My Saturdays are reserved for Lovely.
The goal is to look back at the end of the day and to say ‘You know what, today was lovely’ – and mean it!
Today’s Lovely Saturday started with a Rubik’s Cube race with my son who beat me with his 17-second solve, (mine may or may not have been thrown down the back of the sofa!) a run with the dog and a scroll of my Twitter feed where I spotted this post.
My nan took me in after I ran away from my abusive parents and third foster care placement. I was a scrappy traumatised 12-year-old riddled with fear and who knew not to trust adults under any circumstances. She was a pragmatic, make-do-and-mend, widowed pensioner who wasn’t actually related to me but took me in anyway.
Everyone on our council estate called her Nan. She lived by the motto ‘If there’s enough for one, there’s enough for two’ and survived on her school cleaner pension by eating very little. She ate even less when a severely underweight 12-year-old arrived and took on the mission of fattening me up.
I’m sure part of the reason I’m vegetarian now is the vast amount of pre-teen dripping sandwiches I endured! As the mission slowly progressed I noticed my nan eating less and drinking more tea for fuel. I felt guilty and too ashamed to tell anyone that we didn’t have enough food to eat.
I once bunked off school after lunch to take some chips that I had liberated from the cafeteria home. Nan went bonkers because I was missing geography and sent me back with a flea in my ear!
If there’s enough for one, there’s enough for two.
Nan
One Saturday there was a knock at the door. Nan went to open it and then exclaimed ‘Bleddy ‘ell!’ causing me to come and look.
On the doorstep were four bags of food from a shop we couldn’t afford to set foot in! A week-long break from hunger that we would never have been able to afford ourselves.
I’ve never forgotten that moment. My nan never accepted what she saw as charity but with no one to thank (or tell off ) we took the food in and invited neighbours round for a slap-up lunch.
I’ll never forget that day. The food was a blessing and a relief sure, but it was the rare and genuine smile on my nan’s face when she tucked me into bed that night. “If you can’t sleep, just dream about breakfast love.”
For a while I’ve been I’m able to shop and drop for others. If you have the means and want to upgrade your Saturday to Lovely, pop down to the supermarket, grab a bag of nice stuff and give it to someone else who will appreciate it.
Here’s a photo of my nan and me at my Lincoln Catherdral graduation ceremony. I was the first in my family to finish school, let alone get to uni so graduations weren’t exactly a tradition. Halfway through the three-hour affair and bang on brand, my nan shouted out “Bleddy ‘ell how much longer is this going on?” responding to the tuts or her row neighbours with “I speak as I find, me!”
