yak

It was 20 years ago today… yesterday, actually. Which doesn’t scan, and calls to mind instead a sad song and one which is somewhat dreary.

Yes, we seem to have been married, E and I, for 20 years. So we bought each other bracelets (not on purpose, just one of those twinny things) which F11 eyed lasciviously. His fingers danced in the air towards our wrists, butterfly-light and shark-sure. “How do they come off?” he asked.
We clamped a protective hand on our clasps. “They don’t,” we said as one.

We went for dinner, missing political excitement and drawing what we could from the odd clientele. An odd place, too: low key; expensive; nasty surly waitress. Good grub.

In the corner was a guy fiddling with fags and phone, what passes for a celeb round here. For someone who’s recently sold his groovy clothing label for £250 million, he hid it well. With him was a girl, a very pretty girl, in horrid shoes, shiny, silly and high and a tacky bag, shiny, holey and bling and 2 not pretty men (shoes and bags not checked). In, out, in, out, they went. Fags. Phone. Fags.

Across from us sat 4 chortling Olds, the sort of people blessed with that rare contentment: happy in their houses being a) fully paid for and b) worth about 10 times what they cost. Florid chops, head to toe in Lands End clobber, confident ordering.

Next to us, Mummy and Simmy, our very own TV in a pub, from whom we could barely drag our attention (well, we’ve been married 20 years; we don’t need to talk, not when we can eavesdrop).

Private school mother and poor, track-suited offspring. Mummy was a bore, a crashing bore who did not stop talking, she simply did not draw breath.
“So, I’m thinking, Boden for Cornwall and for Spain my little Superdry dress.” Here she patted shoulders, chest and lap like an airhostess establishing the exits, “with my boxy jacket over, and as for Portugal, I’m thinking Billabong so … oh, look! Darling! Marvellous! Do look: Green … Beans. Oh yum. Yum. Yum. Yum. Lots and lots, I think.”

The nasty waitress, summoned by such enthusiastic braying ripping the air slid close, her pen poised reluctantly.

“Darling? Duck? Duck for Simmy, and I’ll have just a steak. Rare, medium rare. And green beans. Green beans for Simmy, too. And a salad for me. And some broccoli. And pommes purees for Simmy. We’re on a diet.”

“Fuck me, that’s fifteen quid on green stuff,” I hissed at Edward.

It was the sort of place where your eyes watered at the prices, and then, when you were down and weakened, they stung you a further £3 a bowl for anything extra, for the stuff which used just to come with your meal, which used to be your meal.

The Olds guffawed over an ancient joke, and we opted to share a salad. “That’ll be plenty,” the nasty waitress said flicking a glance at Mummy. We asked what something in a pot on our table was. She let an insulting silence lengthen before saying with studied insolence, “Celeriac remoulade.” As any fule no.

Mummy and Simmy’s food turned up. The tiny table was bulging with bowls bearing a surfeit of greenery. “Dripping with butter those beans,” E said. We laughed and chomped on our faux gras, ekeing out tiny squares of toast.

Mummy was a-flush with excitement at having headed off the chips at the pass. What a nasty turn. Di-sas-ter averted! She had spied them heading her way and barked “NO!” Hand held high like a traffic policeman. “No, not chips,” she might even have said “frites,” Oh God, I think she did, I’d blanked it out of self-protection. The horror, the horror. “I’m on a diet!” She also proclaimed, “We’re running to a tight schedule,” which was Mummy-speak for ‘Gotta boot the kid back to school by nine.’

Simmy didn’t get to talk much. On occasion, she was handed the iPhone and told to tell Daddy about the 81% in chemistry, darling. Daddy was clearly busy because the chat didn’t last beyond basic imparting of brief info. Simmy also had to check with Natty about Wimbledon. Because if Natty wasn’t going to go they really ought (orrrrt) to get onto MelMel about it.

Simmy had, however, made clear from the off (orf) that she fancied a pud. Mmmm, chocolate. And, as so much of her duck made its way onto Mummy’s plate (an impatient fork tipping breasts and legs, grease dripping from every shard), Simmy was clearly still hungry but when the nasty waitress sidled over and said, threateningly, “Pudding?” Simmy’s eyes might well have lit up but Mummy’s mouth it was which opened first, “No, no, I think not. We’re on diets!” This word caused her to emit small explosive noises, perhaps it hurt? “Yes, ha ha. And a tight schedule. Just some water. I’m thinking few bubbles, I’m thinking Badoit? And the bill. Darling, does Daddy know about the change in plan for Saturday? I think you should phone him.”

We saw them off: Mummy tottering, Simmy slouching, while a sublime chocolate pudding headed our way. Yum.

