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                                        Move over Mr Hitchcock 

To preserve the privacy of the couple featured in this story I shall call them Jane and John. Just the way the two young things who featured in our first reading books when we were children were always call Jane and John. Although I always did feel that they led such very boring lives it made privacy quite unnecessary. No one in my class was particularly interested whether they went ‘to the street with mother’ or ‘jumped on a log or not’. We could all do that without having to write about it.

So I shall begin to tell you about my Jane and John.

Their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was coming up and their teenage children clubbed together to pay for a surprise weekend holiday for the happy couple. They always worked long hours in their business and hardly ever took a great deal of time away from it.

 It was a kind and thoughtful gift.

All that Jane and John were told to do was to pack an overnight bag with clothes suitable for the city.

On the day of the anniversary the first thing which happened when Jane answered a knock at the door was to be confronted by a Jester.  He bowed and the bells on the end of his pointed cap tinkled prettily. The rest of his costume made of purple and gold material was very striking and a sight not often seen in the streets of an Australian country town.

After a few shouts of ‘Hear Ye, Hear Ye’ which brought John rushing to the door in a panic wondering what the bellowing was all about the Jester read and sang a song.

They stood gaping in amazement at the court fool before them as he recited the rhyme full of olde English words such as ‘prithee, thou, love divineth, marriageth-well, merry maids’ and various other dollops of Ye Merry England of old. It was quite incomprehensible but meant with the best of intentions to entertain and cheer the merry souls who listened.

When he had finished his song and they had crossed his palm with some silver he departed after performing a  grand flourish of his cape, which had until then gone unnoticed. He then bowed deeply and disappeared into the shrubbery to find his way out of the garden. Probably hoping to go unnoticed by the neighbours before reaching the safety of his trusty steed he no doubt had tied to a tree further along the street.

 Very soon after that a white limousine, which appeared to be about two house blocks in length drove into their driveway taking up most of the drive and quietly settled down comfortably like a hen in a cosy nest.

Jane and John still recovering from the medieval visitor looked out the window as the driver wearing a neat chauffer’s uniform doffed his cap in a jaunty way.

‘Lord, from the ridiculous to the sublime.’ John muttered.

The chauffeur accepted their overnights bags without a shadow of disappointment at the shabbiness of the luggage. The bags took up a miniscule area of the boot of the car and looked like a ‘couple of forgotten pieces of road kill’, as John remarked afterward.

Jane is not very tall and because she sat down too quickly found she was almost lying down. It took a struggle to get into a seated position so she could see out the window. She felt extremely self conscious driving through their neighboured in such an ostentatious vehicle and hoped she wouldn’t be seen by too many people. It would give some of the old biddies even more reason to complain of the exorbitant prices they accused them of charging in their shop.

It wasn’t very long before the limousine floated into the entry of one of the most opulent hotels in the city.

‘Oh, John,’ Jane groaned. ‘I wish I had bought some better luggage and packed some clothes that would be more suitable for this place.’

John who is a very casual chap and hardly ever out of grubby shorts and T-shirts, summer or winter, replied, ‘don’t worry about it, we wouldn’t ever think of paying for ourselves to come back here at any time. So they’ll never remember us anyway.’

They thanked the driver who had been a friendly fellow and ready to chat throughout the drive.

He wished them a happy weekend and the limousine slid away silently.

 The children had reserved the top floor bridal suite for them.

As they moved swiftly up through the floors in the elevator John remarked that the movement was enough to make his nose bleed.

Jane laughed a little, but it was only a little because she knew he wasn’t really joking. John had a problem with sudden nosebleeds. The doctor had suggested that perhaps he should see someone about them if they became any worse.

The elevator opened to reveal a beautiful suite, filled with fresh flowers perfuming the air. A large box of chocolates lay on the coverlet of the enormous bed with another small posy for Jane to wear on her dress that evening.

They had been told a table was booked for them in the hotel dining room for later.

‘Oh, how lovely, they are such thoughtful kids aren’t they?’ she said quietly as she smelled the lilacs and roses. ‘We are lucky.’ 

