What are your childhood memories of your grandparents' house?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

I was schrunching some foil today and it reminded me of the Vitalite tub of milk bottle tops for the Guide Dogs (always a concept I struggled to undersand) at my DGP's house.

And the whoosh hit of tomato smell in the greenhouse.

And the tea caddy of buttom at the other DGP's house.

And the duoble loo roll holder for soft paper (guests) and Izal (unfortunate family).

And rice pudding with skin on.

And a shiny 5p coin for whomever had the smallest new potato on their plate at Sunday lunch.

Good times. Bittersweet memories.

[Louise1956]

The things i remember about my grandmother's house are the revolving clothesline she had in the garden, which i found very fascinating, and she had candlewick bedspreads, which I thought very interesting too, and electric blankets. Also when i went to stay with her i got to watch the Tv programmes that my parents would never watch - The avengers and the man from Uncle and Adam Adamant etc.

[Mutley77]

Yeah the tea trolley - bring back the tea trolley :)

White toast with butter and jam (weren't allowed it at home...)

Bumpy wallpaper, like the stuff DH & I stripped off all the walls in our first home!

The clock going ding dong every hour.

Ahhhhh love love love!

[Dancingwiththedrummer]

Floral china plates

Smell of onion gravy

My grandad playing harmonica

Blankets with satin edges

Digging for dinner (veg patch)

Dozing in the afternoon with a black and white film on in the background

Big lunches with salmon sandwiches for tea

The coo coo clock

Floral fitted sofa covers

[NigellasDealer]

bread soda
the hot press
dark wood
the smell of the river
the smell of the guinness factory
tea and biscuits on a plate

[Yama]

I was one of four children and I used to escape to my Nana and Papa's flat for a week at a time in the holidays.

Jigsaws, readings books, going for woodland walks and meeting up with all of their friends at a local tea room. I loved it. It seems I have the right temperament for retirement.

[firstchoice]

My maternal grandmother was a drunk and didn't know who I was.
My paternal grandmother wouldn't have my mother and I in the house (I never met her). I later discovered that was because he wasn't actually my dad at all.
My 'real Dad's' mother I met in my early teens.
Very little time with her before she developed Alzheimers.

BUT

2 doors down from us in our terraced street was a little old lady who lived alone. From the age of 4, I used to go round on a Sunday afternoon with a huge bunch of yellow roses (we were dirt poor but had a massive rose bush in our garden).
That lady (Miss Maxted) and I use to play shops, bake shortbread, and she made me a ballet skirt to twirl in (before her eyes went and even though we couldn't afford ballet). I remember the Corona man bringing American Cream Soda she got in just for me. I remember the spidery bathroom and the Izal loo paper. The teeny itichen and the very solid ancient fridge. The picture of her fiancée from WW1, in pride of place all her life. She would tell me about all her long dead brothers and sisters. Playing with a button box.
We used to watch the James Herriot Vet series on TV. And Black Beauty. Later, I got her a budgie with my pocket money and she loved him. I learned to make her (endless) cups of tea. She died when I was 15. By then I'd moved 10 miles away and visited every other week. Her mean cousin who didn't like me (who I think had always been scared Miss Maxted would 'give' her house to me when she died?) didn't tell me she was ill and asking for me in hospital. I only knew she'd died after I was rapping on her door for 15 mins a fortnight later and another neighbour said: 'didn't you know, she's dead?'. I was in BITS.
I was very very upset at the funeral. I felt very guilty I had not said goodbye. I took her some yellow roses.
Shortly after I was standing in the kitchen one night and felt a 'hand' on my shoulder. I looked, and it was hers, complete with marcasite ring and paisley sleeve. When I looked round there was no one there but I felt she had come to say she didn't blame me for not saying goodbye.

I am so grateful I knew her.

My two children have almost no contact with their GP's .
It makes me very sad.

[daftbesom]

Mine too had teaspoons with saints on the handle ("Apostle Spoons"), and Sing Something Simple on the radio!

The gas fire actually had a setting called "Miser Rate" - how I longed to turn it up to something that would actually make me warm!

Playing cards.

Geraniums.

The sound of a car speeding by on the cobbles outside.

[morchoxplz]

A money box by the phone (?) shaped like a toadstool. It had s chimney you pressed in and a slot would pop up to put a coin in.

The smell of box hedges and tomatoes growing

Newts and frogs in a tank in the greenhouse

Narrow single beds with diversions in a silky gold colour

A built in cupboard referred to as a 'vim' cupboard

Stringing runner beans outside in the sun

Nan making Mint sauce being made by chopping the leaves holding the knife at both ends

Trifle,milk loaf,fishpaste, v v v strong orange squash,swissroll.

A ticking clock

Polishing 'the silver' which mostly turned out not to be.

[flatbellyfella]

The only memory I have of my dear nana, on my mothers side was visiting them as a small child on a train, to a place called Snatchwood, near pontypool in South Wales, they lived in a little tin bungalow & next door was my uncle , a very rough track led up to the bungalow, outside of the back door there was a wooden gate that led up to some woods. I have no memory of inside of the house.
On my Fathers side granny Flatbellyfella did not know who I was when as a 13 year old, I cycled 16 miles from Bath,to Heywood,a tiny hamlet outside of Westbury in Wiltshire, after explaining I was one of their sons boys, I was invited in to a tiny room with an open fire with a big old cast iron kettle boiling away, a large pare of Bulls horns hung above the fire,& a First World War Bugle on a cord, they gave me a cup of tea before I left on my return journey, a visit to their outside toilet was not a nice experience, it was just a wooden shed with a bench with a hole in it, placed over a large smelly hole in the ground.

[Teddybeau1988]

The really colourful, pattern carpet.
The half moon rug in front of the fire place.
Watching Dads army on her tv on Saturday evenings.
Lots of cakes and buscuits