Granny Dunwich spins a yarn

The Werewolf (I prefer "Caveman Charlie" actually) writes:

Hello dear, I just thought I'd stop by and see how your blog is doing. 35 hits already, not bad, eh? Who would have thought so many people wanted to read your diary?

My blog is well over the 2000 mark now, it seems my reminiscences of my days in the music industry are rather popular. That's Going Crazy With Caveman Charlie, at www.cavemancharlie.fruitcake.com, in case any of your readers are interested!

Since your blog consists of bits and bobs of our family life, I thought I'd write an entry for you. This is a Granny Dunwich story.

I went round to my parents' on Sunday, to help Dad spray DDT on next door's Leylandii hedge. Mum hadn't done her usual baking session on Saturday. The turf war between the Women's Institute and the Cross-stitch Circle has been hotting up and she spent most of Saturday out delivering threatening letters. So instead of the usual pile of buns she offered me a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich.

"I've always hated Branston pickle," I grumbled. "Have you eaten all that apple and rhubarb chutney I gave you?"

"The men from Alpha Centauri said it was great!" she retorted. This sounded like the start of one of my Mum's tall stories, so I settled back in her Parker Knoll chair and put my disbelief on hold.

"It was back in the summer of 1969, I remember it because your Dad had got you out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the first moon landing live on the telly," she said, smiling at the memory. "The next day you were so tired and grumpy, I was quite cross about it. Your Dad had you out in the workshop making a model. I was making some fairy cakes when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to these three funny-looking creatures. They said they were Jehovah's Witnesses from Alpha Centauri, but they didn't fool me. They were all under five feet tall, and dressed in strange grey material from head to toe, they even had hoods made from it. And they had the strangest shoes, with such thick, soft soles that you couldn't hear them when they walked. When they lowered their hoods I could see that they had short hair that stuck up at the oddest angles. Jehovah's Witnesses never look like that. Obviously they were Short Ugly Greys.

"Well, I was bored so I played along. I invited them in and made them a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches while they watched the Clangers. They got very excited about the Branston pickle (one said it was "better than the Werewolf's!") and when Trumpton came on the telly, they went wild. I suppose they can't receive it on Alpha Centauri.

"I went out to put the fairy cakes in the oven. When I came back one of the little grey people was holding up a small, matt-black device, like something out of Start Trek. He said it was a Mobile. He kept pointing it all round the room and pressing funny little buttons, while making sounds like "Cool!" "Phat!" and "L.O.L.!"

I watched him until the kitchen timer beeped and I went back out to to sort out the cakes. When I came back the sitting room to find the little people watching footage of the moon landing the night before. The one with the Mobile was pointing it at the telly and shouting "Oh wow! This is sick!" I suppose they weren't too happy about our first steps into space. Then another of them said that if they didn't run for it they'd "miss the end of Merlin" (whatever that meant) and they left in a hurry."

"Well, Mum, that's an interesting story," I said as calmly as I could. It doesn't do to get her over-excited. "Quite strange, don't you think?"

"Oh, you haven't heard the weird bit yet," she answered brightly. (Really? I unplugged my disbelief at the mains and waited.) "They left their Mobile behind when they ran out. I thought they might come back for it, so I put it in the china cabinet next to my Edward the Eighth coronation mug. The next day I had a visit from two strange Men In Black wearing serious suits and dark glasses. They warned me not to tell anyone what had happened and they took the Mobile away with them."

Mum finished her cup of tea, stood up and started to load the cups, saucers and plates back onto the tea tray. "No," she said reflectively, "the really weird part was this: one of the little people from Alpha Centauri looked an awful lot like your Dad when he was a boy."