I've found my home

the duck and parrot

My mum lives in the middle of nowhere. To be a little more precise, she lives near a Broad in Norfolk.

Mum: While I'm talking, I'm watching a duck on the roof of the house across the street.

This piece of information fascinates Maria. She is stunned that, quite regularly, ducks will waddle up the road from the Broad, and into my mum's garden. Real ducks! Real, alive ducks! Just wandering around the streets. She cannot believe that there are road signs, warning drivers that there might be ducks in the road. She finds it totally amazing that ducks exist in the wild.

Me: That's odd. While I'm talking, I'm watching a parrot sitting on the telephone pole across the street.

This piece of information fascinates my mother. She is stunned to hear that, quite regularly I can watch parrots fly overhead. Real parrots! Real, alive parrots! Just flying around, in the sky, without a care in the world. She cannot believe that everyone else hasn't stopped, in the street, to stare at the sight of a real live parrot on the telephone pole. She finds it totally amazing that parrots exist in the wild.

Actually, I'm with my mum on this one. I still stop and stare when I see parrots. Two days ago, during recess, I interrupted the kids while they were eating their lunch, to point out a humming bird. Yes! A real live humming bird. Just hovering around, moving in and out of the trees. And there was no David Attenborough sound track! Who would believe it? Well, to be honest, only me. The kids at school looked at the humming bird, looked at me, shook their heads in a (fairly) patronising way, and then carried on eating.

Mind you, they all stopped eating when I shouted: "Look! A duck!!"

money burns holes in my pockets

It was a simple plan:

(1) go across border
(b) buy Lea and Perrins and dijon mustard
(III) see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

So simple that it couldn't go wrong. Except it did, round about point (b).

My mum always said that "money burns holes in my pockets" and, as mum's invariable are, she was correct. I've never been brilliant with money. Oh, I like to think that I'm a lot smarter than some people but I'm willing to admit that, if you lined up the population of the world in their ability with money, I'd just make the top half, just.

The theory is that you always send more than you earn, no matter how much you earn. This I have never done. I have always managed to stay in the black. But, in case you feel like tapping me up for a loan, I should point out that last month I was in the black by 40 pesos (just under $4, well under 2 British Pounds Sterling). The advantage of living in Mexico is that credit isn't readily available to me. What I earn is what I live on and I don't earn a tremendous amount. Of course, the other advantage of living in Mexico is that I don't need to earn a tremendous amount - the cost of living is a lot cheaper. Maria often says, the pound thinks it is a dollar. This statement is backed up by McDonalds. The 99c menu in the States is a 99p menu in England. In Mexico the peso doesn't think it is a dollar (it is nearer 10c) but it really does give it a go!

I am paid on the 15th and the 30th (31st) of each month. There are some days we make it to pay having eaten beans for two days, there are some pay days we arrive at with 1000 pesos still in the bank. Please note, I am not complaining. We live life exactly as we want to. We have both been married to people who are financially frugal. Both of us have suffered from living a life where we have had to argue for every penny we get. For me it was particularly irksome - however, it did mean that when I left England, I left everyone financial secure, mainly because all my money had been siphoned off into "rainy day accounts" that I had no access to. This means that neither of us like to exercise any kind of financial restraint on the other. And it is fairly good because neither of us wants to financially cripple the other one either. Every pay day there is a moment when we treat ourselves to something extra or we cover the cost of a repair. Basically, we live from pay check to pay check. Sometimes we sit around and talk of saving money but, somehow, we always end up in a bookstore/restaurant/IKEA and nothing comes of the talking. Money burns holes in my pockets.

