Mummy at the School Gate

When I was a kid I would be found either plucking all the petals from my Ma's prized roses or breaking off huge swathes of blossom from the most fragrant bushes I could find and mixing them with pond water in an attempt to preserve and bottle their scent. I would crush the dandelions and buttercups into pastes and mix them with flour and pummel the fallen apples from the trees to make apple juice.  As I grew older my Nan would share her tips with me, and as she was from an era of austerity, her "make do" regime stood her in good stead.  Even in her eighties her skin was creamy, with very few lines and she swore by her natural remedies. Sorting through my old notebooks and papers from days gone by I found some old skincare recipes that I had collected. The plan was to collate them into some kind of book.  Well, they've been sitting there for donkeys and I still haven't shared them and I think it's time that they saw the light of day. Most of the thing you