Mixed Allsorts

 You know those days when you jump out of bed and in your mind you think, ‘Today, I shall do a, b and c,’ and then the day turns into something involving ‘x, y and z?’ Well, today was one of those days. 

My initial thought was that I’d take Nellibobs for a long walk and then get on with some housework, given how jolly cold it was. However, by 9 a.m, Lord Malarkey and I were in the garden in full Winter Tidy Up mode, which involved a very big bonfire which nearly set fire to our oak tree. Gosh, that was exciting! But we got it under control pretty quickly mostly because I didn’t want us to be the idiots whose story is reported  in the local newspaper for lighting a bonfire too close to a tree with the wind blowing in the wrong direction resulting in a visit from the fire brigade, no matter how appealing I find firemen.

We got rid of a lot of old bits of wood, and reduced the height of a stretch of hawthorn hedge that was becoming too big for its roots and behaving in an oppressive way in the orchard. I also waged war on the ivy population. I quite like ivy to look at, but I don’t like it smothering my trees. We’ve still a lot to do but I feel better now we’ve made a start. Andy decided to cook two large potatoes in the bonfire. I told him I remember my brother, cousin and I attempting to bake potatoes in a bonfire when we were children. We put them in an old biscuit tin and they were quickly reduced to lumps of charcoal. Today’s potatoes turned out much better, i.e they were edible. 

I have nineteen cousins in total. Two of them have sadly died - cystic fibrosis - but the others are all alive and kicking as far as I know. I keep in touch with only two of them, one on my Mum’s side of the family, the other on my Dad’s. But today, surprise surprise, another cousin got in touch with me completely out of the blue. He has lived in Australia for the last 10 years and he is 22 years younger than me. We had a jolly good catch up on WhatsApp lasting over three hours! It was good to hear from him and listen to his take on ‘the family.’ It’s funny the things you remember and the things you forget. And how stories vary depending on which side of the fence you sit. Families, eh? But he says he would like to keep in touch because I’m one of the ‘all right’ ones.

And then I had an appointment in town to sort out the transfer of an ISA that is due to mature soon. Barclays no longer has a branch in our nearest town but they do have a ‘pop up’ service in the local community centre for a few hours a week. I made an appointment on line and duly toddled off for a bit of financial admin. The transfer was complete within 10 minutes at a favourable interest rate, but then the person I saw decided to grill me about my account preferences, what savings I had elsewhere, another ISA, what I’d been doing this morning and what I intended to have for dinner that evening. Basically, she was after selling me loads of products AND getting me to transfer all our savings pots in other places into Barclays. Of course, I was having none of that, but it was nice and warm in the community centre so I let her witter on (not that I could get a word in edgeways) and then, thankfully, the wi-fi went down and our appointment came to an end. 

On my way home I thought, ‘That woman should go and sort out the wars in Ukraine and Israel. She’d have them sorted in no time. No one would dare argue with her.’