I’m Sister Pukka. Not in the nun/religious sense; more best friend and rival to Mother Pukka and the unstylish, buffoonish one of the Pukka family. I also happen to be a butch bad ass lesbian. (Well actually I’m a bit of a girly wimp and was straight until two years ago when I happened to fall in love with an incredible woman. But I quite like the gravitas associated with being a butch lesbian. I’ll get there one day. Just need to experiment with a few haircuts.)
So I’ve decided to jump in on this blogging Instagram malarky (on a strictly non-pouty basis) for a few reasons. Primarily because it gives me the opportunity to ridicule and terrorize my older sister to an audience of thousands. What younger sister wouldn’t jump on that bandwagon?
The second reason is to support my pea brain of a sister (really her head is abnormally small – she just hides it well under cunning hair styles; check it out). Because she’s my buddy, and the Mother Pukka cause is something wonderful. With dollops of self-deprecation, the odd parrot costume and heaps of tenacious desperation to keep the urchin entertained, she helps people to smile through the parental madness. And, incidentally, causing me not only smile but howl with laughter when she tried to explain the Mother Pukka concept to our super-educated Grandfather. (He misheard and thought the name was Mother F****r. I didn’t correct him – Aunty’s prerogative)
But I witnessed how hard it (the baby thing) is first hand when I lived right next door to my sister in Amsterdam. While excelling as an irritating 3rd wheel in her and Papa Pukka’s relationship, I soon came into my own as an integral pillar of maternal and paternal support: namely swooping in just as the babe had fallen into a cherubic sleep, sipping a margarita and wittering on about my latest Tinder escapades while my sober sis was hooked up – complete with sleep deprived eye twitch – to that horrifying lactation machine. You know the one – looks like two upturned funnels and leaves the mammaries looking so very sad. So, so sad.
I like to think I helped sis out during that first mad year. And while Mother Pukka and Papa Pukka soon learnt how to “parent the shit out of life”, I soon also realized the importance of shoe-horning myself into their lives.
I developed my unique role in this family affair as “silly Aunty Daz”, doing whatever demeaning act I could to make the urchin giggle. Whether performing a tap dance in public in a reindeer outfit, or letting the urchin sit on my shoulders and steer me around the British museum by my hair (like Ratatouille does with the chef – guaranteed entertainment for hours), I’ll do whatever it takes to offer Mother and Papa Pukka a moment of respite and see that beaming toothy smile from my niece.
But personally for me, when it comes to the subject of love, life and family, I’ve done a bit of a 180 in the last couple of years. I was SO close to settling down with a nice successful man, doing the whole marriage, two kids and a Labrador thing when (much to my parent’s dismay – the poor, poor people), it all changed and I met my amazing my wife-to-be. So I now find myself engaged to a woman, living on a houseboat in the middle of Amsterdam, still wanting to have kids but without that pesky sperm close-to-hand. (Please don’t read this as a creepy cyber plea for sperm; just stating the biological facts).
I wished there was a voice out there to normalize what it is for two women to be together: from the process of falling in love to “coming out”, getting engaged, having children and just generally having a ball together and fannying about (there she is). Because from my experience, while everyone pretends to be “down with the kids” and all cool with lesbians and shit, a lot of people – lesbians and moi included – still struggle with certain aspects of it.
So that’s the aim of the Sister Pukka game: to ridicule sis, inspire the world with a new level of Aunt-related silliness and to be a voice for those people out there who believe that love is love, no matter the gender.
Just need to get a buzz cut and a tattoo now.
