I have a very dear friend here in Suffolk, we will call her, Charity. Charity and I have become firm friends over the course of the last year when she took one of Banana McFly's* puppies (not her real name)*. Charity is good for a giggle and much of our extremely ladylike guffawing on dog walks, stems from the fact that we a) share the same sense of humour b) completely misunderstand each other, oftn due to the 25 yr age gap between us. Our friendship is so firm that when she is moaning about her aches and pains I feel free to offer to take her to the horse vets to have her put down. So far she has desisted.
Charity has been having issues with her roof. I won't bore you with the details as I haven't a clue what the problem is and needless to say, nor does she. Enter a Bob the Builder type character called Dennis or similar. He arrives with ladders and pipes and flash lights and all sorts of things which are probably quite unnecessary but nonetheless afford him an air of competent masculinity and hence justify his hefty fee.
Five hours of thumping and whacking and shuddering later and Charity decides she had better trot outside to see what the matter is. Imagine her surprise to find a large decomposing pigeon, the equivalent of a bale of straw, a pile of bird pooh that could plug the hole in the BP oil Rig and an assortment of unidentifiable detritis including a sock. The debris was knee high.
Good LORD, she says (for it was a sight worthy of invoking the Almighty), where did all of this come from?
Pull it out yerr soffit, didn't oy?
Charity, having not taken Dennis for an armchair gynecologist, was stunned.
You pulled it out my WHAT?
Yerr soffit missus.
Listen here, says Charity, you leave my soffit out of this. I only asked where you found the bird and what-not.
Tol' you didn oy? Had to yank it out yerr soffit.
Dennis i don't need you to do anything involving my soffit. Im going inside!
She immediately phone all her friends to tell them the story. She always says:
He told me he pulled it out my soffit.
And the reply always comes
Pulled it out your what? What was he doing in your Soffit...... (silence) ... what's a soffit? Do I have one?
I suspect that there are now ladies of pensionable age across Suffolk wondering what a soffit is, if they in fact have one themselves, if not, how they can get one, and what kind of Scrabble word score that would produce.
Do you have a soffit and what have you found in it lately?
*DISCLAIMER: As ever, all creatures names have been changed to protect their identities and to preclude them from receiving ASBO's from the local authorities. Chicken thieving, pudding rustling and cow baiting are all activities which the author refuses to acknowledge may or may not be activities enjoyed by the creatures mentioned in this blog.
Friday 2 July 2010
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Get back in the shed, Ned
Quite bit of excitement in the our little Lane on this windy sunny Suffolk morning. My neighbour but one, let us call her... Sarah... has again been visited by The Authorities. Not quite the police, but then again, not exactly not the police. Very grown up people with folders and stern gazes and disapproving eyebrows.
News across the hedges is that this was a follow-up visit after the unfortunate incident earlier this year when Sarah was found to be hiding a man in her garden shed. A live one at that. In a town such as this you fully expect the odd body turn up in a hedgerow or an amputated limb being used as a flotilla by baby duckies beside the village green, but an agile virile live man of functional age being discovered in these parts is unheard of- until a few months ago.
It seems Sarah went off to France on a boating holiday and neighbours noticed snuffling and truffling and movement over the garden fence - quite unexpected given Sarah's absence and thus likely to be an intruder. As all good neighbours, parishoners, and general busy-bodies do, they immediately called the police and demanded the nice constable investigate.
Evidently the police arrived, voices were raised, pens were drawn and most disturbingly , clipboards were extracted from the squad car. A real to-do! Low and behold the intruder was not an intruder at all- much more terrifyingly - he was a foreigner! A proper foreigner, with an accent, a long elegant nose and insisting he was allowed to be there. (Don't they all, my dear? don't they all...)
It turns out that Sarah,was recently divorced. A situation which had caused her some considerable distress, to a point where she was hospitalised for a period in light of the devastation she had experienced and overwhelming loneliness. In the summer she felt better and took herself off to Prague where somehow, and this is unclear, she met a charming, handsome and slightly younger man. She was immediately enamored and arranged for him to come over to England and stay in her cottage in the lane.
At some point in this fiasco, but not before he had arrived, she began to question her decision to have a man she did not know take up residence in her one bedroom cottage. Worse than this, how would she explain him to all the Preservation Committee ladies, the lane's traffic Committee and indeed, Committees in general?
And so- quite sensibly as she saw it, she decided to keep him in the garden shed, and have him into the house (upstairs and downstairs) when loneliness required it.
The initial investigation centered mostly around the question as to whether or not the gentleman in question was kept in the shed under duress and "invited" into the house to perform willingly and was free to come and go as he pleased or, whether the Shed Man was victim to something more sinister.
