Chats with mum

... she doesn't like much and has always been astonished at the sort of things other people are interested in. When the media was abuzz about a partial eclipse, she'd announce to whoever might be listening.

'I'm not interested in cullipses - it's so far up in the air'

 

September students

It's a startlingly sunny day, I'm on my lunch break and take a seat to enjoy the unusual warmth and the sight of dazed-looking freshers just arrived from Planet Zog, trying to figure out how doors work and what a potato is for.

A young man joins me on the bench and after a while asks if he can ask a question, he's careful with his words, he's trying out a whole new vocabulary

Where do I get wash tabs?

For clothes - laundry? (he nods) Any supermarket will have them

He looks puzzled and I can't quite get his accent, I'm guessing he's from eastern europe - or maybe further afield

If you go to the top of this street you'll see a Sainsburys, big orange sign, they will have a range of laundry products including tablets. 

I went on to explain about supermarkets as he didn't seem familiar with the concept, then I asked where he'd come from ...

Wales

Conversations with strangers

My work involves me spending time with people in a waiting room, sometimes they're quiet, other times they really want to chat. I've got PTSD from some of the things people tell me, yesterday I was just confused.

A woman arrived, accepted a cup of coffee and told me how furious she is at the government's announcement about stopping the £500 winter fuel payment to pensioners, she told me how her mother found it difficult to  cope. I sympathized, then she moved on to the joys of a clothing resales app called 'Vinted'.

Mum's a shopoholic, she just won't stop, her house is full of bags of clothes still with all the labels on. Every now again to make room for the next lot she'll take a load to the charity shop and I said - Mum! look you could make money on this stuff. I put some of it up on Vinted last week, 6 dresses, 10 pairs of jeans - all brand new, never worn - I got £35 for it !

Conversation piece

January has been a bit draggy, scraggy and irritating... a bit like me 

At the beginning of the month I started a conversation with a very beautiful woman, I asked her what she was expecting for this coming year. She said that after more than 40 years of marriage to a beautiful but awful man - who'd made her feel worthless and ugly, she'd just finished divorcing him. She'd walked away from the beautiful house and beautiful garden, the beautiful cars and she was quite detailed about the beautiful furniture she'd left behind. Interestingly the one thing she'd kept was his beautiful name, which had been the thing that had made me start talking to her.

This is a drawing of last nights dream

 

Yesterday I drew a circle around a 'situations vacant' ad for a  'Senior Odour Consultant' 

Then I went to our local pub and  overheard someone explaining about biometrics, that her sister has a car that she can open without a key because the door handle can read her fingerprints, the person listening looked puzzled - So how does she start it up, does she have to lick the steering wheel?

 

Siberian wardrobe problems

 

I sat next to a woman who told me she was from Siberia

Two Siberian clichés crashed into my brain, I made a pinchy face, she was defensive

It is not just very cold it is also very hot,  we only have extremes, six months very hot, six months very cold and very great difference over one day - it can start at minus 20 degrees, then later in day zero degrees - so it really fucks with our blood pressure and people die from that, but really big problem in Siberia is that we love British trench coat - every woman has trench coat but weather is either for fur coat or little small top, there are precisely two days every year when  trench coat is acceptable so we all live with trench coat in wardrobe. 

This prompted me to think about an over-sized, new-but-vintage toffee-coloured cashmere coat I bought in a charity shop last year. I had to have it but it looked like I was wearing an actual wardrobe so I got it altered by an expensive tailor. As long as I wear it over a big chunky jumper, accessorised with substantial footwear and headwear it looks fantastic. Mimsy British weather is never cold enough for this outfit, obviously I must relocate . . . but Siberia . . . gulags, chilly . . .

My next post might be from Norway 

Doggy talk

I've been staying near Oxford for the last two weeks, dog-sitting for an elderly greyhound, here he is sleeping on a stripey rug. 

There was a river at the end of the garden and I took daily dips, it's a funny thing, swimming along chatting to people on their houseboats, I can't be on houseboats for too long because I get land sick when I go back onto dry land - I stayed on a barge once and by the end of one week I couldn't walk straight on a pavement which felt dangerous.

I like the effect that walking a dog has on other people, I've had some curious conversations, one lady asked me what breed my dog was and then noted how dog breeds have changed since when we were young - 'My Nan had a Jack Russell but you don't see the terriers any more, or the Lassie dogs, everything's some sort of poo these days'.

