Attack of the Real World*
So Computer Man came** and it will be nice if I have a working printer again, I haven’t had time to find out.*** I AM ALSO CHANGING EMAIL SERVERS so maybe it will stop taking several minutes to download anything larger than three lines of plain text, and hanging and crashing every time a new email comes in, and eating my contacts. I proceeded therefrom to being dazed and confused by the options on offer by Orange, which is the company I pay money to to have a mobile phone.† The first thing that happened is that I went on line—see, I was trying to be modern and sensible—and you are supposed to look up available choices by the sort of phone you have. The RaspBerry is an HP and it’s not even listed. I’m screwed and I haven’t even done anything yet. So I rang them up and was dazed and confused over the phone instead. Blurg. So I have a new SIM card coming in the post that is going to let me do EVERYTHING and maybe I’ll learn to text.†† But it means I can have the phone on all the time so Peter can ring me at any moment day or night.††† And moving on from that vivid accomplishment I rang Lifeline, which is the panic-button company the hospital recommends‡, who is going to send a representative round for a Free No Obligation Demonstration next week. There was lunch‡‡ around here somewhere, and the second half of the hellhounds’ morning hurtle, and a failed attempt to pick up Peter’s prescription at the surgery, and loading up on olives from the Olive Man‡‡‡ at the Thursday farmers’ street market . . . and I even managed to scramble back up to the cottage for an hour and half’s somewhat frenzied gardening because we went to a garden centre yesterday because . . . er . . . Peter needed a new kitchen bin? Unfortunately there is a garden centre attached to the homewares.
And then limped back down to the mews for my first handbells in a fortnight. At the time I thought, golly, my stamina is waay down, but presently contemplating the day that had just passed I could just have been, you know, tired.
But it’s worse than that.
Niall is gone next Friday. He’s going on Colin’s ringing tour, the ratbag(s).
Niall, New Arcadia’s Ringing Master, will not be here for tower practise Friday week. And you may remember who the Assistant Ringing Master is???
* * *
* Attack of the Frelling Terrier. I haven’t been keeping you up to date on local canine transgressions but it’s not because there haven’t been any. I had a particularly trying one about a week ago. The footpath past Third House takes a sharp blind turn at the bottom of my garden. A Large Black Off Lead Dog came swaggering around the corner, you know, the way thugs and teenage boys walk, swaying their shoulders from side to side to take up as much space as possible. He stopped. His head and his tail came up, and so did all of his hair. We stopped. Jeezum. Didn’t we just stop. This was one of those occasions when even the hellhounds were subdued. He started growling. And advancing, one slow footstep at a time. Oh frelling swell. He hadn’t lowered his head yet or I’d be really panicking. Eventually this big stupid humanoid jerk came, also swaggering, around the corner. After a few seconds he deigned to call his dranglefabbing dog—who was now plenty close enough for us to see the whites of his eyes, and the hellhounds were showing a tendency to stand just the tiniest bit behind me—the dog ignored him, of course. Dog bullies always ignore their humanoids. So the jerk started talking to me. And the thing that made me want to kill him is that he was using that put-upon, faux-reasonable tone that passive-aggressive men are especially fond of using on women and it TOTALLY PRESSES MY BUTTONS. If you’d just walk by him, he said, as if this was all my problem. He’d be fine if you’d just walk by him. HE IS NOT FINE! I said, in a low, controlled voice, keeping an indirect (don’t look an aggressive dog in the face) eye on the buffalo-sized thing marching toward us. HE CAME AROUND THAT CORNER, PUT ALL HIS HAIR UP AND STARTED GROWLING! THIS IS NOT FINE! At least the jerk speeded up a little and the dog let him grab his collar. He’s fine, you know, said Mr Faux-Frelling-If-I-Had-A-Gun-I-Would-Shoot-You-Thank-the-Frelling-British-Government-for-Gun-Control-Reasonable. HE IS NOT FINE, I spat over my shoulder as hellhounds and I crowded past, since it is a NARROW footpath. The dog went berserk as we actually went by them, and I could see Mr Faux-Frelling having to work at keeping hold of the brute. And this thing was OFF LEAD.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.
