Almost weekly, it seems, we get a new report on care of the elderly in hopsitals or care homes, and every time the same principles are reiterated:  that every elederly person is entitled to respect, to be treated as an individual and that all nurses and doctors should treat them with compassion.

But how novel a concept is this? What really beggars belief is that it needs to be studied and discussed at all!  Surely ALL nursing care should start from the premise of compassion and all treatment within the health service should be based on respect?

It doesn't matter how young or old you are, we would all surely expect that when we're sick and in need of help, the people looking after us would have our best interests at heart. In an ideal world they wouldn't need training in compassion and lessons in respect.  You have to wonder what has happened that these things need to be taught.

It's hard to believe anyone without compassion would go into nursing, or the medical profession, and yet we've all seen them:  those busy people who treat patients as a nuisance rather than a 'customer', who fly on past their beds when all they want is to be able to reach their drink of water, or who scold them for being 'demanding' or rough-handle them when turning them over.

And yet we've all also met those wonderful angels who stop by every bed and listen to their patients concerns, who hold their hands and reassure them, who work on past the normal hours of their shift for they want to give the very best care.

My own daughter-in-law is one of those. She entered the profession because she really cares about looking after poorly children. I'm sure she's a wonderfully compassionate nurse.  I know for sure that she often stays on after her 12 hour shift should have finished, because she often gets home late.  She has to put up with a weird mixture of broken nights and muddled sleep patterns because of shift work, and she has to mix this all in with bringing up a young family for part of the week.

Yet she loves her job and wouldn't do anything else.  She's obviously in it for the right reasons and we need more like her.  But surely we also need leadership from the top – a hospital ethos which explains clearly and fully how to treat patients?  We need to learn to recruit only those that truly care.  And above all we need to employ enough well-trained compassionate staff in every hopsital so that they have the time to be caring.  It's when people are over-stretched that corners get cut.  And unfortunately at the moment in this age of cuts, I dare say more and more work is going to be piled on fewer and fewer people so the chances of getting it right remain slim.

Lovely to hear Fireman Sam author David Jones talking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4  this morning.  Although not so lovely to hear what he was put through after cracking a light-hearted remark at Gatwick airport.

He's provided so much fun and entertainment to our grandchildren through his books and television series that it was great to put a voice to the name – and no sign, that I could detect of the kind of strong Welsh accent that his characters are given on TV.

What's ironic, of course, is that the whole point of every book is that at the first sign of any trouble – everyone calls Fireman Sam.  So our little 2 year old, given any problem, is likely to say:  'Emergency. Emergency. Call Fireman Sam!' 

Norman Price is usually the one who gets into all the pickles and has to be helped out of them.  This time, though it was David Jones himself – and not even Fireman Sam could come to his rescue!

Chili or chilly?  A difficult concept for a 4-year-old to grasp – and my goodness we do make the English language difficult for anyone who's new to it !

I was chatting to my grandson about the cold and encouraging him to put on extra layers because it's 'chilly'.  Chilly? he asked.  'Do you mean like when you put something in your mouth and it burns?'

Well try explaining that one.  I made a feeble attempt to teach him that the word chilly is another way of describing the cold.  But I guess it's something he's not come across either at home with his parents or at nursery.  And yet they obviously have introduced him to the explosion of a hot chili in his mouth!

I'm going to have another go at explaining how chilly differs from cold but not sure how good I'll be!  But maybe he doesn't need to know?  Perhaps it's another of those words that's going out of fashion? 

There's been a lot of sickness around for us recently what with the first grandson having had chicken pox, followed by some nasty kind of tonisillitis bug, and then the second one running a high temperature and eventually also developing chicken pox.  Since their visit last week, we too have been struck down – with a nasty coughing bug.

