Whinge and Moan
For thirteen weeks now, I’ve made you all laugh. Not this week. This week, I’m going to whinge. And moan. So you can grin and bear it. Or you can grin at my moans.
For it’s been one of those weeks. When nothing has gone the way I wanted. Hanging, ‘latko’-ing. That’s how I feel.
First on, Swansea is blustering like a cretinous bully who doesn’t notice the teacher’s in the classroom. It’s gales and rain all around. Not even a nod to the fact that it is August. Summer, remember? So, after all that crowing last week about bicycle training, I’ve had to cancel, cancel. And then cancel again. I don’t trust my already precarious balance in winds of 65 miles per hour.
Besides, I’ve got a cold from my last bicycle outing. Which meant I had to say no to the crochet club meet in the pub where they do the most amazing caramel apple pie.
Don’t tune out, there’s more coming.
Have you ever been in that vortex between books? When you’ve let go of one and are hanging, fingers crooked, ready to hook the next one? See, hanging again? But there’s no next one. Not since I finished my book club book a week earlier than scheduled. Three books have been tossed aside thus far. One on the War of the Roses. Another on Ravana. Cosmic connection?
I’ve cast off my seventh scarf and cast on my sixth cap. But the thought of seed stitch for eight inches is daunting. My needles are hanging out of my basket. I’m resolutely ignoring them. And I need a new project for when I want to hurl the cap out of the window. Into that gale.
Meanwhile, a single sock is still draped on the arm of the sofa. I have to knit its pair. The husband wiggles his left foot at it meaningfully roughly at the rate of once an hour. The other option, of course, is that I could cut off his left foot.
I’m in the last one-third of my third run of Zindagi Gulzar Hai. The part where Fawad Khan is making chocolate eyes at his bride. I had to turn off Netflix. I couldn’t take any more. The green-eyed monster was running me out of karma points by the second. At this rate, even a dog’s life would be upcycling.
To top it all, the husband is technically on a week’s leave. But a project has ‘appeared’. Which means he’s holed up in his man cave.
On the other hand, for the first time in almost a year, I’ve got no ‘work’ work. The article I had been saving up for just such an emergency got moved up the publication list, so I had to put my back into it.
I should have known this would happen when I married my opposite number on the zodiac wheel. Listened to Linda Aunty. That’s Mrs Goodman for the rest of you. She slept under my pillow when I was a teenager. And told me not to do what I did. That I would be working my eyes out while the husband strummed his guitar. And that I would be mooching around while he melded into his laptop.
I was sitting thusly mooching when the son called. ‘What’re you doing, Ma?’ he asked to the background clatter of his cooking utensils. The son doesn’t believe in wasting time, so he talks to us as he cooks, does the dishes, cleans his room, picks his scabs.
‘I’m formatting the articles for the next journal issue.’
‘Deadline?’
‘No,’ I muttered. ‘For April 2021.’
Loud cackles crossed paths with the clatter on the other side of the line. ‘Seriously, Ma? You do realise we’re only in August?’
Out poured all my angst. I’ll say this for the son, he’s a good listener. Even if the listening is punctuated with ‘Achha, two cloves of garlic or four?’
‘Wow!’ he said brightly at the end of the deluge. ‘That’s an impressive list even for you.’
Short silence. ‘You know what, Ma? Why don’t you make hash browns?’
Long silence. Did I really hear that right?
‘You can indulge all your talents at one go. You can even shape them like a mandala.’
There are times when a mother has to keep quiet. Not ask questions. Let hang.