Mummy crashed the gears on the 4x4 parked outside, and when I say parked, I mean slung at an angle vaguely proximate to the kerb. Still yakking. Scant attention paid to little things like other people.

Mrs Lovely’s parents had bought a big car. “Whatever for?!” she’d shrieked, mindful of the inheritance slipping into a most un-ness Land Cruiser. “Whaddya want a 7 seater for! You’re not taking the girls. You’re 80! Well ... you can take Lulu. Wake her up a bit.”

“It’s for the widows,” Mrs Lovely’s Dad had said. “They need a lift to all the funerals.”

We were gathered in the field this morning, while the dogs romped disgustingly. If Muffin knew how very unbutch he looked with his pompom tail, he wouldn’t swagger like Errol Flynn, he’d sit in the corner and crochet.

Rural Ted perked up, he’s threatened with redundancy. He’s always threatened with redundancy. It gives him a gloomy air. “Put the seats down and your Dad could take the coffin,” he suggested. “Widders could go boi cab. Your dad could make a few quid.”

I’m thinking enterprise, I’m thinking opportunities. Oh yum. Marvellous.

ouch

5 and a half months? Who’s counting.

5 and a half hours in A&E it was the other night. I was counting then. Me and F11. Yes, he’s gone up a year. He’s also, in this 5 and a half month hiatus, passed for one of the best schools in the country, aka a “super selective” grammar, passed with a pleasingly high mark. E and I cried, we really did on opening the letter. The boast will end with recording that we reckon (deciphering the results takes some doing) that he got full marks on the notoriously difficult second paper, this despite having freaked us out a-plenty by having finished both papers with 10 minutes to spare and finding them "easy." How the parental heart sinks while dwelling on this folly in the long wait for results.
Clever, difficult little beast. Tank feck there’s a reason for his, well, oddness: it be brains.

Brains were sadly most def forgot on Sunday when he went out on his bike (brand new, 24 hours old). Sensing a 4x4 looming behind him he dived for the ditch, fearing that she’d splatter him. Maybe she would have done, but she got out of the car and asked very nicely if he was OK. I imagine he growled at her and she retired hurt and he limped home nursing his wrist; his helmet crushed, his amour propre in tatters but his bike unscathed. I left a caring ten seconds before asking about the bike. And he seemed fine.
I know that I’m not a natural nurse, this mainly to counterbalance E’s quite unacceptable hypochondria, but I did ask about him first, and bike second. I really did. I think.
Monday he was booted into school; me deaf to bleatings about the wrist and murmurings about a stomach ache and and and... Typical back to school stuff. Get on with it. Off. Go.
He managed well at karate, too. He seemed fine; after all there was no bone poking through the skin, no swelling, no bruise even. What's a mother to think? But at supper E, nice E, said, “I really think he should go to A&E.” So off we went. Each with a book. F11 finished his; I managed 100 pages of mine which, since it was “The Children’s Book” by A S Byatt is good going.

The waiting room was heaving with kids. “Trampolines are our bread and butter,” said the nurse. There was also evidence of a football ankle, a climbing frame elbow and a skateboard knee.
There were 3 Poles, jabbering over ownership of a tripod;
an ancient man, so very old, shouting into a bells and whistle mobile phone: someone appeared, he handed them money for fish and chips before returning to bellowing into his phone.
A glamorous woman, glamorous enough to have been a man in full slap, held a finger dipped in a purple cup. I longed for details.
Another man looked so confused turning in small circles round his holdall, round and round, that for the first time in months I felt comparatively well sussed and smart and up together. And so we read on.

Life passed slowly under the neon gaze. A TV too loud to ignore, too quiet to follow babbled in the corner of a room littered with torn magazines, abandoned plastic tumblers of leaking coffee dregs, and crumbs. Lots of crumbs. It wrote off quite half a dozen chairs and the place was nigh-on full. A serious place for the munching of snacks. Enough to turn the strong-stomached weak (and I am not strong-stomached) contemplating the snarfing of meat pies and slurping on sub-standard beige liquid; crumbs, crumbs and pools of squalid damp. People in public don't bother with bins. Another reason not to be a nurse, the fumbling with damp and the finding of crumbs in odd places. Spare me.

After what seemed like a week but was in clock time 90 minutes, a triage nurse prodded and poked and mispronounced F11’s name and called me "Mum" and then back out again we were, turned round quick like the loon round his holdall and back out onto the hell of the hard metal chairs. In the interim, ours had been taken by the next lot of oddballs who'd trooped in, being a group of four adult children. It’s the only way to describe them, not care in the community as such, not 100% fresh from an institution, possibly passing for normal in some circles, but still. Large, lined, one clutching a bag which dangled at chest height as if from eager paws. Very jolly, but slightly unnerving. Too loud, too friendly. They stood very close and touched each other a lot.
“Don’t catch their eye,” I muttered sotto voce to F11. A mistake.
“What? Who?” he demanded loudly looking all around him with avidity. “Oh, them.” He stared.