When I feel hot and cold and feverish I turn instinctively to a trusty old hot-water bottle.  I've known these since my childhood, of course, because back in the 50's when we all went to bed in freezing cold bedrooms with no central heating, you simply couldn't climb into bed if you weren't 100% sure it had been warmed up in advance by a hot-water bottle.  So the other night, when the eldest grandson must have been sickening for one or other of his bugs, and he complained about his bed being cold, I luckily remembered an old panda teddy which had a microwaveable bag inside, warmed it up and presented it to him to cuddle.  It seemed to do the trick, as he went straight off to sleep, and it seemed to me far safer than giving him a hot water bottle.

So I got to wondering if these things are still available and a quick internet search turned up a wonderful variety of cuddly creatures – all to pop in the microwave.

I settled on these two here:  a cuddly puppy and a cuddly cow

And I have to say they've been a great success and I'd recommend them as  a wonderful present for grandchildren. Apart from keeping them warm on icy nights, last week when they were sick, they both seemed to derive some comfort from having something warm to cuddle whilst their temperatures dipped up and down!

They're available from Play.com and Amazon.co.uk

We posted the following comment after this article in the Daily Mail about how great-grandparents are increasingly stepping in to help out nowadays.  The article was written by the editor of Yours magazine in response to a survey of their readers.

We think it's great when families have their great-grandparents around: it can be such a special relationship. However we think this article may be a tad rose-tinted for everything we hear from grandparents who are 60+ is just how exhausting it can be! And how glad we are we didn't leave it too late to have our own children. Of course, we are devoted to them and love having them but we don't have the physical stamina we had 30 years ago, and imagine, sadly, that will only decrease over the next 20! I've lived in France a bit and I remember many families where great-grandparents lived with younger families: this was brilliant for everyone as the older ones were kept in touch with tiny people and able to follow their progress, while the great-grandparents were a link to the past and kept family stories and history alive.

What a strange thing to arrive by post – a lavatory seat, ordered from trusty old Amazon for 2-year-old grandson who arrives today.  I never thought I'd be buying one of these for my own children managed without – so it's set me thinking about how things have changed.

There's always a lot of chat amongst grandparents about how parents today leave potty training till far later than we did.  We're told we should never raise the subject with our children, never dare remind them that they were dry at 18 months for fear of upsetting them!

But we know that this is what we did.  And there are surely two things coming into play here – the first is that my generation of mums often stayed at home, so we had the time to devote to potty training.  I recall putting my three on the pot after breakfast, giving them toys to play with and books to look at and encouraging them on!  I also remember how we never left the house without a potty (hidden discreetly in a polythene bag and stowed away under the pram or pushchair) and if nature called we'd all dash into the nearest public toilet and the toddler would use the pot.

Parents today who are mostly out at work obviously don't have the time to dedicate to this.  It didn't take long – some children could be dry within a week, but it would mean nowadays parents being able to take time off at exactly the point when the child was about to become dry.

The other factor, of course, is that parents today have no worries about stinky terry nappies lying around, or having to dry them. Disposables make life easy and so there's less pressure to get the children out of nappies.

This explains, I guess why some poor kids apparently start school without being potty trained.  Pity the poor teachers as well as the kids!

But this Tippytoes Loo seat that's arrived was never necessary in our household – and I can't work this one out!  Was it because we kept them on the potty longer?  Or was it because we were always with them whe they went to the loo, so could keep an eye that they were safe and not likely to fall down, or off?

I don't know the answer but am looking forward to the look on the little one's face when he sees his new seat.  He's been asking me for weeks if I've got one yet!  So at last the answer is YES!

Just been engaging in some interesting chat on Twitter about meals to prepare for the grandchildren when they come next week.   I noticed that  #eggsandbacon was trending this morning – can't think why – but wondered why it wasn't #baconandeggs – surely the more conventional way round?  Then I checked in later to find #cauliflowercheese as the top trend.  Don't ask me what was going on but it proved useful inspiration as I began to wonder whether the 2 and 4 year old would eat cauliflower cheese.  Probably not, I think, as cauliflower is a  bit of an aquired adult taste isn't it?

