Desperate households: so different from the home life of our dear Lindsey.
Today I intended to tackle the thorny topic of other peoples’ houses. (As usual, I’m all about the cutting edge, incisive socio-political commentary) Unfortunately, as always, I got a bit sidetracked. Join me, why don’t you, on this twisty turny trip down memory lane.
Other peoples’ houses are a constant source of fascination for me. I had to give up jogging because I could only ever jog at a speed which allowed me to gawp in at windows and scoff at the choice of wallpaper/floor covering/furniture, while the innocent house-proud homeowners sat with their tea on their lap wondering who this sweaty-faced nosey-parker was. It was a waste of time. I mean who these days still has that migraine-inducing “mixymatchy two different wallpapers separated by a flowery border at waist height” look going on? Only an idiot who doesn’t bother to keep on trend by gawping in at other peoples windows. That’s who.
It’s the neat and tidy peoples’ houses who fascinate me the most. I am incapable of doing neat and tidy. Everybody who knows me knows this. I am even famous for inadvertently launching shock and awe style attacks on hotel rooms within three minutes of entering them. Nobody can believe the devastation caused in such a brief period of time.
Sadly, I didn’t inherit the tidy gene from my mother. I very rarely saw my mother’s face. She spent most of my childhood with her back to me noisily cleaning Venetian blinds with one of my dad’s old vests. She ran the house like a military operation. We were always at DEFCON 2 (visit by Auntie Margaret likely: check toilet roll situation and locate bleach). I don’t know how she knew that Auntie Margaret was coming, because we didn’t have a phone till I was 16.
Sunday mornings were extra-special cleaning days. Just when I was at the age where I’d yearn for a lie-in (usually slightly hungover from drinking Lambrusco, puffing on non-inhaled cigarettes and kissing boys) she’d be in my bedroom flinging windows open to the strains of Frank Sinatra on the Fergusson Stereogram and flapping dusters out of my open bedroom window. (You never see anybody doing that now, do you?)
Because Sunday mornings belonged to my mother, Frank Sinatra and the Fergusson Stereogram. It was in a teak cabinet, of course. Coffin-shaped, with a bit where you stored your LPs. Ours were all Frank Sinatra, James Last and a mysterious duo called Miki and Griff, who made my and my brother and sister’s ears bleed. (The latter two were box sets belonging to my father, and were undoubtedly never paid for, as they were ordered by him from the Reader’s Digest or similar) I’m sure we buried him with that box set. In fact we may have buried him in it.
The radio was used on Sunday evenings and the tuner knob was twiddled and went WEEESQUOOOOWAAAAAWEEEEE until you got the station you wanted, whereupon my mother would have palpitations and run at it with my dad’s old pants frantically buffing away fingerprints like a demented roller- haired pinch-faced serial killer trying to cover his tracks. I genuinely doubt whether the stereogram was actually ever paid for either. It was probably on a Provvy cheque.
My mother went through copious amounts of bleach, as I recall. There was nothing that couldn’t be solved by throwing bleach at it. QUICK YOUR AUNTIE MARGARET’S COMING GET THE BLEACH was the call sign for “Go to DEFCON 1”. You’ll be relieved to hear that Auntie Margaret didn’t get the bleach thrown at her but it was poured down every orifice in our home in preparation for her visits. Our eyes stung for days.
We always had nice bowls of fruit. Not for eating of course - no. Don’t be ridiculous! The fruit was for show. We only ever had Mackintosh Red apples which my mother would shine and buff to a dazzling sheen with her duster (usually a recycled vest/pants or combination thereof). My brother and I would slaver over these apples but never actually got to taste one. I yearned for a Golden Delicious but they couldn’t be polished, sadly, so had no place in our home.
Talking about apples and the eating or not thereof reminds me of my breakfast cereal preferences. Anyone of my age (you know…thirty-five….or ummm….thereabouts) will remember school mornings spent reading cereal packets. I was fond of a Sugar Puff or two. Still am, as a matter of fact. I used to think they were the coats off dried bees. A notion which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever now but at the time it seemed entirely plausible. I never stopped to consider how one removed the coats off the unfortunate bees or indeed whether the coats would be removed before or after the…umm…drying process.
Anyway, I used to read the cereal packets and remember reading the flap on the top. It used to read “Slide finger under flap and move from left to right”. I honestly thought it meant that you poked your finger under the flap whilst moving your whole body from left to right, whereupon the box would open in a dreamy bewitched fashion to magically reveal its magical dried bee coats. A kind of Pandora’s Box of breakfast food, if you will. I was a strange child. I grew into a strange adult. Obviously.
Go to DEFCON 4, people.
PS - I just wiki’d Miki and Griff. They were quite well known, as it turns out. One of them was Scottish. Who knew!
