Colour – poetic expression

My ‘auntie’ Stella 
Was a lovely kind person
She would visit my mum
Whilst my Dad was at the pub with her husband
‘uncle’ Bob who was a ‘salt of the earth’ kind of guy

When I ‘stunt’ rode my bike
Over bumps and dips, I cracked the cross bar
He took the bike and welded it better

When he noticed that I could only swim underwater
He used a rope and other means to teach me to swim over

Of course neither ‘uncle’ Bob nor ‘auntie’ Stella were relatives
It just avoided the perceived rudeness 
of children addressing adult friends 
by their first names like their parents

Anyway… ‘auntie’ Stella would come around on Tuesdays
Bringing treats for my brother and I as always 
The most exciting of these treats were ‘Smarties’
The were a bit like M & M’s except with a lot more ‘tasties’
They came in a pictured cardboard tube with a plastic cap on the top
and a cardboard round sealed in the bottom
The first layer of excitement was levering off the plastic cap with the thumb
These caps were red, blue, green or yellow with a recess like a drum
On the underside of the cap was always a letter of the alphabet
I would often collect them to spell words that I’d met

The smarties themselves were candy coloured brown, blue, yellow, orange, green and red
and was often flavoured like its colour said

Once inside was the treasure I liked the most
Yum milk chocolate I say with no boast

I would empty all the smarties out of the tube 
and put the same of each colour together… 
I had my favourite, of course, which was the dark brown… 
it was complete bliss and took the crown

I would save them until last, if I could
and would also swap other colours 
with my brother 
to get more dark brown from his tube

For each smartie, 
I would do my best to avoid the temptation 
to crunch, rather, just suck until the outer candy coat, 
got thinner and thinner, tasting the flavour as it melted 
until it broke up, revealing the inner milk chocolate… 
sometimes I could not help myself and then crunch, 
however if I could hang on I could feel the milk chocolate melt in my mouth
before swallowing. 
This way the smarties lasted a while 
and often my tongue and lips would be a combination of all the colours in style

After uncle Bob died, I did not see Auntie Stella so much 
and eventually not at all… we lost touch
I wonder what happened to her…
Whatever it was, I am grateful for her laughter and kindness and….
the smarties :)  (NRS)