My proxy grandmother

(Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple)

I am lucky that I didn't lose the first of my parents until I was fifty-four and my mother is still alive; albeit with little memory or recognition due to dementia.

On the other hand I only ever knew one of my four grandparents; my maternal grandmother being the only one still alive when I was born and she passed on when I was seventeen. So I had only limited experience of grandparent attention.

I find it a bit odd that at sixty years of age I have acquired, uninvited, a proxy grandmother in the form of one of the other hospital volunteers who has taken a shine to me and off her own bat decided to guide me.

This woman is ancient. I'm not sure what her age is but to give you some idea of what she might be just consider that she completed more than fifty years as a nurse at the hospital and now has passed twenty-five years as a volunteer! I'm sure some of this must have been concurrent otherwise she would be close to a hundred or more now.

She wears rows of badges on her volunteer's blouse to mark the many milestones she achieved in each role such that she has the appearance of a Russian General bedecked in his service medals.

After my recent bout of vertigo following ear damage, proxy grandmother took to giving me advice on healthy eating. She started bringing in empty packages of food items she purchases for her own dining and runs through the cooking instructions for me (as if I am unable to read the instructions for myself) whilst patients queue up behind her waiting to receive attention from me.

Of course she is well intentioned but her total lack of awareness of the impact of these impromptu mentoring sessions is a bit embarrassing. I don't have the heart to cut her short and so bear with it until she feels she has provided me with the guidance she so clearly thinks that I need.