The dinner was a delight and to their surprise all the family and their partners had come. John made a small rather self conscious speech and they cut the cake with a new Stirling silver knife that their daughter had purchased for the family to present to them as a memento. 

Later, back up in the sumptuous suite John stood surveying the bathroom.

It was as big as their sitting room at home. He looked at the various cosmetics and toiletries the hotel had supplied.

‘Let’s have a spa bath.’

Jane gazed at the spa apprehensively. It was three times bigger than their bath at home.

‘Well, we’ve never had one’, she answered a little doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure how they work.’

‘Well, we’ll find out.’

The water began to rush into the bath as if he had opened an irrigation pump.

He poured some liquid into the gushing torrent. It was bubble bath oil and sparkling suds began to build a layer upon the surface of the water. The suds grew, and grew until a large foaming dome frothed and frolic on the watery surface.

 He turned the spa on and the bubbles began to multiply rapidly the way a meringue will grow to fill the basin in which it is being beaten by an angry chef taking his troubles out on the defenceless eggwhite.

Soon the bubbles were higher than the spa edges and began to flow down onto the tiled floor.

‘Oh you twit! Why did you put so much in?’ Jane panicked trying to pick the blobs of froth up.

‘Don’t worry about that. There’s a plug hole in the floor that will drain all that out. Come on my lovely, hop in and enjoy yourself.’ John was getting into the mood of the evening.

The candles they had lit on the bathroom shelves glowed and flickered romantically. The smell of the bubble bath was delightful.

Smiling, Jane began to tie her long hair up on top of her head.

‘Watch this.’ John stepped into the spa, sat down and disappeared beneath the snowy mountain.

‘You’ll have to take some out,’ Jane said when he resurfaced. ‘If I get in I won’t be able to breath.’

He obliged by splashing a few piles onto the floor. Then he disappeared beneath the foam again. Jane watching for his reappearance noticed a slight pink tinge to some of the bubbles. It seemed to be spreading.

John re-appeared smiling broadly. ‘Come on in, it’s great!’ He beamed at her and then watched bewildered by her change of expression to one of horror and then she screamed.

In the candlelight she could see that the pink tinge of the bubbles had turned to scarlet. Blood red scarlet streams of water and foam trickled from his nose, covering his chin beneath his happy grin. His chest was covered in sparkling blood bubbles.

Greatly shocked at her reaction he wiped his face and spread more of his vital fluid across his face and up into his eyes and hair. A large quivering mass of blood-stained bubble clung to one side of his head giving the appearance that his brain had exploded out of his scull.

Jane screamed again and threw a towel at this vision of a ghoul that was her husband of twenty five years. ‘Wipe your face, wipe your face.’

The flickering of the candles now turned the room into a sinister chamber of horrors she had only ever seen before in spine chilling movies.

Gone was the romantic atmosphere, gone was the loving ardour of half an hour before. Out ran Jane from the room.

John cleaned up the bathroom and they watched television for a while as they usually did before going to bed and a small brandy each helped to restore the frayed nerves a little.

As John predicted, they haven’t ever been back.  

Now, I think if our John and Jane books at school had them doing that sort of thing we might have paid better attention.

Cheers,    Cynthia.

 

 

 

 

Under The Worm Farm Lid.

Letter From The Other Side; From Cynthia

Tightrope Walking And Other Gymnastic Feats In Life. 

At the time of life when the children have left home you feel at last your days may become a little less frantic and easier there comes upon many of us a circumstance I for one, had never considered  seriously.

Like so many millions before us, we became parents-in-law and then we became grandparents.

‘Aaah’ I can hear you say.

After the initial shock of the empty nest syndrome begins to fade you  realize your children are no longer in need of your help and care and so you settle into the first tentative era of learning to become a mother-in-law and father-in-law, often followed rather quickly by becoming a grandparent.

 This in itself can come as a shock to those who find it hard to see themselves in the roll of the grey haired, wrinkly and lavender or tobacco smelling grandparents who walked slowly through the memories of childhood.

When a group of people our own age get together it is inevitable the difficulties of walking the tightrope between our own thinking and those of our younger generations of parents will enter into the conversation.