Then Yours magazine joined in with a tweet suggesting #cauliflowercheese pizza!  Now I'd never have thought of that – and I'm not sure I'd get the boys to eat cauliflower even it was broken down into small bits and prettily placed on a pizza base.  But it made me wonder about disguising some cauliflower in amongst Macaroni cheese.  Wonder if that would work?

I've often put peas into macaroni cheese – it adds a bit of colour and they've never objected to frozen peas.  But I've decided I've not been imaginative enough and must come up with some more original ideas.

The only problem is that the grandchildren, although not excatly problem eaters, are fickle eaters. So that every time they come I try to give something I know they've loved before – only to find they're right off it right now!

Hey ho.  I've learned, actually, that the best thing to do is very little.  They love pasta in all forms and adore a mixture of pasta and bacon, so as they're only with us for a couple of days and nights, I feel I can indulge them. So i relax around the 'vegetable' issue, knowing that their parents are taking care of their everyday diet and ensuring they get all the right nutrients.  Instead we major in on pasta, provide occasional vegetabbles like frozen peas and fresh carrots – but make sure we're well stocked up with fresh fruit.

Have been having some interesting chats with grandmothers recently, starting at our first  grandmothers' get-together last week.  It seems that all of us – no matter how long we've been grandparents, nor how many grandchildren of whatever age – share certain concerns.

One is that we sorry about how big a responsiblity it is looking after our grandchildren.  We're thrilled that we don't have overall responsibility for the whole of their lives – glad to have handed that care on to the shoulders of our children!  – but we do worry when they're with us about accidents that may befall them, or that we may not be able to catch up with them and they may escape our clutches and run off when we're out and about,  We worry about getting them to eat and getting them to sleep!  And we worry about how tiring it is looking after small children and how long we'll be able to keep it up.

Much less of a worry but still a popluar subject is the amount of toys our grandchildren have.  We all agree that the piles of toys in most of our grandchildrens' homes far exceeds the toys our own children had.  And yet our children were happy with their lot!  In my own case, we had one drawer full of toys and one baset in our sitting room. There were garden toys, of course, and trikes and bikes, and a few more cuddly toys and mobiles etc. in their bedrooms.  But nothing compared to the mountain of toys of today's children.

It would be fair to say, I think, that my generation believe it's a pity that 'delayed gratification' is no longer fashionable.  We used to encourage our children to wait for treats, to save up their pocket money, or to promise them things but not give in to every request instantly – as it happened.  We don't think this did our children any harm – and we worry that they may be spoiling their own children by given them too much, too soon.  It seems the common perception is that parents today like to indulge their kids as a recompense for putting them iinto nursery or other forms of childcare. That they try to make up, in presents, for the time they're apart.  But we tend to think that children aren't stupid;  they can probably see through this at a pretty young age.  And we just hope that parents arent'' storing up problems for the future – breeding a generation of children who'll expect to get what they want, when they want it.

Our eldest grandson has chicken pox so an SOS reached us today from his mother who was climing up the wall having been confined to the house, with his younger brother, since Friday.  Luckily we were free and had the time, so we rushed to the rescue bearing books and puzzles, dominoes and Snap.  Our daughter-in-law took the younger one out for a swim and we stayed in and played.

I recalled how my granny always did this for me.  She only lived over the road when I was growing up and so whenever we were ill and my mother needed to go out to work she stepped in.  There wasn't much childrens' tele in those days so we always did stuff together.  I don't remember playing games but I do recall that she was a great sewer and knitter – she carried a sewing bag everywhere.  So I'm  pretty sure she taught us to knit and sew.  Writing this,   I've suddenly remembered that weird thing called French knitting where you would wool round a bobbin and ended up with a long and pretty useless string of knitted wool. Goodness knows what we ever did with all those long woollen strands!

But I do remember feeling comforted and happy when my granny was around;  it made being ill so much nicer.

