It was a surreal story about my fraternal Grandmother, who died thirty years ago now.
When I was growing up I was lucky enough to have three grandparents living. My Maternal grandparents Gran and Grandad Fry, were huge dominant forces for good in their grandchildrens' lives, and we saw them constantly when growing up in those long hot days of childhood.
My father's mother, the diminutive Granny Gray, was to me , a benign and slightly more distant figure in my life. To us children she was a jolly, white haired , bespeckled, spherical old lady with slightly bowed legs and a handbag the size of her head.
She kept a folder hankie up her right sleeve of her cardigan, always smelt of talc and bought Battenberg cake for us to eat every Thursday afternoon, a day she used to "come for tea".
As Children, she remained a rather sweet, slightly bland old lady that never quite came up to scratch against a more robust, ham armed, big hearted Gran Fry, who seemed to eclipse everyone with her all encompassing maternalism!
Anyhow I digress. I thought it strange that I dreamt about Granny Gray last night. I have not really thought about her for years. But last night, there I was in my dream, stood in her 1940's style kitchen. On the walls were the over painted wooden cupboards filled with cups on hooks and flowery plates. The massive American style "refrigerator" was still motoring away with the old fashioned milk bottles inside it and on the drainer I could see glasses of sweet RIBENA all poured out to drink.I must have been 11 (coughs ...in 1973) when I last experienced this sight
The kitchen smelt musty and "old lady-ish" and the kitchen door was open so I could walk down the steep back door step into the sparse sun backed garden, where regimented rows of "old lady flowers" (carnations, hydrangeas and dahlias) lined up next to the brick path bordering.
Now in the dream, I knew what I was after. I walked to the front garden (through a green slatted gate) to find the small red stone Welsh dragon which sat against the path. I always loved this small garden figure, and when I grandmother died, I was always sad that I hadn't asked for it, now in my dream I was suddenly busy digging it up and off I went, with it tucked under my arm, stealing it!!!Where the hell did this dream come from?
A few weeks ago I walked past my grandmother's old house ( her family had built four identical Edwardian houses for the siblings of the family in the centre of nearby Prestatyn). I remember thinking about the dragon (long since gone now)......
It would have looked lovely in our garden
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Now as blog readers be aware, I never complain about my allotment, and I am perfectly comfortable with my adopted role as "househusband"..but do you know, after today I feel just a little unappreciated with coping with the more banal aspects of home life.......now I expect just a little solidarity here by those, like me, who have to cope with the mundane and boring !
Above The street vendors outside Central Park on 59
