Something Between Us

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I was talking to my mother (alias Supergran) beside the racks of freshly baked bread at Lidl in Newton Abbot when it happened. My hand was reaching for a bread bag on the shelf underneath the French baguettes while Mum was two feet away checking out the pizza rolls and bruschetta novelties (and asking what they were) when suddenly an arm appeared between us.

The arm was long and brown, and tattooed on the shoulder and biceps. The arm shot out so quickly, and was so close, that I couldn’t make out the design of the ink illustration. The one thing I knew for sure was that it was young, smooth skinned and… muscular! The fine hairs on the sun-tanned arm glinted gold under the neon lights in the bread aisle as it stretched towards the baguettes.

“Excuse me ladies,” said a male voice.

My eyes followed the arm up to his face. He was perhaps twenty-four, had blond curly hair cut neat and short, and he wore a small beard on his chin. He grabbed a baguette, already in cellophane, and withdrew his arm. There was an empty space where the arm had been and Mum and I were left staring at one another.

I wondered what Mum was thinking… Would she comment on the tattoos and the rude intrusion? I hoped she wouldn’t tell him off in a Supergran manner. Well, he did excuse himself.

My ninety-five year old mother, dumbfounded and wide-eyed, paused for a long moment as she made sense of the arm and how to respond. At last she found her voice. 

“WOW!” she exclaimed sufficiently loud to draw attention from all the shoppers in Lidl, including the young man who was by now past the bread ovens.

The blond turned and smiled a lovely white smile before dashing off in embarrassment. I don’t expect he finished all his shopping in Lidl last Saturday.

 

Four Men in a Boat

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“Roland, would you mind telling me again about your boat trip, in detail, so that I can tell my blog readers?” I asked with pen and paper in my hands.

“No, of course not, but where shall I start?” our friend from Brisbane chuckled at the memory and sat down on the dry seat I had proferred (it had stopped raining and he was having a smoke on my studio patio whilst I sat the other side of the threshold with the door open between us).

“Start at the beginning,” I suggested, “and I’ll prompt you when necessary.”

“Well,” began Roland, “we arrived at Polly Steps at Teignmouth, on the harbour side of Shaldon Bridge. Geoff (my brother-in-law) drove the trailer onto the boat ramp while Chris (that’s my husband), James (my sixteen year old nephew) and I were already knee-deep in the water in order to manoeuvre the boat off the trailer. Three attempts and we were launched successfully. Captain Geoff sat next to the motor on the back seat, James was on the triangular bow seat and Chris and I were in the middle seats. On the floor of the boat was a conglomeration of ropes, plastic bags, oars twice the size of the boat and a cool bag with three cans of beer.”

“So not much floor space?” I queried.

“Not with all those ropes,” he shook his head and gave a wry smile as if he was remembering something funny.

“And what was the weather like?” I thought you readers might like to paint a mental picture of the scene.

“Oh yes, the weather,” Roly understood. “It was around five o’clock in the afternoon and sunny – balmy even – not a cloud in the sky. The tide was coming in but the water was shallow as high tide was eight o’clock. We were headed for The Passage House Inn at Newton Abbot. As we negotiated the narrow channel for a mile or so up the river Chris and Geoff pointed out various houses and the village of Bishopsteignton set below the sunlit fields on the right hand side. It must have been around there that the shimmering on the water made it ever more hard for us to pick out the channel and the muddy riverbed appeared closer and closer as we looked over the side of the boat.”

“Did you all see that?” I wondered about Geoff.

“Yes, except for Geoff!”, Roly laughed. “Through his expert navigation the propeller started churning up the mud… which reminded me of my own experience of running out of water in my boat a few years ago…!

“Oh no,” I said, remembering that same incident.

“Yes, we could all feel the shallowness of the water and James said to Geoff, ‘Granddad, tilt the motor forward to raise the prop,’ but it was too late; by the time he’d finished his sentence we’d hit the mud full on. We couldn’t go anywhere so Chris, James and I got out to push the boat back into deeper water.”