I'd taken a fresh selection of books for Lucas today – ones I knew he'd never seen before from our family store of childrens' books.  I was afraid he'd be bored with the usual ones I'd been reading to him over Skype yesterday.  So imagine my surprise when I opened up Madeline's Rescue – an old family favourite – to find an inscription to me from my other set of grandparents on my 6th birthday!  I explained this to Lucas, who I know can't get a grasp on my ever having had parents, let alone grandparents of my own, so he didn't get the significance.  But it felt peculiarly apt to me, as if some unknown hand was stretching out to us down the generations – from one generation of grandparents to another  – and somehow squaring a circle.

I was asked to write this post on behalf of the charity Clic Sargeant and  their Yummy Mummy campaign to raise money for the charity from 10th – 18th March.  The idea is to raise as much as possible for children with cancer. So do please join in, write a post yourselves maybe, or contribute.

Our eldest son received a diagnosis of cancer on his 19^th birthday.  Great timing.  We’d been worried for a while before that:  he was on a gap year, working at a local factory before travelling and he’d been losing his appetite and becoming very tired.  So the GP had referred us on to a gastroenterologist first, followed by lots of horrid invasive procedures, before finally, after surgery a big ‘mass’ was discovered in his chest.  It turned out to be Hodgkin’s Disease – and we were reassured immediately by all the medical staff around us that Hodgkin’s was treatable, though no one mentioned the word ‘curable’.

Cutting a long story short, we went through many ups and downs over the next six months as Oliver underwent chemotherapy.  Radiotherapy was ruled out because the mass was too close to his vital organs, so we were pinning all our hopes on the foul chemicals that were pumped into his young body.

There was one horrid moment when the oncologist confided he was worried about Olly’s chances – not putting them very high at all as Hodgkin’s can apparently be far worse in young men than in girls.  Strangely, one of Olly’s half-sisters had also been through Hodgkin’s around 15 years earlier, and as it turned out, I was often the one who delivered her to her hospital appointments for both radio and chemotherapy.

So it was encouraging to know how well she’d done, and that she was leading a happy and full life, and helpful to me to know a bit about what was involved.  I sometimes think these things happen for a reason – and perhaps the reason for this horrid first experience was to prepare me for having a son of my own in the same situation 15 years later.

Another bad moment was when I stopped at a garden centre on the way back from a hospital appointment.  And poor old Olly – whose horizons were pretty limited at this time although he did continue to go into work whenever he felt up to it – decided to come in too, for a change of scene I guess.  Anyway, we’d only got into the very first section of garden furniture when he announced he was too tired to follow me any further.  He sank into a garden chair and my heart sank into my boots. This was a previously fit 19 year-old who ran and played cricket and football and used to have boundless energy.  Now here he was unable to walk more than a few paces without being tired out.

The pits – for me though – was driving him to Watford General Hospital where he was to donate sperm just in case the chemotherapy destroyed his fertility.  What a ghastly thing for a 19 year-old to have to do with his Mum!  And it wasn’t made any easier by the arrangements in the hospital which allowed him little dignity.

Initially we were told there was no point in freezing his sperm as they were of such poor quality.  Luckily our oncologist intervened with a phone call – mentioning that all kinds of advances might be made before the sperm might be necessary, so ‘freeze it anyway’ he instructed.

There can be nothing worse than being the parent of a child with cancer.  You’ve spent your life trying to make things good for them, cushioning them from life’s blows, keeping them safe, hoping for the best for them – and then suddenly, you’re completely out of control, totally impotent. You wish you could have the disease instead;  you dream of being able to take away the pain or endure it yourself instead.  But there is simply nothing you can do except support the child in the best way you can. You have to be there to support and understand when they rage against you – because they can’t rage against the disease itself: you have to be endlessly patient with their moods.  But you forgive them everything because you love them so much and are praying for them to survive.

I’m happy to say our story has a happy ending.  Olly is 32 now and his fertility came back and came up trumps.  He now has two beautiful sons aged 2 and 4 – and as a result, we’re lucky enough to be besotted grandparents.