Life has been busy in Bangor, since The Wise Old Elf has been poorly and the Mothership has morphed into a cranky Florence Nightingale. He’s on the mend, thankfully, but mother is keeping a close eye. ‘Do you know he was all for driving himself to his Historical Club meeting and I caught him leaving WITHOUT A HAT? “Oh no you’re not,” I said. “Get a hat on you and I’ll drop you AT THE DOOR.” On she goes: ‘I’ve never met his equal,’ I said to him: “Do you WANT to be ill?”
Then she imparted some sage advice: ‘I cannot emphasise enough that you DO NOT WANT to find yourself in the A&E at the Ulster, under ANY circumstance. The number of people coughing and spluttering all round you. I’m telling you, if you weren’t sick before you went in you would be by the time you left. It’s a wonder I’m as well as I am after the night we spent there.’
My mother has her own notions about why people end up in the Ulster.
Going out NOT properly dressed. ‘I was in ASDA the other day, in January and there was a young fellow in a T-shirt. I mean, is he mad or mental? I felt like saying to him, “You’ll be laid up,” but you never know how advice will go down with strangers.’ Quite.
Breathing in cold air (we hear this A LOT). ‘These RUNNERS that you see, out in the icy cold, gulping in lungfuls of freezing air. That is HOW. YOU. GET. A. CHEST-INFECTION. I’m telling you. Plenty of them in the Ulster: I saw it with my OWN eyes.’
Ill-advised eating habits. ‘People DO NOT appreciate how eating rubbish can actually banjax your innards. Do you remember the night I was in hospital with the chest pains? I thought I was a goner but it was just the indigestion. I haven’t eaten a pork pie since, and if I were you, I wouldn’t eat them either. You’ll only disorder yourself.
With so much commanding her attention at home, the mothership has not had the same time to be monitoring my blog and seeing what I’m putting out on display for public consumption.
So the phone went last night. The tone was a trifle acidic.
MOTHER: I’m after reading the blog post. The one about the film.
ME: Oh yes, it went down well at Tenx9. People seemed to like it.
MOTHER: Hmmm. Some people like that sort of thing I suppose.
ME: Baffled silence.
MOTHER: Anyway, you should know there’s a semi-colon in the third paragraph where a comma would suffice. And you’ve spelt ‘bestiality’ wrongly in the last sentence. There’s a few other mistakes but I’ve forgotten what they are now.
ME: Ah. Thank you.
MOTHER: I’m away on now to make your father a cup of tea.
I can only assume that my mother thinks that I was entirely to blame for the shit-show that was the school outing I organised, or if not, that I should at least keep quiet about the ridiculous things that happen to me.
Until next time everyone, keep yourselves wrapped up, breath only warm air, and FFS, keep out of the Ulster.
