Avocado face masks

The joys of aunthood

We’re walking up the fruit and veg aisle. I’m trying to locate the ice lollies we came for but the magazine aisle is calling her, so I follow.

It’s early evening in summer and I’m looking after my niece for a few hours.

Unenthused by my own approach to supermarket shopping, I slow down to see it all through her eyes. At the end of the magazines, she stares up at the clip-in hair pieces that are hanging off a rotating stand. Then at the bottles of nail varnish in neat rows, sitting inside a backlit plastic frame.

I hold the basket as she adds a few treasures. A Girl Talk magazine with a ‘free’ pot of slime, some diamanté clip-in earrings. I warn her they look like they could be painful but she assures me they’ll go with her holiday outfits. She adds a ‘proper’ nail varnish which I learn is an upgrade from her child-friendly ones which “just come off.” When she eyes up the electric toothbrushes, I tell her that’s a conversation she needs to have with her parents.

I’m an aunty to three nephews and two nieces who each have an infectious way of finding joy in the small things. I’ve learned a lot from spending more time around them the last few months. They are helpfully uninterested in the anxieties that run adult lives. My conversations with them bring light relief.

A few weeks ago, my niece came over to make avocado face masks and watch girly movies. Post-bath, her hair twisted in a hair wrap on top of her head, she's dusting talcom powder onto her legs when she asks me why I'm living at her Nana’s. I explain it's temporary while I sort another place.

“Where are you going to live after Nana’s?” she asked.

I stopped myself giving her a long reply. I spared her my observations on the housing market, how I’m searching for housemates and the state of my personal finances.

“I might find a flat somewhere,” I said.

She shook her head.

“No! Don’t get a flat, Aunty Alice. Get a house. With an upstairs!”

I enjoyed seeing myself through her eyes for a moment. I forgot about the practicalities that get in the way and saw myself as an adult who would have an upstairs. I suppose her vision of me - free from the obstacles we see as adults - works as a sort of manifestation. Her unwavering belief allows me to see what’s possible. She makes me feel hopeful.

And I felt hopeful again when, on my birthday, she handed me an A4 piece of paper where she’d written in joined-up handwriting and purple felt-tip:

“Hope you are filled with laughter and love after this.”