Catalogue of Disasters

Cliches aside, it was almost farcical how many things went wrong in a sequence of events yesterday that culminated in precisely zilch. It was quite a nice morning, cold but with intermittent sun, so I decided to wash my new car. Who knew that mud on navy blue would show up so brightly? Or to put it another, less inquisitortial way, nobody knew. So it was out with the power hose, and unusually for Hugo on a chilly morning not long after a lengthy walk, he wanted to come too. I opened the boot door and in he hopped, sitting in his travel bed as if butter wouldn't melt. Fraud.

 

Little Lord F, to the manner born

Now for some unfathomable reason my garage does not have power. So when I come to use any power tools in the front of the house I have to supply it from the house. Feeling too lazy to trek down to the shed and get the proper man for the job I opted for the more accessible extension cables in my study and proceeded to feed one through the garden room window. When I went back out to attach a second one I discovered that the socket of the first one had landed in the smallest imaginable water-filled pot. If I'd tried to do that I would never have been able to. That was no good then, so in I went again to plug in another extension cable. Every time I went in and out of the house I had to drag off my wellies, pull up my socks, and then tuck my trousers back into my socks and drag them on again.

I set everything up, switched on, nothing. I checked switches in the house (boots off, boots on) and still nothing. So I undid everything and went down to the shed to get the proper extension cable with automatic safety switch off button in case of emergencies, and proceeded to do it all again (boots off, boots on). And when I went to set the switch it was dead. Fuse gone, I wondered, thinking I'd get the car washed by someone else, and then I noticed that the washing machine had stopped, and so had the microwave clock. I checked the fuse box, and the power was indeed off, presumably triggered by dropping a live socket into a pot of water. By the time I got the powerhose working again I was an exhausted wreck, a fuming wreck. I won't even list the number of times I tripped over wires, hoses, large vicious pieces of cut rose stems, and trod in some dog poo that I hadn't been able to find earlier because it'sthe same colour as the stones in the drive. But, hey, at least I could wash the car. My idea of washing a car is to hose it with power and leave it. It worked on a silver car. But this one is navy. It's now covered in very visible smear marks where I half-heartedly wiped it with a sponge. One hour wasted, only Hugo happy on his princely throne.

Small cleared area in an ocean of weeds

Bed done

Beds done

All clear

Another mostly good bed

Big bad bed (holds head and groans)

I couldn't allow myself to feel defeated, so I set to and started the laborious job of clearing the rockery (stonery) behind the pond. I was sitting there on a couple of kneelers, crouched over the weeds, 'care-in-the-community' hat pulled well down over my ears, nose dripping, when David my lovely new neighbour decided to pop by. What a picture of glamour I must have presented! We discussed the garden for a while, and I told him I was trying to make inroads into the huge jobs ahead of me, to cheer myself up. "Do you need cheering up then?" he asked me anxiously. "I could ..." but I cut him off too briskly telling him I was fine but just daunted by the work in store for me. Such a kind person. He told me he had sent a letter to the churchwarden's wife apologising for his apparent rudeness at a church service after Christmas. Sarah our mutual neighbour had laughingly told him someone had been offended when he shrugged off an offer of help with his walking stick. But it was the wrong woman. So Caroline had turned up at his house in a bemused state wondering what he was talking about, only to find David out and Tony, my wonderful painter/builder, in situ putting up shelves. This convoluted story had me in stitches, and poor David, who has never met Caroline, cringing in embarrassment.

I love village life. There's always something to entertain you.