Friday 27 December 2013

not even for ready money

This Friday, sandwiched between Boxing Day and the weekend before the New Year, is supposed to be the day the world starts going back to work, but it isn't really, or at least, the world is making a very half hearted attempt at working.  The Systems Administrator went to our nearest Co-Op in search of vital supplies, principally medication for a fresh cold that popped up out of the blue on the evening of Christmas Day.  I nominated various things we were getting low on, milk and matches, and requested some butter and some leeks, so that I could make part of the leftover chicken into a pie.  The SA returned after a while, but without the leeks, explaining that there were none to be had in the Brightlingsea Co-Op, not even for ready money.

By then I'd realised that we were running low on both coal and wood.  We do possess a lot of wood, somd of it seasoned, but since it is mostly in the form of large logs, and some of it is half a mile away from the house, and half of that is on the wrong side of a stream, it is useless for present purposes, while the SA is blowing and streaming like a walrus, on top of the cracked rib.  I volunteered to go to the friendly local garden centre to stock up.

I swung down to Clacton via our local farm shop to see if they had any leeks, but they weren't open. Nor was the garden centre, so it was just as well I'd loaded the car with bags of garden rubbish to go to the dump, so the journey was not wasted.  It wasn't wasted: I had so many bags of weeds waiting to go to the tip, I'd run out of empty bags.  I returned via the other farm shop, which was closed, and the local Tesco Express, which was open but didn't have any leeks.  Never mind, I'm sure that chicken pie will be very nice with onions and carrots, or perhaps tomorrow one of us will galvanise ourself to go to a supermarket.

I finally got two bags of coal and one of logs from a convenience store.  The coal was displayed in a sort of wire trolley cum cage, from which it took me ages to extract it, while getting my hands covered in coal dust in the process.  The SA said afterwards that I should have gone inside and asked nicely, and they'd have opened the cage for me.  There were no visible prices for the fuel, and I wasn't given an itemised receipt, but the total came to more than I would have believed possible.  I suppose that't what you pay for their being open at all on Friday 27th December.

Addendum  Before all this happened I listened to Desert Island Discs after breakfast while tidying up in the kitchen.  The guest was Miranda Hart, and one of her choices, in fact her top choice, was Morecombe and Wise singing Bring Me Sunshine, which she said was so happy it made her laugh every time she heard it.  For the first time ever, I paid attention sufficiently to catch some of the words, and was rather surprised.  I didn't think it sounded happy at all, rather, I thought it set out a terribly bleak manifesto for a relationship.

Make me happy through the years never bring me any tears...Life's too short to be spent having anything but fun...Be light hearted darlin all day long keep singing me a happy song...

Granted, people who always moan about everything, criticise everybody, and generally refuse to look on the bright side are not the most fun to be with.  A companion who can rise to the occasion, meet upsets with equanimity, and generally greet life with enthusiasm is greatly preferable to being stuck with a Moaning Minnie.  But never bring me any tears, or have anything but fun? Be perpetually skipping around singing happily like Fotherington Thomas, all the time?  Even when faced with bereavement, redundancy, financial catastrophe, a terminal medical diagnosis, or the latest world news from Syria and Southern Sudan?  Forget all that dear, and don't expect any sympathy from me, I really don't want to hear about it.  You just bring me some sunshine.

No comments:

Post a Comment