The last week apart from one day in London attending a useful medical awareness day, has been a whirlwind of frenzied fuss, also a test of my limited patience. Up to full tempers 0 - 10 in under two minutes. I have according to him indoors, developed my horrible telephone voice. (normally only for PMT), where I hiss too much when saying 'yes' and drum my fingers violently on the furniture when talking and stamp my feet. I have acute estate agent-itis and if I hear one more patronizing voice telling me how helpful they are being I think I may be driven to drink. As long is it not fizzy or beer and only red wine, I may for the second time in one week indulge this whim. I told the estate agent at the top of our chain that the next time I move house it will be in a wooden box with brass handles. He has one of those strangled sounding voices which makes me wonder what he strained in order to bring this about.
Also due to the frantic nature of the buying and selling chain, other things are going wrong. At one point I caught sight in the mirror of a very cross red faced lady with a carrier bag on her head, before realizing that I had forgotten how long I had applied hair dye, then managed to stain the grouting of the bathroom tiles as I frantically splashed about with some violence. These had previously been cleaned with bleach and an old toothbrush accompanied by meaningless muttering, as I prepare to let go of my lovely house to nice new people. I was seeing lots of people at the meeting in London and did not want to look like one of those ladies who has gone all at once. Especially as I was due to meet Louise Warvill for the first time, and did not want to give her too much of a shock.
Everything else is trundling along, but I am sure that trouble attracts trouble. I keep receiving endless invitations to buy Viagra coming in by email addressed to Mr Mary, and my husband has received various adverts about enlarging his breasts surgically. I think my endless annoyance and vendor and seller induced fury has even caused my phone to die. My lovely brick sized builders phone in black, supposedly indestructible, and suitable for an ex tom boy such as my self, also fully squash proof and water proof in fact anything proof, was clearly not friend on farm next door proof and was duly fried with the wrong charger. My husband immediately went and bought me one, probably to stop me buying one. It has been replaced by a light pink nasty thing and I HATE IT. I also drop it continually and I manage to turn it off every time it rings.
The other night as I arrived back from the event I attended in London, I gave the new hated phone a very good work out. He as in my man had left me a message saying, see you at the station in the pub. Well we use two stations, and neither of them have a pub. He as usual was clearly after sending the message in some sort of beer induced ignore telephone mode. On arriving at the first station down the line. I stepped off the train to be greeted by a grinning man, actually he was grinning at the woman getting off behind me, but never mind his get up caught my attention immediately. A cracking pair of legs fit for the rugby pitch and topped off with a black leather kilt, I could barely believe my eyes. After that brief bit of research into the male population I then went on the hunt for my husband, no sign of him anywhere, and of course, no phones being answered. I launched into the sort of foot patrol dragging travel suit case that women of a certain age and disposition do in such circumstances. My surveillance paid off and in the distance I spied a silver car with a familiar deep layer of mud all over it, also a very tell tale thunderous dent in the boot. He dropped a boat we were towing a few seasons back, which for some reason was still full of the water it had filled up with over the winter. it became top heavy as we lurched up the road, demolished the rusty trailer and ended up lying on top of the car. He buffs the dent in an optimistic penny pinching manner roughly once a year, but actually it enables me to always see which car belongs to us.
I found him close by in a noisy bar, holding court in a pub full of sailors and salty sea dogs and keen to stay there and not go home. I was gripped tightly in a bear hug and told to drink gin. However I was too tired but enjoyed myself nevertheless.
My week is pepping up though despite the state of limbo we are in with houses. I just met my friend Dither's off the train. She appeared in a sea of purple and pink flowing clothes, with lots of framed paintings lashed with rather a suspect rope to a builder's trolley, for an impending exhibition. I am going to help her have it in a flower shop. lots of ladies will arrive and waft on through and hopefully drink wine and buy them all, while I appear temporarily ladylike for a short period of time, letting out light tinkling laughs etc.
After setting this up for a future date, we reached the speed of a gallop up the nearest hill, and disappeared into a very nice restaurant on the pretense of business networking. Actually as I consumed seared scallops in the style of a boa constrictor. I did between mouthfuls manage to convince the very nice manager that she needed to urgently attend a private view of new paintings etc.
My evenings of late have been doing work for my husband and writing rude emails to estate agents and also allowing one of my darling cats Mrs Figs to watch videos she likes on YouTube, she does like the twittering birds or the rat in a wheel and rattles her teeth and tufts up the end of her tail with excitement. Also when I have been actually doing some work, I have been beautifully distracted by Dither's on various social networks or the telephone, explaining to me in detail how she is trying to organize her Gok Wan capsule wardrobe again, for some reason I find it totally hysterical due to the detail she goes into, because I know perfectly well, it will be stuffed into a wardrobe and un capsuled at a moment's notice.
Any hint of me not doing work for him can be balanced out by me noticing that he is again not working but ordering more concertinas. They are sweet, but for some reason the particularly folky ear piercing twiddly current tune is driving me mad, I associate it with his deep procrastination which of course matches my own distraction with writing blogs, being amused by Dithers or indeed finding things for the cat to watch on line.
He is a lovely husband and the other day, after we had been both made furious for hours, with internet fuss in our house brought on by a storm. We had to give up, and went miles away with our lap tops to run the business and have a working lunch.. This was great and he positioned himself very near the best beer tap. Once we were set up, and almost panting, due the the relief of having phone signals AND being able to access our messages and requests, down went the net in the pub. We had to admit defeat and once back in the car, it became clear that the electrics appeared to have fused in there.
This is a regular occurrence and is sorted normally by a trip to an ancient garage situated in a WW2 hut in the middle of nowhere, and is run by a collection of very wild and rather fruity brothers who always wink if I arrive. Actually to be clear if anybody who is not a man arrives! My husband looked rather crestfallen and said it has happened again, look no lights, no indicators, no lights inside the car. He then added that nobody had ever got to the bottom of it. The elder of the brother had a particular look on his face hearing this, a similar expression to one I often have myself. He leaned into the car, and grasped a vast amount of trailing wires which are things plugged in by my husband to power an enormous amounts of gadgets, music systems, phones etc, a veritable birds nest of things to be powered.
The problem being according to the mechanic in chief, is that he plugs them all in, starts the car and blows the whole lot including some of the small bulbs. He was told to pay attention. I meanwhile had to recline the front passenger seat so I could shriek with laughter in a more relaxed position. We drove away with a large and free supply of bulbs and an extra special lecture given to him.
Tonight Dither's and I, are going to make proper battered squid with lemon... 'Calamari' I have perfected a gluten free batter and tested it on onion rings... then we are going to make herb crusted salmon with garlic potatoes and lots of other dishes, including a tomato and basil salad with chives. Other friends are going to come around, as this may be the last time we have fun in this house before the move. With regards to his office, a firelighter and a match rather than a removal lorry. It is however, not all doom and gloom. Once we have moved, I am going to go all Boho, Shabby Chic Upcycle nothing will be bought new. My husband is rather alarmed at the thought of spray painted silver sideboards with perforations to allow throbbing LED lighting to cast coloured glows about the place and snorted at my idea of an over sanded kitchen table with purple shiny legs, I did not dare get to the bit about his mother's 1960's kitchen cupboard and my plans for that.
More extra fuss planned as we start to move on down the line.
MaryF xx
Ps please collect Sainsburys Active Kids tokens for me for my local hospital
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Keep up the blogs Mary they have a way of making me laugh which is the best of tonics too!!! xxx