This year I started working at a Funeral Parlour

my eight-year-old niece  has heard about this and is fascinated,  when I spoke to her on the phone this week, she asked me what I do in my job, I asked her what she thought I did

Cutting up bodies and mopping blood

she imagines my place of work to be a combination of hairdressing salon and a butchers

Our household laundry products are almost odourless

which might account for my olfactory sensitivity to other people's perfumed washing powders and fabric conditioners. The Man is focused on the ecological aspects of using laundry products and recently came home with a bag of brown knobbles - 'soap nuts' which didn't look very inviting, I asked him how they smell, he open the packet and put his nose in.

old toenails

nice!

the outside lake is nearly at zero degrees warm

 I still go there for a swim when I can.

My neighbour Simon hears voices and loves Jesus, he  prints out 'Jesus is Great' leaflets and goes out campaigning vigorously for his man.

Lately Simon has taken to dancing in the street. Most mornings at 10, with headphones on, he marches down to busy a traffic intersection and dances among the traffic for all he's worth. He's happier than I've ever seen him, if he sees me, he comes over to put the headphones on me so I can hear what he's raving to.

Yesterday, I packed my bags for a swim in the lake and as I walked over to the car Simon was coming up the street in his dancing gear, I said, Have a nice dance Simon, I'm off to the lake for a swim. Simon passed me his headphones so I could listen to a bit of Bob Marley, then he called me a F***ing nutter and went on his way.

A visit to my mother-in-law

will involve eating delicious food, exchanging family news ... and bedding information. My husband's mother worries that we might not be warm enough ... or too warm. After explaining how the bedroom windows work (open/closed to varying degrees) she tells us that she has made up the bed with 'one of those aerosol blankets'.  

I imagine that we will spend the night in a giant nest of cuckoo spit.

I've joined a social network for our local area

Mainly it's used to exchange news about cleaners, coffee mornings and car break-ins but sometimes people post sightings of a naked man running away from a police helicopter or a man walking around with a burning shed on his head and sometimes a great row breaks out. Yesterday, Bob posted about the guinea pigs that he keeps in his garden being eaten by foxes. This is the second batch of guinea pigs that Bob's lost to foxes, he claims that he sees 'tens of foxes regularly in the garden' a fact that he blames on the community leaving out food for them.

Here's an extract from his original post ... and the best response

BOB 

STOP FEEDING THE FOXES

We have just had our four beloved rescue guinea pigs killed by a fox ... there have been rumours of someone feeding the foxes ... if this is you or someone you know then please please stop... it’s just inconsiderate and evil. If you’re that desperate to feed an animal how about you get a bird feeder? They were our truly loved and cherished herd and I can’t believe that they are gone by such a selfish and uncaring action.    

Response from Edward

You have sort of left food out for the foxes though...

Inappropriately public conversations

often happen at the lake-by-the-ocean - my best swimspot. Maybe seeing the far horizon makes people feel so out in the wild that they become oblivious to all the other people around them.

Last week, two almost identical rows erupted at the edge of the lake, the first by little boys and the second by a middle-aged couple who were each telling the other, in very plain terms, that they didn't enjoy each other's company. These exchanges were by the entry steps queues formed as swimmers waited for the angry participants to either drown each other or go home.

Have the British lost their famous reserve? Have we become too European? Is this why we must Brexit?

Do people imagine mobile phones make them invisible?

Or is it everyone else who becomes invisible? I was trailed at close quarters by a big girl weeping copiously as she detailed at volume the very many, very intimate reasons why she was upset, I was getting drenched, deafened and thoroughly depressed and she was practically on my heels so I stepped into a doorway to allow her to pass. She did spot me then and paused her wailing long enough to give me a squint-eyed What's- the-matter-with-you? look

an angry man

was wheeling a huge suitcase through a crowded shopping street. A little dog jumped at the suitcase and barked at it, the dog's human was half-prone drunk in a doorway. The angry man kicked out at the dog making the dog even more barky. The man kicked more at the dog and shouted a lot of sweary words and it was getting ugly. My momentum and trajectory had walked me right in front of all this so I was the one who became the school mistress and told the angry man to stop. This made the dog go and sit on his human. The angry man glared at me all red and goggle-eyed

it was going to bite me
no it wasn't

The angry man took a wide-legged stance and pushed his face at me and jabbed his sausagey fingers at my face while searching to find the worst insult ...

you ... you ...  .... F***ING ... .... BLEEDING HEART ....  LIBERAL ... F***ING . ...  
DOG-LOVER

I'm packing for a few days in London

while I'm collecting up the bits I need for the trip the Man is on the phone to his father, they are both deaf so the conversation is being held at top volume, I can hear both sides clearly. The Man is talking about a programme he's working on called 'Amazing Earth' but the father can't quite grasp the title. The Man breaks it down, bellowing the words slowly

It's called AMAZING EARTH ... 'amazing' ... like really fantastic and ...'Earth' ... like where we all live

the dad reckons he's got it and bellows back appreciatively

'Fantastic House', Oh yes that's a great title, I hope it all goes well... bye

What's my motivation?

