Life is great isn’t it? All those ups and downs – never knowing from day to day what life has in store for you.
I spent three weeks in Barbados this holiday season and what a great three weeks they were. My intention was to catch up on some well needed rest and get to know Esther again. Get to spend a little time with her, have some “me” time and this I certainly did. I got taken out to the most delightful restaurants by some wonderful men. I spent time catching and laughing with some girlfriends and I had fun. I also had my two boys in tow all 5ft 11” of them – sometimes I wished they had got lost on the plane between London and Barbados as they would sometimes bemoan “mum spend time with us” to which I’d want to squeal “git – this gal needs time to herself”. But I realised I had a duty to these two boys as often times in London, I had been so busy that I had not been able to give them much attention at all and I am lucky that we are a generally close family.
Usually in London my teenaged boys are reasonably healthy eaters. Guzzlers, not quite, pigs – sometimes maybe, but Barbados certainly took the heavy eating thing to a new level. I just about managed to eat my rather meagre meal on the plane, as both boys sat eye balling my fist sized bread rolls. I do not generally eat white bread, but by heck, I was certainly determined to demolish them this time without the vultures grabbing for it. I even contemplated, through the cube sized, nicely wrapped butter down the aisle, to see if they would scrabble after it.
Maybe it was the heat, maybe being in a different climate accelerated their appetites because all I know was that for those three weeks, my two boys were eating every three hours and in between they still had hunger pangs. It was my eldest son that surprised me the most. If it moved, he wanted it. Flying fish and coucou , rice and peas, macaroni, sweet bread, jerk chicken, pineapple chicken, roast chicken, duck geese, hoof, horse (not quite but it certainly felt as if they were going there) if it looked fit to eat then it was eaten. This was not to mention the constant supply of drinks. Had I accidentally spilt hot sauce on my fingers whilst pouring it on my food, I am sure I’d be minus a few fingers by now.
There was one particular day where I was actually quite disgusted. After a plate and a half of food, my boys then went on to request desert. Had my mother had a pigs trough within the vicinity, I’m sure I would’ve been forced to dash the tub of ice cream in it out of disgust at the amount of eating they were doing. Yet wherever I went, it was the same old story. They were teenagers. They were going through a growth spurt. My wallet did not quite find the humorous side of this though. Between paying bills and feeding these two, this was as far as the money stretched.
Yet, as I have often been told, I should be grateful that they are eating so well. If they were sick and not lining their stomachs 24 hours a day, I would be worried. Hmmm, I think not, me ladies. My purse would have a smile on it’s wrinkled self and I would not feel the need to resort to standing on the street corner, like a hippy hitching a ride, asking passers-by to “sssspare some change, pliz.” So I could at least pay my gas bill.
Yet now that we are back in London, things have settled down quite nicely. They are back to their usual eating habits, which I must say, means I have a few pennies left in my back pocket until the end of the week and I am not, like my mother, standing in the kitchen brewing up meals every three hours. In fact, I refuse to.
My eldest son said to me in Barbados one day, when my mother once again asked them if they were hungry “mum, let nanny spoil us because when we get back to London, you sure will not be doing it.” Ahh me lovely, I thought to meself, you know the score. And with that, I calmly put my feet up whilst mum rustled up some bakes (fried dumplings).
