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Sunday, October 8, 2017

Happy Birthday Mother!



It’s my mother’s birthday on Tuesday so Scotto and I called in before taking her and Dad out for lunch today.

“Here’s your present,” I announced, handing over a card/voucher with an accompanying scented candle.

“Oh I can’t use scented candles,” she replied. “They aggravate my sinuses, but I’ll put this in the cupboard and you can have the one you gave me for last Christmas back. It’s in the same cupboard.”

“But it’s a special soy candle,” I persevered. “I bought it especially with your sinuses in mind.”

She went off to swap the candles.

So now I have a new candle and it’s not my birthday

We arrived at the café of my dear mother’s choice and I was in a bit of a bad mood because the café was facing a car park and I hate eating in places with no atmosphere. I like a bit of beach… or at least a water feature.

There WAS the atmosphere of hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and other hazardous greenhouse gases, I suppose, and also Mum insisted the food was top notch so I decided to be accepting of the fact that it was her birthday not mine and to stop being a selfish biartch.

My mother is strange with her choice of eateries. Once, when we were visiting, she suggested Sunday breakfast at a certain café. When we arrived via the GPS we discovered the café was inside a major shopping centre. Nothing else was open; just a sad little café with no other patrons but ourselves and a view of the roller door of a closed Sportsgirl store.

Another time she suggested lunch at a restaurant attached to a theatre in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at the restaurant and as there was no theatrical production going on and it was completely vacated, we were the only ones there. It too, faced a car park.


So, in great disappointment, but with a hopeful demeanour, I walked to the counter to order a calming, alcoholic, revitalising round of drinks in order to save me from this new affront to my sensibilities.

“I’m sorry,” said the lady serving, “you can’t order alcoholic drinks without ordering food.”

I was perplexed in the extreme. “But we ARE going to order food,” I stammered. “We just want a drink while we’re looking at the menu.”

She shook her head gravely. “You have to order the drink WITH the food.”

I felt my blood pressure edge up and I’m sure my ears went red.

I’m ashamed of myself because I’m sorry to say I gave her a decidedly fake smile when I said, “Allllllllrighty then,” and strutted off in a shit.

When we’d finally ordered and had our beverages in front of us, Dad began talking about how they’d had to purchase water for their empty rainwater tanks the previous week. The mountain hadn’t had rain for ages and everyone was running out of water.

“Why didn’t you just fill up the tanks with the hose?” I asked.

Dad just stared at me... then he got the joke. Either that or he was humouring me, I'm not sure.

To tell the truth, my mother has always asserted, most strenuously, that my father is eccentric, but I am now suspecting they are both quite peculiar.

Thank God it doesn’t run in the family.

On a cheerier note, we gave two of our chickens a warm bath today due to their poo-encrusted bottoms.

Hodor

Ygritte


They are walking with a much easier gait now!

So tell me, do you have any eccentric people in your family?



It was definitely an occasion for surgical gloves.