I’m getting a divorce!

Tony at work gave me a bag of cooking apples yesterday and I left them on the kitchen work surface when I came home. Himself spotted them and asked what they were for. Yes, you're right, nosey sod.

So I told him that as I’m on holiday Friday I thought I’d have a go at making an apple pie. At that point the cheeky sod bursted out laughing. And I mean genuine laughter, not just a chuckle. When he eventually stopped - the glare eventually registered - I asked him what was so funny. He replied that he’d been married to me for nearly 23 years now and I’d never made him an apple pie in all of that time, did I even know how to make pastry?

You see, that is why I don’t bake; it's not what you'd call encouragment. To add insult to injury Eldest and Fiancée turned up at that point in the proceedings and father and child had a lengthy discussion about what cakes etc, they could actually remember me baking. Not a lot as it happens – child said he was convinced that I bullied him into enjoying cooking just so I had a get out of jail free card when the school had a fete that required a donation. The only thing that he did remember was my chocolate cake – which he used to love and his mouth still watered at the very thought of it. Shame they only ever appeared once in a blue moon.

You know, that has got to be in line with the malteser bake that Pooks used to try and bribe the SO & I with - basically just a figment of your imagination.

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When we moved house we packed a load of stuff in boxes and stored them in the shed at the top of the garden, it was only meant to be a temporary measure but you know what it’s like; years later and they are still there. Himself stated last weekend that he wanted his shed back to do activities in. See, dirty minds the lot of you, I meant woodwork - try and deny that another thought crossed your mind.

Anyway we started sorting through the piles of stuff – Eldest is going to do a car boot sale so we sorted into what he could sell, what needed to go to the tip and what we wanted to keep. Himself found it at the bottom of a box, totally forgotten about – he threw it in the pile for the tip, but thankfully it caught my eye and the memories came flooding back....

My mum was a Brownie Guider, as most of you already know. Back in the 70’s one of the best fund raisers was a Jumble Sale. The Brownies and Guides used to get together to organise it and then share the proceeds; the money usually went towards capitation fees (a sort of tax charged yearly for each child in the pack and paid to Brownie HQ).

Some Brownie packs used to ask the parents to pay this but mum was against that – she said that some families in the village couldn’t afford it and that the girls would stop attending, especially those with more than one child. She always felt that no one should be excluded and no parent should ever have to go cap in hand just so their child could attend Brownies.

Looking back, I know that money was always tight when I was growing up but I never went without. I’m sure now that my mum did on many occasions, and I know that she worked long hours to ensure that I had the childhood she wanted me to have. I never took what I had for granted and I never asked for things - so I must have been partly aware even back then, but I had a happy childhood with good memories. A lot better than some of my well off friends and I never went without.

The Jumble Sale could be a bit of a cattle market when the doors opened – everyone rushing in and pushing and shoving for the best bargins. There was the ‘Best Clothes’ stall – everything there had a higher price tag on. The main jumble tables; sorted into women’s, men’s and children’s clothes and the household table - then came the toys and games table and on the end, the books.

The adults manned the main tables - you really needed eyes in the back of your head for that. Even through each item was only a few pence, people used to load up their arms and walk away without paying if possible. The Guides and Brownies used to do the teas and coffees and help with the quieter table, such as the toys and book.

I remember on this occasion that I ended up helping to sell the books – after a while I got a bit bored and started to look through what was for sale. I picked up books at random and flicked though the pages until I eventually settled on a rather tatty paperback. No one seemed keen on buying the books any more – other than the initial rush for the Mills & Boons I’d not sold a thing for over ten minutes so I sat on the chair and started to read.

It was an hour later and everyone had started to pack up when I decided that I wanted that book – I just had to finish reading it. I asked if I could have it and as everything left went to the rag and bone man I was told yes.

I remember being unable to put the book down – for the first time in my life I was enthralled with what was going to happen on the next page and then the page after that. I fell in love with the characters and lost myself as the story opened up before my very eyes. I finished reading the book early the next day and then started it again at a more leisurely pace, finding things in it that I’d missed in my initial rush to get to the end - I'll even admit to shedding a few tears as I read.

Up until that point I'd only ever read comics or children's books, mostly interested in finding out what happened via the pictures - no real interest in the written word unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn't have a problem reading, I just couldn't see any pleasure in it.

I must have been about nine years old at the time and a fair bit of what I read I didn’t fully understand. But the author of that book taught me a valuable lesson - that reading could be pure pleasure and not a chore. It opened up a whole new world to me and made me appreciate the power behind the written world; after that I explored my library and found that there was a lot more on offer to me than just children's books. I think that reading that book was a turning point in my life; it made me want to read, and from that I developed a love of literature.

The book by the way, was Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and although I’ve read it many times since it still manages to captivate me.