Are people blind or just doing it to annoy me?

It is so sweet when homesickness bites to have a visit from loved ones.  It is the greatest antidote to that illness.  This week my Mum and aunt arrived fresh from N Ireland to Malta and I am tickled pink.  I even love overhearing them talking to each other in the bedroom early in the morning as they converse from their single beds.  

They talk non-stop about family things, relatives, past incidents, present events and it all serves to remind you that we are connected in so many important ways.  You gain an appreciation of how hard life was in their days.  How much even young children were expected to work, how little they had and how grateful they were for even the smallest gift.  Each week my grandfather, on the farm, would take down the sweet jar and each of his five children would get one sweet.  That was it just one and then they would wait a week for the next one.  They didn’t resent this, they looked forward to this special occasion.  

My mother would get up on a Saturday and cycle all the way to her hockey match and then after a hard game cycle home.  Immediately, she would start on the weekly baking on the old range, which was notoriously temperamental.  Any burnt offerings were given to her eldest brother, Hugh, to eat.  She produced soda farls, buns, cakes, wheaten bread in abundance and did this year after year from the age of thirteen.  Every morning they would start the day with porridge, which had steamed on the range all night, covered with fresh cream.  Then it was a cooked breakfast with a cup of tea.  This was the daily routine and all five of those children thrived on this fare.  What child would get this today?  Who has the time to bake, prepare a cooked breakfast each morning and walk miles to school.  Yet don’t those days sound strangely idyllic compared to today’s soulless snatched biscuit or cereal shovelled down before racing out the door.  Imagine waking up to the smell of food and sitting at a table full of good food and family sitting elbow to elbow round it.  The chats, the laughter, the shared space, without them is it any wonder that most of us today need paid therapists just to get through the day?  So, these mornings when I have breakfast with my lovely visiting relatives round the kitchen table I am so grateful for the abundance of everything.

PS the only thing that bugs me is the number of people along the sea front who stop and ask if we are sisters, my mother, my aunt and myself.  Are people blind or just doing it to annoy me?

PPS yesterday in MacDonalds (they do the cheapest coffee) an elderly Maltese man approached the three of us and said that his wife had died two years ago and he wanted to show us her picture.  He showed the Maltese ID card with her photo on it and I kid you not she was identical to me.  My mother claimed it looked exactly like me, in fact she thought it was me and misunderstood him and thought he’d taken a photo of me.  How weird life can be and how moving too and he said goodbye to me with such exaggerated courteousness.

Heady Imaginary Conversations

A Russian doctor told me that years ago, when in university, the cool look consisted of a bright red suit and carrying a huge mobile phone the size of a brick to his ear.  Mobile phones had just come in and had not morphed into the tiny little things we see today.  He was the first one in his university to own both the red suit and mobile phone and spent many fruitless hours wearing his bright suit with his long antennae phone pressed to his ear waiting for a non- existent caller. 

The penalty of being the first was, none of his friends had a phone so absolutely, no one called him.  In desperation, he set the alarm setting to go off regularly and had intense fake calls on his beloved phone.  He said he became quite a performer having deep intellectual conversations, loving romantic chats and on one memorable occasion having an imaginary venting shouting match with his mother.  Years later, he longed for those heady imaginary conversations instead of his present bombardment of soulless sales calls.  

Unusually Perfect

There was a moment that happened in this year’s Olympics where I discovered my own prejudice and was floored.  I’d thought of myself as a fair sort of person.  Believing in free speech, anti racist, pro humanity generally a sort of “one people, one planet philosophy.  Then, this year while watching the Para Olympics there were endless close ups of disabled athletics competing and I found myself admiring the perfect physic of these highly trained Olympians.  Perhaps it was seeing for the first time a disabled athlete also in the main Olympics that reinforced the thought. 

I was aware that all too often my mind would be uplifted by their talent and strength and then register that missing limb and think, what a pity.  Perfection spoiled, as if a work of art had been damaged by a vicious assailant and lost the beauty that it possessed by right.  But this year their enthusiasm and talent suddenly blew that out of the water.  I don’t even know exactly when it happened but I remember the realization that this human is in better shape than you, faster, stronger, more talented and has made more effort in their short lives than you will in your entire life span.  I found myself seeing them as incredibly, beautiful, inspirational human beings, full of life and laughter and unusually perfect. 

Monty

He was the runt of the litter, that was obvious.  All the rest had already been sold and here was the remaining pedigree black Labrador puppy, a little smaller and a lot less smarter than his siblings.  But we were ecstatic.  For years my father had stopped on innumerable journeys and announced that he was going to see a man about a dog and my juvenile heart had soared in happiness every time.  Perhaps we were going to get a dog at last, but of course it was a euphemism for taking a pee.  Such was my longing for a four legged pet, that my heart still hoped that just maybe this time my Dad was actually stopping the car to see a man about a real dog.  So to find ourselves looking at this real little fellow was heavenly.  We didn't mind if he was the runt, he would be our Monty.  And so it was we took him home and into our hearts and he filled our hours, days, months and years with glee. 

