What my Grandmother has taught me.

The above picture is of my Sister Lucy with our grandmother who is an amazing, redoubtable and sagacious lady of 89.

Our Granny fell yesterday and broke her hip, she is now awaiting surgery to replace the joint.

Whilst lying in bed last night fretting about her and spending today in a pensive mood I decided to write down all the ways in which she has made her mark on my life, thoughts, attitudes and general conduct, apologies if it reads like a list.

It is with thanks to my grandmother that I can:

Sew on a button, Iron a shirt properly (rarely practiced), "do" hospital corners & play scrabble. It is my grandmother that taught me to roller skate, do cartwheels and ride a bicycle.

She taught me to swim & dive, to sew by hand and machine. She attempted to teach me to knit without success.

She showed me the correct way to hold a bird so it caused no injury, how to pick up a hen and collect eggs. She taught me to recognise and name different birds and trees.

She taught me my times tables, how to roll my R's and the "Queens English" there were many elocution lessons, "How now Brown cow" and "Around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran"!!

She taught me that a "pitcher is a type of ewer dear, not something one hangs upon the wall" and "It's drawing dear not draw-ring, there is no R in the middle"!

It is thanks to her that I shudder at bu-er as opposed to butter and I say to people "Kate/Katy has a T in the middle please use it"!

My grandmother instilled into me a love of Art, museums, antiques and National Trust properties.

She taught me that one never says "I don't know" but "I'll find out", she introduced me to the art of research from a young age, how to look up a word in a dictionary, use an encylopaedia and go on fact finding missions to libraries and museums. If I had a school project she would help me gather the information and take me to a museum to show me some exhibit pertaining to the project.

My grandmother instilled in me a love of research and a life of endless questioning and a thirst for knowledge.

It is never enough for me to know how a word is spelt, I need to know it's etymology, antonyms and synonyms.

I want to know the who, how, why, where and when about things, I share her love of History and Science and Politics (though not the same party, much to her disgust)!

I used to love our trips to the "cinema" which involved a bag of toffee bon-bons, a row of dining chairs, drawn curtains and a Disney film on the television!

We used to play "post offices" and she would get out paper, envelopes, green shield stamps, an ink pad and one of those old fashioned date stamps.

She used to empty her First Aid box so I could play "Hospitals"

It was through games like this that I learned the correct way to write and address a letter, tie a sling and put on a bandage.

Without realising it Granny was very forward thinking with her "learning through play" ideals!

I used to roll down hills and swoosh my feet through piles of leaves with her whilst out on walks.

It is from spending time in a car with Granny that I learnt how to swear and how not to drive!

It is because of my grandmother that I was about 14 before I realised that cider was not a soft drink to be served to children with Sunday lunch but was in fact rather alcoholic, when I think of the (not very) small sherry prior to lunch and the cider during I must have been useless at school on a Monday from a very young age!

It is due to my grandmothers culinary skills that I thought gravy was a lumpy, highly viscous goo and pastry was very dry and an inch thick and also that stuffing came out of packets and had unpalatable pockets of unmixed dry bits.

It was in fact her expertise in the kitchen coupled with Guide camp food that meant I believed all food tasted of charcoal and that food was never burnt just "a little bit brown dear"!

My grandmother taught me that the woman of the house is always in charge and always right until her husband puts his foot down!

I was fostered at 3 1/2 and then adopted by my parents at 6 1/2 Granny was always "hands on" as Mum was very ill and when our parents divorced and Mum's health deteriorated further Granny took on more and more of our day to day care until finally "being mum" full time.

Mum's death aged just 36 when I was 15 and my brother and sister almost 7 and 5 devastated her but still she cared for us despite and through the early days of her grief until My brother and sister returned to our dad and I left home aged 16.

Granny did and does grieve for her daughter - our Mother every day and cannot speak of her without tears in her eyes even now, 25 years on.

Despite my adoption I was never viewed as a usurper into the family by her, she has never left me in any doubt that I was/am wanted and valued.

Granny put up with endless unsuitable boyfriends, hairstyles, fashion faux pas and attempts to shock. She was polite to the boyfriends, complimentary about the hair styles and complicit in the fashion disasters, she took in my jeans to make them skin tight, bought me a ra-ra skirt and a boob-tube. She bleached my hair, henna-ed it and once neatened up the badly shaved sides!

She used to stick up for me, fight my corner and take my side much to Mum's chagrin - particularly when Granny took my jeans in after Mum refused to let me have "drainpipes" and bought me a fuddy-duddy pair of M & S jeans!

I have inherited nothing from my grandmother in the genetic sense but everything I am, all that I know, my beliefs and values have been inherited from her by observation, teaching, love and a fair few clips round the ear!

I chose my husband because I fell in love with him but also because the man I was looking for was the man that my Granny had also chosen, her husband, my lovely Pa.

The man that my Grandmother has loved through rich and poor, sickness and health and now his alzheimers is loving, kind, funny, hard-working and loyal and thank God I found one the same!

I thank Granny for everything she has taught and shown me and hope and pray that she continues to do so for a few more years.