Crouching Mother, Hidden Mushrooms

When we were all very young and impressionable my mother took us mushroom picking.



She assured us that the field mushrooms would be better than anything we had ever tasted in our lives. We were suspicious. We were old enough to have tasted chocolate, and it's hard to believe that anything could top that.

My brother was only a toddler. I know this, because he was wearing a squashy toddler suit and couldn't really walk, he just waddled along, clutching our hands and saying "Mushroom" with an adorable lisp.

We walked for hours. It might have only been a mile or two, but we were young and it felt like our whole day had been sucked into a mushroom obsessed alternate universe.

Eventually, we happened upon a field of cows. These were no ordinary cows, they were the sort that just thunder up and down the field for no reason except to squash daisies.



My mother spotted some mushrooms in the field. We had been searching for so long that we all knew what this meant. My mother does not give up easily.



We watched in horror as she pranced about the field, the wild cows trundling after her.

This was a herd of cows that would have flattened any other human, but my mother treated them as if they were adorable puppies.

We watched with boredom as she skipped around brandishing each new mushroom at us, as if to seek our approval.

My brother, who we consider to be the brains of the family, got sick of the whole thing a lot faster than the rest of us.



We were too busy moaning at the gate to the cow field to notice his sudden departure. It probably wasn't all that sudden, because of the toddling.

He had gotten quite far away by the time we noticed.

My mother was too busy cavorting amongst the cows and mushrooms to notice. So we sprinted after our escaping brother. 

Just as we reached my brother, he stumbled and the most glorious thing happened. There are very few events in life that appear to happen in slow motion, but that was definitely one of them.

And then, this, which will remain in my mind as one of the single most memorable things I've ever witnessed.

There was only one way to remove him from the cow poo, without becoming covered in cow poo.

I lifted him out of the poo by the seat of his pants and carried him to safety.

We then did the very comforting thing, or putting my brother face down in the grass, and swinging him backwards and forwards, to try and rub some of the poo off. By the time my mother arrived, he looked a little grubby, but she was so infatuated with the mushrooms that she didn't seem to realise anything had gone so horribly wrong.

10 Ways to be a Woman (Seriously?)

Last week, I read an article that told me how to be a WOMAN. There I was, naively, imagining that being born with all the womanly bits and bobs was enough. I've been misled. To be a woman you must ignore what hard evidence suggests and engage in the following practices.


1) One cannot be a woman without maintaining high levels of personal grooming. Never mind anything else (life questions, academia, taking out the bins, thinking - leave that to the men), it's important that you tweeze regularly and file your nails.

 

2) A woman must always portray herself with dignity on Social Media (You really can't make this nonsense up. The mention of Social Media was particularly alarming, because I'd been reading under the assumption that the article was written in the Dark Ages).

3) A woman must learn to hold her liquor, if she cannot hold her liquor then she simply must not drink (I'm not sure this person has ever been to a real town.).

4) A woman must always appear to be happy. (All other emotions have been taken, moronic laughter is your ticket to womanhood).

5) A woman must learn to write thank you notes. People will then know she is kind and gentle and womanly. (God forbid she should be barbaric and say THANK YOU like a man).

6) A woman must dress conservatively. In some nice pumps, with a string of pearls and a conservative dress. (Sounds to me like the "woman" who wrote this article, has only ever encountered women in cults/churches/other planets).

7) A woman crosses her legs. (Does she?)

8) A real woman must know how to walk in heels so as not to look like a tottering duck. (Yes, tottering has been known to reduce oestrogen levels).

9) A real woman will practice and perfect a polite telephone manner (there are no words).



10) And, in case we still weren't sure what a woman should look like. The article continued to dictate on the matter of modest clothing (which made me want to knock on her door and twerk in hot-pants).

The Time I was Abducted by Aliens

After finishing the obstacle course of death, (which you can read about by clicking here) I passed out. All I can remember is that I felt more cold and delirious than ever before. Even if I put all the cold bits of my life together, they would not have equalled the cold I felt. Everything went black and I dreamt about marrying the great big farmer I'd collapsed at the feet of. I know what happened next, I was lifted to safety, someone changed my clothes and dried me off. I was probably very heavy and dead-like during this entire process. I know that some of my co-workers saw my almost-dead body being dragged about by the Order of Malta and assumed I was being dramatic. I know all of this, but I do not remember it. What I do remember is when I woke up.

There were small suction things stuck to my arm, I was in a giant tinfoil blanket, my skin was a bit blue and there was a machine beeping. I made some noises. I was trying to ask where I was.

Then I noticed all the people in the room. They were more scary than the unexplained machine. They all had horror movie smiles on. I knew then that they assumed I was going to die or were relieved that I had somehow not died.

Then, I noticed my surroundings. I was sitting in a barn. A barn with a great roaring fire, a bunch of fake smiling people and a dead badger skin on the wall. There was also a very detailed map for the farm with pictures of all the things you could kill, if you were that way inclined.

At the time, I had no idea where I was or why. I'd forgotten everything and so I assumed the most logical thing.

They had removed my clothes. I did not know what clothes I had been wearing, but I knew I would never leave the house in a giant tin foil blanket.

 

 

I do not believe in things. I don't even believe in myself 50% of the time, so this was not ideal. I made noises that I hoped would bring help.

 

 



Help did not come. Instead a man with an incredibly rich moustache asked me impossible questions. I tried to answer, but weird noises were coming from my mouth and I couldn't move properly. I was trying, but my body was a lump. It was not doing anything.

