Day #21 Family History

And here we are: Day 21. Well, we’re three weeks into the year and I don’t know about you but I’m feeling pretty chipper.

Book three is out, alive and well. I haven’t had a huge number of reviews but the ones I’ve had have been pretty great, so it’s all good.

Book one is in my local library. I had a lovely chat with the librarian down there. Like me, she has a Greek name, so I think we’ve bonded a little over that.

Anyway, getting back to the point. The subject I picked for today was Family History. Now, I don’t necessarily mean the sensible, well thought through, proper genealogical investigation stuff. I mean the stories we’re told from one generation to the next which might have nothing to do with reality. I am the latest in a long line of eccentrics.

My mother was a sweet-smiling nurse who skied the length of Norway. Now, I’m not entirely slow of wit. I know Norway isn’t one long ski run. The fact is though, if you tacked together all the miles she skied in Norway, it would equate to the length of the country.

Her mother was a small, buxom, Irish radiographer, who had three children and gave the longest name in the family to a small cat.

All I know about this cat is this: he was no bigger than a kitten even when he was full-grown, he was black as night, and his name was Digby Mortimer Dehilimer Fairclough Vincer. Because, of course it was.

The other cat was called Jess, and I imagine she felt rather left out.

One of my uncles nearly shot my grandmother once. The baby of the bunch, he was at least five years younger than my mother and her middle brother, and so, he spent a decent amount of his childhood playing alone.

One day, he decided to play cowboys, and was unlucky enough to find his older brother’s loaded air rifle. Using his mouth for sound-effects only went so far and in running through the house, yelling “bang-bang”, he accidentally pulled the trigger and shot a small hole through the kitchen door. His mother, standing only about an inch out of the line of fire, survived the accidental assassination attempt, and helped her sons to patch the hole in the door with balsa wood and entirely too much glue.

When their father came home, exhausted after a long day at work, my youngest uncle apologised profusely for nearly killing his mother. My grandfather didn’t hear a word of it, but sometime during dinner, he looked up and insisted on knowing what had happened to his door.

So, there you go, day twenty-one, a celebration of oddness in the blood.