Love letter to my Nan

My Dad phoned earlier to say that Nan died this afternoon after a month's illness.


As a child I loved her unconditionally, although when I was a teenager she sometimes made me angry.  But most of all she made me the woman I am today; she taught me how to love and nurture people, that food is a weapon of love, that you can never have enough flowers and that you should laugh every day.

She wasn't always been a good influence; she was an outrageous flirt - charming all my boyfriends - I too am a flirt, but unlike Nan I can't flirt with those I genuinely like.  Like her I adore the sea; although she could not swim  - I can picture her now, wearing an emerald-green swimming costume and a swimming hat decorated with flowers, standing beside me as I practised front crawl, insisting I didn't splash her as she didn't want to get wet.  I can feel that icy coldness, the salt water in my eyes and mouth and that heart-bursting love I felt for her.

 I could confide my nastiest, most ungenerous thoughts to her and  know that she would always love me and be on my side.  Her advice was sometimes flawed; she thought I should give University a miss as it was full of 'posh people' and I wouldn't fit in.  But she also inspired me to read and to tell stories.  When I stayed with her I would sleep in her bed with the slippery, shiny green eiderdown and she would tell me stories from her childhood about moonlight flits, her own much beloved Granny, her irascible mother, louche uncles and a crazy woman who roamed Ramsgate chopping the pigtails off little girls.

I did tell her I loved her, but she always said we'll have enough of that old china and offered me a biscuit..

So Tiny Woman with size 3 feet, lover of raw cabbage and banana sandwiches,  who preferred animals to people (your two grand daughters aside), wearer of emerald green jumpers, scented with Coty's L'Aimant, skin-smooth with Oil of Ulay, I just want to say to you, wherever you have gone to, that there will always be a part of you somewhere deep within my soul.

Thanks for everything Nan

Nan, me and the broken arm

About a week after I have broken my arm - plaster from wrist to elbow - term ends and I am due to go to Ramsgate with Nan.  No one at home is very sympathetic about my injury - it was my own fault and I just had to lump it.  I am sad that I won't be able to go swimming in the sea (one of my all-time favourite activities) as the plaster has to stay on for 6 weeks.  It is a nasty itchy thing (even the frequent use of a knitting needle for scratching doesn't help) and now has many obscenities written and drawn on it - Ah! The originality of youth.

But Nan, being a fellow hedonist feels my pain; decides there is no reason why a broken arm shouldn't stop me swimming.  Every time I go into the sea -  four or five times a day whatever the weather - my arm is wrapped up in several plastic bags and secured with elastic bands.  The cast does limit my marine activities: front crawl isn't feasible - you end up hitting your head with the cast quite often - although a sedate (slightly lop-sided) breast-stroke is just about manageable. The plaster does get a bit soggy, but usually dries out over-night ready for the next day's dunking.

Strangely the broken arm never healed properly (it is thinner than the other one and I can't put any weight on it - those who know me may come and inspect it).   I sometimes wonder if it was the swimming that did it