It is so sweet when homesickness bites to have a visit from
loved ones. It is the greatest antidote
to that illness. This week my Mum and
aunt arrived fresh from N Ireland to Malta and I am tickled pink. I even love overhearing them talking to each
other in the bedroom early in the morning as they converse from their single
beds.
They talk non-stop about family
things, relatives, past incidents, present events and it all serves to remind
you that we are connected in so many important ways. You gain an appreciation of how hard life was in their days. How much even young children were expected
to work, how little they had and how grateful they were for even the smallest
gift. Each week my grandfather, on the
farm, would take down the sweet jar and each of his five children would get one
sweet. That was it just one and then
they would wait a week for the next one.
They didn’t resent this, they looked forward to this special
occasion.
My mother would get up on a
Saturday and cycle all the way to her hockey match and then after a hard game
cycle home. Immediately, she would
start on the weekly baking on the old range, which was notoriously
temperamental. Any burnt offerings were
given to her eldest brother, Hugh, to eat.
She produced soda farls, buns, cakes, wheaten bread in abundance and did
this year after year from the age of thirteen.
Every morning they would start the day with porridge, which had steamed
on the range all night, covered with fresh cream. Then it was a cooked breakfast with a cup of tea. This was the daily routine and all five of
those children thrived on this fare.
What child would get this today?
Who has the time to bake, prepare a cooked breakfast each morning and
walk miles to school. Yet don’t those
days sound strangely idyllic compared to today’s soulless snatched biscuit or
cereal shovelled down before racing out the door. Imagine waking up to the smell of food and sitting at a table
full of good food and family sitting elbow to elbow round it. The chats, the laughter, the shared space,
without them is it any wonder that most of us today need paid therapists just
to get through the day? So, these
mornings when I have breakfast with my lovely visiting relatives round the
kitchen table I am so grateful for the abundance of everything.
PS the only thing that bugs me is the number of people along
the sea front who stop and ask if we are sisters, my mother, my aunt and
myself. Are people blind or just doing
it to annoy me?
