Chapter 2

The Content:

The journey to the remote place where grandpa has lived in his childhood takes a very long time., but only every now and then there is a conversation between mum, dad, grandpa and Jess. She watches out of the window and looks back to the times of her childhood where she and grandpa explored the whole world together. She reminds of the strength of grandpa and her hope that it'll be ever like this disappears more and more.
Then they arrive at her residence for holiday late at night. There's a little river directly at their little cottage which takes all their attention. The cottage itself is better as they imagined and the loneliness is also liked by every member of the family. The nearest house, the owner's house of their cottage, is 2 miles away and in order to reach the next town, Braymouth, they must go for even 40 miles.
Nevertheless, the journey makes them all very tired. So they want to go to bed quickly. Grandpa sleeps downstairs in a put-up bed and Jess and her parents sleep upstairs. However, a few hours later, as mum anticipated, Jess wakes up in cause of the noisy river directly beneath her window and she is not able to fall asleep again in time. So she makes a trip through the house. At Grandpa's room, she rests, grandpa is also awake and so they talk a short time about what grandpa feels in his old new surroundings. Grandpa mentions the changes that come through a life and that nobody can stop those changes. That really touches Jess and she feels that grandpa thinks about his death. It makes her a kind of afraid and sad. She minds what bad feelings and sad thoughts she'll have when grandpa will pass away.

My thoughts while reading:

Even I got a lot of feelings while I read this chapter. On one hand I dreamed about this remote landscape, with birds in the trees, green hills, brown cornfields and rivers that dabble into my ears. This natural silence put me in thoughts of regeneration and relaxation.
On the other hand, I felt this feeling of sadness and anxiety of Jess. To lose someone of your family you spent your whole life with is very hard to cope with. Even if this is expected to happen.
But I think that are thinks that every teenager becoming an adult has to cope with and it's a fact, as grandpa said: "Everything changes [...]. Nothing lasts forever." (p.21)