The Psychiatric Nerve
My friend Connie, who is nearly ninety-one, has hurt her back - she did it manouevring a rubbish bin.
Connie lives on her own and it's very rare for her to have anything at all wrong with her. She's slowed up a bit, but still has - in her phrase - "all her chairs at home".
I met her because I became friends with her son - I met him in a group of freshers on my first day at university in - - sigh - - 1974 - so I've known Connie for a long time - - and I'm still friends with her son!
She does have a perennial grumble that there's a cold wind. If she were to go on holiday to the tropics she'd say "Yes, well it was ninety-four degrees every day - - but there was a cold wind, mind."
Anyone she considers to be a bit above themselves is described by her as "Very bay window, very cut glass" and she's full of other little homilies such as "As you mix, so you're classed".
She was a grammar school girl who has been through a lot in her long life - - painting aeroplanes during the war, for example! She's always been really kind to me - when I was confined to hospital for six weeks when I was pregnant, she visited me very frequently bringing me all kinds of delicious foods - two buses there, two buses back.
And she does have a rather glorious tendency to adapt words to her own use, rather like Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan's The Rivals - one of my favourite plays.
The problem with her back, she told me today, is that she has injured her Psychiatric Nerve. But she's taking some Coding and that's helping with the pain.
She's been part of my life for a very long time and I do hope that she gets better soon.
Connie lives on her own and it's very rare for her to have anything at all wrong with her. She's slowed up a bit, but still has - in her phrase - "all her chairs at home".
I met her because I became friends with her son - I met him in a group of freshers on my first day at university in - - sigh - - 1974 - so I've known Connie for a long time - - and I'm still friends with her son!
She does have a perennial grumble that there's a cold wind. If she were to go on holiday to the tropics she'd say "Yes, well it was ninety-four degrees every day - - but there was a cold wind, mind."
Anyone she considers to be a bit above themselves is described by her as "Very bay window, very cut glass" and she's full of other little homilies such as "As you mix, so you're classed".
She was a grammar school girl who has been through a lot in her long life - - painting aeroplanes during the war, for example! She's always been really kind to me - when I was confined to hospital for six weeks when I was pregnant, she visited me very frequently bringing me all kinds of delicious foods - two buses there, two buses back.
And she does have a rather glorious tendency to adapt words to her own use, rather like Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan's The Rivals - one of my favourite plays.
The problem with her back, she told me today, is that she has injured her Psychiatric Nerve. But she's taking some Coding and that's helping with the pain.
She's been part of my life for a very long time and I do hope that she gets better soon.
posted by Daphne at 2:39 pm
6 Comments:
Brilliant - I wonder who she should consult for the pain?
Lucy
I hope so too. Eeh, they don't make 'em like that any more! People, I mean. ;)
Sounds like there's a bit of Hilda Ogden about her but like your mum, it seems that Connie is another marvellous advertisement for growing old.
I am allergic to Coding but Mrs. RWP is the one in our family who has occasional trouble with her Psychiatric Nerve.
I hope she loses her psychiatric nerve problem soon, too! Poor lady - back pain is no joke, especially at her age, bless her!
My Mum is almost exactly like that (except she is disabled with inflammatory arthritis) and is also 90 years old. Got all her chairs at home still (what a great expression! LOL!) but does just the same thing with words. I can never remember the Malapropisms to relate afterwards, but sometimes I have to try hard not to laugh.
Tremendous, I hope she writes so that people will remember her for ever.
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