Being Me

When the grandchildren came round last week, we made Welsh cakes.  Two years ago, we made them on holiday in Wales and they were so delicious that the children requested this repeat performance.  Unfortunately, the aspect of the performance that did not get repeated was that, in Wales, I didn't transform the cakes into slabs of inedible charcoal by frying them in a cheap, thin-bottomed pan.  Nevertheless, the children tried to be optimistic as, one by one, I lifted the burnt cakes from the pan with a fish slice and layered them like pieces of soot-black roof tiles on a blue flowered plate. The plate looked highly offended, being more designed for delicate cup cakes than a pile of incinerated carbohydrate.  When the Welsh cakes had cooled (and hardened even more) we tried them. 'They're nice, Grandma,' the children said, biting into them gallantly but with true alarm in their wide eyes like those facing a zombie invasion or firing squad.   The only consolation is that ap

It's Saturday evening as I write. This time last week my body still comprised one-fifth woman and four-fifths pudding. I was so stiff with starch that I couldn't bend at the waist to take off my socks at bedtime. I felt as though all my internal organs had been re-upholstered.   Despite all this, non, je ne regrette rien.  I had gone with two friends to The Pudding Club. It was their 60th birthday treat to me and - well - what an experience!  I'm aiming to go again on my 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th or should I ever tire of life as it could do what Dignitas does but with added custard.    Have you heard of the Pudding Club? It was started by people who felt that the traditional British pudding should be saved from extinction and celebrated. Because of this, the evening is full of ceremony and ritual as guests make their way through seven puddings, all paraded in regally, applauded and cheered.  Seven puddings? Yes, you heard correctly.  Puddings are in the news. There's a

I am forty fifty  oh-all-right-then sixty today.  'You're entering your seventh decade,' my (younger) sister wrote in my card, because that's what sisters are for: to cheer and encourage you.  Some things belie your age, though, don't they, however hard you cling to your youth? The down-turn of the mouth; the crows-size-11-feet around the eyes; the appearance of elasticated trousers in the wardrobe due to the baffling disappearance of what used to be your waist but now appears to be spare cookie dough.  Where do waists go? Are they with all the lost socks? I found something else which illustrated the passing of time recently. Our holiday list.  I was packing for a mini-break with a friend: the first time I've been away for aeons.  'Where's the holiday list?' I asked my husband.  'What's a holiday?' he said, glumly. (Imagine Eeyore just after he's stubbed his toe.) Over the last 40 years, we've compiled a list so that our family di

Here's a poem about nature that I wrote this morning although my observations were made from the warmth and safety of the indoors as regular followers will not be surprised to hear.  A morning in March   The neighbour has frisbeed stale slices of bread across his scraggy lawn beneath the apple tree, its branches winter-bare save forgotten Christmas lights. But the birds can take incongruity with more grace than I do.   First come the pigeons, plunging in like gossips to a whispered conversation. One triumphs away a whole slice which hangs uncertain from its beak, wondering if it will survive the journey.   The sparrows arrive next, flitting up down up down as though on the end of a conductor’s baton. They peck-kiss at the slices, checking left and right for rivals, then dart upwards as though caught thieving.   Last, a robin, a lone actor. It observes from a branch until the sparrows have flecked away, then hops to the middle of a sli

I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on unnaturally-coloured food. My gardener husband is always experimenting with new varieties such as purple carrots or white strawberries and I make a big fuss. I want my carrots orange and my strawberries red or not at all, thanks.  Likewise, if he puts beetroot into a dish and it dyes everything crimson or bleeds onto the plate, I lose my appetite, having anticipated dinner, not a Tarantino production. For me, beetroot has to be kept in a dish of its own at a safe two metre distance and wearing full PPE. I could only eat this while wearing a blindfold   'I've cooked you some tuna with mash and veg,' my husband said earlier this evening when I emerged from the front room having tutored three students in a row. I was ready for dinner.  I went into the kitchen.  'Where is it?' I said. 'On the plate,' he said. 'Where you're looking.' All I could see was a flat slab of what looked the colour of putty.

I met someone new at church the other day. 'Tell me your name,' she said, 'although I'm bound to forget it by next week.'  'Tell me yours,' I said, 'but, ditto.'  We exchanged names in the same way people exchange business cards, knowing that their loss is inevitable and that they will be found, years later, down the gap between the sofa cushions or in the pocket of a jacket that needs dry cleaning.  'There are people who've been coming here for years,' my new friend said, 'and I forgot their name early on. Now it's too embarrassing to ask.' 'Or to check whether they are a Nick or a Mick, or a Jean or a Joan.' 'If I even got that far,' she said.  'We should have a Church Amnesty Day for forgotten names,' I said, 'as they do with weapons or stolen goods or those library books you've had since 1974.' We agreed that this was a good idea. On Namenesty Day, it would be perfectly okay to admit, &#