Emerging from lockdown
Me
'The undertaker' (husband)
'On the ground in France' (son)
It is absolutely no fun being a hypochondriac, as every ache and pain presents a minefield of doubt and worry. I blame this on being married to an undertaker as the root cause of my daily discomfort. With hindsight I should have aimed to bag myself a doctor, thus ensuring 24/7 round the clock care. Instead I have to contend myself with filling in an online consultation form. Only this week I received the most ghastly response to what I considered to be a minor enquiry. Without warning a horrid bright red flashing sign appeared urging me to take myself off without delay to my nearest emergency department or seek urgent medical advice from my doctors surgery. I was in such a blind panic that I used my mobile phone instead of the landline to place the call. 'You are number five in the queue' the automated voice told me. And there lay my dilemma. Do I ditch the mobile or switch to the landline and hang the expense? In the end terror won the day and I hung grimly onto the mobile alternating between wondering if my funeral arrangements were sufficient under the current guidelines and fretting about my precious call allowance.
You may well laugh to yourselves but have you ever considered what its like to be fed a daily diet of death? No, I didn't think so. I swear the subject barely entered my thoughts until I married the assistant to the grim reaper. It's not only the deceased he happily talks about but also the collection of people left behind that he appears to find so fascinating too. The other day, and I'm not sure I should repeat this, but I will anyway, I came across a man struggling with a cardboard coffin. I couldn't possibly say where it was but it wasn't anything to do with 'my undertaker' so he can't be hauled over the coals/or coffins for my indiscretion. Anyway the coffin in question was covered in the cartoon characters of Laurel and Hardy. I had never seen such a thing and, indeed, didn't know such things even existed. Well they do apparently, although I wouldn't have said demand was high. The laugh of the matter was that in today's current climate I took the opportunity to solemnly inform the 'person in question' that Laurel and Hardy had been banned. The look of pure horror and panic that swept across his face was priceless.
Yesterday was Thursday, and do you know, the first thing that popped up in my head was? 'Whoopie doo it's Thursday'. Thursday is shopping day when the lists come through... 'Ping' 'Ping' they fly effortlessly into my inbox. I decide, unwisely as it turns out, to do our shop first in a different emporium where I encounter plonkers en masse. Plonkers in plastic gloves intent on spreading germs, plonkers in pairs aimlessly trailing up and down the aisles and plonker parents terrorising young children not to touch anything as it was all dirty. I left feeling deflated, depressed and angry at so many ignorant ill-informed people. Later on we did the 'golden oldies' shop each of us squinting at separate lists and surveying unfamiliar foods but at a different supermarket. 'Sanity comes at a high price' I grumble aloud.
Last night, the lights were just about to be extinguished in the boudoir, (once I had had my fix of 'house porn' in the way of a pile of Country Life magazines) when the phone goes with a call-out for 'The undertaker'. The magazines were years out of date but the images had taken me gently away to La la land where I am untouchable so I, unashamedly, went into 'super snooze' mode as he called 'See you in the morning'. 'God willing' I mumbled feebly.
This morning the garden gazebo was pleasantly warm and sweaty inside so I happily started undoing the zip with visions of partaking in a leisurely breakfast therein whilst surveying my most pleasingly blooming garden. The agapanthus was just about to burst into flower and for one split glorious second happiness shot through me until a familiar looking figure emerged on the lawn. I blame myself naturally for instructing 'The undertaker' to purchase the highest quality bird seed available and 'hang the expense'. I may be rewarded with the occasional sighting of 'Our visitor' but what I hadn't envisaged was the arrival of a particularly unattractive looking member of 'Mr Rattys' family. When later recalling the unpleasant incident, I was asked to pinpoint what made me realise it wasn't our original 'Mr Ratty' himself , I established it was the colour of the coat and general sluggish air.(The original being a particularly gleaming example of his species!) He or, indeed, she is certainly an unwelcome addition to our non stop garden party rave taking place this summer.
'On the ground in France' surprises me with a most welcome phone call. It pushed me sideways somewhat, not in an altogether alarming way, but we went quite deep on sensitive subjects. Twin brother in Spain had already gone way and beyond his usual sporadic few sentences too this week so all in all I had plenty of food for thought as one might say. It made me feel loved, it made me feel as though I mattered to people, as if my welfare was of concern to them.
In actual fact, thinking about it, you matter to me...you the person reading this right now, thank you so much for enduring my triteness up to the bitter end today. Because a writer without a reader is about as much use as a fish with a bicycle.
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