Hastings Battleaxe is under the weather… It has been blazingly hot, hot, hot and yet hotter until this weekend, and is now humid, humid, humid. Other parts of the country have had thunderstorms, but we have dark, heavy, leaden skies that promise much but deliver only a few showers. Battleaxe has now moved on from Family Fortnight. Following Granny week, we spent a hot Birthday weekend in Birmingham, and then a week with stepson Tom staying here. What does life have in store next? A visit to the car hospital, and maybe a tornado, looking at this cloud I have just seen out of the window….
In the last post, I wrote about being Granny. That ended with the return of daughter Clara and her partner Steve from thir walk along the South Downs Way, and soon after we drove up to Birmingham. Had a pleasant, if somewhat socially frantic time staying with our old friends Sue and Alex and seeing many other friends. On the day Philosopher and I ate three different cakes that people had kindly laid on for my birthday… followed by a big Chinese meal. I thought I might burst….
Undeniably, Battleaxe has increased somewhat in volume since the start of the pandemic – in the lockdown period, days were marked out with food ingestion interludes. Breakfast, coffee and biscuit time, lunch, tea, early evening drinkies and salty snacks, dinner, evening chocolate and hot drink… oh blimey… My virtual walk to Santiago de Compostela is helping, but in my experience, exercise does little to burn fat – and it makes you hungrier.
My friend Jan knitted/crocheted (I don’t even know the difference) this loo roll poodle for me for my birthday…
Next week the car is going into hospital for expensive bodywork cosmetic surgery, so we will be carless pretty much all week. Yes, it is all Battleaxe’s fault. Did I ever tell you about this? No, I probably felt too ashamed.
Well, we got our car (Skoda Yeti) brand new in 2017. Only about a month after we had it, I had volunteered (or been press-ganged) to go and help at a WI Federation Centenary Garden Party at a minor stately home that shall remain nameless over the other side of the county (no, not our own Fairlight Hall). Without going into detail, me and my fellow ‘helpers’ worked like absolute, complete slaves all day. The place was owned by toffs. Toffs or what, they had photos of the sons playing polo at Cowdray Park all over the downstairs loo.
Anyway, at the end of the day I was hot, worn out and totally fed-up. I had to drive from the parking field up to the house to collect a tea urn or some damn thing. To get there, you went through a gateway onto a gravel sweep in front of the house. As I headed for the gate, I saw Mrs Toff’s hoo-ray toffy son careering towards me in an enormous 4 x 4, gravel spurting from the tyres etc etc. Sod it, I thought, I’m not giving way to you, chummie. I reckoned that the two of us could fit through the gateway at the same time…. Big mistake. Neither of us slowed down. The toff shot through the gate and vanished without a backward glance, but I managed to bounce the side of our car against the gatepost – and bounce it all the way along the car. Surprisingly, it didn’t actually mark the paintwork, but the car has a series of unsightly dents and ripples right from the front wing to the back wing. I’ve tried to take photos, not successfully, but you get the idea. At the time, I was too ashamed to tell any of the other WI ladies what I had done.
When I got home I had to confess to Philosopher that I had ruined our brand new motor. Being him, he was OK about it, sort of like, philosophical. For some reason we didn’t think of claiming on the insurance. (Oh you lying Battleaxe of course I did think about it at the time but was too afraid they might ask for evidence from the toff or WI ladies or something. Oh, the shame. So when Philosopher didn’t press it I didn’t speak up.)
So, the car is now coming up to the time it should be changed. We reckon its damage might affect its value, so got quotes for the work. One guy said it would cost well over £2000 and involve at least one replacement door, but Philosopher has found another who promises to make it look respectable for £1000….
Ah, the price of a moment’s folly.
