Posted by: Scribble | 20/09/2008

Teens

“Hey Mum, would you like a ‘fry up’ for breakfast this morning, you know, as a thank you for last night”?

My goodness me, I am so shocked I forget to answer, instead I stare vacantly at The Teen.  I notice how much he has grown, standing as he is, in only his jimmy bottoms, slender but strong .  I note how he towers over me and eventually my eyes arrive at his, dark, flecked, chocolate brown, beautiful eyes.  His look is questioning, I still haven’t answered.

I laugh, (we both know this is a rare offer) and he smiles, recognising my surprise, such a lovely smile, he has become quite handsome.  “No darling, I think I’ll pass, but thanks a lot for asking.” I wonder if it is a hint that really he would like me to make him and his friends some breakfast but when he tries to tempt me with “a tiny slice of bacon”? I realise the offer is genuine and he pops off to the kitchen. 

“I’ve tidied up the games room too by the way”, he calls out and I feel this is going to be an excellent Saturday.  The reason for all this helpfulness is that I’ve had two other Teens staying last night and frankly, thats not much fun.  Deafening music, the bass and and drum sounds positively rattling my teeth, is enough to put me an asylum if not the dentist’s chair.  Loud laughter, a suspicious smell of cigarette smoke which I don’t feel inclined to investigate (The Teen will undoubtedly blame one of the other Teens), all adds up to an unwelcome effort on a Friday evening.  I open a bottle of white wine, £3.99 reduced from about £8, (can’t be bad) and pickle in on the sofa.  It is only slightly surreal, the clash of The Teen’s music and the offerings on the telly but at least they are ensconsed in the ‘games room’ and I have the telly to myself.

Fortunately they all behaved very well, as far as I know, and I didn’t have to come downstairs and read the riot act.  Three Teens is quite different to two.  Two are fine, there is enough room in The Teen’s tiny bedroom to fit in one extra body on a mattress on the floor, but three means sleeping downstairs in the Games room where I can’t keep such a good eye on them.  Whatever they got up to, they have cleared up and put away the bedding which is quite something and as they didn’t disturb me at all in the night, I am peaceful goodwill personified this morning.

The Teens are staying at one of their homes tonight and I find myself Teen-less.  It’s really quite a luxury as usually other Teens tend to stay here and not all of them return the favour.  Generally I have at least one spare body around and so it is lovely to have time on my own.  The Teen thoughtfully outlines the itinery for the weekend so I am not worried about him, holds his mobile up anticipating my next query and borrows £10 from me.  A glance in the kitchen shows his efforts at clearing up after the ‘fry-up’ aren’t bad at all and clearly designed to ensure I am utterly delighted with him and rather sorry to see him go.

“So Mum, JW’s parents will collect us from town, not late (he hastily assures me) and we’ll go back to his house.  I’ll call you in the morning ok?”  He offers his cheek for a kiss, gives me a conspiratorial wink as we both notice JW’s very bright shade of neon blue tracksuit and heads out to the car.  I leave them in town and hasten back to my bolthole, bring up the drawbridge and wallow in the unexpected freedom I have at my disposal. 

That bottle of wine looks quite appealing and The Blue Macs are on the telly.  George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress are acting out their parts in this wonderful wartime movie.  I could sit and watch it if I feel like.  There is no lunch to prepare or even supper for that matter, since I made a Lasagne yesterday which will do.  Oh the luxury of it all.  I get so bored with cooking these days.  Endless meals and shopping and clearing, mean that a small break like this is very welcome indeed.  There’s always eggs from the chickens too, if The Other and I fancy them later.

I have only one eye on the film, (it’s a bit decadent to watch telly in the day time) as I contemplate The Teen’s charm in my now quiet house.  I think back to pre-teen days when he was such a dear little lad and note the difference becoming a Teen makes.  On the whole he is still a dear little boy, he is seldom actually bad tempered and is usually nice to be around but his life is more complicated now than it was then.  Then, his entire life was sport or outdoor activities like camping in the garden, making tree houses, bows and arrows, cooking sausages on a little camp fire and so on.  Now, he is a social animal, has lots of friends and is out a great deal.  The girls are keen on him, he can be very good at listening to them, but he is not actually interested in them in a girlfriend sort of way much to their chagrin.  He has a lot of older male friends, lads a couple of years older than himself and it is they who hold a fascination for him and he yearns to be older. 

