Monday 25 February 2013

A long Engagement...

Following on from last week's homework, a second attempt at an 'anniversary, or birthday'. Which piece shall I submit on Wednesday, this or 'The Dinner Party'? Comments welcome....

A Long Engagement.


It has been a constant running joke between my husband and I that he never asked me to marry him. We’ve been married 25 years, and together over 28 years, how we ever got around to getting married I can’t think!
When girlfriends would trot out their romantic stories of how they met and married I always felt I had no decent story to tell.
I never had an engagement ring, and felt like I’d missed out. In fact, using my great grandmother's wedding ring on the day, he didn’t even have to buy me a wedding ring! I’d always hoped for an eternity ring after my first born, but it took until my fourth baby before I got a ring at all!
It was worth the wait when finally my first ring was given, on Christmas Day after our youngest was born, Paul gave me a ‘children’s ring’ that he designed it has sapphire, diamond, diamond, sapphire. Representing daughter, son, son, daughter. Nice and sparkly!
When telling a friend in America that year during our annual phone call she went all soppy and exclaimed how lovely he was, and how romantic a gesture he’d made. She then asked me what I’d brought him, to which I replied ‘A toaster’.
The next ring turned up was my wedding ring, finally! This one engraved with roman numerals, punctuated by diamonds. It’s very useful, as I often forget the year we got married, and by taking a look on my ring, can work it out and fill in the odd bit of paper work.
Then, on my  ‘big birthday’ after the Goblin (our youngest) turned 10, I finally had as my birthday present the ring to end all rings… my eternity ring! I used every bit of birthday money, and the lion's share from Paul. I love it! Diamonds… and I do like a bit of sparkle. The ring I had hoped for after my first baby was born had only taken 25 years to materialise! I’m nothing if not patient!
Then May last year, we had our silver wedding anniversary. As our anniversary treat we returned to Sevilla, where we had our honeymoon. On our original honeymoon, we took our one year old daughter, on our silver anniversary trip, we took our 10 year old daughter. At least we are consistent!
On the day of our anniversary we went for a horse and buggy ride around Parque Maria Luisa, and the Gobin was allowed up front with the driver, and he let her hold the reins as we walked around the beautiful gardens. At the end of the ride, as we were about to climb out of the carriage, Paul turned to me and asked me to marry him. Erica pulled out a ring box from her bag, and handed it to Paul, and I wish I’d had the foresight to get him to ask twice… or think about it- but of course I flung my arms around him with a big kiss and said “YES!’

We have lived our lives backwards, baby, marriage, three further babies, and finally a proposal! Paul says he waited to make sure it was ‘going to work’.

Fair enough.



Thursday 21 February 2013

The Perfect Dinner.


This week's homework; write about an anniversary or birthday.

Life is all about milestones. Celebrating the big days. We live from day to day, and the small things make up the whole. But even though I’m lax at remembering birthdays and cards, I’ll never cease to make a huge fuss once every 10 years for those ‘big’ birthdays.

I adore my mum. She is the mainstay of my life, my rock, my closest friend. Of course I love all my family, but Mum well, she’s my Mum.

I have always taken charge of her big birthday celebrations, as soon as I was old enough to organize a party. Her 40th, 50th, and most memorably her 60th and then the 70th lately have been my pleasure to organize.

I think I nearly over did it at her 70th, by keeping secret a friend who came all the way from Australia for the occasion. I actually think I saw mum come close to a heart attack when she saw Jenny walk through the door- and made a mental note not to do any such ‘big’ surprises again, in case she didn’t make it to her 80th. Every single one of her big birthdays has a story attached, but I think that we will start with the first I was old enough to organize, at the grown up age of 17.

This was back in the 1970’s when ‘dinner parties’ were very formal occasions, and entertaining was a social standard by which you were judged. Nowadays, people stand around my kitchen, watching me prepare food, and might get a spud and peeler thrust into their hand if I’m running behind. Back then, the cook/wife was kept hidden in the kitchen, and the guests were ushered into the drawing room while she shot upstairs to change and appear the perfect hostess. Like a swan, looking graceful, but paddling like fury under the water.

Her first big birthday I can remember was when she turned forty, and I was seventeen. I asked her to invite 6 couples to dinner. I told her to relax, and that I would take care of everything. I was well practiced at laying the table for dinner parties that was my ‘job’ when the parents had guests over. So laying the table with the family silver was no problem. Start with the first course, and work your way from the outside of the cutlery into the middle. The dining room table looked stunning.