His stupidity was legendary.  All it took was my Mum to go to the hairdresser and he didn’t recognise her.  He either forgot when he’d been fed or just remained ever hopeful because he invariably greeted you with a huge empty biscuit tin in his mouth looking both mournful and yet eager.  When we left him at my grandfather’s farm he consumed an entire bucket of pig meal and swelled up like a balloon and had to be raced to the vet to be saved.  For years after that, my grandfather shook his head and muttered that he’d never met a more stupid animal, every time Monty’s name was mentioned. 

He was also the smelliest dog and I remember using roll on deodorant on him to cover his natural aroma.  Washing served only to urge him into a sweat of feverish excitement, as Monty found water second only to food on his list of favourite things.  It could be a puddle, a river, the sea, an inflatable pool, a bath of soaking sheets – he was not fussy.  He loved them all and would throw himself in head first in total abandonment.  Despite threats and shouts and curses hurled at him he would jump in with a yelp of, “I know you don’t want me to, but it’s gonna be so great!” 

His good nature was equally legendary.  He forgave everyone anything.  He was simply incapable of holding grudges.  Either that or his brain capacity was such that it could not hold on to information for long enough to remember the offence.  His approach to the world was a combination of ecstasy,  “there is my food bowl” and complete abandonment to the moment,” here is water, it’s a river and I’m diving off this bridge”.  Restraint was just not in his vocabulary.  Even when told to sit he would do so at an angle with his hind leg hanging out and his tail beating furiously.  Come on you are killing me with laughter, he seemed to be saying, and gradually the shaking tail would become a moving body and then he’d be on the move towards you, so grateful that you were speaking to him.  Then, he couldn’t stop himself jumping up on you, to show how much it meant to him that you spoke.  Sports were also popular with Monty.  He took down my uncle Junior with a flying tackle during a fun game of rugby.  Poor uncle Junior was fly swatted by six stone of flying Monty and lay winded and bruised in the long grass. 

You know, when it’s said that animals are better than people, I get it.  Monty was by far the most good-natured member of our family.  Heads and shoulders above any of us.  He bestowed his love lavishly, slavishly.  If you were not careful you could indeed drown in the saliva of his love.  I am grateful that just once in all the car journeys and stops we made, one memorable day my Dad actually did stop to see a man about a dog.  A really lovable dog called Monty.

As pernicious as nose picking

Tomorrow, I must hustle for a job.  There was a scene in a series, Auf Wiedersehen, about English builders in Germany where one of the main characters says aggressively to everyone he meets, “Gi us a job!”, followed by, “I can do that, and then “Gi us a job!” repeated.  Well, thought I’d try that approach tomorrow.  I’m far too shy, it will do me good.  Face to face, it’ll be harder for them to say no.  Mind you, face to face, it will be harder to hear them say, “Sod off!”  The thing about most small islands, in my experience, is that jobs are rare and when available  naturally go to the locals.  On Rhodes in Greece, I tried for a job in a hotel.  My appointment with the personal manager went something like this.

 

Me, a bit nervous, knock on the door of a swanky office.  He grunts from inside and I take that as an invitation to enter.  I walk in to find a middle-aged man picking his nose and talking on his phone while seated behind a desk that should have belonged to the president of some Middle Eastern oil state.  At least he can multitask.  There was a running gag about a certain American president who was reputedly unable to walk and chew gum at the same time.  Anyway, he gestures with his phone for me to come in, while continuing to mine for gold. 

 

I approach his desk and decide I’m not going to shake his hand.  Then, I compromise, if he offers me the nose picking hand I’ll demur, but if it is the phone hand I’ll go for it.  Then, it occurs to me, what if he is an ambidextrous nose picker and I’ve arrived at the tail end of an orgy of nose picking all morning with both hands?   I decide it will be safer not to go for a handshake at all.  

Approaching his desk, I make sure I am not close enough for a handshake.  That feels much safer.  I needn’t have worried Mr Manager of Personnel is still talking on the phone and drilling a second shaft with his little pinkie.  I have a young nephew, who, when speaking on his mobile begins pacing up and down the room as if in a walking race.  One of my sons, who will remain nameless, will talk on the phone while scratching his ass.  Perhaps, we all have these little oddities when we are using the phone and only notice other peoples and not our own perversities.  Poor guy, perhaps nose picking is his phone thing, suddenly he hangs up and says in Greek,

“Well, what?”

Understanding him but not able to speak Greek in response I explain in English that I’ve come about a job they’ve advertised.  He leans back into his mammoth chair and gives the Greek no, which consists of a clicking noise made with the tongue against the top of the mouth followed by a quick nod back of the head.  Well, that’s a pretty clear no.  I thank him; Anglo-Saxon civility is as pernicious as nose picking.  It’s programmed in.

Leaving the office, I feel like I am in a different skit from the two Ronnie’s where one of them goes in to ask for a pay increase only to be rejected and humiliated.  As he leaves the same office, he is transformed into a schoolboy and his suit has changed into a school uniform complete with shorts and a cap.  He is so small he cannot even reach the handle to get out.  A wonderful image capturing all the vulnerability and feeling of smallness of the occasion.  

