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
