Written by Gordon Aspey
3 November 2016
‘We are expecting visitors!’ These were dreaded words in my house. I had no quarrel with the hand-shaking, bear hugs, booze, kisses and little presents on their arrival. Visitors were a delight. It was the precursor to their arrival which was the problem. The angry snarl of the vacuum cleaner and its serpent like tail of electric cable snaking across the floor and yells of ‘raise your legs’. This is not a good scenario whilst you’re in the throes of writing a bestseller.
The frenetic serpent would chase me from room to room all over the house. The normal escape into the loo was hampered by the double dose of Jeyes Fluid which left me coughing my lungs up. When the floor surfaces were fit to eat on – other apparatus came into focus. The dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer even the television, all had their part to play in the cacophony of noise employed to smarten the place up and scramble my brain. A long stick, like an over-size candy floss is swished around every nook and cranny. Pictures are dusted, mirrors polished, light bulbs and shades given the once over. Then there’s furniture polish, a new table cloth, a bunch of flowers set in the middle and a final squirt of lavender air freshener. At this point I would collapse into the garden and fill my lungs with life saving oxygen. Jesus, you’d think we were being visited by the queen! Babs joins me in the garden. She’s my wife. We get on very well.
‘The grass needs cutting, don’t you think?’
At this point my normal placid temperament is beginning to fray and an air of defiance begins to set in. ‘What’s up with it ?’, I demand. Okay, I’m having a sulk!
‘Well, look at all those daisies! It doesn’t look like a lawn.’
Now I like daisies, I think they are a nice addition to the garden environment. They present a cheerful display with minimum effort and no cost. They don’t get much out of life, no sooner do they display their snowy white bonnet with a smiley face than the isis powered machine with more decibels than Concord comes along to behead them. I think daisies deserve a better deal. Also, the bees that depend upon them should have time to savour their surroundings and be able to forage around for a bit of pollen. ‘Well, are you going to mow the lawn or not?’ I straighten my shoulders defiantly. ‘Nope’, I’d had enough of this frenetic activity. There is a harrumph of disapproval and she hurries away to attend to some other emergency in preparation for our expected visitors. I felt a warm inner glow of saintliness when realising I had delayed the stay of execution for the daisies. For one brief moment I considered joining the Liberal Party and getting my name on the OBE list. On the other hand I might be in line for a small Sainthood.
Babs calls out from the kitchen window, ‘Their flight has been postponed, they’re not coming until next week’. ‘Oh no!’. Then I had one of my regular eureka moments the perfect answer to this proverbial problem. This is part of my natural make-up, the ability to engineer solutions for every problem. This was the type of scenario some three years ago, until I hit upon the perfect answer to this proverbial problem associated with visitors.
To be continued…