26 February 2015

chez les parents

Yes, there's been a long blog silence. For a mixture of reasons: a lack of inspiration after my travels; a desire for honesty - and at the same time not wanting to publicly share what is going on for me at the moment. But this morning I feel like writing.

I’ve been in the UK a week - one of my regular trips to see family, and this time coinciding with my sister Buff’s birthday and a massed celebratory gathering at her house near Shaftesbury. Phil has also been over, from Spain. And a rare, and long-anticipated musical event - the three of us playing the Beethoven Archduke trio together - takes place at Mum and Dad's, in Bradford on Avon.

It’s always a pleasure “coming home”, and seeing Mum and Dad. Their house is stuffed brimful with their, and my, history. I remember who I am. But it doesn’t come without its complications. I compare myself with my sisters, both more patient than me and, despite stringent efforts, I revert to type: the bossy, stroppy one. Mum and Dad's busy, cultured, community-led, activity-rich lives are in harsh contrast with mine. But a bit of it rubs off on me - it was indeed Mum’s inspiration for the sisters to play the Beethoven together. And the preparation for the event kickstarted me into playing my much-neglected piano. The day itself is a mixture of agony (I had deluded myself that I had any kind of grip on the piece, technically) and ecstasy (moments where I could relax and enjoy it). But we all want to play again. Maybe July…

On my own with Mum and Dad I try to be a Helpful Daughter. With Mum my great desire to reduce the piles and piles of accumulated paper detritus seems to have coincided with her own wish to declutter. For two days we wrestle the mounds of charity appeals, bank statements and mail-order catalogues (I am refraining from calling it “junk mail” as gardening items, bird food and thermal underwear are not junk, for Mum) into submission. Four large boxes are filled and taken to the tip. Along the way we wade through reams of family correspondence, funeral services, birthday cards. Obviously, none of this stuff can go - and it eats into our time. As does filing endless rogue bank statements that show up in every room of the house amid the copious charity bumph, and bagging up £19 of 1p and 2p coins that had been taking refuge in various jars and mugs.

I create an alphabetised spreadsheet of the 70 charities Mum supports, showing her which have direct debits. The idea is that she can note when she writes cheques to the others, and if they aren’t on the list they go straight into the recycling box.

The test comes the following morning when a couple of charity appeals arrive in the post.
"So, Mum, where will these go?”
She puts on her eager-to-please-little-girl face. “In the sitting room?”
Wrong answer. "Clue: it’s where they’ve always lived, Mum.”
Hopefully: “In the dining room?”
Correct.
But one of them isn’t on the spreadsheet. Quickly I chuck it onto the recycling pile, and there’s no objection. Phew.

Dad is another matter. Like Mum he wants to fight his way out of the paper jungle that is engulfing him. But he still thinks he has time to read the eight or more periodicals he subscribes to - even though many stay in their plastic wrappers from one month to the next. From “Prospect” to “Resurgence and Ecology”, “Walk”, “What the Doctors Don’t Tell You" and “Camping and Caravanning” they are all topics that interest him. How hard it must be to accept that there is simply too much information coming in. Once he can choose which magazines he really must read, and accepts that “There’s the occasional article that I’d like to look out and keep” is probably not a realistic strategy, and is blocking him from clearing out swathes of back issues, he’ll be in business.

But, again, all of this is a reflection of Dad's diverse range of interests. How wonderful to be so motivated - rather than shutting out and down, as I seem to be increasingly doing.

After two days of me churning up a storm, Mum and I are reeling. Time to go into the garden and look for trouble there. And we find it - in the greenhouse and surrounds… Back in hyper-organisation mode I round up a few hundred plastic flower pots. Impossible to throw any out, of course. But they are at least now stacked in neatly graded trays.

After lunch that day I think Mum had had enough. My, “Is there anything I can do?” is met by an invitation to play her violin, to get it back into shape. In other words: leave me in peace!

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