More tea, Mum? (21.03.07)
So, this is how last week went in the Tucker household:
Me (Wednesday): P, don’t forget to get your mum a Mothers’ Day card.
Me (Thursday): Honey, remember to get your ma a Mothers’ Day card, won’t you?
Me (Friday): Darling, you really must get your mother a Mothers’ Day card, today.
Me (Sunday): Oh, arse.
Not so smug now, eh?
My mother always used to say “Every day is Mothers’ Day”. She’s not dead, she just doesn’t say it anymore. I used to think, in my childish, or possibly just arrogant, way, that she was referring to the daily joy of having two wonderful daughters. I now realise she was just angling for more breakfasts in bed.
In my very early days, though, I remember being really very keen to let my mother know that I loved her. I remember with upsetting clarity the joy that I felt when I finally convinced my mother that I was grown up enough to learn how to use the kettle, and to be allowed to make her a cup of tea. I thought this made me very grown up indeed. No. What it made me was a mug. I haven’t stopped making the woman tea since.
My mother is from the side of the family that we don’t like to talk about much. The English side. And nowhere in life is she more English than in her tea drinking habits. I used to marvel, as I got older, at just how much of the stuff she would put away. I spent a good part of my youth in the tropics, and I never understood how, in 35 degree heat in Manila or some such, my mother would come through the door and announce in the one breath that is was boiling hot, and that she was gasping for a cuppa. It never made sense to me. It’s exceptionally hot outside – it hasn’t rained for about 3 months, and the ground is beginning to crack. People sit at the side of the road, fanning themselves with enormous leaves because the air’s too thick to move through. And my mother drinks near boiling water in order to cool down. It’s a very English thing, though, isn’t it, drinking tea in hot weather? Right up there with queuing and oppressing other nations. What a screwed up nation we are.
Me (Wednesday): P, don’t forget to get your mum a Mothers’ Day card.
Me (Thursday): Honey, remember to get your ma a Mothers’ Day card, won’t you?
Me (Friday): Darling, you really must get your mother a Mothers’ Day card, today.
Me (Sunday): Oh, arse.
Not so smug now, eh?
My mother always used to say “Every day is Mothers’ Day”. She’s not dead, she just doesn’t say it anymore. I used to think, in my childish, or possibly just arrogant, way, that she was referring to the daily joy of having two wonderful daughters. I now realise she was just angling for more breakfasts in bed.
In my very early days, though, I remember being really very keen to let my mother know that I loved her. I remember with upsetting clarity the joy that I felt when I finally convinced my mother that I was grown up enough to learn how to use the kettle, and to be allowed to make her a cup of tea. I thought this made me very grown up indeed. No. What it made me was a mug. I haven’t stopped making the woman tea since.
My mother is from the side of the family that we don’t like to talk about much. The English side. And nowhere in life is she more English than in her tea drinking habits. I used to marvel, as I got older, at just how much of the stuff she would put away. I spent a good part of my youth in the tropics, and I never understood how, in 35 degree heat in Manila or some such, my mother would come through the door and announce in the one breath that is was boiling hot, and that she was gasping for a cuppa. It never made sense to me. It’s exceptionally hot outside – it hasn’t rained for about 3 months, and the ground is beginning to crack. People sit at the side of the road, fanning themselves with enormous leaves because the air’s too thick to move through. And my mother drinks near boiling water in order to cool down. It’s a very English thing, though, isn’t it, drinking tea in hot weather? Right up there with queuing and oppressing other nations. What a screwed up nation we are.
posted by Tegwen at 12:00
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