Mum the movey star

It’s Wednesday blog day and I normally do this in the evening but this evening I am going down to see mum. Fi and I try and make sure we do that at least once a month. We help with a spot of cleaning and then have a meal together. This isn’t something mum asks us to do but something I instigated because it makes sure I go and it makes me feel useful. For those of you who see your parents regularly that may sound strange but as mum has lived abroad for much of our lives we don’t have one of those…’must see you weekly’ arrangements . We speak often enough and email too and occasionally mum even pops up on facebook.

I have little memory of returning to mum after being fostered other than  recalling her collecting us. I was sat in the back of the car, probably deeply concerned that I was going to be ill as I suffered terribly from travel sickness as a child, and she said something along the lines of ,’ Don’t call me Aunty Ruth anymore I’m your mother and you’re coming to live with me’….obviously shocking and significant enough to stay with me!

I’ve mentioned before we then went on to live with her sailor partner and he wasn’t too ‘nice’ either to her or us. So I won’t go over that again.

We moved a lot and so I don’t always remember where we were or which house was associated with which of my mothers partners until we finally settled in Cheltenham when I was about 8. So that was only 3 years from when mum collected us. One house had a steep slopping drive and was a modern semi detached. I think that was the one where we were with the sailor. Apart from what he was like I do remember how I got the scar that is in the middle of my forehead. I was learning to ride a bike and came up the road and down the drive. The drive scared me and so I slammed on the front brake. Oops! With that gradient the front stopped dead the back wheel flew up and I went sailing over the handle bars straight into a corner of the wall head first. Now I think about it ti probably explains a lot about me! I presumably howled and mum came running out. She had been a nurse for many years by then and said, once she’d checked me out and cleaned me up, “no, we don’t need to go to the hospital for that cut. Stitches will leave a bigger scar than a butterfly plaster that will draw the cut together and let it heal naturally”. So that’s what she did. I have a little, barely visible, scar.

I don’t think the photo above is from that house. I think this is a different house that I have no memory of what so ever but I do remember mum in that outfit because I thought mum looked like a movie star. I expect some of you remember the time of mini’s and maxi’s both in skirts and cars! I am the one on the right and Fi is the one on the left. Whilst I have no clear idea of being fashion conscious at the time I know I didn’t want to wear a frock. We were off to a wedding. Fi’s dress I remember. She loved the pink and the grey and it was an off the shelf purchase. Mum’s, button down front, maxi and matching hat were made by a friend. I can safely say that with all confidence as my mother has never been good with anything other than medical needles. I imagine I must have put up a fuss about not wanting to wear a dress and so the little outfit, mad with some nice and cheap off cuts was run up by the same person and I loved it. It’s funny that I still only really wear dresses in summer and have, over my life time, fallen in and out of love with them on a regular basis. I was also never happy in high heals. The photo makes me smile because despite the fostering and all that there is no doubt that that little Jo thought her mum looked absolutely amazing.

My memory of that wedding was that it was fun and I spent quite a lot of time playing with other children under the tables while the adults finished eating.

My other memories of weddings with mum aren’t quite so happy. One was in Wales and on the way back we hit black ice and the car spun out of control and got crunched. No-one was injured but it did damage the car and it took a long while to sort out and get home. The other was a wedding in the big hotel in the promenade in Cheltenham. We were late, otherwise I assume we would have walked. Mum saw a space and thought she was going to squeeze into it whatever. The fact that she took a chunk of a Rolls Royce was neither here nor there as we rushed into the weeding and totally forgot about that bit…well in terms of telling anyone..as far as I remember. No-one came in to find out who the battered old van belonged too either.

I think in the next blog I’ll talk about the next section when we ,moved away from Cheltenham the first time and up to Halesowen..before returning to Cheltenham for my senior school years. It was an interesting time and one where we were infiltrated by morris dancers who later brain washed my mother into becoming one…ha ha.