Notes From a Small Village
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July
Sunday 20th
Apparently, from time to time, people look at this website, so while you’re here let me tell you what’s happening today.
My husband has bought a chain saw, and now, nothing outside the house over six feet tall is safe. He is roaming around the garden, eyeing up anything taller than him, and considering whether to chop it down. He’s calling it pruning.
I told him that when something is six foot tall and you chop it down until it’s barely visible above the ground, that’s not pruning.
He shrugged, and said he thought that was a matter of opinion.
I’m concerned because he came into the kitchen half an hour ago to tell me he was considering chopping down a fir tree in our garden which had grown too tall. The fir tree towers about twenty feet above our house, so I told him that on no account had he to go anywhere near that fir tree with his chain saw.
He’s mystified, and cannot understand my objection to felling that tree. He said it would let more light into the garden.
I said it would let light in to roof of our house, and probably also into the inside of his head, and possibly the inside of mine too. I insisted that he not go near that tree.
But he pointed out that after being for several years, or months at least, in the boy scouts, he knew how to cut down a tree so that it would fall within an inch of where he wanted it to go.
I said that was wonderful, truly miraculous for one who had had only a glancing acquaintance with the scouting movement, but no, he was not to attempt to cut down that tree.
He says I’m a spoil sport.
I said be that as it may.
We are at a stalemate.
Tuesday 22nd
We bought our motor home twelve years ago, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. You can, after all, trundle about like a snail with your house on your back, and have the kettle on within twenty minutes of pitching up on a campsite. What’s not to like?
Well, for a start, you can’t go anywhere without striking camp and trundling off again lock stock and barrel, because the home that you have just put down on a campsite is your only means of transport.
In our early days of motor homing we used to take bikes with us, but you can’t use a bike in the rain, or if it’s dark, or if one of you is drunk, or stupid, or weak kneed or let’s face it, over seventy.
The only time I ever rode a bike was when we were away in the motorhome, and on our last outing I got grass caught in the spokes of my front wheel, which jammed, and the bike keeled over to the side and dropped me in a ditch. Naturally this was hilarious for my companions, who enjoyed a chuckle over the incident for years afterwards, but I still remember the anxious few seconds I endured wondering what lay in wait for me at the bottom of the ditch.
So what with one thing and another, we have decided to sell our motor home and invest in a caravan.
Hurrah. Good sense prevails. I’ll keep you posted.
Friday 25th
It turns out that wheat germ is incredibly good for you. It looks like sawdust when you buy it from Holland and Barrett and it tastes a bit the same, but it is a superfood. It slows down ageing, it’s good for your skin and hair, your heart, your brain, your digestive system, your immune system, your blood sugar regulation, your energy levels, and your menopause. It’s high in protein, iron, magnesium, zinc, vitamin B, fibre and phosphorus.
It’s heat sensitive, so I assume it’s of maximum benefit when eaten uncooked. All you have to do, is think of a way of consuming it. Obviously, you can’t chew on it straight out of the bag, because you’d choke. You could try stirring it into your tea if you don’t mind your tea being lumpy and textured. You could sprinkle it over fruit, if you don’t mind eating fruit which looks as if it’s rolled about on a stable floor. You could mix it into yoghurt if you don’t mind your yoghurt being gritty and chewy.
Any ideas?
August 1st
August already, and I want July back..
We have a Co-op in the village. It’s not a great place to shop, but it is a great place to meet people.
I met Mandy in there this afternoon. Mandy is not her real name, I am protecting her identity. I could call her by her real name because it’s highly unlikely that anyone will read these diary entries, but just on the off-chance, we’ll call her Mandy.
Mandy told me that her husband, let’s call him Norman, is having terrible trouble with his prostate.
To be honest, before I reached the age of sixty, I don’t think I realised what an important bit of kit the prostate is. I had only a sketchy idea of where it is or what it does. But now I’m hearing the prostate spoken of more and more, because it seems that once men reach a certain age, their prostate rears up and turns against them.