As you know (and if you didn't - here's the reminder) I have taken on directing the acting in The Lion King, the school play. This I did willingly - and for willingly you can also read financially-unrewarded. I did ask for money (and felt rather embarrassed when I did) but was told that there wasn't any (and felt very relieved when informed). I did the job because, well because I enjoy it. I enjoy working with the children in a different way, I get job satisfaction (and yes, there are times, often 2am, when I have to chant that phrase to myself to remind me not to explode with stress). I also think that it helps with my relationship with the students, the school. There might not be any financial reward but there are certain other rewards that count for a lot more. On Tuesday I negotiated my contract. One of the weapons I intended to use was the fact I had directed the school play. As it turned out, I didn't need any weapons. In fact, the whole thing turned out so well that, much to my amazement, as part of the apology to (what they perceived as small - although it was more than I expected) my pay rise, I wasn't just given sincere thanks I was also given a financial thank you for what I had done with the play.

We suddenly had a lump of money. From nowhere. A chunk of money. What to do? What to do? What to do?

Obviously we decided to spend it!!

We decided to head over the border, Thursday night, and catch the opening of Indiana Jones, to celebrate, donchu'no. We took out money from the bank, changed pesos into dollars, laughed at how much we had exchanged - just to see a film -, crossed the border in under ten minutes (Maria took longer than me!), and set off...the money was already burning a hole.We didn't get to see the film.

We nipped into Target, for Lea&P, and foolishly we grabbed a trolley (cart). In a search for Lea&P we decided to go up and down every aisle. This was our second mistake. By the time we arrived at the condiments area the trolley was already full - I found cherry flavoured water, curry flavoured crisps, honey-roasted nuts at a reduced price, tins of Slim Jims - I went a bit mad. We went a bit mad. Both of us felt guilty. Both of us felt that we had overspent. And so, we came to the decision that it would be a good idea if the other spent some more of the money on themselves, to sort of compensate for the other's frivolity. It made sense to us at the time. Maria wanted me to go to Borders and try get a couple of TPBs. I wanted Maria to buy a pair of shoes. Both of us agreed that we would look - me at TPBs, her at shoes - but both of us were convinced we wouldn't find anything.

An hour and a half later we didn't have enough money to go to the cinema - it is a bit bad when you stand in line for the checkout, trying to work out the tax, in case you don't have enough money. (For those who have never shopped in the States, the price on the shelf isn't the price you pay - there is a sales tax added on at the till.)

But, never fear, we had the kids Friday night, we had a party to go to (children's) Saturday, there was no way we could spend more money before Sunday. And we didn't. Didn't spend any money on Friday - except for the visit to the supermarket and having to put petrol in the car. Apart from those expenses, we spent nothing.

The party Saturday would make sure that we spent nothing! Except we couldn't go to the party. It wasn't just a "turn up and party" party, it was actually a birthday/baptism/wedding party. Yeah, I know! Who decides to get married, and then include their kid's baptism, and their kid's birthday party, all in one? I mean, seriously, it meant that one of the guests at the wedding would have been me?? It makes no sense at all. However, the invitation was an RSVP, because the party was a "sit-down meal" type thing (it was a wedding!). Nikos's dad hadn't RSVPed. We couldn't go. We ended up at the book fair instead. We spent money. A lot of money. And I was more guilty than the other three! Yes, I bought a book in Spanish! A very expensive book. Toda Mafalda. It will help me learn Spanish!

Tomorrow is Sunday. We are going to try to see the Indiana Jones film. We will try but...but it is Memorial Day in the States. This seems to be a day for every shop to have a sale. And I need new trainers. We both need jeans. I need some underwear and socks. Maybe a couple of shirts. There are always new t-shirts to be had. There is this bookcase we have been looking at from IKEA.

Me thinks that if you come here on Monday, to read a review of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, you might be out of luck. Money, it burns holes in my pockets.

for my mum

Because it was Mother's Day, yesterday, here in Mexico, I phoned my mum. It appears that my brother had inflated Speedy Gonzales - a 12 foot inflatable with a bloody huge outboard motor (don't think of this a dingy, think of it as something the SBS [or marines] might use to invade a foreign country) - and taken her out for the day, on the Norfolk Broads. It appears that they ended up on Ranworth Broad, and my mum asked me if I remembered an incident that had occurred there. I did. And I mentally promised myself that I would write the incident up and send it to her. This is the story:

