A Horsey Tale

There are some horsey ladies who ride up and down our lane.  Nothing wrong with that.  The thing is, they all wear these high visibility bright yellow vests  with "Polite Notice, please drive slowly" written on the back.  Now, at first glance, it looks like "Police Notice".  Okay..with me so far?  On their riding hats, they also have this blue and white checked tape.  They actually look like police people on horseback.  Why would you want to look like a police officer unless you are on some kind of power trip, or maybe you are just a bossy old moo and want to frighten people in their cars?  The next time I drive past them, I might just drive fast and see if they chase me. Do you dare me?

One of the horsey ladies once accused poor old Mr Forrester (80) of racing down the lane at break-neck speed in his car and trying to kill her entire family, who were walking down the lane.  Now, I find this very hard to believe because in all the years I have lived in this village, I have only ever seen Mr F driving at about 15 miles an hour.  Mrs Angry even called the police and reported him.  The poor old soul was really shaken up by it all but thankfully she was told to stop wasting police time.  Phew!  I had visions of having to make him a cake with a saw hidden in the middle to take to him in prison so that he could make his escape.
 

.....And another thing, why is it that the horses always want to poo right outside the entrance to our drive? It's just not funny, you know, especially if Roberto has just cleaned his car (it's his pride and joy).  In fact, when he has cleaned his car, he is very reluctant to let me go out in it and likes to keep it in the garage until the rain stops.  I know, girls, it's a man thing!  Funnily enough, I always thought cars were self-cleaning. 

The Inconvenience Store

 The Inconvenience Store is a small supermarket in our village, in which the concept of customer service is completely alien to the majority of staff who work there (including the managers).  They look at you with their dead eyes as if you are an annoyance, forgetting of course that the customers are paying their wages. There are sometimes two ladies serving behind the counter during the day, one who I shall refer to as Mrs Sourpuss because she has a permanent expression on her face as if she was sucking lemons.  When Mrs Sourpuss sees that there is a huge queue, she scowls at the patiently waiting customers and either walks away from the till or pretends she is busy doing something, scrambling around under the till pretending to be looking for something.  "We're busy doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do", as the song goes. 

There is also a lady who shouts at customers if they ask her to make up a sandwich after 2pm.  "Yer too late", She says, glaring at them, as if they've asked her for the contents of her bank account,  "I've cleaned up now". 

Sometimes there's no bread on the shelf in the Inconvenience Store, sometimes no milk or eggs, sometimes the kid behind the counter doesn't know what a leek is, and isn't particularly interested because there's a text coming through on his new iphone.  Sometimes said kid actually answers his phone when he is serving a customer..Grrrrrr!! The customers don't seem to complain but you can hear them sighing and huffing and puffing in the queue.  When there is only one person at the till and a big queue builds up, there is bell under the till that they are supposed to ring for another member of staff to come and serve.  We are waiting, waiting, waiting, the queue is growing and growing, then someone at the back of the queue loses the will to live and shouts out "Ring the effing bell would you Gladys, I want to get served before I die!"

The young kids/students who work in the Inconvenience Store have this glazed expression that descends upon them when, for example, your shopping costs £5.25.  You give them a £10 note and the 25p.  They hold the money in their hands, staring at it with panic in their eyes,  wondering what to do with it because they don't understand what it's all about.  Unbelieveably, these same kids all seem to want to go to university to study Rocket Science.  You just couldn't make it up!

The vegetables in the Inconvenience Store are a sight to behold.  I hesitate to use the word "fresh" as I might be contravening Trading Standards laws.  The carrots are usually covered with blue mouldy bits and I've seen one of the staff members pulling lots of dead leaves off cabbages and putting the tiny wilted cabbages back on the shelf.  The mangoes are always weeping (I know the feeling!) and the cucumbers are always soft and squidgy.  Courgettes?  Don't bother! 

The Inconvenience Store is the only shop in our village, but I no longer go in, unless it's wine o' clock and the wine rack chez nous  is bare,  and I only go in on the evenings when the one and only customer-friendly lady works there. 

Happy shopping, mes amis.

Reasons to be Cheerful - Un, Deux, Trois...

First of all I’d like to wish all my blog followers a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

This morning when I came downstairs, I caught Roy the builder sobbing into his cup of tea. "What the hell’s the matter with you Roy?", Said Roberto, my husband. In between sobs and sniffs, Roy spluttered, "She...she...Wilma won’t let me put up my poster in the living room". It turned out that Roy’s son had given him a life size poster of the girl from the Transformers film (not the alien girl, the other one) for Christmas and he wanted to put it in a prime location in the living room and Wilma was having none of it. "Jesus, Roy", I said, "I thought somebody had died the way you are going on". I have zero patience for 10 year old boy-men. Note to self: buy some darts for Wilma.

Well, things are really looking up in the Printemps household. I am delighted to announce that it is the final week of our building project and there will be no more workmen in our house after Friday - YIPPPPEEEEEEEE!!

