Good times with the family

We had a very nice day with family members from both sides of the family today - aunt, uncle, cousin and grandmother from Husbandio's side, plus dad, dad's partner and brother from my side. And a very jolly crowd we were, scoffing down portions of the largest lasagne known to man, and then following up, after a few of the assembled had taken the dogs for a walk, with a round of afternoon tea and cakes. The weather was lovely, glorious sunshine all afternoon, and everyone got on famously - it was the first time the two sides had met, and it was great to see everyone chatting away like old friends.

It made me sad in one way though, because today would have been my grandmother's birthday - she died a couple of years ago, and I still miss her. My whole family does, she was a real lynchpin (or gossip hub, from a different perspective!). I put up one of her plates on the wall in the kitchen today and made the lasagne in the Spode dish (VAST dish!) she gave Husbandio and I as a wedding present.

The relationship I had with her was really the ideal grandparent/grandchild relationship - I used to spend lots of time down on the farm that she and my grandfather lived on in Gloucestershire, weeks at a time during the school holidays, and spent every Christmas there for many years. Those times seem to me now like a real golden age even though we didn't used go out and do exciting things every day. She just fitted me into her regular routine as if I were one of her own children - I even used to go and help her clean the local church (and me such a nice Jewish girl!), and to this day the smell of furniture polish transports me back to those days. To me she was always loving, firm and fair and of course, like all grandmothers, she dished out the occasional treat. Anyway, before I write my way into a maudlin heap of hormonal tears I shall sign off - Happy Birthday Nanny, I miss you. I hope Isabel and Pumpkin enjoy the same closeness with their grandmothers as I did with mine, and for as long.