Remembering Sunday
So first I had insomnia for a week or so and then I crashed as I am inclined to do* and this last week I haven’t been able to sleep enough which includes failing to wake up properly between extended periods of sopor.** Saturday morning I slept nine hours which worked out to getting up at eleven.***
I have to get up at eight† on Sundays, to make it to service ring.
I went to bed way early Saturday night, and I was tired and everything because I’ve been tired all week. But what does tiredness have to do with it? Of course because my alarm was going to go off at 8 a.m. Sunday morning I couldn’t frelling fall asleep.
The alarm went off. I sprang out of bed as if propelled by goblins. Slammed†† into my clothes†††, lurched downstairs to build a cup of tea strong enough to take on Godzilla, and let hellhounds out, who say, it’s what time? This is the middle of the night. Come back at 11.
Drank tea.
Tied shoelaces.‡
Ran down street to bell tower. First service breaking up a little late. Good. Start to climb ladder to bell tower and realise the trap door is closed. Frell. I really must start remembering to bring my key.
It’s not till I’m backing down the ladder to ground level again that a cold, clammy‡‡ tendril of memory uncoils. It’s Remembrance Sunday. Something about service ring on Remembrance Sunday. . . .
I got up an hour earlier than I needed to on Sunday morning because I FORGOT that we were ringing at Old Eden instead of New Arcadia on Remembrance Sunday.‡‡‡
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGGGGH.
I went home. Hellhounds were delighted to see me. Hellhounds do not, in fact, tell time very well. Sunday mornings I get up early, moan, drink tea, and go away. When I get back, it’s time for the morning hurtle. This is the system. I went upstairs and hung up wet laundry§ to recover my composure. Heart-rending wails from the ground floor.§§ Then I took hellhounds for a brief hurtle, which they failed to appreciate§§§, and left again, while hellhounds stared after me, too paralysed with shock to protest.
Nobody asked me if I had remembered about ringing late at Old Eden. I didn’t volunteer any remarks on this subject.
I finally got back again to the cottage at about 11. The national two-minute silence was comprehensively drowned out by the delirium of hellhounds, saying, Okay, it’s 11 o’clock now. Now the day is going to get normal, right? We’re going for a proper hurtle now, right?
* * *
The new gate on the new piece of footpath that has produced two weeks in a row of Sunday Adventures was open when we passed by it on the other side of the road this evening. ¤ I’ve forgotten to tell you, Peter met up with a groundskeeper some afternoon this week, and asked about the path and the gate, and when the gate was closed. It’s never closed, said the groundskeeper. But the sign says 8 am to 10 pm, said Peter. Never mind the sign, said the groundskeeper. It’s never closed.
But my wife found it closed and locked last Sunday evening at about 6, said Peter.
Dunno about closed, said the groundskeeper. But there’s no lock.
Peter came home and duly reported this.¤¤
But . . . but . . . but . . . I had in fact been briefly nonplussed by the lack of a lock, last Sunday, a bolt, a chain with a padlock, whatever. The point is that I laid my hand upon the gate and it didn’t move. I shook it hither and yon—so, for example, if was merely butting up against a stop, it would open the other direction—and it refused so to shake. Locked, I deduced. It seemed reasonable at the time. ¤¤¤
There is an obvious answer to this. The warlock who can make streetlights go dark by shaking them can obviously lock lockless gates by the same means.
I’m staying away from the school rec grounds Sunday evenings.~
* * *
* Sigh. Well, at least I’m consistent. There must be something I’m not an extremist about. Uh. . . . I’m thinking. . . . #
** Which Word wants to turn into spoor
*** This time of year you have forty-five minutes of daylight left if you get up at 11 a.m. I’m raising my vitamin D intake.
† Hey. I know this isn’t early to farmers, parents of small children, early-shift people of various vibes and temperaments, and judicious, mature, right-thinking, well-balanced pains in the a—I mean, people who are in touch with their basic nature and in correct relationship with their environment.^ It’s early to me. Most weeks it’s only about an hour early, however, rather than three.
^ Pains in the a, like I said.
†† Somewhat literally
††† Thoughtfully laid out the night before, the better to trip over since I’m not used to there being clothes in the way in the morning. Very-very-long-time readers may remember that my bedroom is so small that to get the drawers of the dresser fully open, you have to lie on the bed. The bed is, however, so tall, that you can’t reach the bottom drawer, if you’re lying on it. The bed, not the drawer. There is certainly no room for the gratuitous laying-out of clothing.^
^ On the bed? Are you kidding? There are so many books on the bed, there’s barely room for me. Fortunately I’m a quiet sleeper.+
+ Strangely enough, I agree.
‡ Sunday mornings I have occasionally thought of . . . Velcro. No, no, no, no, All Stars with Velcro would be an abomination, and a plague of toads would rain down on Hampshire. . . . Wait a minute. I like toads. Toads eat slugs.
‡‡ Toadlike, even
‡‡‡ Thus am I punished for not having made it to bell practise on Friday; Vicky would have reminded everyone present of the Sunday schedule.
§ I have discovered an important principle of civilised life which I will share with you here, in case any of you are unaware of it. Do you know that if you get your wet laundry out of the washing machine promptly, and into some kind of openwork basket, that it will never develop that funny, left-lying-around-wet-too-long smell? It’s true.^ Promise. I do recommend you turn it over occasionally, like a compost heap. And the wrinkles are a little insane. But that’s what jersey and wool^^ and elastane were invented for.
^ Stop sniggering, you guys with electric dryers. We’re saving the planet.
^^ Anyone who says anything to me about knitting at this point will be summarily beheaded.
§§ I had closed the stair gate so they couldn’t follow me. I am capable of unimaginable feats of cruelty, so when I say beheaded I mean beheaded.
§§§ What was I just saying about hellhounds not telling time very well? They sure notice when a hurtle is of insufficient duration.
¤ I was just not up for a third week of adventures. Third time’s the charm, right? Define charm. I’ve read too many fairy tales, and I’m not the nice sister. I’m the one gets turned into a pterodactyl and eaten by the giant walking crustacean-like Fungi from Yuggoth.
¤¤ Brave man.
¤¤¤ What does some frelling daylight groundskeeper know anyway?
~ It might be worse than a pterodactyl.
# I’m still thinking
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