So, the dinner guests were organized, and met at a local hostelry  in town. Mum was in an upbeat mood, but Dad was decidedly twitchy. He didn’t want to look a fool among his friends, but mum was having a fine time of it. Surrounded by friends, and high on birthday gifts and determined to enjoy herself. Dad was in charge of keeping things smooth running, so as the guests got hungrier, he rang the house and asked if they could come home yet?
I asked for a time extension, and told him ‘just a few more minuets, please?’ Things weren’t going as smoothly as they did when I watched Mum cook. My helper was the then boyfriend, who was a clueless as I was. We had steak au poive for main, and this is where I was wrestling. I’d never cooked steak before, and with an ancient Aga was not quite sure where to start. I never occurred to me to use a cookery book. I always made it up as I went along, then as now.

Another phone call. I was Dad, “how are you getting along?”
“Fine, Dad, just fine, won’t be long now”

It takes an experienced cook years to work out the vagaries of a one hundred year old Aga. The poor steaks were not looking good, their stint in the top oven had not agreed with them, and the charcoal consigned to the bin.



A frantic scrabble in the freezer revealed some forgotten pork chops in the recesses. This being in days before microwaves, we had to stick them in the top oven to wait for them to defrost before being able to even think about feeding them to guests.

The phone went again; “No, Dad, really it’s all fine, just one more drink, and you can come home”

Finally a packet of bisto was applied and some veg pressed into service, it just wasn’t going to get any better than this.

A rather bad tempered, and hungry Dad on the phone again “WE ARE COMING HOME NOW!”

The guests arrived at the house at 10.00pm, mink coats left in the hall, they had all driven home after two hours in the pub and fell eagerly up on the feast.

Prawn cocktails were up first, frozen prawn on a bed of lettuce, looking stunning in the wine glasses. Prawn Marie-rose sauce, mixed with tomato sauce and mayo to make the lurid pink topping.

Time for champagne, “Happy Birthday, Monica!”

White wine was served with the ‘fish’ course and the hungry guests tucked into the prawn cocktails like Oliver Twist and a bowl of porridge. They were starving, it was along time since they had eaten as the  guests had abstained from eating anything much during the day, with the promise of ‘dinner’ in the evening.

Next up the pork chops. Now dried to a texture resembling shoe leather, but cleverly disguised with bisto gravy. It looked ‘OK’ on the plate, but digging in with the silver knives and forks revealed the truth. Never mind, the crunchy, under cooked potatoes and limp green beans were easier to eat. With a side of orange mush, what had they been, ah yes, the carrots!

 Red wine, anyone?

Boyfriend and I were hot and sweaty in the kitchen, with some good teamwork as evidence.

Then the piece de resistance, the black forest gateaux! This was the whole reason I’d suggested to Mum that I’d cook her birthday dinner, because I knew I was on safe ground with this one. Tinned black cherries applied in a loving patterns between the ever so slightly over cooked sponge rounds. The whole thing was addled with kirsch and whipped cream. By the time they had broken their teeth on the chops, and picked out the lumps of gravy, the cake was a winner.

My  lovely mum was bawling with emotion after so much wine and waiting, ‘my lovely daughter’ she cried, and hugged me. Out came coffee, instant, in mugs.
Then the liquors and cheese. And finally, with groaning tummies, and alcohol running through their veins, the guests got into their cars and drove off into the night.

The evening had been a resounding success!

Wednesday 20 February 2013

The Winner.


Another effort for this week’s homework. We could write about someone inheriting something, or someone winning the lottery. I went with the lottery winner. This is his story;



THE WINNER
There were all the usual ‘save the world’ ideas, ‘share it all with family and friends’ 'end world hunger’ thoughts running through my mind when I found out I’d won six million pounds on the lottery.
£6,000,000 on the lottery was a lot of money by anybody’s standard.
I remember when I first read the numbers off the telly, I was having dinner with the lads. I didn’t have my ticket in my hand, but even as the TV was on in the background, I glanced up, and knew I’d won. I always pick the same numbers;

28 the age I got married
32, the age I became a father
35, the age our second born arrived
38, the age I was when we moved to the country
48, the age I was when Margot left me
53; my age when the business died
59; my age when we lost the home