Drove to the seaside for an icy swim this morning along with several other people. My fellow dippers seem to fall into two camps.

i) Mostly women; jumping-in, giggling and chatting about last night's telly
 
ii) Mostly men; doing 'distance,' wearing devices that chart the metrics of their swimming, much discussion about past and upcoming water-based challenges.  

I was dried and ready to head home at the same time as another Bristol-based swimmer, he accepted my offer of a lift back.  Maintaining a constant monologue about swim-races, marathons and cross-channel swimming events coming up over the next decade, he kept asking if I was planning to enter this or training for that (no - a thousand times no). I realised that he was trying to work out what my goal was - what was the point of my swimming - I could offer him no satisfactory explanation.

I have also joined a gym, I have been given a card where I must note down the heaviness of the weights that I can push or pull and how many times I can do it. I'm a few weeks in and have completed a row of figures on my first card, I note that I am pushing and pulling pretty much the same amount of weight that I was when I started and it dawned on me that my aim is simple - 'Don't Get Worse' - this can become my motto, my motivational mantra, I shall embroider it on a coat of arms and make myself a marching banner.

Later that day 

walking up the road, passed a grizzled-looking man who suddenly exclaimed MOTHERFUCKER
I startled and looked at him with raised eyebrows, he looked abashed and said - Not you - you look lovely

Yesterday an engineer came to sort out some wires in our house

He adjusted some components then there was a moment when he had to stand around and wait for information from the computer -  we made chit chat

he said, things are pretty quiet workwise this week so I'm taking tomorrow off, it's my kids birthday
Lovely I said how old?

Four-year old twins, twin boys

Crikey I said, were they a surprise or are twins in the family? 

They were a surprise when we saw them on the scan but the funny thing was that my daughter gave birth on the same day

Gosh, did you all go to hospital together?

No my wife was booked to have a cesarean in the afternoon so she was just getting ready for that, my sixteen-year-old daughter was in the next room, she'd been going on about having stomach pains and then they got worse so she came in to our room, I didn't even know she was pregnant. 

????

She was a big ... I thought she'd been comfort eating, her mother had died a few months before.  So my wife was getting her bag packed and my daughter was really shouting about her pain and I was Googling to try and see what she had and the only thing I could find with her symptoms was labour, and I kept saying that and she kept insisting she wasn't pregnant.  And then her waters broke and all I could think was that was a new carpet. When the ambulance arrived my daughter was on the floor on all fours and my wife, who was enormous, she was on the floor behind her, they were both yelling their heads off and the paramedics didn't know which one to help, luckily they had a midwife with them and she got my daughter sitting on the side of the bed and I went out the room for a minute, then I  came back in just in time to see my granddaughter's head coming out of my daughter and they  delivered her right there.

Did you have to get another new carpet?

The London bus was late

the queue in the bus station was chatting among itself. A jolly-looking Irish man was talking about his bad experience with the rival bus company, I asked him if he was aware that a third bus company had started up, the stop for that one was just outside the bus station


Jolly-looking man regarded me as though I'd suggested he pick through litter bins for his lunch

Outside the bus station??? - that sounds very dodgy  

I didn't have time to rebut this because he got busy telling me that if I was even thinking about taking the train I'd better not fall asleep or someone would be stealing my bag and nipping off at Swindon.

And now the whole bus queue started catastrophising about how the entire  fabric of society is in tatters but he shouted above them

and you know what ... I say DO YOU KNOW WHAT???? and this is true because I know it is. The whole police force is taken up with looking at Facebook and Twitter these days, looking for anyone that says something that might upset someone, you can be getting murdered or burgled in your beds, call the police for being murdered and no-one will come but you say something on Facebook and they'll be round mob-handed to clap you in irons   

we fell silent.

The London bus pulled into the bay, I said - Look Hurray! it's a double-decker! 


Jolly-looking man gave me another of his looks, he said I always stay downstairs, I don't want to get my head chopped off by a bridge

The Man arrived home with new hair

delighted that the barber he's been visiting for many years finally asked  -  

The usual sir?

He enjoyed the in-the-club feel of his 'usual' being remembered by the barber. Also he tells me that time saved on explaining means that he's in and out the barber's chair in ten minutes flat

How did you used to explain it?

I ask if he can make it shorter and look nice