Memories of Mum

Following my lovely interweb friend Keris's post on her blog today, I got to thinking about my own mum - and all the things that used to annoy her... here's just a taster:

1. It was raining. And ‘He’ (in that great Upstairs in the Sky) had Done It On Purpose to upset her. No, honestly. I even caught her once when I about ten and it had been raining ferociously (as it always did in the Seventies…?) and she’d been standing at the kitchen sink. One of her hands was gripping the side of the worktop so angrily that her knuckles were white and the other hand brandished a meat cleaver which she weilded dangerously towards the kitchen window at the rain-rivuletted pane. I heard her giving the Almighty a few choice words as to what she thought of His idea of weather for that Monday morning. How could I remember it had been a Monday? Easy. That was her Wash Day. And He knew that, didn’t He? He did it to spite her….

Of course she could very probably have been going through the Menopause or been pre-menstrual or something but at six years old, you kinda (I kinda) thought I’d done something horribly wrong to upset mummy and steered well away for the rest of the day, maybe even week… month. Can’t remember. Don’t want to.

Anyway. Next one.

2. It was raining. And ‘He’ had Done It Again because it was Wednesday and He Knew Wednesdays were shopping days and because it was also half-day closing (now those were the days) she had to get it all done in the morning. Why couldn’t she have done it on a Thursday? Don’t know the answer to that one. Yes I do now, it was the only day that Grumps could drive my Mum and Nan into town. Only on a Wendesday, ok? It must have been his half day off work or something but it just had to be a Wednesday, and that was also market day which meant cheaper produce… so that was it. Ah, it’s all becoming a lot clearer now. I think.

Right. Next.

3. It was raining. And …… yes, you can guess the rest… only this time she’d just had her hair permed and set and He had done It on Purpose to make her look foolish and dampen her hair so that it resembled more tiny white mouse tails than loosely teased curls. All because He hated her. He did. And, as usual it was ‘Typical’… she didn’t know what she’d done ‘to deserve this’ and God was ‘punishing her’. I never found out what for.

And lastly,

4. It was raining. And we’d just driven a million miles to Burton Bradstock to stay in some god-forsaken Caravan park for a fortnight in the summer holidays and because the grass was soaked we couldn’t put the awning up. Why we couldn’t wait and put the awning up tomorrow I could never understand but again, He had Done this to upset her and to punish her. And still none the wiser as to what she had ever done to deserve being punished in this (always wet) manner.

You get the picture.