Not One of My Better Sundays
In the first place, despite the parlous state of my internal economy* the world is (surprisingly) not utterly cold, barren and friendless.** While I was clearing off the kitchen table *** I re-unearthed the latest catalogue from the company that had sold me the infamous Melting Vacuum Cleaner. In large brazen print the catalogue declares, Our phone lines are open 24 hours every day! So I rang them up at 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, and said, I bought a vacuum cleaner from you several months ago, and it melted.
Why that’s terrible, she said. We’ll send you a new one.
Blah. You what?
And you can use the new box to send us the old one back, she continued, so we can pass it along to the factory. That’s a very good vacuum cleaner, we sell a lot of them, and the factory should know about a defective one. Er, she added (I could hear her typing busily), would you mind describing what you mean by melted?
Maybe the Easter Bunny is real too.†
Although speaking of friendless, Niall hung around after service ring this morning to snigger. My unwholesome new position is all your fault, I said, looking at him without favour.
It’s not! he said, aggrieved. Vicky said your name first!
And I suppose you’re going to expect me to learn to conduct, I said, unmollified.†† I do not want to learn to conduct, I said. I have never wanted to learn to conduct. Conducting as an aspiration passed me by, slick as an unyaktraxed person on ice. I would like to sing like Marilyn Horne†††. I would like to compose like Benjamin Britten.‡ I would like to write novels like me which outsell Edward Sparklyface and Harry Potter together. But I have no desire to learn to conduct touches of method ringing. I said.
Steve Coleman is really good on learning to conduct, said Niall.
Steve Coleman. Yes. Steve ratbagging Coleman would be good on frelling learning to frelling conduct. Steve Coleman is a Ringing God. To those of us over-identified and over-involved with words on a page he’s probably the ringing god. http://www.ringingbooks.co.uk/ I have had his other three books almost from my first lesson in rope-handling because of course I was going to need them all eventually.‡‡ I did not order the fourth. The one which is about conducting. I did not order it because I did not want to learn to conduct.
I ordered it this afternoon. This may explain why I then had to spend several hours lying down.
* * *
* This Living (some of) Your Life on the Internet is a complex business. Okay, for you guys who don’t follow me on Twitter, I’ve spent a lot of today horizontal on the sofa under a thick blanket of delighted hellhounds, I feeling somewhat urpish. Hellhounds, meanwhile, are improving, but they have taken the long route to this destination. Friday night after I signed off the blog, Darkness followed Chaos into . . . well, into darkness and chaos. They will cry to go out if their bowels are troubling them, but they throw up in silence. This is perhaps partly because vomiting is not covered adequately in the standard housetraining module, but also, I assume, because it happens too fast. Granted it’s also nowhere near as nasty as the more comprehensively processed effluvia . . . but it’s still not a joyous way to start your morning. They did not in fact howl in the night—although they went out smartish when I stumbled downstairs very late in the morning at last—but that didn’t stop me waking up every quarter hour thinking they had. Sigh. That made three nights in a row I hadn’t had enough sleep—and I never get enough sleep Saturday night because of frelling^ service ring.^^
Peter is in Elsewhereshire visiting throngs and clusters of family^^^ this weekend.~ I had had this notion, before events caught up with me, that I was going to burn through the hip-high pile(s) of Ancient Magazines~~ at the mews while he was gone and thereby delight his eyes upon his return.~~~ I didn’t get too far, but I did quest down through a few geologic strata and took an armful of the result to the sofa with me. There were a couple from 2005. There was one from 2003. That magazine has been through two house moves. I’d better frame it.
^ As Deputy Ringing Master calling it ‘frelling’ is probably illegal.
^^ Possibly today’s stomach-ache therefore has nothing to do with cross-contamination+ but is my body saying lie down or we’ll make you. So what was that unscheduled two-hour nap yesterday then? Oh, don’t talk to me about sleep debt.
+ And I’ve been so CAREFUL. I’m always washing my hands. Because I’m always absent-mindedly petting hellhounds.
^^^I’ve told you about the Dickinson clan. As the grains of sand upon the shore.
~ Not a one of whom has thrown up on the carpet. Fancy.
~~ My ancient magazines. Peter has his own (smaller) piles of ancient magazines.
~~~ Feh. He won’t notice. At least not until he’s caught up on the blog.
** I told you that Peter has deserted me.
*** Ahem
† I’ll take the Easter Bunny over Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny is categorically welded to manifestation of chocolate. Santa Claus might get it wrong and give you Lego or something.
†† He agreed, didn’t he?
††† Or Maddy Prior
‡ . . . Or Maddy Prior.
‡‡ And when the ME closed me down and I stopped ringing, and when, a few years after that, I was doing major weeding and culling and clearing out for the move into town, I did not get rid of them, even though it had been five years since I’d touched a bell rope.
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