Wind up

Windy. Rainy. Cold.

The storms over this part of Europe last weekend have left their mark. Trees and powerlines down, flooded basements, lifted rooves, ruined livelihoods...we sat in mute silence as hurricane force winds whipped around the house, swaying the nearby trees…alarmingly…

We had a telephone call from the mayor.

‘Red alert!Red alert! Stay inside…there’s an enormous tempest coming…’

In all my years as a London drone, I never received a call from the mayor. I doubt Boris offers the same level of customer service now, either.


So we did. Stayed inside, that is. Quaking with fear (yeah, ok…I’m hamming it up a bit…but it was averagely petrifying, I’ll have you know.) Airborne debris flew over the attic window. A lethal sheet of corrugated iron landed in the field nearby where it cartwheeled to a standstill against the enormous Holme Oak.

One particularly ferocious gust had all three of us ducking involuntarily…quite funny really….Sprog is not used to his father showing fear…whereas I am, naturally…

Treewise, the conifers seemed to have really suffered. And the larger, more gangly poplars looked twisted and sad.Now, if you poke your nose out into the chill air the buzz of chainsaw bites. Blue EDF choppers surf the cables, checking pylons for damage…there is activity everywhere…

Apart from chez nous.

On Thursday there was a general strike in France, so not a lot was occuring…except for a lot of moaning, gesticulating and whingeing…no change there, then… Sprog was at home, because the teachers wanted to go ski-ing attend a rally.

And blogging is getting harder. The internet connection coupled with our antiquated technology are conspiring against me. This post was written two days ago, but I’ve only just succeeded in getting it up, Mrs.

But hoorah! My least favourite month is almost over. One day we will spend the whole of January somewhere hot, relaxing and luxurious. Perhaps next year…

I’m going outside now to stockpile some seratonin…I just knew it was going to be a good day this morning…there I was in a dreadful morning fug, scratching my head trying to think what to write in Sprog’s school note. He has a cut on his forehead which is slow to heal and I didn’t want him going to the piscine this morning…so I needed to write a note…I dug out the dictionary to find the word for ‘wound’…and would you believe it, it offered me the whole thing…’he has a cut on his forehead’...in lovely, perky French.

Fantastic!

Thickos of the world, unite!

I sometimes wonder how on earth I managed to get to the grand old age of …erm…21….without accidently decapitating, electrocuting, marmalising or simply buggering myself to death.

It’s true that sometimes I can be a bit vague. My dear Mum is fond of describing me as ‘a bit scatty.’ My eldest sister prefers the less charitable ‘bloody liability’. My darling husband, not known for extravagant displays of affection, favours the rather more concise ‘fuckwit.’

Yesterday, I proved them all right. I managed to do something so arse-kickingly stupid, even I questioned whether or not it is safe for me to be at large.

There I was, in the kitchen, carrying out my chores in uber-wifely fashion. You know the sort of thing…leaping around with a broom, folding bed linen, polishing wood till it gleamed, scrubbing floor tiles on hands and knees with a toothbrush, picking the dog plop out of the soles of Sprog’s wellies with an old fork, cleaning the ashes out of the fire place... now this is where Captain Calamity comes calling.

I hate cleaning the ashes out of the fireplace. It’s boring. It’s dirty. And bloody pointless, because every day, there I am again, repeating the whole, never-ending process. So, I had an idea. A brilliant idea. One that would shorten the whole miserable exercise, making it much cleaner and more efficient.

Enter Henry the vaccuum cleaner. He’s one of those pull-along metal bucket style vaccuums with a powerful engine like a tractor – he’d suck up Bernard Manning from behind the sofa if asked (which is more than I would do). With the willing Henry, I proceeded to plunge his nozzle into the fireplace...and sucked.

I promise you, the ashes didn't look hot. They didn’t feel hot. But when Spouse (luckily, as it turned out) sauntered through on a coffee-seeking mission, to see me oblivious with my head stuck in the fireplace, whilst behind me, poor old Henry had flames shooting out of his ventilation shaft, threatening to set alight the kitchen table and a pile of delightful raffia tablemats…it wasn’t good.

Spouse swore. A lot. Very loudly. I cracked my head on the mantelpiece, surprised by his uncharacteristic freak-out. Then I started to run around like a headless chicken, bouncing off the walls, in a kind of fear-frenzy. Again, not good. Being a quick- thinking, non-thicko, Spouse switched Henry off, pulled the plug from the socket and ran outside, hurling him across the garden ….where he sizzled grumpily on the hard frosty ground.

What a ninny I felt!

Just to make me feel better…would you kindly tell me of something really stupid that you have done…I need some ammunition…Spouse thinks I’m the only person in the whole universe lentil-brained enough to have done something like this. Please tell me he's wrong.

Doctor What?

Happy New Year!

Yes, we’ve been stuffing our faces with galette, truffling through the crumbs, hunting for little king-shaped figurines, hoping to avoid fatal obstructions and shattered crowns….as you do.

I am busy. Watching snowflakes falling. Fast little buggers. They’re coating the ground with unnerving speed. I am wondering if I should put the snow chains on (yeah, like I really do that kind of seriously nail-endangering bloke stuff), hurl the shovel in the boot and slide down to the school to collect Sprog…before he has to spend the night in a snow drift.

I am preoccupied. Spouse has divulged something troubling. He has been discussing me behind my back. Now usually, I am happy to be the centre of attention, being firmly of the belief that I am possibly the most fascinating creature that ever stomped moodily twixt chocolate box and boudoir.

‘How is that psychotic wife of yours?’ Spouse was asked the other night, in a pleasant, banter-ish sort of way.

The man posing the question is someone I hardly know at all. In fact, the only tantalisingly vague detail I know about him is that he is a Dr. By that, I mean he goes by the title of Dr. And he has lots of wild, silver hair and a pointless goatee (in all senses of the word.)

So, now I’m fretting. If he’s a doctor of Aztec Pottery Symbolism, I’m cool with that. If he wants to call me psychotic…I’m sure he has his reasons. I would even allow him to be a doctor of law, astro-physics, economics or even sociology, fer chrissakes.


But…what if he is a psychiatric doctor?

And why won’t Spouse tell me how he replied to this impertinent chap’s enquiry?

Hurrumph….I am going to stuff a handful of the cold white stuff down his trousers…snowballs might jog his memory.

I've just remembered something...

I once forbade (is that a word?) the Dr access through our village. I stood in front of his car and told him to turn around. A ewe had been caught short and was giving birth in the lane further up...and she wasn't to be disturbed. I wasn't rude. I don't even recall waving my arms about, much. Anyway, I was only following instructions from the shepherd. And there was an alternative route he could have taken. And the sheep poo would have shampooed off. And all the afterbirth stains needed were a good soak.