“Did Geoff laugh too?” I asked, considering that Roland was laughing while talking.

“He couldn’t understand how it had happened and suggested we push the boat into deeper water,” our friend from Australia chuckled. “Young James, being an Oxford rower, said, ‘Hold on, I’ll row us out into deeper water!’ We got back into the boat and this time James took up position in the middle and put the giant oars into the rowlocks. James’ arms criss-crossed as he attempted to row and he complained, ‘Granddad, these oars are too long and need adjusting’. Geoff said, ‘I’ll just saw them off then when we get home!'”

I laughed.

“James started rowing, pulling for all he was worth,” Roland continued, relishing the memory, “and we were going nowhere. We looked over the sides of the boat into the water and saw that we were stranded; inadvertently, we had pushed the boat directly onto a submerged tree trunk! But the ultra long oar came in handy when James used it, gondolier-like, to push the boat off the tree trunk.

Geoff started the motor but let James take over. ‘You see if you can do any better!’ Geoff told him. James negotiated his way into the right channel and headed toward Passage House Inn (where we sometimes stop for Chris to read Mum my blogs). The river was too low for us to disembark at the jetty so we pulled onto the mud and Geoff struck anchor on the grassy bank. Being safety conscious, Geoff covered the anchor with his high vis jacket to prevent people from tripping over it.

Two beers and pleasant chats later we re-boarded and set off to advance further into Newton Abbot. The channel became smaller and smaller and the foliage greater and greater until we ran out of navigable water – it was like a jungle.” Roland paused as he reminisced.

The crew go upriver to Newton Abbot

“Like the ‘African Queen’?” I saw it in my mind’s eye.

“We did mention that,” Roland agreed, “also when were pushing the boat.”

I thought of Humphrey Bogart and the leeches.

“Two hours after we’d set out we headed back,” Roland wanted to finish his story. “The sun was lower in the sky and the tide was almost full, so no more running aground. We passed The Passage House Inn – didn’t go in – and went on to the boardwalk wharf jetty at Coombe Cellars. It was about eight o’clock. The air was cooling as the sun went down and lots of people had finished their dinners. We enjoyed our one drink as watched the ripples on the water, the long shadows and the lovely reflections of the trees on the river. It was absolutely beautiful.”

The sun going down at Coombe Cellars

“Any more mishaps in the homeward leg of your journey?” I had to ask.

“There was no heading peacefully back to Polly Steps, as you know Sally,” Roland chuckled. “Geoff shut the motor off as we reached the boat ramp and Chris, James and I jumped into the water to secure the boat and prevent it from bashing into the ramp. Geoff stabilised the motor, pushing it forward to stop the propeller from scraping the corrugated concrete surface. So the three of us deckhands were all wet in water up past our knees while Captain Geoff was nice and dry still in the stern of his boat. Young James observed, ‘Granddad, you haven’t even got your feet wet during this trip!’

At the same instant Geoff was disembarking from the boat, one leg over the side and in the process of bringing the other leg over, when his remaining foot became entangled in the conglomeration of ropes, plastic bags and over-sized oars… Suddenly, breaking free from the restricting anchor rope – and with his mobile phone in his hand – Geoff fell sideways into the water!”

“And was he completely submerged?” I asked with devilment.

“Completely,” laughed Roland, “and the funniest thing was that his hand came out of the water first! ‘My phone! My phone!’ he called out as he raised his head.”

“Did you have a wonderful time?” I asked.

“It was absolutely brilliant!” our old friend enthused. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world… and no doubt the couple of beers made it even merrier!”

“Thank you Roly.” 

Now don’t feel too sorry for my brother-in-law because his lovely new Samsung Galaxy 6 Edge mobile phone arrived today and he vastly pleased. Every cloud has a silver lining!

Water, water everywhere but never a drop to drink!

