Dearest, dearest Gertie

Brighton was windy and wild. The sea was browny-grey as it thrashed the silt and stones. The waves were huge – one, then another, then another, fairly small waves, followed by several swelling, smashing, crashing versions, which moved so quickly that you had to run from them. It was exhilarating and enough to blow away cobwebs of insomnia. S drove there and back, enabling me to drop off on the way home. I was hugely gratified. Weeks of bad sleep and a very late Saturday night would have taken a far harder toll, otherwise.

Wandering down Brighton's lanes, we easily found my favourite fudge shop, which produces vanilla chunks that are almost, but not quite as tasty, as those my grandma used to make. She was the ultimate doll's dressmaker as well as a first-class sweet and treat cook. I had a few cookbooks as a child, one was dedicated to sweets and another was filled with recipes and ideas for puddings and cakes. Every Sunday was baking day – I'd pretend to be on 'Why Don't You' as I talked my mum through every step of what I was preparing.

When my grandma first visited England, she brought a huge bag of fudge for us. But I was seven and thought the home-made flat patties were savoury biscuits. It was only when there were a few left at the bottom of the storage jar that I tasted one, and how I regret, to this day, not appreciating my grandma's efforts. She was talented, quiet and loving, and died all too soon, after suffering a stroke, on my mother's sixtieth birthday. People came round anyway and together we remembered Gertie, as she was nicknamed: a strong woman, the ultimate in grace, generosity (what very little she had she gave to her family) and a classic iron-fist-in-velvet-glove. I wish I'd spent more time with her – she was the only one of my grandparents I met – but she spent her final years in cold, cold Canada with a dear uncle of mine, and then had to go into a nursing home for 24-hour care, from where she finally left for good.

My memories of Gertie, though few, are clear and evocative. She loved watching wrestling on the TV and shouted at the screen, gesticulating all the while. Her cooking was divine. Her eyes sparkled, probably right up until the end. I have her eyes, hands and fingernails, and I love clothes, just as my mum does. Maybe I can blame my maternal genes for my shopping habit. Thinking of her after what may have been her penultimate stroke is harsh. She could barely speak, move or feed herself. My heart broke and I was the only one there to lose control and cry although we all felt the same, standing there as helpless as it is possible to be. She managed to tell my mum: "I wan' go home..." and by that she meant back to her South American homeland, where it's sunny, and fat, sweet fruit hangs off garden trees. I thought I saw her in my bedroom a night or so before she died.

I wonder what Gertie would have made of the larks on Brighton Pier... I think she'd have laughed and laughed and wondered at how so many people could waste so much money. Especially on nonsense such as these bizarre X-Factor and Robbie Williams dolls that were in one of those machines where you guide the metal arm (after slotting in £2 or something equally silly), and fail to get the thing to clamp on to any part of the so-called prize...

... which brings me on to Celebrity Big Brother. Shilpa Shetty won! The Great British Public are indeed great. Jermaine Jackson was the runner-up and Dirk Benedict was third. Marvellous stuff. But I'm relieved it's over.