Taexalia

wild.life

Baby Talk

There are many un-written blogs in the life of Taexalia, like the climbing of Ben Nevis or the trip to Norway. They lurk in my inner composter awaiting oxygen and some sort of activator to bring them to the cyber page...

Jumping the queue somewhat is the familial encounter of the weekend just past. Writing about it may indeed break several of my personal rules of blogging. - one of which is not blogging about people who might read it and get upset.

Well, tough quite frankly.

My irk muscle is so inflamed I feel like throwing caution and hellfire directly at the wind.

The scene was a wedding blessing to celebrate a wedding that took place in March somewhere in England. The blessing and party were being held in Castle Douglas as a way to include the members of the groom's extended family who either weren't invited to the real wedding, or couldn't make it. As a cousin who hadn't seen most of these people for more than a decade, @ was surprised even to be invited to the re-run.

It has to be said that I come from a compact family. My Mum was an only child and so I have been blissfully unaware of certain aspects of family politics and behaviour.

To be fair, the evening was not unpleasant. It was sort of fun in a nice way. You know the sort of nice that involves sellotaping the inside of your cheeks into a smile formation and leaving the bulk of your real self at the door. The sort of nice that actually becomes almost habitable the more rum you pour into your system. The sort of nice that I do only very rarely.

(I do not drink rum but for some reason impulse suggested rum as my accompaniment for the evening and this is why I had no pint glass in my hand at any point.)

We had a meal that would have caused Gordon Ramsay to have more than one conniption. We had a severe lack of cool air. We had a box of red wine behind the bar that tasted like Buckfast (in retrospect it may have been a better plan to stick with this). We had a DJ whose collection seemed to consist of those fake covers of pop songs you used to hear in Big W. His big moment was donning his Elvis costume and testing my cringe muscle to within an inch of its life.

Eventually we made it to an hour where it seemed acceptable to leave - I don't think it was a conscious decision to wait until someone else had left first but I couldn't swear to it. Certainly there was a motion of relief when @'s parents decided it was home-time.

And so to the Goodbyes, the final dance with Nice.

To be fair the bride and groom seemed like genuine people. The bride's mother was very sweet to me and, had she been the last person I spoke to, I could have left the building glowing from the compliments she gave me about my chosen outfit and how good I looked. Being fat, you see, leaves you mostly at the mercy of the thin set who consider themselves funny when they use fat people people as the basis of their jokes. One's confidence gets a lovely boost when people can see past the fat and see the person :)

But the bride's mother was not sitting outside the main hall at the bar and so she was not going to be the last person we said goodnight to, that honour fell to @'s Uncle Tam. The quintessential Drunk Uncle. The man who previously was known to me as a sweet fellow with a twinkle in his eye and whom I respected and liked.

In a swirl of high-pitched voices proclaiming "Yer gan awa hame are ye?" and more high-pitched voices proclaiming "Aye" and "Weel it's been lovely tae see ye." and a that, there was the required leaning down to the seated Drunk Uncle - still held in high esteem at this point - to give him a toose goodbye.

It was at this point that all the alcohol he consumed coagulated the parts of his personality I had not encountered before and presented them to me, rolling out of his mouth in a stream of what can only be described as verbal pollution.

First:

"Ye ken fit they say - a new hame brings a new wean."

He was slurring and I needed him to repeat it so I could figure out what he meant. On realising he was telling me it's time I should be having a baby I brushed it off with a joke about nae needing a baby as we have cats who visit with us. So he repeated it another three times. As if this would make me change my mind.

It's at this point that being Nice becomes increasingly difficult as the Drunk Uncle sort of disconnects from the reality of the conversation as a tool of communication between two people and can no longer see himself, or indeed his victim.

It's at this point that I begin making my retreat with some fake laughter.

It's at this point that he grabs my arm to reel me back in.

Second:

"So fits the problem? Is he nae performin? Is he firin blanks?"

This was accompanied by a general aura of unpleasant and nasty laughter and ridicule. It was repeated several times. Something was said about my maybe needing to find a real man - perhaps the  inference was that I was currently in the presence of one.

It was a most awe inspiring way for an uncle to express his love and respect for his nephew and a genuinely astounding way to encourage his nephew's partner to be a real woman and present him with a great niece or great nephew.

I managed to extricate my elbow from his fingers. I managed to discard the idea of throwing one of the nearby pints over him. I managed to leave the building graciously and with smiles for the last few goodbyes.

Today I manage to look on the positive side - at least the Drunk Uncle did not tell me I have fat child bearing hips.

Baby CucumberMy Baby Cucumber as discovered in the veg patch this morning.

[del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] More »
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted on August 12, 2009 in Ponderings.

3 Responses to “Baby Talk”

  1. Robyn says:
    August 12, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    Have experienced reprobate chat like that from my out-laws on many occasions. airses. Great writing Jools.

  2. Prairie Star says:
    August 14, 2009 at 12:53 am

    Oh my goodness!!!

    I had noticed your status on Facebook and wondered what happened.

    You are so very beautiful, my dearest one.

    *Know* that I look forward to putting my arms around you for a great big hug….very, very soon.

    Soo much love,
    Prairie Star

  3. Prairie Star says:
    August 14, 2009 at 12:55 am

    P.S. – your Baby Cucumber brought a warm smile that is still in place

talk to me on Twitter subscribe via RSS feed connect with me on Facebook read me on Kindle