Tag I’m it…

My Nanny (Welsh for Granny) lived down the road from us from most of my life. She was 63 years old when I was born, and had had quite a life that I heard about through her many anecdotes and stories. When I was little she still lived on her own in Swansea, then moved down to my parents’ village in Somerset when I was 7 or 8. I have great memories of going to stay with her in Wales when I was little, going to the Gower and Mumbles, cooking all manner of treats, travelling on the top floor of double decker buses up front, pumping the pesticide spray in her garden while she aimed the nozzle at the aphids on her fruit trees, and visiting her good friends and neighbours.

Some of my favourites stories she’d tell were the ones about sending rapidly decomposing laverbread to London in the post, the day she was teaching in a Swansea school classroom and a monkey came in through the window and chased the kids and her travels with my ‘Auntie’ Myf. She also had vivid stories about The Blitz in Swansea when she had to look after the boys and girls in the bomb shelters during the sustained air raids. Despite Nanny’s fair share of hardship she was always stoical and ready with a smile and a conspiritorial wink.

For me, Nanny seemed at her happiest when people were doing odd jobs for her and she could be there looking over your shoulder checking your work and offering Welsh cakes and cups of tea. Nanny taught me how to prune her roses right back so they’d grow with increased vigour the next year “Let your worst enemies cut your roses” she’d tell me and would single out weeds to take out with her walking stick because they grew “like the Dduw”. I also learnt my DIY skills painting and decorating her house probably more times than it needed but it was a good excuse to spend time together and, fair play, she always paid me a very good hourly wage. After working we’d sit down with tea and a well-supplied biscuit tin and natter away or watch Countdown or Eastenders together. Occasionally we’d play Scrabble too. Playing Scrabble with Nanny was enjoyable not just for her impressive recall of the official WI list of two letter words, but also because of her stock phrases such as “Just opening up the board” as she’d place some high scoring word right where you were going to go. Bless. She started my whole obsession with Scrabble thanks to playing Junior Scrabble with us when we were little.

Nanny was always very active and lived very independently right up to very recently. Her social calendar put mine to shame. Visitors would stream through her house and enjoy her hospitality and she, likewise, had many reasons to leave the house and take part in church events, Red Cross meetings, mystery trips, pub lunches… Nanny had an impressive knowledge of where you could get a decent pub lunch, cream tea or fish and chips all over the south west. “Craft Evening” was another perennial favourite where Nanny and several of her friends from the village would meet up weekly and knit clothes for charity. As Nanny’s rheumatism played up in later years her knitting became un-knitting where she’d take apart jumpers etc so others could use the wool. The craft was just a thinly veiled excuse to meet up and keep abreast of village gossip and display her baking prowess though I feel. Nanny was excellent at keeping in touch with people by phone and by post. Last year I even got an email from her. Yearly proof of how well she’d stay in touch with her friends from all over the world came every December when she’d send out the Xmas cards she’d bought in the sales the January previously and start to receive the 100+ cards from friends and family wishing her well. Hanging the cards from strings on the beams was getting to be an industrial operation. Then of course, afterwards, she’d check the senders against her list for next year in case there were any new friends, save the cards and stamps and donate them to Oxfam or somesuch charity.

Nanny had a stroke in March this year and following this, after a stay in hospital, went to Calway House a new nursing home in Taunton where she could get proper 24 hour care. She was comfortable, well attended by family, staff and friends, even dabbling in scrabble, apparently… I feel extremely glad that I was able to visit her over her last two weeks. I got to tell her about what I’d been up to, show her photos of life in Mexico and around and even take her to the Taunton Welsh Society’s Christmas Carol service. She still had her smiles, the occasional wink and offers of Maltesers for everyone. Last Monday we got a phonecall saying she was unresponsive and we rushed to the home to see Nanny having suffered another in a series of mini strokes. She was peaceful, breathing deeply with her eyes closed. Mum, Dad and I kept Nanny company and comfortable until suddenly she stopped breathing and quietly passed on.

That was last Monday. Today is her funeral. I’m sorry I can’t be there. I’m sure I missed a great celebration of her incredible, long life. A friend of hers, Chris Rusling was available to lead the service and I can’t think of anyone better suited to do it. I’m so glad I got to spend some more time with Nanny before she died. She was a truly special person in my life who will be acutely missed.

Last Summer we all rented a cottage in Llangynidir in the Brecon Beacons and had a week’s worth of adventures, picnics, walks and scrabble… Here are some of the photos.

** 8+ years out of date info! **

Never sure how much info I can safely put up on the interweb without getting my identity stolen so I’ll leave out my mother’s maiden name and favourite childhood pet for now and just give you the basics… if that’s alright… good. Thanks.

I grew up in Kingston St Mary , Somerset with sojourns in Swansea, Seville, Massachusetts, California, Guadalajara, Mexico, Oregon, Maine and New York City. Now we’re in Salt Lake City, Utah and it’s proving to be one of the best yet…

I keep a fairly up-to-date blog where you can read, in more detail than you’d probably like, about my trials and tribulations. It’s more of an online diary than anything else and a handy way to keep me folks and friends abreast of what I’ve been up to. With the shocking state of my memory these days, it’s somewhat akin to a black box recorder… You’ll also find the occasional film review, book review and links to strange and wonderful sites on ‘teh intarwebs’. Chances are you came from it in the first place…

OK, brace yourself, here comes the self-absorption…

My interests include: foreign languages (well, Spanish, French and American “English”), digital photography, photoshoppery, guitar, computing, travel, Latin-American literature, cinema, and graphic design. And scrabble. And Boggle. On an industrial scale.

Dislikes include: Dentistry, MS comic sans and, increasingly, Papyrus fonts, FOX News and US cable television. The adverts more than anything.

Favourite authors: Jasper Fforde, Julio Cortazar, Borges, Louis de Bernieres, Iain Banks, Mil Millington, Garcia Marquez, Charlie Brooker. And okay, I’ll admit it, Terry Pratchett.

Favourite films: City of God, The Game, The Big Lebowski, This is Spinal Tap, Twin Town, Shaun of the Dead, Requiem for a Dream, Ghostbusters, Withnail & I, El Laberinto del Fauno, In Bruges

Favourite TV: The Thick of It, Peep Show, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Father Ted, Family Guy, Ivor the Engine, Spaced, LOST, Colbert Report, Life on Mars, Look Around You

Favourite music: Tricky one this… Black Box Recorder, The Smiths, Julieta Venegas, Suicidal Tendencies, Metallica, Spice Girls (first album), Levellers, Air, Fiona Apple, Coldplay, James, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Manu Chao, Pixies, Primal Scream, Kylie. I’m also overly fond of Happy Hardcore and is pretty much the only music I will consider dancing to.

I cleaned the lens on me camera today before heading off to Tonala, but by the time I got there the lense had steamed up on the inside with the special cleaning fluid. I’ve been googling ways to get rid of it but all the results come up as “DON’T put drops of cleaning fluid directly onto the lens as it can cause condensation inside”, well, I worked that out for myself. How do I get rid of it is the question… I’m hoping that leaving it to bake in the car for a while will sort it out. In the meantime, I’ve got some interesting pix of Tonala with a hazy frame effect… Just hope it won’t be a permanent feature of my photography…

Also, M & D got their wardrobe. Here’s Monica in the back of their car with it: