It has been a fair few moons since our last dose of ‘Motherisms’ but you’ll be relieved to know little has changed …
We are talking about going to space mum pontificates for a second and then says …
“Hmmm … constipation is rife, I don’t fancy it myself.”
We sit down looking out at the horizon, there are is a wind farm in the distance …
Mum: The mafia have shares in wind farms
Me: No the don’t
Mum: They do.
We are talking about some friends of mum’s …
Mum: Do you remember her house opposite Victoria Park?
Me: No, I don’t think so …
Mum: You were very young
There’s a pause
Mum: Yes, very young … you may not have been born.
We are having supper at mums’ friends and sitting outside in the garden, the past few night I have noticed mum furiously glugging glasses of water before she goes to bed, it is now explained …
Mum: I’ve started drinking a glass of water every night before I got to bed, to prevent a heart attack.
Barnaby: You know the woman who gave that advice died of a heart attack?
Mum: Oh, did she? Well, it prevents you from having a heart attack while asleep … wake up for your heart attack!
We are flicking through the channels, there’s nothing much on, we pass a programme about the Hebrides and rest on ‘Knocked Up’, we decide against it and go back to the programme about the Hebrides …
“No, come on, this has to be the best thing on. No more jocks jumping around like prats, I want to watch the squirrels.”
As part of the evenings ritual we are listening to The Archers as I cook supper. Some woman says something ….
“Oh I LOATHE this woman, odious hag ….. I hate them all now but I just can’t stop listening, I may explode if I do”.
We are sitting and looking at Fremmington Quay, it is incredibly beautiful, but mum has, as she has insisted on doing every day since I arrived, started telling me to sign on at the doctors …
Me: ENOUGH MUM! No more. Or I will not go to the doctors ever again.
Mum huffs and walks over to the water.
Mum: I’m going to kill myself now.
Me: Great, I think it’ll do you the world of good.
Shortly afterwards I get up and walk over to the water in my nice new shoes ..
Mum: Going to kill yourself?
Me: If it makes it better.
Mum: Leave the shoes, darling.
Mum and I are having an evening picnic at the quay, we watch a few people on boats arrive at the little island opposite, it’s sunset, it all looks rather picturesque.
“Oh, how cool of them. They’re probably going to have a BBQ …. we should introduce ourselves, they’ll be so pleased to see us.”
Mum rarely allows me to take a photo of the front of her head so I have become quite adept at taking arty photos of the back of her … I am doing this as she turns around …
“Jesus Christ! Don’t take a photo of my backside in these trousers! They’re for comfort not elegance!”
I have been swimming, mum is picking me up, I ask her to bring a banana, my whole life we have called them “nanas” I text her and ask her for one, in doing so I realize I have never seen “nana” written before but am sure mum will get it …
Mum: I couldn’t possibly think what you were talking about, I thought you meant Nana, like in Peter Pan, I thought you were trying to be funny.
Me: That’s not very funny.
Mum: No, exactly what I thought.
We are reminiscing about my Grandmother …
“Granny Ruth bought you a dolly once, it did something weird like waved its arms and legs, completely freaked you out, you went berserk, totally hysterical, like only you can. So we called it Voodoo Dolly and put it on the stairs to scare you away while we drank g&ts, proved very useful for many years.”
We move on to how I used to spend my childhood (I am feral) …
Mum: These kids these days, I do pity them. You used to just potter around, find a beetle, look at the beetle, sometimes get bitten by the beetle, put the beetle down, then find a toad and go in the paddling pool and play with your toads.
Me: You make me sound rather odd.
Mum: You are rather.
A very jolly golden retriever bumbles over to us, the owner is watching, mum is doing her best fake laugh and then whispers to the dog …
“Ohhhh yes good boy, fuck off.”
We are watching some people pass us by …
“Now, wouldn’t all these people look better in Victorian dress. The boy with the broken leg especially.”
Mum on accidentally getting a perm …
“I remember when I got a perm, I thought it would look like Irene’s and I’d have nice long waves. No. I got a proper bloody perm. I have often felt suicidal but never so much as when I realized that perm would take 3 years to grow out. You did of course start screaming when you first saw it.”
We are pulling out of the car park and mum stops and looks out of the window , there are a big queue of cars building up behind us.
Me: Errrr … mum, we’re kind of in the way …
Mum: Oh for god’s sake, I’m admiring nature, nowadays if you stop and look at a fucking sunset you’re a psycho.
It’s my last day and we are having coffee back at the quay. There is a little girl of about 8 talking to her little brother, the little brother is in a bad mood, the little girl offers to go and get her money to buy him something, he is being stroppy and says no. All of a sudden mum says to the little boy …
Me: Oi! Be nice, don’t be so rude!
The poor boy looks quite alarmed but now obediently follows his little sister.
Me: Mum, you can’t do that, you can’t shout at other people’s children, especially not when I’m gone.
Mum: I can. Look, he’s behaving now, it’s very nice of his mother to offer to get some money for him.
Me: His MOTHER? Mum, she’s like 8. That’s his sister.
Mum: Well, even nicer then.
Mum is talking about how all the little things I’m doing will eventually add up, she’s trying to be philosophical but we’re a little tipsy.
Mum: You see darling, all your little bits of writing, all your little short films … it’s like mustard …
Me: Is it? Is it like mustard?
Mum: No, no. Mushrooms. It’s like mushrooms, it’ll grow …
I’m still laughing …
Mum: Oh whatever.
Mum is finally allowing me to take a picture of her face …
Mum: I shall look into the distance
Me: Mother, every single photo you are in charge of, is of one of us looking in to the distance. We have over-done wistful, just look at me, wistfully if you must.
