The Northern Exchange

eBay

2010-09-04T14:48:00.000+01:00

My mother comes to stay with us a couple of times a year. I try to plan a few outings, things that may interest her but although I have known her for all of my fifty years, I am no closer to knowing what may float her boat than I ever was. So on this last visit I was delighted when she asked me to show her 'that eBay thingy'.

It went something like this:

Mother: Can you get that Ebay thingy on your whatsit?

Me: Yes, you can get it on any computer that has Internet access. Why?

Mother: I was just wondering, what with it raining. I've heard them talking about it.

Me: It's an auction site. There isn't much you can't get on Ebay mum, I have won quite a few things.

Mother: Won? Like what?

Me: Well the last thing I won was a set of watercolours, you know for my painting.

Mother: How did you win them?

Me: (feeling energised as this is an actual conversation developing..) Well, I had to enter the amount of money I thought they were worth, what I would be prepared to pay for them. Then when the auction closed, if my amount is the highest, I am the winner, and in this case, I was.

Mother: mmmmmmm...

Me: Would you like me to show you the Ebay site?

Mother: Well it doesn't look as if this rain is going to let up so I might as well.

(I then fetched my lap-top, logged into Ebay and proceeded to show my mother, her first ever encounter with a computer, the Ebay site. Half an hour later, she could scroll up and down pages, enter something in the Ebay search box, click on a picture and slowly navigate around Ebay as if she were in Debenhams department store. She was hooked! )

Mother: Just wait till I tell them at home I've been eBaying! I'm a silver surfer!

(I hadn't seen her this animated in years so, just as you sit a small child in front of some TV programme whilst you get on with stuff, I seized my opportunity.)

Me: Mum, are you okay there if I just go into the office and do an hours work?

Mother: What?

Me: I said, I am going into the office for an hour or so. Will you be okay? Then I'll come and make some lunch.

Mother: Oh, yes, off you go, I'm looking for non-stick bread tins.

(The office is in an annexe so I remained within ear-shot. About half an hour later my husband came in and asked where was mother.)

Me: Darling it's wonderful, she is on the lap-top, playing on Ebay! I haven't heard a peep from her in over half an hour!

Husband: Oh. (pause) You haven't left her logged in have you?

Me: Oh my God! (as I sprinted across the courtyard and back into the house)

Mother: I like this, it's a lot better than bingo.

Me: What!? What do you mean, it's better than bingo?

Mother: This eBay thingy. It's a lot better, I've won more in the last half hour on here than I have in the last 5 years at Bingo. I can see why everybody likes this eBay, it's marvellous.

Me: Won! What have you won? (Please God, don't let her have found the real estate pages..)

Mother: Well so far I have won 3 lots of non-stick baking pans and I am after another lot, then that's one for me and one for each of your aunties. It'll save me having to buy 'em a box of toffees. Do you want a set? I seem to be lucky with these. Oh and when I was practising, I won a few umbrellas, but they will come in for Christmas presents.

Me: Stop!! (Reaching over and snatching laptop)

Mother: What's wrong with you, for goodness sake?

Me: Mum, you don't 'win' as in 'winning' for free. It's an auction. I have to pay for all that stuff. When you enter a bid, it's a legally binding contract.

Mother: Don't be so silly.

Me: Have you bid on anything else? (feeling sick to my stomach)

Mother: I can't remember. You have got me in a flap now. I was looking at some nice bath mats because the rubber backs on mine have split. It's when you put them in a hot wash. They don't lie flat anymore.

(I stopped listening, and clicked on to my eBay. I had indeed 'won' 3 sets of non-stick oven ware; 5 umbrellas with assorted bird handles and a stainless steel colander. I have 8 hours to wait to find out if I have won 4 sets of non-rubber backed bath mats!)

I am just listing a new item to sell on eBay.

'Mother: Vintage model; needs some attention.'
No returns accepted.

Mother in Charge

2010-08-11T20:47:00.001+01:00

Mother comes to stay twice a year. Occasionally, we leave her on her own. It is a dangerous thing to do, leaving her in charge of our domestic affairs.....

"The man rang about the dishwasher. He said you need a new motor and should he order one. I asked him how much it would be and he said £135 plus labour. I told him not to bother!
Have you any idea how many bottles of Fairy Liquid you can buy for £135?"

Visiting Auntie Polly

2010-08-06T11:11:00.000+01:00

Mother: Hello?

Me: It's me. have you been out, I have been ringing all afternoon?