During the Easter holidays of 1972, my father hired a 38 foot cruiser that slept six people and a sailing dingy to tie to the back of the boat As usual, with family trips, we were all awoken at 5am to pack the car. Why we were woken, to stand around in the freezing cold to watch my father swear at suitcases, as he forced them into the boot, and struggle to put Bolshy (our sailing dingy) on the roof, I never knew but those were the rules. By 7am my father was happy and we were ready to go. My mother lined my brother and I up outside the toilet, used the facilities herself and then made sure that we did. We were then bundled into the car, handed reading material, a tin of sucky sweets each and then my parents went back inside the house for a cup of coffee. Half an hour later we set off, stopping to pick up my grandpa on the way.

There must have been a time when my grandpa was dynamic and all there, he had set up many successful businesses in Sheffield and had retired. My grandpa did very little now, he would sit, eat, occasionally mumble, smoke, drink a huge amount of whisky every day and hand out money from a seemingly bottomless pit of change he kept in his pockets - normally with the preceding comment: I feel like a lavatory attendant. Here take some of this change. My grandpa came from an era when there were lavatory attendants, and he was used to tipping them. In his world, if anyone had a pocket full of change it must be because he was a lavatory attendant, weighed down by his tips.

Arriving at Wroxham the car was unpacked, everything being moved from the car to the boat. Bolshy was lowered from the roof and placed in the water, next to the fat slug of a dingy my father had hired. Grandpa was placed in the rear well of the boat and a glass of whisky placed in his hand. We were lined up on shore and reminded once again (as we were reminded annually) that my father could be referred to as dad, daddy, skip or skipper but never captain (captains are in charge of ships not boats, donchu'no). We were sent to our mooring posts, as the eldest I was at the front (for'ard), my brother at the back (stern) and my mother stood on the front (prow) of the boat. My father started the engine:

cast off for'ard, cast off aft

I threw the rope (line) towards my mother who missed it, pulled it back on board and dumped it in a pile. I walked back to the middle of the boat (midships), stepped on board.My brother threw his line to grandpa, who ignored it as it bounced off his head, stepped aboard and crossed to the other side. The boat moved away from the side (dock):

fenders up, everything tidy, break out the rations

My brother and I pulled aboard the fenders that hung down the side of the boat and then returned to the fore and aft of the boat to make sure that the mooring lines were coiled properly. My mother ran down into the galley (kitchen) and poured drinks for her and my father, rushed a glass into my father's hand and then ran back to the stern to fill grandpa's glass. My father opened the throttles and set sail for the high seas - actually, the Norfolk Broads is nothing like the high seas. It is more like a huge boating lake. These days it is probably an aquatic version of a motorway, with boats pootling along at 5 m.p.h., looking for a parking space, near to a pub, so that the drinking could start. As a child, I was of the opinion that a holiday on the Norfolk Broads was nothing more than a pub crawl on water. At some point in the holiday we arrived at Ranworth Broad. This is a huge expanse of water, the ideal place to put Bolshy through her paces. There, in the middle of the Broad, we dropped anchor, except he boat didn't actually have an anchor. The Norfolk Broads are cut into the earth and the bottom of each broad is thick black mud. The best way to make sure a boat doesn't drift in the night is to drop a huge weight which sinks deep into the mud, the mud closes round the weight, sucking it in tightly, the line is tied off tightly, the boat is moored, it will not drift.

My father had been in the navy, the merchant navy. It is always a source of wonderment to me that, during war time, when Britain was surviving on the arrival of convoys, which meant that these were targets for the Nazi submarines, thus leading to many sunk ships, many dead seaman, that my father would volunteer for such a position. Actually, beside the wonder, there is also a sense of pride. During a war situation, my father volunteered for a non-combative role, a non-violent role. The good news (for me and probably him) was that he never got to sail in wartime. He ran away to sea, rather than becoming an accountant (straight away) in his father's firm. Of course, there was fall back from this decision. At some point (approximately 50 times a year), my father would push back his chair from the dinner table and regale us with his first/second/every trip to sea. In later years, he was joined in his reminiscing by my older brother, who also joined the Merchant Navy. Oh, and if you think that I can tell a story, you really should spend time (have spent time) with my father and brother. Both of them are far, far better raconteurs than I could ever dream of being. However, the long and the short of this is, we were brought up with boats, with the sea, with sailing. [sidenote: My mother was an ARP. For those of you who have watched Dad's Army, it was her job to ride around on her bike, telling people to: Put those lights out! Again, I am in awe that a 14 year old girl (as she was then) would volunteer to cycle round a (blatantly obvious - Sheffield, they make steel! Think about it) target for the Luftwaffe.]

