The Baby is yakking up!!!
Normal service will be resumed, ect ect.
My new lawn.
I step back and let out a deep sigh of bliss.
To an Englishman, owning a pristine lawn is the most satisfying experience in the world that doesn’t involve trumping somebody in an argument in the pub about road directions. The grass is the greenest shade of green, wafting slightly in the wind, and the cracks between the strips of turf are now almost invisible. Truly I am finally Lord of my own Manor.
I resolve to ring the Turf Man and thank him once more. It is a great feeling when you find a new tradesman who’s friendly and helpful, who gives you an absolute bargain and who delivers on time. The Industrious Builders as well. They laid it expertly, and the younger one even called me ‘Boss’ without making me feel like he was taking the piss. A bird chirrups somewhere up in the Scots Pine.
Each blade seems somehow right. The carpet of turf sweeps towards the carrstone wall, a soft and verdant contrast to the –
There is a weed in my lawn!!!
I glare at it from the gravel path. It is definitely a foreign object. Insulting the virginity of green with its sullen weedness.
I am a bit stumped as to what to do, as nobody is allowed to walk on the new turf. In the end I lie flat and sort of stretch out face down on the lawn, spreading my weight as I reach and grab the intruder.
“That’s not a weed,” explains my Mother, who has appeared behind me like the Creeping Death. “It looks like a potato.”
“It is a potato,” she concludes, after examination. “Look at the leaves. They’re quite sturdy and…”
But I am not listening. I can see another one slightly further from me. I try to think what to say, but I am nonplussed. There are potatoes growing in my new lawn. My back garden is a potato field.
The day goes further downhill the moment he hits me in the face with a hammer.
Even under such circumstances, one has time to reflect. So far in the day I have discovered rainwater dripping through the bedroom ceiling, and been subjected to the new self-service till machine at Tesco, which appears to be about as much use to mankind as a budgerigar with a degree in Media Studies.
He hits me in the face again.
At some point, I tell myself, I should say something. He seems pretty competent, and I get on with the chap reasonably well (although perhaps less so now, seeing that he is hitting me in the face with a hammer), but truth be told it is an unpleasant experience and I would like him to stop.
“Diss crown is priddy impossible to shift,” he explains (note I have used the words ‘diss’ and ‘priddy’ to represent the fact that my dentist is South African and speaks in a South African voice – this is a technique used by us writers to avoid unnecessary explanations that would spoil the flow of the text). “I hev tried wiggling it. Now I am hitting it with diss hemmer.”
He hits my tooth with his hammer once more, to emphasise the point.
Randy Newman wails from my MP3 player. Unfortunately I pressed the wrong button just before he started in my mouth and instead of uplifting and distracting cheerful pop music my head is filled with mournful minor-key reflections on losers and low-life tragedies in the medium of the blues, whilst I am being hit in the face with a hammer.
Meanwhile the anaesthetic seems to have made my face swell up, as if somebody has pushed a marble into my mouth and under my top lip. They may well have done. Or perhaps it is a snooker ball. It could be a penis, for all I know. I have my eyes firmly shut. I do not wish to open them as the hammer is unpleasant enough as it is. I do not think it is a penis, as he would not be hammering it so hard if so.
The only really good thing about a dentist putting his penis in your mouth and starting to hit it wildly with a hammer whilst you are under local anaesthetic and have your eyes firmly shut and are listening to mournful Randy Newman songs is at least you know that you will get offered some mouthwash afterwards.
“It’s coming,” he explains, not entirely reassuringly.
A few more goes with the pliers and my old artificial tooth thing is no more, and I have a huge gap in my mouth that is dripping pus and blood along with an unidentified fragment of metal that appears to have been left in there by the other dentist. We take a two minute break before he starts to clean out the abscess. Randy croons dolefully in my ears.
I expect an important telephone call.
I gaze at the telephone in anticipation. It sits there, not ringing. This is frustrating, as I don’t really want to do anything until I receive my important telephone call.
I check my watch. It is 7.20am. It strikes me that businesses in London might not yet be open. But I do not want to go out, as if I go out then the important telephone call will happen just after that point. I make myself some toast instead, ensuring that I remain within hearing distance of the phone.
The phone does not ring.
9.01am. The phone is still dead and silent. There was some talk of a meeting, before the telephone call. I would imagine that this might have started at, say, eight. Allowing for a few wafflings and goings off at tangents and wonderings what the HR implications are ect ect ect then surely it should be time for them to call. I wonder if 9.01am is too early for me to call them and demand to know why they haven’t called me.
I make a cup of tea. The telephone sits there, smirking. I drink my tea. I decide that I need to go to the toilet, but I know that if I go to the toilet then the call will immediately arrive and I will have to rush out mid-stream and talk to them covered in wee. I take the cordless phone into the toilet with me.
The phone does not ring.
10.30. I am now worried. The meeting has clearly over-run, or did not start until late. Or London is on a different time to the Village.
Noon. If the meeting has gone on until now, then they will probably go for lunch directly afterwards, being in London and all that. I should rush out and get some milk. Except if I do that then they will decide to eat at their desks with take-away pasta salads and cappuccinos, being in London and all that. That would be an ideal time for them to make important calls.
I stay in and stare at the phone. It remains stubbornly devoid of trill.
3pm. Lunch must be over. The Industrious Builder asks for my opinion on some paving slab work. I take the cordless phone with me, explaining that I am awaiting an important call. He is impressed.
The telephone ri – I answer the telephone.
Booooooo. It is not my important callee. It is only my mother. I explain that I am awaiting an important telephone call. She is not at all impressed. I ring off anyway.
3.30pm. I realise with alarm that the important call probably arrived whilst I was on the phone to my mother. I hurriedly dial 1571, to see if this is the case and if they have left a message. There are no messages. Boooooo again.
3.32pm. I realise with alarm that the important call probably arrived whilst I was on the phone to the 1571 service. I hurriedly dial 1571 again, to see if this was the case. There are still no messages. I am downhearted, especially given that I am now locked into a Sisyphean nightmare of recurrent 1571 consultations.
5pm. I give up, and send a stroppy email. I have no important call. I have no milk.