I spent the afternoon with my great grandparents. The fact that their ashes were scattered to the winds over thirty years ago seemed irrelevant. My home, a place they never saw, was full of their presence as the years slipped away and I became a child once more.

It had been a pretty rough week, what with one thing and another. Chilled and aching when I came home from work, I had a sudden craving for comfort food. The pantry, as usual, was full of dog food and little else. The fridge yielded only the bare essentials. But the baking cupboard held exactly what I needed, although I hadn’t known what that was until I looked at the spices…

Rice pudding, sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg and baked till it formed a thick, golden skin… just like great-granny used to make.

I hadn’t made one in years. It took seconds to throw everything into a dish and hours to bake, slowly and gently, to creamy perfection. And all the time it was cooking, the scent of home filled my little flat…

Great Grandma in her nineties

I close my eyes and sit once more at the old oak table with its barley-twist legs, set beside the window in the dining room. The table, covered with a heavy lace cloth is laden with square, Art Deco dishes, printed with daffodils, and the big silver and cut glass cruet that Grandma loves. Behind me, I know, is her treadle sewing machine, with all the fascinating odds and ends tucked away in its many drawers and a golden sphinx on its shiny, black surface. I can hear her in the kitchen…

Opposite me sits my great grandad. His hair has been silvery-white since his youth, his cheeks are rosy with tiny thread veins… but the blue eyes have never lost their twinkle or mischief. Behind him, on the old wooden radio, is a bronze and crystal inkwell. I clean it sometimes, along with the brasses and copper from the kitchen, loving the smell of the polish. The inkwell is shaped like a red setter… and three of them, Bonnie, Meg and Rory, sleep in a tangle on the hearthrug in front of the range. I polish that too, helping great grandma apply the black lead and buffing it till it shines.

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