Sunday lunch observing Mum's man!

Friday 20^th February.

Our day began like it always does and didn’t deviate from the norm all day. This can be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view, I suppose. The only difference was that Laura went to another careers forum for prospective successful graduates (I suppose all graduates think they are successful). I think the decision to go to a part time Masters has been made for her when she spoke to the organiser afterwards who told her with her degree she could virtually chose her job anywhere in the country. She asked what if she wanted to stay in Sheffield? The speaker then became very dismissive of what he called a parochial mind-set. That got her really incensed so she left.

In the evening we had the BBC Philharmonic at the City Hall. I hadn’t realised they’d moved to Salford, which means it was only a spitting distance of travel from their HQ to here. They did a brilliant Peer Gynt Suite, which even though Greig hated Ibsen’s work, he treated it to his best music. I suppose having a hunky Scandinavian conductor would have helped too. I have heard several Nielson pieces before but his first symphony was a new one for me. It is good to hear things with which you are unfamiliar every now and then in concert. It happens all the time with Radio 3. In fact Radio 3 is the prime source of me finding new pieces to buy.

After the interval we had Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, which I am sure I have heard before under a different name, we concluded with one of my childhood favourites - Finlandia . This is the second piece by Sibelius we’ve had in a month. The BBC Phil’s playing was warming and inclusive, if that doesn’t sound silly. They seemed very good. I hope we get them again. This is quite possible as they are based just over the bumps in Salford. One surprise tonight, there was no-one we recognised in the bar during the interval, usually there are one or two we have come to be on ‘nodding terms’ with and with whom we even exchange pleasantries about the performances; tonight nobody. Maybe they had all forsworn alcohol for lent?

Saturday 21^st Feb

Today, after our usual morning’s routine, Loll decamped to the study whilst I set to and gave the house a thorough clean through. She had to finally come down the stairs and work on the kitchen table when I wanted to clean the study. We now live in the cleanest little house in Yorkshire, maybe in the whole of the UK, perhaps even the world!

When I had finished I sprawled on the day bed in the study and before I realised it I was off into a dream filled sleep. I dreamt Mum & I were sat on a hill top waiting for Dad to come and fetch us in the car. It was snowing, there was a good covering on the ground and the traffic was stacking up along the road which led to the hill top because of the snow fall. As we waited I looked up to the sky and saw the clouds making themselves into snowflake shapes. They were really delicate and beautiful and nothing like clouds I have ever seen before. Dad eventually appeared with the car and suddenly we were then sitting in it without opening any doors or getting in.

On the backseat beside me was figure whom I didn’t recognise. It was a male figure and it said, “You need to find a replacement.” I told the figure the replacement would be Angela Sheppard. That’s when I woke up. Angela Sheppard was a really petite girl in my class at school. She had the same colour hair as me, if anything it was even blonder. She also had it cut short around her face in a sort of elfin cut. Like me, she never let on about her sex-life whilst at school. I pretended I was merely above all those base, carnal desires – which everyone believed (how is a mystery).

At one school function, just after our A Levels she and I got talking and she told me that if she ever had a partner she would be looking for someone just like me. Of course, being me, I made a joke about it – where have I heard that before? I assumed she was just being fond and sentimental because we were leaving.   I had forgotten all about that until the silly dream on the day bed. The last I heard she was well on the way to becoming a houseman in a hospital in the midlands somewhere. I wonder if she really is a lesbian? Maybe I should try and reconnect – or maybe not.

Laura appeared in the middle of this reverie to wake me with a mug of tea each and two toasted teacakes. We scoffed them in the study and then when I announced I needed a shower, Loll declared that she’d get in and help. As you can expect the showering was fairly brief but we ended up in bed for most of the afternoon and into the early evening.

Hunger drove us back to reality, and I phoned for a Chinese takeaway as we were both ravenous and it would take a good half an hour to cook anything substantial. After our meal, and letting Callie into the back field, Laura said, “Let’s go back to bed…” So we did.

Sunday 22^nd Feb.

Today we went to Mum’s for lunch with her and Tony. We arrived, spruced up and looking very presentable at about 12.30. Mum’s car was probably in the garage, on the drive way was a Hyundai estate car – it was quite large and its badge declared it was an i40. We assumed it must be Tony’s, even more so as we saw that the backseat was down and a sawdust covered blanket was spread out over the load space. I had this mad idea that Mum and he had been bonking in the back! I whispered this thought to Loll who whacked my arm in reply and told me not to be so disrespectful to my Mum.

We walked in to a scene of domestic bliss. Mum was busy setting the dining room table whilst Tony was examining the saucepans on the hob. The delicious smell of a roast of meat filled the room. He came over and very formally shook hands with us both. I yelled to Mum to ask if was there anything we could do and she said I could find a couple of bottles of red and decant one. Laura plonked herself in one of the kitchen chairs and I went to delve into the dark and mysterious recesses of the under stairs cupboard.

Mum still has several bottle of Uncle Hilmar’s wine left from last back end (which I got especially for her, though I pretended it was all for me, so as not to upset Dad). I took out two Dornfelders and a Weißherbst,  then proceeded to decant one of the Dornfelders in the kitchen using Mum’s old Aussie wine kit. I have a more up to date version of the same thing. Mum’s is a sort of stainless steel funnel with a filter, like a very fine meshed sieve, inside it. Pouring your wine through this helps aerate the red wine, helping to increase the oxygen levels, and it also filters out any impurities or sediments which may have accumulated in the bottle since it was produced.  

The only real difference between Mum’s and mine is the spout from the funnel on mine is twisted allegedly to give the wine more of a chance to breathe before it gets into the decanter. Mum’s was bought in Fremantle Market when I was a toddler, mine was bought in Rockingham in 2010.

