Nana

My friend Simon Collison recently shared the wonderful eulogy he wrote about his Father who passed away earlier this year.

Inspired by this I thought I’d share with you the short passage I wrote for my Nana’s funeral last year.

Most of it will mean little to you as it was of course quite personal, but I wanted to archive it and to celebrate my memory of a wonderful Nana.

A Day In The Life

Woken in the morning with a cup of tea and biscuit.

The sound of a teaspoon “tinkling” against Grandpa’s cup as Nana carries in his morning tea with her shaky hand.

Down the long, long hall to the smell of toast toasting, and just occasionally the sound of the dark bits being scraped into the sink.

After breakfast the morning might hold a trip to the digger, to the spinney or maybe Mowsbury Park.

At the weekends, if the tree on the green told us there was enough wind, we might drive to Grafham Water to sail.

Lunch, hopefully Nana’s stew, was always followed by a question or two; so often in fact, that in the end we kept the dictionary to hand.

I learnt so much at that kitchen table; from how to make a plasticine snake, to the rules of cricket and, in afternoon games of Bezique that my Nana was a pretty mean card player.

In the evening I would be allowed to stay up late and watch Starsky and Hutch – in colour no less.

I never did see the end, but instead I would be woken in the morning with a cup of tea and a biscuit.