Reasons to be Cheerful 1, 2, 3...

• The money I will save on tea bags and biscuits will be enough to finance a Caribbean cruise, including spending money. Ditto our electricity bill from boiling the kettle 20 times a day.
• There will be no more daily trips to B&Q or Screwfix (pulease!) for strange bits of plastic and pipe bits.
• I will not miss Roy the builder arriving at 7.30am, working on the roof and banging on the bathroom window to give me the fright of my life when I am in the shower.
• There will be no more drilling, hammering, radio blaring and Roy and Bob singing duets to Beyonce songs at the top of their voices.
• I will no longer have to look at builders’ pants/bottom cleavages or listen to their stupid 10 year old boy jokes.
• I will be able to look out of my upstairs landing window without someone standing on the roof looking back at me with a goofy grin.
• I will no longer have to listen to Roy’s conversations...with himself.
• I will never have to look at the plasterer’s assistant’s HUGE multi-coloured pants (sorry, pants again).

 　

So, mes amis, this Friday I will mostly be doing cartwheels round the garden.

Update on Previous Post

　

The big black Bentley driven by the mysterious blonde lady was seen going up our quiet country lane again today, closely followed by several elderly neighbours travelling incognito en bicyclettes. Inspector Poirot, eat your heart out!

A bientot.

Funny Things that Happen in a Yorkshire Village

The thing about living on a quiet country lane in a quiet country village is that you get to know people quite quickly.  We see the same cars coming up the lane where we live, the same people taking their dogs for a walk, the same old lady on her bike, not that I'm hiding behind the curtains with binoculars or anything.  Everything becomes familiar, so when something or someone different comes along, you notice straight away. 

Just lately, the lane inhabitants have been noticing a large shiny black Bentley driving past every now and again.  Now there are not that many of us living on our lane and only a couple of farms at the end of it, so we have all been wondering who the blonde lady driver of the big black Bentley has been visiting (just out of interest, you understand).  One of our elderly neighbours, Mr Forrester (80 years young) decided to investigate.  The big black Bentley had driven past his house and he hadn't seen it coming back down the lane again.  Mr Forrester jumped into his little tractor and set about his investigation - he had carrots to collect from a field, you know!  He arrived at the end of the lane where there is a small lay-by.  Parked up was the big black Bentley and a white transit van.  "Wonder where the people are?", he asked himself.  They were nowhere near the farms or any houses.  Suddenly the door of the white Transit van opened and the blonde lady appeared, looking slightly dishevilled, followed by a man, presumably the white van man.  Mr F could see inside the back of the van and there was a mattress on the floor.  The moral of the story is, even if you think your little assignations are secret, there's always a Mr Forrester collecting his carrots and then reporting his findings to the rest of the village. 

Another funny thing that happened was when we got new neighbours in the rented bunglow next door to our house.  It was a couple, maybe in their late 50's.  I used to see the lady walking her dog up the lane every afternoon.  Can I just put this politely, dear amis?  I think she had a drink problem!  We used to find empty vodka bottles behind our greenhouse and one day my husband, Roberto, drove past and saw her rolling around on the grass, unable to get up. 

We rent a shed to a young mechanic called Scott.  He's always doing up old cars in the shed and he doesn't cause any problems to anyone.  He reported to us one morning that the previous night the  lady next door had come to see him and shouted at him for making too much noise.  Well, we hadn't heard a squeak that night.  However, Scott felt bad about it and went into the shop where this lady worked and apologised the next day.  She said "I don't know what you are talking about".  She couldn't remember doing it. 

As for our other neighbours, well that's a story for another day chers amis.

Christmas chez Printemps

Now that most of our building work is finished, we can finally start thinking about Christmas. Roberto will no doubt announce the night before Christmas Eve that we are going into Hull in the morning so that he can buy my Christmas present.  This happened last year, but to be honest, mes amis, it was actually quite magical.  The snow and ice were still lying as we ventured into Hull at 7.30 am on Christmas Eve morning.  It started to snow again as we arrived but the town was quiet, hardly anyone around.  We went round the department stores to get my perfume for Christmas but could we heck as find the aftershave that Roberto wanted.  He likes the same one that Keith Richards uses.  He will kill me for telling you all this, but he also has the same watch as Keith Richards (his every day watch, that is).  Roberto was a bit disappointed that we couldn't find his aftershave, so he suggested a trip into York in the afternoon.  I said, "Christmas Eve, York, snow and ice all over the roads?  I don't think so Roberto".  "Okay", he said, "I'll settle for Old Spice until after Christmas".  Result!

Christmas Eve is my day of preparation.  I get everything ready, peeled, chopped, stuffed etc, so I can just fling it all into the oven on Christmas morning.  I make my trifles, one for me and one for our friend William.   This has become our little tradition.  Both William and I hate Christmas pudding - bleurgh!- and love trifle sans sherry.  I love Christmas Eve, especially if there's an old film on TV in the afternoon, like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  I  have a little sniffle when  Dick Van Dyke sings Hushabye Mountain to the kids who are being kept prisoner under the castle.  Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a little sniffle at Hushabye Mountain. 

