My Grandmother....

My always knitting, often reading, Coro watching, Doric speaking, cake baking, thimble collecting, wool spinning, berry picking, lemon growing, cat owning, goat owning, Morris Traveller driving, hat and glove wearing, church going, picnic organising, beach combing 90 year old Grandma died yesterday afternoon. 

She was my rock, my love, and always my inspiration.  Her journey took her from Aberdeen in Scotland, to the North of England, and finally and permanently to Nelson, New Zealand.  She had the coolest swimming togs ever, a university education (majoring in mathematics, she wanted to teach high school maths but the authorities of the time decreed a young woman could only teach infants), had 5 children (4 of them girls, my mother was the eldest), supported her GP husband and worked herself, and was always, always knitting (and sometimes spinning and dyeing as well).

I remember a busy, never quite tidy house full of young adults and children, family and friends, books and wool and records and cake tins and cold cuts and salad and hardboiled eggs, and the magnets on the fridge holding up our drawings. In the garden cats and dogs and goats and guinea pigs and lemon trees, tricycles and tennis rackets, Grandad watering his roses and Uncle Rod having a smoke.  And in the middle of it, knitting with a cat on her lap, I see my lovely Grandma and I just want to snuggle in her warmth and feel that uncontrollable smile that would creep over my face as a child when I knew I was about to see my Grandma.

So, tonight I shall knit.  A cat may or may not condescend to sit with me, but I think I'll be happy all the same.