Gardeners World

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It was a beautiful sunny evening and I was hosing the flowers on our small balcony on the road side of our house. Each summer I have a nice display of flowers and sometimes I hear the passersby on the pavement as they make approving comments, however, this evening the comments were coming from our side of the wall. Our friend Roland (recently over from Australia and well known to many of my readers as “the bird-man of Brisbane”) had taken a beer and a cigarette to the top of the steps by our front gate, perhaps to enjoy seeing the world pass by and exchange greetings (or meet more birds).

Whilst I was still engrossed with my watering, our friend Jo appeared on the steps of Alan’s house two doors up (Jo is going out with Alan’s daughter Caroline); Jo was going up with hose in hand to water Caroline’s flowers on her balcony and we struck up conversation.

“Your flowers look beautiful, Sally,” called out Jo.

“Thank you,” I responded, “it’s been a really good summer for the flowers this year… apart from those ranunculus plants we all bought. Only one of mine survived. And to think how pretty and promising they looked at first.”

“Oh, they were rubbish. All of Caroline’s have gone,” Jo said, hosing the glorious geraniums which replaced the rubbish ranunculus plants, “but the weather is perfect for the flowers this year. So much sunshine!”

“My petunias are excelling… and the marguerites. I don’t think they’ve ever been better. Last year it was the agapanthus. Each summer seems to favour a particular flower over others,” I agreed.

“I find the dandelions always do well at my place,” Roland said wryly from his position above us at the gate.

There is never a dull moment with Roland around.

And here are some cute photos of a couple of up and coming gardeners in my family…

 

 

My Word is His Bond

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“You’ve lost weight!” I said to Dave the builder as I was hosing my plants on the terrace this morning.

Shirtless, Dave was adding the finishing touches to the new railings he had built on Catherine and Martin’s balcony at Number Seven, two doors down from us.

“Well,” Dave smiled, turned off his radio and stopped working briefly to explain, “I couldn’t get into the suit I bought new two years ago so I wasn’t going to buy a new one… and I’ve been on a high protein diet recently. No carbs. I’ve lost between one and a half and two stone!”

“You look good,” I said encouragingly, “like James Bond coming out of the water!” (I know, I may have exaggerated a wee bit – Dave is in his fifties and completely bald.)

“Which one?” he asked.

“Daniel Craig,” I laughed, “but wouldn’t Sean Connery be alright, too?”

“Are you sure you’re not thinking of the one with the cat?” modest Dave stroked an imaginary cat in his arms.

“Oh, Blofeld!” I chuckled as an image of bald Telly Savalas entered my head.

We both laughed – patently, without his beard Dave could have been the Kojak actor’s double. Dave turned the radio back on and picked up a nautical-looking rope, which was to make the balcony rail appear like a handrail on a ship. Still musing on the mental image I went back to my hosing. 

I didn’t tell Dave I used like the bald actor when I was a girl in the seventies and he brought out that romantic LP. Telly had such a lovely deep voice that he had only to speak-sing to bring out the goose pimples. Funny how men hate Telly Savalas’s singing!

 

 

 

Ape Man or Jungle Jim?

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“Oh dear,” said my husband Chris as he joined me for breakfast on the terrace one morning about two weeks ago, “I’m not sure that I’ve done the right thing by accepting our latest guest request…” 

“How so?” I asked with surprise as I looked up from my diet shake (no, I’m not slim yet!).

“Well, Igor looks normal enough on his profile photograph – even a tad nerdy – and other Airbnb hosts have recommended them as a nice couple, but, do we really want them to ‘go ape’ in our lovely suite?”

“Go ape?” I repeated, mental images of Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan racing into my mind and it didn’t seem so bad, then I thought of the other connotations – of people getting out of control or over-enthusiastic. 

“I hope they don’t swing from the chandeliers and mark their territory,” Chris said, reading my mind.

“Maybe it’s just a new term for having fun,” I suggested.

