My mother recently to my father on a very hot day:
�You told me you weren�t standing in direct sunlight�
He ���
She: �Well, I can see your fat, shiny, balding, red scalp beaming from the window so I brought you out a hat�
I had to put in an appearance at a family barbecue on Sunday. In Kent. When I say had what I mean is I was guilt-tripped into it but neither of my brothers were put under the same pressure. This side of my family are really sort of� a bit wanky and stuffy. The long and short of it is that I got told off (!) by my Grandma for �inciting a riot� (!).
In my defence, how incredibly boring for six, seven and eight year olds to have to sit about listening to conversations on� oh yeah! I got filthy looks for this too� IVF treatment, miscarriage, pregnancy etc. I said �aaanyway�. I was a bit drunk on sparking rose and it just slipped out. Then I had to concentrate on keeping quiet. I taught them how to handstand, headstand, cartwheel, and that thing where you go into a crab from standing up. And eh, how to catch maltesers in your mouth when thrown from a long distance by someone else. Fairly impressive since i was half cut. I woke up yesterday with some pretty huge bruises.
As my mum can attest, there are much, much worse things I could have taught them.
And there were a couple of violent incidents with tennis rackets, a bicycle pump and an assortment of general garden accoutrements. I was on the receiving end of these so I can�t see how I was to blame. The usual deep injustice.
Oh work, how I do love thee
Soso