Spring appears to have gained confidence here in Pebbleditch. The ringed collar dove which has woken me up at 5am every morning has either been shot, or got his oats, consequently I slept until 8.30 this morning; a good start to the day.
The prospect of a bank holiday weekend after a very busy week was very welcome. During this fortnight I have started a new job, training to be a QTA (Quite Terrible Actress, Quarrelsome Trainee Acrobat, Quality Teaching Assistant ). Work, like buses coming in threes and I have also done my editorial duty on the Pebbleditch Periodical. In addition to this, on Monday evening I found myself making a speech in front of the Annual Assembly of the Pebbleditch Parish Council explaining why the young people of the village deserve to be understood; in other words please give us help and cash.
So this morning, after rising late, I went for a quick jog and, while running, decided to devote the rest of the day to the garden. This ability to think while ‘running’ is an advance for me. Until recently I seemed only to be able to count my footsteps repeatedly and erratically and occasionally think ‘Shall I give up at the next lamp post?’
‘Yes’
‘No’
‘Maybe’
‘Yes’
‘I think I can manage one more’
‘1 pant pant, 2 pant pant, 3 pant pant, 4 pant pant, 5 pant pant, Oh God it hurts’
When I got home I cooked breakfast and then Whiz suggested that he might take Mavis out for a walk so that I could get on with the housework. This led to a certain amount of debate about who was getting the better end of the deal, as a result of which Whiz helped with the washing up – then went out with Mavis. I’d like to digress here a little. Whiz, my lovely husband, has two afflictions: I call them Convenient Bowel Syndrome and Exertion Hay Fever. The former results in half an hour spent in the lavatory while I am washing the dishes, and the latter affects him only when cutting the grass himself. Strangely, not a symptom is apparent if I cut the grass and he sits in a recliner watching me while sipping a Gin and Tonic! I don’t mind really, he has other attributes I value immeasurably.Back to my day – I know you are dying to know what I did next. Well, stripped the beds, did some washing, flung the vacuum cleaner round the ground floor, looked at the play room and decided to ignore it and headed for the garden.When I lived in North Wales someone once told me that ‘casting a clout’ meant putting your bedding plants out. Although I received this information with a certain amount of scepticism, it was certainly a good adage for gardening in sheep country. Now we live in the namby pamby south east, bedding plants and hanging baskets can safely be exposed to the open air by the end of April, so it was with anticipation that I dug into my four-year-old, well rotted, home made compost. The exercise was made slightly awkward because I had located my plastic, council subsidised, compost bin between the swing and the wall of the garage with the little access hatch pointing out from the space at 45?. This was not a problem per se but when I discovered a year later that one compost bin would not be enough and bought a second; the only place to put it was in front of the first one. Now the hatch of the first bin faced the side of the second one and the leg of the swing came down right in front of the space between the things.So there was I, trowel in hand, unable to kneel or squat, hunched round the leg of the swing and scooping trowels full of well rotted compost, packed with hundreds of pieces of egg shell and, for some reason, smelling slightly of sick.I filled my hanging baskets with the mixture and planted them with little bits of Lobelia, Geranium and the rest then turned my attention to the lawn. I had sprinkled it with lawn stuff the week before and it seemed to be doing its job, the grass had shot up and the weeds looked sickly – maybe that explained the smell, before?
Like Denis Norden I can list one of my favourite pastimes as Staring into Space. In Whiz’s defense (going back to the previously mentioned discussion), he knows this and takes Mavis out to give me the time do it. Pushing the mower up and down the lawn is the kind of activity conducive to pondering and I began to reflect that I hadn’t written anything for my ‘blog, for a while. As a matter of fact I did start something but it was so huge I decided it might have potential as a book so I shelved it ha ha!
I wondered whether a moral dilemma might provide material for an article. You know, one of those moral choices like: Would you rather have orgasms like a pig (not snorting and squealing but lasting, so I’m told though I’ve never actually had proof, for half an hour!) or be able to eat as much chocolate as you like and never put on weight?
I mused the choice; no contest as far as I’m concerned, the chocolate has it every time. Sad to think that the edge would be taken off the enjoyment of eating it when thinking of what I had sacrificed, but still, definitely chocolate for me. If you could loose weight by eating chocolate then I’d be in heaven.
We’re back to good fairies and wishes, aren’t we? You may remember my mentioning them in my first article. The subject brings to mind the indolent nature of our local tooth fairy. Mavis has lost her two bottom teeth since I last wrote. She dutifully put the first one, carefully stuck to a piece of card by her teacher, under her pillow. Did the damned fairy turn up? No. Three days went by before the lazy tinker (bell) deigned to leave her coin and take the tooth. When the second tooth came out Mavis’s expectations had been suitably crushed so imagine her surprise when, after rising at 6.00am one morning and finding the tooth still where she had left it, the Tooth Fairy, who must have been working an early shift, nipped into her room and furtively left her token. You can’t get anyone to turn up on time these days.
Well these seemingly pointless ramblings do have a purpose which I’ll now explain: Whiz was looking at the paltry, but growing, number of hits on my blog and noted with interest that the last one, about Easter, had had 200 page hits. What, I wondered, could have been the cause? It occurred to me that the appearance of the word ‘turd’ might have done the trick so this article is a kind of experiment. If ‘turd’ can get me 200 hits, how many will I get for ‘orgasm’?