“Well, alright, then,” I said, doing my best to hide my reluctance.
“You’ll be fine, just you wait and see. I know you hate the telephone but this is in a very good cause.”
“Really? What good cause is that, then?”
“Saving you from being beat up when I get home.”
“Oh. That I can understand. Ok, then, I’ll do my best.”
It’s this Muse concert, you see, in London at the O2 Dome [used to be called the Millennium Dome]. Graham has a ticket for the second night of the two-day gig and had just heard yesterday that there were tickets on sale for the first night and so had conceived a desire to see them two nights running.
And, while he was trying to get through on the bookings website, and failing along with thousands of others, he thought that I ought to try on the phone booking line.
I got through almost immediately, spoke to a nice young man, and purchased a ticket without any problem at all.
I sent Graham a text message: GOTTIT!
Moments later the phone rang and a delighted Graham was congratulating me for being a clever boy.
“Does this mean I won’t get beat up when you get home?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“Not even when you see all the bits of dust I haven’t dealt with?”
“Nah. What’s a bit of dust between friends?”
~~+~~
road sweeping machine
clatters past house
old grey cat swears loudly
I seem to have lost about twelve hours today, to errands, to a lunch of Roquefort, crispy white bread and Branston pickle. And then a long, deeply satisfying nap.
Oh well. There you go.
~~+~~
in the long afternoon
a poet and his cat
snore gently
I’m not sure if today–the 23rd–is the first day of autumn, or the last day of summer. Or it may have been yesterday for all I know. Precision in these things is important to astronomers but it doesn’t really matter to me.
It certainly feels like the beginning of autumn. Not in any sense of crossing a boundary, but in terms of light and temperature. It’s a collodion-yellow kind of day, and strikes chilly around the legs. Not long-john weather yet, but certainly time to change to long-legged pyjama bottoms.
Yesterday it rained. All day. Not a dramatic kind of rain, just a continuous drizzle on the rainy side of mist. The branches and eaves dripped in a friendly, reassuring manner, and the drains gurgled as they took it all away. Several times during the day Dolly and I took up our station side-by-side on the back step, and she slipped out once during a lull for a nibble at the big pot of sedge grass, got all damp and demanded to be towelled. Not so much for the sake of drying as for the comfort of a warm towel and a bit of attention.
I’m hoping the leaves will hang on until Graham gets home because I want him to see how the tall trees at the back of the garden have made that end of the house rather dark. That’ll ease my job of persuading him that they need to go or to be heavily pruned back at the very least. Neither one of us like to see trees fall but sometimes the need for light in a house outweighs other considerations. The tall holly tree will not be touched, however. Even if it were not laden with berry, we don’t cut holly trees down. They may make a bit of shade but they do help to keep the witches away and hold the luck in.
Graham says it’s been windy in Somerset but down here in the valley there’s been hardly a whisper. Oh, the wind is there alright, but it runs across the valley, leaping up from the top of the hill to the east and down again to hit the hills to the west, conveniently missing us. Now and again I get the impression that it pauses momentarily overhead, toying with the idea of diving down to stir us up in passing but thinks better of it, reserving that fun for later in the season.
~~+~~
sumer is a’going out
and autumn coming in–
no more bloody cuckoos
I want to get a bottle of Mr Muscle window cleaner to give the inside of the windows a good going over but apart from that I’m down to needing to do no more than a quick whisk round the house on a daily basis. Dolly and I are ready for inspection.
Well, I am, and the house is. Dolly has taken advantage of my preoccupation to grow some fearsome mats of hair in the final stages of her autumn moult. So it’s out with the blunt-nosed scissors and snippety-snip-snip. Long haired cats are particularly prone to this one and I want to fix it before a trip to the vet for shaving is needed.
“How’s she doing otherwise?” Graham asked.
“Well, she seems to be in fine spirits, bright eyes, fresh breath, good appetite, but I have a sneaking suspicion you’re going to say she’s put on some weight. Getting quite portly, she is.”
“That’s better than the alternative. I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”
“I suspect she feels the same way. She’ll never admit it, of course.”
“That’s our Dolly!”
We’re on the final countdown now, and if all goes to plan we have less than a fortnight to go. It’s going to be good to have someone else in the house, banging about and making new noises. Perhaps a little odd, too, and needing a little rebalancing from Dolly and me, but good even so. Better than good, actually.
~~+~~
dim damp morning
mist on the hills
rain on the way
Just when, yesterday morning, I thought we were in for a grey day with a drop of rain, a little hole appeared in the cloud cover, paused for a while, and then as if two fingers had been inserted in it and pulled apart, it spread to reveal bright blue sky. The clouds tumbled away and there we were with another lovely day.
Rather spirit-lifting, is that.
It could be we’re in for a repeat performance today. That’d be nice.
I’m settling into a good, sustainable housework routine, keeping ahead of it, and working at a pace that’ll see the house completely spick and span in good time for the wanderer’s return in the first week of October.
Graham is so pitifully eager to get back home that I could like as not hang up my dusters now, knowing that he’ll not even see the dust. That’d not be fair, though, and would offend what residual traces of self-pride remain in me. So I shall see the project through like an honour system–something to be done out of respect rather than necessity.
Today is already shaping up rather well. Not only am I running about two hours early, but I remembered to pull the makings for my evening meal out of the freezer to defrost in good time. Sainsbury’s do a rather tasty pack of Southern fried chicken pieces; not quite as good as I can do myself but a lot easier. Sold fresh, they’re ready to cook as is, and they almost always have a two-fer offer on to encourage people to buy twice as much as they need. I freeze one pack and eat the other on the day of purchase, serving it up with sweet corn and a dollop of tomato sauce. When it comes time to eat the second one it feels as though you’re getting your dinner for free.
Almost free, that is, allowing for the cost of freezing and the price mark-up they undoubtedly apply to the offer. At the very least it’s a meal that comes out of the previous week’s budget, and that’s all the free that I need.
There’s a small holding up the hill a little way, out of sight, and they keep a few chickens for the eggs and for the pot. They have a cockerel, in good country style, and he rattles off a splendid cock-a-doodle-doo at first light each day.
This morning, rather early, I almost fell into a jaundice trap, thinking how good it would be to wring the scrawny little blighter’s neck and pop him in the pot to avoid the morning disturbance. Then I broad-tuned my hearing a little to take in the Monday-morning subdued roar of traffic over on the highway and came to realize my good fortune. I count myself lucky to be able to listen to the sounds of the countryside; the drivers of those unseen lorries and cars are unlikely to be able to stand still of a morning and hear what I hear.
So I hope it’ll be a good long while before he leaves the scene, and that there’ll be a worthy successor to pick up his song.
