What a Purl!

I would hate to criticize my mother in law in a public forum but sometimes you just have to tell it how it is.

I have traced it back to her!

I don’t know why I didn’t connect the dots before. You see, she is solely responsible for the twiddle gene. Her son has it and so do all his children. I on the other hand, not being related by blood, am free of the twiddle gene. I often think that if had the twiddle gene too, then it wouldn’t be quite so annoying. As it is, I don’t, so it is, annoying that is to say.


They all do it, the foot tapping, hair twiddling, flicky fingers, nibbling and the like. These are the kinds of people who make teachers yell, ‘sit on your hands!’ More unfortunate types are twacked with a ruler.

Then there are the ear lobe pullers, the people who suck air through their teeth and the women and girls who do that thing with long hair that has no name but ought to have one.


Who can ignore the chin rubbers and beard strokers? I’m very agin the jostling change in your pocket types. I cannot stand the rhythmical drumming of fingertips on the table top boffins, the fluff pluckers and the throat clearers. The rockers are pretty annoying too, swaying forwards onto tippy toes and then rolling back onto heels guys, gearing up for speech. I’m convinced that Restless Leg Syndrome should fit in there somewhere.

Due to my never ending thirst for knowledge, I have conducted scientifically controlled experiment to determine the cause of these behaviours. 9 times out of ten, when you ask someone ‘why are you doing that incredibly annoying thing?’ the most common response is ‘what? or I’m not doing anything!’ Bizarre as it may seem, they are oblivious to their behaviour and more importantly, it’s effect on their audience.

They’re all variations on a theme, be they displacement activities, coping mechanisms or an aid to concentration. No matter how you choose to label them, they all fall into the chasmic category of annoying. If you are unfortunate enough to belong to a family of twiddlers, what might you do to relieve the stress of such an existence, lighten the burden? This is a question I have often asked myself. No amount of kooshes and fiddlesticks will placate them.

I asked myself this question again, as I waited seven minutes outside the school for the boys. My daughter sat in the back seat with her mild fever and a twiddling fingers. The offensive digits played with the electronic window button, up and down, and up and down…..for 420 excruciating seconds. I tried to distract her with conversation but she never missed a beat. I tried and work out what it was that was so annoying? Was it the noise? Not an offensive noise really and quite quiet. Repetitive but rhythmical. Would it have be more annoying if she’d did missed a beat. Why?

I should have acted sooner, probably about twenty years ago.

























Back then, we’d sit on the sofa together, the Chesterfield. We’d talk about the future, or rather, I’d talk and he’d twiddle. As the months rolled on, the sofa grew bald, buttonless and saggy. Sadly, the male of the species was fatally flawed. If only I paid more attention. If only I’d known that we would produce a whole twoop of twiddlers to taunt me. As I said my wedding vows I sealed my own fate. As we packed to move out to the States, the sofa was just so much collateral damage. Oh woe is me, cursed by this twiddle riddle, pure innocent that I am.


Now where did I leave my knitting?

























Clickety click!

My mother, the magician

She has always been a very talented woman but most of her talents were securely hidden under several artful and impenetratable bushels. Some of her more mysterious talents were those associated with butter.

Butter didn’t particularly affect my very youthful life because in South Africa it tasted quite foul. In England however, it altered it’s genetic make up, to become the ideal toping for warm crumpets, scones and other delectibles.

Butter has some rather odd qualities such as the ability remove stuck things. Like most children, I was all to frequently stuck in something or had something stuck on me. Butter was the solution.

As children, it was our purpose in life to make our mother’s life as miserable as possible with our constant and unreasonable demands. We plagued her with questions of the ‘when is dinner / I’m starving’ variety, at 3 minute intervals for the hour prior to the allotted time. If we were persistent, and we usually were, exasperation would take over and we were given the opportunity to ‘ruin our appetites’ with a ‘spot of bread and butter.’