Mandy told me that Norman’s prostate is enlarged but benign, so I take that to mean it’s big and friendly, but still, it’s a terrible nuisance. It means in effect that Norman needs to pee about once every half hour, which is a terrible pain in the neck for Mandy. I sympathised of course, because Mandy told me she is woken up four times a night when Norman goes to the loo, and she says they can’t leave the house together without factoring in multiple loo stops. I mean, obviously, it’s not great for Norman either, but I’m speaking from Mandy’s point of view because I’ve just been talking to her.
Anyway, I’ve offered to take Norman to the doctors in our car, because he says he would need to pee at least three times if he walked round to the surgery, and he’s worried about getting arrested. They can’t go in their car because it’s having injector trouble. Don’t worry, I said to Mandy, just let me know when the appointment is, and I’ll pick you both up.
August 2nd
Norman rang to tell me when his appointment at the surgery is, and to ask me if I minded him bringing a bottle.
I said Norman, that’s very kind of you but there is absolutely no need to give me a bottle. I said I was more than happy to give him and Mandy a lift and I certainly wasn’t expecting anything for it, I was simply glad to be able to help out. You and Mandy drink your bottle tonight, I said.
Norman said, actually, he didn’t mean that kind of bottle. He meant a bottle in case he needed one for emergencies.
I said, yes! Of course, no problem, bring a bottle, that’s absolutely fine. Which it is of course, but what is less fine is how much the meaning of that phrase ‘bring a bottle’ can change over a life-time.
August 4th
We are going to a wedding in Dorset in a couple of weeks time. It’s an unusual affair, because the bride and groom have already decided they don’t want to get married, but they’ve decided to go ahead with the do, because it’s all paid for, and it took such a lot of planning, and the bride wants to wear her wedding dress at least once before she puts it on ebay. Very helpfully, in their latest communication they have said that they are putting all wedding presents given in advance on a trestle table at the venue’s entrance, and asked if guests will just pick their present up and take it away when they leave.
It should be a sad occasion, but no, the not-very-happy couple have asked us all to rejoice with them that they realised in the nick of time that they just couldn’t stand each other, and they have managed to avoid making a terrible mistake. They have warned us that the speeches will now have a different slant, the father of the bride will ask everyone to stand and offer up a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the fact that the scales have at long last fallen from his daughter’s eyes. The groom will deliver only the portion of his speech which refers to the bridesmaids, and we must not be surprised if we hear him invite the eldest of these to join him at the bar after the food. However, the best man will make exactly the same speech as he intended to make when the marriage was going ahead, because as luck would have it, it spells out very clearly why the pair should not get hitched.
August 6th
I’ve had a fantastic idea for the plot of a novel, which I’m going to give freely to any budding novelists out there short of a plot twist. The protagonists are a married couple in their forties. The husband, let’s call him Steven, is having an affair which he goes to extraordinary lengths to conceal from his wife, Julia. However, Julia finds him out because - and this is the interesting bit – long blonde hairs are winding themselves round and around the brush head of her vacuum cleaner. She pulls one free after vacuuming the spare bedroom, and measures it to be 46 centimetres long. Her hair is short and dark, so she becomes convinced that another woman is visiting their house...
I’m pretty certain that this is the first time an infidelity has been uncovered by a VAC Tech Pro V15 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner, an unlikely sleuth, but a welcome change from the succession of flawed and miserable sleuths served up to us on our television screens.
September 1st
Have you ever wondered whether, since Covid, you are not quite as sharp and on the ball as you used to be?
I haven’t either, but recently I got the chance to find out by completing a two part survey aimed at establishing whether our experience of Covid has affected our memory and cognitive ability. Two and a half million people have contributed the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission programme led by Imperial College London, so there’s a chance that like me, you were one of that number. Maybe you thought, as I did, that it was your civic duty to contribute to scientific research by submitting your memory to this test.
I waded through all the survey questions on my health and well-being until I started to feel quite poorly and sad. And then, when I got to the end of those questions, I was invited to complete a little cognitive test.