Bolshy was a polystyrene dingy. Now, I know what you are thinking - polystyrene dingy? Why? Well, think a bit further. She was light, very light. Think of a piece of polystyrene on water, think how the wind would move it. She wasn't just light, she was fast - in theory. The reason she was called Bolshy was because she was bolshy! On her maiden voyage she refused to move, no matter that the catalogue had stated that even in a light wind she would zip across the water, she didn't move. However, Ranworth Broad wasn't the same as the river she was placed in for her maiden voyage. It is a huge expanse of water that the wind whips across. Ranworth Broad was the ideal place for my father to show off his sailing heritage. He would sail Bolshy, my brother and I would sail the hired dingy. The hired dingy was a slug. Not even a slug compared to Bolshy, she was a slug. This was a dingy that my brother and me would be safe in. My father sailed Bolshy, we sailed the hired dingy, my mother and grandpa stayed on board.

For fifteen minutes my brother and I tried to coax our dingy into moving. Although the wind was strong, although we kept the sheets (ropes to you) tight, although we kept the sail trimmed, we had managed to get the dingy a whole 100 yards away from the boat. In this time, my father, had managed to zip up and down the whole broad. He'd undone the rust in his sailing abilities. He'd beaten to windward, he'd close-hauled, he'd run, he'd starboard tacked, he'd port tacked, he'd gone about (lee-ho). Basically there were only two things left to do: jibe and capsize. In the next manoeuvre he covered both of them.

A jibe is when you turn the boat around with the wind behind you, instead of a normal manoeuvre (tacking) when you turn with the nose of the boat into the wind. If you turn with the nose into the wind, the boat comes around, the sail switches sides, you move from one side of the boat to another, you continue to sail. However, this manoeuvre slows the boat down, it takes valuable seconds, and several knots off the speed of your boat. If you jibe, the speed of your boat doesn't change. The sail whips round (very quickly) and you are facing the other way. It is, essentially, a dangerous move. As the boom (the bit of wood holding the sail at the bottom), whips across the boat, it moves at a frightening speed. If your head is up then your head is in the water, or at least you have a major concussion. It also throws the whole weight of the boat in an alternate direction. A good, controlled jibe, is a thing of beauty. You know that moment when you see someone swimming the butterfly stroke, and if they do it badly it just looks like they are drowning? But, if you see someone swimming it well, you suddenly realise that the only stroke you ever want to swim is butterfly. It is the same with jibing. When it is done well, it looks perfect, sailor and boat together in harmony. If you have seen it, it is all you want to do. However, when it goes wrong, it goes wrong big stylee!

My father managed to complete the missing two manoeuvres in his sailing repertoire in one move. He jibed, he capsized.

The next scene was one that was (probably) only funny if you were there. Unfortunately, it was 1972 and neither my brother nor I had a video camera/mobile phone on which to record the drama as it unfolded. My mother went into panic mode. Turning the boat's engine on, running to the for'ard, struggling to pull up the anchor, running back to mid-ships, turning the engine off, running to the stern, dealing with my grandpa (who was totally oblivious to the whole thing), running back to the for'ard to struggle with the anchor. For ten minutes my mother was in perpetual motion, desperate to save her (in her mind) drowning husband. What she couldn't see, because she was too busy, was my father righting Bolshy, looking around guiltily, sailing off into the distance to hide his shame. By the time my mother arrived at the spot of the capsize, he was gone. There was nothing there. No sight nor sound of him. Just empty water.