Eventually we ended up in the X-Ray department. Empty and a bit scary.
“It looks fine,” I said, expertly surveying the images on screen.
“Not allowed to say,” the handsome radiographer said.
“Oh?” I said.
“In case we get it wrong.”
I felt that this was code for “Yeah, he’s fine,” so I nodded slightly patronisingly, one radiographer unto another. But it seems, from the doctor who was allowed to say, that he has a buckled radius – the bone isn’t meant to splay out like that – and bone flecks in his palm. The doctor was called away mid-explanation to speak to the police about someone in the cells. Feeling like a teenager, I managed to take photos of the computer screen with my phone. Imagine.
“It’ll need a cast,” the doctor said, swishing in all important from police business. “We’ll isolate the thumb since I’m worried about these flecks.”

When young, the now T13 used always ask hopefully, on hearing of illness, “Is there blood?” I feel his interest now. Illness should show. There should be a clue. The wincing of a child is not clue enough. Not with Monday and back to school on the cards. I felt mean and defeated. Buckled. Bone flecks. Another reason why I’m not a nurse nor ever could be: bad, so very bad at all the ill stuff.

More waiting, then in with the nurse. She wheeled in the plaster in its own stand. Another nurse lounged in the doorway waiting her turn with it. Seems they don't run to 2, trampolines notwithstanding. Meanwhile, one of the adult children was pulled across on a trolley through the corridor at the back. Back and forwards a few times she went, the orderly taking touching pains each time to open and shut with care the double doors impeding his progress, anxious lest they bang the trolley. She looked thrilled, she clutched her bag the tighter. I imagined the other 3 big children watching, hugger-mugger in the corner, squealing, bouncing flat-footedly.

I felt like a child myself, watching one of those mesmerising educational films, as the nurse wound various layers round F11’s arm.
“Ah,” I said approvingly at one point, “you’re isolating the thumb.”
She gave me a look. At the end, having tossed the protective apron she’d laid over F11 in the bin (“Don’t want this plaster getting all over you”), she fumbled with the paperwork. A curse escaped her. “Gotta isolate the thumb!” she said. Plaster splattered everywhere. “It’ll wash off,” she said.

He’s back at school now, the cast hidden under his jumper. “He might need a scribe for his SATs,” said his teacher.
“Can you imagine?” I said.
His teacher blanched. F11 does ramble so. A clever boy, but random.

I’d taken a photo when it was done that night, to text with the x-ray to E and T13.
“Not T13!” F11 said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because he’ll forward it to all his friends and then put it on Facebook,” he said.
I told T13 this. “What!” he said outraged. “I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t go round telling people. I know what he’s like.” A beat and, “Oh, all my friends are really concerned, they all, like, say Get Better and stuff.”
“It’s private,” said F11.
T13 looked baffled. By now he would have arranged a press release, a photo call and a rota of willing helpers to carry his bag. Much the same as when he last stubbed his toe.
“It’s not private,” I said, “It couldn’t be less private.”
Every other child in the Western world would be displaying their cast with pride. I put a hankie-sling on Catty, “Look, Catty’s hurt, too.”
“No!” he wailed, “Not Catty. Catty can’t be hurt, I can’t bear it.”

So Catty got better very very quickly, about as quick as it takes to snatch a hankie off his head, while narrowly avoiding breaking his neck. Human time will be a little slower. But not as slow as A&E time. I hope.

down with homework

another of those not here but there jobs, this time scowling at holiday homework:
http://www.powderroomgraffiti.com/live-it/in-by-thursday.html

Diatribe to Autumn: how do I loathe thee?

Not here, silly, but here:
http://www.powderroomgraffiti.com/live-it/how-do-i-hate-thee-let-me-count-the-ways.html

brmm brmm

Phut. Came a noise and the car went dark, as the electrics went kaput. Suddenly bereft of any chance of aimless fiddling, the only things I wanted to do were play the radio, light a fag and fiddle with the electric mirrors. None of these fine pastimes were to be mine.

True loss, however, came in driving around. I no longer knew what time it was (lost Swatch), and, more importantly, I no longer knew where I was because Tom-Tom didn’t work. The fag lighter is used just for Tom-Tom (so don’t get your wig wet, father) and here I was, stranded wherever I was which, sadly, was Gloucester. Gloucester for those lucky enough not to know, is twinned in motoring spirit with Swindon (home of the mini-roundabout). It majors in proud provision of characterless dual carriageways and big scary roundabouts. The kind to have traffic lights on them so that you can’t slide round to the third exit; instead you have to do it in staggered jumps to reach the right lane each time. Really rather scary.

