love – Mum’s the word

I have collected so much stuff in the 16 years I have been living here that when I said last week that I have made about a hundred trips to the dump, although I was exaggerating, it can’t be far off.

The guys there say hello to me now when I drive in. one of them even asked how the move was going today.

As I said to him, it’s OK. The rooms have all been sorted out – unwanted furniture has been collected or is in the process of being auctioned. (That makes me sound very grand doesn’t it- auctioned. Truthfully there are two bits which might be depending on the auctioneer’s appraisal).

The removal van booking has turned out to be trickier than first anticipated. Story of your life Mum, eldest said. Yes love. And thanks btw. He laughed.

And then there is butterfly woman (another story).

Otherwise, the week has been dominated by the one thing I cannot do any kind of literary justice to – and I have tried umpteen times these past few days.

Middlest has left home.

How can I describe this- you could call it a life event- but it is more than that. Watching her grow, helping her develop, laughing with her, playing together, singing dancing- lots of all of it. Crying and very little arguing.

The week went by as most weeks have done, and I didn’t plan anything as I kept reminding myself, she is just moving across town E she is not moving to the moon. You will still see her most days. Which is true but it didn’t stop the very real sense of loss I was experiencing mounting .The tears arriving at mostly private moments. Apart from when I stood at the till in Tesco’s express and wept , bystanders perhaps wondering why the lady with the milk and fruit was crying, at the request for £4.35 for her four items. I scuttled out , items piled up in my arms unable to wipe my face, just wanting to get to the house that is slowly emptying itself of objects and people.

The next two days we spent together as we usually would except, we really ramped up the kitchen dancing – very good, including the Stone Roses, Alpha beat, Taylor Swift and OMD. Moderated by smallest, I won the final dance off. We sang louder than ever to whatever came on or didn’t come on but came into our heads and drank an extraordinary amount of Yorkshire tea while telling stories about our days.

Oh and we watched Ghosts – of course.

We also cried to each other and said our respective goodbyes – firstly when we stood in the kitchen making tea and chatting about Brian Wilson. We had listened to Lauren Laverne in conversation on BBC Radio 6 music, with another presenter, which was followed by six of the best Brian Wilson songs. One of which was god only knows.

And we busied ourselves, I was sorting something in the fridge and she was squeezing the life out of the tea bags , our backs to each other and I thought god I’m going to cry and as I did I turned to see her already crying, and we just cuddled.

I said thank you then, for allowing me to be her mum and she said “good Mumming”.

Because that’s how I see it- your children either allow you to parent them or they can if they choose turn the other way.

Then, yesterday I said cheerio to her in her new home. We hugged and she said Thank-you, thank you , thank you and I said it had been a pleasure. Because it has been.

And tonight I stood in her room and thought bloody hell.

21 years.

It’s happened. We have made the decision to leave the house we have called home for the past 16 years.

In the end , a decision that was toyed with for about 18 months, happened quickly, and within 24 hours of speaking to the landlord I told him i didnt want to buy it and i would be leaving as soon as I had found somewhere else to live.

So this week the estate agent arrived to take pictures of the house.
He was lovely; friendly, relaxed, and understanding regarding the mess the house is in; pre moving boxes and sorting draped around every room. His acceptance reflected in his frequent use of phrases such as- it is what it is, thats life innit, just do it , yeh just go with it, dooont worry about it.
By the time he had photographed the living room and upstairs – so four rooms, he had also covered his opinions on my landlord, his wife, his chldren- negative -positive -positive respectively- followed by a brief history of his tenure as a estate agent and his wifes current and future occupations.
Interestingly, the job choices if him and his wife are very different and I wondered heavily how they fit together. The answer to this I found on the other side of a short interlude where he ventured into the garden, thanked me for my extra help in sorting out a couple of tarpaulin issues, and then made his way back into the hallway where he prepared to photograph the kitchen. This was done effortlessly on his behalf , and with slightly more on mine as I removed the boxes and the bags that would render the shot useless. As I moved them into the alley I learned of his older sisters emmigration to Australia, his time spent visiting there and his younger sisters brief time staying with her before she came back. I also learned that his sisters relationship at the time had prompted this move there and was also the reason why she came back. His own feelings about going out there were then explored, alongisde a lengthy debate about why some people are more risk averse than others and whether we would do it- I would do so if it weren’t for my Dad and he wouldn’t because he is actully quite fond of his in laws.
This clarified he nipped downstairs to photograph the remaining rooms while I finsihed booking the dump for the 100th time this month.
Back upstairs he wandered into the living room whereupon I came in and sat down for him to take my phone number and discuss next steps, should he need to book in the viewings. I informed him I did not wish to be present as I dont want any future tennats asking questions about the house, and then feeling like I needed to lie so the landlord could sell the place quickly. I dont want to do this as a) the landlord has not done me any particular favours and b), even if he had I am still not prepared to lie.
He agreed that that wasnt my job. I wasnt sure if it was anyones job. Perhaps if it was the landlords job he wouldnt be so inclined to do it. It certainly seems to be a case of out of sight out of mind with him.
Anyway that done I , perched on the edge of my wonderful new comfy emerald green chair, he stood up packing his bits away and chattering about his birthday and his wifes birthday which it tune out are quite close together
Hers the day after his,
He recounted the narrative they go through each year at this time,
Then a message came through and he showed me a pic of his son
who ,he said , will be joined by another. I couldn’t quite work out if this was becase she was preganant or because he just knew that they would. I think it was the latter. Whatever , he clearly loves his family. His wife, is a great wife, and a fantastic mother , who he stole, he says and then laughed at his own joke which apparantly refers to the way they courted* and her age at the time – she was 20 and he was 26.

and then in amongst all this was the piece de resistance
his proposal to this woman who he absolutely thinks the world of.
“she told me a number of different days i couldn’t do it on”, he told me,” and then she told me i couldnt do it in front of people”
“so i thought about it, for two years and i decided to do it on my birthday.”
Throughout I smiled and at times laughed quite genuinely , but im afraid my laughter at this point was directed towards the anticlimatic nature of this story. As he finished, In my head I thought – really? After two years is that the best you could come up with?
i mean i guess if you weren’t expecting it then maybe it was what his expression said it was

but after two years that was your plan???

i must admit as he recounted this and then told me how he couldnt be arsed to walk the ten perhaps 15 minutes to primark (a bit lazy) to change something for his wife, I began to feel a bit disappointed.
perhaps i was expecting too much , perhaps i have done so in the past which is why i am on my own now. I dont know.
Still, i told the story to middlest and she at least agreed and laughed. “a ring in the remote control drawer of the telly unit?”
“dont forget the wink and the head nod” ,i said – “oh and the do you like that ?”

“that was good that, was wasnt it”? he semi asked/stated and I smiled a lot and then he tells me “and I said to her will you give me the best birtjday present ever?”
Smooth talking.
He could probably sell me the house that I am scrabbling around in ,and trying to get out of , as quickly as I possibly can.

_{*I just used the word courted and I didn teven think about it. I have never used that word before.}

Tag: love

And then there were two.

The Week