Today we had to hurtle early, because the Attack of the Real World was beginning early with the arrival of Computer Men. Once again we were walking in town. As we came around the corner to the very, very, very long stretch of straight path by the river, waaaaaaay down at the far end I could see a woman and her terrier wandering toward us. It became apparent as it got closer that it was off lead. I looked at it thoughtfully, since off lead terriers are among my least favourite denizens of the animal kingdom, and cranked the hellhounds in. It had clearly seen us some time before—and the bloody woman could hardly have avoided seeing us, unless she had a bag over her head, which she did not—and it eventually reached its Acceptable Distance, lowered its head, and started stalking us. GIVE ME A FRELLING BREAK. The woman calls, Wait! —But what did I just say about dog bullies and their humanoids? She wasn’t even hurrying. We backed up. The terrier kept coming. Wait! Wait! shouted the woman. Eventually she began to hurry a little. We were whites-of-its-eyes range again too, but this thing is at least only about mid-calf high—Mr Faux-Frelling’s big broad-jawed oik could have done some damage—and it suddenly launched itself toward us, barking and snarling, and started biting everything in reach, ie Darkness and Chaos. I started yelling and—I had that infuriating run-in with a terrier who did the stalking and running who turned out to be FRIENDLY and I think it’s ruined my instincts. The one time I’ve ever managed to kick one of these bloody attack dogs was before that occasion and the damn thing had simply chomped onto Chaos’ neck and was hanging on and therefore an easy target since Chaos was too nonplussed to do much, which is just as well really. Anyway I kicked this one twice but pulled back for godssake both times I connected because my INSTINCTS are I don’t want to HURT IT. VERY BAD LANGUAGE HERE. The stupid woman finally shambled up and caught the sodding little bugger. I swore at her—and I did not use ‘frelling’—and said WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU GRAB THAT THING??? And she said, attempting, not very successfully, for wounded dignity, I was trying. YOU WEREN’T TRYING VERY HARD, I said. YOU COULD SEE US COMING FROM A LONG WAY AWAY.
As we stormed off—well, I stormed: hellhounds are always sad and amazed when other dogs don’t love them, which is part of why I get so furious—I heard her saying in a headmistressy voice to her vicious little piece of four-legged crap, Well, that wasn’t very friendly.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.
** Man! Not Men! Whoa! I thought you were attached at the hip! —It’s okay, he said. We’ve been separated. The doctors say the operation was a success.
*** We have an early draft of JOHN’S^ NEW BOOK to read. If we could print it off.
^ You know, Dickinson. Peter’s son.
† Orange because it’s the only one that even sometimes gets a signal around here. New Arcadia, Hampshire, the Bermuda Triangle of the United Kingdom. I’ve had it—well, I’ve been through three phones—seven or eight years, I think, and have put in an extra £20 top up like twice. Not one of your heavy users. But back in the days when I used to go places occasionally it was good for the ‘No, I caught the 4:56 out of Smurgeon Gakworthy, I’ll be there in half an hour’ and the ‘the train has been sitting a hundred feet outside Waterloo for the last forty minutes, I’m going to be late for lunch’ calls. And I’ve told you that the RaspBerry exists both to indulge my penchant for techie note-taking and to comfort Peter that if I break a leg five miles from the car after tripping over a hellhound I can ring for help. Assuming the Bermuda Triangle is in a good mood that day.
†† And then again, maybe I won’t.
††† Since he has an absolute gift for
***WARNING: TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOLLOWS***
ringing when I’m sitting on the loo reading Calvin and Hobbes it will actually be very nice to have the phone in my pocket.
‡ Which is a good idea anyway, since they have a 24/7 central switchboard, but also see: Bermuda Triangle, and breaking a leg five miles from the car.
‡‡ Mushy. I miss my huge salads with raw chewy lettuce and crunchy sprouted seeds and things. The really bad news is that the bloody infection, having subsided somewhat, is now gaining against the damned antibiotics. Tomorrow morning I can ring the dentist again. Like I don’t already have to meet the Pond Man up at Third House and go with Peter to see his GP for the discussion about what went so appallingly wrong a week ago and why it’s not going to go wrong like that again.
‡‡‡ Olives used to be things that happened to other people till I met the Olive Man. The Olive Man’s olives are now absolutely necessary to my existence, and if we run out I grow sweaty and feverish. They are additionally attractive right now in that they are something I can still eat.
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