I am more than happy with my membership of the ‘Over Sixty Club’; I have veered away from wearing beige knitwear, support stockings and Lily of the Valley perfume and I try not to sigh loudly when I lower myself into my favourite armchair of an evening. However, talking to my nephew and niece at the weekend, I suddenly realise how pedestrian I am sounding.

Fair play to them both, they indulge their Aunt as she attempts to keep up with their whip-sharp story telling. I am speaking with my mouth full of Yorkshire pudding when it dawns on me how boring I must sound. The occasion is the memorial service for my mother and it feels bitter sweet to be toasting her on Mothering Sunday in her local pub without her company. My nephew is reminiscing about his teenage years when my mother – his ‘G’ma’ – used to take him clothes shopping by stealth, mixing in a good lunch and a visit to WH Smiths as a distraction. ‘ I hated clothes shopping – still do – but WH Smiths was my ‘safe’ space’, he shares, ‘It still is. G’ma knew what she was doing. You can not beat a bit of stationery shopping to calm the soul. I am gutted that Smiths are closing this chain down. When my boys are winding me up, I still try and sneak in there for a reset. You can never have too many rolls of Sellotape’.

On account of my nephew sharing this Sellotape story, I believe that both my niece and nephew will fully understand my next revelation about my own bulk roll purchase of choice. This is where I make my mistake.

‘Isn’t it funny how we all have our foibles with which we manage life’s unforeseen challenges – our little idiosyncrasies if you will? I absolutely understand your WH Smiths reset; mine is Waitrose. In the spirit of sharing, personally I can never relax unless I know that there are a couple of spare toilet rolls stored safely in any place I visit. Your grandad was the same. Although he is long gone, on his advice I still find myself packing a spare roll of toilet paper in my suitcase whenever I go on holiday; the first thing I do in a hotel bathroom is to check that there is a spare roll of toilet tissue in the cabinet. No doubt you do the same?’

There is silence from across the table and ‘the youth’ dig into their roast potatoes and ponder whether to ask their auntie if she has some late life digestive issues that can be discussed while we are eating.

‘Aside from toilet roll stock piling, I bet you take some risks Auntie,’ my niece parries, ‘I bet you run your petrol into the red, do 31 mph in a 30 mph zone, travel outside without your phone charger?’ I am relieved my second phone charger is secreted in the depths of my voluminous handbag (you cannot conceal a roll of toilet tissue in a clutch and I have not been in this pub before) and that my third emergency charger is hidden in my car. I feel that now is not the time to admit that I nearly missed my mother’s service on account of stopping for petrol en route. (I had a tank three quarters full but better to be safe than sorry, eh, mum?).

My response is: ‘Your grandfather – my dad – drilled it into me as a teenager that we should never finish the day without a full tank of petrol in case we were called out to an emergency in the night. I still live by this principle’.

‘…and, in living memory were you ever called out to such an emergency? ‘ my niece asks, trying to mask an eye roll. ‘ Surely you had 24 hour petrol stations, ‘back in the day?’.

I tell her that growing up with my parents was a yin and yang experience – one parent ensured that the homestead was prepared for a nuclear disaster while the other happily munched her way through our spare man-mountain of non-perishables and saved herself a fortune by never having to fill the car up with petrol.

Although it is a day in mum’s memory, I realise that my father’s legacy runs much deeper than I have formerly acknowledged and, while my nephew and niece are distracted by the dessert menu, I reflect on some of my other senior foibles. It dawns on me that I may be spending too much time stocking up for a rainy day and it may be time to roll over.

The waiter interrupts my train of thought by offering me some sticky toffee pudding; I decline using the rationale that if I am to get murdered on the way home, I do not want my chalk outline to be a large circle. If this is to be my last journey at least the police will be impressed to find a snow shovel and some Kendal Mint cake in the boot of my car and they will not have to worry about an empty tank of petrol.

Over coffee, I decide to go full confessional with my nephew and niece. If I am to change my ways, I feel it may be useful to first sense-check my weirdness. I live in hope that they may concur with at least some of my insurance policies and that my nephew will come clean that WH Smith is not the only ‘safe space’ in his closet.

‘I may not be the Auntie you believe me to be’, I begin.

They do not hear me at first for my niece is in the middle of telling her brother a ‘funny’ story about her electric car dropping its charge on a motorway slip road. ‘The language on the dash is so alarmist, ‘ she is saying, ‘Critical! Pull over immediately! As if. Good job I wasn’t further into my pregnancy and I was still able to run across three lanes of traffic to get some assistance. How we laughed!’

When my niece stops speaking I start to share my litany of risk-adverse insurance policies.

‘I pride myself on my high spiritual intelligence, but I do need to confess that I:

• always have a new pair of trainers boxed and ready to break into when my current pair are ‘feeling tired’.
• always have at least two packs of my favourite cheese in the fridge in case the supermarket runs out.
• always buy multiple pairs of the same shoe in different colours once I find a pair that I like/are comfy and will not be held hostage by the shoe industry.
• always bulk buy mascara and lip gloss – always in the same shade.
• always keep my scented candles in their boxes – on display but in their boxes. I save them for a rainy day and forget that fragrance exists to be released.

On the drive back home I reflect that my 98-year old mother would give me a good telling off for not living life a little more adventurously. I can hear her saying, ‘you have bought yourself the tiniest cottage at the top of the steepest set of steps, and you are stock piling items that you have no space to store and have to lug up that incline. Let’s face it, you are now over 60 and your children will not want to inherit your toilet roll mountain. You don’t wear much beige, I will give you that’.

Mum would be right and it would be uncharitable to point out to her that my brother has spent the last months emptying her cupboards of ‘spare’ sandwich bags, emergency greeting cards and empty marmalade jars. Mum must have surreptitiously taken notes during dad’s life of risk aversion and filled the void with multiple repeat purchases. I come from a long line of hoarders and it makes me feel safe.

I do promise that I will light at least one of my expensive candles in mum and dad’s memory. No doubt this will make my rheumy eyes leak, but at least I have plenty of toilet roll with which to wipe away the tears and blow my ample nose. Luckily I have also acquired a job lot of fire extinguishers; it would be a shame to see all this paper go up in smoke during my roll over week.

‘