Fish Friday Friday is discount day at the fresh fish counter in our local Morrison’s, and during the last few months of my mother-in-law’s life, we (Babu and I), would sometimes take her there in a wheelchair borrowed from her good friend, Mrs Duttaroy, to choose fish. It wasn’t always Morrison’s on these shopping days, which were always weekly, but a combination of the new found Aldi (near Lila’s flat in Leyton and source of many bargains); the constant of Waitrose in Stratford Westfield (her favourite Waitrose had been in Canary Wharf where she was a minor celebrity with the staff there who loved her – she’d been going on her own for a while once she was ill with the help of Dial-a- Ride, but Canary Wharf was a bit hard logistically with all the other required shops on one day); and Westfield M&S. She had online vouchers for both Waitrose and M&S which, for some reason, we never got round each week to choosing and downloading before we were actually in the shops and balancing bags, basket and wheelchair – it was always a laugh! There could also be a scattering of local Asian shops for specialist items, and after a coup with a £1.00 bowl of mini cucumbers and two aubergines (my mother-in-law had made me shift the aubergines to join the cucumbers, directing through the car window, so she could give the latter to Rajesh as she always did with his meal that Sunday – the shop keeper couldn’t see from inside the shop!) we’d routinely stop the car outside that shop near her house to see if they had any more. They never did. On the last Saturday before she died, my mother-in-law made the sterling effort of navigating Waitrose and M&S in one go, and then a new shop, Krishna Cash and Carry on Romford Road, as recommended by one of her carers. She tasked me with a complicated order that I was worried about getting wrong. Babu sensed this and gallantly insisted on trying. He received a massive telling off when he came back to the car with already puffed pani puri (which will go soft, obviously) and had to go back for the flat pre-puffed ones (it’s a complicated business.) Poor Babu! She said that was why she’d wanted me to go in and that I would never have made such a stupid mistake! (Not so sure myself, but I did enjoy the moment of her thinking the best of me!) She passed away the next Friday. Yesterday, I felt I managed to bring a chapter to a close; but then not really as my mother-in-law’s spirit is indefatigable, and in the many places it will live on, it will surely be in shopping. I went to Morrison’s and was served by the guy who’d always been so kind and helpful with (and I have to say this) my mother-in-law’s at times pretty demanding requests! He’d cut and scaled whole salmon to very precise measurements while queues formed; and memorably, on the Friday before mothering Sunday this year, had given her a huge amount of sardines for pennies after she complained that they were substandard. He’d agreed that they were a bad catch. I told him about her passing, and he was genuinely sad. I thanked him for how he’d gone out of his way to help us during that time, and he said he’d really liked her and what a strong woman she was. He also asked how Babu was bearing up. I reflected yesterday on the world that my mother-in-law opened up to me, often from these quotidian encounters. I already miss her weekly tips for special offers in the supermarkets that she’d find via Mrs Duttaroy or on her iPad, which she was using right up until the end of her life for shopping updates and YouTube recipe experimentation), but grateful that she gave me a ‘way in’: to east London, to finding enjoyment in food, and watching and learning from the way she engaged with people from all walks of life. She had no fear, really, which was utterly refreshing, and a charm that will keep her forever in so many people’s memories.