Searching for Gherkins

‘Searching for gherkins.’

It was as good an answer to my question as any, I suppose, coming from the prone figure of my mother as she shone the torch from her mobile phone under the fridge-freezer. Why she thought she might find gherkins under there was anyone’s guess.

I stood at the back door to her house, unable to get in without stepping over her, and with the icy weather making everything treacherous, I didn’t want to risk slipping on my ice-packed boots and tumbling into a mother/daughter heap.

At nearly seventy, she shouldn’t have been down on the floor, but there was no reasoning with her. Once she’d decided on a course of action, nothing short of incarceration would stop my mother. 

‘Erm, do you think you could move? I’m freezing my doodads here.’

She glanced up, her head at a weird angle. ‘Right. I think I’ve got them all now, anyway.’

Her getting upright was a sight to behold, accompanied by the kind of grunts you’d not associate with an old woman. She gripped the worktop edge and heaved herself to her feet.

‘Oof, that floor is bloomin’ hard.’

I stepped into the utility room and closed the back door. My frozen derriere appreciated the instant rise in temperature, although I quickly realized Mother’s house wasn’t that warm.

This is based on an incident I had recently, and it struck me it would make an interesting and amusing opening to a novel!