Mats

I came across these the other day. They used to belong to my lovely grandmother and were made by her friend, Nell Wallace. Nell was from Shetland and was a wonderful knitter and crocheter. She was one of those people who always had some knitting or crochet on the go and would sit there, chatting away and barely looking at her work - never using a printed pattern, just making it up. She and her husband were a very sweet couple - very smiley and kind. 

The Wallaces, Nell and Bill, were my grandparents' best friends. They used to be neighbours when my grandparents first came to Edinburgh. Then, in the early 1930s, the Wallaces bought a newly-built house and urged my grandparents to buy one in the same street, so they did. My grandparents lived there all the rest of their lives. They had only had one child - my mother - and the Wallaces had two, both a bit younger than Mum: Margaret and young Bill. The families grew up together.

Years later, when my parents got married, the Wallaces moved across town to look after an elderly relative, and Mum and Dad rented, and later bought, the Wallaces' house. I grew up there till I was 12, with Granny and Grandpa living just over the road, which was great.  The Wallaces and my grandparents remained the best of friends, and visited often; and my mum stayed in touch with young Bill and Margaret too till the end. Young Bill was a keen mountaineer and died in his 70s,  of a heart attack as he reached the top of a mountain. Appropriate, if a bit early for someone so apparently fit. Margaret died in her eighties, a few years ago. I kept in touch with her after Mum died. 

There's a very sad aspect to this story. The Wallaces' son, young Bill, married and had two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter had multiple physical handicaps and also learning difficulties and died a few years ago, and the son tragically killed himself years before, as very young man, by stepping in front of a train. Margaret never married and had no children. So, alas, Nell and her husband have no living descendants. 

Nell made lots of these mats and my granny used these ones (there were more) on her dining table. The bigger ones are the size of dinner plates. When Granny died, my mum must have kept them and then they came down to me. I never use them. My children will never use them. And yet I cherish them because of the lovely Wallaces. I hope I'm not the only person who remembers them.

We've had beautiful weather this week, and I've spent some time sitting in the shade, reading

and looking down the garden at the new bit of lawn where there used to be a big hedge.