#Once upon a time - Alchemy. Part One.

Once upon a time .....

I held a one way ticket in my hand. Destination unknown. I was thirty years old - a watershed age, still in the hangover of my twenties, not too old, or so I thought, to consider the grown-up decisions - marriage, mortgage, kids - of my thirties. I was still playing at life, gambling with choices, motherhood nowhere on the radar.

A question mark over the DJ'ing, a recent redundancy in my pocket, I was headed south with no job, no five year plan, no sense of my next move. Surely I should be established by now? Should know myself like the blue and red veins on an ordinance survey map? Who was I now? What shape would I become?

I nearly bottled it, an inch from grabbing my bag and running like a hounded rabbit down the platform, back to familiarity, to comfort, to fish and chips on a Tuesday evenings with Grandma. But there was a shudder, a jolt, as the train quietly eased - the rhythmical clack and a clack on the track - out of the station.

Decision made I guess.

I looked at the rectangular card between my fingers. I could always return if this adventure fell on its fat face. I knew these streets so well, the junctions of my child hood, my teenage years, my twenties. Yes, I thought, I could always swim up stream, back up the M1, a tried-it-but-didn't-work-out salmon returning to fertile ground. But I never did. I knew even then, months and months before, slumped on the top deck of the 96 grumbling up Otley Road, autumn rain drops crying on the windows, the inner voice asserting 'time to move on, get out, do something new', that I wouldn't be returning to my birth town.

London was a like a giant spread of tapas - the olives, the calamares, the chorizo al vino, the patatas bravas. An endless selection of choices and ideas and inspiration. I discovered tai-chi and yoga and street art and new friends and just how rude commuters can be. There were windy walks on Hampstead Heath and picnics in Regents Park. Proper sushi. The finest vanilla ice-cream in candlelit restaurants on Upper Street. Watching gigs on sticky July evenings at Somerset House. Admiring installations in the Turbine Hall of  the Tate Modern.

I temped in grey offices, over views of the city - the monolithic pillars of Canary Wharf, the overbearing slabs of concrete caging Liverpool Street. I watched as tiny workers on ropes filled in the missing pieces of the The Gherkin, sometimes their limbs completely lost in fine, spectral mist. Then one day two towers crumbled - the fire, the bodies, the blood - and I smelt the death and sadness in the empty tube carriage, images of grief and horror on forgotten pages scattered on the floor.

I didn't get along with finance, with the starch uniforms, and the bare, bored walls. I was formally told off - a bad, bad school girl - for not ironing my shirt, for not combing my hair, for not making enough cups of tea for the team. A manager who clearly resented me. And the feeling was mutual. What was I doing working as admin in a risk department in Aldgate? How had I managed to swap my decks for a flat screen and the in-and-out tray and a hole puncher? The rent.      

The first home was a shared house in East Finchley, messy and cramped. The second, a flat on The Holloway Road - day and night the traffic never stopped, a constant noise of engines and sirens and horns. It  was broken into, DVD's and books strewn about, both my beloved Technics stolen. Then a flat I loved, large square rooms, a separate kitchen and lounge, opposite the Geffrye Museum on the Kingsland Road - a hop and a skip away from flowers and fresh coffee on Columbia Road or the vivid colours and curry houses of Brick Lane.  

Kingsland Road - Image Courtesy of Google

Columbia Road Flower Market - Image Courtesy of Google

Brick Lane - Image Courtesy of Google

The DJ'ing still continued, infrequently, in dusty warehouses and clubs under railway bridges and on boats moored on the Thames. I attempted at promoting my own night, 'No Fishes For Missy', the first foray a success - I paid the guest DJ, I broke even on the door, just didn't have the energy for another, couldn't muster the patience to spend evenings dropping flyers around every bar in Shoreditch. Something inside was deliberating, changing. I began tiring of late nights and vinyl shopping. Clubbing lost its shine - the days of waiting in queues, head-over-heels excited at the night's line-up, felt like a drag - so many nights over so many years, it was like going to work, like the nine to five. I always thought I would DJ forever and forever, until arthritis froze my wrists, the very last record cued aged seventy-eight.

When I reached my thirty-third birthday, I'd had enough.

