Waiting

Who'd have thought today would end up as a scorcher, too hot to do anything very physical? We had planned lunch out and then the cinema, but in the meantime I bought two terracotta beehive pots and everything changed. I racked my brain to think of someone I knew who was big and strong and had a van. And was cheap. Eventually I came up with the number for Quint, a man I accosted in Tesco car park a few years ago because he had a ponytail and was getting into a white Ford Transit. "I don't mean to disparage you in any way but I wondered if you might be a man with a van," I asked him, smiling with as much charm as I could muster on a grey winter day. He wasn't insulted at all, and duly picked up a brass headboard from Great Yarmouth for me without breaking the bank. He agreed to collect my pots from the garden centre within two hours of speaking to me. He said he'd call me. So Ruth and I sat in the garden of Juniper Barn in Rendham having a long glass of cold Pinot Grigio with lunch, and we were joined by Catherine who had popped in on her own and was surprised to see us there. All the time I was slightly concerned, sitting in a village with virtually no mobile phone signal, waiting for a call from Quint. But where was he? Back to mine we came eventually, to sit in the sun and gossip, still waiting. Eventually I rang him and he cheerfully said he'd deliver them tomorrow. Well, if I'd only known. We make assumptions, we're not clear in our communication, and everything gets muddled. Luckily it wasn't a problem. Freed from having to wait in once Catherine had gone, the two of us took Hugo to the woods for a scramble. But the combination of wine at lunchtime and hot sun meant the only scramble was back into the car after 20 minutes. You were short-changed Hugo. You was robbed.

Friends, Harold and Teddy, washed

Watching to see if I'm going out