need doing in my little red notebook. It’s a diary really, but I’m no Pepys (his poor wife!), and James gave it to me at Christmas in a gift set with woolly hat and gloves.
It seemed a strange combination, but one that must appeal to the Great Last-Minute Present-Buying Male, like scratchy red satin and black lace underwear, which all the recipients immediately exchange in the New Year for something less cystitis-inducing.
At least James knows me better than to present me with any of that (though now I come to think of it, when did he ever know me to wear a woolly hat?), and the poor old thing compares favourably with Pepys.
The rattle of the letterbox signalled the surprising arrival of a tabloid newspaper (an error, I presume, since we haven’t yet arranged for one to be delivered, and even if we had it would be The Times). The whole front cover, I saw to my disgust, was devoted to Fergal Rocco’s latest exploits, which seemed at a hasty glance to involve a fountain and several wet nuns.
Fearing it would spark off more sulks from James, I hastily stuffed it into the Aga, sure he would never open it.
After this excitement I rousted James out and we got to work.
Later, after a scratch lunch of bread and cheese, he went out to buy some more paint and collect the floor sander, and I made my way into the back garden to look for a dustbin.
I had to force my way through a tangle of waist-high dead weeds, and if the dustbin was out there I must have missed it. But the view of the park over the rickety fence was worth beating a trail for: black and white cows grazed the rolling green turf like Noah’s Ark toys. Some fine big trees were dotted about, and the occasional copse. (I think I mean copse … Thick clumps of trees, anyway.) It all rolled up and down into the distance like best Axminster.
It was too penetratingly cold to stand there for long, so when I got back to the house I was amazed to find a note stuck through the front door saying that the gas men had been and, not getting any answer, left my ‘appliance’ in the front garden.
Sure enough, my lovely new cooker stood forlornly in the sleety drizzle, inadequately draped in a sheet of plastic like a hippie at a wet festival.
They can barely have tapped at the door once, for Bess barks like a hysterical hyena at the least noise, so as soon as I’d covered the cooker up with a bigger plastic sheet I rang to complain.
My temper was not improved by being passed from person to person until I completely snapped and screamed that they’d better come back immediately and put my oven in, or I would take legal action.
What did I mean by that? What could I do against a big utility company?
It certainly did the trick, though, for the man on the other end of the line suddenly capitulated from his previous truculent stance and promised to send someone round to install it that afternoon.
‘And tell them to knock properly at the door this time,’ I added as a parting shot before slamming the phone down with hands trembling with rage.
My temper was not improved when, noticing the message button was flashing, I listened to Vanessa the secretarty ringing with the news that the big office photocopier was in good working order again.
So what?
Strangely enough, James was cross with me for not having stayed in the house all the time to listen for the gas men. But if radar-ears bitch didn’t hear them I wouldn’t have either, unless I’d been standing on the doorstep.
But I forgave him, because he brought back chocolates, flowers and wine – the latter two a conjunction of gifts usually signifying Interesting Intentions …
Only an hour later two rather sheepish workmen returned and installed the stove in the kitchen, mangling the quarry tiles in the process. However, I’m thankful to have a
stove that works.
As a bonus and, I suspect, as a spin-off from my telephone tantrum, a completely different man came and brought the missing Vital Spark for the boiler not half an hour later, and after some swearing and awful glugging noises, the central heating system became operational.
Who says it doesn’t pay to lose your temper?
The first person to phone us in our new home – unless you count Vanessa’s message, duly passed on to James, who looked pleased about it. Sad really! – was, of course, Mother, who has very clingfilm ways.
You know, it was such a wonderful relief when I first discovered that James’s father, stepmother and several smaller half-siblings lived in South Africa, and that he didn’t seem to care if I ever met them, because Mother is family enough. More than enough.
She was not, she now informed me, deeply hurt by my failure to call her for weeks, and she and Granny were managing very well despite this neglect.
‘Don’t be such a Wet Nellie, Valerie,’ Granny screeched in the background. ‘The girl’s moving house!’
Mother put her hand over the phone – the wrong end, unfortunately – and hissed: ‘She can still phone, can’t she?’
‘I’m sorry I haven’t phoned this week, Mother, but I’ve been so busy with the move.’
‘So far away!’ she mourned.
It isn’t really, but as neither Mother nor I drive it would make the journey a little difficult.
I was going to miss Granny, though.
‘I haven’t seen my little girlie for months!’
‘Two weeks, actually, Mother – my birthday – and yours, too, just before that.’ These celebrations come thick and fast in my family. ‘And don’t forget we’re coming over for tea on Sunday as usual. James wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘Dear boy! Such a good, hard-working husband.’
‘Namby-pamby!’ shouted Granny, and I grinned. James is too polite and even-tempered for her taste. If he was just as rude back to her she’d like him a lot better, but he
just carries on being urbane and forgiving.
And if James had had any romantic inclinations for our second night at the cottage, he was too exhausted to do anything about it by the time we went to bed.
The next few days were a blur of paint smells, sawdust and aching muscles, though I did let James off on the Wednesday afternoon to go to an auction.
The former contents of the cottage were to be sold, and although I’m not keen on second-hand furniture (unless
it’s antique, which is different) I had liked the big kitchen table and dresser. Our little table from the flat looked way too small and quite wrong.
I gave him strict instructions about not going beyond our agreed limit, or buying anything else, but I knew he had when he returned wearing a sheepish expression.
Since he was accompanied by a Man with a Van bearing the dresser and table I was forced to restrain myself until they’d carried the furniture in, and the last thing to come out of the van was an old chair in carved, golden-coloured wood, with an intricately woven cane seat and back. It was rather
