The last of the rat poison has just been distributed into the ceiling and “call exterminators” noted on Monday’s To Do list. I can hear Elvis, Janis, Michael (and friends I think) cavorting around up there and I’m throwing the towel in. Time to get a man in.
So, a couple of hours to spare before the next scheduled task. What to write about? Nothing springs to mind. But they say when you’ve got writers’ block you just need to start.
Waiting . . . .
Hmmm . . . .
Ummm . . . .
Have a coffee . . . .
OK, OK, I’m doing it . . . .
Betty from 3 doors down called in yesterday. She often stops by on her daily walk and being a keen gardener herself we swap drought/flood/snail stories. More often than not she catches me engaged in some ridiculous activity (this time threading toilet roll inners over the leeks, it’s supposed to help produce nice white stems), which I suspect is the real reason she interrupts her constitutional.
Betty: “I got rid of him last week, you know”
Me: “Who?”
(Worried. After the unfortunate experience of finding my other neighbour dead in his garden last year, I’m alert to anything suspicious.)
Betty: “My partner. “We’ve been together 11 years but he’s impossible so I kicked him out”.
Me: “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that”.
Betty: “He’s probably not going to change is he?”
Me: “Well . . .
Betty: “He’s 81”
Me: “Possibly not”.
I showed Betty “Trouser Carrot”, my mutant vegetable of the week.
It’s a shame she never saw “Loch Ness Kumara”, which has been my most spectacularly deformed vegetable to date, even better than “Hard-on Tomato”.I took Loch Ness Kumara to work to show the girls, but not before torturing them with a week-long build up to The Big Reveal. With daily clues such as “It Took Patience and Commitment” and “It’s Been a Long Time Coming”, some rather unkind guesses were made as to the subject, namely that I had been asked out on a date, and crueller, that I had had sex. Needless to say they were bitterly disappointed when LNK was revealed.
Betty went on to tell me that her dream house at OK Bay had become too much for her to handle, and she was selling up and moving to a unit in Orewa. And that she would miss my antics. Uh oh. Just how much has she witnessed?
I know she knows about the snail hotel because she caught me feeding lettuce leaves and spring onions to a large plastic bin tastefully decorated with rotting wood, dirt, a lid punched with airholes and occupied by a dozen of the largest late night harvested snails.
Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . . ?“
(she’s forgotten my name but too many years chatting have elapsed to enlighten her without causing embarrassment. I once cleared the letterbox while we were talking and held a letter with my name on it as strategically as possible, to no avail).
Me: “We’re having a snail race at work on Melbourne Cup Day”.
Betty: “I see”.
I don’t think she did though. I should have invited her down a week later when I was attaching race numbers to the shells, then she might have got it.
Then of course there was the Mrs McKee (a scarecrow I made for the vege garden 2 houses ago) incident.
I know she knows about the snail hotel because she caught me feeding lettuce leaves and spring onions to a large plastic bin tastefully decorated with rotting wood, dirt, a lid punched with airholes and occupied by a dozen of the largest late night harvested snails.
Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . . ?“
(she’s forgotten my name but too many years chatting have elapsed to enlighten her without causing embarrassment. I once cleared the letterbox while we were talking and held a letter with my name on it as strategically as possible, to no avail).
Me: “We’re having a snail race at work on Melbourne Cup Day”.
Betty: “I see”.
I don’t think she did though. I should have invited her down a week later when I was attaching race numbers to the shells, then she might have got it.
Then of course there was the Mrs McKee (a scarecrow I made for the vege garden 2 houses ago) incident.
Complete with wig, beret, handbag and matronly op shop clothes over a stuffed double-F sized bra (an embarrassing item to purchase even if it was from a clearance bin) she really was rather lifelike. Unfortunately Mrs McKee’s neck was broken during the move to OK Bay, so I had her laid out on the deck and was removing her cardigan, blouse and bra, with a view to effecting repairs, when Betty stopped by.
Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . .?“
Me: “Trying to fix Mrs McKee’s broken neck”
Betty: “I see”
Which of course she didn’t, the whole scene not improved by Fluffy playing toss-and-chase with the double-F.
Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . .?“
Me: “Trying to fix Mrs McKee’s broken neck”
Betty: “I see”
Which of course she didn’t, the whole scene not improved by Fluffy playing toss-and-chase with the double-F.
I know Betty’s also seen me washing my car in the dark, working on the roof in a sunfrock, gumboots and a builders apron, constructing a coconut bra, blow drying a stuffed buffalo, disguising a cow as a reindeer, not to mention walking past her house every Boxing Day with my extended family variously attired as (for example) Tarzan, Speedy Gonzales, Caesar, Athena the Greek Goddess, Heidi, Pania of the South Seas, and a Geisha Girl, on our way to the beach for the OK Bay Olympics.
However I sincerely hope she didn’t witness the Undy ‘n Apples 500 trial-on-the-deck run. A new event for the OK Bay Olympics must of course be tested for suitability before being unleashed. Especially one that involves sprinting in a pair of men’s white waist-high 4XL Jockey Y-fronts with two large apples shoved down the front. Objective: cover the course as fast as possible whilst retaining the apples in the gusset region.
It was dark on my deck. I hope. And as you can see from the photo, despite a practice run, success on the day is not guaranteed.
So there you have it. It’s true, you just have to make a start and before you know it you’ve achieved the written equivalent of verbal diarrhoea . . .
