It’s Tuesday and I’m still afflicted by the catarrh laden cough I penned about in Sunday’s literary offering, Untuned Catarrh. A fact leading to my disenchantment growing ever stronger, as I’m still not able to get through the night without regularly waking myself by coughing up phlegm. Taking into account the overnight capriciousness of my middle-aged bladder, it’s fair to say my current sleep pattern is pretty erratic.
This morning, on arrival at the breakfast table, my mother greeted me with a “You need to get to the doctors with that bleeding cough!…. It sounded like someone was revving a motorcycle overnight!!”…. It appears her aspirations of becoming Phyllis, the domineering mother of middle-aged son Timothy Lumsden in 1980’s BBC TV comedy Sorry! growing ever stronger.
In response I assured mater I’d be fine, prior to wandering back upstairs to wash behind my ears before she noticed my lug hygiene levels weren’t at a level she finds acceptable. This just one of the edicts I’ve to adhere to if I wish to reside in her home.
Other rules including the wearing a vest to negate chesty coughs (well that worked well, didn’t it!!), along with enquiring “Please may I leave the table?” prior to alighting my seat post-meal.
Additionally, I’ve signed up to not disrespecting the TV soap operas which she religiously watches on evenings through Monday to Friday. This tabloid television, as I call it, providing her with a daily fix into the dysfunctional antics of individuals residing amongst the cobbled avenues and alleyways of working class England.
Hopefully the last sentence won’t have seen me breach her don’t diss her soap opera edict. However, even if it does, as she refuses point blank to read these narratives, I’m confident she’ll not be despatching me with sleeping bag and belongings to reside in a shop doorway on Park Row, Leeds.
It has to be said, although eternally grateful that she’s giving me a roof over my head, I’ve concluded residing at the matriarch’s home isn’t an ideal way of trying to move on from a dreadful period of my life. A fact not helped by the fact she doesn’t want me to move on. Evidently, my bed has been made; consequently she opines I’ve to lay in it regardless of resultant misery levels.
I’m sure it isn’t the case, however for some reason she seems uneasy if she senses something or someone makes me happy. A perfect example occurring the other day when prior to running her to the hairdressers (basically doing her a favour) I informed her I was going to take my laptop to undertake some writing.
This notion designed to fill in some time for me while her ‘Brillo Pad’ barnet was shorn by her long suffering hairdresser, Sarah. Bizarrely though, on news of this strategy to alleviate my boredom, mater felt moved to disdainfully enquire “Don’t you ever get sick of writing?!”
Bearing in mind I was making this return journey as a favour to her, this really irked me. I really wanted to respond “No!!…… Don’t you ever get sick of watching s***e soap operas!” However, realising I’d not washed behind my ears that morning (which she’d laxly missed), I decided against rocking the boat. Instead advising her “No I don’t!!!!….. In fact it’s one of the few things in my life I find cathartic!”
Anyhow, I best bring this to a conclusion as I need to shift that motorcycle from my bedroom before she gets back from the community centre coffee morning!!
