False Economy

It's been a hectic couple of days, and now I'm in a right fix. In between getting into difficulties and nearly getting out of them again we've laughed ourselves silly at all the absurdities. The first nice thing that happened was meeting my new neighbour, David, who bought the cottage next-door-but-two to me, all of 500 yards away. I've been meaning to call on him since September, and finally stopped by when I walked past and saw him through his open front door. What a delight he is! He invited me in and we chatted and it became clear we would be friends. Olivia and I were due to have a drink with Sarah the next night, and when I told her about David she invited him too. He turned up with large bunches of daffodils for us both, a gentle charmer. We went for an hour and stayed for two, stumbling home across the lane in the darkness after far too much wine. So that was nice thing number two. And the third one was our earlier encounter with the barn owl which flew straight at us, only mildly deviating at about four feet away just as we thought it would fly straight into us. Its dear little heart-shaped face was a picture of concentration and curiosity as it stared at us, and we were dazzled. For ten minutes we watched it quarter backwards and forwards beside us until it disappeared over the trees.

And then the dice flipped the other way. After a wonderful walk at Sizewell and lunch at Aldeburgh we broke down on the way home. Timer belt gone, probably very badly damaging the valves as it caused the two parts of the engine to grate against each other and crunch to a halt. We were outside Rendham, and I just had time to glide across the road into the driveway of a hidden house. We called the breakdown people, and they came quickly. While we waited we thought we'd have a look under the bonnet, and Olivia propped it up. As we both leaned in to have a closer diagnostic look, the bonnet fell onto our heads. It hurt, but we couldn't stop laughing, thinking of how silly we would have looked with our heads trapped and our feet sticking out. In the end the car was taken to the garage across the lane from me and we were deposited home. I rang the breakdown people again to arrange a courtesy car only to be told I don't have sufficient cover. I don't know what possessed me to go for the cheap option when I took out new insurance a few weeks ago. I've had full cover for decades. I'm not laughing now. I'm stranded, Olivia has to get a cab to the station tomorrow, and I can't to my CAB stint on Monday. I can't go for lunch as planned on Tuesday, or walk with Sammy and dog on Wednesday. Will I be able to get to Italian on Thursday? Or to Halesworth on Friday? Who knows. No, I'm definitely not laughing now.

But then there was this, and that makes me so proud: 


 Olivia Laing ‏@olivialanguage
 

My little sis @KittyLaing, exec producer already. Can't wait to see @Kathbum's IN TROUBLE.