A Bridge Too Far

Chris endures a rather confusing trip down memory lane!

There’s nothing like a countryside walk on a crisp sunny winter’s day, is there? And there’s absolutely definitely nothing quite like it if you have my mum and dad with you.

I visited my parents last week, just to prove I could. After months of Mum telling me, quite admonishingly, that there was no way I’d ever get a ferry and drive 75 miles just to nip in for a cup of tea, I thought I’d do just that and turned up on their doorstep on a Thursday morning.

Mum was livid to see me. This wasn’t because she can’t stand the sight of me, but because I hadn’t told her I was coming and there were no pork pies in the house. I assured her I didn’t like pork pies, and we set out for a nice walk beside a local stream.

A few yards into the walk, as you’d expect on a winter’s afternoon, the subject of flying ants came up.

“Did you have flying-antday last year Chris?” asked Mum. “The one single day when all the ants come out, all of them at once? We had three of them!”

“Three ants or days?” “Days, you idiot!” Dad said. “I hate those flaming ants. It was them that killed my conifers, or Grandad.”

“Flying ants killed Grandad?” I asked.

“No! Grandad threw boiling water all over my conifers cos there were ants on them.”

Ah, phew.

Mum then surprised both me, Dad, and a passing dog-walker by suddenly pointing at a little bridge over the stream and shouting, “That’s the bridge where Chris used to do the poo!”

I was speechless, but Mum carried on, much to the interest of both man and dog.

“Every weekend when he was little, we’d bring him here, and he did the poo.”

Every weekend? What was she talking about? Happily, it transpired, she was referring to the game of Pooh-sticks, but not in any clear way.

“He used to throw the stick in over that side, then run across the bridge to see it come out. He loved it!”

Man and dog lost interest and continued their walk.

“I thought your dad was dead last night,” Mum muttered to me, with another conversational change so rapid my head began reeling.

“He didn’t get up for the toilet all night, and that never happens, so about 6 this morning, I’m thinking he might be dead. I thought, well, that’s irritating.”

Irritating wouldn’t be the word I’d have expected there, and I said so.

“Well, it would have been a nuisance Christopher,” she explained, using my full time to emphasise just how much of a nuisance Dad’s dying might have been, “As I’d taken a two-person toad-inthe-hole out of the freezer.” Ah, yes. How annoying. When we got back to their place, Dad still alive for his dinner, misunderstandings about flying ants not killing Grandad, and me not defecating on a bridge every weekend all cleared up, I got in the car and headed for the safety of home.

Can’t wait to go back again soon though!

That’s the bridge where Chris used to do the poo!