Memories and Tales spun by Aunty Barbara and Uncle Roy

We visited them this weekend. They were so happy to see us. Their beautiful home with the huge lace covered windows welcomed the morning sun and gave us a stunning view of their beautiful garden and the mountain ranges beyond. I remembered their home from my childhood when we used to visit Aunty Barbara’s parents, Aunty Meriam and Uncle Sam (Mathau). They were famous for always hosting parties and we were invited to many of them when we were in Nuwara Eliya on school holiday. Aunty Barbara is so like them with an open heart and home. We spent a couple of hours with them while they reminisced the good times they had when they were young and when Nuwara Eliya was much lovelier and more exclusive than it was now.

Aunty Barbara told us how they used to dress up and go dancing and then walk back in their high-heeled shoes and party-wear escorted by their gallants who were just that….. Gallant and Chivalrous; and how every little occasion, birthday, christening, graduation, first Holy Communion, whatever, turned out to be a party. Guests needed no invitations and the hostesses just catered to the numbers which would inevitably turn up.

The New Mayor of Nuwara Eliya had a number of compliments from Uncle Roy, who said that after a long time a Mayor is actually doing something for the town. They were proud of the white picket like fences marching along the park into town girded by the antique-like lamp posts. I felt that the fence would have been better pained in green rather than white….

Uncle Roy has green thumbs and Aunty Barbara is rightly very proud of their lovely garden. They had generously made up a huge bag of plants for Sunethra to carry home with her when she professed an interest in plants. They had roses of all hues, huge pansies, arum lilies, honey suckle, daisies, huge bouquets of hydrangea and so much more. To cap it all, a little apple tree which held wee red perfect apples stood guard by their back door.

We were invited to dinner the following night and had a lovely evening gathered around the dining table in gales of laughter with tales of the antics that Uncle Roy and Daddy used to get upto when they were young. A note of sadness that tinged the evening is that Uncle Roy had been diagnosed with cancer in the sinuses and has had several operations. He has another check up pending which he has been putting off from January this year. Uncle Roy still cuts a dashing figure, but is so much more slimmer with pain carved into his handsome face. Aunty Barbara on the other hand is a lively, lovely, warm motherly person whose instinct seems to nurture and nourish everything and everyone who comes her way. Their mantle-piece over the fireplace held a jumble of pictures of their family and their home, like ours, is open to their dogs who rush in and out of the house, regardless of mud and dirt, being very much part of the family.

Uncle Roy’s brother, Uncle Brian came to dinner too and had their dog smallie in raptures of delight. He is apparently her (the dog’s) favourite person outside immediate family. After dinner, coffee and long-long chats, we walked back to Unique View in the still cool night. What a lovely place Nuwara Eliya is.