Today my cupboards are overflowing with plastic containers of all shapes and sizes, some with cliplock lids, others with steam releasing caps and clingfilm is at the ready in its plastic holder on the wall. There was a time however when that wasn’t the case.
When Papa and I hadn’t been married long we were living in a caravan, money was tight and I really, really struggled being a “housekeeper”. We were both working but unlike now I was trying to be the dutiful wife cooking all the meals and making my husband’s lunch for him to take to work. Papa’s favourite bread was a “Plain Loaf” with a crisp crust on top and it came from Walker’s Bakery in waxed paper. I saved the waxed paper from the finished loaf to wrap his sandwiches for the next week.
One night when I went to make his sandwiches I couldn’t see the bread wrapper and when I asked him about it he just said, “I threw it out”. I burst into tears. He looked at me astonished unable to comprehend that throwing out a bread wrapper could bring such a response. Overwhelmed, I told him I had nothing to put his sandwiches in.
I can’t remember now exactly what Papa said but it was no big deal to him, he could do without his lunch or something. I’d always been an independent person, and even though I was with someone I wanted to be with, I found the self-imposed pressure of expectations and having my life completely entwined with someone else’s very hard. The tears were my safety valve.
You didn’t know that about Nana did you?
Musings of a Retiring Person 