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It’s about human nature.
Now, I like to think that I’ve got a pretty good grasp on what makes people tick – but there are certain things that bemuse me.
Take yesterday, for instance.
I was at home, out in the garden, tidying up after planting a shrub, breaking the handle of the spade, feeding the birds and opening a bag of coal. As a final gesture before I went indoors, I decided – out of the kindness of my heart – to give the birds some fresh water. I got a watering can, went to the tap outside the back door, turned it on and …. the top of the tap shot into the air followed by a geyser of mains pressure water …
I stood there in the downpour, vaguely looking for the top of the tap, which I eventually found IN the watering can. Then I stood there in the downpour wondering where the stopcock for the outside tap was. Finally, I decided it had to be the same stopcock that controlled the water inside the house …
I turned the water off, screwed the top of the tap back on, and order was restored.
I have three questions, however:
(1) Why didn’t I have the sense to step back out of the downpour? One step backwards would have taken me to dry land.
(2) Why was my very FIRST reaction to try to slap my hand over the gusher? I mean, I KNEW it was mains pressure … and nobody ever stopped mains pressure water by putting their hand over it – it just sends water up your sleeve and into your bra.
(3) Why on EARTH did I try to screw the tap back on BEFORE I’d turned the water off?
By the time I’d restored normality, I was completely saturated, all the way down to my knickers, and literally dripping like a sodden sponge.
The Matriarch was still laughing when we went to bed, five hours later …
A load OFF, not OF … as in a load off my mind, not as in a load of -well – pig’s doo-doo or something.
The trivia quizzes are finally done and dusted. The winners have been notified and sent their (derisory) prizes and the answer sheets have gone out.
And that, I hope, is the last you’ll hear from me about trivia quizzes until the autumn.
Unless we get a molotov cocktail with my name on it through the window, of course. Life is cheap to trivia quiz obsessives, you know …
After much thought (translation … about 1 minute, maybe less …) we (that is Gretchen and I) have decided on Saturday the 22nd of August as the date of the big knees-up.
It’s going to be good … there’ll live music in the form of Fiona Butcher on the piano (hiding upstairs on the landing on account of being shy, Mary-Ellen …) plus – we hope – Andy Winter and/or Spud Murphy returning to repeat their Autumn triumph. (Memo to self: remember to pursue AW and/or SM charmingly but remorselessly at regular intervals …).
We’re planning a big ‘Aren’t we terrific?’ display in the Sheila Robinson Room, a swanky raffle (just as soon as I work out what we have in the way of swanky raffle prizes …), food, cakes, glittery things, a Teddy Bear Tombola, garden tours (the Great British Climate permitting) and refreshments.
We’ve been told categorically by two different people so far that we HAVE to have alcohol otherwise none of THEIR friends will turn up. (Memo to self: try to mix with a better type in future … I mean – REALLY …).
We’re also going to invite the Great and the Good and generally make ourselves THE place to be on August 22nd. Be here or be square and all that stuff …
(Update on The Hat: 26 watchers and three bids, totalling £34.38.)
I love eBay.
I have no life, you see, and have to get my jollies where I finds them.
Mostly we sell pottery and porcelain with the odd bit of jewellery and a few books. Sometimes however we branch out a bit by way of a change, and yesterday I was rummaging around for new stuff to sell in our carefully organized ‘EBay store’ ….
… and I came across an old army hat. The moment I saw it, I thought “It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum” closely followed by “Montgomery of Alamein” and Laurence Harvey in “The Long and the Short and the Tall” … just to give you a quick idea of the sort of mental luggage I drag around with me.
From somewhere in the cob-webby recesses of what I call my brain, I dredged up the fact that it was called a slouch hat and thought, “The militaria wonks will love that …” So saying, I started to list it – THEN I thought “If I could say who wore it, when and where, it would undoubtedly add to the value”. A nice bit of provenance never goes amiss, that’s what I always say.
So, I rang the lady who gave it to us (one of my all-time favourite Centre clients …) and had a long and lovely chat with her. The net result was this:
Within an hour of the listing going live, 5 people were watching it. By this morning, there were 13 watchers and 1 bid.
This is going to be interesting …
(PS: make that 14 watchers … )
(PPS: 22 watchers and 2 bids as @ 8.00pm.)
