Espresso
Why do people start off emails, voice mails and indeed letters with “it’s been ages since heard from you”? Could it be because I either forgot you existed, couldn’t be arsed contacting you, or I have no interest in anything you have to say?  Or most likely all of the above.  If you were that bothered about me, my well being or really interested you would have contacted me sooner, but I’m guessing you’re now bored, have nothing better to do, are scraping the bottom of the barrel and as a last ditch effort contact me to avoid having to make the effort to committing suicide which would probably take up too much effort.
My mother is a great one for doing this.  As a somewhat and occasional dutiful son I phone my mother regularly i.e. at least once a week and did so for a few years.  One day I decided that I’d let her call me, she has all my phone numbers, work, home, mobile, she has my postal address and email address, so just how long would it take her to contact me?  A week? Nope.  A fortnight?  Nope.  A month? Nope, you’re not even close yet.  It took her 4 months to get around to contacting me and then it was only because she wanted something.  Guess how she started off the conversation.. Yup, “it’s been ages since heard from you”
I took the time to explain to her that communication is a two way street, and she can pick up the phone to me any time she likes and it doesn’t just have to be when she wants something fetching/carrying/moving/taking to the tip.  She can phone and say hello when ever she wants, as long as it’s not before 10am over a weekend and never after 9pm on any day.  I’ve also invoked the 3 strikes rule.  I phone her on 3 occasions, after that it’s up to her to call me.  It can still go a month or so before she picks the phone up and then it’s usually to bleat on about something like her husband’s died or she needs a light bulb replacing.

We live about 60 miles from my mother, she has been to stay with us once or twice for the weekend, as she doesn’t drive she gets the train to Preston and M picks her up from the station on Friday afternoon and drops her off there on Monday morning.  At first I thought it it was quite nice that my mother wanted to come and stay with us for a weekend, it gave us the opportunity to entertain her and M’s family and for her to get to know M’s family a bit better.  I thought that maybe her main reason for wanting to come and see us was curiosity about where we lived, what the house looked liked and how it was decorated, you know, all of those womanly reasons for wanting to visit.  When she arrived on Friday the spare room was ready, spotlessly clean and tidy, fresh bed linen, flowers on the dresser, coat hangers and hanging space in the wardrobe sorted, we killed the proverbial fatted calf and had a lovely meal and generally made her feel very welcome.  After dinner we sat down to have a chat and a proper catch up and it was then we found out her real motive for wanting to come and see us.  “What time is the car-boot sale on in the morning?  That’s what I’ve really come down here for”
For those of you who don’t know what a car-boot sale is, it’s a massive yard sale where everyone parks up in a field, sets up tables and try to sell their tat, old junk and anything else they don’t want.  The one just down the road from us is huge, very huge and pretty much every Saturday over summer – weather permitting – you’ll find hundreds of cars in there with people trying to get rid of their crap whilst buying other people’s crap.  My mother loves these things and just about wets her pants just talking about bloody car-boot sales.  She knew about the big one near us because we had mentioned it, but I honestly never thought she would make that her main motive to come and stay with us.

She was told that:-

A: The car-boot starts around 7ish, at least that’s when people arrive and start setting up

B: If you go leave quietly, take the spare key and don’t come back before 10am

C: If you go there do not bring back arms full of other people’s crap to untidy our home

D: Do not bring us anything back; we do not want other people’s crap.

E: No really do not bring back arms full of other people’s crap to untidy our home

F: Seriously, DO NOT bring us anything back; we do not want other people’s crap.

To be continued………