Mother: I've been in hospital all afternoon with your Auntie Mary.

Me: Hospital! What's wrong with you, or is it Auntie Mary?

Mother: What? Oh, no, it's not us two. It's your Auntie Polly, we went to see her, we haven't been for a couple of weeks, not that she would know.

Me: Mum, it's a residential nursing home, not a hospital. How is she?

Mother: Well it used to be a hospital. When you were little it was an isolation hospital, not that you ever went. They wanted to send you when you got whooping cough but we wouldn't let them.

Me: That's nice. Not the whooping cough, but nice I didn't go there, that you all looked after me at home.

Mother: Well, it was for the best, it was a terrible bus service.

Me: Oh. .... So, hows Auntie Polly?

Mother: Daft as a brush. She thought your Auntie Mary was the Air Raid Warden. Kept shouting 'Put that light out or the Warden will have you!' I mean we try, but it's not easy making conversation with someone who is on a sixty year time delay. She's had her hair permed though. I told her, I said, 'Polly you've had your hair permed, it looks nice'

Me: And did she respond?

Mother: Oh aye, she told me to 'bugger off'.

Me: It's a shame. poor Auntie Polly.

Mother: A shame! I'll tell you what is a shame, it's a shame me and your Auntie Mary caught four buses to be told to put the light out and to bugger off! And the cup of tea they gave us was like maiden's water! Blooming hospital...

When Mother Comes to Stay

2010-08-01T14:59:00.000+01:00

My mother comes to stay with me a couple of times a year. Her visits often leave me feeling that I have suffered a small invasion from a hostile country whose weapons of choice are a wet cloth and bleach.

She brings her own. I am not trusted to have cleaning cloths of a robustness to meet her requirements and she likes her own brand of bleach that you can't get 'down South'. A white cotton cloth that has been doused in bleach is my mother's equivalent of a toddler's comfort blanket. I do sometimes wonder what my grandmother considered appropriate nurturing.

My mother is unable to 'do nothing'. She needs to be either engaged in conversation or some domestic activity. Of course if she can have the conversation whilst plying her wet cloth, she is even happier. This means I get pulled into the domestic ranks and end up doing stuff I really would rather not be doing at all.

Her passion is washing paintwork. Skirting boards, doors, window frames and when those are done she enjoys cleaning out kitchen cupboards. It's exhausting watching her and being constantly asked for affirmation- 'Now doesn't that look better?' 'Doesn't that smell fresh?' ('No mother! My house stinks of bleach') But of course I answer 'Yes'.

My mother comes from a world where women ruled their domestic empires and your social standing in the community was directly related to how clean your windows are, how white your washing on the line is and how early in the morning you open your curtains. Everything revolved around 'perceived respectability' - and most conversations centred around pulling the neighbours to bits. Judge Judy has nothing on this lot!

If I look back to when I lived at home, the very few mornings when my parents had a lie-in, mother would still come downstairs, open the curtains, take the milk in off the step just so 'the neighbours wouldn't think we were still in bed.'

Eye, Eye Elsie!

2010-07-29T00:23:00.006+01:00

Telephone Conversation with Mother

Mother: It's me.

Me: Hello mum, you okay?

Mother: You know that woman who used to work in the papershop - her with the funny eye?

Me: Which papershop?

Mother: The one we get our papers from, I don't go in the other, he's a miserable bugger, never has a pleasant word for anybody. You know who I mean.

Me: Who? The miserable bugger or her with the funny eye?

Mother: Her with the funny eye! Only it's not any more.

Me: What's not?

Mother: Funny.

Me: What?

Mother: Eh?

Me: Eh what?

Mother: Are you being stupid on purpose?

Me: Mother! I don't know what you are talking about!

Mother: I only rang to tell you about Elsie, what's difficult there?

Me: Who on earth is Elsie when she's at home?

Mother: She's not, She's in hospital.

Me: Elsie has got the funny eye.

Mother: That's what I just said. They took her in on Monday.

Me: They took Elsie and her funny eye into hospital?

Mother: Well they can hardly leave it behind can they? Took her in an ambulance, all the sirens going.

Me: Why? Did it fall out or something?

Mother: What?

Me: Her funny eye!

Mother: No! It's got nothing to do with her eye, I just said that so you would know who I was talking about! She went in the ambulance with her leg!

Me: Just the one?

Mother: One what?

Me: Leg.

Mother: Of course she didn't just take one leg! She took them both. She hasn't got a false leg, it's just her eye that's false. And probably her teeth, they look too nice to be real..

