Even in a good year, February tends to be the month when not much happens, and as testament to that I can report that the biggest news this week was a Facebook post about my mother’s experience of online shopping at Sainsbury’s:

My mother has had 51 likes so far and 28 comments (“I’ll have it if you can’t manage that much,” “Don’t fight over it,” “That’s more than enough for me” etc). My first thought was to wonder why she was buying a kilo of sprouts for two people. Eating a kilo of sprouts is bound to have an effect but at least they are not expecting company anytime soon. Then I thought of the joke about the man who goes to the doctor with a banana stuck in one ear, a brussels sprout in the other ear and a carrot in one nostril and the doctor tells him he should think about how to eat more sensibly. It’s a bad joke but it’s February and I’ll take whatever is available.

Mainly though this bit of February frivolity took me back to my mother’s many culinary adventures over the years of ‘Alwynne’s Classic Catering (“You are what you eat, so eat the best”). Most of the time, things went smoothly and on a grand scale (I often think about the time a huge truck pulled up and when I asked my mother what was being delivered, she said, “Currants”). Occasionally though, there were problems, as in the time when she tried to make a full English Sunday roast in the wild west of Wyoming, where the average elevation is 6,600 feet above sea level, meaning water boils at a lower temperature and Yorkshire puddings don’t rise. This is not the kind of thing a Teesdale childhood prepares you for.

Then there was the time, long, long ago, when my dad and I were sent to Toft Hill Methodist Chapel in an Austin Maxi full of food: the seats were down and on top of boxes of food and crockery some wooden trays of individual trifles were dangerously perched. As we arrived at the chapel my dad braked rather abruptly, causing the trifles to be propelled violently forward catching both our heads with slapstick precision. In the catering world, it is generally frowned upon to turn up wearing the food you are expecting people to eat but this got real laughs and gave me a real-life opportunity to recycle a joke I’d been carrying around for years. “You’ll have to forgive my dad. He’s got jelly in one ear and custard in the other. He’s a trifle deaf.”

Every year for a long time my mother catered for the Butterknowle Christmas dance. This was a bizarre event in which a small group of us were expected to serve a three course meal to about a hundred people in 90 minutes and then get the room cleared so that the dancing could get started. Every year the electrics in the village hall blew, and every year I was reunited with my old driving instructor, Bob who would always start our annual conversation with the words, “Hello Kevin, are you still driving?” Bob was a good driving instructor, but his catchphrase, which I used to dread was “Now for that you would fail.” I half expected to hear those words again as a waiter at those Christmas dances. A spot of soup splashing onto a plate – “Now for that you would fail.” Forgetting one person on a table – “Now for that you would fail.” Making a hash of the three point turn made necessary by someone arriving back at the table just when I was trying to exit with armfuls of plates – “Now for that you would fail.” Only giving a person one brussels sprout. “Now for that you would fail.”

If Bob had said these words in that context he might have had a point as I was not the greatest waiter. I once dropped some potato down a man’s suit and before I thought through the consequences said, “Didn’t you ask for a jacket potato?” There was another time when I was a waiter at a murder mystery night and whilst serving the desserts, I quipped to the people on one table in as sinister a voice as I could muster, “It’s called Death by Chocolate for a reason.” It didn’t get as big a laugh as I’d hoped but at the end of the evening that table declared me to be the murderer only to be told that I wasn’t even a character in the mystery.

Memories like these are good in the cold days of February, when not much happens to get excited about. February is, of course, the shortest month of the year, which is good because most of us think that 28 days is enough and no one is asking for any extra portions.

“Would you like another slice of February?”

“No, really, what I have on my plate is quite enough thank you, but if you’ve got any more sprouts that would be lovely.”

“Oh I’m sorry, there was just the one I’m afraid.”

In this particular month of February, I feel for the people who have children at home and are attempting home schooling, particularly those who are trying to work at the same time. Some of these children appear on the zoom conferences I have at work and sometimes they wave and behave charmingly but then I hear that the rest of the time they are feral beasts who leave their parents in varying states of derangement and have now watched Netflix in its entirety.

A student turns up to see one of my colleagues feeling stressed by life and makes the claim that the only way they can get through their teacher training is to not do the teaching part. Another old joke intrudes on my day:

 “Mummy, mummy, please don’t make me go to school. They call me names and I don’t like it.”

“Sorry son. You have to go. You’re the headmaster.”

February can get us down and make us not want to get up and do the things that need to be done. But there is hope of more exciting things ahead:

Rumour has it that my mother might be getting another delivery from Sainsbury’s.