Sunday Morning

Johnny is panicking. I’ll tell you about Johnny first. He’s about the same age as Mum, he’s fancied her for ages, years and years. Johnny’s tall, bald and a bit portly these days. He talks posh and is always jovial and positive, even when Mum wears him out. He’s the senior partner in his firm of solicitors and he always wears a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket He’s really devoted to Mum and really tolerant, considering she’s sometimes made a fool of herself when they’ve been out together. But, Mum still looks good for her age, her hairs dyed red at the moment and she pays a fortune for it to look good. They were in Mums local once, and when she was at the bar, some young geezer smacked her bottom, when she turned round and he saw this 59 year old face, he nearly died. Johnny saw it all and laughed and got a bollocking from Mum, but her friends told her to shut up and it was all quickly forgotten.

I know that he wants her to live with him and get married even, but she won’t give up her house and definitely not her name. Johnnies surname is Godfellow and she’s not so sure about this. She was once out with him at some posh reception at the Law Society and after drinking a healthy amount of champagne, introduced him to someone as “John Bedfellow, my er…bedfellow,”

I spoke to Johnny all the way from the pub, on to the tram, off the tram, up the stairs and at home for another 10 minutes before he seemed a bit reassured. He wants to marry Mum, but she’s laying down the law. She won’t move to Westminster, she needs her neighbours and likes her little garden., blah blah, we’ve heard it all before. So he’s thinking about selling or renting out his flat and then he’ll live with her (which he’s almost doing now anyway). As for marriage, just do the engagement bit, I advised, she’ll go along with that. I said I’d ring Mum the next day.

Sunday morning seemed a bit brighter when I got up. I still have some frozen bacon from Sainsbury’s and little Nuremberger sausages from the shop down the road. Czechs have something called Anglictina Slanina, which they think is English Bacon, it’s not.

Czech sausages aren’t really for frying for breakfast either. I showed Dagmar how to fry an egg sunny-side-up once and she was fascinated. So I made breakfast for us all, Honza staggered through, guided semi-consciously by the smell, sat down, had breakfast and went back to bed again. Dagmar was up early as usual, scrubbing and cleaning away at some imaginary cleanliness problem in the kitchen. The cooker always looks like it’s never ever been used.

When it was about 9.30 UK time, I called Mum. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that her and Johnny are almost 60. More like 16 going on 17.

Any way, she loves Johnny and she worries that she’ll do anything he wants and then be unhappy after. So she basically won’t agree to anything. She’s not even angry that he called me, she doesn’t want him to get rid of his flat or even rent it, she likes going there sometimes after a night in the West End. The straight laced concierge on the front door makes her giggle and getting a taxi all the way up through Camden and Kentish town is depressing, she says.

Money’s not too much of a problem for Johnny, but she’ll sack his cleaner and keep it tidy herself. I just know that she’ll enjoy staggering through the main entrance all dolled up after a Saturday night out and then re-appearing on a Monday morning, wearing an apron and carrying a mop and bucket.

She hasn’t a clue how much Johnny is worth and she’s not really interested. She doesn’t want to get married again, not 3 times, it’s unseemly you know!! But it’s ok to have a live-in boyfriend she chuckles. I mention about getting engaged and that it could be fun choosing a whopping great diamond ring. That went down well.

I sometimes wonder what they talk about all the time, but when I think about it, they never talk at work, they don’t even have lunch together, he goes out and she’s always brought sandwiches. Mums completely different at work, always professional and low profile, she says that Johnny wants to chat sometimes, but has to wait until after. To any visitor to his firm, you’d never know they were together, but I’m sure all the others who work there must gossip about them.

When they’re in the pub after work, they don’t talk together so much, but to the other locals. At home I’m not so sure, I’ve never lived with them both.

“Why couldn’t you come over with that nice girl you live with, sometime soon again,” she asks. She can’t ever remember Dagmar’s name, she thinks it’s Doug-something on a good day.

My parting words were that she should speak to Johnny about what we’ve just talked about and then I sent an email to him with the same ideas. I’m such a nice boy sometimes!

Time for a cup of tea and then we’re going out for lunch today. I’ll update you all later.