Tony stood by the stove looking at me as though I was doing something totally alien and weird. I asked him if he didn’t decant his wine. He said he hardly ever drank it, being more of a beer fan. I explained that Mum and Dad had access to vineyards in Germany where most of our wines came from and that doing what I was would turn an ordinary red into a much better wine. The wine I was decanting was unbelievably special anyway and if he didn’t fall in love with it he was beyond hope.

Mum chose that moment to come back in from the dining room and ask why Tony was beyond hope. I had to explain how he would find the Dornfelder the best red he’d ever drunk or he was beyond hope. To my surprise Mum agreed. She told him that no-one had ever drunk Hilmar’s red wine and not said, “Wow, that is amazing…” or words to that effect.

He asked for a taste now and we both told him, “Not yet.” Which made us all giggle.

Lunch was a huge thick rib beef joint and a mountain of vegetables. Mum began by serving Yorkshire Pudding in the traditional way, as a starter; cut from a large tray. The main meal was then wheeled in and we scoffed ourselves into oblivion. The wine did get a “Wow, this is amazing” said as a joke by Tony but then he did a classic double take and sipped again saying, “Really, I am not joking, this is delicious. Can you buy it over here?”

Mum asked me to explain about Hilmar and Reinhardt; Neustadt and Cochem. So I did. I tried to sketch over Dad’s connection as lightly as possible. Which is rather difficult as the family in Germany are Dad’s relations not Mum’s. I even mentioned how I had arranged for some wine to go to Dominic’s restaurant in our village, where Laura used to be a waitress. [Dominic now has a deal going with Reinhardt, whereby he gets wine from Cochem once every few months.]

Tony asked why Laura was waitressing and she told him she wanted to help pay her way, even if it was only slightly. He asked if she was still doing it and she explained all about getting the part-time job at XXX & Y (where I work part time) which meant she could give up waitressing. He seemed impressed that she was trying to earn a wage whilst still studying. He didn’t appear so impressed when he learned that she was going to spend the next two years doing a part time MA and working longer hours at the solicitors’ to fund it. But she put him right, saying she would be able to almost choose her career path with a Masters in Pure and Applied Maths rather than with just a simple degree. Plus it would almost certainly mean she could find work within a 30 mile radius of Sheffield which meant we could stay put in our little house.

I had this mad thought that she was going to let slip about our forthcoming engagement, but she didn’t.

In what was probably a veiled reference to our living arrangements, he asked Mum what she thought about all this. She told him that she was happy that her baby was happy. That was all that mattered to her. If I took off to Tibet to become a female Buddhist Monk (!) she would be unhappy at me going all that way but she would be happy for me, if I was doing what I wanted to do. Good old Mum.

He did wonder if our resemblance was more than physical (we do look quite alike facially) and she said that she was far less militant and strident than me but she did have beliefs which were held dear to her and which wouldn’t be compromised; women’s equality being the first and foremost of those. She said that she hadn’t taught exclusively in Girls’ Schools all those years without having that as one of her prime agendas – making sure her girls didn’t go down the, almost proscribed, route of marriage and motherhood with no thought to a career or the influence they could have on the world in general. She wasn’t against the two ‘M’s but they had to be done without comprising and with the complete support and help of a partner.

She ended this quite neatly by telling him to that end he could stack the dishwasher and then fetch the dessert bowls whilst she dispatched me to fetch the (defrosting) lemon meringue pie from the drinks fridge. I didn’t see it, but according to Laura, she gave her a huge stage wink when her two minions had wandered off to do her bidding.

I kept quiet about the dessert until Tony had cleared his plate. Mum asked him if he liked the pie and he declared it was excellent and asked where did she buy it. She took great delight in explaining that her baby had made it and that I was a baker and cook par excellence. He asked if I could bake some for him sometime, I said that I would delighted to. Mum explained how she had taught me to cook in Norwich as she had watched in shocked amazement as I tidied her up when she was cooking and baking. (I piped up saying it was just my OCD.) She claims I am a slower cook etc than she but I am un-naturally tidy in what I do which is why I am slow.

Laura vouch-safed this statement and said that if I was in one of my manic tidying phases and she was standing doing nothing, she half expected me to tidy her away as well!

We spent the afternoon sitting in mum’s lounge and just chatting about nothing in particular but finding out about Tony all the while. He doesn’t seem too bad a person. The most important thing about him and one which could have been a definite deal breaker are his politics; he hates the Tories and their lying, self-interested politics. He also thinks UKIP are a joke. He was against Scottish independence (we aren’t) but that was the only major blot on his copy book.

One very surprising thing about him, he has never been out of the UK in his life. 65 years on the planet and he has never once ventured across the water! I found this to be truly remarkable. I didn’t tell him so, naturally, that would have just been rude.

At about four pm, he wandered his way back home, to Totley, claiming to have things he needed to do for tomorrow and them the three of us began to dissect him like a specimen under a microscope in a lab. once he’d left. We all agreed he seemed very nice and there didn’t seem to be any hidden traits or potential for trouble ahead. Mum was a bit worried about the lack of travel and his being a ‘beer man’ but otherwise he seemed to have passed the first test. He is obviously not a fanatical theatre goer or reader, offering no contributions at all over things he’d seen or read when we were discussing forth-coming events at the Lyceum or Crucible or what we had our heads stuck into at the moment. I lent Mum “Wild” last week and she loved it and, like Laura and Me, has a great desire to see the film. (Tony didn’t display a great interest in, or knowledge of, films either, TBH.)

After a cold collation high tea, Laura and I wound our way back home skirting round the city centre and possible snarl-ups. One plus point in Tony’s favour I forgot to mention, Callie loved him. She went and sat by his feet at one point and deigned to have her head scratched too. Dogs, however, are notoriously bad judges of character! LOL