Day 46 - Dirty

 DIRTY 

Prompt - Dirty : Write about getting covered in mud.

The silent treatment.  It's been going on for two days now, and I wonder how much longer she can keep it up for.  Unpleasant, tedious, but easily enough endured.  The memory still makes me laugh, and it's created a great bond between me and the kids.

We'd gone on a walk together, the four of us.  A rare enough event these days, our (most) teenagers being more likely to sit exchanging digitally with their pals than risk being seen out with the old folks, but this time they were persuaded.  We'd been cooped up for a couple of weeks by the weather, and my suggestion of following up our burst of fresh air with a trip to Krispy Kreme.  Even their mother thought this would be a good thing.  

So we drove down to the coast, took the path along the front that would loop back on the walkway through the woods.  

"Is it not going to be too muddy after all that rain?"  She had a fear of the brown stuff, or anything which might render any one of the four of us less than pristine.  I always thought she was being overly protective, and a little snobbish about the whole thing, but had, perhaps wrongly, given way to her attitude over the years.  If the kids wanted to play an outdoor sport then tennis was OK, football wasn't, and rugby was the ultimate horror.

"No, it's all paved, well drained, and with the sun out like this it should be drying quickly."  I sounded more confident than I felt, but I wasn't going to say anything to risk rocking this fragile boat of family unity.

The walk along the front was glorious.  A fresh wind, blue sky, rippling sea.  People out walking their dogs, walking their dampness blues away, relishing the thought that Spring was (maybe) here now.  Stephen and Paul walked with less relish than most, but at least they weren't moaning (yet).  This felt as near perfection as I'd experienced in some time.

We left the waterfront and turned up into the woods, and the path that would take us back to the car.  Few signs of leaves yet, so the sunlight cast intricate ever moving patterns across our bodies as we walked.  I made a few observations about our surroundings, and nobody called me stupid or eye-rolled heavensward.  A landmark day indeed.  Even when I commented on the various flowers now making their appearance was I curtailed.  

A bigger shock came when Paul picked some pathside bluebells and presented them, in his fully scruffy gallantry, to his mother.  Who was this boy and why didn't I recognise him?  Was he really mine?

Was it this sudden act that promoted the moment of uncharacteristic madness?  I may never know, and certainly not under the current regime of Mum keeping mum.  She wanted some snowdrops to add to her posy, and decided to get them herself.  They were just a little way off the path, requiring a couple of steps on the grassy slope to our right, and she handed me Paul's violet contribution to hold.  As she set off I looked down and saw the sheen that suggested that this might not be the hard earth she thought it was, but knew well enough not to say anything that might be construed as critical of her decision.  I'm glad I didn't.

One step, no problem.  Two steps, big problem.  As she reached don towards the dainty petals her footing started to give.  Slowly at first, less slowly a second later, and suddenly they were gone.  She put a hand down.  The hand immediately began to slide in the opposite direct to that or her fet.  Another hand, and now she was sliding in four directions at once.  

We watched, fascinated, expectant, as the inevitable ending came, leaving her spreadeagled like a fawn on ice, but without the cuteness.  

"Help me".  I could only just make out her muddied plea.  I looked at the boys.  Big mistake.  We laughed.  We chucked, giggled, snorted, guffawed, howled, raored, unable to move.  And the best was still to come.

"We'll have to pull you back towards the path, or I'll end up the same as you."  Well that's what I tried to say, but whether or not she could understand my breathless cackling I do not know.  Signalling to Stephen, we grabbed and ankle each and pulled.  She slid nice and easy on the greasy surface.

"Eeeugh" from Stephen, looking at the mud on his hands from grasping his mother's soiled clothing.  She'd taught them well.

It took a bit of effort to get her upright, probably not helped by our own reluctance to get ourselves too filthy - I was thinking of what it might do to the car seats - but eventually there she was.  Not quite the woman who'd ventured flowerwards, more like a low budget mud monster from a fifties B movie.  We laughed some more.  We laughed a lot.

The journey back was interesting.  Knowing she hated getting the car interior mucky I suggested she remove much of her clothing.  But the mud monster climbed silently into the passenger seat, a brooding swamy presence.  I looked at the boys and willed them not to mention doughnuts.  That treat could wait.  The one we had more than made up for it.

I've had the car valeted.  The clothes went into the bin.  And we might never ever walk together as a family again.  Was it worth it.  Oh my god yes, a thousand times yes.  You can't buy that kind of happy memory.