At 87, my flirty, menacing grandma gets away with murder. What a role model! | Ella McLeod

Everyone loves Sylvia - except the man who was rash enough to push past her on the bus

When my grandad died in 2007, we all worried about my grandma. But she had not yet finished eating at the table of life - indeed, she surpassed our expectations and entered her Michelin-star era. At 87, she is now a prolific WhatsApp user, is fully literate in emoji and calls the actor Rege-Jean Page her young boyfriend". Her widowed heartbreak was keenly felt, but my sister calls her a sunflower for a reason: bright petals, solid in the centre. Stems of iron.

She also has a flair for the dramatic, preferring to threaten us with her mortality - I hope I'm still here when you graduate" - than to actually kick the bucket" (her favoured euphemism). But she is consistent: my cousin, on a beach holiday, was ominously warned (via a text in all caps) that THE SEA IS A GOOD SERVANT BUT A BAD MASTER". And she has no qualms about making her indignations known: when a suit-and-briefcase type pushed her out the way to get on the bus, she kissed her teeth and told him that if he pushed her again she would clap yuh wi' me stick".