Back When A Woman of A Certain Age Was 22

I’m going to take a break from this ‘Woman of a Certain Age’ business to post something else. Why? Because while flipping through the old diary I found during the strike, I saw an entry I made on Sunday July 6th 1997 about an encounter with my grandmother, the same one with the unstable nanny (see June 16th’s blog.)

My maternal grandmother and I are alike in very many ways, and yet we do not get along. “Difficult” describes her nicely.
Anyways, to provide some background to this diary entry: we were at her house for a while in 1997, lured there by the promise of an inheritance. ‘We’ being her only child (my mother) and my siblings (including the sister who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘spinster.’) My Grandma lived in one wing of the large family house and we stayed in another.
She is very organized so it didn’t seem odd that she would want to sort her affairs out while alive; give whoever whatever. Well she’s still around, ten years later and I ain’t got a dime from her yet. While at my Grandma’s house I noted a lot of things in my diary because I wanted to write a book about my experience there, unfortunately I never got round to piecing all the entries together and the diary is a jumble of frustrated scribblings.

Sunday July 6th 1997
Me: “Good morning Grandma” (places tray laden with breakfast favourites on the bedside table and helps her to a sitting position)
Her: Mmhmm. (scans plate, prods food, tastes tea) “It’s too hot”
Tea is taken away and a cooler brew brought.
Her: “It’s too cold.”
Tea making paraphernalia brought to her room, including kettle, and tea made under her critical supervision.
Her: No church today? (Asked just as I attempt to escape)
Me: I was making your breakfast so I missed the first service
Her: What about the second service?
Me: It’s too crowded.

She seems to frown and I hurriedly decide that a crowded church hall isn’t going to stand between me and a generous inheritance.

Me: “I’ll have a bath now and go”

She smiles. I leave her room, my smile disappearing as soon as I step into the corridor.

Relations between my grandma and her only child are breaking down; my mother is fed up of her insensitive attitude. “I can’t believe she’s enjoying having us run around her like this” my mum complained.
I could believe it because I wouldn’t have minded having a few people run around me.

My mother, siblings and I, once secure in the knowledge that we are my grandmother’s only descendants, got slightly worried one day when she announced that she could leave all her money to whomever she chose.
That night we held a meeting on Our Side of the house. My grandma by her recent words and actions….

(Present day thought: the following page was torn so that’s it for that entry…)