Nan's cookbook memories
Notes and recipes scrawled across milk tin wrapper backs, torn pieces of envelop, christmas cards and any other scrap of paper she could get her hands on. All taped and tucked into a small pile of tattered cookbooks, each one falling apart as I turned their pages. Some stuck together with sticky traces of past recipes. Frugal at all times, something born from a young life of struggle among twenty children or so.
Out in the garden, I smear a black currant leaf across my hand. The smell brings me back to her and bellburns. Berry picking, sticky bake appled fingers dig down in the tangle. We crouch down as the dust cloud rumble of a car dodging potholes closes in. We do not want to be seen as our patch would be known.
Day's end, cabined, wood smoked cosy, tea and toast like poppy's and thoughts of that big old trout hiding under that brook rock. Never to be caught.
Early morning, on a slippery landwash we stumble along the greasy rocks scouring for loose mussels left behind by a rough night time tide. Tucked into the ragged ends of old handmedown sweaters we head for brook pond, a fire quickly flamed with crispy kelp and salty driftwood. The mussels are tin canned boiled for a morning snack. Fishing poles are wormed and we castaway another day.
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