Friday, April 18, 2008

Hugging a tub of flour

A few weeks ago, to my great shock, my mother suffered from what seems to have been a stroke. After last week's visit to her in hospital, where she lies immobilised down one side, I returned to her empty house alone. On a whim, I decided to fill the vacuum by baking my sister - who I was seeing the next day - a birthday cake from us both.
I opened her kitchen cupboards, searching out ingredients, tins and the like. Mum had had her kitchen refitted recently so I wasn't too familiar with the new layout. I eventually found her flour shelf (Mum was always a keen baker) and then the old Tupperware tubs of carefully labelled flours that she'd had since I was a kid in the 70's.
I found the self-raising and stood for a long moment, hugging it very very hard.