It would be at this juncture, with hindsight, that I find myself apologetic to my mother. Her capitulation failed to bring about the desired peace and tranquility that she so richly deserved, as she laboured in the kitchen to produce a nutritious and attractive meal for all five of us, every day, from our birthdays until we eventually left home as adults. I would poke about the well ordered fridge.
“Mummeee! Where’s the butter? I can’t find it anywhere!”
“Second shelf down, at the back on the right.”
“Where? It’s not there I can’t see it?”
“The other right.”
“No, there’s just a big um dish thing.”
“Under the dish thing.”
“Mummy….”
“Really!” she would spit in frustration as she’d bustle about and lay her hand directly on the invisible butter, slam the fridge door and slap the butter container on the corner edge of the kitchen table.
“Mum. Where’s the bread?”
“In the bread bin where it always is.”
“Where’ the bread bin?”
“Where it always is, on the boiler.”
“I can’t see it.”
“Move the cereal packets, it right behind there.” I would then fight with the lid, and the wrapping. If I was lucky it would be a ready sliced loaf, if unlucky …….
“Where’s the bread knife?”
“In the knife drawer.”
“Don’t use that one dear, use the brown handled one.” I would then attempt to carve off a lump of bread, without biting off the tip of my tongue that protruded with concentration.
“Do use a bread board dear, you’ll ruin the table.” So it would go on , step after step, and painful step. Because my mother would always be busy, sometimes I would become distracted myself. I would peel off the crust of the lump of bread and then ball up the soft sponge into dough balls. This was one of my more disgusting habits gleaned from one of my more ‘unsavoury acquaintances.’ I had many.
“How disgusting! Don’t do that. Just spread it with butter and be done! Don’t forget to use the butter knife, I don’t want lots of little crumbs in the butter dish.” I would try hard to oblige but a pat of butter is always an impenetrable brick to a child. I would carve off great lumps of potential coronaries and squash them in the all too yielding bread which would tear and mangle under my heavy handed torment.
“Good grief child. What are you doing to that poor bread? Give it here!” she would sigh. I would cogitate upon my crimes unto baked goods, sad but oh so true. She would whip the equipment away from me and demonstrate the required skill. Swift and rapid movements made corrugated slivers of butter that glanced over the surface of the bread. It was miraculous.

I would attempt smiling in return, a cross between guilt, gratitude and awe. My mother the Dairy Queen. This was proof positive that I had indeed been found under a Gooseberry bush. There was no common gene pool. Her tanned skinned. My freckled, beet red, sunburn. Her coiffed coils, my rats tails. Her skills, my ineptitude. He breaks the spell as I lean in supervision mode by the kitchen counter, “what you are do mum?” I blink.
“Just thinking dear.”
“What you are think mum?” Good grief! When was the last time any male of the species asked a female person that question? I watch him slather a pre-cut slice of bread with lashings of room temperature butter in our Californian home, with a quick slick to his tongue.
“I think maybe it skipped a generation you little magician you!”

Alive and well

Just before six in the morning I spot an email from my eldest daughter in Mozambique. [translation – on the cusp of her 26th birthday] I pause just long enough to read the first and last line: “Dear Mum” “Love Tamsin.” Although it has arrived via her e-mail address there is always the possibility that she has been dead in a ditch and someone else has tracked me down with the terrifying news. [translation = the neurosis of a mother with adult children] I zip on by, to attend to my youngest son and his toileting.
If I were a sensible person, I would admit defeat and print out her message to read, but in my endeavour to save the planet by using less paper, I hold back. [translation = especially since my oldest daughter is a hug a tree / save a whale type of a woman]
I attempt to shovel cereal into two small boys who appear to have mislaid their oral cavities. [translation = and their arms don’t seem to work this morning either and have been replaced by limp, overcooked, spaghetti strands.]
My eldest daughter is not a secretive type, but she generally fails to pass on pertinent information, such as her return date. In my email to her, I asked her a number of very specific questions in the hope of eliciting the information that my mind so desperately needs, such as ‘are you alive?’ My dreams have been inhabited by wild animals of a carnivorous frame of mind, whose quest for their next meal generally consists of her various body parts. I am disappointed that it is always a black panther, my favourite, that appears to be chewing off her toes as I awaken with a start.

