Roll your sleeves up and participate

I know you’re all pacing the floor, unable to relax until you know that the Sage is safely home with me – well, he is, so you can.  I cut the lilac hedge, it having finished flowering (isn’t that just begging to be translated into Latin?) and mused that I might finally be starting to grow up, because I gathered up all the cuttings into the big green wheelbarrow instead of leaving them to the fairies.  Having done that, I swept the part of the drive where the cutting had been done, which was even more remarkable.  Truth to tell, I only did that to check whether the Sage would notice the job had been done, because he had been going to ask Friend with a Chainsaw.  He did notice, of course.  He’s so observant.  It might not seem remarkable to you, that a hedge cut back by 12 or 18 inches is noticed, but I’d not see it, possibly not for a week or two.

Tomorrow, I’m going to a lecture about Stanley Spencer – in preparation for this (I know, darlings, you think that I’m ever spontaneous, but you may be surprised) I visited Cookham last week to see his paintings in his home town.  And, indeed, the home town too.  I have to remember to get there early as the AGM comes first.  I shall be happy to sit, mostly anonymously, in the audience and not on the stage giving a proper actual-factual written speech, which I’d done for four years.  Not a continual four year span, you understand, but ten minutes at a time, four times, annually.  I have agreed to propose a proposal, but it only involves raising my hand at the appropriate time.

Afterwards, Weeza has promised to help friends with the organisation of their house-move, so she’s leaving Zerlina with us again for the afternoon.  Tilly will be very happy.   What’s nice is that the happiness lasts, she has been very cheerful and affectionate all day today.  Her sight and hearing are so much poorer in the last few months that she can tend to withdraw into herself.

The title of the post has nothing to do with the post, except that I’ve just read it on Roses’ blog.  And it encapsulates the art of life.  That’s what life is for, darlings.  As Weeza, with her London Ways, would say, JFDI.

8 comments on “Roll your sleeves up and participate

  1. Roses

    Hello my lovely.

    Sorry I’ve been a bit absent. Good to hear he’s home again with you. The Sage strikes me as the kind of man who notices everything, but says little. And when he does choose to say something…yes, well, things happen.

    JFDI. My new phrase. My new motto.

    Reply
  2. Z

    It’s true, Roses, and I appreciate how polite and tolerant he is, whilst sometimes wishing I didn’t have to guess quite so much.

    I spent years hanging back, Gledwood. I don’t now.

    Mago darling, in town, you have a hedge trimmer. In the country, you get a chainsaw.

    I bet you think this post is about you, Dave, dear heart.

    ‘London Ways’ was an expression coined by my late mother, Christopher. We gathered that it wasn’t entirely complimentary, but never asked her what she meant. However, that hasn’t stopped us using it ever since.

    Reply
  3. Z

    I’d not come across it before, not as an abbreviation, that is – and it’s in today’s Times.

    It seems that we’re all going to get a lot done this summer. Together, even. Possibly!

    Reply

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