" I WISH Jonah was here now," said my husband, coming in from the garden one day last spring. "We could show him the pea plants and tell him that's where he gets peas from."

In fact, if he'd lived nearby, Jonah would have been able to help plant the peas and then watch each stage of their growing: the first green shoots, the tiny plants reaching up to curl around the pea sticks, the delicate white flowers that would later develop into pods full of sweet green peas.

As it was, Jonah came to stay just in time to help pick the last of the crop and take it in to nana in the kitchen to cook for his dinner. Then, last year, my husband mowed a 'Jonah path' through the rough grass under the trees at the end of our garden. "He'll love to run round here," he said. He did too. Especially if granddad was chasing him. He'd run shrieking with delight along his own special path, under the trees and out again into the sunlight.

Then there was the Weardale Railway. We stood in the rain on Stanhope station on opening day and told each other we must bring Jonah along to see it. That trip, when it eventually happened, was the highlight of his stay with us. A good deal of our time, day by day, is spent planning and dreaming about our grandson's visits, indoors as well as out, so the stock of toys for him to play with when he comes is steadily growing, as is the pile of leaflets about places he might like to be taken to.

There's an extra dimension to life when you're a grandparent. Especially when you're a long-distance one and don't get to see your grandchild on a daily or weekly basis. You start to see life not only through your own eyes, but through his too. You see the things he might enjoy. You mentally file them away for when he comes. More often, you say: "Oh wouldn't Jonah love that!" and wish you could show him.

And it's not just the beauties of nature, the wonders of growing things, the obvious attractions that get to you. In fact, you start to see and feel - and even, sometimes, behave - a bit like a two or three-year-old. Last Christmas, we gazed in rapture at Fenwick's window display, seeing the magic of it with new eyes. In B&Q we stood doubled up with laughter beside a row of colourful model Santas, penguins and gnomes that we'd set moving and singing silly songs.

This year's no different. There were those illuminated plastic Christmas cottages with accompanying little steam trains (why?) that appeared in the Co-op with the first Christmas decorations; we very nearly rushed out to buy one for Jonah to enjoy. But it would have been a bit big to carry with us on the train to London - and in any case, we could imagine only too well what his parents would have said if we'd presented him with such a monstrosity.

It's a regrettable fact that the sort of things we would once have dismissed as tasteless tat now seem radiant with a new charm. "Yuk!" may be the first reaction. All too often the second thought is: "That's fun - Jonah would love it!" When you're parents, you tend to consider the educational value of most things you give to your child. As grandparents, you somehow develop a deplorable disregard for anything but the grandchild's enjoyment.

When you look at something, you see not just the thing itself, but your grandchild's face, lit with wonder and delight. You hear his laughter and his excited questions. Good taste and usefulness go out of the window. Perhaps it's all to do with the fact that we grandparents have been adults for such a long time that it's rather pleasant to be able to look again at the world through a child's eyes. We've also got to that stage in life when we don't really care too much any longer what people think of us. We don't mind if everyone thinks we're being childish. What matters is not our dignity or our respectability. The important thing these days is the love and laughter that our grandson has brought into our lives.

But that brings with it a disturbing thought. They say no-one has any respect for their elders these days. But respect has to be earned. Could it be that no-one respects their elders simply because those elders are only too likely to be behaving like three-year-olds?

Published: 23/12/2004