Family dynamics were always a tad strange for me as I was a late adopted child for late born parents. I guess this gave me access into a generation I wouldn’t otherwise have encountered. 

My aunt married a man thirty years older than her and he was the baby of the family. When he was taken, his remaining older sister was becoming frail. As maiden lady, she lived in a house that had belonged to her parents and it wasn’t that suitable for a person of advancing years as it had a staircase with very narrow treads, which were very steep and the hall was badly lit. The venerable person had already had two bad falls down the aforesaid, so my widowed aunt moved in. It was not a match made in heaven. 

The older lady, in retrospect, had health problems I was not aware of as a child. She was forbidden to eat rich food as it would reoccur. This was a rotund and very short person who adored her food. I guess she had been a young woman at the time of the great war and never got a chance to have a husband, so she went to food for pleasure. Not morbidly obese, but what could be described in the then vernacular as portly. Christmas was a particularly cruel season for a foodie with restrictions. I recall visiting to find her being scolded by my Aunt for cooking up a batch of sausage rolls and mince pies and then eating some. Of course she was sick afterwards and this is why she was being scolded. Her brilliant come back? “At least I had the pleasure of eating them!”

This came back to haunt me as a result of my own lapse this weekend. I know full well that cane sugar and wheat flour upset me, but we went out for brunch with the kids and I see all these desserts. I really don’t have desserts. I don’t have a sweet tooth, but this time they were so pretty I couldn’t resist. Today I paid the price for my lapse. I paid for my fun, but I enjoyed it while it was happening. High five for the ancestor with the attitude!