We find it hard not to compare our beliefs, experiences and opinions with those of our adult children.

From listening to many, I believe that the majority of us find ourselves always balancing in our minds how much we can say, or even if we have the right to interfere in a situation when our whole being is screaming at us to do so.

These conversations become animated and the volume rises a decibel or two as everyone feels the relief of recounting the latest happening along the wobbly highwires of life.

It is very typical of our society for both parents to return to work following the birth of a child and very often much of the task of caring for that child during some of its most formative years falls to grandparents. Many generous grandparents take on this task willingly in order to help make life for their families easier both financially and emotionally.

Largely, during our lives as post war children we were raised in homes with stay-at-home mothers, working fathers and children who went to school. We were expected to complete after school chores to earn our pocket money. We did our homework and tidied up our few toys before going to bed at an early hour. Our homes were orderly and the wider community was more disciplined. Most went to church on Sundays or special days such as Easter and Christmas.

It all seems so simple looking back. Mum was in charge when Dad wasn’t around and on the whole we didn’t speak back to them or our teachers, we were soon given a good whack with a strap if we did and weren’t allowed to go out to the cinema if we really stepped over the line of what was considered acceptable behaviour. 

The problem for our age group is we no longer know or recognise what acceptable behaviour is and are shocked at what it appears to have become.

Now when visiting family, we sometimes writhe inwardly wishing we could turn off a television program we consider unsuitable for a child to watch. We hold our tongues in the presence of over indulgent parents allowing vile table manners only to see them then succumb to whinging kids who won’t eat their meals but are happy to eat something that will ensure the dentist will be earning another hundred or so dollars from the family again in the near future.

We see playrooms,   - now here I have to pose a question-   how did we manage to live in our smaller houses with less mod-cons and bigger families? How did our parents remain sane without playrooms?....These playrooms are like a second wardrobe for a woman with too many clothes. They are filled to over flowing with toys; many of which have been discarded for months and should by now have been moved on to a charity store.

Sometimes the living room becomes a sort of shrine to the children’s needs. The books, toys, electronic things left strewn across the floor, the television, video, C.D’s everything tuned for the children’s enjoyment. No attempt is taken to turn down the volume of music or talk-back that no one is listening to but it still intrudes into and overrides any attempt at conversation.

Grandfathers suffering from years of working in industries without the now compulsory protection of their hearing sit in a soup of noise that prevents them knowing what is being said by anyone in the room and are then labelled by the family as ‘loosing it’, because they can’t understand a question.

 No attempt to tidy the mess of toys is made but heaven help any grandmother who stands up and twists her ankle on something unnoticed. She falls in an untidy tangle and during the trip to the emergency department of the hospital, is told she should have looked where she was treading.

Who is it really in charge of this home? The children or the parents? Are modern parents nervous of stamping their authority in the house in case they will upset the children or some unseen authority? Where is the guidance and the boundaries of behaviour which should be put in place early to help prevent the nightmare adolescents that are roaming our streets indulging in petty and sometimes serious crimes? It isn’t up to the police or teachers to do all the educative work with our children; it is up to parents and society as a whole.

In our group we all agree we love these people, not always sure why, but we do. What a pity we feel so relieved to get away from them after a few hours.

I believe it uses an immense amount of energy to hold in all the built up frustrations we experience so perhaps it is a good exercise for us in some absurd way.

Others complain of instances when a crisis looms in the young parents’ lives they are immediately contacted and the whole sorry story is poured out into their ever caring ears. They worry for days hoping to hear that all is well.

 Eventually after some time and nights of lost sleep they may contact the son or daughter only to be told ‘Oh that! Oh we fixed that days ago. Sorry I should have called.’ Yes, they should have, but didn’t.

Then there are the emergency calls for a babysitter. ‘The grandparents wouldn’t have anything much planned would they? They can drop whatever it is anyway and we can play on their guilt if they don’t show willing enough. Tell them how little what-his-name is really looking forward to seeing them.’