The annoying happy people offered me tea. I was beginning to remember flashes of the race, so I knew they were not aliens and accepted.

I did this by making odd noises, so I am not sure how they knew I consented. For all they knew I was not a fan of tea or highly allergic to caffeinated beverages. It was wild. They fed me tea with absolutely no concern for the consequences. They were very excited because I was shivering. It felt horrible, like my top teeth were trying to murder my bottom teeth, but it was apparently very impressive. Then something happened. Moustache man asked for my name again and this time a real word came out.

It was like being a baby. I had no idea what I was saying, but it was very exciting to say it because some part of me knew it was a real word that had something to do with my life before the tin foil blanket.

The people were confused.

I kept saying it because it was the only thing I seemed to be able to do.

I remember the moustache man telling me I had severe hypothermia, but I wasn't really listening. I was too excited about my word.

I spent a lot of time with the smiley people. I shivered lots, which is apparently how your body warms you up. My heart calmed down eventually - it had been through a lot - from obstacles of death, to a fantasy farmer marriage and then overcoming the shock of possible aliens. After sometime I started remembering things. I remembered that poodle was not my name and was actually the logo of the company I was running with. Then I remembered my name.

Every new thing I remembered made the smiley people very happy.

Then I acquired motor skills. It was tough, but I more or less drank from the cup independently without spilling too much.

After I'd spent enough time shivering they released me. I was still mildly concerned that the experience was a bit surreal.

I got a lift home with my work people and hobbled to my bed.

I was terrified of getting cold again, so I buried myself in hot water bottles.

I slept like a baby.

The Quest to Build a Bridge

After Christmas, there's a grace period where you are allowed to exist in a food coma. Not in my family. My mother and uncle decided we were going to build a bridge. They got very excited. They did not seem to notice how we all became more like caricatures of  sullen teenagers than actual people.

We could not crush the excitement of my mother and uncle. They were filled with such glee at the thought of trekking across the countryside to rebuild their childhood bridge.

We went along with it. We assembled a motley crew. Our team resembled something closer to all the people that would die in any horror movie, ever, than an actual group of people that could build anything in real life. After my uncle (who actually does build things and therefore is the only person that should have technically been there), my teenage brother was the next most suitable person for the task at hand.

He is remarkably good at being strong since he hit puberty. Before that we were able to beat him up. After that, in terms of usefulness, is my Mother and then my youngest Sister. My youngest sister thinks that because she used to be able to beat my brother up - she is stronger than him. She spends all her time, trying to prove this. Even though he has all the muscle, she still manages to do impressively manly things out of sheer determination.

After that we are all pretty much terrible at bridge building and would be the people that would die first, if this was an actual horror story. This is not a horror story. We lived through the entire debacle and nobody was even a little bit harmed. The rest of our crew, in no particular order, looked like this:

 

My family knows the importance of having a full cast for all adventure stories. So we also brought along a dog, because that's what happens in all the Famous Five novels.

Before we could set out, it became clear that some of us were inappropriately dressed. We were promptly given old giant clothes from the pits of my Grandmother's house. We looked ravishing.

My uncle then took out the bridge-building tools. All of the tools looked excessively dangerous.

I was given a giant harmful scissor thing and informed it could chop my fingers off.

We set off on the path to the spot where we were going to build the bridge. A normal person would assume that you would build a bridge in a place where it is useful, a place where people generally go for a stroll and might want to cross it and check out the other side. For as long as I've lived, that has been my assumption. So you can imagine my surprise when the path to the bridge was about a mile of scrub, bog, brambles and death traps.

It wasn't a relentless trek, we took a few heart-warming pit stops to hear the history of our surroundings. This included things like a tree where rebels were hung by the English, back in the day.

The journey continued with us traversing countless fences. This resulted in most of us crawling between the barbed wire like small defeated animals.

And an unspoken-fence-clearing competition between my two youngest siblings.

It wasn't long before some of us got left behind. We struggled on, as our parents skipped ahead with unsuppressed joy.

We did eventually catch-up. Not through any athletic prowess on our end, but because it soon became clear that the others were lost.

We trekked and trekked. We fell in puddles, we snagged our clothes, we got very grumpy and our parents were worse. They pretended like we weren't even lost. Everywhere we looked there were reeds and bog. Eventually my uncle decided we were there, even though it looked the exact same as everywhere else we had been.

So we set about dispersing the tools. There were only enough tools for about four people, rendering the rest of us useless. We were going to take turns sawing down the trees. I began fantasising about the bridge we were going to build. My dream bridge was a bit unrealistic.

I knew this was highly unlikely. I imagined what the bridge would look like in the worst case scenario.

Once we started the process, and I saw some of the techniques being implemented, I realised even my worst case scenario bridge wasn't going to happen.

I watched as my brother became a cross between a violent murderer and a chipmunk.

At one point my uncle sensed my wavering enthusiasm and offered me the saw. I reluctantly attempted to saw a bit of the tree.

I was terrible. My Women's-yoga-pants-wearing cousin soon took the saw away from me. He was much more efficient.

After the trees were knocked down, we pared them down and started moving them into position. My sister was not as good at straddling trees or wielding an axe as my brother, so she still had quite a bit to prove. She did so by picking up and moving an entire tree, all by herself.

To put this in perspective, this is how we moved the other trees.

My Uncle then started the engineering of the bridge. This involved standing the tree up and allowing it to fall onto the other side.

Once the bridge was engineered, we stepped back to admire our handy work. It was decided, by the sane amongst us, that we would only cross the bridge in an emergency, and if we were to cross it, we would most certainly be crawling.