Telling tales

I come from a family of storytellers, weaving their tales as we all settle back round the  mahogany table, the meal long since cleared away and coffee drunk; whilst the afternoon glides slowly into twilight.
It is here as a child I learnt about Punkle,the cat who would only eat fresh sardines; of my grandmother's ire at catching my father reading by candlelight beneath the bedcovers; of my mother, her twin sister and the 'bomb' in the waste paper basket.
These are our tales, our family history; the words that give us a true sense of who we are and where we come from; the stories that we in turn tell our children, to keep the memories alive.

Now I am grown there are other tables and other tales that spin their way into our shared history. Those of my husband's family; a people dispossessed and removed from their country of birth; the other side of the coin in a Europe torn apart by war. These too are tales that shape my son's understanding, not only of his roots, but of the harsh realities of conflict.

When I started writing, it was to put down somewhere all those random thoughts that flutter through my mind like moths in the moonlight; but it has slowly become my weaving of tales.....memories for my son to share at his table, after the meal has been cleared, and the settling time begins.