Today was a follow up visit from The Authorities to make sure nothing untoward was taking place in the house or shed. Nothing was. And so the twitching curtains of the Lane flutter back against the windows and we all continue as if nothing happened and nothing was said across hedges and garden gates.
News across the hedges is that this was a follow-up visit after the unfortunate incident earlier this year when Sarah was found to be hiding a man in her garden shed. A live one at that. In a town such as this you fully expect the odd body turn up in a hedgerow or an amputated limb being used as a flotilla by baby duckies beside the village green, but an agile virile live man of functional age being discovered in these parts is unheard of- until a few months ago.
It seems Sarah went off to France on a boating holiday and neighbours noticed snuffling and truffling and movement over the garden fence - quite unexpected given Sarah's absence and thus likely to be an intruder. As all good neighbours, parishoners, and general busy-bodies do, they immediately called the police and demanded the nice constable investigate.
Evidently the police arrived, voices were raised, pens were drawn and most disturbingly , clipboards were extracted from the squad car. A real to-do! Low and behold the intruder was not an intruder at all- much more terrifyingly - he was a foreigner! A proper foreigner, with an accent, a long elegant nose and insisting he was allowed to be there. (Don't they all, my dear? don't they all...)
It turns out that Sarah,was recently divorced. A situation which had caused her some considerable distress, to a point where she was hospitalised for a period in light of the devastation she had experienced and overwhelming loneliness. In the summer she felt better and took herself off to Prague where somehow, and this is unclear, she met a charming, handsome and slightly younger man. She was immediately enamored and arranged for him to come over to England and stay in her cottage in the lane.
At some point in this fiasco, but not before he had arrived, she began to question her decision to have a man she did not know take up residence in her one bedroom cottage. Worse than this, how would she explain him to all the Preservation Committee ladies, the lane's traffic Committee and indeed, Committees in general?
And so- quite sensibly as she saw it, she decided to keep him in the garden shed, and have him into the house (upstairs and downstairs) when loneliness required it.
The initial investigation centered mostly around the question as to whether or not the gentleman in question was kept in the shed under duress and "invited" into the house to perform willingly and was free to come and go as he pleased or, whether the Shed Man was victim to something more sinister.
Today was a follow up visit from The Authorities to make sure nothing untoward was taking place in the house or shed. Nothing was. And so the twitching curtains of the Lane flutter back against the windows and we all continue as if nothing happened and nothing was said across hedges and garden gates.
Tuesday 15 June 2010
An Open Letter To Vuvuzela Haters
Dear Vuvuzela Haters
Please read this letter with with an open mind and an open heart. The kind of open heart that welcomes you to South Africa and invites you to enjoy the wonderful football festival.
Instead of being distracted and indignant and rational about the Vuvuzela and how loud it is and how many decibels and the direct mathematical level of interference on the game, please, instead, ask a human question. Ask this : Why do south Africans blow the Vuvuzela? Why do they need to?
This is why: they blow the Vuvuzela to welcome you to their country, and in a voice as loud and as powerful as an elephant or lion. A little bird's welcome is not enough, so great is their excitement to see you arrive on their shores. They blow the vuvzela because the love in their hearts and the excitement in their voice cannot be contained in the restricted area of the chest cavity. It builds and builds and all their love and open heartedness comes booming out. They blow the Vuvzela because despite the heavy, heavy price that has been paid for freedom in South Africa, its people wake up and get out and walk with pride and hope and happiness and the fact that South Africa is what it is despite its dark, dark history is reason enough to blow the Vuvuzela from roof tops and mountain tops from sun rise til moon rise- and so we do.
Our traditions are louder and bigger and brasher than yours because our lives and deaths are louder and bigger and brasher than yours. Our lives and futures are often fought for on a daily basis in shanties and down mines and in HIV hospitals. Sometimes just being alive and seeing your loved ones here is worth a bolting blaring blast from a Vuvuzela.
Please don't belittle and dismiss the voice of our joy and our freedom- we have fought long and hard for it and we have all lost something along the way.
South Africa welcomes you and your wonderful traditions to Johannesburg and Soweto and Capetown, we welcome your drunken dancing and singing fans. We welcome your Mexican waves and risque football songs. We love football more than you can know. We don't play in grassy fields or stadiums, but in the streets of Soweto and the beaches of the Transkei. We make footballs from rolls of supermarket bags that you simply throw away, or wind reeds round and around until we are sure it will hold. Football is in our blood and we want to share this joy with you.
With all our love and open hearts and we hope you will open your heart to us too and the voice of our joy.
Vuvuzela players of South Africa
Please read this letter with with an open mind and an open heart. The kind of open heart that welcomes you to South Africa and invites you to enjoy the wonderful football festival.
