I’ve told you on many occasions that our family is a bit on the nutty side. Which you’ll gather from today’s blog, titled Old McDonald and Mary!
Well it the nutty side came out again the other day while we were relaxing for ten minutes after lunch. It was longer than that but you get the drift.
Old McDonald
Anyway, I was minding my own business, engrossed in what I was doing when I started singing old ‘McDonald Had a Farm’ sort of under my breath.
The next thing Jane had joined in and we started singing more and more. Kevin joined in making all the animal noises, so there we were, the three of us singing at the top of our voices, while deciding which animal wanted to join our sing-song.
There was a lot of mooing, quacking, barking and all that sort of stuff, until Kevin decided it would be nice to have a bear. Along with horses and goodness knows what else. So there we were trying to remember which animal noises to make and in which order.
And on that farm…
Kevin was trying to make a bear growling sound, I was quacking and Jane was doing all sorts of animals. As you can imagine, by this time we were getting very giggly. In fact you’d have thought someone had slipped something in our dinner. But poor hubby never let his face slip and carried on tapping on his iPad which made us laugh even more. Jane did say if we were seen by anyone they would think we’d lost our marbles, but that would be hard to do as we lost them a long time ago.
It then took us on to singing other songs, the ones that we learnt at school. Remember when there would be a hall full of children singing their heads off, usually at the beginning of the school holidays. I don’t know if you good people used to sing these at school but we sang things like Michael Finnigan, he had whiskers on his chin-again, and so on.
I’ve never liked old McDonald so why I started singing that I don’t know. It must have been a mental block I had as I don’t like it at all. Anyway, there we were going through the repertoire of old school songs as you do in our house and a good old reminisce we had too.
Old McDonald and Mary, where does she come into it?
It reminded me of my school days in the dark ages and the things we used to do. One things that sticks in my mind was Christmas one year, probably when I was in my first infant school class and we had our Nativity play.
The different parts were given out and when it came to a dress rehearsal, I was told to play Mary, but I was having none of that. Some of the girls came in the most gorgeous white dresses with transparent, feathery wings and they looked so beautiful.
I was the quietest, shyest child you could ever wish to meet but I remember telling the headmistress that I didn’t want to be Mary. I wanted to be an angel and wear those beautiful costumes.
Like it or lump it
It was not to be though. My teacher told me that as no one else spoke in the play, only Mary, I would be the only one who could remember the lines. So that was it, I got the job.
And I was a disgruntled Mary, who had to say ‘In the Bleak Mid Winter’ all the way through. I can’t even remember what I was wearing. My mum’s limit on sewing was darning socks, putting buttons on and all that kind of thing. So who got me togged as Mary up I don’t know. Although it might have been an old pillowcase, tea towels or something equally not winglike…
Every time I hear in The Bleak Mid Winter I’m back at that day when I had to not forget my lines. I can still see those beautiful wings that I so wanted and couldn’t have. It’s stuck with me, as old as I am. Memories can be nice can’t they, well some of them.
Anyway there you have it. Old McDonald and Mary – how they’re nothing to do with each other!
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