June 12th
My Mother, My Aunt Jen and I, went out to lunch.
It was a very nice café with a 6ft6” waiter who bustled around like a fairy on steroids.
He flew past My Mother and nearly tipped her out of her chair.
“Did YOU see that?” said My Mother, her eyes wide in shock.
When the waiter came near us again I called him over. “Oi” I said, “what’s the story with tipping elderly ladies out of their chairs?”
He looked at me blankly.
“You nearly tossed MY Mother on to the floor”, I said pointedly, “What are you, a Mother Tosser?”

My Mother smiled up at him sweetly.
“I’m terribly sorry Mum,” he said, “I didn’t realise”.
“I BEG your pardon?” roared My Mother, giving him THE LOOK, “WHAT did you call me?”

“Er, Marm?” he said, looking somewhat nervous and realising his mistake.
“Maarrm?” said My Mother, “Maarrm; oh yes, I rather like that” and she waved her wine glass at him imperiously.

I noticed he gave us a wide berth for the rest of our lunch.

June 13th
My brother Stephen rang, all the way from London.
He wanted to talk to me secretly about Our Mother.
“Her memory is terrible”, he said in grave tones.
“Ask her what she did each day on her trip and I bet she can’t remember”.

Her trip to Europe was 6 weeks long and she is 80 years old.
I’ve been on a day trip at 24 and been unable to remember where I’ve been.
I didn’t like to point this out.

I’m gobsmacked at what she does remember, she keeps trotting out bits of information she learned while over there about some obscure artist or musician and then forgets whether she had put sugar in her coffee or not.
“I mentioned this to her.

“I have an information filtration system”, she said.
“Yes”, said My Aunt Jen, “You wait till you get to our age, there’s just so much to retain, something has to be skimmed off the top”.

Obviously I’ve managed to install a deep brain trawling system into my brain; it is destroying the viability of my memory cells, some of which are 5 minutes old. The impact of this is having an affect on my ability to remember pretty much anything unless it is particularly interesting.

June 14th
My Mother and The Aunty Jen went off to a party for the afternoon.
They partied all day. When they got home at 6pm, they settled in for an evening of riveting conversation.
“Wasn’t Thingamee looking well?” said My Aunt Jen.
“Oh yes,” said My Mother, “and as for that girl who played the, er, you know, tiddly pom…”
“Magical”, sighed my Aunt.

Then they both promptly fell asleep in their chairs.

June 15th
I caught up with a bunch of friends and then popped in to see The Aunty Joy.
She’s 91 and in a rest home now and I’ve never seen anything like it.
She was parked up next to a cabinet full of glasses, with a fridge on the other side.

“HELLoo!” she said cheerfully, “You’re just in time for a Gin”.
It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I suspect that had I turned up at 8am I’d have just been in time for a Gin.
She guided me to the fridge; it was full of rows of tonic bottles squeezed around a cask of wine.

She then got me to open a cabinet under the fridge. There seemed to be about 60 bottles of Gin in there. “I like to be prepared for visitors”, she said beaming up at me.
I pretty sure she’s the most popular resident in the entire home.

 

June 16th
We got to the airport in good time.
My Mother had me packed and ready to go at about 6.30am. My plane was due to leave at 10.30am. It takes 20 minutes to get to the airport.
I decided to take my last tablet on the way to the airport.

I wasn’t quite calm enough to hear the news that the flight had been delayed due to fog therefore I’d have to fly to Wellington first. I don’t DO Wellington airport. Last tie I flew in there, we landed first on one wing and then the other.

There was an hour to spare so we went to a nearby café. The pill had started to work, by the time we got back to the airport and I was called up and told they’d changed their minds and I would now be flying out via Auckland (about a 1000 miles North and nowhere near Christchurch), I didn’t care, they could have flown me via Bangkok and I’d still not care.

The flight from Auckland to Christchurch was great. I sat right up front by the window, watching the cloud drenched North Island give way to the spectacular clear mountains of the south.

The Canterbury plains were covered in cotton wool through which the surrounding snow capped mountains rose majestically.
We descended smoothly into the cloud and I was home.
Brent is away for a week again and all the animals were pretty annoyed with me for being away for so long.

June 17th

I txted my friend Erana to see if she was going to actually come to the gym.
Erana has been a member of the gym for about 6 months. “It hasn’t made any difference”, she wailed.
I pointed out that you had to actually GO to the gym.

- How long must I go for - she txted.

- About ¾ hour – I txted back.

- Arrghh was thinking maybe ¼ of hour then jog into supermarket for cream bun refreshment –

- Good God there’s no saving you –

- OK see u at 6 IF I am still alive, Jase will put apology in for me if I am not –

- U B There –

- I will….unless, of course, I break an arm, or a leg or break wind even; such things are beyond my control – A broken limb will be arranged if you r not at gym at 6pm –

I picked her up and deposited her home an hour later, shell shocked, but alive with no broken limbs.

 

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