MY MUM

I visited my mum while I was in the U.K. on my walking tour. Now aged 84, she still lives in Derby in the semi-detached house she bought in 1958, just before I was born. She does everything herself, with the exception of a nice man who comes for a couple of hours every fortnight to look after the garden. Her apple trees and rhododendrons were looking particularly nice.

Since I was last there, she has had bits and pieces done on the house. A crumbling chimney, the wooden bits under the roof and above the windows, new gutters, leaking brickwork in the garage. She has also replaced the asphalt driveway and garden path with coloured paving stones, which have spruced things up. That's a good thing, since she may have to sell the house soon and move into a bungalow. Stairs are not the best of things once you get past 80.

As ever, she plied me with large helpings of some of my favourite foods (see Grandmothers' Cooking, 17/4/10). We had roast lamb with home-made mint sauce, strawberry flan, scones, chocolate mini-rolls and digestive biscuits. It was terrific. And I went to sleep in my childhood bed, solidly as always.

She is finding the world a strange place these days, full of weird happenings, an absence of tolerance, and too much "me, me, me". But some things never change, and she still plays the piano beautifully. The hands may be mottled, the wrists and fingers slightly stiff, the eyesight failing. But the tone, the touch and the technique are all still there, the result something wonderful and timeless.

She asked me this time if there was any furniture from the house that I would like to have if and when she goes. Only the piano, I said; it would be enough.

Walter Blotscher