Christmas chez Printemps is a relatively quiet affair.  It's just myself, Roberto, a 6 kg turkey and Michael Buble singing his Christmas songs.  We used to invite Roberto's elderly aunt until her attempted suicide by a deliberate overdose of paracetamol and morphine (in our house!!) in 2008 and our Christmas and New Year was spent in and out of hospital visiting her.  Please don't feel sad and think she was a poor little old dear.  As soon as she came out of the hospital, she was sitting up in bed putting rollers in her hair so she would look nice for her visit to her own doctor the next day and telling all her friends on the phone that we were keeping her prisoner.  Suicidal, my a**e!.....More fruitcake, anyone?

Anyway, mes amis, I must dash.  I have much to do.  I have to hang up new curtains in my new living room, light the wood burning stove and then sprinkle fairy dust liberally round my house and make some Christmas magic. 

A tout a l'heure, chers amis.

Musing on Flat Screen TV...Just for me (allegedly).

The painting is never-ending in this house.  On Sunday, I happened to run out of paint just as I was almost finished painting our new utility room.  We had a mad dash to the outskirts of Hull where I bought EXACTLY the same tub of paint that we had before.  Got home, finished painting utility room with new paint.  Job done.  When I went into the utility room this morning to check out my work, the paint was a slightly different shade and the whole lot looked patchy and 'orrible.  I will have to start all over again.  I wondered if someone at the paint factory perhaps had a hangover and put the wrong ingredients in on the day they made my pot of paint?  Next painting job is the Forth Bridge!
 

Roberto is in his element.  He bought himself a new 46" flatscreen TV, after weeks of research and price comparisons.  He has been bending my ear about getting one for ages.  Now he has finally done it and is a very happy bunny. The only thing is, his friend William, the farmer, will say that his flatscreen is bigger than Roberto's and there will be some playground bickering between them about whose is the biggest ("my dad's bigger than your dad"). You know how it goes, girls. Like anyone really cares, guys! The prize for the best excuse ever for buying a large flatscreen TV goes to my husband, Roberto Printemps.  His words were, "I bought the flatscreen for you so you can watch the final of Strictly Come Dancing on it". 

I am getting quite excited.  Tomorrow, for the first time in 4 months, I will be on my own in my own house.  There will be no builders, no husband, no plumbers, no sparks.  No Roy (builder) sitting at my kitchen table at 7.30 am having a cup of tea, no music blaring out of the radio, nobody singing (apart from me, of course!). Just complete silence.  Wonderful!  The work is still not finished but they are going on another job on Thursday.  Yipeeeeee!

Silence is golden. 

On Stripping............WALLPAPER!

Well, if I do say so myself, Molly has excelled herself today!  I had the lovely job of stripping wallpaper in our hallway .  Don't you just love it when men ask you to find something and you spend half an hour looking for it, only to find that they found said thing two minutes after they asked you to look for it and then didn't tell you?  Roberto (husband) had asked me to find the wallpaper stripping machine.  I searched the house from top to bottom, only to find that he had located it in his shed two minutes after he had asked me, and then forgot to let me know....Grrrrr!  Think I will lock him in his shed for a few hours (I will call it the naughty shed).  Anyway, wallpaper is well and truly stripped now in our hallway.  New plaster has been prepared for new wallpaper (see, I know all the builders' terms now).  I have also made 20 cups of tea for Roy (builder) and Roberto, who are building an arch over our driveway.  They couldn't feel their feet because it was so cold, so I even made a cauldron of home made soup for them.  I have well and truly earned my glass of wine tonight. 

We are going back to the carpet shop in Hull tomorrow to choose another stair carpet.  The one we chose was too patterned and I don't want my house to look like an old lady house (sorry, old ladies!).  God, that means I'll have to listen to Tony in the carpet shop droning on about what carpets Sarah Beeney chose for her Renovation Nightmares TV programme...AGAIN! It also means that the three Bandidos will be back here soon to fit the new stair carpet.  Oh joy!

Our living room is slowly getting back to normal.  I thought we might have to remove a window to get our sofa in the other night.  It was a bit of a struggle but we managed it in the end (a bit of swearing was involved, as usual).  Can't wait to make my living room look like Christmas magic. 

Roberto's Libyan friend, Shaz, called in today (he big doctor man).  He wanted to ask Roy and Roberto to do some work for him.  Apparently Big Mike the builder/plasterer had quoted him £50,000 to build a two car garage (you're having a larf aren't you Big Mike?).  Big Mike must have seen Shaz's big Mercedes and priced the job accordingly.  Anyway, Shaz was admiring their work and told Roberto he liked our house so much that and he would give us his house in Hull (eeek!), his big Mercedes and 200 camels for it.  I told him to "barter-off", or words to that effect. What the hell would we do with 200 camels anyway? 

It's nearly wine o'clock, mes amis.  Have a good weekend.