Grandma's kitchen

 I often go back to my grandma's kitchen in my head. I spent a lot of time there.

It was a kitchen-dinette. I had a small desk in the corner beside the round dining table. The table cloths and cutlery came out of the sideboard on the other wall.

The business side of things was the kitchen. The wall cupboard that as too high for me to reach.  To be honest it was too high for my gran to reach.  She had a stepstool to reach the high bits.  When we were packing up her things, there were all sort of packets, Angel Delight and Cup a soups, which were years out of date.

There was the drawer, full of save paper bags, carrier bags and string. If the string could be saved, it would be.  To this day, I carefully unwrap presents, even though I know I'm not going to keep the paper.  I have problems throwing away bits of string and paper bags.

There was a twin tub that she walked out of its hidey hole so it could drain into the sink. The thick rubber tubing hooked into the shining chrome and it the washing machine would pull at it like a dog on a lead.

It was there that grandma taught me to bake.  We'd make the Christmas cake at Halloween and drop a sellotaped five pence in it.  I learned how to make scones, cakes and egg and ham pies.

It was there that I learned how to make that stepstool in a racing car. A radiator became a harp. A tissue box and some saved rubber bands became a guitar. A saved plastic bag and some saved string became a kite on windy days.

She was always an ambitious woman. Ambitious for her family. She insisted I spoke properly. That I knew which knives to use. That I 'stuck in' at my studies.

When I was four, she took me to the sideboard and got out a tea service.

"These are the cups and saucers you'll take to univerity."

And with those words, my future was set.

7 December 2020