57. Clang, clang, clang went the bell…
Crammed into the sidecar attached to Pa’s motorbike, Ma, LittleBro, the budgie and I followed the removal van across the City, not dilly-dallying on the way. We were moving from our tiny first floor flat to a house in the suburbs of North London. It would be just like in my favourite Janet and John books, with a real garden and an upstairs. All very exciting and not in the least scary.
56. And the living is easy…
I inherited my ‘toy’ gene from Pa.
We like to think of ourselves as Renaissance people, do Pa and I, with wide-ranging interests which broaden our minds and engage us in the stuff of life. It would be perverse to describe us as fickle, easily bored and attracted by novelty. I would refute such an accusation heartily; indeed, I will put that in writing as soon as I retrieve my calligraphy set from behind the knitting machine. If I can just get past the allotment magazines … and the yoga mat … and the concertina…
48. Yo, Kanye, I’m really happy for you…
“Ocado suggests I might want some Root Retoucher.” ActorLaddie looks up from his laptop. “What do you think?”
If you’ve met ActorLaddie, you’ll know that having his roots redone is fairly low on the To-Do list, as his style guru is Eric Morcambe.
My Junk folder, on the other hand, is brimmed to overflowing – if you’ll forgive the expression – with adverts for Viagra. Someone out there in Google-land has figured that searching for a lot of computer stuff makes me a bloke and, what’s more, one in need of a little help.
45. Re: Annual Renewal of Parkinson’s
Mr J Hunt
Secretary of State for Health
Dear Mr Hunt,
I am writing to thank you for my year’s free trial which finishes at a quarter past three this afternoon, assuming that we are counting from the moment of official diagnosis.
I have been considering whether to renew my membership of the Grand Order of Persons With Parkinson’s; that elite band of comrades with its not-so-secret handshake. Frankly, I am still undecided.
40. Do you promise not to tell…
“You remember this – answer from Never to Always passing through Very Occasionally, Sometimes and Often.”
We’ve done the neurology questionnaire three times now: at the start of the drugs trial, in the middle and now, at the end. Where did that six months go? Dr LaMancha knows me so well that his pencil hovers over my answers before I say them. We whip through the questions. Then there’s that moment when I long for Dr LaMancha to give me a red pen to mark my own paper while he runs through what the answers should have been. It’s a test and I want to know how I’ve done. Perhaps I could be put in a league table with the other Parkie patients.
37. Keep on running
“’Jellygirl approaches games lessons with enthusiasm’,” reads ActorLaddie.
I am weeding the file labelled ‘instruction booklets’ and look up to find that he is holding one of my old school reports.
“In other words, ‘Jellygirl is rubbish at games’,” I translate. I am fluent in Report Speak. “We appear to have an instruction booklet for the coffee table.”
36. Listen, do you want to know a secret…?
“Did you know that Parkinson’s Awareness Week is next week?” says InfantPhenomenon. She’s just started work as a trainee journalist and is calling me in her coffee break. I, however, am on Easter holidays and evading doing school-work by skulking in bed with coffee and a Kindle. Lounging around while the children are at work; Earth hath not anything to show more fair.
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 →
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.”
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.
The Jelly Chronicles 