I started getting 'meals on wheels' - the district nurse decided that I really am not able to cook for myself any longer, hence the pleasure.   It reminded me when, aged 15-16 and in scouting, I was visiting an elderly lady who had 'meals on wheels': she was blind, and my role was to provide company for an hour or so (one of us was coming in once a week, so she had somebody visiting every day).  I loved listening about her experiences in the war, especially as she was in the underground, and while I started getting interested in 'general' history at some later age, I was always fascinated by social history: how the actual events impacted on the lives of ordinary people.

What upsets me is that for all my adult life I completely forgot about this experience, and this lady.  And now, with each box of dinner and small container of dessert, her face stands in my memory more and more clear... I can see the old four-storeys house she lived in, the path from the tram-stop at a roundabout to her house (just 3 minutes walk) all covered in snow (did I go there during the winter only? or is it that winter is the strongest memory, and other seasons will gradually come to me?), the church opposite her house... But her thick glasses, when she would turn her sightless face towards me, and the warm smile hidden deeply in the lines and feathers of wrinkles, are now so clear, as if I saw her only yesterday.  How strange...