So we stopped thinking about Igor ‘going ape’ until yesterday, when he contacted us to arrange their arrival plans. I read the email first:

“We intend to go ape tree until three o’clock and then we’ll come over to you if that’s okay.”

“That’s a relief,” laughed Chris, having checked out on Google that Go Ape is a tree top adventure course with Tarzan ropes and ladders.

A short while ago Igor and his girlfriend, a very nice young couple (not at all nerdy), confirmed that they had had a great time swinging in the tree tops at Haldon Forest, perhaps half an hour from us.

“I’ve never heard of Go Ape before,” I said, “but it sounds exciting – like a jungle gym!”

They nodded enthusiastically.

Of course, they probably hadn’t even heard of Jungle Jim and wouldn’t have known that Jungle Jim (also played Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller) was one of my childhood heroes… along with Tarzan, Superman,  Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone (quote – I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days). They stopped making Jungle Jim before I was born!

Internet Purgatory

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Facebook Messenger may be a great way for finding old friends and acquaintances and keeping in touch but can you trust it? With surprise I opened the Messenger app this morning to find that one of my new friend requests was from an old girlfriend of my brother Henry. Being rather dubious I clicked on the photo icon for a closer look and, sure enough, it was the same Janice to whom I was introduced several years ago.

“It can’t be…” I said to Chris who was having coffee with me on the terrace, “I have a friend request from Janice.”

“Janice?” Chris had never met her.

“Yes, Henry’s ex-girlfriend. They went out for a few months but it didn’t work out even though she was a really nice lady. Sadly, later she became ill and died of cancer about four years ago,” I explained.

“Terrible,” agreed Chris.

“Someone must have stolen her identity,” I suggested.

“Or perhaps she’s in Internet purgatory, desperately trying to get in touch with friends on Facebook!” my husband quipped.

It puts a new twist on Facebook being regarded as a good medium!

 

 

 

 

                                                 

Pretty as a Picture

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Penelope Porch is something of an oil painting!

 Penny entered the world almost seven weeks too early but, just over a year later, you wouldn’t know it. She’s an avid reader, pianist, swimmer, ballerina, DJ, pop star,  animal-lover and animal and fruit impersonator. However, my favourite painting of the year just happens to be a portrait of my darling granddaughter as herself!

Should’ve Gone to Specsavers (Yet Another Instance!)

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Earlier today Chris and I were leaning over the balustrade on our terrace to admire the work we did in the bottom garden on the sea side of our house yesterday. We had laboured hard with pruning, strimming, clearing and removing weeds and soil from the steps going down the steep slope (forty-five degrees) so we were feeling pleased with ourselves.

“From here it looks like a grave,” Chris said as he pointed out the loose soil on the brick steps edging the lawn.

“I don’t think so,” I disagreed.

All the same, I turned on the hose and held it over the balustrade letting the water cascade like heavy rain onto the brickwork beneath. Water collected in brown puddles over the brick steps and, Chris, thinking he might do better than me, took over. He didn’t.

Convinced that it was simply a matter of perseverance and quantity of water, I commandeered the hose and stood for quite a time leaning over the balustrade. Every now and then I made a comment to Chris about the slowness of the task and how much water it was taking. He didn’t say much – I thought him either bored or deaf (he is a tad deaf) – but I enjoyed his company nevertheless. I like us doing chores together.

After ten minutes or so I was getting a bit fed up with just standing there holding the hose and continually watching the water plop onto the soily wet steps. I seemed to remember Chris saying earlier that it might rain today, which, if so, would obviate the requirement for me to hose the steps to stop them looking like a grave.

“Did you say that it’s going to rain later today darling?” I asked.

No answer.

“Is rain forecast this afternoon Darling?” I ask a little louder this time.

Nothing.

So for the first time since I’d begun hosing I looked up from my lowered gaze upon the garden.Turning to the right to where I had sensed Chris’s head to be I was greatly surprised to find that it wasn’t his head at all but the stone ornamental flowerpot in the middle of the balustrade! Should’ve gone to Specsavers!

