If they were the hosts I was ushered off to bed before the guests arrived but
all the ladies used to come up to visit me. Some of them kept coming back
during the evening with delicious plates of party food. I was also a keen
reader so with ladies making a fuss of me and bringing goodies up to me whilst
I read one of my Christmas books, I was one happy bunny.
If they were going out I would be sent to my grandparents
for a couple of days. They lived in a big old-fashioned farmhouse on the
Lincolnshire Wolds. It kept out the worst of the weather but it was damp
and had very little in the way of insulation. It was not unknown for
there to be frost on the counterpane and it was rarely known for there not to
be thick frost on the windows on those cold January mornings. But what
the house lacked in warmth didn't matter - it is the warmth of my grandmother's
heart that I remember most.
There was a small ritual on New Year's Eve. My grandfather would give me
a shilling and the three of us would go out into the yard and each of us would
hide our shillings. The next morning we would go out and "find"
our money - the idea being that if you brought money into the house on New
Year's Day money would continue to come into the house throughout the year.
However, I would have watched where grandad hid his shilling and, with
grandma egging me on, I would retrieve it for myself.
My grandparents were both wonderful.