The grandparents in fact know only too well that little what’s-his-name has screamed and shouted at Mum and Dad in a spectacular tantrum that he doesn’t want Nanna and Grandpa to come because he knows they will make him tidy up after himself, clean his teeth after having not been able to wheedle a sugary bun or biscuit out of them and make him go to bed before 10 p.m. without watching hours of television.

Part of being a mother-in-law to your son’s partner is to make sure you don’t ever, ever, make a verbal slip that may give her a reason for her to feel you are worried that the state of the house could give rise to the next outbreak of bubonic plague.

Being a mother-in-law to your daughter’s husband is a little easier. He can ignore your presence, by watching a football game or go off into a shed somewhere a hundred yards from the house where the father-in-law will have to come into his own with good blokey sort of conversation and riveting stories about how he would have dealt with a burst water pipe or a broken electrical fitting. Thus encouraging someone who has already come close to blowing himself up and electrocuting himself, to have another try.

Another gripe is the lost joy of eating out together as a family. I say eating out together, but it rarely happens.

A friend and I were dining at a beautiful restaurant set in spectacular scenery of rolling hills, snowy mountain tops in the distance with deer and goats frolicking about in the paddocks around us. So much to look at and what were the groups of families at the other tables doing? Everyone, with the exception of the older generation was playing with their smart phones.

There was very little verbal conversation. They pushed food about their plates while pressing buttons and were hardly aware of the natural beauty surrounding them. The in-laws caught us watching them and a look of complete understanding passed between us as one of the young women went outside onto the surrounding balcony not It wasn’t to admire the view, the animals, birds or trees but to have a cigarette.

There is a very high percentage of older Australians who suffer from depression and or anxiety. If we didn’t have our clubs, Probus Groups, U.3.A groups and the like there would be many more.

I have acquaintances that barely see any family members from one year to the next, rarely get a telephone call and although communication is so much easier, they don’t even get a quick text or email. These are good people who remember the various birthdays and anniversaries and care deeply for their children and grandchildren’s welfare.

However we can’t blame the younger generations entirely for this situation because it is up to us make our own lives as liveable as possible and to reach out to others who may be in such situations.

Children are not born to provide parents or guardians with unalloyed satisfaction.

As parents we have all without exception been guilty of making a few mistakes and sometimes a very large hash of a situation.

We brought our children up to be independent and not clannish in their attitudes to humanity. We sent them off to study in overseas countries and to live hundreds or even thousands of miles from us. We succeeded in what we set out to do. They are independent free thinkers. So, our aims have been met. Some just missed out on learning to be considerate and are selfish and overly fixed on success and material things as the only means of obtaining that illusive state of mind we all seek. ……….Happiness.

I often read an alternative lifestyle magazine I wrote articles for during the 1970’s ,80’s and 90’s. I still buy it out of loyalty and read pages which contain ideas and written as if they are newly discovered and original. Perhaps the writer should read some of the older publications. He would save himself the trouble of repeating knowledge which has already been passed on. Then he could perhaps build on it.

History and the elderly repeat themselves needlessly in this world in so many ways.

Our daughter gave her dad a T-shirt a while back. On it was written

WARNING!

 I’M RETIRED.

 I KNOW EVERYTHING AND I HAVE THE TIME TO TELL YOU.

We know what we know and like it or not we cannot stop others from having to learn for themselves.    Unfortunately they sometimes learn the hard way.

I haven’t touched on extended families, step-families and mixed race families. That isn’t a highwire challenge. That is a minefield of human relations.

I do think however, if we can’t manage to have our families mix with love and acceptance, how can we ever hope to have the rest of the world live in any sort of meaningful respect and peace?

Try and think positive thoughts this week. It may help, 

Cynthia

 

 

 

Under The Worm Farm Lid

Letter From The Other Side.  From Cynthia.

When All Else Fails. 

It was when I decided to put my purchases through the self serve check-out at the supermarket that I had the first inkling my day was not going to be a time full of smooth flowing pleasure.

Things began to go haywire when the 2litre container of orange juice flew out of my hands and propelled itself into the machine with a crash. The woman on duty for this area put an abrupt end to a conversation she had been having  and came running toward us.