Me: I didn't know it was a false eye! It's not a very good one. It looks like a real one that's gone funny.

Mother: Well she had it put in over forty years ago, they didn't make them as real looking then. Anyway, do you want to know about her leg or not?

Me: So why didn't she get a new one?

Mother: They haven't cut the old one off yet!

Me: No - I mean a new eye! You can get wonderful false eyes now. They look better than real ones. Is she having her leg off then as well? She might get a discount - two prosthetics for the price of one!

Mother: Will you shut up about her eye! It's nothing to do with her eye! It's her leg. This is what I am trying to tell you if you would listen! Joe Harman came in the papershop and asked for a roll of cellotape because he wanted to send a parcel to their Joan in Canada.

Me: Who's Joe Harman?

Mother: You know who Joe Harman is. Used to be married to that big woman who always wore a hat only she's dead now. He goes to chapel, has that little black dog, smokes a pipe, limps a bit,

Me: We are talking about Joe and not the dog here aren't we?

Mother: The blooming dog's not going to smoke a pipe is it?

Me: No, but it might have a limp!

Mother: Well it hasn't. At least last time I saw it, it hadn't. Anyway the cellotape was on the top shelf because they don't sell much apart from at Christmas. So Elsie has to get the steps to reach it. What with her funny eye not being a real one, she's misjudged the steps, but she didn't misjudge them until she got to the top one. Steps straight over the top of the ladder and goes flying. Screaming the place down and lying in a crumpled heap.

Me: So who called the ambulance then?

Mother: Oh, Joe called it. Least he could do seeing as it was him that wanted the cellotape. Thing is, the jolt of the fall caused her funny eye to fall out. So there she is screaming in pain and shouting she had lost her eye and Joe's on the telephone trying to tell the ambulance where to come when Bob goes diving under the counter!

Me: Bob? Who is Bob?

Mother: The dog, Joe's dog is called Bob. He had found Elsie's funny eye. He must have seen it roll under the counter. Anyway, Joe managed to get it off him, he hadn't chewed it or anything, it was just a bit wet; so he put in Elsie's handbag, thought she could put it back in when she was in the ambulance and had a bit more time.

Me: So what's happened to Elsie?

Mother: Broken her leg in two places. Put her in plaster from her ankle to her stocking tops. Our papers have been late every day since.

Please leave a message..

2010-07-23T09:04:00.000+01:00

Messages(s) left on answering machine by Mother

Ewwww! ... I hate talking to this machine!

Tell her that her mother has called to remind her it's her Auntie Florrie's birthday and she is ninety this time so get a card with a number on it.

Over and out.

(next message left two minutes later..)

(audible sigh) It's still you then, ...
It's me again. I forgot to tell her when it is. Next Thursday. Oh, and if you ring back, don't do it this afternoon because I'm going out. They've put your Uncle Arthur's headstone up so I'm going to have a look at it with your Auntie Mary . It'll be an afternoon out, and there's some lovely graves to walk round.
Right, that's it. Don't forget what I said first time about your Auntile Florrie's birthday. And a card with a number on it. Ninety. I'm going now.
Over and out.

Poultices - Mother's Panacea

2010-07-21T21:42:00.002+01:00

Mother: It's me. How's your cold?

Me: Hello. Rotten, I feel like death warmed up.

Mother: What are you taking for it?

Me: Oh, the usual,stuff. Hot lemon with paracetamol and some cough medicine.

Mother: You need a poultice on that chest.

Me: The last thing I need is a disgusting poultice on my chest! It's the 21st century, people don't do poultices any more mother.

Mother: And look where that's got them. Spending a blooming fortune at the chemists every time they sneeze or cough. When you were little, I used to put a poultice on your chest every night in the Winter. You used to enjoy it.

Me: I hated it! It was like going to bed with the next day's breakfast stuck down me vest! Oatmeal is meant for porridge, not to plaster small girls chests with.

Mother: It wasn't just porridge, it had other stuff as well depending on what was wrong with you.

Me: It had onions in it for heaven's sake! I used to go to school reeking of stew!

Mother: It didn't always have onions, stop exaggerating.

Me: Mother! If it didn't have onions it had Colman's English mustard in it and that was even worse - it used to stain my neck yellow. I got sent home from school three times because they thought I had jaundice.

Mother: Well it worked then.

Me: What worked?

Mother: The poultice. It worked. You never got jaundice did you?

Me: Oh God...

