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The one we found at the bottom of the drive? Well … it’s just fetched up back here, hand-delivered by the local Police because no-one has claimed it, in spite of their having circulated a notification to all the Lakes police stations.
Before I rush off to eBay and flog everything that’s worth something, I thought I’d have just one more go at finding the owner. To that end, I’ve taken a really good look at the contents, and I think I’ve narrowed him down to Preston area … so I’m bashing off an email to the Lancashire Evening Post in a last ditch attempt.
Watch this space …
… When I really wished I had a camera.
I’d just left the Centre, heading for Seascale to do the banking, when I spotted a woman with a knife through her head standing by the side of the road.
Rather incongruously, she had a handbag slung over her shoulder.
I blinked, then remembered.
It’s Hallowe’en Week at Muncaster Castle …
Bless.
It’s blowing an absolute hoolie out there.
I’ve just been through to Seascale to do the Centre’s banking and I literally had to drag myself into the bank, clutching at the door jamb. If the bank staff nab the footage on the security camera they could make me a laughing stock.
More than I am already, I mean.
My task for this afternoon is (yawn, yawn) typing up the minutes of the last Committee meeting and last year’s AGM so that they can be sent out asap. The next Committee Meeting and AGM are on November the 7th.
Why, you may ask, do I leave it so late? Well … I learned from a master. I used to work for a Solicitor who was the Secretary of the local Conservative Club. He left writing up the minutes until the last possible moment because, he said, by then no-one was in a position to argue with you.
Works for me. 
It’s a true story. It’s not a third-person, ‘this happened to a friend of a friend’ story … it’s something that’s just happened to me. Not ten minutes ago. And I’m still completely gob-smacked.
I was upstairs at home when I heard a knock on the door. Standing on the doorstep, in the dark, was a tall, pretty young woman – in her late teens or early 20s. She was pale and a little shaken.
Very politely, she explained that her car had broken down and asked if she could use our telephone to call a friend for help. She had, she said, just tried at the local guest house and … you won’t believe this … they’d said ‘No’ and directed her half a mile down the road to the nearest village.
A young woman. Alone. In the dark. On an unlit road. I kid you not.
You’ll like this …
Yesterday evening, I was in my room at home in our little rented cottage down the road from the Centre writing my diary. (Yep, I not only blog, I keep a written diary too … have done for over 30 years). I became aware of an insistent drip-drip-drip coming from the cistern in the loo. It’s been dripping ever since we moved in, but for some reason – probably because I was still feeling a bit below par – it was getting on my nerves yesterday evening.
“Right!” I thought. “I can cure that … just bend the arm on the ballcock to raise the water level and shut the valve properly. It’s not rocket science …”.
So I got up, took the lid off the cistern (are you giggling in anticipation yet?) and discovered that plumbing has moved on since I last interfered with a ballcock. The little sod was all plastic, wasn’t it? No bendable bits.
Irritably, I poked the ballcock and watched it bob in the water, then I poked the bit that was actually dripping …. and it fell off.
WHOOSH!!!! Water hit the ceiling … the walls … me … It ricocheted off everywhere. For one, stunned, moment I just stood there sort of blinking and trying to stop the flow with my hands. Then I came to my senses, slapped the lid back on the cistern and started flushing …
The Matriarch, meanwhile, had heard my startled squeak and was at the bottom of the stairs asking what the problem was.
“Er … Mum … can you remember where the stopcock is, by any chance?”
I had a feeling I should know where it was, but I just couldn’t seem to bring it to mind. For some reason that escaped me, my mind wasn’t working with its usually accuracy … and then I realized why that was. Panic. I was having just a little panic. Having calmed down slightly, I remembered that the stopcock was in fact down by the back door, at the bottom of the rising main. Behind the bloody great chest freezer …
“Mum … could you come up here and keep flushing this while I just go down and turn the water off?”
So, there I am – eight o’clock in the evening, in the old full length wincyette nightie, past the first flush of youth (both the nightie and me …) up-ended over the freezer trying to remember which way taps turned … The view from the kitchen door must have been something.
In the end, I did it … and also had the happy thought of switching off the central heating boiler before it locked out.
Then, I’m on the ‘phone to our Landlords across the road, doing a passable impersonation of Stan Laurel in full flow … screwed up face, water dripping off my spiky hair, gesticulating wildly, squeaky voice …
“Water … drip … *koff* … poke-poke … oops … WHOOSH!!! … *koff* … Help … *koff* …”
The lovely Chris W was on our doorstep inside 10 minutes and had slapped the thing back together within moments. Plastic. Click-fit, innit?
It’s stopped dripping, though.
Sorry. I’ve been out of commission for a few days with a head cold.
This starts in motion a train of thought … which is seldom a good thing, in my case.
Why don’t people get head colds anymore? Why do they all get respiratory infections, virus infections or even ‘flu? Why doesn’t ANYONE admit to just having a cold? Isn’t it dramatic enough, or something? Does it lack glamour? Pizazz? What?
Hmmm …
Well – I’ve come back to work to a little mountain of things to do … the 2009 calendar to get off to the printers, bills to pay, flyers to print, photos to send to Spud (he of ‘and Andy Winter’ fame) and – most importantly – ‘thank you’ letters to write for the St Francis’ Fair.
Ho hum.
Better go get another mug of tea and make a start.
*Koff. Hack Wheeze.*
This is weird. Actually, it’s more than weird – it’s positively bizarre.
On Saturday – although we didn’t know it at the time – the Chase was cut off by floods. The main road in both directions was underwater, so people couldn’t get to us from the north or the south without risking engine damage. In spite of that … in spite of the atrocious weather … in spite of the three-hour dead zone in the middle of the day … we cleared £1,300.
Spud and Andy were absolutely terrific (and I apologize for anything and everything rude I ever said about singing in tune … they both sing very well indeed) … and they, in turned were bowled over by the Centre. Spud made a determined effort guess the number of jelly babies in the jar, but to no avail. (My brother won them. What a shame he’s diabetic.) Andy needed no encouragement to sit down and be massaged by a pretty girl. People were milling around until we threw them out at 4.00pm. It all went so swimmingly, I’m frankly a little unnerved.
Personally, I’m considering adding sorcery to my CV. 
Well – talk about a 180 degree turn in fortunes … Andy Winter and Spud Murphy turned up as promised, and a whole clutch of new customers magically materialized … and …. SHAZZAM! … we had a fundraising event again …
This is Spud (real name Stephen …) sitting on the stairs:
And Andy … who’s apparently forgiven me for harrying him half to death …
(Yes … that is a full-size tinsel-draped what-you-think-it-is behind him …).
And this is Alexis, Gretchen’s great-niece, giving free neck and shoulder massages to blissed-out punters …
You couldn’t, in all honesty, say that the weather has improved any since 8.00am.
We had a rush on the jampot first thing this morning, but it’s gone a bit dead since then. Can’t think why.
These are our gazebos – erected yesterday in balmy sunshine – and just about holding their own in the teeth of the gale …
That tragic kagouled figure in the second one is Erica, trudging back to her lonely plant tent …
This is Erica again … indoors to warm up. She’s shining brightly in her sodden kagoule and talking to Andrea and Margaret who are pretending to be customers for the photograph.
Lovely Ralf expounding upon something to Sonia – with actions. Heat rising came into it, I believe …
Our lonely, rain-swept car park:
Oooh … the live musicians have arrived … and a whole bunch of real, money-paying customers.
More photos to follow in due course, I hope.
October 4th dawns.
It’s 8.00am.
It’s absolutely piddling down and the wind’s rising …
I may report in later in the day. Watch, as they say, this space.
