Heavy Metal Egg-Bangers

Today I get into my car turn it on and I've forgotten that last night as I drove home I was listening to a heavy metal cd and it really wasn't the sort of thing I would choose to listen to at 7.30am. So after I have manouevered (isn't that a great word? say it with me now: "manouevered"; sensuous in the mouth and yet slightly comical) my car around so that I'm facing in the right direction I hit the radio button and hit a channel at random and get Classic FM, suddenly going from one extreme to another. It was just thing as it turns out, soothing, relaxing and preparing my mind for the day ahead when I would discover the computers weren't working, my RA01 form had gone missing and the soles of my shoes had a falling out with the rest of the shoe (the shoes I bought 4 years ago in New York - good times). As I drove along Tchaicovsky's Finale to Swan Lake came on and it brought back memories of my mum taking me to see the ballet when I was little girl and I remember being completely enchanted. Later that year we went to the ballet again to see Cinderella and I gazed wonderingly at the picture of Cinderella on the front and thought how beautiful she looked.

That was also the evening my mother decided to cook an aubergine for the first time - and the first time I had ever seen an aubergine and imagine my sense of sceptism that there was such a thing as a purple vegetable and who was she trying to fool! She had found a recipe for stuffed aubergine/egg plant (potato,pot-ar-to), had left the purple item in the oven and promptly forgot about it. We came back from the ballet to discover the blackened and deflated aubergine in the oven. Deflated is the best way to describe, it did look like a popped balloon (like those ones they have at fairs that they have somehow filled with glitter and ribbons and a disgruntled looking teddy bear. "here little girl, have a purple balloon full of mince and vegetables"). My mother was and is not a bad cook, no matter what my brother Mark would say. She has a limited repertiore and when she does try something new it has often gone wrong but she is very good at cooking warming, homely traditional British food; my favourite meal is still her liver and bacon (yum). What would always let her down when we were kids was her memory. There were countless times that she forgot something was in the oven, forgot about the sausages on the grill (which would then errupt into flames) or let the water boil away when boiling an egg until we would hear a BANG and discover the egg had exploded.

Anyway, listening to Swan Lake this morning brought back happy memories of all the wonderful places my mum would take me when I was kid. I remember thinking she was the coolest mum possible (and friends often told me that I was right to think this). She took me to the ballet, opera, Regent's Park Open Air theatre, art galleries, trips to European cities and wonderful restaurants. She encouraged my imagination and desire to see and experience new things and places. My relationship with my mother has often not been an easy thing but as I have matured I have realised again how special she is, I only wish I could tell her, but for all the things that my mother has shared with me as I grew up she did not like to share feelings (at least not openly); probably why things have been at times fraught with tension because I am the complete opposite.

By the way, do you like my title? head banging > egg banging...get it? maybe I should start a series of posts with egg themed titles such as "Egg - citing tales of the day!" hmmm, I will have to give that one some thought.