One cold January afternoon the flat on the Kingsland Road was broken into, record decks snatched again. Faced with bent bars on the security grill, the front door wide open - 'come, come in - take anything you want' - I simply sighed with defeat, a resigned shrug of the shoulders, knowing what I would discover on the other side. The mixer and a box of best-ever records had also disappeared, and strangely a bottle of perfume. On the laminate floor, a pair of audio cables lay coiled, smothered in exhumed dust on the spot where my equipment should have been. At least the three thousand records lining the living room walls remained, stoical  amidst trauma.

And then I knew, truly knew - life waving its large, bright red flag - that over a decade of DJ'ing had taken its final bow.

A week later I met Younger Dad.


So once upon a time, what did you enjoy (or dislike) doing, seeing or creating? It could be anything. What were you like many moons ago? Do you have a once upon a time story to tell or picture to share? It could be a happy, sad or humorous tale. The skies the limit. So do link up below and grab the badge code ... and don't forget to tweet #onceuponatime. This is a monthly meme.

You can read my other once upon a time stories here.

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#Once upon a time - Cheese Straws

Once upon a time .....

I baked cheese straws with Grandma. I can still see the way they crumbled, like flaky earth, between my fingers, and taste the salty cheddar on my tongue.

Some memories are immortal, unbreakable, clung onto like the last ever embrace, the last ever Spring, never relinquished nor forsaken by present concerns or future dreams. These memories, I believe, are the ones that dance on the surface, that shine like a long lost friend, before two eyelids seal, concluding their life's work at the final breath.

And so during my last moments - toes crossed these won't befall me for a long, long time to come - I hope it's Sundays with my Grandparents, as well as sublime recollections of Little A and Younger Dad, that fill the dying cells with warmth and love and reassuring familiarity, until the dark voyage takes me who knows where...

Until I was about fourteen years old - and all I cared about was boys, clothes and music - my Dad offloaded my brother and I at our Grandparent's home every Sunday afternoon, sometime, I think, between the hours of two and six thirty. I can't remember when I started going, I might have been five, all I recall is that Sundays were about Grandma and Grandad. And I longed for those afternoons with my two adored relatives.

Grandad put 'gentle' into gentleman; warm, kind, generous of his time. Grandma had a mind sharper than a lemon tree; wily, observant, precise. Never a day passed when her nails weren't painted, or her hair immaculately arranged.

Sunday afternoon's were the reserve of treasure hunts, hide and seek, clothes horse dens, pulling stubborn weeds from flowerbeds that flanked the lawn, smelling plump tomatoes in the humid greenhouse, leafing through the musty pages of copious volumes of Readers Digest and The National Geographic piled so high in the secret cupboard they obscured the oval window at the rear - my imagination cultivated, ripened, harvested, before enjoying pancakes soaked in butter and golden syrup in front of Bonanza and the Muppet Show.

Sometimes Grandma and Grandad glided across their dining room floor, swirling, dancing their ballroom waltz for us. Grandad taught me his graceful one-two-three, one-two-three, while I stood atop his polished shoes. Meanwhile, Grandma's bedroom was a study in feminine mystery; a mirror, a comb and a brush aligned perfectly on the dressing table; brightly coloured lipsticks that drew irregular lines over my small puckered mouth; a wardrobe full of kitten healed shoes, and a special golden pair that dwarfed my dainty feet whilst stumbling with a silver handbag dangling inches from the floor.

And while Grandad and my brother tinkered with Meccano, Lego and Airfix models, Grandma and I got to grips with wooden spoons and pre-greased baking sheets. Our time was lovingly spent stirring the ingredients for meringues or vanilla sponges, Grandma instructing me on the correct appearance of whisked egg white peaks, on the exact stiffness of a cake batter as it dolloped from the spoon into the bowl. And we experimented, often floundering, with homemade toffee, chocolate and ice cream.

But it was making cheese straws I remember with particular fondness...

On with the pinafore aprons, mine double knotted, hands washed, then Grandma fetches the brown mixing bowl from the light blue cupboard full of orange Tupperware, stacked foil containers, and the not so secret stash of grandchild treats. Together four hands crumble the butter and flour. Cheese and water added, Grandma rolls out the pastry, while I cut strips off and twist them on the oven tray. Grandma carefully places the straws using heavily padded gloves with a bright flowery print onto the shelf of the stand alone cooker. Then the smell... that savoury smell, the smell of melting cheese, of comfort and cuddles and generational tenderness, the smell that could only spill from a grandmother's kitchen.    

