My mum has sailed in

SHE arrived.

My Mum. I think she’s 82. But that might be kilos. Or chins.

She came trundling through customs in a wheelchair with her hair all a-scribble and her chest out like an old square-rigger with its square sails a-billowing.

We gave her the baby to hold. Our granddaughter; her great-granddaughter. She squeezed it to her ample bosom and we’re still looking for it. We found a handkerchief, a hairbrush, a piece of toast and her late husband, but no baby.

Interesting really. The baby so small and the great-grandmother so large – but the differences stopped there. They both gurgle, they both shake all over when they laugh, they’re both a bit short in the tooth department.

I could make comparisons about how they manage their food and about wearing nappies, but, hey, she’s my Mum! She’s shrinking every year, faster than the Antarctic icecap, but there was a time when she was bigger than me and her word was law and the glare in her eyes could make grocers tremble and lawyers weep.

There are limits to the jokes you can make about your mum.

This is the woman who put me to bed when I was drunk; the woman who never said a word next morning as she thrust a plate of fried eggs and bacon under my nose; the woman who bristled righteously when I bolted for the lavatory.

I owe her.

And now she’s staying with me for four weeks — in a wheel chair — I plan to get my own back.

She doesn’t know it yet but I have pinned a notice to the back of the wheelchair saying:

My name is Hilda

I’m deaf

Speak up

Her name isn’t Hilda. It’s Doris. She hates the name Hilda, which belongs to her sister, and she’s not very fond of her sister either.

And she’s definitely not deaf.

I am already seeing the bewilderment in her eyes when people walk over and yell, “Hello Hilda! Okay?!”

She’s not the sort of person with whom it is permitted to be on first-name terms (especially the wrong first name) unless you have been married to her for more than 50 years, as my father was.

And even he thought twice about it.

You think me cruel, perhaps, setting up my dear old mum in this way?

Not a bit of it. This is the mum who made me wear shorts to school when all my mates were in long trousers. This is the mum who applauded half way through a deeply dramatic moment in the school play when I walked on as a completely unimportant butler. The mum who drummed on the principal’s desk with an umbrella because he had accused me of lying (I was lying, but that’s not the point).

She probably spit-washed my face when I was a baby, for heaven’s sake!

I’m a long way behind. But I’ve got three weeks to catch up…