Instead of being distracted and indignant and rational about the Vuvuzela and how loud it is and how many decibels and the direct mathematical level of interference on the game, please, instead, ask a human question. Ask this : Why do south Africans blow the Vuvuzela? Why do they need to?
This is why: they blow the Vuvuzela to welcome you to their country, and in a voice as loud and as powerful as an elephant or lion. A little bird's welcome is not enough, so great is their excitement to see you arrive on their shores. They blow the vuvzela because the love in their hearts and the excitement in their voice cannot be contained in the restricted area of the chest cavity. It builds and builds and all their love and open heartedness comes booming out. They blow the Vuvzela because despite the heavy, heavy price that has been paid for freedom in South Africa, its people wake up and get out and walk with pride and hope and happiness and the fact that South Africa is what it is despite its dark, dark history is reason enough to blow the Vuvuzela from roof tops and mountain tops from sun rise til moon rise- and so we do.
Our traditions are louder and bigger and brasher than yours because our lives and deaths are louder and bigger and brasher than yours. Our lives and futures are often fought for on a daily basis in shanties and down mines and in HIV hospitals. Sometimes just being alive and seeing your loved ones here is worth a bolting blaring blast from a Vuvuzela.
Please don't belittle and dismiss the voice of our joy and our freedom- we have fought long and hard for it and we have all lost something along the way.
South Africa welcomes you and your wonderful traditions to Johannesburg and Soweto and Capetown, we welcome your drunken dancing and singing fans. We welcome your Mexican waves and risque football songs. We love football more than you can know. We don't play in grassy fields or stadiums, but in the streets of Soweto and the beaches of the Transkei. We make footballs from rolls of supermarket bags that you simply throw away, or wind reeds round and around until we are sure it will hold. Football is in our blood and we want to share this joy with you.
With all our love and open hearts and we hope you will open your heart to us too and the voice of our joy.
Vuvuzela players of South Africa
Friday 4 June 2010
In a caravan, my dear.....
The one aspect of selling high end doggie products to the public which continues to baffle me is the market/fair/ dog show/horse show circuit. It seem that for many people, often women, much of their annual income comes from trailing around one show after the other all over the country. They cart around their livelihoods in bags and boxes and then set up stall to flog their wares to the unsuspecting public.
No where more so than the more high end shows, awash with Panama hats, pashminas and monogrammed trinkets. There you will meet Lucretia Wanabee Von Snootsen Vlots, soon to be evicted, most devastatingly, from her family home, High Wicker Bottom. Heroically, Lucretia, festooned in silk scarves and almost always planning her next dash for a ciggie, is undeterred and has taken to high end carpet bagging to keep the family from ruin. She travels from Burleigh to Blenheim, The Highland Show to the Chelsea Dog Show, her trusty Volvo spiriting her along. Her husband called Pongo or Jumbo or Hugo (it doesn't matter) cannot be counted to help as he has fallen into a devastating depression since the untimely death of his favourite Springer Spaniel, Wellie.
So, there sits Lucretia, bedraggled and furtively sipping on her glass of wine, though leaping into action the moment a victim approaches. In order to drum up enthusiasm for her (made in Chine) wares she finds it necessary to Italianise all her adjectives so that everything is fabuloso or delicioso. They are in fact neither of these , in any language, which only serves to make the whole scene even more depressing.
The final blow to her self esteem comes when an elderly cohort of ladies passes by, wrapped in Barbours and tartan, one of them may even be her mother in law, and are heard to say:
Good lord... where DO all these sales people live?
In caravans in the woods, Dear.
But they are AWEFULY clever with all these things they make. Wherever did they learn to do it?
In prison, Dear.*
Lucretia crumples into her glass and misses an opportunity to pounce on an approaching group.
*verbatim exchange.
No where more so than the more high end shows, awash with Panama hats, pashminas and monogrammed trinkets. There you will meet Lucretia Wanabee Von Snootsen Vlots, soon to be evicted, most devastatingly, from her family home, High Wicker Bottom. Heroically, Lucretia, festooned in silk scarves and almost always planning her next dash for a ciggie, is undeterred and has taken to high end carpet bagging to keep the family from ruin. She travels from Burleigh to Blenheim, The Highland Show to the Chelsea Dog Show, her trusty Volvo spiriting her along. Her husband called Pongo or Jumbo or Hugo (it doesn't matter) cannot be counted to help as he has fallen into a devastating depression since the untimely death of his favourite Springer Spaniel, Wellie.
So, there sits Lucretia, bedraggled and furtively sipping on her glass of wine, though leaping into action the moment a victim approaches. In order to drum up enthusiasm for her (made in Chine) wares she finds it necessary to Italianise all her adjectives so that everything is fabuloso or delicioso. They are in fact neither of these , in any language, which only serves to make the whole scene even more depressing.
