Doing something badly

I have taken up drawing late in life and am not very good at it - such a pleasure! After decades of striving to achieve in other areas and feeling disappointed if I fail, I accept that my sketch book will always be mediocre at best. No-one needs to know and nothing is at stake. I can gaze lovingly at my amateurish efforts and colour them with delicious tints, reverting to childish enjoyment despite the outcome. But today I produced a passable thrush, albeit so plump that it couldn't leave the ground, and I'm worried that the process of improvement and anxiety has started. Tomorrow I shall attempt a massive landscape and go back to square one with a sigh of relief. And - sorry folks - there is no illustration on this post for obvious reasons.

WISTERIA

I just love wisteria, particularly as it grows around my neighbours' back door and forms a frame which I can enjoy across our little courtyard. It seems a miracle that each huge yet delicate clump of pale purple blossom was ever packed inside a bud.

MY METER CUPBOARD

The interior of my meter cupboard is terrifying. For years I had never seen it because a pleasant tall man would come, gaze at the meter, click his tongue in sympathy, write something down and go away. But now I never have such a visit and I have to get a ladder and a torch and climb up there, press a little button, squint at the day figures, ignore the one that looks like reading but is the date and another that is, deceptively, the time and finally achieve the night digits.(The two rarely add up to the total given and so I have to begin again.) Worst of all I need to brave the family of HUGE hairy spiders who dwell there and adore being in the limelight for ten minutes, running around before preening themselves and posing egotistically. Perhaps I shall just stop using any electricity at all!

DIAGNOSIS

I've caught an unknown virus: I
would like to drop right here and die,
collapse upon the kitchen floor;
maybe I will but not before
I've ironed shirts and found the cash
for dinner money, riddled ash
from our wood stove, fed kids, dogs, fish -
I sense a mega-sneeze; "Attish ..."
the phone ... it's double gazing.."OO"
I started so I finish. Two
bonus explosions, she rings off;
I shiver, ooze, drip, shake and cough,
my nose is sore, my legs aren't there,
I've this strange feeling in my hair
as if it's turned to drowned sheep's wool
or strangling tentacles. I pull
what's left of me together and
prepare a tray with clammy hands;
broth, beer, asparagus souffle
for him who's been (since last Tuesday,
nearly a week) confined to bed.
"Poor chap," old Doctor Watson said.
"He needs light food and lots to drink,
plenty of rest and care. I think
he's down with one dread ilness you
will never suffer from - Male Flu.",

FACT TO FICTION TO FACT

I have a lovely cast-iron stove of French origin, delicately wrought and capable of giving off a marvellously cheering warmth. However, yesterday I worried that, in her temperamental fashion, she might also be exuding carbon monoxide and so went to my local store for an alarm/indicator. The owner told me that he had sold hundreds recently and had none left because of an episode in Coronation Street where there was an incident involving this deadly gas. Here is a prime example of fact influencing fiction which then influences fact in the form of supplies in shops. Yet, five ticks for the script-writers and five also for the elegance of my Gallic friend.

Plastic Bag Faff

Otherwise known as PBF, this is the term given to that process by which you peel off a plastic bag at the fruit counter in the supermarket and spend the rest of the day trying to get it to open. Firstly you prod at the sealed end before transferring your attentions. Next you fiddle pointlessly with the correct part until someone suggests you lick your index finger and thumb. Now you have a damp bag to contend with. When you finally succeed, night has fallen and you have forgotten what you wanted to buy to put in it. Then you remember and insert the apples, realising with a sudden pang that you have ripped the bottom with your struggles and they all drop out, bruise themselves and roll across the floor.
PS. I use the pronoun "you" but I never see anyone else suffering in this way. I am alone in my pain. Where are you all, you PBF victims?

VERY BRITISH ADVICE

Now that a thaw is forecast the powers-that-be have some instructions for us which will help prevent flooding: build a snowman! It seems that these constructions will melt more slowly and ward off distaster.  I calculate that we each need to make thirty to help the situation and who but the Brits would dream up such an idea? Here is one toddler doing his bit!