What's your favourite memory of your grandparents?

[SneakyGremlins]

I remember being ill at Grandma's and a magic bowl of her divine chicken soup appearing, with a bread roll from Birds. Then we'd watch Midsomer Murders together odd thing to watch with an 8 year old but I digress

How about you?

I thought my grandmother was Tina Turner because they looked so alike.

My Grandad making us specs out of the plastic that came with his 4 pack of tins of lager! Picking mint from his veg patch to go with Granny's roast lamb.
Staying over and having these huge doorstep cheese butties just before bedtime. We never had a supper at home and so thought this was the strangest thing! (Northern lass so supper means a meal before bedtime!) Watching Blockbusters and being horrified that my Granny fancied Bob Holness

Love the Tina Turner lookalike Nan! How cool!

My nan & grandad telling their war stories; my grandad sat in his favourite chair; my nans cooking, lots of memories..

Sleeping on a z-bed in the corner of my grandparents room unable to sleep with the monumental snoring going on. Finally the teasmade going off and us all getting up in the dark to walk across town to their shop, where we'd wait in the back for the deliveries and help when they arrived. It smelt of slightly rotting veg and newspaper ink and we were allowed to eat anything past its sell by date. We'd spend the day putting stock out, pricing stuff up with the label gun and putting stuff through the till and going to the sweet shop next door

I used to go to my Granny's every day after school. We'd watch Blue Peter and she'd give me two homemade biscuits. In the summer I'd help her pick runner beans in her garden.

This has made me suddenly and unexpectedly weepy for my paternal grandparents. (My maternal GF was a bastard and maternal GM is 86 and going well).

Our house was near the top of a hill. DGPs used to come visit on a Tuesday, and bring chocolate biscuits and Lucozade. I remember always looking down the hill being so excited waiting for them to turn up.

DGM used to make us tea and always said "is there enough milk in there?" with a concerned look. Last year DF, her son, made me a tea and asked "is there enough milk in there?" with the exact same expression.

DGF was a kind and gentle man. He was also a rascal. He told us he was 89 when he was in his mid 70s, to see us go you're ancient

DGM adored children and was so soft with them (though her core was solid steel). She would have let my then-toddler nephew away with burning her house down and thought it cute. I sometimes wish she was still around to see my DC. She would have adored them so much.

@happystory I love that your grandparents help you get to sleep still.

Tea at my paternal granny's house - so many things my (permanently broke) mother would never buy, or only for birthday parties.
Dairylea triangles! Penguin biscuits! Orange jelly with tinned mandarin oranges in!

I often wish I'd told her later how much I loved those teas. After she died I took the glass bowl she used to make the jelly in - it wasn't the most beautiful but I was sentimental about it and really upset when it finally got broken.

I had the jelly too!

My nan always cooked me pie, mash and beans. My favourite meal! She died around 15 years ago. She was so lovely unlike her son!!

My Granddad taught me to lay a fire, make tea with tea leaves, set the range, smoke cigarettes so that a German sniper couldn't see the glow/it wouldn't get soggy if it rained (in theory, he didn't give me cigarettes!), gave me loads of advice, all essentially about magic/superstition/living with nature and made me feel safe and special all the time.

His maisonette smelled of beeswax and paraffin from the brass lamps, there was always real butter in a dish in the pantry and Jersey Milk on the dresser. He planted Forget-me-nots, climbing roses and Honeysuckle outside the bedroom window for Nanny and grew Sweet Peas for her to put in a crystal vase on her dressing table.

Nanny had a huge wardrobe with some fur coats, shelves for hats - and hats in hatboxes with beautiful feathers and trimmings (her family were successful Milliners prior to WWII and the hats had been kept long after - probably contained some from endangered or now extinct species, to be honest). She had a triple mirror dressing table with distinctive glass perfume atomisers and trays for her jewellery and a silver hairbrush and matching hand mirror. After she died, Granddad kept it exactly as was.

Everytime we went there, we had lamb rolled around sage and onion stuffing, potatoes, carrots, peas and a tinned tomato. And he obviously charmed somebody after Nanny died (suddenly, undiagnosed cancer), as he had fruitcake brought to him by 'the woman down the road' who my mother, naturally, absolutely detested.

Granddad smelled of whatever he used as handcream, which was seen as strange for a man, but it was probably something he'd done from looking after horses from his childhood.

There was a wooden musical box at the back of his living room that he used to stash big bars of chocolate that he'd give me when my mother was down the village getting his shopping.

But the best memory was one that happened every time we left. He'd 'brustle' me. I'd go to kiss him goodbye, his periwinkle blue eyes would gleam and he'd rub his grey bristles over my cheek as he cuddled me. I'd wriggle and squawk and I loved it.