I’m very wary of little cognitive tests. You may have launched into the cognitive test without a qualm, but I found myself knee deep in qualms at the prospect, and I hesitated. In my experience, cognitive tests exist to show you that, sadly, you are not as bright as you would like to think. Whenever I have done a little cognitive test, I have come away amazed at how stupid I actually am. I am left wondering how on earth I manage to get myself dressed in the morning, and make myself breakfast, and find my way to the shops, considering how weak my brain power actually is.
Nevertheless, I accepted the invitation to take part, and clicked the button to begin the cognitive test. At first, it looked like fun. A host of little images scrolled in front of me on the screen, and among them I distinctly remember seeing a watering can. All I had to do was to remember in the second part of the test, which images I’d seen first time around, and which were new. Sure enough, once the test began, up popped the image of the little watering can I had already seen – but wait – not just one watering can, four watering cans! Some had their handle on the left, some had it on the right, some had a long spout and some a short spout. Oh no! Which was the original watering can?
Well, who the f*** cares, frankly. All I have to remember about a watering can is where I put it the last time I used it. It is of no interest to me if it grows a longer spout, or its handle swaps sides. I just see it and think, great, there’s my watering can, its spout looks a bit longer, but I’ve been using a lot of seaweed fertiliser. And then I pick it up by its handle on the left or the right, and if I can remember which plants needed watering I’m chuffed to bits with myself.
But the watering can challenge was nothing compared to what came next. I was shown three little pegs in a row, and each peg had a number of coloured discs slotted onto it. Underneath this, was another platform of three little pegs, and again, a number of coloured discs were slotted onto each peg. All I had to do was to calculate the minimum number of moves required to transform the arrangement of coloured discs on the top three pegs, to match the arrangement on the bottom three pegs. And I had to do this in my head, without writing anything down. So I began as instructed by telling my head to calculate these moves, and my head had a bit of a shot at it, and then my head got fed up and told me to get lost and just guess the rest. I don’t think I got many of those right.
A little shaken, I attempted the next challenge. A wordy one this time, so I should have been on safer ground. You know the kind of thing, ‘Bird is to Wing, as Fish is to - ?’
Fin? I mused. Could be, I suppose. And yet, a wing and a fin are very different. But likewise, a bird and a fish are very different, although I believe they have a common ancestor because they both lay eggs and were originally dinosaurs. It’s possible that over evolutionary time the fin of a fish has morphed into the wing of a bird. Just as well really because if birds had fins instead of wings they’d look ridiculous and fall to the ground. Anyway, after a pleasant few minutes considering finned birds and feathered fish I ran out of time, so I had to move on. I suspect my score was pretty low on this one too.
Next, I think there was some sort of exercise involving rotating triangles. I always guess those on principle, because Life is short and its frustrations are many, and it doesn’t seem sensible to spend much of it puzzling over the orientation of a triangle. I’ve got nothing against triangles - I love a triangle in the right circumstances - just don’t ask me with which way up it is.
At the end of this cognitive test, there was at last something I was very good at, something that really bolstered my morale. A series of little numbers were faintly displayed on the screen, and all I had to do was press a key on my computer when I saw a ‘zero’. I did loads of these, and I did not miss a single zero, not one.
I reasoned that my stellar performance at spotting zeros should lift me out of the complete numpty bracket and tip me over into the zone reserved for clever people. But then - the cruellest of blows. The whole point of the zero-spotting exercise was to establish whether I was awake and able to concentrate on the task in hand, or whether due to tiredness and lack of motivation I might not have done as well in the test as I could have done. So what I had done by accurately spotting all those zeros was to demonstrate that I was wide awake and fully alert and had no excuse at all for being a complete idiot.
At the end of the test, came the results. These were displayed in a circular spider’s web arrangement, where the high test scores were mapped in grand loops like Christmas decorations around the outer edges of the web, and low scores were clustered in the centre in pitiable, grovelling heaps.
So what can we do to cheer ourselves up, those of us caught in the centre of the web? Do our spirits have to be as low as our scores? The answer is no, of course, because success is not measured in terms of our memory for the length of a watering can’s spout, or knowing if bird is to wing, what fish is to. Happiness does not rest on our ability to pivot a triangle. If you find yourself crouching in the middle of the web you just have one thing to remember, and that is these tests only measure how good we are at doing tests.