We broke the front door for the new year. One of us – guilty, yer honour – played a key role in the disaster; we do not blame, or at least not in so many words. Dirty looks, yes.
We could have just used the back door and declared the front door off limits.
I have history with that. It was the inside door to my mother’s kitchen. I locked it one time and it refused to open, even when I charged at it like a juggernaut. The kitchen could only be accessed from the outside back door.
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It meant scooting out the back, through the garden and in through the garage every time you wanted to boil a kettle for a cup of tea. Then, do it all in reverse, clutching the tray of tea. It was, shall we say, a short-term fix because ma and I liked 10 cups of tea a day and we got tired running round the back.
My friend came round to sit at the fire and talk Christmas last week. It turned out that she had done in her front door too. She ended up calling a locksmith.
The men in my house consulted Dr Google and had an interesting morning measuring and running to Screwfix – their new best friends – and then fixing it.
Perhaps fixing things is the adult equivalent of the Mecanno or Lego sets that came every Christmas. My heart would sink at the sight of them.
My heart always sinks at the sight of building work – not least Ikea flat packs
The three little words I like to whisper in my husband’s ear are: “Pay the man.”
Long ago, father and son spent many happy hours on the floor building Star Wars Lego for Christmas.
So the front door catastrophe – like the blocked sink and the broken light fitting – led to a little male bonding.
A new key for a new year...
I wonder is there a symbolism about breaking your front door and getting a new key for a new year.
If my mother spoke like that, my father would warn her that she was “talking like a tuppenny book”.
But I’m not so sure. Maybe this is just the tale of two broken doors. Or maybe it is time to throw out the old keys.
I see myself as a teenager, a young woman, a busy mother – always with my bag dumped on a front doorstep, bent over, tail up like a duck, hoking through tissues and wipes, chocolate bars and cards, to find my blessed key
I tried to open the front door with the old one the other day before remembering that it was now officially defunct.
“Why have you still got the old key on your key ring,” asked my husband.
Why indeed, Sigmund might ask.
But then Sigmund knows that my drawers are full of old keys.
There are brass and silver ones; keys hooked into an ancient leather pouch; locker keys and Yale keys... keys to places I left behind so very long ago.
Sometimes, I empty my junk drawer and hold each one up to the light.
There is a tiny set of two miniature keys – that opened the first diary I ever got.
I inherited my mother’s pile of keys from long ago doors that were dumped.
It’s like a puzzle that I can’t quite solve. What is this key, what did it open, why do I hold onto it?
Sometimes I glimpse the whisp of a memory in a dark corner, something half remembered.
I see myself as a teenager, a young woman, a busy mother – always with my bag dumped on a front doorstep, bent over, tail up like a duck, hoking through tissues and wipes, chocolate bars and cards, to find my blessed keys.
Perhaps this is the year to dump them all. But in my pocket, my old keys are metal grooved with memories. I’ll keep them close.
