I would be a scrooge to allow the festive season to pass without some of these. So, it’s the run-up to Christmas …
Mum: I always think of you when I see Centre Point …
Me: Why?
Mum: Because when you were 3, we were making a rare trip down Oxford Street and you pointed at Centre Point and said, ‘Who lives there?’ I told you no one did and then we chased some homeless people around with sandwiches for a while, and then you said, ‘Why don’t they just put all the homeless people on the big tall tower?’ And I had to explain capitalism to you at a very early age ….
There’s a pause.
Mum: … though actually it did end up a homeless charity.
We’re leaving mum’s enclosure. She’s turning the car round and has slightly misjudged it, meaning we have to go over the curb. Mum, very sweetly, as if she is talking to a horse says ….
“Goooood car …. That’s it … Over the pavement ….”
Mum’s asking me who someone is on ‘who do you think you are’ I know who it is but I dislike the fact I know who half of these people are so much I’m refusing to cooperate …
Mum: Is this Cheryl Cole?
Me: I don’t know …
Mum looks at TV times …
Mum: Yes, it is Cheryl Cole.
I don’t look up.
Mum: Hello??
Me: Yes, good we’ve established that. My interest level remains the same.
Mum: Oh I am SO sorry to disturb you!
Mum’s come round for another Christmas at the Cratchit’s. She’s admiring the tree my friend and I decorated …
Mum: Oh it does look rather good you know Jade …
Me: There’s more fake presents on the tree than real ones under it.
Mum: That’s usually the case.
We’re watching TV, mum is describing a scene, I think, rather abstractly …
Mum: Like an Escher sketch
I assume mum thinks the etch a sketch is French, which I don’t believe it is, and don’t like it with a French accent, so correct her …
Me: ETCH A sketch
Mum: No. Escher, the painter …
Me: Ohhhh okay.
Mum rolls her eyes and mutters something about the money wasted on my education.
I’m at mum’s and am so looking forward to eating something I haven’t cooked for myself …
Mum: Supper’s ready!
Me: Yum what are we having?
Mum: A variation on gruel.
Me: Oh. Cool …
I have no idea where this came from, but she suddenly comes out with …
“I should like to be an Internet crime wave.”
Driving in Devon, as with anywhere in the world, is exciting. People make it exciting thanks to human error, I imagine when we have robots it will be more exciting because the cars will just drive us straight off the face of the earth. But for now, someone else has failed to indicate when going round the roundabout …
Me: Indicator would have been good.
Mum: It’s a sign of weakness. We’re going by the will of Allah here …
We walk into mum’s flat and it’s like the Queen’s mailsack has been poured on the floor, thousands of cards litter the carpet ….
Me: Woah ..
Mum: Oh god. I keep getting all these cards and I don’t know who any of them are from …. dear people. So sweet.
We’ve started buying our Christmas decorations from charity shops and if you don’t use the same ones every year so should you but whatever I’m not here to lecture (one day I will be). Anyway, mum is describing some of the lights she was demonstrated …
“Then they got out these very dubious blue fairy lights … made the whole place look like a police station.”
We’re at some red traffic lights, mum wants to turn right, the guy opposite wants to turn right as well, mum is creeping towards the line, eyeing the red light and nudging the accelerator.
Me: Er …. Mum, are you racing?
The light turns amber and mum speeds left, effortlessly thanking the man opposite as we screech into the distance …
Mum: Well someone has to act decisively, and my acceleration is usually faster than theirs.
I hadn’t turned my tv on for over and month and had been some new age preacher talking about how much I hated it and couldn’t watch it anymore because of the adverts bla bla bla … when it came to Christmas, I really fancied watching some TV. Turned it on to watch the Snowman and … No. The TV now does not work. So it’s Christmas day and we’re about four hours in to the Sopranos ….
Mum: Oh, San Pellegrino. The best water there is.
Me: Yeah .. there’s a lot of product placement in this.
There’s a few more cutaways to characters, usually sitting behind the Pellegrino bottle …
Mum: The Pellegrino’s going to get a credit.
I’ve cut a mountain of brussles sprouts, there are two of us eating …
Me: Enough brussles sprouts now, surely?
Mum: Dear god yes.
Me: I’ve given myself RSI again
Mum: Well that was stupid.
Mum can recite massive chunks of Shakespeare, and general poems ‘and shit’. She’s quoting something over in the corner, I’m trying to engage and be a conversationalist while doing a hundred other things ….
Mum: … child Harold un to the high towered king …
Me: Right, yes. Harold wanted Jesus dead because he’d heard a prophecy about a new king …
Mum: That was Herod not Harold, dear god. It’s a poem by Byron called Children Harold’s pilgrimage, look it up.
Me: Ok, I will.
(I haven’t. But I will.)
(I will be in trouble for revealing this but) Mum has bought the Daily Mail for the television time thing …
Mum: No one believes me but on Saturdays it really does have the best TV time thing .. it has all the numbers of the channels, everything …
Me: I believe you.
