Hi Mum,

Are you awake? 

‘Yes Love, I’m still up, how are you Queen?’

I’m doing ok Mum, loving being here at home on the farm for our second Christmas, just wish you were here with us obviously.

‘I wish I was down there with you all too my Love.’

Is it nice to be back with Dad though?

‘Yes love, did you know he asked me to cut his hair as soon as I got here?’

Did he?

Mum use to do so many things for my Dad, including giving his shiny bald head a buzz cut every so often.  

He used to sit at the kitchen table with a tea towel draped around his shoulders and a newspaper on his knee to catch his fallen locks.  

When I say locks, loose wispy hairs around his ears and on the back of his neck.  I can see Mum now, folding his ears forward and trimming carefully behind them.

‘Keep still,’ she’d say ‘Don’t move.’ 

You’d think she was deactivating a bomb. 

She took grooming my Dad very seriously. ‘Here, look at me while I do your eyebrows, they look like two angry caterpillars.’

Now my Mum and Dad have gone, I picture them reunited and carrying on where they both left off. 

Dad making endless cups of tea and Mum putting the chip pan on for him.

Have you made him chips and egg since you got back together?

‘Ooh yes, at least once a week Love.’

What about CABO?

CABO was Dad’s acronym for ‘Cheese and beans on.’  This could be applied to toast or a jacket potato done in the microwave.

The microwave was known as the ‘Micky.’

He also invented the word ROB meaning ‘Round of bread,’ A round of bread used to mop up the gravy on a Sunday was very much a Davies tradition.

Our family had built up it’s own language over the years using many of our own made up words, catch phrases and sayings.  Myles and I can have conversations now with each other that anyone overhearing might think ‘What are they going on about?!’

Slippers are Slips, and SIPS are ‘Staying in pants.’  These can be baggy pyjama bottoms or joggers.

A conversation at 9 Nansen in the eighties might have gone something like this…

‘Nip upstairs and put your SIPS on while I warm up your CABO in the Mickey.’

It’s important our loony lingo never dies and so Frankie can often be heard shouting down, telling Jen and I that she’s brushing her ‘Peggies’ and putting her ‘Jarmies’ on before ‘Bobies.’ If she’s lucky, one of us will make her a Bockie.

Ah well, it’s my Bobie time too now Mum, time to turn in, heating’s on full so no need for a Bockie tonight.

‘Have a nice Bobies Love.’

Thanks Mum, you too.

Night Dad.

‘He’s asleep Love.’

Ah ok, night Mum.

‘Night Love.’

All my love,

Queen x

21/12/2021