Peaches and cream

Do you remember that old song in which Mr Sandman was implored to bring the singer a dream and to "make her complexion like peaches and cream"?  We had peaches and cream for dessert the other evening and, frankly, a girl with a complexion like that would be a nightmare rather than a dream.  The peaches and cream of my childhood would be no better.  Nowadays the only peaches eaten in our house are fresh ones and the cream is real cream but in the wayback things were different.  OK, I'm talking 60 years ago and things certainly were different then.

We - that is me, my brother and my mother; my father was probably at sea - would sometimes be invited to tea by my grandmother.  The table was always laid with a special cloth and the best tea plates were in evidence.  There would be a plate of bread and butter slices and we would be expected to eat at least two, spread with home-made jam, before the special treat.  Those teas always ended with peaches and cream being served.  Of course, being 60 years ago my grandmother had special fruit dishes and special fruit spoons.  I suppose they can still be found but I don't know of anybody who has them, let alone uses them.  The peaches were tinned peach slices and tasted completely different from the fresh fruit to which we have become accustomed.  Maybe fresh peaches just could not be bought?  Or were too expensive?  I don't know why but tinned fruit was much more popular back then than it is now.  And the cream wasn't cream; it was evaporated milk out of a tin - Carnation brand probably.  Still, we thought it was a treat and that's all that counts.

I mentioned a special tablecloth.  This had been embroidered by my favourite aunt, Grace, Gran's daughter.  Grace was an expert embroiderer and this tablecloth was a fine example of the art.  It was, I think, hexagonal in shape and just in from the edge there was a garden scene running right round the cloth, flowers of all descriptions together with the occasional lady in a poke bonnet.  Outside that were embroidered the words of a poem:

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot —
The veriest school
Of peace; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not —
Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign Tis very sure God walks in mine.

My grandmother still had that tablecloth when she died  - rather surprisingly in view of what happened - and it passed to my mother.  On her death, I acquired it as a memento of those long-gone days and my favourite aunt.

I don't even remember now why Grace was my favourite aunt.  She worked in Athens for one of the agencies which was to become part od the United Nations - or maybe already was a UN agency - and would send us exotic presents such as my first pistachio nuts or minature Greek soldiers in their skirts and pompom shoes.  When on leave she would sometimes take us to lunch in department store restaurants where elderly ladies dressed in black and with white aprons and headdresses served brown Windsor soup.

Nobody now knows what caused the rift but Grace cut herself off completely from the rest of the family.  She had married in Athens with none of the family at the wedding - too expensive - and we knew she had a daughter, Hilary.  It was only three years ago, after Grace's death, that Hilary discovered anything about her mother's family and that she had cousins.  The Old Bat and I meet up with her once a year and I have tried to give her some idea of what her maternal grandparents were like.

Just before our last meeting I rediscovered that tablecloth which I had quite forgotten.  I gave it to Hilary and I just hope it means something to her.  It felt almost as though I was taking it back to its home.

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Before we leave southern France I can't resist another look at that magnificent piece of engineering, the Millau viaduct.