35. Marmite Maggie
ReadingColleague’s birthday last night and we gathered at her house for a very jolly evening of chilli and chat. Mostly workmates or other teacher friends.
I shared the news that we have accepted an offer on our house! A new estate agent last Tuesday led to a viewing on Wednesday from a young couple who were able to climb the stairs without stopping for a breather. The chap won over ActorLaddie’s heart when he said he could look out into the garden while cooking. AL had to be restrained from giving him soup recipes there and then. They will make lovely neighbours for our lovely neighbours. So that’s all good.
34. Turn and face the strain
When YoungLochinvar were nought but a nipper, our fridge stopped working. We ordered a replacement but the infant YL was distraught. “I liked the old fridge,” he wailed. In vain we explained that we also liked the old fridge in every respect apart from its inability to keep things cold. YL reproached us for our failure to keep faith with the white goods. He always did have an advanced vocabulary. Thus started Old Fridge Syndrome. More than a quarter of a century later it would be, of course, inappropriate and embarrassing of us to remind YoungLochinvar of O.F.S. every time he faces a major life change. So, naturally, we do. What else are parents for? Continue reading →
33. Mixing memory and desire…
“Can it wait, Layla? I need to get this register to the office.”
“But Mrs Jellywoman – we don’t have no chairs!”
I look at Layla over the top of my glasses. “That’s ‘we haven’t got any chairs’, Layla.”
Layla has younger brothers and so is accustomed to explaining things to the simple. She draws upon this skill now. “Well, you’ve got a chair, Mrs Jellywoman. You’re sitting on it. But we don’t have no chairs.”
32. I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
“How do you do, Mehmet?”
“Very well thank you, Mrs Jellywoman.”
“How do you do, Ololade?”
“Very well thank you, Mrs Jellywoman.”
“How do you do, George?”
“My leg hurts.”
31. With two cats in the yard; life used to be so hard…
“When people look round your house,” says LittleSis, “they are actually considering whether they want to buy your life-style.” She’s a regular Kirsty-and-Phil, is my sister.
So, the people who haven’t made an offer on our house are actually rejecting our life-style: rejecting us, in fact. This bemuses me. Granted, the house does have the look of a library about it but then who wouldn’t want to live in a library?
Don’t answer – I’m feeling a bit raw about all this.
30. Riddikulus!
“I’m sorry to hear about your op,” I said to FriendlyColleague as we were hanging out by the Risograph last week. We don’t run to a water-cooler at our school, so gossip is accompanied by the sweet smell of duplicating ink.
29. You’ll have had your tea
In the summer, ActorLaddie would pile GrannieBorders into the car with her wheelchairs, the world’s tartan-blanket mountain and a bottle of lemonade.
28. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make…
Grannie and Grandad Borders, ActorLaddie and OlderBrother
The post I started writing yesterday morning featured some rather jolly anecdotes about mobile phones. But those will have to wait for another day.
27. And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye…
“Tough as old boots,” texted back YoungLochinvar. “Must be the porridge.” And indeed, the Borders produces a pretty hardy kind of bairn, if his Gran is anything to go by.
26. To every thing there is a season
In March ’74 my best-mate-at-school took me along to the Youth Theatre. She’d joined a couple of months previously and had already given the world her Elderly Clerk. Later that summer, she and I would sweep the boards with our masterful First and Second Attendants to the Lady Olivia. But such delights were but pipe-dreams as I followed her into the rented school-hall that Friday evening.
The Jelly Chronicles 