All key ages and stages on my life. And now I could add another; 64, the age I was when I won six million quid.
Here I was in a sheltered accommodation, and surrounded with people who were like me, in the same situation of being at the bottom of the barrel of life. The TV was an old one, with wonky colours, but the numbers showed up bright enough.
Joe asked me if I was all right, as I’d turned a funny shade of white. Nah, I replied, just something I ate. I went to my bed, in the dorm, and dug out the ticket from my shoe, it was the only safe place to keep anything important.
Sure enough, there were the magic numbers. Now I know you’ll be thinking, how come some homeless old chap has a spare quid for the lottery?  Well, it was my birthday present to myself. No one else was going to buy me one.
The last copy of the big issue had been bought that day, and I popped in to the news agent to get my birthday present.
I had been living on the streets, making do, making ends meet for over five years now.
People would look at me from under their noses, pretending they didn’t see the smelly dirty clothes. “I was once like you I wanted to say… I once had a wife, children, car, mortgage the whole ‘normal’ deal.” But sometimes life just takes you in a direction that nobody can foresee.

I thought of Margot, her loving eyes on the day we got married, she was a sweet soul. And on the day she gave birth to our first son, the love and sparkle of new motherhood that beamed from her eyes. We moved to the country after our second son was born.  The business was going well. Not paying major money, but doing well enough for us to enjoy some luxuries. It was the happy family scenario we all dream of, and I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Then my darling Margot got breast cancer, and just like that our happiness was thrown away. It’s a fragile thing, happiness. The light in her eyes disappeared that day, and we watched her fade away before us. That sparkle lost to us forever.

Of course, that was sixteen years ago, and now-a-days they say that so much can be done for breast cancer, but it was too little too late for Margot. I started drinking then, just a couple of glasses when I got home from work. It all seemed innocent enough, a way of coping. But I felt barely able to function one foot in front of the other just to get through the day, without a drink or two. The boys were well cared for by the nanny or the au pair, or whoever I had in the house at the time. But gradually we drifted apart. It’s horrible to look at it now, but I had lost my way without Margot, and the boys were spending so much time with the nanny, or with Margot’s mother that I gradually withdrew from them. Finding my solace in the bottle. It ended badly, but so slowly, like dying but taking your whole life to die. Each day a bit more of me melted along with the ice in my glass. And still the drinks slipped down, and the business slipped away from me. Then the house, and finally, my dignity.

The boys had grown and gone to university, they had no need for dad and their lives just grew, even as my own just shrank. Their worlds getting bigger, and mine smaller. Until one day I found myself on the streets. It didn’t seem like a conscious decision, but I guess I chose it, really, or did it choose me? I disappeared for a few days the first time, and nobody seemed to notice… then for a couple of weeks the second time, and nobody batted an eyelid. I think they lost me long ago, to the drink, and the grief. I wondered how my now adult sons would react if they bumped into me on the street now? I don’t think they would recognize me. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself.

I picked up the winning ticket, and shuffled out the door. I’d go to the local ‘offie’ and see if I could get another drink. One the way I passed the woman on the corner, with her collecting box. ‘Hi Sid’ she smiled cheerily to me, how’s it going? “Fine love”, I replied as I folded the slip of paper in half, and posted in to her charity box “Cancer, help us find a cure’ it said; “Never better” says I, and winked as I walked past.

Scraps


Well while trying to get my head around 'Ludic poetry' fun with words, play with words, I struggled with the homework, and instead came up with some little dittys.

Enjoy!

The Kings daughter
Knew she ‘oughter
Go to the alter
Like lamb to the slaughter.

Little Betty
Loved spaghetti.
Sauce on face
Deep disgrace.

Being clever
Was ever
Overrated.
Feel deflated.

Little ditty
Oh so pretty
Here I sitty
Feeling witty.


There was an iambic pentameter
Who liked to run the parameter
 “For a jolly good rhyme
It depends on the time
And not trippin’ up like an amateur”



 And, as a summary of the film of choice;

Les Miserables
Man meets woman, takes care of child
Pursued by policeman, acting wild
Child grow up becomes a woman
Falls in love, it’s only human
First woman and then hero dies,
Policeman is consumed with lies.
Very few laughs along the way
But as always, love wins the day.
Throughout it all there’s lots of song
As you leave, you sing along.



The Maid made the bed,
She sat on it and said;
“My Master, the Knight
Has been out all night,
He’s seven sheets to the wind
And the sheets I’ve tucked in
Will never last the night!”



My Name as the first letter of each line;

You say you love me
As if you have no fear
Saying the words
Means everything
I am sure you are sincere
Nobody has asked before
Marriage is the question
Are you kneeling on the floor?
Ring in hand on bended knee
I look into your face, I see
Ever-hopeful expression
Seeing that, I can
Say ‘I do’