Further the post I wrote here, my younger sister reminded me of a story that I had forgotten to include, and although it is pretty stomach-churning, it did make me laugh so here it is….

Mum had made a corned-beef hash, which although we didn’t have very often we were looking forward to. Anyway she had left it to cool off on the worktop for a little while. As she was about to dish up she suddenly screeched,

“Where’s me teeth”? She had this little plastic plate with 4 or 5 false teeth on which she used to take out now and again when they started to chafe, and they would sit on the table or window sill, wrapped in a tissue until she needed them to eat! My sister and I searched the kitchen without success, We couldn’t understand where they had gone As a last resort we decided to check the corned-beef hash, as it was not unusual for a bit of fag ash to land up in the food so why not a denture!

As it happened, the teeth were not in the hash, but the obligatory ants were! Yes, they had found their way into the hash that had been left uncovered, and had dived on in! Yuk! That was yet another meal that had no takers, fussy as we all were! Oh, and Mum’s teeth turned up in the kitchen rubbish bin! As a last resort we went through it, and there they were in a soggy filthy tissue, buried beneath tea bags, potato peelings and other assorted nasties. Mum was thrilled, a quick rinse under the tap, and she popped them back into place!

My nephew when he was young, also shared my mum’s casual attitude to dirt and used to love grubbing about in the mud as most kids do, However he liked to pick up slugs and worms as I think he liked their slimy feel. He wanted to share his treasures with the rest of us and would very often come up with us, hand outstretched grasping a writhing creature and say,

” Lug!”  he hadn’t mastered how to pronounce his ‘S’s yet, bless him. Myself and my sisters would recoil when he brought the slugs to us for inspection, and would try to swallow the scream, force a smile and tell him how lovely it was. He would amuse himself for some time playing in the dirt, making mud pies, and decorating them with the slugs and worms, singing away happily.

After a while he came up to us again

“Lug!” Only this time there was only a little bit of slug in this podgy little hand; not only that but he looked a bit mucky around the mouth. Yep, he had decided to taste his mud pies, but must have found them rather filling as he couldn’t manage a whole slug! It’s nice to know he has inherited the strong family constitution!

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