“It’s still not snowing,” I said, standing at my window looking out at a wet, windy Welsh valley, my hands stuck deep in my pockets for comfort and stability.
“Told you.”
“Told me what?”
“I told you it wouldn’t.”
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t make you right.”
“Why, what does it make me?”
“Irritating.”
“In what way irritating?”
“Oh, I give up. Is it espresso time yet?”
Soon enough, after the usual alchemy with the grinder and the pusher-downer and the squish-whish of the coffee machine the deep rich smell of really good coffee filled the kitchen and wafted into my study where I was still gazing out of the window.
I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table, all the better to savour the aroma and to address my cup of coffee properly when it arrived in front of me.
“Ah!” I said. “I must be awake because I’m smelling the cawfee.”
And then the man from City Link came along with our new telly. Didn’t stop me from addressing my coffee with full appreciation and then supping it with my usual “Cracking coffee, Gromitt!”
Which fell on flat ears because he was already unpacking the box and pulling the shiny black thing out, muttering about SCART leads and HDMIs and such.
Pretty soon the old telly was consigned to a corner of the second bedroom where it will sit pending a trip to the recycling bay at the town dump and the new one was sitting all resplendent on the Tapley unit, where it will live in solitary splendour until it’s fixed to the wall on a new bracket thingummy, with more Tapley and shelves above it.
I received a long lecture on all the wonderful capabilities of the new device, smiling bravely until my brains started to melt and my eyes glazed over.
“So, what do you think?” he asked.
“It’s a lovely picture.”
~~+~~
It's a lovely picture
~~+~~
