Chrysanthemum wallpaper and marrowfat peas

During my teens I had many arguments with my mum. I was fiery and stroppy and felt misunderstood.

When I was 16 and at sixth form college, I used to camp out in my granny's spare bedroom. Having left school, I really did think of myself as grown up, someone who knew everything. Staying with my granny a couple of nights a week sort of felt like I had left home and was independent.

My granny's spare room was fascinating to me. The 70s style garish yellow, orange and brown chrysanthemum wallpaper wasn't like anything I had seen before. My mum's walls at home were all white, my granny's were psychedelic.

She would give me an electric blanket, an ancient heavy feather eiderdown and a hot water bottle in a stripy pillowcase. She was quite tight with her Economy 7 heating, so wanted to make sure I didn't freeze.

I remember trying to write an essay about the Cold War sitting on this bed, staring blankly at the wallpaper, and counting all the petals on the chrysanthemums. I became distracted by all of my dad's old rock climbing and photography books, and the little pots he had made in his youth, which all sat on a shelf at the end of the bed. My essay was due in the next day, and it was a poor effort. I don't think I even finished it.

My granny would make me a corned beef and tomato sandwich on white sliced bread for my tea. This was all such a novelty to me. I wasn't allowed white sliced bread at home, my mum said it was like eating cotton wool. And as for corned beef, I hadn't even known it existed until my little visits to her house. Sometimes she would feed me marrowfat processed peas.

There was a very distinct smell in my granny's house, similar to how marrowfat peas smell before they have been heated up.

I loved the fact that when my granny caught me hanging out of the bedroom window smoking an Embassy No 1, she calmly handed me a mug of cocoa and said: 'If you're going to do that, just come down to the kitchen and do it in comfort'. I didn't ever do it again. It no longer felt rebellious.

Although I loved my little escapades to my granny's house, I would never stay for more than two consecutive nights. This was mainly because she wouldn't let me use her phone to ring my friends, and in the days without mobile phones and the internet, this was a big deal.

So I would go back home, give my mum a hard time about not having any 'cotton wool' bread or Frey Bentos pies in the house, slam a few doors, and run up a huge phone bill.