Nostalgia.

I had a fortuitous escape the other day, walking down Queen Victoria Street with a stalker hot on my heels, calling: are you married? are you married? So I ducked into the Methodist Bookshop and lo, there I found a set of 1970's Supercook encyclopedias. Back then, my mother used to collect the exact same thing in magazine form. Full of family favourites. I taste them as I turn the pages. Some rather wild styling:

Dutch split pea soup, cooked on Friday. Chocolate Almond Rum cake, Oxtail ragout, Courgette fritters, Apricot tart... coming up.

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

It's been a month full of things that take me back. A courier arrived at my door on Thursday with a large parcel. A lump in my throat as I unwrapped it - an old Persian rug, bought by my father at an auction many years before I was born. I have little that is tangible from the house where I spent the first ten years of my life, yet it features as a backdrop in dream after lucid dream. There's my father standing on the dining room table, changing a light bulb. Through a window, I see my mother in the garden - she wipes her forehead with the back of her hand and leaves a muddy streak. My brother is in the scullery, rolling a banana in a slice of white bread. The passage is really long and I'm still scared of the dark.

My father died ten years ago, in June.

My brother died nine years ago, in June.

Such gentle people.

I miss them.