Mother: Don't blaspheme. Have you got any bread?

Me: Bread? Of course I have got some bread. Why?

Mother: Well if you boil up a few tablespoons of milk, then break some bread into it, put a tablespoon of mustard powder in and mix it to a paste. Then get Peter to spread it on the top of your back and chest and by tomorrow that cough will have gone.

Me: If I do that, there's every good chance that by morning, my husband will have gone!

Mother: Do you know, there's no helping you. What do you think we did before the NHS when there was no money to pay for Doctors and fancy medicines?

Me: Leeches, eye of newt, leg of toad, entrails of bat?

Mother: Poultices, that's what we did. There were 10 of us and your granny never lost one and there's not many can say that. Folk used to come queuing up for her poultices at a threepence a time. She was famous for her poultices, that and her laying out.

Me: Please say we are not going to do the laying out stories are we?

Mother: No because I am off to the Doctors.

Me: What? You are going to the Doctors, why?

Mother: My shoulder aches, I want some ointment for it.

Me: Why don't you put a poultice on it?

Mother: I'm not putting a poultice on it! I'm eighty and get everything at the doctor's for free, I'm making up for all them years we had to pay. I'll ring you tomorrow. Shall I post you a bit of Thermogene?

Thermogene Reigns

2010-07-20T08:43:00.000+01:00

Phone Call with Mother

Me: Hello, it's me. You okay?

Mother: Yes. What's wrong with you? You sound all bunged up.

Me: Yeah, I'm not very well. I've got a rotten cold.

Mother: Well it's not surprising. you don't wrap up warm enough.

Me: I do. I am wearing jeans, a shirt and a big jumper, thick socks and slippers!

Mother: Yes, but you don't wrap up warm where it counts. Don't forget, I have seen your washing line lady.

Me: What?

Mother: Underneath, you don't cover yourself up properly underneath.

Me: Oh God, we are going to have another knickers conversation aren't we?

Mother: I don't care, you need something warm against the bottom of your back, that's where the cold gets in.

Me: It's my nose that's bunged up, not my back!

Mother: Yes, but that's where the cold has got in. If you leave the cellar door open, the draught will reach your attic.

Me: So what do you suggest? Great big bloomers like granny wore?

Mother: Your granny lived until she was 96 and never had a cold in her life. She knew the value of wool!

Me: Mother! They don't make wool knickers these days and if they did nobody would wear them.

Mother: No, you daft cat! It's not the knickers that are wool, it's the layer of Thermogene you wear between your knickers and your skin. Just at the small of your back - and it stops lumbago. If you wore proper knickers, up to your waist, where they are supposed to reach, it would be no trouble to hold a bit of Thermogene in place. Nobody would know.

Me: I haven't got lumbago.

Mother: Well that's a 'yet' waiting to happen. You will, mark my words. We were always told, whenever there is an R in the month, wear a layer of Thermogene. Stood me in good stead all these years. Those excuses you wear for knickers are only fit for decoration.

Me: Fine. I would rather be decorative than be trussed up like Nanook of the North!

Mother: Please yourself. When you were a little girl, you always wore a liberty bodice over your vest, proper knickers, woolen tights and a petticoat under your clothes.

Me: Yes I know, and it used to take me half an hour longer than the other kids to get undressed and dressed at the swimming pool. I was lucky if I got 5 minutes in the water. I got my exercise getting into and out of all the blooming clothes you fastened me in! There's no wonder I am a poor swimmer, I never got in the pool!

Mother: Well you're not a sailor are you? Think yourself lucky. When I was at school we didn't go swimming, all the public baths were closed during the war. None of us could swim and your uncle Tom signed up for the Navy! Instead of going swimming we were sitting in the school Anderson shelter waiting for fat Herman to drop his bombs on us! You don't know you're born!

Charity begins with Socks

2010-07-19T22:36:00.000+01:00

Note from Auntie Mary

I have got a big bag of odd socks for you.

Because your Uncle Norman walks cock-eyed with his bad leg, one of his socks wears out before the other. So I've been keeping the good ones in the bottom of the ottoman because I thought if he ever had his leg off, they would come in useful.

Well he's 78 now and it's not worth having your leg off at that age is it?

So we want you to send them to them poor one-legged people in Africa because having your leg blown off, must affect your circulation musn't it? And if Princess Diana can go and help them dig up mines, the least we can do is let them have your Uncle Norman's socks to keep their foot warm.

Love

Auntie Mary & Uncle Norman

Guess Who is Dead!