I made it to a Halfords, like the Jews to the promised land, thinking, like my idol the little red hen, that I would do fix it all by myself. Fool. Halfords got ready to laugh. They paved the way with signs saying they could fit bulbs and things. At a charge.
I strolled busily to the fuse section and stared, like the dog at a Latin primer at the stuff on offer. All so confusing. A book on fixing a Cortina circa 1983? no probs. A plethora of air fresheners in a range of designs? Be my guest. A fuse for a vaguely modern car? No way, sucker.

So I went to find a man. There were none; and then there were 2, demonstrating baffling teamwork with a roll of tape where none seemed needed. I smiled as if at two Teletubbies, and started my explanation.
“Can’t help you, ‘fraid,” one smirked, “We’re work experience.” The ‘sorry’ came as an afterthought, delivered with a tone close to mirth. Pissed off customer? Job well done. The lad clutched his roll of tape importantly. My smile stiffened into something sickly and not entirely pleasant.

I found the desk.
Two lads were chatting by the till.
"Don’t let me interrupt you,” I said eventually, nice with a little ice. I launched back into my explanation.
“Oh we can’t help you,” one said.
“God forbid,” I said, “Silly me.” The boldness conferred upon a middle aged woman denied access to her Tom-Tom via a teeny tiny fuse and a bored jobsworth.
“I mean, we can. But we have to charge you.”
But of course.

So I strode from the shop in a WTF way, scuttled homewards, bowed to the inevitable, and called in on the dealership. DIY proving yet again to be a waste of bloody time.

The dealership has been taken over by a smarter car-breed since last time and accessing it off the, yup, dual carriageway called for lots of swearing, missed stabs at the slipway and dangerous u-turns. In I went to this vaulted glass palace with its marble floors and maple coffee tables, its playstations and spreads of magazines – Lexusland or MercCity or whatever it is – feeling scruffy and out of place. A sentiment possibly echoed by the Service Manager who bustled over swishily as if about to invite me to dance while at the same time doing his damnedest to steer me into a dark corner. I nearly curtsied.

“What seems to be the problem?” he purred.
I told him. I said that there was no ‘seemed’ about it, but that a fuse had blown and could I buy a new one, please.

He sashayed off to consult his screen, peering with due importance over half moon specs and tapping at the keyboard with a manicured mitt.
“Gavin?” he trilled. Gavin fetched Mike. They muttered.
Mike lent Shakespearean sorrow to the proceedings. He knew his place and maybe didn’t mingle much with such as the Service Manager. He bent mournfully over an oily rag which he fed from hand to hand and said that it would be an hour before they’d have a chance even to look at the car; only he didn’t call it a look, he called it Undertaking A Diagnostic Survey. Which would take at least an hour.

Dancing Service Manager let me hear all this and then said it again, since we all know that monkeys with rags don’t impart useful information to customers, even if they are plebs, only Service Managers do this.
“I don’t think it needs one of those,” I said, “it’s a fuse.”
“We’re not ruling a fuse out,” he said, glancing at Mike in an urgent, important, manly, way for corroboration, “But we’ll need to Undertake A ...”
“A Diagnostic Survey,” I finished.
“Yes,” he said.
“Which will take at least an hour?” I said.
“Yes,” they both said.
“So, we’re looking at how much?” I asked
“?”
“What’s it likely to cost?”
“Hard to say at this stage. It depends on the Diagnostic Survey, which is at least an hour and then … would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Forget it,” I said slightly tersely, springing into my WTF stride again and thrilling myself by managing the big glass doors without weeping or trapping my hand.

I vowed to get used to no Tom-Tom, no fiddling with mirrors, no clock, no CD, but it was hard going and the journey home was a long ten minutes.

I called in, on spec, at the local garage. It’s a bit of a mess, with no work experience, no entrance hall, no tea and coffee, no magazines. But, lo, a man in a shirt and tie bounded out helpfully from the portacabin hut.

What strange set up was this? No being avoided, ignored, patronised or passed down the line. Weird.
“Let’s take a look,” he said. See! A look. All I wanted was a look.

I played hand maiden to his He-Man and we fiddled with the glove compartment and located the fuse box hidden high above it, and he prised it out and stared it and then said, “Give me a minute.”
Then he ran back to me, like a chap in an advert and inserted the fuse and smiled and said, “Start her up then.”
So I did and all the lights and the mirrors and the clocks and the radio came beaming into life and I smiled the smile of the easily pleased and sighed a happy sigh.

“Thank you so much!” I gushed.
He looked a little surprised at my pleasure.
“It’s been a long afternoon,” I said. “Let me know what I owe you?”
“For a fuse?” he said, puzzled. “Nothing at all.”