It was a strange little house - two bedrooms off a small living/dining room, and a small vestibule off the living room which led to a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. It was on a big, rambling piece of land - with a garden full of fruit trees, strange little miniature may hedges, paths, rockeries, a huge pergola with a catawba grape vine over it, topiary bushes and wonderful small, secret lawns which were a child's delight.
Over the years, the house was added onto - a big, cement floored room off the verandah, where my mom and dad always slept was added, and later, a pantry, loo and a strange, long room called the "gallery" which had fibre-glass type sliding windows and was so cold and damp that I don't remember anyone ever sleeping in it; and later still, part of the front verandah was enclosed and the outside room incorporated into the house. It was always a quirky, inconvenient little house, even when it had been "improved" but it held a really special lpace in the heart of the grandchildren who had a chance to visit and stay.
My grandfather died when I was tiny, only months after moving into the house, and Grannymama lived on in the house - mostly alone - for nearly 40 years. Aunt Bridget, one of my dad's sisters spent every evening with Grannymama, but had her own home nearby. When Grannymama died at the ripe old age of 97, Aunt Val, another of Dad's sisters bought the house from the estate and moved most of her accumulated "stuff" into it, on top of most of grannymama's stuff. By this stage, Aunt Bridget lived across the road, and when she died, her house was packed up and all her "stuff" was moved to Mulgrave where it remained, unpacked, for the next 10 years. When Aunt Val died, she left the house and all its contents to my sister, Jen. Not only was Jen her god-daughter, but she and her husband, Les, were so good to Aunt Val in her last year. So Jen ended up sorting the lifetime accumulations of 3 old ladies.
We spent many holidays at Mulgrave as kids - notably a week in January every year. Jen and I got to sleep in one of the rooms off the living room, and our great delight in the morning was to sit on the end of Grannymama's bed, eat 1 Marie biscuit each out of her special tin, and play a game where we tried to catch her toes under the blanket - she was of the "austere grandmamma" type. Evenings were not such fun - after a "supper" of scrambled egg and toast with jam OR butter (not both) we would be sent to bed while the "grown-ups" had "spots" and a more interesting supper. We would lie in bed listening to the talking and laughing, and not allowed to join in - even when we were teenagers. We would kiss the "grown ups" goodnight, and be roughly patted on the back by the maiden aunts and told to "Sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite - Har!har!har!" and then off through the green and white striped plastic door curtains, not to be heard or even seen till the next morning.
My favourite time was the afternoons when all the adults would have a rest and we were banished to the garden. This was never a hardship for me - I loved the garden, even in the middle of winter, and I especially loved the small cardboard suitcase of toys were allowed to take outside to play with. In it was a miniature white glass tea-set, a set of ivory elephants from India in varying sizes, strange tin cars and dolls, and tiny cloth dolls. As I grew older, the musty books, with their cloth covers and yellowed, soft, powdery pages attracted me and I would spend hours in the gallery, choosing a book to read under the bushes.
Grannymama made wonderful preserves from the fruit in the garden and I remember the treat it was to go into the storeroom with her and choose a new bottle of marmalade or jam. The best treat was being allowed to lick the underside of the wax plug poured over the jam to keep it good.
Dinner was always at lunch time and we would set the gate-leg table - opening the table, getting the silver table-napkin rings from the drawer on the side, getting out the heavy, solid silver cutlery and cruet, along with the wooden pepper grinder (long before they became fashionable) and then carrying through the thick, blue bargain-basement crockery.
We had a few holidays on our own at Mulgrave while Grannymama was visiting her family in England. I remember Aunty Hazel, Uncle Graham and Penny coming to spend a few nights with us. It was midwinter and bitterly cold - so cold we put orange juice in the plastic cups from the thermos flask out in the garden and it froze solid overnight. Dad and Uncle Graham slept on blow up mattresses in the living room, and Uncle Graham's had a leak and went down all through the night. The highlight of that holiday was a trip to Giant's Castle - Dad and Uncle Graham climbed, and we paddled in the freezing water and had a picnic.
Another vivid memory is walking up the hill to where the Police Station is now, and looking across to Giant's Castle. Dad had set off to climb it with a friend, and at a specified time he sent us a morse code message using a mirror - such an excitement.
"Out" trips from Mulgrave included a visit every January to a huge (well, it seemed huge) grove of oak trees to listen to the Christmas beetles (cicadas), and driving out to Rosetta to the piece of land we owned on the Little Mooi River. We planted hundreds of pine trees on the very sloping plot, but never lived there. Sometimes, our Boulanger cousins would come with us, and we would count the cars of different colours coming towards us - the road we went on was the main road to Johannesburg, and there was frequently a whole line!!! of cars on it. The plot was called Brown Brooks - partly because of the peaty-brown water flowing under the willow trees, but mostly because both my Grandpa and one of my cousins slipped the first time they visited - my granpa's long white pants were definitely "brown brooks."
When Jen inherited the house, she kept it for a while as a holiday home, and we spent some wonderful weekends there, away from our busy lives. When she needed to rent the house, we helped clear it - Jen is amazingly generous and gave away all the furniture - on condition we took what was inside! So we have some lovely pieces of furniture in our home - and also many fascinating reminders of life in a less throwaway time - button hooks, chipped and mended jugs, scales, books, and the family Christening Robe which was in one of the trunks.
And now Mulgrave is sold, and Jen has had to say a final "Goodbye." She and her kids went to Mulgrave for Christmas and had a picnic in the garden and mostly empty house. When they came back last weekend from clearing up, they brought us one last gift - a plum tree grown from the plums we loved eating on summer afternoons. We've planted it where we can see it from our verandah - so every spring and summer, Mulgrave will live on in our home.
The end of an era - but what memories we have.
