RELATIVES - a hundred word story

RELATIVES

All the other kids in our neighbourhood had hordes of relatives. Christmas, weddings, christenings and even funerals were raucous affairs that often spilled into the street, sometimes ending in fisticuffs.

Once I asked Mum where our family was, but she yelled, “We have no-one but ourselves,” and then hugged me. She sounded so sad that I never asked again.

After her funeral I drank a large whiskey before I tackled her bedroom. One drawer was crammed with photographs – her parents, perhaps, uncles, aunties and cousins. My family.

 I searched every face but not one was brown like me.

...............................................................................................

Families are strange creatures - a tower of strength for some, a pain in the butt for others. Some people, like me, have such a ream of cousins that they can't keep track, others can count their family members on one hand. And there are always secrets, some small, some so enormous that they remain hidden - until after the funeral.

Thanks to Ted Strutz for this week's Friday Fictioneers photo prompt, and to Rochelle for hosting this bunch of diverse writers on her blog.  https://rochellewisoff.com/

FINISHED!

I've got there at last. Two months ago I embarked on yet another rewrite of
A Volcanic Race, the first book I ever wrote, and I have finished it! This is not the final version, of course, but the novel is now in much better shape - leaner and faster-paced.
I wish I could say the same about myself as I pack for two weeks in England, where I shall be trying to keep up with my two grandsons. Yes, I know the weather's bad, but I've been missing my family.

"WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW". This is sound advice, which I have chosen to ignore in A Volcanic Race. 
      I have never been to Africa, the continent on which I based some of my imaginary country. I have read books about it, seen National Geographic documentaries by the score, and made pages of research notes, but the nearest I have been is where I live now - Tenerife, a hundred miles off the west coast of Africa. We get the same searing heat in high summer, and some of the same plants, but the largest wild animal we have in Tenerife is the feral goat. So my imagination is free to roam.
Or so you would think.

The volcanic landscape of my adopted island inspired this novel, but despite my flights of fancy I have a strong streak of common sense which anchors me to logic. I created this imaginary country and its inhabitants, yet once I have taken that “What if?” leap into my fantasy world, within that framework I must remain consistent. It can be extremely annoying when I want a character to do something and my logical demon pops up saying “No – that won’t work.”
           But what can I do? One day my story - and the other books in the series - may reach a bookshop near you, and you'd be bound to notice if I made an error in logic, wouldn't you?

U for UK - UNFORTUNATELY

UK. There are many advantages to living in Tenerife. The climate is kinder on arthritic joints, for one thing – we know of one man who arrived here on crutches and within months was teaching badminton again. The cost of living is lower, as long as you go native and don’t do all your shopping in stores that import everything from the UK. We have fleeces but no winter coats, we don’t even possess wellies, and the beer and wine is cheap.

The downside is that we left friends and family behind – it is ironic that the first long word we learned from out flash cards was desgraciademente = UNFORTUNATELY. The space we left in the UK has filled up now, of course. Friends are pleased to see us when we go over, but we don’t have the minutӕ of daily life in common any more, and those friendships are fading.

We left six children there too, and four grandchildren. Since then three more grandchildren have been born and are growing up without us. So when people ask, “Do you regret moving?” obviously expecting the answer to be “No”, we tell them that.

This photo is of my four children, their other halves and my two grandsons. The OH's family is more scattered but still UK based.

UNSOLD. The old bull-ring I featured yesterday was full of unsold cars for a couple of years. In hindsight it was definite proof of the coming crisis. They were parked in sad rows, their varied colours rapidly fading UNDER a layer of orange dust. Then one day there was a procession of gruas (tow-trucks) and they all disappeared. Did someone buy the lot or was the rent, even of an UNUSED bull-ring, too much for the company that owned them?

There is also a veritable rash of unsold apartments everywhere we go. “¡Oportunidad!” the posters scream from the balconies. We know it means another family has lost the battle to pay their mortgage.

UNEMPLOYMENT in Spain is around 26% - in Tenerife it’s worse, and el paro (dole) doesn’t cover the mortgage for long. No wonder the camp-sites and caves are filling up. One of our Columbian neighbours comes round regularly to fill some water bottles – his has been cut off – and the poor man is so embarrassed. He asked me last week if I could give him a euro to visit his child – he hadn’t even got one euro for the bus. Out by the basura at night, it’s not just tramps you see dumpster-diving for food, or clothes, or anything that might raise a euro or two at the Sunday flea-market.

UNDERTAKER. Not a cheerful subject, but moving abroad sharpened our minds. So we paid for our funerals in advance – you can do it in instalments if you like – and it was at 2001 prices. The kids were shocked when we told them – “Oh Mum, you’re not ill are you?” – but now we can all relax in the knowledge that arrangements have been made. The cheapest funeral these days costs about £2500 – could your family afford that?

