on request

 

Now that we are considering the reality - rather than a more abstract idea - of two children leaving home, I sometimes find myself wondering what they will remember of their first eighteen years once they have left. And I am realising more and more that it won't be what I would expect them to remember. Oh no, it will be all kinds of odds and ends, bits and pieces, many of which I will never be able to recall (that's when they will roll their eyes and ask how could I forget something I never thought worth remembering) and many of which will no doubt surprise me.

 

I say all this because I was taken aback by a request from a 6' 2" seventeen year old who, you might think, had moved on fully to Nando's and curries and industrial quantities of salami and cheese. Earlier this week he mentioned that for ages I hadn't made 'those little chocolate cakes where you cut off the tops and do something with them' . He might not remember the name of butterfly cakes, but buried deep inside is a butterfly cake memory, one I hadn't even considered might be there because I was too busy thinking of the major stuff (which might, for all I know, have failed to have any impact on either of them; such are the mysteries of being a parent). 

Ahhh. How could I not make them after that?

[Two things. 1) The light is much better today as you can see from the photos. And 2) the hats were made up as I went along after consulting various hat patterns in various books, so I don't have any written record of what I did. Like the children's filtered memories, I can only remember the fun of knitting with beautiful colours and nothing of the construction.]