Or rather, signs of it. How can one sum up Grandma's love in one post? So anyway, here's one of her rather later letters, dated 1984, one year before we organized that party at 9DR:

I like the way she had written "Your fair lady" on one line, and continued the sentence on the following line, as if she was giving Frédérique that title officially!

Here are two little envelopes of which I'm particularly fond:

(She didn't know how to spell Yves)

This one contained some of the tea-cards I've already mentioned, and arrived for another birthday: I suppose she meant to write down the whole of the song, even if there's only one of the first two "Happy birthday to you", but certainly the middle "Happy Birthday dear Vivi boy" was meant, and she left out "Birthday", so it's nice.

One last letter and card, sending "lots of love":

I have started writing about my school experience in England, I haven't quite finished, but as a starter, I have a few school things which, upon looking at them carefully, something I'd never done, revealed funny little idiosyncrasies. This little English-French vocabulary notebook, for instance, on which "classe trois" is written:

opens on a fairly normal first page:

It isn't surprising there should be mistakes such as "the childrens" or "Good bay" (goodbye the way the French would spell it); but the third page is perhaps more amusing:

Especially the little conversation between Anne and her Grandfather... I have no idea when this was used and written.

When I was at Saint Monicas, with Miss Jeffcott, which must have been 1973 I think, there was a school outing to Hampton Court, and as is commonly done, the class had to fill questionnaires about the place. I don't know why I have a (faintly) handwritten one with all the 20 questions:

But what's rather fun is my answer to question n°9 "how did you get to the Palace?":

Never mind that I made a mistake on "coach", which somebody must have tried to indicate to me was the right word to write down; but just before, there is "by road", and so I wonder if my well-established irony was already in use? I might of course have misunderstood the meaning of the question, but that's not likely!

BTW, just above, for question 8 "From what materials is the palace built?", all the answers are in French: métal, platre, verre (metal, plaster, glass).

To finish off, here's a page with sea-creatures, which could have been done while I was sitting at the bottom of the class, getting bored during biology:

I have already mentioned a few anecdotes concerning Grandma; here are additional ones with Grandpa whom we used to call Monsieur Père, you probably know why: it’s young Tini’s transformation of the French: “ce monsieur c’est mon père”. The first one that came to mind, I’m afraid, is a rather distressing one: he used to scold us for leaving pee drops on the toilet seat, and so each time I went into the toilet at 9 Derwent (especially upstairs, with the wooden seat), I looked at the toilet before entering and before leaving, because I was so scared of what would happen if I forgot, and he would notice. Somehow I was afraid he would know I was guilty… Another guilt-ridden episode must have taken place when I was the silly age of eleven, and in Auntie Olive’s garden. Probably inspired by a flower-picking desire to offer some daffodils to a member of the household, I was consciously and pleasantly cutting the yellow flowers and stems… But I didn’t know this action was streng verboten, and, what was much much worse, that the Obersturmführer was in fact looking at me from Grandma’s room on the first floor… I heard a shout, and a very angry face, that quickly disappeared, before it reappeared through the kitchen door, and was carried on a very determined pair of legs that were marching towards my quaking self… I’ll spare you the rest, but I wasn’t granted a lawyer.

Fortunately, these are the only two bad memories I have of Grandpa: there are many great ones. One has certainly been shared by many other readers of this blog: the privilege to sit next to him at Saint Monica’s church and watch him play the organ for mass. I remember his energy and concentration, the way he would close his eyes and play without looking, most extraordinary! I could see that what he did had an impact on the whole congregation: they would only start singing if and when he played, he was the one who seemingly decided what everybody would sing: it was very impressive! I was also higher than everyone else, allowed to climb the staircase to the church’s heavens, and given a seat next to God almost!

Another memory is when he would take me downstairs in the cellar and show me his tools and boxes, then explain what each was for, squeeze open some of his little yellow boxes and meticulously describe the contents. The cellar had a strange smell, some dark recesses, where I would wander. Monsieur Père showed me the faintly lit opening where the coal was poured in from the streets, and I took in this strange and half dangerous fact, hoping perhaps I wouldn’t find myself under the hole when the coal-bearers emptied their sacks. The tools were old, it seemed to me, compared to my dad’s, which sported couloured handles and lots of plastic, as opposed to the shiny wood of Monsieur Père’s own.

