Cherryade and Chocolate Eclairs.

When someone you love, someone who’s been a fixture of your life for, well, your whole life, is gone suddenly, it is a strange feeling. For a while, I hadn’t even been seeing granddad with any great regularity, but occasionally we’d go and visit. He was in his late eighties and hasn’t exactly been well lately, but it is still an unpleasant experience. The three grandparents I grew up with have now gone, all in the last five years, and I find the things I retain of them are a collection of memories, triggered by tastes, smells and days of the week.

Any Sunday lunch I eat is judged according to how close it was to my nan’s, and the mingled smells of make-up and cigarette smoke remind me of her. Visits to National Parks would always remind me of the funny stuff my first granddad would sometimes come out with – while on holiday with family to Lanzarote, we went on an excursion to Timanfaya National Park, which is on the site of a dormant volcano. Upon arriving, granddad took one look around and said “There aren’t many people at the park today, are there?” which has always cracked me up. And my last granddad who went just recently? Late Sunday afternoon in Winter, before driving home through Christmas lights, snuggled down in the back seat in my duffel coat, we would go to granddad’s and he would have fizzy pop and sweets for us, my favourite being cherryade and chocolate eclairs.

It is sad that they’re gone, and I hope my parents cope OK with being the oldest generation in our family now, but I’m glad I have these warm comforting feelings to drawn upon and remember them by. After all, that’s what grandparents are for, isn’t it?