Pincode

I woke up with a start at 5 am. I knew I'd forgotten my pincode for my current account.
The first two digits came swimming back into my conciousness, but the last two were completely gone.
I tossed and turned for a while and wished I'd made all my pin numbers memorable.
Then I drifted back into a dreamfilled sleep.

When Ma went into a care home during the last few years of her life, she'd already entered the confused and often terror filled world of dementia.
All floors of the home had automatically closing doors which could only be opened by entering a fourdigit pin code. The code was easy to remember for all the visitors who came in throughout the day; the current year.

I went to see Ma at the beginning of October. She was delighted to have a visitor. "You have such beautiful teeth", she complimented me, using the polite form of 'you'. She did not know me.
I showed her how to wash her hands after using the bathroom. "You all know so much", she said with genuine admiration.

We had a cup of tea and a biscuit. "This is such a delicious biscuit", Ma looked at it carefully. "Really delicious."
I looked round the room. It was a large L shaped sitting room on the first floor.
A church tower with a large round clock was visible through  the window. How slow time must go when your mind and body are locked up.
The residents all presumably shadows of their former selves. Some mumbling to themselves, other sitting awkwardly in pvc covered armchairs. a large grey haired lady swearing at whoever tormented her thoughts and shouting randomly. "SSSHHH", scolded Ma severely, "Don't do that!"
I could not take my eyes off the caged canary near the door. It was grey, just like the people.

Over the previous years, Ma had become increasingly dependent and confused. Sometimes she realised what was beginning to happen to her and she would cry and worry.
She began to see things which weren't there and everyday tasks became insurmountable challenges.
Like operating the cooker or washing machine.
She lost keys, glasses, the evening meal...
She lost the ability to use the bathroom and dress herself.

Sometimes there would be a few lucid moments. But mostly she slipped into a fearful twilight world where everything was unpredictable and out of her control.
"Please let me go home?" she would plead sometimes. Then even language became a struggle, where sounds would come, but words remained hidden away in the part of her brain she could rarely access.

I dreamed I was back in the old manse in A.
L came into the livingroom. Somehow I knew she'd bumped her car three times in the previous days.
I was worried. L couldn't find her keys and was struggling to express her thoughts.
Ma offered her a biscuit." It's delicious", she smiled happily, " really delicious."

Today I will change all my pincodes to something I'll be able to remember.

Dutch Proverbs

The Dutch have the edge when it comes to 'Tell 'm like it is' sayings.
Let me dredge up a few and  compare the poverty of the English language by comparison.
How's this one for example, used to reassure : He won't walk into seven canals all AT THE SAME TIME.
Never mind that he may wonder into the first of said seven and drown!
Or: 'He likes to squeeze little cats in the dark', correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it means ; Lock up your daughters when he's about, he's after one thing only. (loosely interpreted.)
'Smiling like a farmer with a toothache', very descriptive of how we all occasionally feel in awkward social situations. More amusing when you observe others doing it.
Here is another great one: 'running around like a chicken without a head.'
Having actually witnessed a chicken running round without it's head I can assure you it's a messy business and not for the fainthearted. In the proverb however it means going nowhere fast.
If something is utterly delicious, you may turn to your host and exclaim: 'As if a little angel is peeing on my tongue', which in our family became a more acceptable ' as if a little angel is CYCLING on my tongue'.
If your host takes objection at your crude compliment, you will possibly 'find the dog in the pot' next time you visit and get nothing to eat.
I suspect some of these colourful sayings have had their century or so in the lime light, more's the pity...
And if you think I 'have heard the bell chime but I don't where the clapper hangs', you  suspect that I know a little of the subject but the essence eludes me. Probably right but please don't lay salt on every snail, after all, never shooting is always missing!

Last Tuesday I went to the cemetery.
Unusually, I was on my own.

I didn't remember some of the houses I walked past. Maybe they built more in the old style while I was away. I thought streets should be shorter than they are in your childhood memory.This one was longer than I remembered it.

The village is small and everyone who passed me in the street greeted me.
I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't left?

The canals were frozen and the ducks were vying for the little spaces hacked in the ice.
A horse in a paddock lay down and rolled over on its back as I passed.
Joy the vivre or just a numptie?
I could barely feel my fingers and toes, and began to wish I had a warmer coat.

The cemetery was deserted.
Only one person had been there before me but their footprints had been half filled with new snow.
I turned left at the gate to go towards Ma's grave.
It seemed irreverent to spoil the silent paths with new footprints. But I walked on, my pointy toes and round heels digging deep into the crisp snow.
The footprints pointing to the graves I stopped to look at.

Beside Ma's grave, the grave of her neighbours in life, now passed on. Their last resting place adorned with garden ornaments just as their front lawn had been.
So many names familiar, so many faces clearly before me.

My headmaster, conflicting emotions there. Maybe I should forgive him, after all this time.
Parents of friends, neighbours. Kids I knew.

So many different markers, concluding lives in two lines. 'Here rests' and ' safe in the arms of Jesus'.

Granite, smooth and rough, Dark and light stone, marble and glass.

I made footprint patterns as I slowly moved through all the lanes. Round the outside first. Then through the middle. Right, then left. Pointy toes, round heels, dancing through the graveyard.

The sun was beginning to set when I left. H had cooked. L came round for drinks to celebrate her recent wedding.
'Did you do anything nice today?', L asked.
'Just dancing in the snow', I replied.
'you visited Ma', L smiled.
'No regrets?'.
'Very few.'
It's good to have friends who know you.

how mundane can it get?

The washing has built up to alarming proportions.
When we got home last night, I realised no one had done any and the everyone had filled up the available baskets and bathroom corners.
So I started.
I sorted.
Colours and lights.
Pants and bedding.
Spots and stripes, flecks, straight, sensible and frivilous.
Quite therapeutic really.
A's little nothings, S's duvet. E's cute jeans. tens of multi coloured socks.
How will they ever be partnered up again, even after drying?
The cats look on with an eye on the open door to the kitchen.
How did our grannies do all this by hand?
It's not even the washing and drying, the problem lies in the putting away.
There is just not enough room in my cupboards for everything to be clean and put away.
Lightbulb moment.
Either I declutter or I don't wash everything all at once.

I remember the warm soapy smell of Ma's 50's top loader. The rubber wringers
and the metal tub. the clean washing strung across the street and the pride taken in how it looked.
Her purple flowery dress. So glamourous.
Was it always sunny then?