IS THIS A RHETORICAL QUESTION?

My son came home yesterday to get all the stuff he left here over the summer. I’m putting him on my car insurance for 24 hours so he can drive to Manchester and to the various friends’ houses where he has the rest of his belongings scattered/stored.

It was a record breaking hot sunny 1^st October. We took the dogs for a walk through the woods, the woods where there is a pub at the end and had a pint in the beer garden.

I am not quite sure how this happened, but we ended up in the chippy. We both had a mini rissole, chips, peas and curry sauce. It was only three quid for both of us and no cooking or washing up. We ate them in the car. Then we dashed up to Morrison’s with my “get a free bottle of Encona chilli sauce” voucher. They’d sold out.

Driving back in the car we got to talking about how I am turning into my Mum. My lovely dear old Mum who, in the nicest possible way, used to talk absolute rubbish. She would ask pointless rhetorical questions such as “where are they going?”, “what are they doing?” about total strangers. The sort of things a toddler would say. My dear old Mum, who’d raised a family, held down a full time job, had one or two good wins on the bingo and went cold turkey to get herself off the tranquilisers the docs used to put so many women on in the 1970’s. My Mum who was so easily loved and adored by so many people. My Mum who had managed to hold everything together for so many years, was talking shite.

The thing is, I don’t really feel old. And it is only after the words have bypassed my brain and come out of my mouth that I realise how stupid they are. I understand why my son gets frustrated with me like I used to get frustrated with my Mum.

Its 6 years at the end of this month since my Mum died. What I wouldn’t give to hear one more rubbish, stupid, daft rhetorical question.

Where are you Mum and why aren’t you here now? I’ve got a rotten cold and I want my Mum. So what if I am nearly 55? Although this may sound like a rhetorical question, it is, in fact a statement.

SANTANDER

My flat is empty of life forms apart from Baby Niamh curled up on one of the old lady chairs and Ruby snuggled up on the old lady settee with her nose buried in Susie Warner’s furry pink cushion. I am not working today so I suppose this would be the ideal opportunity to clean the flat. I’m not in a domestic goddess mood. I have looked in my bedside cabinet for some reading glasses. I found 4 spectacle receptacles and opened each one with eager anticipation. Not one of them had any reading glasses in. I threw them all back in the drawer and slammed the drawer in disgust. No doubt next time I am looking for reading glasses I will go through the same rigmarole again, not remembering that I had already done this before. It would have been better if I had removed the spectacle receptacles there and then. Well ….. it’s not as if I have so much to do now I don’t have time to go looking through empty glasses cases. Anyway, it’s easy to get distracted when you’re not fully committed to the job in hand so I’ve been watching the American X Factor. During the adverts and whilst I was in the kitchen making a brew, I heard a Santander advert. Santander is my new bank. This is not a bank I chose myself. It is the bank that “took over” the Alliance and Leicester. They also changed all the paperwork, the design and colour of my bank statements and increased the charge of my overdraft facility by 100%. Changing everything does not necessarily make it better. It appears that I am to bear the brunt of the costs for these changes by Santander surreptitiously adding the 100% increase to the charge for my overdraft facility. I have written a poem and sent it via secure e-mail to Santander. If these wealthy bankers have a conscience I will soon have £100 in my bank account.

This is the poem:-

I’ve just seen an advert on telly
About switching to Santander
If you do you’ll get a £100
But I think that’s just not fair.
The reason that I think this
Is cos I banked with A & L
Who were taken over by Santander
So I should get £100 as well.
I was happy with A & L
It wasn’t my choice to switch
And the transition did not go too smoothly
Or sadly without a hitch.
The payments and transfers facility
I use to send cash to my son
With the faster payment service
When he finds that his cash has all gone.
I transfer the occasional tenner
Into his student account
And if you look at the state of my finances
It’s a relatively high amount.
But during the merge with my bank
The faster payment did not go through
And my poor boy was left penniless and starving
And did not know what to do.
Therefore as a gesture of goodwill
And so I keep my overdraft with you
Could you credit my account with £100
I think that’s the least you could do.
I have not put a question mark
It’s a rhetorical question you see
And the charges you’ve added to my account
I’d be obliged if you returned them to me.

FACEBOOK

I’ve noticed that a lot of the young people have posted photo albums on their profiles entitled Summer 2011. These pictures are full of young people having fun, drinking and partying, as you would expect from the younger generation. I got to thinking what pictures I would post on my Facebook profile for Summer 2011. I do not have these pictures as it did not occur to me at the time that I could make a photo album entitled Summer 2011 to share with my Facebook friends.

Here is a list in no particular order:-

1. The little bald bailiff man outside my door clutching a “notice to issue distress”.
2. The Casualty Department at Northern General Hospital where I spent an afternoon with Judybongo with separate, but tenuously related injuries.
3. My son and his friends dressing up as “ladies” in dresses and going out in the dead of night (I do believe there is some photographic evidence of this event).
4. Me talking to a policeman through the open window of my car. I was sent on my way without being charged. It was a little misunderstanding.
5. Last but not least and an excellent photo opportunity. After allowing my learner driver son to drive my car from Sheffield to Manchester and stopping off at various places and driving through Manchester City centre and up and down the Mancunian Way, covering more than 160 miles….. The look on my face when finally pulling up outside my flat at 11.50 p.m. with only 10 minutes left on my son’s temporary car insurance, to be stopped by the police. My son had stopped the car at the bus stop round the corner where his girlfriend was waiting. He turned the lights off when he got out to snog her and drove the few yards home with no lights on. I should have noticed this but I didn’t. Unfortunately, the police did.
6. My final picture would be my full clean driving licence.

RUBY'S BAD NERVES

I have decided to be a blogger. Because I am menopausal I quite often don’t know what day it is. Things happen and I forget. I don’t think I will forget this morning, but in case I do, this is what happened:-

I was awoken at 6.05 a.m. (Sunday). My 24 year old son had been to a party and this is the time he came home, with his girlfriend in tow. Ordinarily this would not bother me; however, I have 2 dogs, one is called Ruby. Before Ruby came to live with me she had already had at least 2 previous homes. To say she is bad with her nerves would be a fair comment. To say my son was very drunk when he stumbled through the patio doors at 6.05 a.m. would also be a fair comment. I have no idea what happened to Ruby in her previous incarnations but this is not the first time my son has come home drunk in the early hours and it is not the first time that Ruby has gone hysterical in a small dog type way and wet herself. When I say wet herself, I mean dribbled wee all over my bed and pillow and also left a little pool on my lounge room carpet. Ruby is unable to tell me what happened to her previously but I suspect she was hurt or frightened by someone who was very drunk.

In conclusion, dogs are like people. If Ruby is approached suddenly, she will instinctively take a couple of steps backwards. She will always have trust issues but she also has an amazing capacity to forgive, but I don’t think she will ever forget, unlike me who has difficulty knowing what day it is.