I congratulated a work colleague the other day on his newborn and we fell into a discussion about babies. He told me his other child was two.

OK, you’re thinking, so what?

He’s 52 and this is his first family.

I’m not judging him and it’s marvellous that he’s so happy with his new family but I compared his experiences with mine. My kids are 24 and 21 and I became a Nan at 43.

A couple of days later, another colleague told me about a friend of hers who is pregnant with her first child. She’s 48.

When this child is 21, I could well be a great-grandmother … scary thought.

My family have been young breeders: Mum had me at 21, I had my daughter at 23, and she had our precious granddaughter when she was 20 so with this kind of pattern, it’s feasible that I could be a great-grandmother in my early 60s.

It’s lovely to have grandchildren at a young age. We can act silly without feeling silly; we don’t creak too badly in the knees when we get down on the floor to play; we still remember all the nursery rhymes and stories we told our own kids; and, (I’m going to whisper this) we both get a little flash of pride when people tell us we ‘look way too young to have grandchildren!’

But there’s also a slight niggle with being young grandparents. And I’ll probably be bagged for saying that.

Neither of my grandmothers worked outside the home and lovely hubby’s grandparents were retired. We both still work, and work hard. I’ve also spent the last five odd years doing a PhD at Uni. Actually, the gestation and birth of my PhD coincided with our daughter’s gestations and births.

So, we’re busy and I’m sure my daughter gets irritated with me at times because I don’t have as much time to help out as she’d like. Or as much as I’d like.

But watching these precious bundles grow and learn is awesome and cuddling them, reading to them, chatting with them and seeing their eyes light up when they see us is pretty good, too.

It’s pure love. From us and from them.