Twenty-five years ago today I arrived on this planet with no idea what it had in store for me, or what the hundreds of other little people on it had in store for me. With no notion of what an idea even was, the sole thing I knew was my mother. So, fresh out of a week in the womb, what better day for some Motherisms ….
We’ve had a birthday bottle of wine, I am rather pissed in the shop …
Me: I need dried fruit, then I wont bemoan the lack of chocolate.
Mum: You can have chocolate.
Me: Not today! As of today I am an icon of health, albeit a completely trollied one.
I stride off towards the figs.
Mum: Darling, do try not to look like a mad person.
My mother is talking about what I should do with her flat when she dies ..
Me: Must we always talk about your demise?
Mum: We’re not talking about my demise, we’re planning ahead.
Bob Dylan is on, we’ve had an arduous day ….
Bob Dylan: The answers my friend …
Mum: Are blowing in the wind? Yeah, sorry Bob. Not good enough anymore.
Kingsford The Great hits the nail on the head as usual …
“It does not matter what you do, as long as you behave honourably to those who love you.”
Mother is talking about me possibly being a boy …
Mum: I thought you were a boy for a while, then you weren’t. Still a tenacious little thing. Survived that car crash. I think it’s why you’ve got anxiety problems.
Me: Because of the crash or because I survived?
We are at lunch, it is time for dessert and my mother is eyeing the trifle suspiciously, the waitress comes over …
Mum: Does the trifle have sherry?
Waitress: Let me check ……… Yes it does.
Mum: I’ll take it.
I had been upset to the point of anger earlier in the day …
Mum: How’s the rage darling?
Me: I’ve moved on to apathetic desolation.
Mum: Impotent despair.
Me: It’s the same thing.
Mum: Sounds better.
In regards to me wanting to be a writer, it is later in the day of rage, I have gone full circle and am back at rage ...
Mum: What do you want to say?
Me: A lot. Mostly I want the people who have fucked me over to be aware that, though I may not have said anything, I know what they’ve done. And make them laugh while I’m telling them.
Mum: Riiiiiiight …. You need to make a list of these people.
Me: How’s that going to help what I write?
Mum: It wont. It’ll help me track them down.
Mum about our old house ….
“Now the garden looks like a horrible little park in Woking. The weeping willow has gone, just nasty little conifers in situ.”
It’s pissing with rain, we are zipping across the hills, my mother shouts over Bob Marley ..
“Go crap car! Go!”
Debating whether we should do the Euromillions in the hope of aiding our imminent financial crisis …
Mum: Euro millions, we should do it, I’ve won it before.
I look at mother in bemusement.
Me: You’ve won it before? The Euromillions?
Mum: Yes, £2.75.
We’re listening to the radio, the Sugarbabes come on …
Me: What does that even mean?
Mum: What?
Me: “We’ll rastafi gonna be down low.”
Mum: Only God knows darling, and even he’s not sure.
A pissed old man reverses his old 4×4 for us with verve ….
Mum: That’s what I love about Devon, it’s wild. It’s where the fairies and the gypsies live ………..
We keep driving for a few seconds then mum points ….
Mum: … and there’s where Rupert Harvey pissed in the tank of the kamikaze car, got us all the way to Iddesleigh somehow.
Me: Okkkk …. What’s the kamikaze car?
Mum: Long story, his father was an authority on dromedaries.
A woman of around 90 walks across the road …
Me: Watch out! Old woman wandering.
Mum: She’s the same age as me!
Me: She’s got a good 20 years on you mum.
Mum: Is that what I’m going to look like? I want to die.
The adverts come on ...
TV: Tampax with pearl extract. Pearl, by Tampax.
Mum: Oh wow man. That’s going to make me buy it.
Me: Mmm … complete with sea creatures.
We stride in to the cinema full of gusto, ready to watch Jane Eyre …
Mum: I will have one human and one over sixty.
Ticket man: It’s not on ’til tomorrow.
Mum: Righty ho … See you tomorrow ..
Mother bemoaning the pitfalls of writing, again …
Mum: But you won’t earn enough money doing it. See, in my day, if you were in a relationship, you were a unit and usually got a house.
Me: Times are not so simple now mother, you can’t just expect a house. We asked for equality, we got something in-between. We’re stuck in a horrible sort of limbo.
Mum has stopped listening …
Mum: AA Gil’s very good in The Sunday Times …
About her friend taking her in his Porsche Boxster …
“Incredible thing. Like a giants ejaculation.”
Need I say more ….
