Family Memories in a Blue Cup

I spent the August long-weekend at the cottage, as is my habit, and amongst the games, dinners, drinks and other frivolities, I was stopped in my tracks by a blue cup.

Now, it wasn't fancy, not even glass: it was a stackable, plastic, cobalt blue drinking cup that dated back to the seventies, and it transported me instantly to my childhood.

Suddenly, I was back in the kitchen at the cottage, my grandmother was perched on her stool, baking bread in the wood stove, my Dad and I were sitting down to breakfast, and Moira the yellow lab was cruising through to the kitchen by way of the wormwood gate. The coke bottles perched on the end of my nose were thick, plastic and decidedly un-stylish, and I lived in my deep purple velour tracksuit with pink applique butterflies over the breast. (hey, I've never claimed to be a style maven) Sun was streaming through the grape vines trellised over the picnic table in the courtyard, the French doors were open and there was a stiff Westerly blowing in the Channel: enough to rock the rusty old porch swing and ruffle the thick white braid fringe around its' canopy.

And all this from a small plastic cup.

(kind of like this:)