The noticeboard has mysteriously reappeared!!!

It’s been given a nice new coat of paint. But if the fixers and spin doctors on the parish council think that that’s going to fool me then they are very naïve, oh yes.

Later on I will be checking it for drawing pin holes where there previously were none. We citizens cannot afford to let these things go. One minute everything is fine, the next minute the so-called powers-that-be have held a secret debate and the ordinary people’s bus shelter has been changed into a foundation bus shelter.

Unfortunately, I won’t be here to stand guard over our democratic rights for a few days – I’m off to Prague tomorrow for a romantic few days and the LTLP will get very cross if I spend it in Internet cafes. She will not understand that checking site stats is the best foreplay there is.

Until then – well, I guess you could read some old posts (not THAT old – they’re not very good). And it’s always very worth visiting The Mighty Crumb or Oeillade for the ‘Friday Fuckwit’ and ‘Friday Music Thing’ respectively.

Or you could click here and find a random British blog from the Blogging Brits webring. It’s better than Blogger’s ‘next blog’ link because there’s like – quality control.

Perhaps I am fooling myself that your lives will be empty without me.

Enjoy your weekends.

I go to the village shop.

At the counter is a young lad of around (I’d guess) eleven or twelve, still in his school uniform.

“What can I get you?” asks the village shop lady.

“Some cheese, please,” is the reply. “A big bit.” He holds out his pocket money.

The village shop lady ascertains the quantity of cheese required, and cuts it for him. “Is this for you?” she asks. It is for him – a big wodge of cheddar. Posh cheddar. Keene’s, if you must know.

“That’ll be £3.11,” says the village shop lady. “Are you sure you have enough money?”

The lad does have enough money, and disappears off, happily, clutching his cheese. We watch him depart.

“You shouldn’t have sold him that,” I warn.

“What do you mean?”

“Under sixteen. Buying cheese. He might be going to sniff it.”

The village shop lady looks at me in bewilderment.

“Sniff it. Kids do that these days. Like glue.”

She goes slightly red. “You’re joking,” she says, with an enormous doubt in her voice that only the incomprehension between different generations can provide.

“That’s why you’re not allowed to sell it to under sixteens. Haven’t you seen them at the bus shelter in the evenings, hanging around with their cheese?”

“I don’t believe it,” she breathes, with a shake of her head. “I don’t believe it.”

“I’d just be a bit careful, that’s all,” I warn her kindly. I pay for my groceries and leave.

True story.

I must get a life.

It was the wisps of smoke edging out from around the loft hatch that convinced me. The inauguration of the restored fireplace was clearly not going to be a one hundred percent success.

It wasn’t that cold, but we were both a bit sniffly. So I threw caution to the wind and set a match to the mound of paper, sticks and logs in the grate.

Fortunately, I then wandered upstairs to change my socks, noticed the unusual smokiness of the upstairs rooms and was able to leap into action, by grabbing a torch, looking up into the loft and saying ‘fuck’ a lot.

Heroically climbing up into the roof* wearing my specially adapted breathing apparatus (the neck of my t-shirt pulled up over my nose), I searched for the source of the smoke. It was coming from the chimney breast, which to be honest I could really have worked out in my head without needing to turn myself into the human smoked mackerel. My torch beam caught it as it billowed around the gable wall.

I said ‘fuck’ a few more times, to see if it had any effect.

The whole house now smells of smoke. The curtains smell of smoke. My clothes smell of smoke. The bedlinen smells of smoke.

I have called the Cheerful Builder.

(*In the interests of safety I should point out to readers that this was clearly wood smoke leaking from the chimney, NOT a house fire. In the event of a real fire you should leave the house immediately, unless you have really really valuable stuff that you need to rescue, or you need to put some pants on).

The LTLP has turned blue!!!

Saturday early evening. Preparing for the big party in the neighbouring village. Teeth-cleaning for him, a pre-party relaxing bath for her.

A Body Shop Bath Bomb Thing (Blue).

They are the ones that are supposed to fizz and effervesce as they dissolve, giving one a unique bathtime experience. And unique it certainly was. Due to some manufacturing defect, the interior of the Bath Bomb Thing seemed to consist of pure bright blue dye, which globuled and coagulated and made an instant bid to cling on to any bit of LTLP that it could.

She stood up slowly. Her arms, legs and body were mottled with patches and lines of vivid blue, which a quick rub only served to smear into the skin.

“I think you’d better have a shower,” I offered, sympathetically.

“I think you’re right,” replied Smurfette.

I make a mental note to put Anita Roddick on my list of death. Although we both saw the funny side (me almost instantly, as I have an advanced sense of humour), the fact is that we were off to a party and it wasn’t convenient for the LTLP to be blue.

I did this with great regret, as Ms Roddick set up the Body Shop not just to make shedloads of money but as a charitable foundation, helping people everywhere to obtain unimaginative birthday presents for women in their life that they don’t really know.

The LTLP scrubbed up OK. But there are still bright blue tide marks up the sides of the bath.

I contact Ms Roddick today.

The noticeboard has disappeared!!!

Opposite my house is a noticeboard, used to notify people of important village events. We have our own one at this end of the village, as we are important. But now it’s gone.

I stared at the space that had formerly been occupied by the noticeboard. It had definitely gone. There were two upright poles that it used to stand on, but now there was a large noticeboard-shaped rectangular gap between them.

I gazed, perplexed. I looked from several different angles, then squinted, then glanced away but very quickly looked back to try to catch it out. But it seemed like my first natural reaction – that this was yet another cheap publicity stunt by American magician David Blaine – was wrong.

I brooded on this as I walked back up the drive. If the noticeboard had genuinely disappeared then there would seem to be one explanation – that there is something going on in the village that they don’t want me to know about.

This turn of events is alarming. It is the sort of thing that happens in Putin’s Russia. And during the war they took down all the village noticeboards just in case the Germans invaded and were able to plan their moves around the country quickly using local bus services.

Co-incidentally, I’d been back for around half an hour when the village newsletter arrived. I scanned it thoroughly for clues. Nothing. But then I realised that they could have got a special one printed that didn’t include details of the mysterious forthcoming I-am-not-invited-to event, so I was back to square one.

Honestly. It is no fun living in this strange Kafkaesque nightmare.

I am determined to find out more over the weekend, and will let you know what happens.

Back tomorrow…

My London friends have arrived!!!

Salvadore and Unluckyman have come to stay for a couple of days.

This gave me a problem. I have only one spare bed, so had to make a tricky decision as to who had to sleep on the floor.

If they had been girls then they would have no problem – they’d be happy to sleep together, sharing the same double bed. This is because girls are much less insecure about their sexuality than men are, plus they are a lot softer to the touch so it is beautiful.

As it is, I was a bit stumped. I could not choose between the two reasonable options:

- I sleep in the big bed, Unluckyman has the spare bed, Sal sleeps on the floor, or

- I sleep in the big bed, Sal has the spare bed, Unluckyman sleeps on the floor.

After all, I did not want to be unfair, or a bad host.

I had a brainwave, and emailed the Wise Woman.

“Simple,” she said, brightly. (Except by email, but it read like it was said quite brightly). “You show them the spare bed, and say that it’s theirs to share for the night. Unless, you say, as an aside, one of them doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor?”

I was knocked down in the rush for volunteers to sleep on the floor.

I’m glad it was all sorted out fairly.