My mother killed the engine, dropped anchor, went astern, and started to explain to my grandpa how his eldest son had drowned/disappeared under the dark waters of the Broad.

Through all of this my brother and I just giggled.

I guess you had to be there.

However, my mum was there. And this is for her. Happy Mother's Day.

yo mamma!

It's Mother's Day, here in Mexico.

Forget Independence Day. Forget America v Chivas. Forget Birthdays (and if you know anything at all about Mexicans the whole comment "forget birthdays" sounds totally surreal). Everything, everything, pales into insignificance when placed next to Mother's Day.

On my second day at boarding school, at the ripe-old age of 13, I made a boy cry. I called him a son-of-a-bitch. Now, it is true that I am a fairly foul-mouthed person. It is also true that I can be a bit flippant when it comes to swearing. It is definitely true that I can call people things that, in the cold light of day, are just not nice. However, I tend to be rather blasé when it comes to calling people names. I don't particularly mean it*. So, when this boy burst into tears I was slightly gob-smacked. My jaw dropped even further when, under questioning from other students, he revealed that I had insulted his mother. I was adamant that I hadn't! I had only called him a son-of-a-bitch...ahhhh, I got it! I had called his mother a female dog! His problem was not with me calling him a name, it was the insult to his mother. Fair enough.

As my life has progressed, I have discovered that talking about people's families is not a good idea. Even the most verbose detractor of their own family will take umbrage if you agree with them. It appears that it is alright for someone to slag off their family, but the minute an outsider picks on their family, the wagons circle and heaven help the casual bystander. This becomes double dangerous if you ever get involved with a comment about someone's mum. This I understand. My mum is my mum. I can complain about my childhood, her cooking, her (totally insane) rules but, if anyone ever says anything about my mum then they are in for a shoeing!

In Mexico you don't even want to think about commenting on someone else's mum. If you do the best that could happen is you would die quickly. The fact is, you will probably die - it is just the speed and the added extra pain that you would have to live through before your demise, that is open to debate. This is a country of men devoted to their mothers. A devotion that borders on the weird but, hopefully, never quite crosses the line.

A man's mother is a Madonna. Hell, she might even be the Madonna. It is a conversation that I ain't going to get into.

So, it is Mother's Day. If it was a working day, it would be half day, people need to go see their mothers!! If it wasn't a half day, people just wouldn't turn up for work. It is Mother's Day. Already we have received several random phone calls from (virtual) strangers, congratulating Maria on being a mother. Hell, I even have been commanded by my employer and my father-in-law to phone my mum and congratulate her.

Happy Mother's Day to anyone who is a mother.

Oh, and my mum is better than yours! Don't agree? I'll see you behind the bike-shed later and come prepared. Because, in the words of Carlin (the Daddy of them all) I'll be asking you: Where's ya tool?

 

*It should be noted that friends of ours, Mexicans, have taken to casually telling me to "fuck off". However, the casualness of the moment is normally ruined when their Mexican-ness kicks in and they follow the comment up with "no offence".

down time

Dateline: Easter Sunday.

Last night we had the most awful food. I would like to blame someone else, anyone else, but it was all my fault. For some reason "scallops wrapped in bacon" sounded luvverly - and the picture on the box looked nice as well. Normally, after spending a certain amount of time in the toilet (with multiple visits) I can feel happy - it is caused by "lactose covered frozen things" or ice-cream (as most people call it). But it tasted horrible, it smelt horrible, and it made me ill. The long and the short of all this was, we ended up loosing two hours of real life and so, to regain it, we didn't go to bed until after 2am.

It is Danny's birthday today and Maria had to pick the kids up at 10am. At 8am I got that worrying thought, what if the clocks went forward today? This isn't as daft as you might think. Five miles away in the good ol' US of A, the clocks went forward two weeks ago. Of course I couldn't just lie in bed worrying, I had to get up to check. Once the computer was switched on I noticed several comments on my blog and an email from my mum. I didn't go back to sleep.

