“Well, if it isn’t little Emma, I haven’t seen you since you’d lick the cream off the milk tops.”

I’d know that voice anywhere, my Granny’s neighbour, I turned around delighted to see her.

“Mrs Langan, it’s so good to see you, you look so well.”

“It’s the life boy soap Emma, even the wrinkles don’t like the smell of it, I’m half way through my second last bar and I’ll not leave this earth till it’s all gone.”

“I haven’t seen you since…”

“Since your Granny died, she got to the gates of heaven a half an hour before the devil knew she was dead.”

“Would you like to come for a coffee?”

“You don’t drink tea anymore, no?

“I do, tea then? Perhaps a bit of lunch?”

“Ach eye, indeeding I will.”

I brought her to the nearest restaurant. As she took her seat she let rip, a thunderous sound, “Better out than me eye,” she announced.

“What would you like to eat?” I asked.

“Bacon and Cabbage,” she announced, I explained it was a Thai restaurant.

“Thigh? they only do chicken thighs, funny sort of a place, oh I’ll have two of them with a few spuds and gravy so.”

After I explained and offered to go elsewhere, she questioned if they had chicken.

“They have chicken in any dish,” I said.

“You can pick something tasty for me so.”

I ordered her a sweet and sour chicken dish with some egg fried rice. The waiter walked away and Mrs Langan announced he would make me a nice husband. I laughed and told her I was engaged.

“Aww, that’s great news, it’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love. Your granny used to pray to our Lady, but when it came to you, she prayed to St. Jude. It worked… all grown up with no convictions and a man, she’d be proud.”

She tilted herself scow-ways, raised her rear and let rip again, the lady at the next table scorned, in which Mrs Langan announced, “Wait till it lands and you’ll see it’s sweeter than your perfume, I’ll suffer no pain for man or beast, it’s part and parcel of being human.”

When her meal arrived, she questioned the rice, telling the waiter, rice was a dessert in her time, “I see you serve the whole family together now, as she pointed at the chicken and then at the egg in the fried rice.”

She did enjoy it though and despite trying to avoid flying grains of rice, I did too. She reminisced about the past and told me many stories, bringing memories of holidays in my Grannies to the forefront of my mind.

“Always up to the devilment and acting the maggot, your poor Granny didn’t get a minute’s peace with you. She’d tell me she loved to see you coming and she loved to see you going.” She broke into laughter; I dodged the food shower with my napkin. She continued, “My heart misses her, but my head stores all the shenanigans we used to get up to and that gives me great laughs.”

The tea arrived and she drank it. She took her false teeth out into her hankie on the table and proceeded to take the chicken and rice from each tooth with a toothpick. The lady at the next table gagged.

Mrs Langan brought my Granny out in me as we both laughed like young childer. It was to be the first of many encounters.