What does he know?

My mother has not been well over the last couple of years and of late she has been confined to the house interspersed with short stays in hospital. Naturally  this has led to her wanting to get out of the house and she achieves this by going shopping.

You sense a lot of pent up frustration. This manifests itself in 'over shopping.' Buying all the stuff that she hasn't been able to get her hands on.

Jan looked into her fridge recently and said to me that she couldn't possibly eat all the stuff in there and that she'd have to throw a lot of it away.

She's not wealthy so I decided to sit her down and have a gentle corrective interview.

I failed.

As we entered her house this week, without a hello or how are you preamble, she grabbed hold of Jan and said, 'What's this? What do I do with it?' She was holding a small white packet of something and waiving it in Jan's face. From a short distance I could see 'Paneer' in large letters but decided to let Jan explain.

As the conversation progressed, having to repeat everything three times (she's quite deaf) I lost my cool. Can I say here that as mum is Italian she's used to having shouty conversations and that I'm an expert at them.

'Let me get this right,' I shouted, 'you bought something that you don't have the faintest idea of what it is? How silly is that?'

'I could see that it was made in Denmark, she said.

''Oh that's OK,' I shouted incredulously. 'Indian cheese that's made in Denmark. That's even better.'

She looked at Jan, waived her hand dismissively at me, and said, 'What does he know?'