43,800 days

I had some good fortune yesterday.

Bought a small bay tree which, if cared for, will live for 120 years: so the label says.

This means I shall not need to replace it until 2131 when I shall be 205! The odds are pretty good that I shall be the oldest Bay tree owner in the world.

But, shall I be happy when I am 205?  Take today for example.

I went to Waitrose early to avoid the mad mothers bringing their children to school. Based on advances in motor cars over the past twenty years, in 2131 mad mothers’ speeds will be supersonic. If that isn’t bad enough, when I got into Waitrose for my three items for dinner, they had sold out of two of them until tomorrow. It’s the way they say, “we shall have some in the morning”, as though you live just round the corner and they are doing you a favour by not being out of stock until the day after tomorrow! 

Having experience of Waitrose stock arrangements, I had an alternative recipe which included baby new potatoes. Jersey Royals I ignore on the basis that Jersey isn’t a big enough island to produce all the Jersey Royals that are offered for sale in this country. The alternatives were new when Sir Walter Raleigh bought them back from the New World.

Then, needing £50, I inserted my bank card into the cash machine which is inside the Waitrose store, keyed in the relevant information, retrieved my card, only to hear a clanking in the machine which then flashed up a message telling me it had developed a fault and could not complete the transaction. Out from the slot came two pieces of paper, one informing me that I had withdrawn £50, the other that I had not!

I called for help, only to be told by one of those smartly dressed young assistants, doubtless a mad mother in the making, it wasn’t their machine, they couldn’t give me the £50, and I would need to go to my bank to sort out the problem; or I could go to the local branch of HSBC who owned the machine.  I arrived at the door of HSBC to discover it didn’t open for another half hour. The lady who was being allowed in as I arrived turned out to be a member of the staff. My forlorn look persuaded her to ask me what my problem was, which she resolved in ten seconds by telling me to ignore the piece of paper that said I had withdrawn £50.

And so back to a house deserted by the lady occupier who had gone off to her weekly stitchcraft class. Put some whites in the washing machine – please see blog of April 14 on how to wash whites – and then down the garden to finish removing ivy from the fence , stopping only to see to the engineer who came for the annual burglar alarm service – he seemed disappointed there was nothing wrong with it – and Daniel who cleans the windows.

Beginning to weaken, I saw on the drive a strange car from which the stitchcraft lady dismounted.   “I thought you were out” she hailed: “I rang you twice but couldn’t get an answer. I’ve lost my car keys”.  The strange car belonged to one of her fellow stitchers who had driven her back the half a dozen miles from the village hall where they make lovely quilts and things. I couldn’t get over the feeling that somehow it was my fault for being down the garden and not near the phone.

The following minutes were taken up with explanations of how everyone had joined in the search for the car keys, going through the sewing machine case and materials bag and visiting houses in the neighbourhood to see if anyone had found them in the road and, of course, conducting a handbag search – three of them – by tipping out the contents. The Police had to be telephoned, which turned out to be an ineffectual exercise because they were very busy; it was lunch-time and not the best of hours to be reporting lost car keys.

While all this was going on I had a look through the handbag and found the keys  - greeted with disbelief because “three of us searched it”.  

Of course, today is hairdressing day which involved me in my bedraggled gardening gear driving  down to Daventry and then going back an hour later to transport the stitchcraft lady back to her car.

I almost forgot to report that thinking I had time to clear up the leaves from the front lawn following recent gales, I moved a little too quickly carrying a rake, broom and bucket and fell over the lot. Mind you, as you get older, falling over becomes a habit – a bit like when you were young and falling over a lot as a result of lack of knowledge of the effects of over-imbibing.

Then it was time to cook the alternative dinner.  I forgot to add the peas to the casserole at the end of cooking time. Surprising how often you forget to add the final ingredient or garnish when you are tired and old: a bit like when you are young and the effects of imbibing too much makes you forget where you are.

Bugger the bay tree: it will have to get on without me: I can’t face days like this for the next 120 years.