My Da
has an arrangement with me Ma where he pays the mortgage and bills and she looks after the chislers (childrens) stuff.

In short, my Da has never bought me anything in my entire life as that's me Ma's responsibility.

He's effectively a landlord who put a roof over my head for 18 years in exchange for labour.

Whenever my brothers come upon a bonus in their jobs where a bit of kit is for the having or they bring back gear from the holidays or in duty-free from foreign climes etc, they bring the fucker back stuff and me Ma gets nothing.

One of them woks in phones and gave the old man a Blackberry for nothing the other week and when t'other was home from France earlier in the year, he brought him a bottle of Chivas Regal as he usually does.

At Xmas he gets the best of stuff and me Ma gets tokens (literally, tokens - she's a skinflint and all - more of which in a moment)

The old man is the meanest human being alive. Me Ma is a cauld cratur (cold creature). She wears puffa jackets indoors all the time over her wooly geansai (jumper) and generally has a hat, scarf and gloves handy just for looking out the window.

She literally humps firesplaces, radiators, boilers - anywhere she can get a bit of heat. The old man turns everything off at every opportunity.

She's mean and all, mind. We were stony when we were chislers and she has told and recanted tales of living on one old Irish punt (pound) a day to feed the three boys and me Da. It was the eighties. There was an actual recession then.

She can't cook to save her life and is now so used to me cooking dinner when I come to visit that she has friends and family round to sample the delights. I have even cooked twice as much food for her to freeze and pass off as her own later.

She asks me what food i want to cook when I come over and if I tell her, she'll go shopping in Lidl/Aldi, Tesco, (insert cheap shit discount store here) etc and we end up with scrawny, half-brown ugly tasteless ingredients which need an ounce of salt just to give them flavour so I do the shopping in Superquinn (Irish supermarket chain, possible equivalent of a Sainsburys), or if there's a market and craft butcher available, I'm there - reason being - quality ingredients makes tastier, more attractive, generally more pleasant scran.

Then we halve the bill which is obviously totally unfair on me. I usually even quote her less than she owes me as I simply can't stand to see her heart break from parting with so much cash.

When she holds notes, she clutches them in both hands. Her Ma, my recently deceased Nana used to fold notes into quarter size and keep them concealed about her person - a trick I have assimilated myself lest I should get mugged, at least I can still afford to go for a few drinks :)

I am easily parted from my cash. Having grown up around these skinflints, I put no stock in wealth. As long as I have enough to enjoy this garden of earthly delights then I'm a happy camper.

Sin e.

rafter
baz
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 14:54, 10 replies)

well
fuck me sideways, baz - you need to get that to one of those Miserable Irish Childhood publishers and you'll have a bestseller on yer hands. We can launch it alongside my tearful prose "All the Faithless Departed" - the tragic story of my abandonment of the Auld Sod in favour of the stark, grim, grey, industrial homeland of the Evil Brits.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 14:57, closed)

also
either we have the same mother or they are both cast from the Irish Mammy mould.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 14:58, closed)

Is your Ma
4ft tall and wide like an Irish baby-making machine?
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:02, closed)

she'll claim
she's 4ft and a half inch tall, aye. Not so wide though, and she stopped at 2 babies (she's a Prod though so she'd maybe heard of contraceptives).
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:06, closed)

A little tip.
If you fold your notes into quarters with the Queen's eyes looking over the top, (or whoever you have on your Irish notes), then you'll never be without money.

My nan taught me that and I always do it now. It's the only OCD thing I do.
( girlinthehole, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 14:58, closed)

I dont get that
Prees to esprain?
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:06, closed)

I was never miserable - just broke
and I love my aul pair, skinflints though they are. My profligacy drives them mad. It's a pleasant form of revenge, I suppose.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:01, closed)

My nan
also never used to let anyone see that she was giving me money. She used to fold it up in her hand and serupticiously press it into my palm with a conspiritorial wink, bless her.
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:07, closed)

yeah mine too,
only then we were sent to the shops to buy her cigarettes with warnings not to let the money out of our site.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 15:09, closed)

Superquinn sausages
Food of the gods

that is all
(Duckeee Is nothing special, in fact, she's a bit of a bore, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 23:28, closed)