Before my time?

I was speaking to one of my best mates last night. I've known her since primary school and she is one of two people who are in the running to be Godmother. So we're just chatting about our lives, catching up properly since we only seem to be able to communicate by BBM due to the time difference and all that. So we're just talking the usual load of shit, laughing at how gay we were back in the day. I mentioned an ex that recently found me on Facebook and we had a good laugh about how he and I met and that led to talking about when we all went to a concert and a guy pissed on her hand and said ex and I got into a massive fight and he stormed off, only to return drunk, high or both, and full of love for everyone around, especially me. We guffawed at his name (he's half-Spanish) and how different his hair looks now and how he and her own ex were best mates and were almost obsessed with each other. It was weird. But good time was had by all.

Even when we 'kept it real' and talked about the hardships we're both kind of facing now. She's single, living in a foreign country (even though she was born there, she was raised in Trinidad and has no real ties to where she lives now) and has a stressful job. I on the other hand, am finding marriage to a comedian more annoying than not, have no career to speak of and am struggling to accept my new role as housewife extraordinaire. It is this last one that caused my friend the most concern.

You see, I've learned how to knit, I've started back baking and I'm going to start making jam. These are things I'm doing because I want to. I've always wanted to learn how to knit, since I never learned how to crochet. I remember during that term in between our Common Entrance exam and entering secondary school, which coincidentally was probably one of the best periods of my life, everyone would sit around talking, playing games, liming and crocheting. Since I couldn't do the latter, I was restricted to doing the former. And it pained me greatly that I couldn't crochet. My mother knew how to, both my grans knew how to. Even my elder sister could whack out a doily if she needed to. I was stuck crocheting the world's thinnest scarves. I asked to be taught but no one bothered. Ever since then, I've always said I wanted to learn to knit. This is a desire also borne out of necessity. You see, I have a big head and it gets cold during winter. And the store-bought hats are all a standard size, made for dainty heads with straight hair. I saw knitting as a way I could wear all sorts of brilliant hats, but also a way to express my limited creativity. So I made a promise that once I finished my masters, I would learn. I've made a start too, and a very admirable one at that. So promise kept.

I also promised myself that once we moved and I had a bigger kitchen, I'd go back to my previous baking ways. I used to bake all the time, mostly bread though. And I loved it. I cooked a lot, back in the day- fish stew, Irish stew, fish pie, all sorts of chicken. I even made my own pasta from scratch once. I don't think I'll be repeating that, since rolling out the dough was very trying on my weak forearms. So now that we're in the bigger house and I have a bigger kitchen, I've reverted to type. What's wrong with that? I've always loved to cook. I even used to want to be a chef! And there we have another promise kept.

Finally, I've always wanted to make my own jam. My gran used to make a brilliant guava jam and I just thought it was the best skill in the world. Then again, my gran made everything brilliantly. Her bhagi and saltfish was superior to anyone else's. Even her boiled rice tasted different. I guess that's just how grans are. So I've been checking it out online, and with my next batch of allowance, I'm going to invest in some jam equipment- jars, a jam pot, parchment lids, a couple kilos of jam sugar, a jam funnel etc- and get going. I've even found the first recipe I want to try out. Raspberry. Yummings! Of course I didn't explain this all to my friend. She was just horrified beyond belief that I even mentioned these things. She was like "Jeez, are you sure you're thirty? What the hell's wrong with you?" I did feel a slight pang of worry, like I was rushing the ageing process.

But then I realised "Hey, my gran didn't start doing all these ace things when she was fifty. She'd had to start some time and get the practice in. And that's what made her fucking brill." I'm not sure my friend bought my rationing though. She thinks I'm mental. Ah well... So I no longer see these things as me acting all old 'n shit before my time, or being boring. I'm just doing the trial runs for the future, so my grandkids can say "Ooooh, my gran makes the best cookies." Or "Oh thanks. Yeah, my gran made it for me." I mean, we all have to start somewhere, right?

I still can't believe you can buy sugar manufactured especially for making jam though.