Grandad sadly passed away when I was fifteen years old. The day of my wedding Grandma was trapped - her joints crumpling - in a nursing home, unable to attend the happy day. In my heart, the wedding cake was a fitting tribute to all those years, all those afternoons spent blending, infusing, whisking, rolling. And the wedding desert, it wasn't a traditional cake, was a layered tower of sweet toothed fancies; passion fruit meringue pies, white chocolate cheese cake tarts, mini cup cakes, and crowned with one of my favourites, a vanilla sponge lavished in lemon icing.

My love of food, especially those cosseting savouries and sweets, can be traced solely to Grandma. When I bite into a buttery slice of Madeira cake or jammy almond slice or crunch on a cheesy bread stick, I always think of her. And my Grandma's culinary legacy? Well I love creating her signature dishes, Yorkshire pudding, strawberry crumble, tiffin... And in my kitchen today, Little A and I enjoy nothing more than the simple pleasures of baking banana muffins, whipping cream, and dunking fingers in smooth, melted chocolate.

In loving memory of my Grandma and Grandad.

So once upon a time, what did you enjoy (or dislike) doing, seeing or creating? It could be anything. What were you like many moons ago? Do you have a once upon a time story to tell or picture to share? It could be a happy, sad or humorous tale. The skies the limit. So do link up below and grab the badge code ... and don't forget to tweet #onceuponatime. This is a monthly meme.

You can read my other once upon a time stories here.

Grab the badge code ...

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Dear Beloved Friend

Dear Grandma,

Two years today you glided peacefully, unknowingly from this existence. I've been thinking about you a lot recently. I miss you dearly; your sharp observations, your quiet elegance, your down to earth Yorkshire pragmatism. I miss tucking into a fish and chips tea with you soaked in salt, vinegar and brown sauce whilst cozily slumped in front of the TV.

I wasn't able to say goodbye in the traditional sense. I was heavily pregnant at the the time. Treacherous, icy weather thwarted Younger Dad and I from making the 200 mile journey up to your snowy funeral and final resting place on the Winter Solstice. So I held my own memorial at home. I bought flowers, lit incense, wrote and read out a heartfelt letter, played music, sang, ate mince pies and drank Sherry in your memory. It was my dedication to you. My thank you to YOU for many years of your warmth, kindness and love.

I shed tears but not as many as I expected to. The emotional sieve curbed much of my grief only allowing it to lightly trickle through. It was actually hard to let go. My sadness restrained. This was in part to the fact I was still carrying my baby. I didn't want my sadness to affect my little girl.

I wasn't just sad though. I was also relieved and glad that you'd passed peacefully. I like to think you were carried away like a tiny delicate feather floating and dancing ever higher on the under current of a gentle breeze.  You were ready to leave. The last five years of your life weren't pleasant as your joints twisted, froze and groaned in pain. Your fingers permanently curled as if purposefully holding onto the last vestiges of life.  You didn't enjoy the languid approach of death's embracing arms in that pee smelling living graveyard of the old people's home. 90 years was enough. It was time to go.

I remember the last time we spoke. You had the last laugh. You reminded me with a mischievous glint in your eye that I'd always maintained I would never get married or have children. Oh how things changed. I also remember reminding you that you no longer needed to hold onto anything or anyone. It was okay for you to go when you felt safe and ready.

Like the transparent innocence of a newborn's gaze the brightness of your soul shone through your sky blue eyes during those final years and months. Your perceptive stare pierced through my defence into the core of my being rendering me tearfully moved each time I spent time with you at 'the home'. We leave this material existence with the incontinence and dependency of a baby but if we are lucky also with the hushed wisdom of a life lived and the forgiveness to let go. I like to think you were blessed with this when you departed.

You weren't just my Grandma. You were a dear friend and a mother too. My memories of you are endless. Right now when I reminisce my mind conjures up images of making cheese straws on a Sunday afternoon, clumsily toppling in your silver ballroom shoes, home made chocolate and toffee, your perfectly styled hair, the best Yorkshire pudding ever and a sublime seven months living with you after a particularly bad time in my life.

So today Grandma, I raise my glass of Sherry to you.

Thank you.