The kids phoned at 9:20am, why hadn't they been picked up? Well, mainly because we were on Tijuana time not Mexico City time (which is two hours ahead), where they had been for the last week. Maria picked them up, happy birthday was sung, presents unwrapped, and Danny chose to watch the Bourne trilogy - now she is 13 she can watch them unsupervised! I phoned my mum - she was at my brother's house, celebrating Easter.

As Maria and Danny settled in front of the tele it was up to me to keep Nikos entertained. Thank the t'internet for lego.com. We built cities, we spent time as firemen, we hunted dinosaurs. As Nikos built, fought fire, exterminated, I surfed the t'internet on my laptop. Posted several times on expat-blog.com, read blogs and commented, followed Santos as they drew with Pumas.

It is now 6:45m. Nikos is now in front of the tele watching Alvin and the Chipmunks, Danny is at the computer updating her myspace page, Maria is cooking, and I am posting.

It all counts as downtime.

signature moment

I've always wanted one of those pithy sign-off signatures on my email. You know how you get emails that casually have some life affirming statement at the bottom - something that makes you go "wow - that's clever" or "gosh, here's a wonderful person I want to know better".

Every now and then I come across a quote that I think I should end my emails with:

Most of my worst decisions have been haircuts.

Psychiatry and cunnilingus have brought us to this.

But then I wonder what those statements say about me and how people would react to reading them, especially my mum. And then I get an email from her which has, as its last line:

All the best for 2008 and make sure you don't end up in jail and all will be well.

Which I think is just about perfect! Gotta lurve my mum.

she tries not to laugh - but fails

Every week I write to my mum. Every week my mum writes back. Once a month I phone my mum. Sometimes it is hard to think about what to write. You know how every day feels like it is full, that there aren't enough hours in the day? But when you sit down and try to sum up your week you feel that nothing has happened. At some stage, at every stage, there is always a paragraph in each email about the weather. When I talk to my mum Maria is normally sat beside me. She smiles through the conversation, listening to one side. She loves me and she loves my mum. She loves the fact that I talk to my mum and as each conversation nears the end she mouths at me: "tell her you love her." When I hang up she wants to know what my mum said. She loves the life my mum leads, she loves the details about my mum's life and wants the other side of the conversation. But during every conversation she has to leave for a couple of seconds. She has to move out of my eyesight because she needs to laugh. Every email, every phone call includes a discussion of the weather.

I am English. I come from a country where you can experience four/five different types of weather in a day and, as citizens of that country, we love discussing the weather. If, in England, we ever experience the same weather for more than three days then it becomes a topic of national puzzlement. How can the sun shine for more than three days? How can it rain for more than three days? Will the snow never melt? Apart from health, weather is the second most discussed topic in England.

We live in Mexico but the state we live in is called Baja California - Lower California. The weather is the same for weeks. When it is hot, it is hot for the next 35 weeks. When it is cold, it is cold for the next 17 weeks. That is it. You know that Fast Show sketch?  The one when they all get excited about the fact that a cloud has appeared?  Welcome to my world. But I'm English, I need to talk about the weather.  It fascinates me. Even the fact that the weather is the same one day to the next is brilliant and has to be mentioned.

So, summer is over. When I get up in the morning it is now dark. We have put sheets back on the bed and there is a blanket there for emergency moments. This morning I did not apply sunblock as part of my morning ritual. The mosquito killer is running out and we don't care. Summer is officially over.

And guess what - the forecast says: RAIN. I know it is forecast rain because everyone is telling me it is going to rain. RAIN. And for some reason I appear to be the only person who is nonplussed about the fact that it will rain.

I'm trying not to laugh but am failing, miserably.

survey time

Hello gentle reader (both of you). I have a question for you. Oddly enough I am probably going to ignore your answers, actually that isn't true, I am going to read your answers and they will probably effect/affect the way I write - but for now I am going to say I am going to ignore your responses.

Let me explain.

