Yesterday afternoon, Husband’s niece, Jane (the one who takes amazing photos) came over to visit with her son and his partner. Bubble seemed to take one look at Jane’s camera and began posing, and following her around. His posing for Jane was much more striking that his posing for me the other day; it was hilarious!
When I was a teenager, still living at home with my mother, she would sometimes do this ‘boo!’ thing to me and I never knew when to expect it. Yes, hard to believe that a woman in her forties would jump out from behind a door and yell ‘boo!’ to a teenager, but she did, and it would terrify me. The fright I got always reduced us both to fits of hilarity.
I was reminded of this when I watched King sneak up behind Baby Turkey the other day. His ‘boo!’ was more of a squawk but it had the same effect in terms of terror.
Baby Turkey, however, was not at all amused and spent the rest of the day looking angry!
His mother obviously didn’t have much of a sense of humour….
I have had a request to write the story of my love affair with Husband but I’m not sure whether to do so or not – mmmm! I think the 23 year age gap is a curiosity factor, especially since Husband was 41 and I was still a teenager when we first met. The story is rather romantic I suppose, and it is rather a gentle story in retrospect; at the time it was high drama – hehe!
Dilemma!
When Husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago, the specialist was very honest and used words and phrases like the following:
Now, by my calculations, Husband has now out-lived those 1-3 years by nearly another 1-3 years, so the incredible heartbreak and stress we experienced when the situation was put to us so honestly that day was, I now think, unnecessary. In other words, knowing the truth of the diagnosis wasn’t particularly helpful.
On the other hand, with the Parkinson’s disease diagnosis (before the prostate cancer one), we were told very little about what to expect. Partly this is because is it a bit of a mysterious disease that affects its ‘victims’ in very individual ways. For example, Husband doesn’t have that shaky thing most people associate with Parkinson’s; instead he has immobility problems in every way. Nevertheless, it would have been great to have been given a bit more honest information about what was coming, or at least what might be coming.
Several posts ago, in discussing Son’s scoliosis operation, I mentioned how terrible it was for Son to be told post-surgery, by one of the specialists (not the surgeon) that he would be incapacitated for a year while his spine healed. That honesty was, I believe, bad timing in the sense that he was still in hospital recovering. During our latest appointment, however, the same thing was said but this time it was more palatable.
The honesty conundrum has also been tricky this Easter weekend because Husband is wondering why Son is staying at Grandma’s so, tonight, as I was tucking Husband in, I admitted to him that Son finds him difficult and that I find it difficult having both of them in the same vicinity! We had a laugh, so the honesty of telling Husband something so hurtful was alleviated somewhat by humour.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday so Grandma (my mother) is bringing Son home and we are all having lunch together (roast turkey, but I never told Bubble!)
Son rang me last night from Grandma’s and asked if he could speak honestly and I said yes and the conversation was very long and cathartic. Son admitted how difficult he found Husband, but he also admitted how sorry he was for this and that he would try harder to be more patient. I told Husband about this conversation today and we shed a few tears but not too many.
And, on the topic of honesty, why didn’t the people who sold us the peacocks tell us they sleep in the trees? If they had told us, I wouldn’t have worried so much about that fox getting them!
Happy Easter … honestly!
Me: Bubble, would you mind if I took some close up photos of you?
Bubble: I don’t mind at all as long as it’s just me. I’d rather not pose with the other Bubble if that’s all right.
Me: Just you – maybe some profile shots.
Bubble: I believe this is my best side.
Me: Definitely!
Bubble: Would you like me to look pensive like this, or defiant?
Me: Show me defiant.
Me: That’s fantastic, Bubble!
Bubble: Thank you. I can do nostalgia too, if you want.
Me: Okay, Bubble, let’s see nostalgia.
Bubble: How’s that?
Me: Absolutely brilliant!
It has been a cool, sunny day with temperatures in the house at around 22 but, because Husband feels the cold so badly, he is sitting in front of a roaring fire with all the windows closed and a blanket on and I have had to escape before I die of heat exhaustion!