So, so many! Eating tomato soup with a slice of bread broken into pieces and floated on top.
Sunday lunch .
Getting the table out ready for a meal - it was a card table with a green baize top and folding legs with clicky catches.
On Christmas Day, they would arrive at our house mid morning, with a bag of presents for my sister and I, then we would have dinner.
About 3pm we would go to their house and various family members would arrive. Nanna would do a buffet tea, and there would be a tin of Heinz potato salad decanted into a cut glass bowl on little legs.
They don't make it anymore, and the bowl is long gone, but I remember that goopy stuff as nectar of the gods and would kill to have some one more time!
I remember the distinctive smell of my granda's car, and the door handles. I think it was a Hillman something or other, but not sure.
After Granda died, I remember sleeping over and Nanna and I watching V together. It felt like it was really late at night, and we would have a supper tray with hot buttered toast, cake, biscuits, and a pot of tea while we waited for it to start
Happy days

Oh this is absolutely lovely to read!

Ah.. Such fond memories.

I still have my grandparents tg. But was very close to them as a child

My granny would bring me into town every other saturday to have a 'granny day' she'd call it. She'd buy me clothes and we'd have lunch.

My grandad would pick me up from school everyday and we would sing along to Aerosmith and he would do funny dances in the car. We would go to the local supermarket and decide what to have for dinner.. Then home to the house to watch matilda or Barnie.

My granny would bring me up to her friends house and they'd give me milkshakes..

Then when i got older they'd bring me on holiday every summer for a month to spain with them. They are honestly the best most kind grandparents ever. I will be heartbroken when I lose them.

Every time I went to my granny's she showed me this mat with lots of men's faces on them. I asked her who they were and she said they were all her boyfriends. She went into detail about when she was with them/their names/if they had a motorbike etc. I believe this for years until I was told that they were all the past American Presidents!

How I only ever liked food the way 'grandad made it'.. Only grandad could make the nice porridge or nice dinners.

Such fond fond memories sitting at the breakfast table me as a young child with him showing me how to butter a slice of bread or how tasty banana with porridge and sugar is. Still my favourite combination.

I love keeping a few plates and random bits from their home in my home just so I can feel them around even though they are alive.

I thought of another one
We had a holiday cottage in a village in North Yorkshire. My great grandfather bought it, and we would go there at least four times a year.
Nanna and Granda would come too at least twice a year.
The bed in their room seemed so high when I was small, getting in was like climbing Everest but in we would go, every morning, and Nanna would tell us another story. Oddly enough, I can't remember the actual stories, she made them up as they went along, but I remember that time so clearly.
She would make breakfast too, and let us have warm milk on the cereal, and we were thrilled cos we thought we had "got one over on her" lol.
Now I have children of my own, I appreciate what she did even more, she was giving my Mam and Dad time off for themselves, and a lie in, and that is beyond price!

When my mum was poorly in hospital 400 miles away (long story) and my dad had taken off , my grandma and grandpa took me and my sister in for a week . They didn’t have to but they did to stop us going into care . I still remember sleeping in their bed with a big cosy electric blanket . Carrot soup for tea and coco pops for breakfast . Grandma didn’t have much toys but we played games such as Kim’s game , or papa read us stories , we went walking etc ... Grandpa died 15 years ago and grandma has advanced Alzheimer’s . Miss them every day , there’s was the house I felt safest in as a child .

I have a bookcase in my room my Grandpa’s father made, his books , my grandma’s books , grandpas sisters toy chest and a few other old bits and pieces , plus blankets for my dolls that my grandma sewed . I admit I still sniff the books occasionally as they smell of grandpa - he was a professor and he had a wonderful distinctly old smell ... think it was the tweed ...

Sticking my finger in the Marge and sugar when making rock cakes and getting a telling off. She totally knew we did it and turned her back for longer than necessary so we could do it and then gently scolded.... before purposefully turning her back again.

'Have the garden gnomes put their fingers in my Marge again?!'

What are your childhood memories of your grandparents' house? http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1334608-What-are-your-childhood-memories-of-your-grandparents-house

This is a lovely thread for you lot.

And grandad letting me pick the horses based on the colours

My Nanny whizzing along in her electric wheelchair when we went out to walk the dog, and us all having to walk really fast to keep up with her

My Grandad was grumpy but a proper softy at heart. We lived a couple of hours away so only saw them every few weeks. He used to get a bit tearful when we left and I always remember him standing on the road waving us goodbye with tears rolling down his cheeks 😢

So many but the one that meant the most to me was my grandad picking me up from school at lunchtimes after months of not eating my school dinners because I was busy hiding from my bully. I'd run to his car and would always have to move the still warm loaf of bread he'd fetched from the bakers off the seat, the car always smelled amazing. The smell of fresh bread still makes me feel safe, he was my absolute hero and I miss him so much