The bliss of having our Olive over

Sleepovers were the absolute best. Better than movies, even better than a day at the public pool, and just as good as a Wimpy breakfast in Margate.

As a small boy, it was the biggest treat imaginable. Growing up, my sister and I had very little in common – but the one love we shared was going on a sleepover at our favourite cousin.

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To be honest, it was a stayawake-over, because the last thing we wanted to do was fall asleep.

And because we were allowed to have more than our quota of sweets, the sugar rush made it almost impossible to visit dreamland at our usual bedtime.

There were also no beans or lentils for dinner. Hot dogs and fizzy drinks and chips with bucket loads of tomato and mustard sauce was our Michelin star cuisine… and it was served in abundance.

With unadulterated imaginations, we could turn the bedroom into a fortress, a jungle, and even a shark-infested ocean, with the bed our only life raft.

I reminisced about those days last week, when two-year-old Olive had her first sleepover.

Due to a sequence of events, our little granddaughter had to spend the night with us.

In true sleepover tradition, I make sure that Olive had everything required – from her favourite snacks to the blueprint of how I was going to transform our room into castle fit for a princess.

Somehow, I forgot that she is only two years old. Instead of a castle, all she wanted was to watch Cocomelon, snuggling between Ouma and Oupa.

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Well, nursery rhymes and children’s songs are not my forte, but I was more than willing to stay on the bus.

After all, the wheels on the bus go round and round… Before we reached the letter R in the alphabet song, little Olive was asleep.

At around two in the morning, Olive demanded a bottle and a nappy change.

For very obvious reasons, I volunteered to make the bottle.

In the kitchen, I realised that it was the first time in more than a quarter of a century, that I got up to make a baby a bottle.

Oddly, it was fun and exciting. But when my alarm went off at 6am, I realised I don’t want to do it every night.