As if it were yesterday . . .

These three, two brothers and their cousin, had not seen each other for a year, since the boys live near Glasgow; yet their play on meeting again was as if the separation had not happened.  Or perhaps it was because of the separation.

Here they are sitting on a monk's seat intended for one adult.  They are tucking into a family tradition started by my mother.  She attended a convent in south India when young, where her father was a manager on the Indian railways (he worked on the railways in Ghana later, and designed a stamp for Ghana).  At that convent the nuns would make a dessert only on feast days and which they called Marquée au Chocolat (I might have that spelling wrong), or Feast-Day Pudding.  My mother's mother managed to persuade the nuns to give her the recipe, but which women in the Barker family have kept a secret since then, passed on only through the women of the family.  It is a very rich chocolate concoction, easily made and delicious.  These three have only a little of the stuff because it is so rich and filling.

Long ago, when we had FDP in the UK, my brother and I would sneak into the kitchen in the dead of night to steal a little of what was left from the evening's meal.  Or steal from each other's allocation.  It was another family tradition . . .