….with marmalade

Threading Together

 

I have always disliked marmalade so when my mother, whose needlework and beadwork skills are amazing and who is also a creative, experimental and excellent cook, added it to my favourite sweet snack, Chinese green mung bean soup, I refused to eat it. My little sister Jennifer and I were spending half term with her in a flat in London where she was learning to cut hair with Vidal Sassoon, while my father was in Ibadan working for the British Council. I don’t know if she was thinking she could earn her own living from hairdressing should she need to.

Anyhow, I was left in the kitchen to eat the soup while Jennifer joined her in the living room to watch whatever was on TV. Every now and again, Jennifer would come into the kitchen, run the tap,  pretend to drink a glass of water while taking a few spoonfuls of the adulterated soup, which miraculously disappeared over the course of the evening.