I laughed to myself. My ornamental (if not monumental) husband was inside, engrossed with his tax forms on the table – not such an empty vessel after all.

Is it going to rain later today Darling?

How to Deal With Screaming Babies and Children in Supermarkets

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Firstly, I must say that I really like babies and children in general. I love their innocence and the candid way they look at you, and suss you out, before they react. What joy when they like you and how disappointing when they don’t (and you mustn’t expect or press too hard for a good response). But however much I may love babies I certainly can’t stick their screaming in supermarkets – the shrill notes go right through me – and not just me and other shoppers; they must be the bane of many a shop-assistant’s life.

Recently I read on Facebook of a grandmother’s experience when her grandchild played up at the checkout while she, herself, was dealing with the cashier. Evidently, the guardian granny was extremely angry when the lady behind her tried to cajole the child and she even swore at the woman for touching the tot. Well, reading this I wondered what I would have done had I been in the same position as the lady behind the screaming baby. It’s quite likely that I, too, would have beseeched the screamer to stop. I might even have squeezed a toe to distract the child from her antics… or perhaps not, I can’t be sure but I could imagine doing so. I have definitely touched the arm or hand of a charming unknown child before now.

Last Saturday, whilst shopping at Trago Mills (one of my favourites stores) I found myself in a not dissimilar situation. One moment I was happily, and peacefully, looking at head-bands for baby girls… and then… suddenly, my ears were assailed by a terrible high-pitched screaming. With a finger in each ear I looked down into a pram at the young perpetrator – he was a blond, curly haired little angel with pink cheeks and red lips. I was about to complain about the terrible noise when the pretty mother got in first… 

“Sorry about Phillip, he’s normally a good boy,” she said holding her own ears. 

Phillip continued to scream.

“Calm down now and stop screaming,” she said firmly.

He howled.

“Oh what a gorgeous boy you are!” I said, turning from the mother to the vexed baby.

Young Phillip stopped screaming immediately and looked at me transfixed.

“He likes you!” she enthused.

“And what beautiful hair you have! Like an angel!” I continued with the compliments because he was really was that beautiful and also because he seemed to love them so much. It was calming.

“He had open-heart surgery not long ago and he’s still getting over it,” added his mum.

I was so glad that I’d taken the soft approach on this occasion.

 

There was another occasion a few years ago when I was in Tesco’s… I heard him long before I saw him. He was a dark-haired “Dennis the Menace” aged about three or four, too big for the trolley seat and therefore stood in the back of the shopping trolley, screaming his head off. Indeed, so awful and embarrassing was he that his mother or father had disowned him and gone off to shop in some other aisle (or store perhaps). 

“Good,” I thought as I rounded the corner and saw Dennis alone, screaming at the top of his voice. I walked up to him calmly, bent my head close to his ear and gave him my best theatrical whisper:

“Shut up!”

Dennis stopped and looked nonplussed. Obviously no-one had ever told him to shut up until then. And while his mouth was still open with surprise a little old lady came zooming up the aisle from the opposite end and bent her head close to his other ear:

“Yeah, shut up!”

A double whammy. We ladies did a “thumbs up” and continued our shopping in peace.

 

A Funeral to Live For

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I must be maturing because I’m not quite so scared of funerals as I used to be (apart from my own, which I trust will be a long way off considering my mum is still going strong, and is normal, at ninety-five). Until fairly recently I couldn’t concentrate on a church funeral service owing to my vivid imaginings of the poor dead body inside the coffin, and crematoriums (or is that crematoria?) were even worse… Those nasty curtains… the final curtain. Did you know that the machine for burning is called a crematory? (Not to be confused with a crème de la crème Tory like our Prime Minister Theresa May!)

