A very sick Mirinda texted me at some unnatural hour of the morning to say I shouldn’t wake her up but, rather, make sure Ben had received her message presumably just before mine. Task complete, I started the usual tidy up required when we have a viewing for there is one scheduled for tomorrow at 9am!
Actually, I received the call from the real estate agent yesterday over lunch. I was watching an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm at the time that he rang. Unfortunately my ring tone is the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm and I thought what I was hearing was coming from the TV rather than my phone, which was sitting on the coffee table. It wasn’t until the land line rang that I knew someone was trying to contact me.
Here’s a bit of Larry:
The phone was across the room and I had a lapful of poodle so I figured it could wait until the episode and my lunch were over. When I checked, it was the real estate agent who had also left a message on my mobile wanting a viewing today. I had to put him off. When he called me back (as I stood shivering at the bus stop waiting to go to Grimley) he’d rearranged it for tomorrow at 9am.
Eventually Mirinda called to say she was awake. That’s not entirely true. She croaked that she was awake and feeling terrible. She blamed Ben who, it seems, has infected vast swathes of the workforce with his Death Flu. I was then given a shopping list that went from three small items directly connected to health resurrection to an entire week’s worth of groceries.
Then followed the scramble for a pen. Normally I use the shopping list in my smartphone (a great app if ever there was one) but my man fingers can be a bit too big when I’m holding a phone in the other hand so I opted for paper and pen. Since we both tend to use various electronic devices for the dissemination of information in our house, finding a scrap of paper and a pen isn’t always easy.
In about an hour, I found both and asked her again for the beginning of the list. I then went in search of a pen that actually worked, settling, finally, on a pencil. I asked her again for the beginning of the list. Naturally, once I was off the phone, I put the items on my smartphone shopping list app.
I ordered a new DVD player on the weekend and had received an email telling me it would be delivered sometime today with all manner of threats that they would deliver only to me. They list the various things they will not do with the parcel – leave it with a neighbour, leave it in a box, leave it by the front door – and insist if I wasn’t there, they’d drive it back to their depot. I figured I’d not worry about it and then reschedule it for Monday.
Late last night I received an unexpected email telling me that my parcel had left the warehouse and that I could find out my hour slot by the next morning. This was a bit of a game changer. I figured if the parcel was going to arrive at a decent time, I’d wait in and move lunch with Mirinda a bit.
Then, this morning, I received an email telling me what my hour slot was: 11:21 – 12:21. Seriously! How ridiculously accurate is that? Well into Mrs Bale territory if you ask me. I decided to wait for it and then leave for Canary Wharf to visit and shop for the patient.
It arrived just before 12. I dearly wanted to ask the delivery guy about the pinpoint accuracy of the time but figured I could make the 12:30 train if I left immediately. I did and I did.
I’m fairly certain that Waitrose at Canary Wharf, hates me. For instance, the only soups they didn’t have were chicken or beef broth, which they normally have in abundance. And then, in a ridiculously long aisle devoted to breakfast cereals, a wide gap in the display (the only gap in the display) was where the Weet-a-bix used to be.
My first thought was that Ben had obviously been infecting the locals over this side of London as well but when I reached the check-out, grasping my organic Weet-a-bix and creamy chicken soups, the woman in front of me brazenly brandished a normal Weet-a-bix box before my eyes as if taunting me. I almost stole it from her as I left the store.
At the flat we had lunch – roast chicken (which always puts me in mind of dad and his roast chickens at the shop) and lovely fresh crusty bread – a chat and I did the mountain of washing up during which I told Mirinda the entire plot of Whitechapel starring Rupert Penry-Jones (you may remember him from such things as Spooks)…all three episodes (highly recommended, by the way).
The train trip home was crowded and, largely uncomfortable. It’s always the people for the first stop who are happy to stand up for 20 minutes at the Farnham end of the carriage. I bet there’s seats further up the train. Crazy people.
There was a lovely big yacht sitting outside our favourite Turkish restaurant. I quite fancied buying it but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be allowed to park it in our street. I settled for a photograph instead.
The O2 arena (the Millennium Dome) looked rather good in the sun too. I have never been there and think it still looks like they’re building it.
Finally, warm and cosy at home, I set up the new DVD player and completely rearranged the media equipment to make it less wired and more discrete. It took me an hour but then everything worked fine and now looks a whole lot better, hidden away in the cupboard.
Croaky giggle