Later on, I’m talking to a friend who knows everyone on the island.  I describe my encounter and he explains that the personnel manager is the hotel owner’s cousin.  That is why he got the job.  And then in dark tones, as if this explains everything, “from one of the villages” waving his hand as if to some dark tribal outback. 

I am taken back to another conversation about the island being like a dog’s dish and no one likes to see another dog at the dish.  Especially, a foreign looking dog’s head.  It just means there’s less to go around.  So, I enter the fray with little illusion and a great deal of misgiving.  There are times when one really has to ask just how much rejection can a person take?  Can one overdose on it?  Does it do irreparable damage to one’s self-esteem?  To do what one loves and get paid for it is light upon light.  If writing could earn me money, I’d be in clover but the reality is these stories that are pouring out of me at present are a displacement activity.  You and I know I need to be out earning a living.  How does one reach mid fifties and be so useless at the basics of life?  Practice and perseverance, that’s how.  I have long perfected the art of putting off what needs to be done.  No more, tomorrow I’ll bite the bullet, but tonight I’ll have a big bun and some chocolate.  Challenging day ahead after all!

What is it about comfort's growing appeal?

New shoes at primary school

The teacher taught

But there was really no point

Because I had new shoes

Didn’t hear a word

Just wanted to admire

Those shiny new things

On the end of my feet

Every now and then

I’d raise my foot

And admire them anew

What colour, what shape!

I remember the glow

Of new shoes at school

They made the boredom go away

Thank goodness for growing feet

Then, in secondary school things went wrong

My feet began growing at an alarming rate

I started lying about their size

which seemed to be chasing my age

Instead of gloating at new shoes

I tried to hide them under my desk

Like I hid my spots with concealer

And my breasts with my school bag

When I was pregnant the doctor, unthinking

said thank goodness you’ve big feet

Your pelvic capacity is linked to your shoe size

Medical training should include a compulsory component on tact

For years either bumps or toddlers

Made me not notice my feet

They got me around

And wasn’t that enough

Then last week, I bought new shoes

I’ve been looking at them all day

Ugly nun’s shoes, that eat up the miles

what is it about comfort's growing appeal?

It’s been said that of all the things in your life

Make your shoes and your bed

the best you can buy

Because when not in one

Sure you are bound to be in the other

I suspect it stems from when I was four and lived in a refuge camp

Today I discovered where all the rich hang out in Malta.  There’s a place called Portomaso north of Sliema close to the Hilton, where plush apartments surround horseshoe-like, huge private cruisers moored cosily together.  There are expensive restaurants at each corner and on one of the cruisers a well-dressed couple examined an expensive gold-topped bottle of bubbly.  I find myself wanting to slap this rich man, eating a lobster, on the head hard as I go past.  Don’t know why the rich bring out a desire in me to howl, “come the revolution, you’ll be first against the wall!”

I suspect it stems from when I was four and lived in a refuge camp.  My family had emigrated from Ireland in the 1960s and because of the housing shortage we found ourselves in a refugee camp called Bradfield Park in Sydney.  My best friend was a Romanian who spoke no English.  We conversed at length despite no shared language, children just find a way.  It was a rough neighbourhood, our next-door neighbour, an aborigine, stabbed his wife to death and was dragged off by five large armed and cursing Australian policemen.  Our main problem was not knife fights but bins.  Our bin which was put out on a weekly basis was being stolen.  My father in desperation rigged an elaborate trap for the thief involving bells and ropes.  Of course, being four and extremely talkative I spent the week telling all the neighbours of the exciting trap and needless to say the bin walked again.  As punishment, my Dad took me with him on a walkabout in the camp to find our missing bin.  We covered miles and I began to feel really sorry about the whole business as my father became more quiet and withdrawn the further we went.  Eventually, we returned home binless and a shocked Dad told the rest of the family that we actually lived in the affluent part of the camp!  In terrified tones he described to them all, the real poverty that existed just streets away.  It was scary, we thought we were at the bottom, the very dregs, but in the camp structure we were practically “rich bastards”.

You get used to living behind large ten foot chain fencing, I, as a small child naively thought it kept the bad guys out.  Never twigged it was to keep us refugees in.  I have another memory of playing in the dry soil making mud pies with a cup of water in front of our shack.  My brother, who was six at the time, shouted at me not to move.  Something in his tone frightened me, so I looked around slowly to find a much older boy standing with a boulder held above my head.  He told me if I moved he’d drop it.  My brother, shouted frantic instructions to me, “when I count to three, run!”  He counted one, two and then before he got to three and I could run to safety the boulder was dropped and got me hard on the head.  I was carried home bleeding by my father and was lucky I inherited by far the most useful genetic trait in our family – an exceptionally hard head.

Latter we were allowed to move out of the camp to a better area where you only had to watch your washing dry, no one stole your bins, only your clothes.  This was a real step up.  The whole affair has left me with an abiding hatred of the chicken story “The sky is falling” where Cocky Locky warns everyone of impending disaster.  I would always rub my bump, which I carry to this day, and remind myself that sometimes the blasted sky does indeed fall.