Lamp & Bloody Mothers.
Last night we had a lamp delivered. There I was, watching television in the impenetrable darkness of the sitting room when the door bell rang. It shouldn’t have been a surprise as John and I bought the lamp on Monday and arranged delivery for Thursday evening but on Wednesday when the shop called to confirm I had had half a bottle of Viognier and no supper so yesterday I was vaguely questioning myself as to the actual arrangement whilst watching Location Location Location and imagining moving to Harrogate when it arrived.
The lamp is huge. Very very big, it looked smaller in the shop - things do. Anyway I swivelled it about a bit and plonked it in the corner next to the sofa where it lurked casting shadows looking expensive and slightly stupid and called the children to admire.
Abigail didn’t come as she was having one of her hour long chats on the phone with her best friend Ellie and I could hear her on the landing cackling with laughter and saying things like,
‘No!!’
and,
‘That’s so lame’
and,
‘How gay is that?’
Maisie, who I thought was asleep in bed had clearly been lurking in the passageway trying to watch Harrogate through the crack in the sitting room door. She came bouncing into the room scattering golden light from her shimmering princess hair,cast a glimmering blue glance at the lamp and said,
‘Wow!’ And ‘That’s so big!’
Zac, appearing from the playroom where he had spent the evening killing people with a machete and talking at the television, wearing headphones so as to discuss the murder with like-minded 16 year olds (How does that work?) said.
‘What the fuck is that?’
And when I replied, a little testily,
‘It’s a fucking lamp!’
He said,
‘Don’t get all bad tempered. Why are you so bad tempered? it’s a bit big isn’t it?’
And I said,
‘No, it’s meant to be big.’
And he said,
‘Its meant to be in a warehouse.’
and Maisie said
‘It would get all dusty.’
I don’t think she knows that people live in warehouses.
Another whoop of laughter cascaded down the stairs from the landing, followed by,
‘What a noob!’
No wonder Zac had devised a futuristic way of talking about his death cult with his friends, he’d never get near the telephone.
I hope they are friends.
According to Panorama, you can think you’re having a chat with your mate, Otto in Islington, when in fact you’re speaking to Helmut the pervy German in Dortmund and you’d never be any the wiser which I suppose means it doesn’t matter, unless you are Helmut and are enjoying it.
‘Well.’ I said. ‘You can make it higher. It would look a bit better higher wouldn’t it?’
And I adjusted it a little. Zac’s eyes kindled.
‘What else does it do?’ he said, striding across the room in one step. Zac is giant. With Zac standing next to the lamp it suddenly looked in scale. With one enormous bloodstained hand he pivoted the lamp base and with the other, he turned the shade upside down, transforming it into an alien creature. Suddenly it looked as though it should have a name and regular meals.
‘Leave it Zac! You’ll break it.’
‘No I won’t.’ he returned. And without looking at me, he began to fiddle with the shade and I began to wonder how long you had to own something before it was covered by your content’s insurance.
‘Leave it alone!’ I yelped,
‘Let me put it back how it was!’ Maisie began to back out of the room chewing a finger and Evil slunk behind the piano.
‘Why? I’m not going to break it. Why would I break it?’ Zac bristled. A hand rested heavily on the fragile honed aluminium stalk and it bent like a reed in a hurricane. That was it! I hit his arm and hurt my hand. ‘Look.’
I said,
‘I want you to leave it alone. i am watching people moving to Harrogate on television and I have nearly missed the end. I may never know whether Brian and Cath get the five bedroomed, “nicely sized, town centre property” or not, so will you leave the lamp alone and fuck off?’
‘You can watch Teleport Replay.’ said Zac looking hurt.
‘I don’t want to watch telebollocks replay. I want to sit down and watch it NOW so please...’ I took a deep breath
‘GO AWAY. It’s not your room. Go and murder people in the playroom.’
‘I wasn’t going to break the lamp Why would I break it?’ Zac turned as he left the room and meeting my eyes said,
‘I’ve told you before they’re not people, they’re aliens.’
From the corner of my eye I saw a small copper and gold flash and Maisie was gone. Evil reappeared from behind the piano.
And with that the credits rolled. Did they do up the suburban pile? Did they buy the” town centre flat with the nice sized toilet?” Is Harrogate worth considering? I wrote Teleport replay + Kirsty on my hand in purple felt pen.
This morning my mother rang at 8.30. Bloody nerve ringing someone at 8.30 unless you’re actually on fire and you need to tell them you love them before you are engulfed in flames.
Actually it was John’s turn to take the children to the bus stop this morning so I was drinking tea in bed and reading The Sun when she rang but I could have been up to my ears.
Anyway, my mother rang, just to tell me how her eyes filled with tears as she told Daphne about darling Abigail’s eating disorder, how she was quite willing to pay for a private counceller for Abigail but didn’t see why she should as we were much richer than they were... and how she had hardly slept a wink worrying about my botox as she had read an article in the Times saying that no one knew what the long term effects of injecting things into one’s face might be and how what with all my teenage sun bathing I would most certainly get skin cancer and actually eating nothing all day until six and then opening a bottle of wine couldn’t be a good idea and what kind of example was I setting Abigail? No wonder she was a poor confused little girl. And could I give her that Ottolenghi recipe I had told her about for mango salad as Walter and Barbara were coming for lunch. AAAGH!
Where are my sleeping pills?
Why the fuck are my sheets covered in purple felt pen?
Wrote an e-mail to my mother saying could she possibly stop being so critical. I Sent the Ottolenghi recipe with it.
Sweet winter slaw.
dressing
100 ml lime juice
1 lemongrass finely chopped
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
4 tablespoons olive oil.
salad
150 gms macadamia nuts
10 gms butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
7 shredded inner leaves of savoy cabbage
1/2 shredded red cabbage
1 mango peeled stoned and cut into thin strips
1 papaya peeled deseeded and cut into thin strips
1 thinly sliced deseeded red chilli
15 gms fresh mint leaves
20 gms fresh coriander leaves.
To make the dressing put all the ingredients except the olive oil into a saucepan and reduce for five to ten minutes until syrupy. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. When cool add the olive oil.
Put the nuts in a pan and stir about until evenly toasted on all sides. Add the butter and when it is melted add the sugar salt and chilli. Use a wooden spoon to stir constantly so the nuts are evenly coated while the sugar caramelises, Turn the nuts onto grease proof paper and leave to cool. Chop roughly. OR just toast some pinenuts and use them instead. Put
the cabbage in a large mixing bowl with all the other salad stuff. Add the cool dressing, add salt if needed and serve.
It's a nice salad.
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