The final blow to her self esteem comes when an elderly cohort of ladies passes by, wrapped in Barbours and tartan, one of them may even be her mother in law, and are heard to say:
Good lord... where DO all these sales people live?
In caravans in the woods, Dear.
But they are AWEFULY clever with all these things they make. Wherever did they learn to do it?
In prison, Dear.*
Lucretia crumples into her glass and misses an opportunity to pounce on an approaching group.
*verbatim exchange.
Friday 20 March 2009
The Hills are Alive! with the sounds of shagging
My walk today left me in no doubt. Spring has well and truly sprung and there is little you or I can do to halt it. And why would we want to dampen this fulsome explosion of warbling and coupling? The hedgegrows are bursting with saucy overtures and one (particularly drab) little bird was making downright lurid approaches from her elevated bower. Pairs of swallows were jostling in the air and the forest was quite palpably aquiver. Mallard Ducks are in bill to bill combat over their lady love in the marsh at the foot of Gorse-Hill. Yes, the Finn Valley is all a-shaggin'.
One should not however assume that this extends to the human folk of these regions and instead I have already encountered my fair share of sour faced of flat capped codgers today. Alas I too can lay no claim to be all a flutter in a daffodil field. Utterly, utterly crap and no sign of the drought breaking before said daffodils wilt.
Nothing for it but to go out and get oneself a puppy, you can never have too many. And so here she sleeps, curled up on my lap, all 9 weeks, two ears and one waggy botty of her. Mrs Thatcher, (not her real name) has already been mistaken for a quinea pig twice, once by the hot vet (one can only hope the identification was made in jest) who really should know better. More disturbingly, whilst I was escorting Mrs Thatcher outside on her 3am toilet call, it was quite chilling to hear the owls hooting very very close by. I snatched puppy from the exposed lawn just as soon as she was done and we beat a very haste and frightened retreat.
Collie Wobbles and Banana McFly (not their real names) are not exactly thrilled by the new arrival. Banana McFly sensibly just removes her self from the annoyance og the upstart constantly wanting to bounce and play and gnaw on ones superb licourice colored ears. Collie Wobbles is less English about the whole thing and tends to bare her gnashers and then boot Mrs Thatcher to the other end of the carpet as she makes a speedy and pointed exit. I am surprised she doesn't slam the door and shout "I hate you! you don't understand me!"
I think she's lovely and we are already firm friends.
PS Poor Seabiscuit, only recently back from the horse-pital were he indeed had his biscuits unceremonially removed, is back at the fine equine facility having come a cropper out on a hack. You wont be surprised to hear that it was indeed carnally cavorting sparrows in the hedge that spooked him- no telling what horrors his young eyes fell upon, whatever they were they caused poor innocent Seabiscuit to flee the scene of the crime in some haste. Lets all hold hooves he recovers well and can come home soon.
Friday 6 February 2009
Vetting the local talent
Very disturbing news doing the rounds on the local rumour mill - well, actually just the local tire and exhaust place - is that the very hot local vet (hot in talent, hot in looks) is taking himself off to Australia. This is outrageous news! I suppose koalas get sick too, I couldn't tell, you don't look at those intense high octane koalas and say, oooh well Crumpet's been really lethargic doctor, do you? Koalas don't really have great big vaulting gothic ambition do they? I digress, back to the hot vet, who is in fact Banana Mcfly's dedicated health care professional and saw her through some very unpleasant surgery (rabbit hole, labrador leg, high speed chase etc). Said charming vet has been the only ray of hope in the dark days of McFly's health problems and yes I admit, I did sometimes think, not without aching sympathy for poor Banana Mcfly whose leg was very sore again, oooh well, not all bad, at least we get to visit the dreamy vets. I say Vet"S" because one day McFly's dedicated man wasn't available and a replacement was offered. My heart sank, great, McFly is hurt again and there isn't even the consolation of seeing the dreamy vet, I think I should refuse to pay, this really isnt... oooh, Hello Mr Vet Man.... ooh no, she's just twisted it again... giggle..... twirl.... blush. That practice is crawling with impossibly handsome men. Its a bit like a boy band; preppy vet, sporty vet... Utterly outrageous. I even sulked when Mademoislle Banana McFly received copious, yes copious, numbers of kisses on her nose to thank her for the Quality Streets she and Collie Wobbles left for Christmas. I received exactly no kisses for the gift. Again. Outrageous. There is no official confirmation on the departure but I feel the lure of soporific koalas rings true for said character..... we are abandoned .... Outrageous.....
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