Monthly Archives: December 2012

The pat test

Tim Footman gave a link to this splendid website, and it’s impossible to resist trying everything on it.  I’ve got a marvellously appalling letter from someone at the county council – it wasn’t actually written to me but forwarded: unfortunately it’s a PDF that can’t be copied and pasted, because I’m quite sure it would almost go off the bullshit scale.  I could type it in, I suppose, but it hardly seems worth it.  I tried a rather more innocuous letter from one of his colleagues and it came up with a score of 85 and a comment “This reeks.”

Today, I wore my contact lens for the first time in a fortnight.  I also ventured to apply makeup, though not mascara.  I seem to have managed being barefaced and bespectacled without feeling too self-conscious, though I have been asked a couple of times if I’m particularly tired, so it seems that the face-paint is an improvement.  Liberating for once in a way, not caring what I look like.  Not that I’m particularly vain, or I don’t think I am –  that’s probably not true.  We all have our vanities.

Squiffany spent much of the day here.  She caught the sickness bug that’s been going around, but Al and Dilly had an appointment with their solicitor about the buying of their house.   She lay palely in an armchair all morning, but revived by lunchtime and felt well enough to eat, and afterwards to play card and board games with me.  It was really lovely to have her to myself for a while … once she felt better of course, poor little love.  It’s a short-lived bug, only 12 hours – assuming she didn’t succumb again this evening, of course.  Some of Elle’s friends have caught it too, so I hope she doesn’t, nor the Sage and I. She’s due to go and stay with another family on Thursday and we won’t see much of her for the rest of the year.  It’ll be far too quiet, just the Sage and me.

15.  Only a few examples of bullshit English.  I wonder what they are?

Where seldom is heard a disparaging* word…

I was going to talk about Jane in the Land Army, but I’m distracted today by hearing about the daughter of friends, a girl about Ro’s age who got married a year or so ago, who is heavily pregnant and quite ill.  The baby is due at Christmas, but the mother-to-be has a thrombosis which can’t be treated fully until the baby has been delivered, but they’re reluctant to operate because of the extra risk incurred with the DVT.  But she’s feeling so exhausted and unwell that her mother hardly feels she’s capable of going through labour.  I can only begin to imagine how anxious they must all be and I’m so sorry for them.

I did my normal ineffectual-blue-arsed-fly impression this morning, though all started well.  Elle was planning to go to Norwich with a friend, but Sie (you see, Elle’s name starts with L and Sie’s with C.  Clever, eh?) has been ill with a stomach bug the last few days so it seemed unlikely to happen.  So I said I’d take Elle and she could get the bus back.  But we were just about to leave when we got the message that Sie was better and would come after all.  So I relaxed and didn’t do anything for a bit.  I was just about to leave for church when another phone call came.  Sie couldn’t find her way through Yagnub, because the road was closed for the annual Christmas Fair.  It was simpler to take Elle into town than describe how to get through it (round the roundabout, down Bridge Street, left into Nethergate Street, left into Broad Street, right into Popson Street, across the junction into Scale Street, left into Outney Road and turn right over the bridge).  We went out and I locked up.  Oh!  I’d forgotten the milk and biscuits.  I unlocked and went back for them.  Driving into town, I remembered I’d forgotten my clarinet too.  So I had to go back after dropping Elle off and fetch it.  Arriving at the church (the adjoining church rooms are used in the winter to save on heating costs) at 10.55 for an 11 o’clock service when you’ve coffee to prepare for and music to set up is cutting it fine, but people always help, don’t they?  And one of the hymns had a tune I wasn’t expecting and had never played (I was mixing it up with another one), so it might have been a good idea to look at the music in advance.  Still, no matter.  I may not be much of a clarinettist these days, but I can sight-read a hymn.  Aberystwyth, if you’re wondering.  I’d rather play it than spell it, in truth.

And then I made coffee and someone else washed up while I dried and we debated whether anyone would come to the 8 o’clock service next week and whether to cancel it.  Enquiries will be made and I’ll be told.

We said goodbye to Anthony and Sally, who are moving to Devon.  They are lovely friends and we’ll miss them a lot.  I know few people as kind and can’t imagine anyone kinder.  I’ve never heard them say a disparaging word about anyone.

*I know, it’s not a quote.

Z the man-pleaser.

It was very cold this morning and we had two men working outside the house.  Hourly mugs of tea seemed to be in order.  The Sage was going to Norwich with friend-with-a-chainsaw to remove some trees from Ro’s garden – planted too close to the house, they were not very attractive and darkened the house.  As he left, he suggested sausages for lunch might be in order – for the workers, that is.

I’d had an egg for breakfast, perfectly poached.  It’s easy to get good results with a new-laid egg, difficult otherwise, impossible if it’s more than a few days old.  Elle came down a bit later and I cooked her egg and bacon.  Then I went out and offered to cook sausages.  They demurred a bit until they saw I meant it, and then accepted.  Four sausages each and a stack of fried potatoes later, they took their fourth mugs of tea outside with them.

During the course of the day, six mugfuls each.

We went out for supper with Al, Dilly and the children.  All very jolly and the children were perfectly behaved.  Well, all of us were, not just the juniors.  They’re due to move house in less than three weeks so we want to spend some time together.  They’re planning to buy new beds and various things which is useful, as we’re going to furnish the bungalow and can use what they leave, or most of it.