U is a bit of an orphan letter – USUALLY the least USED vowel – which I bear in mind when I do a codeword puzzle to relax before sleep. It starts so many negative words, as in UNATTRACTIVE or UNWRITTEN, but where would Q be without it?

UGH! Cucurachas – I hate them. In England, if something scuttles across the floor just on the edge of your sight, it’s likely to be a spider. Here it’s a cockroach. We put stuff down that they are supposed to take back to the nest to kill themselves, their babies and the eggs, but still they come. We double-wrap our rubbish, but if we put the kitchen light on in the middle of the night, there’s always one of the UGLY buggers. They are UNINVITED guests at any evening meal on the terrace, and we never leave a drink UNCOVERED outside – a mouthful of cockroach is decidedly UNPLEASANT.

They say cockroaches can survive a nuclear blast. Maybe so, but they don’t last long after a direct hit with a flip-flop.

UP is the only positive word I can think of today that begins with U. Bottoms up. Chin up. Fill ‘er up. Gee up. Hurry up. Looking up. Mix up. Pop up. Stir up. Wake up. The only way is up.

Even the word ‘up’ looks odd when you use it too many times, doesn’t it? Cheer up!

F-WORDS

 F-WORDS were FLYING round our apartment yesterday – the boiler packed up. FIVE years is FAIRLY average here with our water so FULL of cal. Nigel FITTED a new one, FURTHER up the wall so the OH won’t bang his head when he FILLS the washing machine – and we’re €180 worse off. “What F-word?” you ask. FIDDLESTICKS, naturally.

FIGURES – I checked my blog stats yesterday and FELL into a depression at how FEW hits I’ve had. But it’s early days, so thank you to my FAITHFUL FOLLOWERS!

FOOD - FRESH FISH is our FAVOURITE food to eat here (a very appropriate subject on Good FRIDAY) and we live on an island with more FISHERMEN than FARMERS. In the village near us there is a fish market – a dozen or so stalls that back onto the beach where the boats come in. On the terrace behind the stalls, seagulls wait by buckets for the offal to be thrown out, and on the pavement in FRONT we join housewives and restaurant owners to buy fish that was in the sea less than an hour ago. I bought some bonito once, and when the woman FILLETED it, the sardine that had been its last meal was still wriggling.

The best meat in Tenerife is pork – local, tender and FANTASTIC. When we FIRST arrived to live here the butcher didn’t understand my request for pork with the skin on, and gave me a carrier bag containing the skin FROM a whole pig. I shared it with FRIENDS, FROZE some more, and we FEASTED on crackling for months. Now the butcher is used to our strange FOREIGN ways and asks whether I want my pork “con o sin piel.”

FRUIT is another treat – oranges, lemons, mangoes, papayas, bananas and of course FIGS. I remember leaving a coffee bar one day and picking a handful of figs off a tree in the street. One of my mother’s Christmas treats was dried figs, which I can’t stand, but fresh ones still warm from the sun – that’s a different matter entirely.

And talking of food, I must not FORGET to mention my husband’s favourite – Papas Canarias – food of the gods. Small local potatoes cooked in their skins in salt water. The locals used to cook them in a bucket of seawater but now they use sea salt. Serve them with Mojo Verde – a green sauce made with olive oil and cilantro (fresh coriander).

FIRE The very word sends shivers down the spine, especially when we’ve had a drought as bad as the last twelve months. A spark can set off a FOREST FIRE that destroys acres in hours. A few years ago there was a devastating fire that reached one of Tenerife’s most beautiful places, Masca, which until recently was only accessible by goat track. The road isn’t much better now, and getting FIRE-FIGHTING equipment up there was a nightmare.

When the fire was FINALLY out there was a media appeal for help, so my daughter and I took some spare household goods and plants and went there. Our gifts were welcomed, and one man showed us his burnt-out home. It was awful - like a Dali painting – have you ever seen a melted television set? One can understand why it is a criminal offence here to chuck a FAG-END out of a car window.

But for FUN with the FAMILY and a real FESTIVE spirit you can’t beat an open fire, even in the tropics, and my son-in-law has built a FIREPLACE on his roof terrace.

Mothering Sunday

MOTHERING SUNDAY
We always knew today as Mothering Sunday in the vicarages in which I grew up.
Mothers - we all had one, even Caesar - mostly good, occasionally bad, but still our mothers.
Mine is still alive, though it's frightening to recall the young doctor's words to me and my siblings a couple of years ago; "We wouldn't normally intervene to this extent with someone of your mother's age, but Reception told us she was admitted surrounded by her family, so we've gone that extra step."
The power of doctors is awesome.
Anyway, this is a photo of me and my mother in 1945, taken just before my English father took his young Australian bride home. She looked like a film star, didn't she?