We don't all have buns and pinnies

"Look! A cow, come to say hello!" I lifted him out of his car seat and carried him across the garden, over to the fence.

He gave a whimper of terror, burst into tears and buried his face in my shoulder. At that moment, I think if anyone had offered to whisk him straight back to London he'd have been delighted.

She was rather a big cow. To him, she must have looked enormous. Her head was over the fence and she was huffing warm breath at us from her vast nostrils. A massive purplish tongue curled round her cavernous mouth. She was, quite simply, very much too - well, real.

Our grandson had only ever seen cows in picture books or on the sides of yoghurt pots. He knew they say "moo" and did a good imitation. His most exciting image of a cow until then was probably something like Blue Cow from The Story Makers on CBeebies, a colourful, matronly creature with itchy feet (hooves?) and a tendency to wander off and catch a bus when the mood takes her.

Well, he knows better now. By the end of his stay with us he enjoyed looking over the fence to see the cows (at a safe distance). He saw sheep too, and chickens. We took him to Hall Hill Farm to see lots of other animals, though he much preferred the tractors, large and small. They look much the same in story books as they do in real life.

It's an odd world, the one seen through picture books. It's very safe, very comfortable, child-sized, unthreatening. Fair enough, you don't want your child or grandchild terrified every time he opens a book. They have to get to know the world gently, slowly, so they can learn how to deal with it. But it does mean that sometimes real life comes as rather a shock.

On the other hand, these days publishers do try not to fill children's books with stereotypes. Where family life is concerned they want to present a recognisable world to their young readers. Mothers are no longer shown tied to the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, sewing. Fathers these days do other things than simply go out to work. Sometimes there are even house-husbands and working mums; there are single parents. Families are not always white and middle class.

Then why, oh why, are grandmas always shown as little old ladies with grey hair in a bun and a big pinny? You look at any picture book that features a gran, or a nan, or a nana, and there she is, that bent old lady who spends all day baking cakes and keeping the house neat and tidy.

I know one gran with a bun and (mostly) grey hair; she walks with a stick too. But she's a great gran. She's also my mum. And she has little time for baking cakes or housework. She's hardly ever at home. She belongs to a rambling club, rings church bells, enjoys going on her travels. At 87, she's just had her first ride in a hot air balloon.

Grandmas these days may sometimes be going grey (though many of us hold nature at bay with a bit of hair colour), but we're by no means past it. We're in the prime of life. Some of us do love cooking and cleaning; others hold down full time jobs. Some go to keep fit classes, yoga or swimming; some do voluntary work or learn new skills; others of us like nothing better than to lounge in front of Neighbours or Richard and Judy with a comforting plate of biscuits. We wear the same sort of clothes as any other women - that is, whatever we like wearing, within our means. Some of us like to keep up to date with current affairs; some are at home on the Internet; some love a good day's shopping. Sometimes we even behave disgracefully. We can be as embarrassing to our grandchildren as their own parents often are.

So let's consign those picture-book grandmas to extinction. Blue cows, rabbits in jumpers, cars that talk - yes, you can keep all of them if you must. But let's have grans that are human beings, who look normal; individuals with different interests and different lives, who can be boring or exciting or just ordinary, like everyone else. Let's have real grans!