When Edmund, Lord Blackadder goes to seek the advice of the Wise Woman, these two things he discovers from the mad girl he encounters in his search : firstly, that the Wise Woman is a woman. And secondly, that she is wise.
Now, these are the things that you should know if you turn up unexpectedly on my doorstep for a ‘visit’:
1) I shall welcome you with politeness, a smile, and copious amounts of coffee and cake. Even though I am on a fitness kick and cake isn’t really part of my current agenda
2) I shall agree to your ‘treating us to fish and chips’ when it becomes clear you are going to sit on our sofa waaaaaaay past the hour of dinner and show no sign of moving your arse, even though this again scuppers my fitness kick plans but I can’t refuse because of my mad guilt complex, and if I say I’m on a fitness kick you will grill me for another two hours about the whys and wherefores of it all, inducing in me murderous thoughts
3) I shall allow you to park your effing enormous motorhome on my driveway to save you the bother of finding, and paying for, an appropriate camping site, even though the van window is within 8 inches of my kitchen window giving you, literally, a ringside seat at my kitchen sink dramas. And I shan’t be able to move my car for the duration rendering me trapped in my own home
4) I shall even provide an evening meal for you when you appear at the back door just as I am about to cook for my husband and I, and some innate politeness in me makes me extend the invitation and I end up slaving away for twice the number...thank goodness I had been shopping that very morning
5) I shall even conduct a healing session for you, and not be offended by your cynicism that it ‘probably won’t work,’ then equally by your surprise when it does
6) Andy shall sort out various problems for you that enrich and better your life; after all, we are merely sacrificing time, printer ink and paper in order to do so
7) I shall allow you to pop in and out of the house to use our loo when your motorhome loo decides to stop working, and I shall allow you to empty the contents of aforesaid motorhome loo into our septic tank.
8) I shall not be bothered by your sudden and random appearances for more prolonged conversations; I shall put down my book/work/episode of ‘Downton Abbey’ in order to give you full and undivided attention because that’s how my mother raised me - to put others before yourself
However, these things I expect from you, as a matter of visitor courtesy in return for my impromptu hostessing:
a) that when you implicate you are staying merely one night, you don’t linger and stay for three nights, turning the kitchen into a cave because we’ve had to keep the blind down all day and night to avoid feeling that we are on ‘TheTruman Show’
b) that you SHARE your many conversations with your hosts and don’t merely talk AT them, or even worse, cut across their attempts to share stories with you. Holding court at Damson Cottage is not the done thing
c) that you don’t infect our various bird feeding stations with manky cast off grapes which I have to spend time cleaning off
d) that when you ask if you can leave a ‘small bag of rubbish’ in our outside bin, it is in fact a MASSIVE sack of rubbish, including a defunct kettle
I think that’s all. The burden of sarcasm has lain heavy on me today, but I feel sooooo much better now. Weary, but better. I’ve tried to slough off the simmering feelings of resentment that you left behind this morning, nearly taken off our gatepost with your massive van. I am training to be a Healer, you see, and need to be able to ‘let go’ and ‘show unconditional love’ and honour everyone with peace and goodwill no matter how bloody annoying they are. Perhaps this was a test for me, from the Universe? A Student Healer Interim Test Of Patience and Fortitude? I think I maybe scored 3/10...possibly 2....
And I feel slightly concerned I’ve turned into an anti-social lockdown grouch.
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KJ