I got up just before 0300 this morning and set my mind to housework. After an unsuccessful attempt to clean the lavatory I ironed 3 short-sleeved sports shirts, 2 long-sleeved formal ones and a couple of pairs of slacks, the elasticated waists of which I wear, Churchill-style, halfway up my chest. Had someone warned me that it would come to this I'd have stuck my head in an oven years ago.....
It gets even worse. I've just ironed some polo shirts. Whoever irons polo shirts? You should just take them out of the washing machine, let them dry on hangers and hope that the natural contours of your beer belly dispose of such minor creases that remain.
I'm sure that ironing is addictive. At the moment I've got my beady eye on a laundry basket full of boxer shorts and Primark socks. No -- I couldn't, could I?
Nancy, the charming mother of Linda, the housekeeper at our hotel in Wales, had once been 'in service' and she showed me the proper way to press a handkerchief. (You start with the four corners and then the centre before you fold.) If only I had a monogrammed Egyptian linen 'kerchief or two I could perfect my skills. As it is, even I realize that if I try to iron my Kleenex I'll probably set fire to the flat so I'll give it a miss.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Friday, 11 June 2010
Hirsuteness
A friend of mine was expecting to spend a week on the English Riviera when her boyfriend rang up from work and advised her to start packing. He'd negotiated a half-price holiday for the two of them in Bulgaria, flying out that evening.
She announced that she couldn't possibly go because she wouldn't have enough time to shave her legs. He said that he didn't think that eastern European ladies were too worried about their hairiness. After all, they rarely bothered to depilate the hollows beneath their shoulders. She then announced that she definitely wasn't going to Bulgaria as her lack of upper-torso hair would make her stand out like a sore armpit.
They had a lovely time.
She announced that she couldn't possibly go because she wouldn't have enough time to shave her legs. He said that he didn't think that eastern European ladies were too worried about their hairiness. After all, they rarely bothered to depilate the hollows beneath their shoulders. She then announced that she definitely wasn't going to Bulgaria as her lack of upper-torso hair would make her stand out like a sore armpit.
They had a lovely time.
Footie....
I'm very happy for South Africa and hope the World Cup is the success it deserves to be but my main concern at the moment is how to avoid the football 7,000 miles away here in Dorset!
The Cross of St. George, who was by all accounts an obscure mediaeval Turk, is ubiquitous and even girlies are saying "Come on England" twice after every breath they draw. Don't mention the television: there's no point in having more than one channel because the game seems to be on all of them most of the time. They were even discussing the confounded sport on Radio3 the other day - playing soccer instead of playing Beethoven. I ask you!
The best solution would be for England to get knocked out as early as possible. (Please don't let on that this has even crossed my mind. If word got out I'd get lynched!)
The Cross of St. George, who was by all accounts an obscure mediaeval Turk, is ubiquitous and even girlies are saying "Come on England" twice after every breath they draw. Don't mention the television: there's no point in having more than one channel because the game seems to be on all of them most of the time. They were even discussing the confounded sport on Radio3 the other day - playing soccer instead of playing Beethoven. I ask you!
The best solution would be for England to get knocked out as early as possible. (Please don't let on that this has even crossed my mind. If word got out I'd get lynched!)
Monday, 7 June 2010
Nids-de-poules
We lived in the bush outside Lusaka. Our turn-off had ten or so households scattered along its three miles and, several times a year in the rainy season, whole chunks of the track would wash away making it impassable. This was despite having had it graded a month before the first deluge which usually came at the beginning of November. The grader would spend a couple of days accentuating the camber and digging out the ditches which, over the previous eight or nine dry months, would have filled up with dust and the encroaching bush.
Paying for the grader was always an issue. It was expensive and none of us was particularly well off. The people whose houses were nearest to the main road would argue that those further down the track should pay proportionately more and there was always at least one householder who refused to pay anything at all. However, when a section of the road disappeared, good neighbourliness prevailed and it was all hands to the pumps, though not literally, of course! Parents and cooks, children and gardeners all armed themselves with shovels and turned out on parade. So far as we children were concerned it was almost as much fun as fighting bush fires which happened several times a year as well.
One year it rained continuously for three days and nights although, judging from the damage caused, it could just as well have been forty. Messengers were despatched (our party line phone didn't work very well even on the rare occasions when the lines weren't down) and everyone congregated at the worst affected spot after breakfast.
One of our more recently arrived neighbours was a missionary called George. He was an Englishman employed by a Canadian society which kept on forgetting to pay him so he was not, on the whole, a happy man. He went around the place doing his very best to do good but, as he could barely afford to feed his own family, he tended to give the rest of God's children fairly short shift. Furthermore, his voice was disproportionately loud for a man who stood at only 5'1" in two pairs of thick wool socks. And he thought he was a born leader.
Despite being by far and away the least experienced road repairer of us all, he automatically assumed command, as of right, and started bossing everyone about. He went stomping off towards my father to give him advice about ditch digging when he stepped in a puddle. The puddle turned out to be a pothole and, unfortunately, the pothole turned out to be 5'2" deep and George disappeared completely. When his head emerged a few seconds afterwards I'm afraid everyone burst out laughing. He was hauled out of the hole and, covered in mud, trudged off home, not to be seen again that day.
In future years, when the road needed repairing, he was always busy taking care of some important aspect or other of the Almighty's affairs and would be unable to help. His goodness was rewarded, I'm pleased to say. Whenever my mother went round to the mission with a chicken or a basket of vegetables, his wife would say, to my mother's extreme annoyance,"Alleluiah! The Lord has provided!"
Paying for the grader was always an issue. It was expensive and none of us was particularly well off. The people whose houses were nearest to the main road would argue that those further down the track should pay proportionately more and there was always at least one householder who refused to pay anything at all. However, when a section of the road disappeared, good neighbourliness prevailed and it was all hands to the pumps, though not literally, of course! Parents and cooks, children and gardeners all armed themselves with shovels and turned out on parade. So far as we children were concerned it was almost as much fun as fighting bush fires which happened several times a year as well.
One year it rained continuously for three days and nights although, judging from the damage caused, it could just as well have been forty. Messengers were despatched (our party line phone didn't work very well even on the rare occasions when the lines weren't down) and everyone congregated at the worst affected spot after breakfast.
One of our more recently arrived neighbours was a missionary called George. He was an Englishman employed by a Canadian society which kept on forgetting to pay him so he was not, on the whole, a happy man. He went around the place doing his very best to do good but, as he could barely afford to feed his own family, he tended to give the rest of God's children fairly short shift. Furthermore, his voice was disproportionately loud for a man who stood at only 5'1" in two pairs of thick wool socks. And he thought he was a born leader.
Despite being by far and away the least experienced road repairer of us all, he automatically assumed command, as of right, and started bossing everyone about. He went stomping off towards my father to give him advice about ditch digging when he stepped in a puddle. The puddle turned out to be a pothole and, unfortunately, the pothole turned out to be 5'2" deep and George disappeared completely. When his head emerged a few seconds afterwards I'm afraid everyone burst out laughing. He was hauled out of the hole and, covered in mud, trudged off home, not to be seen again that day.
In future years, when the road needed repairing, he was always busy taking care of some important aspect or other of the Almighty's affairs and would be unable to help. His goodness was rewarded, I'm pleased to say. Whenever my mother went round to the mission with a chicken or a basket of vegetables, his wife would say, to my mother's extreme annoyance,"Alleluiah! The Lord has provided!"
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