colours” and then started chanting “Hurray for Chiselwit”
Grandad asked Chiselwit”Why do they call me Chiselwit when my name is Grandad?”








“Everybody is Chiselwit this year, as that is the only name that butterflies know until the next butterflies come along ,next year” replied Chiselwit”Last years butterflies were all called Gribblestip”
“Don’t you all get confused?” asked Grandad
“Of course we do” said Chiselwit”butterflies are always confused haven’t you seen them fluttering from flower to flower not knowing which flower to land on.”
“Can I fly?” asked Grandad
“Of course you can fly” was the reply” but you mustn’t fly at night. Butterflies never fly at night as they are attracted to light and if they fly at night and see a light they fly straight for it and that’s when they get a pain from hitting a pane of glass. This can knock them out and then they could get picked up by people, or worse.”
Grandad wasn’t really happy about this as he really wanted to try his wings but he decided that Chiselwit knew best so he didn’t try to fly.
What he did decide was that when he got back to his house he would make sure that there was always a window box at his window full of flowers and not just any old flowers but flowers of lots of different colours so that all the butterflies that came to his house would have pretty wings of all different colours.
So he sat and watched the butterflies .He was fascinated by what they were doing because people have never found out what butterflies do after dark and as Grandad had promised that he would never tell what he had seen and where he had been we will never know. Unless of course we get invited to visit one night but the butterflies only invite children who do not chase butterflies, or worse.
All the butterflies were sat around in circles drinking the nectar they had collected during the day. Of course they didn’t all have the same amount of nectar some butterflies are lazy and sit on a flower most of the day sunning themselves while all the others are busy flitting from one flower to another collecting the nectar. This is why you very often see a butterfly sitting on a flower for absolutely ages doing nothing.Thats a lazy butterfly but at night the other butterflies still share all the nectar out equally. Butterflies are like that.
After watching the butterflies drinking nectar for a while Grandad asked Chiselwit whether it wasn’t time for him to go home. After all if he couldn’t fly around with his wings there wasn’t much reason for him to stay any longer.
Chiselwit said “I suppose that it would be a good idea as I need to get some sleep, tomorrow I have to gather nectar again”.
Grandad started to get ready to go home but all the butterflies wanted to say goodbye to him. They all lined up and one after the other said “Goodbye Chiselwit”
And granddad said “Goodbye Chiselwit”
And the next one said “Goodbye Chiselwit”
And so on and so on until one of them said to him “Goodbye Chiselwit”
And grandad said “Goodbye Chiselwit”
The butterfly said to him “I’m not called Chiselwit.My name is Gondelboon”
Grandad said “I thought all butterflies this year were called Chiselwit”.
“I’m not a butterfly “said Gondelboon”I,m a moth .I only came here to borrow a cup of nectar as I’m making a nectar pudding at home. All moths love nectar pudding because it’s very sweet and very sticky and I’ve run out of nectar”.






Now it was time to go home so Chiselwit said to Grandad”Close your eyes tightly” so Grandad closed his eyes really tightly.
“Now “said Chiselwit “count to two, twice”because we all know that butterflies can only count to two.

Then Chiselwit said “goodbye Grandad take care of yourself and remember me and never chase butterflies, or worse”
So Grandad counted “One two, one two”.
“Grandad, Grandad wake up its tea time” It was Polly who had come to see her Grandad for his birthday tea.
Grandad opened his eyes and looked around. He thought have I really been to butterfly land or did I just dream it.He,ll never know because he can’t ask anyone because he’d promised that he would never, ever tell anybody or mention that he knew what butterflies did at night.
Grandad said to Polly “I had a lovely sleep and now I will have my tea and tomorrow I am going to the garden centre and buy the biggest window box that I can and fill it with many coloured flowers and put it outside my window and watch the butterflies.”
Grandad said to Polly “you must remember that you must never, ever chase butterflies, or worse”