Granny Jane

My darling granny passed away a week ago today, peacefully and gracefully and with strength. The same way as she lived. Her name was Jane or granny Janey as I called her. Born in 1936 she was the eldest of four children. As a teenager she was one of the very last debutantes to see the Queen at a ball before the tradition ended.  She loved books, working first when she was a young woman living in London as a librarian and eventually owning her own book shop, the Halcyon. Her house was always overflowing with literature which was one of the earliest smells of my childhood. Its not hard to find the route of my love of reading, books have passed from her to my mum to me for as long as I can remember. We are inorexably linked by a long line of varied fictional characters.

 

She was also an avid lover of art of all descriptions and a frequenter of galleries all her adult life. Always popping up to London for one exhibition or another, she would send us postcards of things she thought we would appreciate or things that reminded her of us. During lockdown she sent my kids cards and newspaper cuttings of funny things. She never missed a birthday even with 8 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren!  

 Granny Janie loved horses, when I was 10 she dragged me along with her on a hack. She assumed that as her granddaughter I should have an intuitive ability with horses (I did not!) But I was just so delighted to be inexpertly bouncing along on an adventure with her that it didn't matter! She was incredibly adventurous and in her seventies she and a friend rode across the Jordan Desert on Arabian horses, in what sounded like a completely mad but wonderful experience.    

 She never seemed to stereotypically fit the box of what a 'grandmotherly' person might be, she sailed well into her retirement, they would charter yaughts, and we would skinny dip in the warm Turkish sea. Her and grandpa would show us all how the sailing should be done (generally whilst I vomited over the side of the vessel!)  

 She was unfailingly kind, and was committed for almost 4 decades to Hartfield village church. She was very loved there and always a driving force for change and hope. She adored tennis and played twice a week in the village right up until she fell ill. Swimming was another of her joys. I learnt to swim at Little Tye, their house where they were lucky enough to have a beautiful open air pool. She was rocking a bikini well into her sixties, always looking sensational with unbelievable long legs that sadly missed my genetic line!

When I'm stressed or sad, that is the place I go to in my head. I can still smell the flowers that grew by the pool and feel the heat from the sun on my back, water on my face, bundled up in a towel on the swing seat. My parents were married from that house and 28 years later so was I. On a wet August day, I stepped into my wedding dress in her bedroom, three generations of us standing together, surrounded by the smell of her perfume next to her dressing table covered in photos. 

 At Little Tye granny would bring a teapot down to the poolside, always a mix with Earl Grey and those biscuits that are more chocolate than anything else. The taste of Earl Grey will always be synonymous with her for me. I can't express how much joy and wonder my grandmother brought into my life in the time that I was blessed to know her. She has given us all so very much. She shared my little brothers obsession with Tennis. She would get tickets for Wimbledon through her club and take him with her. To my older brother she gave a love of gardening and the Great British historical houses. This postcard from her has been in my bedside table all year.

In the end after a short but ferocious illness granny made a decision to not live a life hampered by permenant dialysis. Right to the end she was strong and in control of her own fate. She leaves behind a legacy of love, a life well lived and death defeated through her faith in Jesus. I am so greatful to have known her and been shaped by her many passions and delights and we will all miss her enormously.

In which we are not feeling quite like ourselves.

Clara said to me in the car this week, 'I just don't feel very much like myself'.

I almost had to pull over such was the arrow straight truth of this. She is oddly in tune with and articulate about, her feelings. This isn’t the first time that she has taken the words out of my mouth with her simple descriptions.

 It struck me that yes, how can we feel anything like ourselves, without people to orient ourselves against? Without school, without friends, without hugs or parties, soft play or grandparents? She is still learning about her place in the world and its suddenly been cut off at the knees (for the third time in a year). 

Recently she has taken to telling people (via zoom generally) that 'the world has turned upside down!' (said with much enthusiasm and hand gestures to illustrate). Her general point is that her little sister is still trotting off to preschool every morning while she, the big girl, stays home with daddy to do her lessons. Life IS pretty strange lets be honest, for most of us at the moment. 

We have generally settled into this third lockdown a little bit too comfortably if you ask me. It feels less weird than the other ones. We have become used to living with less. To limiting our ideas and perspectives. Almost, (but not quite) immune to the staggering death toll and infection rate.

 (In fact, about the only thing that we’re not bloody well immune to is covid19 itself!) 

 The last couple of weeks in Leeds we have had snow. Oodles and oodles of it, the stuff you dream about waking up to as a kid, enough for gigantic snow people and proper Enid Blyton snowball fights. The children have been ludicrously delighted and have submerged themselves in it whenever they possibly could. 

The schools shut this Friday, not that it mattered too much to Clara who is, as I previously mentioned being scrupulously ( I hope) home educated by her father. But it meant that I got a bonus weekend day from work. I started walking to work on Friday before I heard that school was shut and found myself moved by it afresh.

 You see snow offers a settling. A purity of sorts. I don't understand it really. On a grown-up level I'm really irritated by it, and the car was stuck so I was quite literally trapped by it. But on a deeper, older level I was calmed and enchanted. It brings fun and lightness in its thick unapologetic, unsolicited blanket. 

 This Friday morning as I walked while the sun rose upon my back I was aware of how the snow drew forth smiles on strangers faces, at something so much bigger than us, something so gloriously inconvenient, something to think about other than the virus. 

 This year I feel that the seasons have marked the passing of time better and more reliably than any of the normal things. No restrictions have been put on them. They have continued as God intended. sun shining and Leaves dropping when they ought to, now snow falling. I have inhabited the perfect cycle of a children’s storybook year and it has brought me great comfort. 

For despite everything, we are still here. We are still marking the gradual passing of time allotted to each month and year just like we always have done and regardless of how much we wish it would pass or linger. 

 And I do want it to pass - and very soon if at all possible. 

But for now, I will stay here and inhabit my strange upside down world in the best and most hopeful way I possibly can.

 I am sending my love to you as you do the same.