I always dreaded the Teenage years.  I had often heard mothers complaining that their Teens would barely talk to them, were monosylabic and grunted all the time.  It sounded awful and I decided I wouldn’t let mine become that way.  So far I have been sucessful.  The Teen talks to me a lot, though he needs me less in some ways.  I always insist on a reasonable level of please and thank you’s and luckily The Teen has decided that he prefers his room to be clean and tidy rather than a smelly messy hole.  I am aware that I am very lucky in this and The Teen keeps himself clean, if not tidy too and that does seem to be a bonus.  Of course he’s not been a Teen very long, so I may be in for some challenges ahead but at least for now, on occasions he can be quite delightful.

Ursula is stretched out like an alluring minx and George Peppard is getting undressed.  Perhaps I will watch telly afterall. Have a good weekend!

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Posted by: Scribble | 19/09/2008

Turning Point

I’m really hoping that I am moving towards a turning point in my life.  I’ve been in the doldrums for rather too long and if I’m not careful I will sink into mddle age, well before my time.  When I think back to my twenties and the busy and interesting life I had then, I can’t believe I have slid into such a low point.  Much of the cause of this wasted life, is The Other’s illness.  When he first showed signs of ill health, we could not have foreseen endless visits to hospitals, having tests, scans, MRI’s and so on stretching into years.  At his lowest point, we all thought he would be dead within the year but he’s a tough old boot and five years later, he’s still here.  He isn’t here in a big way but he is still here.

We used to have a good social life.  Many suppers with friends, outings to the pub, days out, evening bar-b-que’s at the beach, which were a favourite with the boys, occasional gigs at a nearby pub and generally a reasonably satisfactory life.  As The Other got worse though, we saw less and less of our friends, did less and less and eventually people drift away and before you realise it, no one comes around and the phone stops ringing.  The Other was ill and I was depressed and instead of making sure I kept my friends, I shut myself away, put off anyone who wanted to see me and ended up largely alone.  Never in my youthful wildest dreams would I have ever expected to end up with so few people in my life.  Always an outgoing, gregarious, fun type of person, my younger self would be disgusted at me as I am today.  My younger self would have dismissed any such situation as to be so uttely unlikely and silly not to have given the prospect a second thought.  But ones youthful expectations don’t always survive.  I recall seeing other lonely people and wrapped up as I was in the midst of my young children and family and friends, I could never have imagined myself similarly lonely. Loneliness has an attached feel to it.  Loneliness equals a sad person and is slightly shameful; one wonders why are they lonely, must be something wrong with them.  The older you get with less friends, the more difficult it becomes.  Most people have friends going back decades to childhood.  I had such friends for a long time but I lost quite a few when I took up with The Other and led a wild life.  Then I made new friends amongst the music people that surrounded us a while ago, but many of them disappeared, some died, quite a few actually and then I made friends amongst the parents at the boys school.  A lot of them disappeared when The Teen became difficult and he changed schools. I barely know anyone at his current school.  He is too old for me to take him into his classroom and deposit him and chat to other mums.  None of these mums stand around at the beginning and end of each day chatting, as we used to do at his prep school. 

I could have kept a couple of friends from his little prep school, but by then, I was so depressed by The Teens problems and my own, I didn’t want to see anyone and I let them go.  Being stabbed in the back was a big set back to me and I took it very badly.  It’s taken a while to be able to put it at the back of my mind and not to get so upset about it.  I’ve hidden away for far too long, licking my wounds.

Just lately a few things have happened to give me hope.  I bumped into an old friend from the Teen’s prep school  who was clearly sorry to have lost touch and very keen to meet up.  Another friend who lives very close by but whom I rarely see rang up to invite me out for a drink, and I went, whereupon I bumped into two other old friends and we had a very good evening at the pub.  I think I will be going out a bit more often now.  I’ve also reconsidered my work situation.  I’ve decided that I absolutely will not do anymore office work.  The very thought makes me ill.  I have applied for a job as a trainee veterinary nurse instead.  I doubt very much that I will get it, but at least I have applied and who knows, I might get lucky.  All my experience with my own animals and the many waifs and strays I’ve helped along the way, may go in my favour and when I enquired as to whether they were looking for someone younger, they said age wasn’t an issue.  I got The Teen to drop off the application to the Vets who are incredibly luckily, only up the road from me as I need to be fairly near to home what with The Other and Skinny.  He laughed his head off at the prospect that I could possibly end up at college with some of his friends, as part of the job is to go to college.

I’m going to do my very best to get this job but also, I am not going to allow myself to get too upset if I don’t.  There is no doubt that it would be a dream come true for me.  Firstly I desperately need a job, secondly, I need to get out, thirdly, it is so near to home that I could pop back at lunch time to look after The Other and Skinny and The Teen’s school is walkable from the vets.  It would be a big comittment, but I’m willing to take it on.  I just hope they are willing to take me on!  Somehow, I feel it has my name on it.

