This week Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Gaelikaa, Ginger, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria, Ramana and I, all part of the Loose Blogging consortium (Helen is on sabbatical & Ashok might be otherwise engaged right now) once more dip our pens as we prepare our offering on the topic for the week, chosen today by Magpie 11.
” A Person, a Place, a Thing and/or an Idea”
The room had a wide bay window that overlooked the garden, a large tree that blossomed in springtime stood inside the boundary and acted as a shield from the road and traffic beyond. The fashion at the time was to dress the windows in lace curtains. They acted as a modesty cover without reducing the daylight. When the lights were switched on it was possible to see into the room from across the street or from the top deck of a bus. Lace curtains needed laundering several times a year.
This was high summer, not glorious scorching hot summer, but high summer never the less. The days were sultry and the natives restless. Boredom was setting in. The novelty of the long school holiday had worn off after the first week. Tasks were needed to provide distraction, so the room was cleared first thing on Monday morning, lace curtains set to steep and the dust sheets spread over every immovable surface.
Three times as the emulsion was stirred and divided into two buckets, mammy noticed there were several visits made to look through the window. By the chat she realised that the local young lovelies were sauntering up the street. What goes up must come down, so at this rate the room would take forever to decorate and mammy did not have the time to stand around all day cracking her whip. Not one to be beaten easily, she had an idea! She covered the glass with a thick layer of Windowlene – when the room was decorated, all she had to do was polish off the Windowlene and the windows would sparkle. Bingo! That was before we heard of the wonders of vinegar,
Setting the boys to work in opposite corners she stayed until happy and satisfied they knew what they were expected to do, then she headed off to rescue the curtains. Checking back at intervals and with the initial “You missed a bit there!” or “Do that bit again.” They soon copped on to the fact that it was easier to do things properly the first time, and settled into a steady rhythm.
The small fly windows were open for air and naturally the sounds from the avenue filtered in…. the cars, motorcycles, buses and the odd lorry. Birdsong too, and the human voices of women greeting each other as they went to and fro to the shops or to catch a bus. There were unmistakable girlish giggles as the young lovelies in short skirts made they way to play tennis. Now what young man can ignore the girlish giggles? Not my brothers!
They tried peeping out the fly windows, but they were the wrong angle. Tell a guy he cannot do or have something and it only makes him more determined…. The brothers thought about it….. for about half a minute!
They had an idea! Pressing a forefinger against the glass and rubbing it in a small circle they had a spy hole to watch the passing talent unnoticed. They took it in turns to keep up to date on what was going on in the outside world. The work progressed slowly and as the afternoon passed they became rather bored, back they went to the window, but the world outside was quiet.
Idle hands and all that… itchy fingers were drawn to the obscure glass before them, they saw it as a clean canvas waiting for their handiwork. Yet again they had an idea. Write a message! They realised that to be read from the street they would need to put the letters in the reverse order. Now what would they say?
One brother moved to the right hand side and at a 45° angle he placed two words. Meanwhile his accomplice matched him with two words on the left. Then they moved to the large expanse of glass underneath… Three words. Just three words in large print right across the pane! They laughed enjoying their handiwork, and satisfied that the work was complete they returned to the last few strokes of the task they were sent to do. The form was upbeat now and they quickly finished. The aroma of dinner was wafting through the house and it would soon be dinnertime. Suddenly they were hungry and eager to clean the brushes and clean up ready for the evenings entertainment.
At that stage of my life I was working, and heading home tired and hungry from my days toil. About to cross the avenue with my door key in my hand, I glanced up at the window. I did a double take and inwardly flamed! My steps quickened and once the door was open I mounted the stairs two steps at a time. The fire in my head matched the colour of my locks. As I reached the landing the call of nature interrupted my thoughts and I changed direction.
While sitting on the throne, I had time to contemplate. Charge in there and cause a fuss, the message might be cleared, but knowing the minds of my siblings, it would be replaced with worse on the morrow. I decided to ignore the message, pretend I never saw it. Nobody said anything… not even mammy!
Life continued as normal. The worker bees left in the morning and returned in the evening. Food was prepared, cooked and eaten. The chat at the table was as lively as normal, issues of the day were discussed and the films and TV programmes reviewed. Permission was sought and sometimes given for a late pass, but only when details of the usual ‘Who, What, When and Where’ were furnished satisfactorily.
On Friday evening the worker bees returned to the hive happy in the knowledge that they were free for two days. Daddy arrived last of all. He was angry. When he was serious and glum, his tall dark frame made him seem intimidating. He went straight to the kitchen. Uh oh! That was a no no for him, he never went into the kitchen…
“Did you see that window missus?” he fumed
“Have you not been home since Monday?” was mammy’s quick return.
“Who put that there?” he queried.
“The lads when they were decorating.” she answered as she dished up the dinner.
