Do you remember honorary Aunty Jill, her dimples and stories? She is as engaging as a dinner party host who can’t remember your name and doesn’t want you to know… mind you Jill doesn’t forget much!

I last met Jill on the train to the big smoke… “Oh darling, you’ll never guess where I’ve been!”, turns out she had spent the last hour on the roof of her house. She had lost a ‘pudding doll’, and proceeded to reel me in, “Darling what the hell is a pudding doll? I found out the hard way.”

A pudding doll a hunk of porcelain in the shape of a doll which, when placed in the centre of a pudding, ensures consistent heat distribution and pastry rising, I think. Not Jill’s, not very pretty, not too doll-like but an heirloom, apparently.

Turns out a friend of Jill’s had brought around a pudding to share and left the remainder for the family. Jill, in her wisdom, had feed the rest to the dog after the pudding was left languishing at the back of the fridge. The dog ate only a small piece and then turned its nose up, so Jill threw it on the roof for the possums. She’d never had the heart to get rid of those noisy roof-space guests.

Jill returned the pudding bowl, now clean, dry and polished, whilst enthusing about how much they had enjoyed the rest of it. The friend inquired about the ‘doll’. “The what dear? Pudding doll? Oh, the pudding doll.” Inwardly Jill replayed the whole scenario at speed, she remembered no doll, but her friend was ‘old reliable’, so Jill suspected that doll was now lying, alone, on her roof.

She couldn’t bring herself to confess. “I think Tony gave it to Damien to give to me to give to you, it was such a pretty little thing, ha ha, we handed it around, I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.” Back at home, in a panic (“It was an heirloom Jill” on repeat in her head), she climbed onto the roof in her good coat and high-heels. Danger and effort so often go unrewarded, as they did in Jill’s case that day. “What am I to do Aunty Mod? She loves that stupid thing and I threw it away.”

She paused, then said “Well that or the dog swallowed it and I’ll find it in the yard eventually!”

I heard from Jill two weeks later. She decided to tell her friend all. She just couldn’t live with the guilt nor thoughts of a cold, all alone, now infamous, pudding doll on her roof… or worse. Her friend replied that all was well, she had discovered it at home, and how funny is that, it had never been anywhere near the pudding…!

So what is a pudding doll between friends? A lot as it tuns out… no more puddings have been shared to date as far as I know, but you’ll be the second to know if there is.

love

Aunty Mod

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