A MOTHER'S DIARY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 39, 21 March 1940, Page 42

A MOTHER'S DIARY

SUNDAY:

I have chosen to-day to begin my diary. Sunday is such a clean, shining day-and simply pasted with good resolutions. For one thing, I intend to keep this diary up to the minute. The one I started last year had more blanks than written pages. . . Everything went well till Bill-Jim got whooping cough and pneumonia, and Jim and I took it in turns to sit up with him, I missed a whole fortnight then, and when eventually I took my diary up again-all I could write in it was-Bill-Jim was sick! Which were four such silly little words to describe all he suffered-but how could you put that in a diary-or anywhere? However, this year I am really turning over a new leaf. Jim gave me a lovely new diary for Christmas. He said I talked one night in my sleep-and that is how he knew I wanted to start a diary again. . . I have already warned him that anything he may say will be used in evidence against him... From where I am sitting I can see him and Bill-Jim romping together on the lawn. You would think Jim was six years of age! I wanted him to put up that long-promised shelf in the pantry for me this afternoon, but he said he simply had to get those tomatoes tied up and sprayed-and that is how he is doing it! Ellen has just come in. with a sniffle, and said the almond biscuits are all burnt. . . Too bad, as Mother is coming to tea and they are her favourite sweets. . . Patted Ellen and told her that no little biscuit is worth the smallest tear-and she has returned to the kitchen, comforted. . . There is the car now-must fly. Will try and finish to-day-to-night. ..

MONDAY: I often wonder who invented the name Blue Monday. It is a sort of mass hypnotism. I don’t like it-it’s messy and it’s washing day. Hundreds of little office ants don’t like it-it means beginning a new week of work-with the memory of a nice lingering week-end still in their minds. . . Everyone looks tired and a little disgruntled. .. But I'm running ahead of myself... Yesterday Mother arrived with a big box of cakes for Bill-Jim and a gorgeous armful of gladioli for the living room... Mother -she is not my mother, but Jim’s-is a darling, and all that stuff

about mothers-in-law is bunk. We discussed it after tea. . . Jim said-* Oh, I don’t know, I’ve seen a few old tigers in my time." Mother looked across at me solemnly. "T hope you don’t read anything personal into that, Betty. . ." And then she laughed. She was a concert singer when she was young. When she married, she gave up her career, and her husband and Jim became her audience from then on. : . She sang for us after dinner in her lovely deep contralto, that cracks a little sometimes now because, as she says, the white ants are getting in! I think it’s still beautiful. .. Gave the house a grand spring-cleaning to-day-and, incidentally, worked off my Monday Blues. . . Am finishing this off in bed-and feeling virtuous as the result of all my good work,

TUESDAY: Woke up with a sniff this morningmust be these wretched winds -and® February is supposed to be the best month in our year! Decided to do Jim a good turn and water the garden. The hydrangeas are beginning to turn the loveliest autumn tints--and our vegetable garden is coming along beautifully. Grace rang me to-day. She is all in a dither. The new baby is to be christened next Sunday and they haven’t yet decided on a name. Jack wants Margaret, and she wants Anne. . . I told her_that she would pick the most popular name in the world. . . Just recently I read that in Latin and Slavic countries alone there are about 94 million Anneswith Marie a good runner-up near the 91 million mark. . . Grace said so many millions made her feel affluent, so she thought she could combine the two and call her baby Anne-Marie. . . Rather sweet, I think. ..

WEDNESDAY: A bad start. . . Ellen cracked the lid of our best Doulton coffee pot. Left unsaid all the things I felt. Remembered a tip for mending cracked china, and unearthed an old tin of carriage-varnish. Stole one of Bill-Jim’s paint brushes and painted the varnish along the crack. It is practically invisible now-and I am hoping that it will resist heat and hot water. Jim brought me home a new book yesterday, "Disgrace Abounding," by Douglas Reed. Have been stealing odd minutes at it all day. A fascinating book which throws a searchlight on the international situation to-day. Even if the author is disgruntled at times, he is passionately sincere---and some of his predictions on present-time events in Europe are astonishing. . . I like his

style, too-one feels that if he was not a "foreign correspondent" he would be a poet writing his life out in some quiet retreat of a garden. . . To-night, after dinner, I read the latest war news with a new insight. I even inveigled Jim into an argument. . . We were both getting well into our stride, when he suddenly stopped and looked at me with a grin"I might have known. You've been at that book!" Masculine tact, if you like.

THURSDAY: Went to the Bridge Club and played ladies to-day. Wore my new brown costume and a little perky brown velvet cap I picked up at a sale. . . Grace said I looked chic. . . Must have gone to my head, for we cleaned up our opponents by 800 points. Won 2/3. Arrived home, still feeling a glow. . . Decided, as it is warm to-day, to give Jim a surprise. Got reckless with the best tall glasses. Dropped in a lump of ice-cream-poured over fresh hot black coffee-topped with a blob of cream-and left to chill in the refrigerator till suppertime. . . Jim wants to know why I can’t get out to Bridge more often?

FRIDAY: Busy. Ellen’s day out. Managed to run into town and do a bit of shopping before Bill-Jim got home from the Kindergarten. . . At dinner, Bill-Jim played with his meat and couldn’t eat his favourite pudding. . . I looked at him accusingly. " Bill-Jim, what have you been eating to-day?" Bill-Jim looked at me innocentlytoo innocently. "Nothing, muvver." "Now, darling. . ." Bill-Jim swallowed hard, "Only an apple an’ a pear an’ some grapes-truly-mummy. . ." Put him to bed with a nice little dose of castor oil tucked between two oranges. .« «

SATURDAY: Nice day-but too sleepy at the end of it to write much. Can’t be talkative every night. . . Had a long lazy afternoon with Bill-Jim in the garden while Jim worked-or pretended to. Ellen cooked nice dinner-with a plum pudding and Jim’s favourite brandy hard sauce. . . Went off to the pictures after and saw "Intermezzo" with Leslie Howard-my favourite actor. Even he couldn’t save the picture-one of those old worn-out themes we looked at ten years back... New Swedish star-Ingrad -something or other. Nice-but not yet mature. She should do something worthwhile one day. . . Had to wake Jim up at the end of the show. He said he likes comedies best, anyway.