“Why did you not clean it off?” he asked looking at me.
“I thought about it on Monday” I answered adding “But if I had done so, they would have won!”
“Well, see to it that they clean it off tonight” he growled and he turned on his heel and headed for the dinner table.
MEN!
I suppose you want to know what they had written?
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I’d have murdered them!
Gaelikaa – I was tempted!
Loved it! How could you go wrong with brothers like that. What wonderful senses of humor. . . even if at was at your expense. You were a very wise sister in not saying anything. It certainly kept them from coming up with something even worse.
Maria, I discovered the hard way that it was best to stay tight lipped in these situations. The funny thing is that if anyone else had played a trick like that about THEIR sister, full blown war would break out.
Grannymar, had I been there, I would have written, Two for the price of one!
I admire your self control. Had to come back to tell you that!
Ramana – One of me is more than enough for anyone! 🙄
Gaelikaa – I can laugh at it now and did yesterday with one of the culprits, sad part is that after FIVE full days…. there were NO offers! Not even Eddy the messenger boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😆
Mammy was a very wise woman also!
Growing up with your brothers has provided you some hilarious blogging material. Love to hear how you got back at them over the years, I’m thinking they might have some stories to tell 🙂
I so admire your patience in holding out. I’d never have been able to 🙂
Thank the good lord I didn’t have older brothers. I had enough to deal with without pranks being played on me.
With their sense of humor, your brothers must be a lot of fun to be around now, I’m sure I would like them.
That reads like the best written novel, with suspense to the end, though I know it was true. And so Irish; lorry, lace curtains. (Maybe it’s not true. Just written by a good novelist.)
Great one, GM but I do wonder why your mother wasn’t more horrified – my mother would have been.
Wise move on your part, having 4 brothers myself I know what further havoc could have been created!
XO
WWW
Momma – She was indeed.
Margaret – I had my own way to get around the boys
Lorna – I was working by that time so was well used to their pranks.
Darlene – I spoke to the eldest and the youngest yesterday and we had fun recalling this and other pranks from days gone by. Laughter is better than any meds!
BHB- Thank you for the compliment. It was a true story.
WWW – My mother knew her sons, she also grew up with brothers! Five of them!
I just put 2 & 2 together. Thanks Grannymar. The Irish.
Paul’s wife Carol is so fair. She has lace curtains everywhere. There’s their son with the flaming red hair. His middle name is McSwaine. She’s at least part IRISH! Why didn’t I see that before.
OMG! Carol studied the Irish for her doctorate in Anthropology. I’ll think of more Irish similarities, but I’ll keep them to myself.
BHB – I bet when Carol studied ‘the Irish’ for her doctorate, that she never met anyone like my brothers!
Haha love the prank. Sorry that you were the brunt of it but they could have written much worse I guess! Gawd I remember windolene. How lucky are we these days to have Windex or . . .vinegar!
Good one GM! Admiration al round!
Baino – Too right, that is why I decided to stay quiet.
Magpie – Thank you,
I’d have been like you say Grannymar–piqued that no offers came in!
Alice – Now I am glad there were no offers, sure they might have sold me for the price of the pictures (movies)! 😆
(Laughing)
What jackholes! Brothers are like that!!
Well written!
Ginger – The lads were always up to something and we had many a good laugh.
I’m writing this as you commented over on Xbox4NappyRashes site congratulating him on the birth of his daughter.
I am writing it here because this post is down the page a bit and i don’t want him to see it 🙂
A while ago, before Martin’s (xbox4nappyrash) wife got pregnant I promised I would post a youtube video of me singing “Yes” by Mcalomont & Butler whilst accompanying myself on the ukulele to celebrate the birth of their child.
This will not be a pretty sight as I can neither sing, nor really play the ukulele (this isn’t false modesty – I really can’t).
However what I thought might make it really cool would be instead of just a straight video I put together a montage of videos shot by readers of his blog all celebrating – i.e. dancing, sticking thumbs up, cheering, holding up signs, that sort of thing. It would have to be something that would work without sound as I would put my (awful) soundtrack over the top of it.
It would be great if you could participate. If you send me a short 5-15 second video clip (or at a push a photo, but a video would be much better) along with your name and blog then I’ll put it together with other submissions and get something ready for the end of the week. I think it would be a really nice thing to do for martin to show him and E how pleased we are for him. and Martin has been incredibly supportive of me and my various projects in the past.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. My email address is dghughes28@yahoo.co.uk
Thanks again.
Dan.
Dan,
Hello and welcome to my blog. It was wonderful to read about the safe arrival of Martin and ETs precious bundle earlier today. What a lovely idea to make this video for him.
I will be in touch by email shortly. I just realised how small the world is I regularly come across your comments at Jerry Chicken’s blog!
Now I am off to take a deeper look at your blog.
Naughty!
Tilly – We all were.
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