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Throughout my life there was one constant...until 12 years ago that is. She was my grandma. She was never one to mince words and if I was being ridiculous or stupid she told me in no uncertain way. She sat in the same chair all 38 years that I knew her. Right in front of the fire. Every Sunday she would open a can of Ham and give it to us with tinned Potato Salad and then tinned Mandarins with tinned cream. How on earth someone can live on tinned food for so long (93) I will never know! But she did and from her chair she put the world to rights and I thought she was a font of knowledge and sat and nodded and agreed with her...as far as I was concerned she was always right in her calculations about the vagaries of life. She was a gentle and understanding soul...never given over to outward displays of anger or over-stressed opinions on matters. She left that kind of thing to my Grandfather....who only thought he was always right.

When Grandma died I was bereft. Things apart from her death seemed to go on as normal. I still had my young daughter to look after, pay the bills, walk the dogs, go to work. But I was hurting. I took to drinking, something she only ever did on special occasions 'I'll have a small Gin and Tonic please'. She had one the day she died. I guess she thought it was a special occasion. Oh how I still miss her, her smell, her voice, her soft cheeks and her anecdotal stories of her time in service to a big posh house up in Scotland. She had to kill hens herself dontyaknow.

I moved into her house not long after and stopped the drink. I cleared the house and redecorated. There were some things I didn't part with and those I kept in my bedroom...the one she gently and with dignity as always...passed away in.

Sometimes when I came in from Shopping or simply been away from the house I said "Hi Grandma its only me" And if I was ever angry enough to spurt profanities I always apologised to her like she was listening. She hated cussing.

I was never happy in the house though...always felt I was being halted from 'getting on' in life and oftentimes felt trapped. I cried a lot and a decade later I was still crying. I fell asleep on the couch after watching a film. My daughter was at my mums. I was awoken by a loud BANG and CRASH. My living room was on fire and I was on the couch! The whole room was filled with a black and acrid smoke. The crash I had heard was an enormous mirror I had above my mantel. I couldn't breath and my eyes stung like they had been filled

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