Not one extra prune

My mother and aunt stayed with us on Malta for a glorious two weeks this October.  I luxuriated in their presence.  Their daily routines were fixed.  In the morning after their showers they had breakfast, eating exactly the same thing each day.  A bowl of porridge and five prunes followed by a pot of tea with one slice of wholemeal bread toasted, with butter and marmalade.  Then they would hand wash all their dirty clothes.  My practice of dumping all colours into the washing machine was an anathema to them.  They are of the generation that hand washed, bleached and bullied laundry into blistering white submission – my half grey whites did not do!

The sun here in Malta dried their clothes in a few hours and they delighted in the speed of the whole affair.  Then, after tidying my flat with equal thoroughness and a demanding level of order and neatness they filled their water bottles and headed out for their daily forced march.  They would walk the promenade beside the Med each day, choosing St Julian’s Bay one day from Sliema and then the next heading right towards Valetta.  These walks were no mean feat in the burning sunshine.  They allowed themselves just two breaks during this four-hour marathon.  One was for ice cream cone, or a ‘poke’ as my mum calls it.  

My Mum, with eight decades under her belt, would order their cones with a smile, asking for loads of the white cooling ice cream on top.  God bless the Maltese café staff who universally responded with unrestrained generosity filling the two small cones to abundant heights.  The happiness with which these two grandmothers/great grandmothers devoured their treat had to be seen.  With two hours of walking in the baking heat it felt like a life saver and their toes practically curled in delight at the delicious coolness.

Then on for another two hours of walking and chatting.  These two have so many memories to share, so much news to tell and experiences to debrief they talk non-stop for the whole two weeks.  Listening to them chatting away from their beds to each other until they fell asleep was the best background music to have.

The second pit stop is for a large cappuccino and they have by now found the best cafés to stop at.  

Not only the café but also they also have a favourite table near the door from where they can observe the world go by.  My aunt has an eye for detail.  Noticing people who chew with their tongues out, peculiar gaits, unusual hairstyles or fashions ensembles.  She notices everything and views the entire spectacle with excited voyeurism.  This is fortunate, as my mother sees nothing.  She is a ‘starer off into space’, happy in her own skin and head with a coffee mug held tight in delight.  So this unusual team works well.  My aunt points out what my mother would have missed and my mother restrains her sister from tucking in shirt tails, turning down labels that stick up and generally rearranging the hairdos of complete strangers.

I tease them because they do not vary their routine.  Not one extra prune, not one different flavour of ice cream ventured, not even their footwear has changed in the last few years.  But they are happy, fit and in great shape.  Their laughter and giggles filled the flat and our lives from the moment they arrived until they disappeared into the departure lounge in the airport on the way home.

So if anyone happened to see me standing at Malta International Airport last week waving and sobbing at two elderly ladies while tears tripped down my face try to understand.  Such people burrow into your heart and letting them go is akin to open-heart surgery.

My 9 Favourite Pastimes

1. Still Game.  A wonderful series set in a run down estate in Scotland populated with aging characters.  Doesn't sound uplifting or funny but it is.  Watched the whole series and mourn the fact that there are no more new ones to watch.  Here is one of my favourite episodes, just love how even wallpaper can roll back the years for us all. 

2. Lie To Me

This is a modern series about a company that specialises in reading the micro_expressions that speak the lies we tell.  It wears a little thin after a while but love the idea and how it is executed here. It is not on youtube, but keep you eyes open for this one

 3.  Rummycube – one of my favourite games at present.  This game depressingly reminds me how slow my brain has become.  Other players shout how long I take when it is my turn.  It is just the speed my brain is at present.

4. Swimming in the Med – there is a feel good factor about being the sea that swimming pools cannot compete with.  Is it the salt, the odd jellyfish or the waves that I occasionally swallow?  Don’t know but it hits the spot.
5. Café Frappe – coffee and ice in a blender, make my own and drink half pints of the stuff.  Addiction is a terrible thing!

6.  New Scientist – a wonderful magazine that I enjoy vicariously via my brother, usually three months out of date.

7.  Good friends to laugh with and sit at cafes with.  Here in Malta, like the Med elsewhere you can sit for hours out front with one cup.  Easily the cheapest outing and yet brilliant fun!

8.  Visiting and being visited by loved ones – I shall not name each one but they know who they are!

9.  Earning money writing – of all the things I do, this writing business earns me no money and yet I have a dream of doing what I love and being paid for the same.  One must have dreams right?

PS And yours? 

PPS cannot delete the 4 below, so please ignore this gremlin - it means nothing. 

codes of behaviour - the mob!

Your Perspective can change quickly.  I can remember sitting in this café with a sore back and the effort required to lean even 5 degrees forward or backward was akin to a cheese grater on my spinal column.  I bought the same drink I have now and even sat at the same table but I could no longer smell the coffee, notice the waiter’s welcoming smile or even see the people with whom I was sitting.  My field of vision was restricted to a portion of my lower back and its surrounding nerve endings.  Each movement had to be planned in advance to prepare for the forthcoming pain.  I grew to recognize these pre pain signs, sweat to the brow and upper lip, a tightening of the stomach muscles and a roll of the shoulders as if to accomplish the required adjustment by means of the upper body alone.  People stare at you when you do such odd affected motions.  They cannot help themselves. 

Perhaps it is a lingering memory of the pack we once were.  Such movements would signal ill health, weakness, frailty and an urge to turn on the weakest pack member stirs within all the rest.  Nature’s way of strengthening the pack.  Not only killing off a substandard member but providing, by eating them, useful nutrients to the rest.  In such a win win situation pack members would be assiduous about noticing limps, stiffness, poor skin or coat health.  Of course, turning on a weakened pack member also insures that you, yourself do not become a victim.  Finding a weaker member, other than yourself, is therefore a sensible strategy.  It is thought that this self-protection lies at the heart of mob psychology. 

It has long been noted that groups of people in mobs have a communal morality much lower than any individual member.   They will tear you limb for limb, stone you to death, happily lynch and set fire to you when perversely not a single individual on their own would sanction such gross atrocities.  So what is it that makes such a discrepancy in codes of behaviour. 

The answer lies in the mobs first act of violence.  Once it is taken each member of the mob knows there is a definite possibility that the mob could turn on them just as easily.  What can they do to prevent such an outcome?  They must out do the first violence, up the anti so to speak.  By this means they prove their loyalty to the pack, keep the rage targeted on some one other than themselves and in doing so trigger an ever ascending spiral of atrocity in others for the exact same reasons.  This fuels the final carnage. 

So sad that many leaders of thought, idealists and innocent have fallen victim to the mob’s senseless selfish violence.  Perhaps it has ever been so, survival of the fittest and all that?  But, I like to think that ideals and truths also have strengths that persevere despite the mob’s advantage of numbers.  That the actions and words of brave noble people echo across the millennium and will out last and outshine the foul deeds lesser minds devise.