Meme memory and an award

This is a tag from Exmoorjane's blog which I was supposed to do ages ago. Hers was the most deliciously spooky tale of  a ouija board. Mine, you may be relived to hear, isn't the slightest bit spooky.

When you have your own children things they do often trigger memories from your own childhood. Recently, for example, R6 and I were making meringue nests to serve with yoghurt and berries from the freezer (including, and I have no idea how such gems have been overlooked for so long, a handful of last year's raspberries; hidden freezer treasure).

Anyway it awoke a memory of my own childhood and my adoration of meringues. Specifically those that were two halves, sandwiched together with cream, chocolate on the insides of them and served in a dish with a cherry on the top and a teaspoon to eat it with. These particular ones were served in a cafe which was in a row of shops near the Gifford Hotel in Worcester, opposite the cathedral by the big roundabout. This was in the days before they put the statue of Elgar at the entrance to the High Street. I would have been pre-school, because my sister wasn't with me, so it would have been about 1970.

This photograph was taken immediately in front of the cathedral.

All those ugly 1960s buildings are on the site of the cathedral's original lichgate. 

This cafe was quite small. I can't remember what it was called then. Later, when I was a student at Worcester Technical College it was called Cherry Pie and had been modernised and didn't sell meringues, but when I was four it did and it was an enormous treat to have one when I went shopping in Worcester with Mum.

This particular day I was really looking forward to my meringue. I expect we were on our way to Sainsbury's or to Russell and Dorrell or, if I was very lucky, into the shop called Stephen Thursfield, which was a lovely emporium of gifts and toys and was where I bought my teddy bear Mary Plain.

We went into the cafe, Mum and I, and of course I asked for a meringue.

"I'm sorry," said the waitress breaking my heart without so much as a blink, "but I've just sold the last one to that lady over there." She pointed and I turned, tearfully, to look at the Woman Who Had the Last Meringue.

Poor woman. She never stood a chance with that meringue. She fed it to me, spoonful by delicious spoonful, while I stopped crying. What an angel.

I still love meringues, but it is hard to replicate the magic of the ones in the cafe that became Cherry Pie. I did come close once and that was a black cherry and chocolate meringue bought for me on a snowy day in Liverpool by my sister's first fiance in the Cavern centre surrounded by Beatles memorabilia.

Now it's tagging time I'm afraid, so I hereby tag (apologies if you've already been tagged for this and please feel free ignore if you don' t have the time, but see below for your award):

The world According to Little Brown Dog

Tattie Weasle

Lins' lleisio at Multi generational living - the ups and downs

Pipany

Bovey Belle at Codlins and Cream

Maddy Grigg's The World From My Window

ElizabethM's Welsh Hills Again

Now for your reward and thank you to the lovely Chris Stovell blogger at Home Thoughts Weekly and author of the eagerly awaited Turning The Tide who passed it to me.

There are a few rules that come attached to it:
1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers.
2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.
3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.
4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky so that we all can get to know the other.