The same, but different is the new Ruthven House motto.
We finally unpacked enough boxes to enable Mum to move into her new house in the middle of the month. There remain a number of cardboard hold outs, squirrelled away in corners where Mum thinks I don’t know about them, and a vast realm of mystery bags of fabric/bedding/dead bodies in the basement to be worked through, but she is in and so are most of the light fittings. (Keith has just run down with a vast box of light bulbs and the electrician will imminently be alerted that his brief period of immunity from further earbashings has now expired). We have moved, it seems, from implementation to snagging….and I’ll not lie – I am glad not to be on the spot for all of it; it is quite bad enough getting the replays on loop. (Mum is a darner and therefore trained to spot every flaw however minuscule…). However, the big move is made and we are all now recalibrating.
Mum is using her freedom to run endlessly amok up and down her stairs until she is totally whacked, whilst also also going missing in action without her phone. I am using mine by making irritating suggestions about where frequently used items should be stored and leaving her increasingly irate recorded messages asking whether or not she has broken her neck. (This new front in the battle of No.17 has been tentatively ended by the stalemate of me supplying a small phone bag to be worn when no trousers/cardigans with pockets are available and mum lying profusely about definitely using it.). We are, I can see, utterly alike and have simply switched the roles we occupied when I was 18 – the age Mum identifies as for stair climbing activities.
And Keith and I are finally living alone for the foreseeable future – the children having each now set up home elsewhere. We’ve not really been in this situation since 1995. Musically, of course, we never really moved on as that was the year our CD collections were consolidated (and enhanced by enlightened contributions to the wedding list). Rather than adopt evolving tastes from the kids, we simply indoctrinated them. Poor Lachlan has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the 80s pop I brought to the party as well as his dad’s preferred concept rock caterwauls. I can’t remember what we ate then. I think that was the era of Keith’s spinach, orange and sesame salad and a range of “surprise” dishes which bore no similarity to their names. I vaguely remember trotting out a salmon thing that featured lime and some unspecified herbs quite often. These recipes are all hazy – lost in the steam of a family kitchen, overtaken by Desperate Dan sized pies and epic roasts. Springing back to meals for two is proving tricky -I find myself continuing to cater in units of four to ten. I suspect this blog is set to become an excellent repository of recipes for using up leftovers.
Lyra is missing my mum, but bravely consoling herself with the many biscuits that welcome her at No. 17 when we go down to collect mum for walks and, for the rest of the time, anything she can snaffle when I am not looking.