I recall a visit with him past his old school, Minchenden school if I'm right, where to my surprise, he had entered without being asked, and shown me his name on a plaque. I remember feeling a whiff of long time ago, when this old man had been a boy, just like me. Of course there were events connected to his illness, moments when his head bent forward, in moments of weakness that I didn’t understand, hypoglycemia being to me unknown. Once he was climbing the second flight of stairs in our house at Bonnebosq, and he called me, from one of the steps where he seemed to be stuck: “Vivi, call your mother, quick” said a tired voice. I didn’t know what the matter was, no one had explained before. But luckily, I did what I was told, and I suppose he was taken care of fast enough. It was fun observing him weigh his potatoes on that small scales he kept on the dresser at 9DR: I used to wonder how on Earth he could know that what he needed was 2,5 potatoes and not more! And also when he was carefully spooning the sides of his hot porridge at breakfast: what strange food, I remember thinking. But perhaps it wasn’t that bad, judging by the ring of brown sugar spread all around, and the jelly-like appearance of the whitish oats.

A lot of the communications, letters and otherwise, I had with Monsieur Père are filled with the very boring references to tea-cards: it’s true that I didn’t have time, contrary to what happened with my other grandfather, to enjoy with him a more mature relationship (he died when I was 13), but really, when he wrote to me, it was to say only one thing: he had Brooke Bond tea-cards to give me for my ongoing collection! (see below, I tried to choose some of the more interesting letters).

Fun to see he seemed quite interested in hot-air balloons!

One last anecdote: once he had shown me how his “motorcar” was hooded outside, how you had to lift the hood to reveal the car underneath, and the interest of the special tarpaulin meant to protect the car from the elements. I have this rather funny picture of that pedagogical moment:

Here are the two versions of mum's dedicatory prayer on her house at 9 Derwent, which she presented to Monsieur Père while still in England in the early sixties, and for which she had researched the calligraphy (and the little flowers and birds) at the British museum. It was in Grandma's front room, but I don't have a photo of it while there. The original version is now in Bonnebosq, on the landing of the first floor:

The second version - in fact a photo or photocopy - had been at home in Bonnebosq for years. It had probably been duplicated by Grandpa himself and given to mummy even before we reached Bonnebosq. This second version is now at home:

Hello, I have tried to draw the plan of 9DR from memory:  there are probably some wrong dimensions and missing elements: don't hesitate to comment and tell me! This is the downstairs:

And here's a description of how it used to be upon entering the house:

"I remember the bizarre, long low pram, a brass and clear glass hall lampshade that produced a dim light and odd shadows in the evening. A hall stand with umbrellas and walking sticks. The white door to the front room on the left. The stairs to the first floor that turned 90 degrees, with the carpet runner and the solid handrail and balusters. Was there a rail on the left as well, or was that just 7 DR? And then there was the long walk up the hallway to the kitchen with the weird black door handle, And finally, and the sight of Grandpa's mysterious office door with glass windows and net curtain far, far in the distance at the back of the house. I could probably sneeze that far now."

And below is the plan of a similar house which was for sale in Derwent road recently - it shows the proportions better than I did, I think!

Here's a testimony about the smell of the entrance carpet by Noël:

"When I was a student at Caen university in the 1980's, I would often go to the Arts library to revise my exams. But sometimes, I would go just for one particular thing. That wasn't the books, nor the silence that was to be kept by the students sitting at their tables. No. it was the carpet at the entrance. I remember it was red and thick, but there was something very special about it that took months for me to identify. Why would I like to go there ? Well, one fine winter day, I found out what it was. The smell of the carpet was exactly the same as 9DR's in the hallway. So every time I would go to the library, I would have the impression that Grandma would come from behind a book shelf or something. I often thought I had been a victim of my memories or my nostalgia, but I once said it to Paco, who had also spent some time at that same university,  and he told me he had had the same feeling about it."

Noël, june 26, 2014.