We have had this conundrum for some time. Husband’s Parkinson’s disease makes him more susceptible to temperatures but not always in a way that makes sense to anyone else. I have just put another piece of wood on the fire in a room that has become a sauna and have taken a picture with his permission. He seems to find it amusing that I can’t venture into the room without melting.
I am not amused – ha!
We aren’t having the fish mornay until dinner tonight because Husband wanted sardines on toast for lunch. Even though he is not at all religious, he was brought up to always have fish on Good Friday. He is having an afternoon nap now, so here are both recipes (I’ve had a few queries about the mornay):
Sardines on toast
Lightly toast some bread
Mush up a can of sardines or two and mix in some tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce (had to look at the bottle to get the spelling right!), lemon juice, salt and pepper.
Spread the sardine mixture thickly on the toast and bake in a hot oven for 5 minutes.
Fish mornay
Put a generous slab of butter in a saucepan and melt it
Stir in enough flour to make a gluey paste
Gradually add milk (very gradually) whilst stirring vigorously – keep adding milk and stirring until you have white sauce and try not to let it boil up to much
Mush up some cooked fish (we use canned pink salmon with juice in) and add it to the white sauce and stir it in on lower heat
Chuck the mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs, dobs of butter and grated cheese
Bake in hot oven for 10 minutes
Serve with rice or mashed potatoes, and salad
[Variations can include the addition of asparagus, parsley, spinach etc.]
Okay now to give credit where credit is due, these were Husband’s mother’s recipes and, believe it or not, once upon a time I used to look after her too. It was my first job and she taught me how to cook. At the time, she was 82 and needed a hand because she had recently broken her hip and I had just quit my first attempt at university studies; I was 17, nearly 18. Husband was 41 and for me it was love at first sight so I really tried to get the mornay thing right because I soon discovered this family loved lots of things mornayed!
Husband’s mother was a rather formidably dignified woman who weilded her walking stick like a weapon and my first attempt at fish mornay elicited from her a subtle grimace and a not-so-subtle, “Well, darling, that was diabolical!”
These days, Husband says (about my mornays), “Perfect – just like Mum’s”.
Life is weird….
PS. The sardine recipe won’t work without the worcestershire!
Tomorrow is the only day of the year that everything is closed for business – all the shops, all the pubs, all the petrol stations – so I guess it is our country’s tiny gesture towards the religious significance of this crucifying day ….
I always save up all my sadnesses for this day because it seems more emotionally economical to do so. After all, I can’t miss my father, who died when I was 19, every day; I can’t miss my misspent youth every day; I can’t miss my inviolable faith every day; I can’t miss Son’s babyhood every day; I can’t miss Husband the way he was, every day.
So tonight, I am doing my sad-missing-stuff thing before Good Friday so that tomorrow I will be able to stretch out both of my arms as far as they will stretch in order to embrace something new, in order to wrap them around what is next, in order to kiss the morning.
Tomorrow, I pick Husband up from the nursing lodge after I leave Son with my mother. I have made fish mornay (Husband’s favourite) for lunch. It will be a good day.
It is a cross between a chook and a white peacock but it also has the glazed, ecstatic eyes of an emu being given cabbage. It is a rooster, a crow, a sparrow, a sitting duck.
What on earth should I do with this bird?
This is Son at his final-year-of-school dinner. I’m not quite sure how or why he received the Headmaster’s award.
The only reason I like this horrible photo of Son is because it was before surgery when he was more flexible. Unfortunately he is still able to do that spooky thing with his eyes!
Finally, in our second month of Autumn, it is raining properly. Yeeha – the paddocks are green, we don’t have to water the potplants, the birds are in heaven and we might be able to light our incinerators!
This morning, the rooftop was alive with scrambling peafowl for a better view of the clouds. Eventually they flew onto the washhouse roof. It’s the females who are the best weather forecasters….
Young peahen: Do you think rain is coming, Mummy?
Queenie: It certainly is, darling, and we will have to be very quick to get the first worms before those dreadful geese do.
Well, it’s pouring down with rain now so I hope they are all happy – me, I have to wade through puddles to put the gang away and feed the Emerys their evening cabbage.
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the rain.
jmgoyder 