So people watching begins… I have procured a note book and
found a subject to watch. Granted that subject is my mother, who, in the
22years we have been acquainted I have come to know pretty well, so I am
cheating a bit, but once an idea strikes me I can’t help but act on it. I
sincerely hope I never have a sudden desire to go diving, because acting
quickly on that one would result in me being found lying in my bathtub with a
serious head injury. Anyway I digress. At present my mother is ironing; nothing
unusual or spectacular about that, she does this regularly, and has even
admitted enjoying it.
Right now she is pressing my grandparent’s towels and
telling me a story about dad’s burgers and the washing (it was getting wet, but
dad’s burgers were perfectly melted, the horror!). My grandparents’ washing has
a distinct smell about it; I assume it’s something to do with the fabric
conditioner.
She has now moved on, from ironing, she hasn’t died and
transcended to the spirit world. She has gone to make herself a cream scone,
inspired by me. So I shall stalk her to the kitchen. The scone is jammed, and
she’s now wrestling the cream on top, something she managed better than I did.
On her return from the fridge she actually remembered to turn off the light in
the back room, I’m amazed, and we’re off to the front room. She’s drawn the
curtains and knocked over a pile of books in her quest to close the chink in
the curtains; heaven forbid anyone should manage to see through and observe us
at ease!
She’s gotten out her laptop which is notoriously slow and
while she understands it well enough to use it, the gaps in the knowledge are
enough to provide amusement, and frustration. While said laptop is being slow
she has complained that her glasses are dirty and told the laptop to hurry up
and show a video of a woman running herself over with her own car. Her previous
behaviour leads me to believe she will be doing her tesco order and falling
asleep in her chair, but I may be wrong. I am, possibly she’s undecided. She
slouches with her laptop on her lap (how appropriate) but juts her head
forward; this, and her habit of falling asleep in the chair, contributes to the
neck pain she almost always complains about just before bed.
She’s running away, well walking away to clean her glasses.
She finished her cup of whatever bizarre tea she’s drinking this evening,
nettle and something else green perhaps? Or it may be just hot water, which
rates only slightly above fizzy water on the disgusting beverage scale. Now she
has returned she’s telling me the tale of my grandparents’ chattering while she
continues to wait for her laptop to load. She is now despairing because the
laptop has locked up, which also happens regularly. And now it has died
completely, so she’s restarting it. Then she spontaneously asked about
syncopation, inspired by some story Grandma told her earlier. I thought she was
about to retell a story from earlier, but she went along a different line; she
was discussing musicality with a neighbour and thinks she’s too old to pick up
an instrument; in the sense of learn, she’s clearly not so old and frail that
picking up a flute would cause her to collapse.
It is rather unfortunate that I have been struck with this
creativity in the middle of the night. If it had been day time I might have
been able to comment on the many colourful characters who inhabit this village;
like the couple who go for a walk every morning, the depressed looking woman
with a pram (I assume there’s a child in it, if not that may explain her
constantly negative facial expression), the woman with a double decker pram
(not as cool as it sounds), the man over the road mowing his lawn to death, or
the guy with the dog that’s built like a fluffy tank. Such thrills!
People-watching does not come naturally to me. I find people
quite boring to observe, they just do ordinary people stuff, which I do, and
it’s dull enough doing it, let alone watching it being done. Animal-watching is
infinitely more interesting. I don’t do animal stuff, if I did I might have
fewer friends and spend more time in institutions, unless I pretended I was
doing performance art, which, because it is deep and meaningful, is not mad.
No comments:
Post a Comment