13 Apr REMEMBERING GRANDMA

Do you remember when Grandma used to say “give me a cuddle, it will make my day.”? Or when she would pat the sofa beside her and ask us to tell her all about the day we’d had? Listening so closely, asking all of our friends’ names and what were all the games played in the playtime breaks? Then she would come out with “Are you hungry?” or “Could you do with a little snack?” We were always so quick to answer back, “Can we have a Poppy snack? Next would come down the woven basket with the blue and white cloth insert stuffed full to the brim with treats that were really all for out delight not his.

From fruit bars and flapjacks to little pots of raisins and apples or apricots. It didn’t really matter we would cheerfully eat the lot! We loved them all and soon would make them vanish. Especially the chocolate covered ones. All washed down with the “Big drinks” Never fizzy, mainly water or perhaps a little blackcurrant squash.

Then there were the toys. The garden room was full. With puzzles that were wooden, games that made us think. Books. A whole room to choose from. We were spoilt, don’t you think? The lots of dressing up clothes that enhanced our every game. In homemade shops or castles, toy kitchens and their cafes we had so many adventures with all of them to pass the dull and wintry days ‘til summer and a lot of outdoor play.

Sometimes we would be so many that we’d spread throughout the house and in each nook and cranny we could be found hiding out. Dashing here and dashing there. Or chasing round on twistacars or hunting out the “oos”. There was always so much at Grandma’s to see and to do. We couldn’t waste a minute, we were always on the go: Only taking time to sniff out the smells of cookies baking or a yummy chocolate cake. These and the meatballs, pizzas and breads that we would make together. Flour on our aprons, faces and our freshly scrubbed clean hands saw the flour dust flying but she didn’t seem to mind. They get washed again and it was time to do the salads and the garlic bread and diving in the freezer, mango lollies there to find. Always in the background, the slow cooker full of her homemade soups. Pumpkin in the autumn, when we’d been to Banbury Fair. Often with the hot donuts for our pudding she had bought there from the usual stripy stall. Her version of the toffee apples on wooden sticks would have been hidden while we were eating and then a-hunting we would go. All before crunching them as homeward treat. Then when winter winds came blowing us along the hidden walks we would have chunky potato soup with tiny leek bits, all creamy and topped with grated cheese with our homemade chunky breadsticks left to prove and then fired golden brown on our return.

The days when it was quieter, friends gone and just us two. I would upon her lap for a story and we would all make animal noises as we met them on each page. Trumpeting for elephants, or roaring like the lions; the tiny squeaks of three blind mice or croaking just like frogs. We’d sing songs and make “music” with cymbals, pipes and drums. The electronic organ adding to our selling sound. A good job no more adults were around!

Those are the times that I remember oh so very well. Then the spring would burst out around us and we’d make the elder cordial from the flowers picked in the edging across the quiet road.  Stirring the lemons in the bucket and then straining through a cloth. Pouring in to the gleaming bottles shiny and well washed. The best bit being the tasting. Always my favourite part. Yours, as I remember was strawberry picking at the farm. Faces red and sticky from strawberries eaten and the sun cream plastered on. These were swiftly followed by the cherry tomatoes and the runner beans with bright with red flowers on the vines. Over watered or under watered didn’t matter, they were all our very own. We had prepared the ground and planted. Watched them grow from seed to crop. We would be the ones who would scoff, the lot. Are you recalling having sticky fingers from the homemade lollies out in the garden and them swiftly washed away, by the bursting of the water bombs? Wheel barrow practice and boat races in the paddling pool. With icebergs to sinking or floating and keeping our toes cool. We never understood why we couldn’t stay all night. Why Grandma told us that the toys went to bed at night in boxes, books on shelves and paintbrushes all got washed and put away. Just so that we could come back to play another day.

All the memories come back flooding long past days with golden light as we turn the pages of our scrapbooks; filled with the pictures taken of us as we played with family and friends. The multi-ethic faces in the places or on the trips that we went weren’t all smiling. Sometimes it was raining or a cooler wind sprung up. We were peeking out from the door of the toilet tent she had carried down to Bournemouth Beach or sitting wrapped in space blankets, barefooted as we ate our share of warming chips. Eating ice-creams sitting on a wall. Up amidst the branches of the trees we’d climbed.

But just wait a minute! Where is Grandma?  No, she isn’t there; I’ve looked. Not one photo shows her face. She had taken all the images for the rest of us to enjoy and share. She was the one who was building all these memories to help us look back and realise the riches that we had; to know that’s where we came from and show us how we’ve grown, what makes us “tick”.

From these we, who were her “children”, can share with those we call our own, the secrets of a happy childhood. Now Grandma still is watching over us and hoping she will see happy and contented smaller versions of the blessed you and me.