In our family, I’m the one who spends the least time in the past. Instead, often rather unproductively, I look to the future and try to scheme a way out of whatever impending doom predicted. It’s Alison you need to talk about memories. She’s the one who can remember all the family history, the good and as you might more sensitively put it, the not so good. 

But at this moment, I want to go back and try conjure up some of who Mum (or as we call her Normski) is/ was (not sure I’m comfortable the past-tense just yet). With my forward looking brain and the sheer impossibly of describing a lifetime of Mum’s love, I’m stuck before I really get going.

Why can I only think of pickling onions? And plates of cold tripe (thick seam if you don’t mind), an over-abundance of Sarsons on a second batch of homemade chips or mint sauce on uncountable lamb chops? I guess many family histories involve food, sweet treats, celebration cakes and chocolates, well it seems like ours are the more acid variety. Probably makes sense. I’m so glad I was able to go get fish and chips on the Friday before she died. I had just arrived from Liverpool Airport and did not want to go back out in the cold, rushing to Towngate Fisheries before it closed but something made me. So our last good meal was of vinegar and we enjoyed it together.

Oh and don’t forget horseradish, she would fight you to the death over horseradish (see photo) x