Lizzie (1956 - 2020)
The born chef
3 meals on my terrace
No chance to say goodbye
Lizzie died very suddenly in 2020. And I couldn't get to her funeral, since it was the height of the pandemic, and I would have had to stay in isolation until well after the funeral had taken place.
When I was in my late teens, we four children were in Leytonstone, a London suburb, staying with my maternal grandfather. Whenever I went anywhere, my tiny sister Lizzie would reach out and clasp my little finger. We went everywhere like that, and I remember thinking, "I am never going to love anyone as much as I love this little girl." (Well of course I did, but the feeling was real.)
Her wedding, to Roman, was the only time in my life I had a chance to dress up formally as an usher.
When my mother took us all to Australia, in late 1986, Lizzie fell in love with Rod, a third-generation Aussie. Still in Oxford, I wasn't able to go to their wedding.
But I was by now able to fly to Perth regularly, and Lizzie and Rod came to stay with me for 2 or 3 months in my very first year in Calpe—hence the photo montage.
Cooking was always her passion, and she even filmed a TV series “Love me love my food”, which was broadcast on Western Australian TV again and again from 2013 to 2019—and maybe is still being re-broadcast!
June 2024
On this website my brother and sisters only play a small part, enough for visitors to find out something of my family background. For anyone who would like to know more about Lizzie herself, her personal Facebook page is still active as a memorial: Remembering Lizzie Blanchard.