Lockdown Day 10 - Mother's Day

The Chickpea Stew was a triumph. They even asked for seconds. 

After dark we went for a walk into Douglas. Every other Saturday night at 8pm would have the village heaving with people.  The taxi rank outside the Bamboo House take-away snaking up the old Carrigaline road, the smokers outside Barry’s pub, the bouncers in the doorway, the bookies, KC’s Chipper with its Disneyland style queues of bantering young men, people old and young alike jaywalking ignoring the pedestrian crossing, all absent. All four pubs and the bookies were closed.  The only places open were Apache Pizza and Subway.  The McDonalds drive-through was doing well but still quiet for a Saturday night.  The KFC drive-through was less busy. My son was tickled to see an Apache Pizza delivery van in their queue.

Earlier that evening, my younger left the house - he said to knock a ball about - but returned with two friends. They were in the house before we realised, they were there.  We didn't want to be rude and demand they leave so we insisted they use the hand sanitiser. They did before disappearing into the sunroom to play PlayStation. Half an hour later, I interrupted them to top up their hand sanitiser.  They were good humoured about it, but I was still annoyed at my son and noticed that one of the boys had dirty hands as if hadn’t washed them in a week.

The next morning, Mother’s Day and both sons woke me up with bunches of flowers, a cactus, a box of chocolates and a cup of coffee.

It was a perfect day. Soft spring sunshine, a gentle breeze and very few people around as I walked the half hour to my mother’s house with a potted pink hydrangea in a pink bag with pink ribbons for handles.  Douglas village was entirely deserted except for one lone man at the bus shelter.  Buses are still running although almost empty. Must be demoralising for the drivers.

I arrived at my mother’s front door. I deposited the hydrangea on her porch, rang the doorbell then took two large steps backwards.  Her face appeared at her bedroom window upstairs.  “Come in,” she said.

“I don’t know if I should,” I said.

Two minutes she flung open the front door and said, “Come in.”

“Back away from the door so.”  She retreated down the hall into the kitchen.  I followed.  She put on the kettle and over tea we stood at opposite ends of her kitchen table chatting.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it”, I said and we both ran to the front door.

Through the glass pane, I could see my brother’s head bending down and then retreating.  I flung open the door as  Mum - breaking all the rules - peered over my shoulder. My brother and his son stood six feet back smiling.  They gestured to the two bags they had left on the porch; one for Mother’s day and the other a belated gift for her birthday. 

Quandary.  We couldn’t all fit in the same room at the same time while maintaining a two-metre distance.  “How about the garden?” suggested my mother.  We filed through the house from front door to back walking three feet apart and then stood around in square formation chatting.  She has a lovely garden. She had cut the grass twice the day before - she's 82 -, her daffodils were out and the birds were singing. 

Mum was in very good spirits and didn’t feel isolated at all.  She told us how the day before my nephew Sean and his girlfriend, Aisling had called and left a bag of 'goodies' on the porch and conversed from the garden gate.   "And every afternoon," she continued, "at 3pm all the neighbours gather on the green and Jaimie’s dad plays music from a speaker and we do line dancing for half an hour.  It’s great fun and great exercise.  We stand around and chat afterwards, three feet apart, of course.”  She told us that she grateful she lives in a house and has a garden to escape to unlike those ‘poor people in Italy who live in apartments.’ She loves WhatsApp and Facebook.  

I walked home again.  One son had made soup from the vegetables that were starting to rot while the other pruned the last of the willow branches that were too thick for me. We then watched the Godfather.   I tried out my new meditation stool and lasted 30 minutes.  My hips and knees are fine, but I lose all sensation from the ankles down. I’m hoping by sitting on the stool and remaining distracted I can build up endurance.

As the Godfather ended and the sun began to set my son suggested a beer.  We sat around the kitchen table, drinking cider for the ‘grown up’s and beer for the boys and played a music quiz using Spotify and Alexa; 80's and earlier music for my husband and I and modern shite for them.

It was a lovely Mother’s day.