The Baking Cupboard

 On Saturday it will be the six year anniversary of the day I got married 

Of all the dates I need to forget , this one is the one I always seem to remember.

The morning of March 6th 2015 was very much like the one we experienced today. It was springlike and warm and sunny. 

Like this morning I was alone in the cottage, drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

Unlike this morning, I had been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow receiving cards and gifts from villagers and friends.

I remember the table being filled with bottles of champagne and boxes with bows and flowers in vases.

Around 11am I spied Auntie Gladys walking carefully down the lane. 

She wore a red woollen coat and looked frail at 95

I met her at the garden wall and she held my hand in greeting

“ I have a wedding gift for you both” she said handing me a hand written card 

I started my usual  you shouldn’t have  type reply which she waved away with a hand

“ Buy yourself something you need but would never usually buy yourself “ she said her watery blue eyes twinkling and I was suddenly moved that this old stalwart of the Church and of traditional values had just embraced her first gay marriage 

“ Thank you for being so kind , Your support means a great deal” I told her and she laughed her usual laugh and pushed her hands into her coat pockets to find a hankie 

“ It’s the law ! “ she said simply and I watched her walk back up the lane, her head to one side as though she was thinking hard.

I felt moved and humbled , as though my grandmother had just visited.

Auntie Glad’s card was traditional  and addressed to us both. Inside was several crisp ten pound notes which I rolled up and placed in the tea caddy on the mantle. 

I forgot the money until weeks later, when it was almost summer.

Back then I was planning for my beloved new kitchen and so fantasised about things I wanted to make it the best of all I had owned. Having my own baking cupboard was on my to do list.

And so, with the help of Auntie Glad’s money, I prepared for one.

I bought loaf tins and flan dishes and an old fashioned black bird with its mouth open to sit inside a steaming pie so that the pastry would not get soggy. 

I bought cake tins and a flour shaker and storage tins full of grease roof paper, food colouring and vintage Christmas cake decorations alongside vintage wooden spoons and a mixing bowl with blue embossed sides like the one my mother used to have.

Any I hid all of the bits and bobs away until the IKEA workmen had put in the kitchen, only bringing them out from their hiding place to fill my baking cupboard . The one nearest to the lane window , where the light is best to roll pastry and to kneed dough.

Today after night shift I was in my baking cupboard yet again, retrieving the ingredients to make sourdough bread  and as I kneeded the dough I remembered the day Auntie Gladys brought me a wedding present .......and continued to be a bit of a hero .

The baking Cupboard Today