I spent the morning thinking how jolly lovely people are. Because I cheerily said to someone whose granddaughter is getting christened here on Sunday that we’d decorate the church, that meant I landed four other people with the job of doing nine flower arrangements. And they are all really busy but no one complained a bit.
And then afterwards, I helped carry out three dozen cups and saucers and a hot-water urn to one of their cars so that she could take it to someone else’s house (she came and did her flower arrangement this afternoon) as I’d offered them for her coffee morning tomorrow, which I said I’d go to before I realised it clashed with something else.
And after that, I walked home, and there was the dustcart and the dustmen just emptying the wheely bins into it. The chap didn’t see me coming, but I saw him, bending to pick up a few bits that had fallen on the ground and tossing them in the dustcart. Then he carefully and neatly lined the bins against the wall. “I’m just in time to take them home, thank you,” I said jovially. “And, thank you for picking up the odds and ends,” I added. It’s not what dustmen are reputed to do – but actually, there’s never anything left lying around. And the bins were rather overfull as we forgot them last time, but they didn’t mind.
Later, I went to have lunch with a friend and we chatted so much that I rather overstayed and had to phone Al to ask him to let Tilly out. When I got home, I had a lot to do in the three-quarters of an hour before I was going out again, so I slammed a chicken leg into the oven, did Tilly’s dinner, chopped an onion and put it in a pan with some stock, let it cook for a bit, added some some vegetable soup I’d made a couple of days ago and a couple of tomatoes from a tin, put some new potatoes and a carrot on to cook separately (real cheat’s cookery here), belted down to the greenhouse to put the heater on and do the watering and close up – there was an air frost last night – took Tilly for a walk, came back and put the nearly-cooked chicken and the carrot in the sauce and back in the oven, phoned the Sage to check he had caught the train back from London, got a slice of bread and a chunk of cheese, ate some of them, emptied and refilled the dishwasher, put the potatoes in the casserole, prepared sprouting broccoli, ate the rest of the bread and cheese, put on lipstick, took the casserole out of the oven, put a plate to warm and wrote a couple of emails.
Then it was time to leave. On time.
The Sage had a lovely time in London. But he’d accidentally locked his phone and didn’t realise it, so didn’t know how to ring me. Isn’t he sweet? Lucky I checked, I was going to go to the Vodaphone place in Norwich tomorrow and say it didn’t work. I’d have felt such a fool.
Now that’s my sort of girl!…;-)
People are generally horrible….but now and then they aren’t.
Our dustbinmen are dicks.
‘F’ ing and blinding at 8 am.
I opened the bedroom window and shouted “Quiet!”
They looked bemused so I decided to speak in their tongue.
“Shut the f*ck up!”
“Sorry mate” they said and shut the f*uck up.
Can we have yours please?
I can’t decide which I enjoyed more, this post, or the comment.
How on earth could you do all that in so little time? Honestly, it would take me at least an hour and a half.
I am often completely disarmed by how kind people are. Makes me resolve to try harder.
The comment I think, don’t you, Dand?
I did go up a gear, Marion. But it’s all a matter of doing things in the right order.
Looks like a ground frost here – just got back from my morning consititutional, and despite the fog we’ve now got, the ground is completely frosted.
Yes – and the grass on the meadows is growing very slowly as the ground’s still cold. Between that and the rabbits, it’s still too short to have the cows over as there’s not enough for them to eat.
Sun’s shining brightly now, though. I’m just off to Norwich in a few minutes.
Mrs Dale’s Diary? No, you must be too young. All the same, I’m waiting for ‘I’m rather worried about the Sage’ to become a catch-phrase.
I’d have thought I’d have reminded people more of Lilian Bellamy than Mrs Dale. Though to be sure, the Sage has little in common with Matt Crawford. I can’t answer for his resemblance to Jim Dale as, indeed, although I remember Mrs Dale’s Diary, I never listened to it as a child.
Have you started wearing rollerblades? The amount of things you got done in 45 minutes was astounding!
Another fine example of why I want to be just like you when I grow up*)
oh I love busy days like this one, and our dustbin men are useless, they leave most of the rubbish on the floor and the bins in the road.