That cinches it.

'What are you going to do about your blog?' a writing friend asks.
'I thought of turning it into a kind of memoir,' I replied.
The thinking behind this is that what flutters by these days is often a memory, triggered by some event or conversation. Maybe this would be a way to harvest more of the richness of my life so far (to mix metaphors. Well, ever since I was a little girl, I've always enjoyed baking.)

On Thursday my daughter-in-law arrived to drop off my grandson, already almost 20 months old. She told me how much easier mornings were, now that she prepares outfits for the week ahead and pegs them together. I told her the anecdote I'm about to convey to you, dear blog readers, and she said, 'Brenda, you really ought to write all this down.'
So here goes.

During my early years, I lived in my maternal grandparents' house in a small town on the Gold Reef of the Transvaal, as it was then. My memories of the rooms are vague, but they seemed dark, rather Victorian in feel. There was a big black coal stove in the kitchen and my grandmother used to make the most delicious apple pies.

My mother lived there with her older brother and two younger sisters. From the age of sixteen until she married at thirty, she took the train into Johannesburg every day to go to work. And so did the sister who was two years younger, although she married earlier. (Have you got that straight?) Of the three, Mom had the best fashion sense and 'always looked immaculate', as my friend who phoned with condolences not so long ago remarked.

Every night before she went to bed, she'd lay out her clothes for the morning. But often, her younger sister took advantage and wore whatever was waiting. And so, in that household, the motto was: 'First dressed is best dressed!'