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Posted by: Scribble | 18/09/2008

Small Man, Big Dog

It’s a beautiful evening, the sun is still warm and everything is washed in gold.  Skinny and I fancy a walk out into the corn field now that it has been cut.  We meander along over the crunchy stubble, enjoying the peaceful tranquility and each others company, listening to the soothing sounds of doves cooing and birds singing.  We get about a third of the way down when I hear the sound of a car pulling up by the side of the field.  I glance over to see who it is and my heart sinks as I realise it the man who lives in one of the farm cottages further down the lane.

Skinny and I have met him before and hoped we wouldn’t bump into him too often.  He has a large black Labrador dog, rippling with pounds of muscle and giant manly bits dangling between his legs.  Skinny shivers as they get out of the Volvo.  I make no move towards him but he is clearly determined to come and say hello. 

Small men sometimes feel the need to make up for their size and this man is typical of that sort.  In his case he has the huge black dog that is not as fierce as he would like it to be.  He controls it with a rod of iron and has trained it to perform various tricks.  It’s obedience is impressive, but I know it is born out of fear.  The first time we met, Skinny and I were almost home when the enormous beast came charging up the field towards us, dead set on catching up with a very worried Skinny.  The man had let it off it’s lead, unaware that we were near by.  Realising his dog was heading straight for us, he leaped in his car in hot persuit, hoping to head him off before Skinny, running for her life, ended up in the road.  Luckily Skinny had the good sense to run straight home but not before the dog caught up with her.  He turned out to be an absolute gentle giant.  The man arrived, grabbed the dog and shut him into his car and turning to me, the first words out of his mouth were, ” I shall give him the hiding of his life when I get him home.”  I was rather taken aback at this.  I said not to worry, no harm done but he went on to tell me that he never diciplines his dog in public as people get the ‘wrong idea’ and think he’s being cruel.  I felt dreadful for the dog; he hadn’t really done anything wrong.  He’d been let off the lead and naturally, was curious once he saw Skinny and I further up the field.  We talked for a while and I realised that this man had no idea about dogs and shouldn’t really have one.  Worse, I knew by the time he got home and thrashed the dog, it wouldn’t have a clue what it had done to deserve such treatment.

This evening, after some small talk, he eventually let the dog out of the car.  I wasn’t too keen, fearing it would chase Skinny and Skinny wasn’t keen either and was hiding behind my legs.  The dog, as before was perfectly well behaved while the man insisted on putting him through his paces; showing me how obedient he was, how he could bring back a ball, even sitting after it had been thrown until the command came to go and retrieve it.  I watched all this, rather bored, frankly.  It was a pathetic display of this man’s dominance over what is a gentle, delightful animal.  I listened while he told me all the things he could make it do and perhaps sensing that I’m not especially thrilled to see a circus act, he saved the worst till last.

“I’ve trained him to attack me, you know?” he boasts.  “Really,” I say, “what for?”  “Well I wanted to make him into an attack dog, incase anyone went for me, I wanted him to get between me and an attacker”.  Um.  What a twit, I think to myself.  He’s trying to get a Labrador gun dog, to be an attack dog.  A Labrador, one of the best natured, family friendly dog you can get.  Honestly.

“Of course I had to make him agressive to begin with”, he starts to explain.  “I’ll show you how I did that.”  I begin to feel uncomfortable.  I can’t stand cruelty in any way, to any thing.  I try to keep a neutral expression on my face as he starts to whack the dog quickly on each side of it’s face, trying to anger it.  I feel quite sick, in fact I start to back away.  I speak to the dog, directly, “you don’t want to do that do you dog”? I say hoping the man will realise I am uncomfortable. The poor dog, simply won’t be angry and eventually the jerk gives up.  He explains that the dog is too tired and I readily agree and am thankful the disgusting scene is over. 

By now, I am sidling away a bit further and making my excuses to go home.  He can’t resist telling me which part of the dog he ‘punches’ in order to keep it under such control and I am sickend yet again.  A car comes along and he yells sternly for the dog to ‘heel’.  I gently call to Skinny, who, obedience personified, trots up and stops right by my feet, tucking herself in to allow the car to pass.  I think she is releived she belongs to me.  She shivers as she hears the man shout again at the dog to lie down.

Small men – do they really have to have big dogs?  I’d rather he boasted about his male parts frankly.

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