Remember Pitney Bowes?
Oh go ON … you MUST do. Here and here and here and here …..
Guess what? A lovely lady called Jean rang. She’s from Pitney Bowes. Her job is to try to prevent situations like the one we found ourselves in from happening in the first place. She’d been reading my blog … (Hi, Jean!)
Now, Jean is a Player as well as a terrific ambassador for Pitney Bowes. I’m tempted to say that she’s too good for them – but that would be churlish, in the circumstances.
Suffice it to say that, in between laughing her socks off, she’s apologized, investigated, sorted it all out, and arranged for the machine to be collected tomorrow.
Pity. I never got to send them my new and improved version of their questionnaire …
There was a tap on the front door just now and a very pleasant, middle-aged delivery driver was standing there in the morning sunshine clutching a clipboard.
He held out said clipboard to me, with his next delivery address on it.
“I’m trying to get there …”, he said, pointing at the word ‘Bethesda’.
I peered at it for a moment, frowned, and then my eye travelled along the rest of the address … ‘Bethesda, Gwynedd ….”
“Wales?” I said …
“That’s right … how do I get there from here?”
“Turn left at the bottom of the drive, stay on the main road, follow the signs for the M6?”
“M6! That’s the one! Thank you!”
S’okay … no trouble … ’scuse me while I just rush to my computer to record this for posterity …
This is absolutely unbelievable.
We’ve received a communication from Pitney-Bloody-Bowes.
The (pretty-pretty) blue frank on it says “Are We Getting it Right?”.
It contains:
(1) an invoice telling us they have deducted £30.00 for the monthly rental on the machine (which is still sitting, packed up and awaiting collection, on the floor in the entrance hall).
(2) a questionnaire for me to complete, so that I can tell them how WELL they’re doing. In response to questions like: ‘How satisfied are you with our effectiveness in dealing with any queries you may have had during the sale and ordering process?’ you can choose one of five answers ranging from “Very Satisfied” to “Very Dissatisfied”.
I think I’ll add a sixth column and label it “Dissatisfied to the point of murderous insanity”.
You think I won’t?
Don’t know me very well, do you?
Remember my cute little post about long-tailed tits? This one?
Well … I’ve discovered that when you mention the word ‘tits’ in an internet post, it triggers a strange sequence of events which culminates in bizarre links to other sites popping up. The links will lead the unwary to blogs belonging to and frequented by men with mammary obsessions, if you get my drift …
So – gentle reader – if you happen to click on a link anywhere on this page and it takes you somewhere totally unexpected – don’t blame me. Blame WordPress.
Oh, and if you come across any really juicy ones … do share! 
Do you know how many years a China Anniversary celebrates?
No?
Then let me ask you another question – do you know how many years have elapsed since Gretchen arrived at Knott End, on the Birkby Road, dumped her bags and announced that The Centre for Complementary Care was open for business?
Still no?
Here’s a clue. It’s more than nineteen and less than twenty-one.
Yes. Twenty.
This autumn, it will be twenty years since Bill and Marie Arnold took an astonishing leap of faith and agreed to rent their barn to someone with a shaky-to-non-existent financial base, a ‘nothing left to lose’ attitude and an inspired idea. Twenty years since that famous red sandstone sign went up on the roadside wall at Knott End. Twenty years since all the sensible people told Gretchen she was out of her tiny American mind and that the odds on her survival were several kajillion-to-one against.
Twenty years, and we’re still standing. Against all odds.
Are we going to celebrate?
You bet your sweet life we are.
August 22nd. Put it in your diaries.
The culprit …
(Photo courtesy of Moonrhino on Flickr … reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.)
Look at the black and beady eyes – the sharp, lethal little beak – the concentrated stare … the sheer malevolence in that tiny, fluffy face …
Those of you who know your British Garden Birds will recognize this miniature psychopath as a long-tailed tit. It’s the Jack Russell of the bird world. It has no fear. Great tits, greenfinches, greater spotted woodpeckers … if they’re on what it considers to be ITS insect and peanut peck-a-treat … it goes for them – a minute ball of pinky-beige, feathered fury trailing an improbably long tail in its demented wake.
My sort of bird in fact …
