The first thought which comes into my head regarding my mother is "energetic", energetic to a fault.
She'd never sit still. If we were watching the football, she'd be bustling round doing things and giving scornful glances as if to say: "You great lugs, sitting there when you should be up working." Didn't matter if it was a night match, it was the same.
If we went, as a family, which we didn't often, to someone's birthday or to dinner, it would be off with the coat and gloves and into the kitchen to help, often reaching for a tea towel before anyone said: "No, no, you're a guest." No one ever did say that because she'd have it all done with whilst they were still talking. They weren't fools.
This attitude of wanting to have the thing done and onto the next job has come down to me and I can't help wanting things settled, for example in Blogpower, so that we can get onto the next issue. I took less money for my last car for precisely that reason - I just wanted the thing over and done with.
She was canny as well - there was no way to fool her and when someone came at her with a tall story, the wry lift of the eyebrow was usually enough. She adored children which was just as well because they were her job and there are many today who look back on their mothercraft nurse with affection and a little awe.
The awe was because she was a stickler for the old ways. The bathwater was never deeper than six inches for toddler safety, one had to learn to say no to a child to bring the child up with good values and yet she never laid a hand or slapped any child except me - once - when I was two and pulled the knobs of the radio. Even then it was a tap, otherwise I would have remembered.
This is going to sound stupid but I'm typing this now at the table, rather than in the armchair because I half suspect she might be watching me slouching. Father too.
Despite this, she wasn't stern and if I was looking for a way to describe her, the old military rule of "fair, firm and friendly" is closest to the mark though I'd say loving rather than friendly. The type of love which never speaks but one knows it's there. Sense of humour too. The wry grin was her trademark.
If either my father or I accused her of something - throwing out a piece of equipment or washing a motor, she'd say; "Oh yes, all of that and more." She couldn't be insulted, she couldn't be hurt or so it seemed and in a male household, she held her own. In fact she held it together.
I always had to look someone in the eye if I was speaking to him, I never ate with my mouth full, used a knife and fork properly, wasn't allowed to slouch in a chair and so on. Came in handy during my military days later.
On such occasions as today, there is a tendency to wax lyrical, to eulogize. I shan't do that because she wouldn't. And yet she was as susceptible to the compliment, the flowers, the attention, as any woman. To be taken out was her delight, even if she could have cooked it better herself.
That was the other thing I took for granted - I just thought all women cooked superbly until I got into the wife business. Then I realized how spoiled I'd been for grub. In those days it was always the heavy, cast iron pressure cooker for the veg and the grill for the meat. Except on Sundays when it was the roast and I couldn't get enough of those tatie quarters.
As you'd expect, the house was clean enough to eat your meal off the floor and it was shoes off at the door if the weather was inclement. Only in Russia are they more obsessive about shoes inside. The venetian blinds and curtain rails constantly needed cleaning and that was my father's job. Another thing he was roped in to do was to wash up after the meal. This was never questioned and sometimes they got me into it too.
On our motoring holiday, she'd sometimes get me in free overnight wherever we were and if wasn't clean enough, that was the end. One day she sold our house because the price was right. More than right - it was apparently way over the odds. Both my father, from his work and me from university, came home that Thursday to discover we were moving.
Interesting about my dad that he put up with all this sort of thing but I suppose he knew when he was onto a good thing and her sixth sense for a good deal never, in my experience, turned out to be wrong.
Naturally, with such a go-getter, we could only take so much before we ran for cover - my father to the workshop and me to a friend's. Never fazed my mother though and the meal was ready when we returned. That's one reason I love the grandmothers over here.
They have no mental equipment to enable them to perceive that someone might not want to have their chunky broth and torn off hunk of bread. It's just taken as read and a person must have rocks in the head to refuse a grandma's cooking in this country. It's just so delicious. So it was with her.
Not that she ate this herself though. Oh, no, she was of the sparrow variety - a nibble of salad here, a couple of mandarins there - well eight or nine, actually - and the olives which I never got to love, though I can eat them today if served.
Ice-cream was her Achilles' heel and if it was from an ice-cream shop, she was gone. In the later years, when she had lost a lot of her powers, the mention of ice-cream had the intellect alert and the smile would come to the face.
As you'd expect, she could not abide a fool nor amateur dramatics. One day when I came home from school with a nose which had been bleeding several hours, supported by two stout schoolmates, one on either side and I was deposited at our front door, my mother came out and told them: "Uh-huh. He'll live."
The schoolmates were mortified as my dramatics had been pretty effective. Once inside, it was time to drop the act and just clean up the nose. She wouldn't let me out to play though and had the doctor see to me next day.
She adored Yorkshire though it had nothing to do with her - she came from other parts [see photo above]. That was my father's thing. Didn't like the snow though and that was one reason for the move to Australia. I don't really know then, from whence I picked up my love of the Russian winter.
So here I am before you this evening, a product of many influences but most certainly of my my mother, whose birthday is today.
Happy birthday up there, mother. My underpants were clean on today, I promise. Yes, yes, I cleaned my teeth after supper. Yes, I've done my homework. Yes I know I had two girls here now cleaning the flat and I could have saved the money but I'm not you, am I?
You were ... are ... a one-off.