Mum: And actually, I console myself whenever I buy it that if it weren’t for the Daily Mail they would never have caught those bastards in the Steven Lawrence case.
Me: Well, good … really good … strange that though …
Mum: Very strange for such a racist paper.
Hell froze over and Mum said something nice to me ….
Mum: …. Really, I mean it. I’m not just buttering you up.
Me: Well I know that, you’ve never buttered me up, ever ….
Mum: I didn’t grow up with buttering up, you’ve got to actually do something to get buttered up in my books. People getting buttered up left right and centre nowadays, it’s not healthy.
We’re watching the carols at Kings College. Mum’s from Cambridge and is crying within the first bar of the little angel’s mouth opening, mum gushes …
“Stone masons knew what they were doing back then … Venice is beautiful and the buildings are beautiful but I’ll take Kings College every time.”
Well it’s Christmas Eve, so we should probably talk about how cold it was in the 1940s and 50s ….
Mum: … you don’t understand how cold it was.
Me: Yes I do I used to live in a warehouse.
Mum: Well then yes you’ve got the gist if it.
I don’t think mum’s got the gist of quite how cold the warehouse was compared to the 1950s chill …
Me: I had to walk across a roof in December to get to showers.
Mum: What?! You didn’t tell me that at the time …
There’s a pause.
Mum: Jade?
I drink some champagne and stay quiet …
Mum is watching something, or reading something, I’ve been cooking and can’t really hear what’s going on but it’s obviously some rally cry as I hear her shout over …
“I’d have you … you’re good in a scrap.”
Mum and I both love Alan Bennet. He’s reading his dairies and we both think he is looking great for 81. Mum is maybe more vocal about her love for Alan Bennet though (please note: we’ve had 2 bottles of prosecco or some sparkling shit because prosecco’s poisoning the Italians or something) …
Mum: Just watch him. This, now this, is a wonderful lovely man. Brrriliant, brilliant writer …
It cuts away to Alan Bennet in a room with a nice wall-hanging behind him …
Mum: Lovely, lovely tagine hanging behind him …
There’s a pause as my brain slowly whirrs into action …
Mum: Not tagine
Me: Do you mean rug?
Mum: Prayer mat
I’m in hysterics. Mum looks away for a second and I start typing notes on my phone …
Me: DON’T YOU DARE! I’ll start my own blog with all the stupid shit you say.
I continue to type, giggling at my naughtiness ..
Mum: Tripping Over Whippets, you wonna watch yourself.
Mum is fascinated by Kanye West and the wife, I’ve started quite enjoying constructing conspiracy theories with mum about them. I see she has turned to a page with his crazed face on it …
Me: What’s the goss with Kanye then?
Mum: He’s in psychiatric care.
Me: Few years too late.
Mum: That jewellery heist was a bit suspect — he’s got financial problems … Big bum has been in seclusion.
Me: Good.
Mum’s on the computer which is always dangerous.
Mum: People keep inviting me to Linkedin but don’t know what it is.
Me: No, no one does. I can’t waste my time talking about it honestly it’s so boring and useless …
Mum: No don’t. I’m so over it I’ve done it already.
I’ve put on some Boubacar Traoré ….
Mum: Who’s this?
Me: Can’t remember his name, akin to …
Me and Mum: Ali fucker Tori
Mum: Is he Malian?
Me: Maybe …
Mum: Amazing music scene in Mali. But they’re all fleeing because of ISIS, but it was amazing in the 70s — peaceful festivals in the desert with camels, no one beheading anyone …
Me: Sounds perfect.
Mum: It was.
We’re going to go for a Boxing Day walk. Mum has brought round her ancient Hunter wellies …
Mum: Had these for fifteen years now, it was an anarchistic statement: pink wellies, I just thought you can’t get any more stupid than pink wellies. Then every twat got them ..
Me: I like the colour they’ve gone now … a weird whitey colour …
Mum:Yes I look as if I should be in an operating theatre.
I have six mountains of books I’ve never read. Mum’s going through them …
Mum:Read this Peter Ackroyde?
Me: I’ve read bits of it it’s a fucking huge book. It’s good though.
Mum: Right …
Me: What? I don’t have time to read a book from cover to cover, I dip in and out ..
Mum: I see … Just dip in and out. Read a couple of chapters from the middle of Middlemarch (she’s obviously seen it by the bath), couple of chapters of Albion …
Me: Yeah, basically.
Mum: It’s the death of literature.
Me: Whatever ….
A few minutes later …
Mum: Dances With Wolves is on later have you seen that?
Me: Uh … yeah I think so, bits of it definitely. I’d like to watch it again though, I can’t really remember it …
Mum: Just dipped in and out of it …
I am eating. Mum has been thinking and announces …
“I need to talk to Steven Hawking … just to say, ‘Hi … we’re all going to get better.”
Happy Hjksdabd;liwdbefa;f (whatever we’re saying nowadays). xxxx
