the adlards

Me old mum introduced the above expression on a duller-than-can-easily-be-put-into-words safari (if you’ll excuse the internationalism) on which I was pining away for the woman who was to become my wife. She didn’t yell, “Gerry! Gerry! He’s fading, can’t we do something!” (at which point my bush-savvy father would have gone hunting for Athelas – probably in his sock drawer), or even, “James! James! Stay away from the light!” in my moments of delirium. No, instead she cheered my little heart every morning when she saw my no-doubt stricken face: “Ha, ha. Absence makes the fond heart wander …”. Most people suffer separation anxiety in their first year and spend a short while recovering. I started in early adulthood and may never recover.

I won’t burden you with the words I learned as a child to “Oats, peas, beans and barley grow”. Suffice to say that I heard the correct ones on CBeebies last week and had to sit down for a bit. Without wanting to let her off the hook, it seems parental duplicitousness is rife – witness “hitapotami” and “porkypines” as just two recent and deeply disturbing examples.

Makes me wonder what we’re teaching ours that we think is cute but won’t be thanked for.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2005 at 9:51 pm by james and is filed under Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.