To start with, happy blogday to me. 18 years and still sliding down the razorblade of life, with eternal thanks to the wonderful Tom Lehrer for the name of this blog and for his generosity in giving his musical work, free of copyright.

A good friend died, earlier this month. He was a year or so older than the Sage, who died nearly 10 years ago, though one would have said that J’s health was, overall worse. But he didn’t have cancer. I offered to do flowers for the church for his funeral and my fellow churchwarden (it was Dave who used to be known as the Fellow, so B and I will just have to be sister churchwardens and I’ll call her Sis) and I talked about the arrangements yesterday.

Today, I decided to drive over to the next small town which is, in fact, at least double the size of Yagnub and therefore has several supermarkets. Yagnub has excellent shops and I normally buy everything everyday there, but I admit that the expense of the lovely florist (I did shop there for myself last week) put me off, for all that I needed. I noticed that a single bunch of tulips was nearly £10, for instance. Anyway, Tesco has very good flowers. So that’s where I’d go. Wink said she’d come with me.

I noticed a sort of clunch as I drove down the drive, but thought I must have gone over one of the big Stone Pine (this is the name of the species; the tree is made of wood and is alive) cones, but shortly afterwards, the low tyre pressure light came on. It doesn’t take much, I didn’t take it very seriously for the next mile and a half, then I did. So I stopped as soon as I could – flat tyre. This tyre has been losing pressure, more than one would expect, for a while, but the excellently helpful young man at the local tyre place checked it and found no leaks. So I’ve just checked it every week and it’s sometimes needed some air. Anyway, flat. I pumped it up, but it was unwilling to inflate fully. So I decided to go to the tyre place, a couple of miles away, rather than go on to Becls.

I had to pump it up twice more and each time it inflated less. I arrived, stopped on the road and spoke to the proprietor, who said he’d got one person to deal with first – I just kept inflating the tyre all the time I was waiting and noticed the small rip where the air was coming right back out again. Obviously, a new tyre was needed and it would have to be ordered. I’m so grateful for the help. But I was two miles from home, so I said I’d walk and come back with Wink’s car.

I thought again. What are friends for, if you don’t feel able to impose on them? I phoned fellow churchwarden Sis and, kind as she eternally is, she came and fetched us. So we set off again to Becls. We bought the flowers – white lilies, yellow roses and some deep red and some paler alstroemerias – and I said that the least I could do was cook dinner for Wink tonight, so I’d call at the farm shop on the way.

Driving back, a road closure was not announced in time for me to go through the town instead, so we were diverted through interesting back streets until there was an ‘end of diversion’ sign with no suggestion of where to go. We guessed right however and got onto the back road between the two towns. A car coming towards us flashed its lights several times, making me think there was something wrong with Wink’s car. There wasn’t however: there had been an accident ahead. Later, I read on the local facebook page that there’d been a head-on collision and two people had had to be cut out of their cars.

We decided to go out for lunch, because. Just because, by this time. Wink suggested a nice pub by the river. I knew where she meant, but not how to get there, but she did … except she didn’t. We weren’t lost, we just didn’t find it. So we ended up somewhere else, at a cafe I’ve been meaning to try for a long time and we had a nice snack.

Anyway, while the day was shaped somewhat like a pear, we took the bright side of life. The tyre was failing by the minute. Another mile and I’d not have been able to put any air into it at all. I turned round just in time. The accident happened ten minutes before we got to the site and the diversion delayed us for just about that time. I did get the flowers – they cost about £40 and would have been triple that locally, so I’ll put the extra to the charity that I expect a collection will be taken for at the funeral. I feel quite lucky and very grateful.

I took a pheasant, which I’d bought at the farm shop a few weeks ago, out of the freezer and we had that for dinner. In my usual way, I ate all the carrots I’d prepared, before getting as far as cooking them and had to cut up more.

There are various jollifercations, as we call them in Norfolk, planned for later in the year, but that’s for another time. I’m in the process of setting a day for the blog party, which is likely to be the Bank Holiday weekend in late May or else the 13th July. I’ll come back to that later too – if anyone would like to come but is constrained for dates, do say – June isn’t out of the question, but most of July would be difficult and so would August. More of that later, however.