Anyway, by now I’ve attended enough funerals to be discriminating about them. My favourite was the Humanist funeral for my old boyfriend Chris who died too young from drink. He used to say that he had hundreds of friends down the pub yet only three of them, one of whom was the landlord, turned up to say good-bye. My old boyfriend had never married but, being a handsome man, he had had many girlfriends – thank goodness – and his funeral was well attended with ex-girlfriends and their husbands or partners. The Humanist funeral celebrant spoke plainly and sincerely about Chris’s life; and after the service we ex-girlfriends all greeted one another with open arms and compared stories.

“I remember seeing your photo,” said one attractive lady to me.

“I always worried about what happened to my photos,” said another.

And we all laughed and thought how pleased old Chris would have been if he were in Heaven looking down on his old girlfriends regaling each other with funny stories and happy memories of being with Chris. But, of course, he couldn’t have been looking down on us because it was a Humanist funeral and he was in a woven palm frond coffin.

That was the best funeral. It helps if you’re not, or perhaps I should say no longer (in this case), too close to the deceased.

My dad’s funeral was the worst – we loved him so much.

My dear friend Amr’s funeral was the next worst. He was buried on my birthday, an extremely cold eleventh of November that year. Friends and family gathered around the graveside, our heels sinking into the mud, and only two people – my husband Chris and Amr’s daughter Laila – could manage to sing the words to Rod Stewart’s song “Sailing”; the rest of us were crying (although my proclivity to laugh when I shouldn’t nearly got the better of me when Laila began harmonising with Chris).

My cousin Christine spoke so beautifully of her mother as we stood at Aunty Eve’s grave. My aunt lived in Somerset so I didn’t know her particularly well, all the same,  enough to cry for the loss of her in our family’s lives and especially for my cousins’ loss.

If you’re wondering why I’m contemplating on funerals today, well, it’s not really so strange because my husband Chris (new Chris, although he was older than old Chris who died) and I went to a funeral recently. Actually it was this morning but I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so I won’t say whose funeral it was. Suffice it to say, the deceased was exceedingly old and more of an acquaintance than a friend.

I suppose that when you’re a nonagenarian you’ve outlived most of your contemporaries, and you probably don’t go out as much as you did so you don’t have many new acquaintances and friends – or any. Hence, the church seemed rather big and the mourners rather scanty. We and a friend of ours sat on the opposite side of the central aisle to the few others who had gathered to show their respect.

The organ came to life to the tune of Amazing Grace and the vicar lead the cortege; we turned to see that immediately behind him was a severe-looking woman dressed in black, wearing a top hat like an old-fashioned riding hat; then the coffin carried by six burly men (to lift about nine stones I reckon), and then the family who occupied the first two lines of pews on our side of the church.

The vicar, who was himself old, read out a few lines written by each of the two grandchildren and then a young man with a sheet of paper read out his thoughts about his great-grandmother – unfortunately, he spoke too quickly and his mouth was too far from the microphone for anyone beyond the front pew to hear. The vicar congratulated the young man and we had the first hymn. After a somewhat long introduction one or two of the congregation sang, “The Lord’s our shepherd…” On verse three all was not as expected for the vicar began singing verse four… I sang a bit louder to let him know his mistake but he carried on undaunted and by the last two lines we three singers were in unison. The organist must have been in on it – he stopped with the vicar’s lead (it must be a well-known trick to save time!). Two short readings from the bible and we were into our next hymn, “All Creatures Great and Small”, and three verses in – would you believe it? – the vicar began singing verse four. This time we two singers took our cue and accompanied the vicar to the end. A prayer or two followed and the organ started up again – Amazing Grace – and the dominatrix with the riding hat and stick led the cortege back down the aisle. It was over.

When my time comes, which I hope will be a long way off, I don’t want a vicar who doesn’t know me conducting a service for twenty-two people, some of whom barely knew me. No pomp either please. No lady with a funny hat and solemn expression. Give me a gathering of those who loved me, sending me off with a prayer and thoughts of any good I might have done in my life. Tears, yes – why not? That would be my idea of a funeral to die for.

Oh no, James Bond is dead!