Deserting Nan

My grandmother loved to bake apple pies, which she would serve hot with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, or cold with some extra-thick double cream.  She gave the children adult sized portions, with a wink, which suggested that the secret was safe.  “Eat the sugary delights and enjoy them” the wink seemed to say, so we did.

She simply didn’t give a shit.

In the summer we ate fresh strawberries with ice-cream with chocolate flakes crumbled over them.  We sucked homemade, icy, orange lollipops in the garden and she made us coke-floats and banana milkshakes on demand.  In the winter she let us toast bread on the open fire, and then we smothered it with rivers of butter.  Different flavoured jams could be poured on top, and if you wanted, you could lick the jam straight from the spoon, right out of the pot.

That was all OK in nan’s house.

You could have hot chocolate for breakfast, why not?  Home-made rice puddings with all the sugar from south America dumped inside.  Raspberry flavoured sponge cakes, Christmas fruit cakes, oceans of luscious custard over hot rhubarb tarts.  Delicious bubbles of delight, heaven in china bowls, our happiness in the puddings.

I can’t remember the treats from autumn or spring, but somewhere beneath the syrup and the sugar highs, we all found contentment.  I can see two or three of the cousins sitting next to nan, watching her shows on TV, but we were so stuffed from the produce that we were barely able to laugh at the funny scenes.

My grandmother didn’t seem to notice or care for the irony of an overweight woman with a sweet tooth.  She simply ate what she wanted and when.  There was no fixed dessert time at her house either, children too could eat what they wanted and when.  By the time my grandmother had grandchildren roaming through her home, she had lost so much.  She’d lost her parents and siblings, her independence and her ambitions, her first born and her worries.  She had a calmness about her concerns by that time.

One summer I bought her a giant Toblerone back from my school trip to France.  She graciously shared it with me, but already I was growing out of sweet things and growing out of treats.  It wouldn’t be too long before I would be joining in with the adults in our condemnation of my nan’s diet and lifestyle.  I would soon commit the ultimate betrayal of growing up, developing a liking for savory snacks and encouraging her to eat sensibly.

I became “concerned” and “worried” about my grandmother’s diet and health, and instead of licking ice-cream from a giant spoon directly from the tub from the chest freezer, I abandoned her instead, to drab low sugar yoghurts and insipid fruit bars.

I really wish I hadn’t.