Lost and Found

When I was growing up I don’t remember hiding things. The only time I remember things being hidden was at Christmas when mum (and dad when he was there) would hide the Christmas presents somewhere in the house.  Either because I spent a long time sharing a room with my mum or because I was naturally curious, I would invariably be the one to find the presents long before Christmas. I don’t ever remember believing in Santa though I guess I must have done at some point.  I never really got the point of leaving sherry and shortbread out for him on Christmas Eve.  My brothers would sometimes take to hiding things from each other, but I don’t remember doing it at all.

Now I live in a world of continually vanishing things which later turn up in the most unexpected places.  Why? I share an apartment with a toddler and an octagenerian with dementia.  The toddler is less problematic than the octagenerian. This is because he is fairly predictable.  Although saying that as he gets bigger his range of possible targets expands.  I’ve given up having an apartment with everything in its place. I did try for a while but I surrender to the endless energy and tenacity of the toddler.  Now all low tables are bare, reachable shelves are empty, plant pots are up high, the dining room table has nothing near the edge, the bin is on the kitchen top, my car keys and sunglasses no longer live on the chair by the door, and the plungers are no longer on the floor but on a shelf in the bathroom. When I can’t find something, I look up high for it. This works only if the little person has been the cause of the item’s disappearance.

The octagenerian is more difficult to predict.  Things vanish either due to her ‘packing’ mania or because she is ‘tidying up’. Some things are easy to find though. Her green cloth bag (that goes everywhere with her) ends up with the strangest of contents.  The cloth bag is the first place to look for a missing item.  Packs of cards, TV remotes, nighties, socks, t-shirts, slippers, pens, wrapped up pieces of cake, hotel napkins, tissues, money, keys, letters and cards all end up in the bag. If the item is not in the bag then the drawers in her room are the second most likely hiding place. Scissors, packs of cards, shoes, cakes, coasters, toothbrushes, all end up hidden in the bottom of the drawers.  Sometimes though it takes ages to find things. Shamalee and myself will search high and low for something that was there an hour or so before.  It might turn up under the mattress (which is pretty difficult to move), under the cushions on the couch, in the bin, or in a kitchen drawer or it might never turn up at all.

The result of all this is that you need to have safe places for essential items that neither the toddler nor the octagenerian can reach or see.  One pack of cards has disappeared completely; the other now lives on top of the bookshelf. Remotes move hiding place frequently. Keys live with the cards.  Another result is that you always need to check out what is in the green bag. You never know what you might find! This is difficult to do though as she is never without it and rummaging through it in front of her would be a definite 'no no'.  

These days I can usually take the knowledge of the missing items in my stride. But sometimes when you’ve had a crappy day the last thing you need is to discover you can’t find the TV remote when you come in.  Asking her produces no satisfactory response. She will claim no knowledge of the item – which is true in her world as her short term memory barely functions.  Then begins the usual frustrating search round the apartment for the missing item – sometimes found; sometimes not.

The Pond

We moved a lot when I was growing up. But we were always near to water, whether it was the River Calder in Tannochside, the River Clyde in Bothwell or the loch at Strathclyde Park. Me and the boys went to one of the many primary schools we attended in Tannochside where my mum was also a teacher.  We stayed in a scheme across from the River Calder. I remember being sent out to play with the other kids in the neighbourhood and ending up down at the river’s edge playing on the rope swing, scrambling across a tree trunk which had fallen across the river and become a challenging bridge, or chasing after each other in the mud on the banks of the river.  I can’t imagine kids these days being allowed to do the things we did.

I had a Cindy doll complete with wardrobe and boyfriend who instead of getting all dressed up in outfits to go out with the boyfriend, turned her wardrobe into a jeep and went shooting down the river bank getting caked in mud in the process. She enjoyed all sorts of adventures!  My mum coped with all the mud and the eternal washing of mucky kids, dolls and clothes (this was pre automatic washing machines), and was ready with refreshments (diluting orange and sausage rolls) before chucking us out of doors and back to the river. My memories of those days are all sunny and warm though the mud and the geography would suggest otherwise.

These days my main stretches of water are the sea and the pond. The pond provides a mini stage for all sorts of drama and stunning beauty.  It is right next to the porch in the house down south so provides a natural television when you are sitting have your meals. It is small but teeming with all sorts of wildlife and attractive to all sorts of other wildlife.  It’s one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever had.

Like the regular appearance of the monkeys, mum takes the pond drama in her stride.  We’ve had a baby mongoose who got into the garden, was chased by the three dogs and was so traumatised that it panicked, ran straight into the pond and drowned.  We have a water snake who during times of drought adopts the pond as its home and freaks out everyone in the vicinity.  Mum watches oblivious to danger.  Then we have the sneaky birds. The kingfisher who sits on the gate or the tree overlooking the pond then swoops down in a flash of blue and scoops up an innocent fish and swallows it. A wading bird appeared one day. We sat and watched while the bird stood on the side of the pond, seemingly mesmerised by the water, gracefully stretched out its neck into the pond and picked out a fish. It then flew onto the wall and swallowed it whole.  Mum was put on lookout to scare that one away; to no avail. She forgot the instruction and just sat and watched as one fish after another got eaten.  

Then there’s the frogs! They were the bane of my life for over a year.  I tried all sorts to keep them out of the house. The living room window was covered by mesh half way. I watched as one frog lept over the mesh. I put the mesh higher; the frog climbed up the mesh and then over.  When the mesh went higher still they came in the front or back doors.  I had to install cupboards in the kitchen as I kept finding them in the back on the shelves with the pots behind the curtains. These days there is one that has taken to sleeping behind the trunk that the TV sits on. Mum watches TV and tells me of ‘the thing’ that is crossing the floor. She can’t always remember the word ‘frog’.  Nothing bothers her though – which is just as well.

She loves the beautiful water lilies in the pond. She watches them opening and closing. She anticipates the emergence of others.  She is perplexed when they are not there at the end of the day.  It’s not exactly the River Calder or Clyde or any of the Scottish lochs but it does have its own drama and charm and you don’t have to go anywhere to appreciate it.