When we were kids almost everything at Grandma’s house felt special.
Although many of the foods were the same as those we ate at home, they tasted better at her house. It could be that they were enhanced by the scent of percolated coffee that permeated the air or the fact that we ate from dishes featuring scenes of the English hunt.
In fact, Grandma adored everything British.
My guess is that after disembarking from a ship on Canadian shores at three years old, she stood on the dock and made a life-long vow to surround herself with tokens from her birth country across the great pond. This included, but was not limited to, biscuits, tea, books about the Royal Family, and Royal Dalton figurines.
Horse imagery filled my childhood visits.
At Grandma’s house, horses were what I saw last before I went to sleep and what I woke up to in the morning. Her guest room walls were adorned with prints of English landscapes and replicas of paintings by British artists circa 1800’s. They displayed manors, sprawling lawns, fountains and beautiful horses.
Sweet! I remember it well.