The container lid flew off and the contents burst like a fountain that had suddenly come to life after a long dry spell. It was most spectacular and quite amazing to witness how far and wide two litres of orange juice could spread. It of course included me, Teddy and the man who was using the machine beside us with a splatter of orange juice. The pale orange liquid flowed down the front of the machine and across the floor. Our groceries waiting to be checked out were pelted and the ones which had already been checked out were spotted.

My embarrassment grew as I became aware of people staring, a few unfeeling souls even had the gall to laugh at my predicament and no doubt just dying to get home and tell everyone what they had seen. Concerned supermarket staff descended on our position with buckets and mops like a group of vampires that have smelled warm blood.  

‘At least we were in the right store to have plenty of cleaning products.’ I quipped. My stab at levity fell on their ears with as much affect as the wet sponges they were holding had on the juice which by now seemed to be congealing a little around the edges. 

People wheeling trolleys went through the mess without seeing it but became aware fairly soon as the wheels of their carts began to make the unmistakably slick, sticky sound of grit being picked up from the floor. It increased the further they travelled and began to produce traffic lines on the cleaned tiles.

When I looked at the total on the machine’s screen I saw it had retaliated to my assault by charging me three times for the citrus juice which since it had now spread across quite a large area of the store I felt was rather unwarranted. I wasn’t about to get my money’s worth by licking it up.

The bombardment of our machine seemed to affect the one the man beside us was using and his it went on strike in sympathy and refused his card.

He was livid and began trying to get some help from somewhere. Most of the staff was too busy trying to clean up our troubles before more people entered the store and spread the orange glue further a-field throughout the aisles.

The unhappy gentleman to our left feeling neglected by the preoccupied staff threw his bag of groceries in a basket and purposely wheeled it to the middle of the orange pool and strode out of the store squelching footprints all the way outside through the glass doors.

 It was a cold morning and I’m sure some of the steam I thought I saw issuing from his nostrils was as a result of his heightened blood pressure.

To be fair he could have turned round and blamed me so I hope he was more successful with his shopping somewhere else.

The floor was cleaned sooner than our clothes. We left the staff wiping down the checkout area and tried to make ourselves as insignificant as possible as we left but wafting quite a pleasant marmalade smell behind. We endeavoured as we travelled home in a stunned and silent condition not to spread our orange dressings onto the car seats.

At home, still flustered and upset we had to undress and remove all our gluey top clothes and put them in the wash. Our shoes were cleaned and the soles washed because everywhere we walked there was that tell-tale sluuuurpy gluey noise that sticky shoe soles make on vinyl flooring. It was even essential to have small spots wiped from the lenses of our specs.

Before we could put the groceries away into the cupboards every item received the obligatory wipe to stop the gummy spots from attracting ants or mice.

Eventually we subsided into our chairs and enjoyed a restorative cup of tea.

After a while, I thought of ‘Open Writing’ and feeling very guilty I hadn’t sent in an article for a week or so I sat in front of my friendly home computer to write, hoping in some way to put the ghastly morning’s accident in some sort of perspective and trying to see it in the way some of those that were giggling at us in the store would have viewed it. It was going to be hard work!

After waiting for the computer to fire up I pressed my Word files and looked for my writing. 

Now, my essays, poems, pod casts and letters do not remotely hold the splendour of content, thrill of story line or memorable insight of Tolstoy. It is however my writing and some of it, just a little, has won me the odd prize and been published and has been appreciated by a few. It is my little interest and hobby and something I enjoy even when no one wants to read it. On viewing the blank page my heart lurched and I felt positively ill. A decade of writing files should have been looking at me. They were not there.

It was a white shimmering blank zero.

Two hours of frustration, tears, indigestion tablets and a scream of help to Teddy my resident computer guru and husband and they were found in a place within the mysterious bowels of my machine I didn’t even know existed. 

I knew it was a bad day the moment the dog jump up to wake me by sticking his nose in my ear after I had had a sleepless night and was at last enjoying one of the three hours I had managed to grab.

Better luck to you all with the machines you meet this week.

Cynthia.

 

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