2010-07-19T14:13:00.001+01:00

Telephone Conversation with Mother

Mother: It's me.

Me: Hello, how are you?

Mother: You'll never guess who's dead!

Me: Who?

Mother: Go, on, have a guess..

Me: You just told me 'you'll never guess', so I'm not going to.

Mother: Going to what?

Me: Guess who's dead.

Mother: Who?

Me: Who what?

Mother: Who's dead?

Me: I don't know who's dead because you haven't told me!

Mother: But you just asked me to guess who's dead. What am I guessing at then?

Me: Nothing! I'm the one guessing!

Mother: What at?

Me: I'm guessing that if someone is listening in to this phone call they will be sending the men with white coats round!

Mother: Do you know, you don't make a bit of sense since you moved down south. You're always trying to be clever. I only rang you to tell you about Mrs Armitage.

Me: Who is Mrs Armitage? I don't know a Mrs Armitage!

Mother: You do.

Me: I don't! Who is she?

Mother: You know, she used to wear that red coat and them Minnie Mouse shoes, used to walk past our front window every morning on her way to the bakers for her bread, she always bought fresh every day. Well apart from Sunday, because you can't get fresh on Sunday. So they must have eaten Saturdays, or mebbe they didn't bother, not everyone does. Your Auntie Mary only buys two loaves a week!

Me: Did she have bleached hair?

Mother: Your Auntie Mary?

Me: No! Mrs Armitage!

Mother: That's her! Well her hair isn't bleached now because its grey and she doesn't bother any more, but it was bleached nearly white when you last saw her.

Me: So when did she die?

Mother: Who?

Me: Mrs Armitage?

Mother: She's not dead! Why do you think she's dead?

Me: Oh God, ... Mother! you said 'guess who's dead' and then went on to tell me about Mrs Armitage so I assumed it's her that's dead! I'm loosing the will to live here, it's going to be me that's dead as a result of trying to find out who we are talking about!

Mother: Stop being so dramatic. Mrs Armitage isn't dead but she found the body!

Me: Who's body?

Mother: Well that's what I said. You'll never guess who's dead!

Address Check

2010-07-18T10:56:00.000+01:00

Postcard with picture of Blackpool Tower on front

Your mother says you have moved house again. I am sending you this postcard because I don't want to send your Christmas card to the wrong address in case I wrote it down wrong because I did it on the telephone and you can never be sure. Let me know if you get this then I can send your Christmas card.

Love Auntie Lily.

P.S. I am not in Blackpool I had this one left over from when I went and am not going again so I don't need it. That's why you have got it.

Fitting Xmas Present

2010-07-12T20:56:00.001+01:00

Note inside Christmas present

If this doesn't fit, you won't be able to wear it. But it doesn't matter because I have got the receipt. I haven't put receipt in the parcel so you don't know how much it cost unless it doesn't fit and then you will when I send it.

Mum.

No Show Nessie

2010-07-12T18:04:00.000+01:00

Postcard from Scotland

"Scotland is very nice if you like looking at scenery. But after 4 days, we have looked at a lot and are ready to look at something else. The driver is very good as he never leaves anybody behind when we stop to go the toilet. Tomorrow we are going to Loch Ness but I don't expect we shall see the monster as it's forecast rain."

Love
Mum and Dad

Knife Crimes

2010-07-12T10:22:00.000+01:00

Telephone Conversation with Mother

Mother: It's me. I'm waiting for the police to arrive!

Me: What's wrong, are you okay?

Mother: No, I am not okay, and neither is anybody else on this street.

Me: What's happened for goodness sake?

Mother: Me, your Auntie Nellie and half the street have been robbed.

Me: Robbed! What, as your houses broken into?

Mother: It's worse than that. This is bare-faced robbery!

Me: Worse! How?

Mother: About 10 o'clock this morning, this man knocked on the door and asked if I had any knives and scissors that needed sharpening, said he was a mobile sharpener.

Well, my carving knife can't slice butter so I said he could do that and then I gave him your dad's garden shears as they have gone blunt.

Then he went next door to your Auntie Nellie's and she gave him her carving knife as well. He went all down the street collecting knives, scissors, shears and the like.

Me: And?

Mother: That's just it. There isn't any 'and'. He's buggered off! Took all our knives and stuff with him and disappeared. In broad daylight.

I wouldn't mind, but your dad was going to clip the privett this afternoon with them shears and your Auntie Nellie has got a leg of pork in the oven, and she can't carve that with a bread knife!