Steve Canavan: Keeping mum is a lot harder than I thought

We did consider not helping and leaving her to fend for herself, but on reflection decided that was cruel, and furthermore, might backfire if she left us out of the will.

Anyway, what normally happens is we put the shopping – milk, bread, haemorrhoid ointment – on the doorstep, knock on the window and have a brief mouthed conversation through the glass along the lines of, “Hi Mum. I’ve left your shopping on the doorstep.”

“Who’s been knocking?”

“No, I’ve left the SHOPPING on the doorstep.”

“20 past four I think, but she might phone earlier.”

“NO, MUM, I’VE LEFT YOUR SHOPPING ON THE DOORSTEP!”

“I don’t think so, Barbara said she isn’t available this afternoon.”

Then she says something about not being able to talk, and scuttles off to play her fourth session of online bridge that morning. She’s got a better social life in isolation than in normal times.

My sisters have it worse than me. They live nearer my mum and, during lockdown, have been making her tea on a daily basis, providing a meals-on-wheels service.

My mum – who is completely independent and able-bodied, by the way – is quite enjoying this turn of events and has even started getting stroppy about what time her food arrives.

“10 past five our Jane turned up with my cottage pie,” she told me on the phone. “I had to phone to ask where it was, after all, they know with my bowels I need to eat at regular times.”

But back to the story I set out to tell. My mum phoned the other day to tell me she couldn’t get the TV in her bedroom to work. We hatched a plan – and if this breaks any laws, fair cop, the police know where I live if they want to arrest me – that involved her standing in the garden, while I went inside to sort the telly.

The next morning we did just that. Now I’m no electrician – although I did once mend a kettle by wrapping masking tape around a dodgy lead (it could well have resulted in death for anyone who touched it, but, hey, it was cheaper than getting a professional in to do it) – but even I would back myself to sort out a TV. Especially as my mum would almost certainly have accidentally pulled a lead out or done some other obvious thing.

So while mother relaxed in the garden on a sun-lounger, I went into the back bedroom and started fiddling with the telly. I spent 20 minutes trying every lead in every possible hole. I pressed the on button. Nothing.

“Are you nearly done?” my mother shouted, briefly breaking off from applying sun-cream and reading her Catherine Cookson novel. “I’ve got bridge with Maureen at 12.”

“Not quite mother,” I replied, before adding with heavy sarcasm, “sorry for keeping you.”

My mum, who either doesn’t understand sarcasm or chooses to ignore it, replied, “it’s ok love”.

I pulled out every lead, googled the make of TV on my phone and started again from scratch, painstakingly putting each wire in the appropriate place. Convinced I had done it correctly I switched the set on. Nothing.

I googled it again and this time followed a 10-minute instructional video. It still didn’t work.

After 45 minutes of trying – and by this time I had a light sweat on and was feeling ever-so-slightly slightly frustrated – I went outside and said: “Mum, it just won’t switch on, I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”

She followed me into the house – keeping a safe distance – and stood looking at the TV, then said: “Oh, you’ve got it in the wrong socket.”

“What do you mean?” I replied suspiciously, sensing I wasn’t going to like the answer.

“That plug socket’s not working,” she said, as if it was blindingly obvious.

“But the TV was plugged into that socket when I arrived,” I said, trying, and failing, to keep the frustration out of my voice.

To which she replied, without a word of a lie: “Oh, I just put it in that socket because it looks tidy when I’m not using it.” Then, pointing to the other side of the room, added, “it goes in that socket over there when I actually want it on”.

It was at this point I briefly considered attacking her with a heavy-duty rolling pin. However, I restrained myself, then put the plug into the other socket as directed, pressed the on button, and hey presto, the TV worked.

“Right, I must be off now mum,” I said, but she interrupted and asked if, before I went, I could just have a look at the main TV in the lounge because “it’s very dark when I’m watching The Crown”.

The colour on the TV was absolutely fine. All the settings were correct and it looked perfect.

“It’s fine mum,” I shouted through the window, as she was now back in the garden finishing off the Cookson.

“I know it’s fine when you’ve got it on normal TV,” she replied, “but when I’m watching The Crown it’s very dark.”

“Mum,” I said, exasperation in voice now clear, “I’m not sure there’s much I can do about that – there isn’t a button on your remote control that says ‘improve lightness when watching The Crown’.”

“No need to get shirty. If you can’t fix it I’ll have to put up with it. Would you mind leaving – it’s bridge time.”

A mere 70 minutes after I’d arrived to try and fix a TV plugged into a socket that wasn’t working I got in my car and, once the door was closed, let out a stifled yell and beat the steering wheel.

Mothers, who’d have ’em?