My son falls off his chair for no particular reason and lies on the floor covered with cereal and milk. {translation = failure to properly supervise] Not for the first time, I am tempted to ask if everyone could stop being autistic for three and a half minutes so that I can read the letter in it’s entirety, without interruptions or distractions? My other son bangs his fists on the table to tell me “I am explode dah toilet,” and promptly does so, without the benefit of being anywhere near the vicinity of the aforementioned toilet. I debate whether to clean up the son with cereal or the son with other matter? Should the first accident take precedent due to timing? I decide that I am clearly unfit to be in charge of anyone. I am not phased by either accident because both kinds are so frequent. [translation = I am more concerned that no-one is hurt or ill or both]

I am completely mystified as to how my gene pool could have created a make your own igloo, Banana slugs are my friend, hiking / biking, trek round Tibet solo, kind of a daughter? There again, on the whole I remain happier if I refrain from examining my own gene pool too carefully. [translation = let sleeping dogs lie]

I regret that I failed to fit her with a monitor, so that she could zap me every 24 hours to reassure me of her well being. At least I know she was truly alive at 2:24 a.m. when she sent the e-mail. Maybe the monitor should ping every hour, or minute? I ensure that my exterior oozes, calm so that my boys’ level of anxiety does not rise. Although they are generally oblivious to my existence, I have a tendency to leak magnetic stress molecules. The elastic rope around my waist pings me back to the stake by the computer, via a bucket of hot soapy water and a scrubbing brush, so I have no option but to read another few words. The words I read are ‘renewal of contract,’ before I’m snapped back to the table and small people, where one complains about his malfunctioning spoon. I replace his fork with a spoon. [translation = one implement looks very much like another unless you are truly interested in eating]

During the course of the morning, I travel back and forth through the narrow galley kitchen many hundreds of times. The lap top computer and the email message are on display for me, but time and the opportunity to read more than a single word or line, do not present themselves. I skid through on route to the family room and a small person who calls my name. I slow to a stop, pause, freeze frame, read half a sentence and then speed up as the name calling increases in volume.
I debate whether it is possible to renew an annual contract by a day, or maybe two if I’m feeling really generous? I decide that I am not feeling generous, really. I decide to practice being generous, my weakest suit. My son presents himself before me. All his clothes are on backwards because I wasn’t paying enough attention. [translation = I further resolve to practice being generous] I tell him what a great job he has done and then bite my lip because what little generosity I might have ever had, is leaking away.

“Why you are a cartoon?” bellows my youngest son.
“A cartoon?” I repeat, tearing my eyes away from the screen for the umpteenth time.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I… er…….understand. Can you say it again dear?”
“You are dah run, you are dah stop, you are dah read, you are dah run, again.”
“I am?”
“Yes, today you are dah cartoon, again and again and again.”
“I am?”
“Yes. You are dah electric.”
It would appear that I am no longer invisible. [translation = or can they see the blue sparks from my brain that escape through my ears?]

I am not princess [translation = but I may have a pea]

I await the day that the boys bodies adjust to Daylight saving. The day that they will wake up at 6 again rather than 5. That day finally arrives. Unfortunately, it is also the same day that the thermostat detects coldness.

I propel myself downstairs to greet the boys at 4:30 in the morning. I detect sound and movement. I am on automatic pilot. I negotiate stairs and propel myself into the kitchen, persuade my eye lids to open, force my pupils to focus through my dirty bifocals. I stand motionless, thus better able to detect the presence of a couple of small people, only to find that they are not there.

Instead I am met by wafts of warm air, tickling my ankles. The heating system has started to work. Cold in California. I must be a barometer! A motion detector? Senile.