Last week I sent my mum an email. As usual I attached one of my posts to the bottom of my email, it makes the email look longer and I know that my mum likes to read what I write. I don't send her all my posts and those posts I do send tend to undergo some editing. The majority of editing is the use of the "f" word. My mother does not like the "f" word. It is not big, it is not clever in my mother's eyes. The problem is that it is part of my vocabulary. It is a word I use (not as often as Maria) but I do use it. I use swear words. I like the emphasis they give to a point. I don't use them often (at this point someone will point out that I do), so I like to think that when I use one it has a real sense to it. I have, to my knowledge, used the "f" word twice in front of my mother. Once was in her house. I was very, very drunk at the time. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, we had been working our way through a bottle of whisky and through some of the problems that exist between us. My ex-wife had already gone to bed (four hours earlier) and I was getting more and more frustrated. Suddenly, in the middle of my conversation the "f" word slipped out. EVERYTHING STOPPED! My mother informed me that I could not use that word in her house. I, in my drunkeness (is that a word?), walked out of her house and headed off into the dark. It was very dark. My mother lives in a small village in Norfolk, big enough to have street lights, small enough to have only two street lights. I stomped off and within twenty paces I found myself enveloped by total darkness. That sort of darkness you can no longer find in the 21st Century except in third world countries that don't have electricity or Norfolk. There was a weeping willow in front of me, I crawled under its branches, found the trunk, cuddled up to it and fell asleep (passed out drunk). Four hours later I woke and made my way home. I never knew if my mother was more upset by my use of the "f" word of the fact that I slept under a tree - however, I never used the "f" word in her house again. [The second time was in my own house while arguing with my brother - that was a great Christmas!]

My relationship with my mother is, at this moment, better than it has been for years - surreal, considering that we are now over 5000 miles apart. It is a good relationship. I talk to her much more often on the phone now than I ever did before and I write to her (or try to write to her) at least once a week. She likes my writing. I know that she prints out every email and keeps them, I also know that she takes pride in forcing friends and family to read my emails. Therefore I take time and care to delete the "f" words that appear in any posts. Last week I copied and pasted the post about my fear of doctors to the email I sent. I started to edit the post, to delete the "f" words and, during the editing process, I hit the "tab" key. It was then that I discovered that in gmail hitting the "tab" key means that the email is automatically sent. The whole thing was sent without being edited! This I did on Wednesday. Today is Sunday. I have spent several days worrying about how upset my mother is.

This morning Maria asked me to phone my mum. I refused. I was worried that she might be upset with me and I really wanted to avoid a confrontation. Maria demanded that I phoned my mum. I refused. Maria went on and on and on and on and on (and on and on and on) that I should phone my mum. I phoned my mum.

She's not well. She has a punctured eardrum, blood in her ear. She saw the doctor Friday, will see him again on Wednesday. My elder brother is in Croatia. My younger brother's son has his First Holy Communion (capital letters for that?) next week and she is going. We talked about Frank Sinatra - and I can say that my mum lurves Mr. Sinatra! You should have heard the way she said "Yes" when answering the statement: "I know you like Frank Sinatra." She  has Ocean's Eleven on DVD but she also has many, many Sinatra DVDs and "The Rat Pack" DVD. She can't remember going to see Rose-Marie with John and I. She denies that she ever lied to nuns. She remembers going and seeing Rose-Marie during the war, with an American! She doesn't think he ever gave her "nylons and chocolate" but he did go ask her parents if he could take her to the cinema. And then I apologised for the email. We had a long conversation about the fact that I don't put the word "SPAM" in my subject headings. The fact that she receives over 50 pieces of spam a day. The fact that she really should change her email provider. The fact that she doesn't want to do it yet because she wants her friend to help her. And then I apologised (again) for the email, about the fact that I hadn't edited it.

"William you really don't need to use that word. There are so many other words. It isn't just that I don't like the word but I am sure that your other readers don't like that word either. They would like your writing so much better if you didn't use that word."

So (at last) it is over to you gentle reader (both of you). How do you feel about the use of the "f" word? Does it spoil your enjoyment? Is my mother right?

Please note: your comments may well be forwarded to my mother so please refrain from using the actual "f" word in your replies.

I thank you.