Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)

Welcome to my place. Come in and have a beverage. Whatever you fancy. Well almost whatever you fancy. I’d love it if you fancy chai laté because I have some which is lovely but just a little too sweet for me so I don’t drink it. I’d love to see it finished. What do you do when you don’t want something? Do you throw it out? Save it just on the off chance someone might come that does like it? I’m a hoarder and to my husband’s dismay I struggle to throw anything out.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that when we moved here four years ago I had a huge cull. I’d seen a programme on hoarders on the television and I was horrified because, although I wasn’t quite as bad, I was looking at myself. This made me resolve to cull and cull we did. When we moved here everything fitted into cupboards with space over. Now I have two bedrooms that you can’t move in. It is time to move again so that I will be forced to rid myself of some of the excess that I have accumulated.

If we were having coffee I’d ask you how your week has been. Then I’d tell you about mine. Well there isn’t a lot to tell. I am still finishing of the final bits and pieces in readiness to submit my thesis by the end of April. My Mum is suffering with sciatica which is stopping her from sleeping of a night. After our lunch on Friday she fell asleep at our dining room table. Heavily asleep. A ridge from the edge of the table cut into her head which made her look as though someone had tried to scalp her. She didn’t wake when I put the brakes on her walker. I was scared in her sleep she may push off and land on the floor. Not a nice place to be in the last weeks of 87.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you we took her out for lunch last Sunday. The tavern at Buderim has fantastic views and the food wasn’t bad either. Then we went to the local theatre for 3 one act plays. Mum was disgusted by the first one, ‘Feeding the Pigeons in Trafalgar Square’ which had a lot of sexual violence depicted, the plays theme was domestic violence where a woman recalls her tumultus marriage, her escape where she left behind her children and the long term consequences of domestic violence. The next one Mum liked better but when doing her voting card at the end she chose the third which was a fairly predictable farce “Love in a food court”. She said the second  “Senses working overtime” was good but she didn’t have a clue what it was about. I thought it was good, different and showed a lot of creativity. It looked at the internal workings of the human body. In the recycling department the technicians are watching the football unaware a tsunami of red wine is heading their way leading to conflict in the committee room and a battle between pessimism and optimism. Only daydreams can save the day. It was very clever.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that I am minding a puppy whilst its owners are at golf. He and Muffin are great friends but it has been a bit of a disaster as he is so stressed that his owners have left him. He won’t come near me and has had only the occasional game with Muffin, who, by the way,  was advanced to a higher level training class this week as she had been so good the week before. She was a disaster. I was dressed with my dog belt on and green bags seemed to be popping out from all directions and she was intent on jumping and grabbing them all. The only commands that she was good at were the ones that she’d never heard before. Perhaps she was simply bored.

© irene waters 2016

I hope you had a good week and that your weather was as perfect as ours. I love autumn. Thanks for dropping by and having a cuppa. Thanks also to Diana for hosting the weekend coffee share.