Monday 4th October

Verity, I hope you’re happy now.  I’ve gone and joined something and landed myself in who knows what sort of trouble.

Firstly, the village newsletter dropped through the door this morning.  A little late, but it’s run by volunteers.  I skip-read most of it – a few ads for gardeners, decorators, bin-disinfecters, that sort of thing, and some articles from the groups in the village.  Verity has made so much fuss about joining something, I thought maybe one of those groups would be suitable for minimal involvement and maximum getting-Verity-off-my-case, so read them a bit more carefully.  It seems that the drama group need someone who’s handy with a hammer, a screwdriver and electric cabling to do some wonderful scenery for them – not suitable; the village singers need someone to look after all the music they use EACH WEEK – too much involvement; and the newsletter people themselves wanted someone to help with deliveries once a month.  That seemed far more like it.  I finished my cup of coffee, wandered round to the address given and knocked on the door.

I could hear some yelling inside before the door opened, so I wasn’t that surprised when a rather flustered looking woman in her forties (I’m guessing here, obviously, she was so flustered that maybe when she’s calm she’s really in her twenties) greeted me with “And what do *you* want?”

I mumbled something far too incoherent and non-specific about volunteering to help, because after sagging slightly with relief and praying to the heavens “Thank you God, thank you”, Deirdre (as I discovered her name was later) instructed me to wait a moment while she got some stuff for me.

Two minutes later I was staggering back round the corner with a large box full of the newsletter’s accounts, details of all the advertisers, subscribers, costs etc and an apology that they’d got a bit disorganised because her partner “couldn’t be fucking bothered” to do the job properly.  So that at least explained the yelling.  I suppose if I can sort out the chaos that is now spread out in about twelve different piles on the dining room table then I will be helping with the deliveries each month, but it wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind. 

I nearly stopped the sorting mid-afternoon when one of Celeste’s new flatmates telephoned me to tell me I must have picked up her letter from the Student Loan people when I was dropping Celeste and all her stuff off.  I politely told her that I only put stuff down in the kitchen and Celeste’s room and didn’t go into anyone else’s rooms.

“But that’s where I’d left it, in the kitchen.  You’ve got to send it to me, if I can’t show it to the authorities, they’ll throw me out of the uni before I’ve even started!”  The combination of tearfulness and alcohol did make her a little less coherent than that, but that was the gist of it.  No amount of explaining that I put things *down* in the kitchen but didn’t pick them *up* and maybe she should have another look in her room seemed to distract her from her belief that I was thwarting her attempts to improve herself and was therefore the cause of all the country’s ills.  After a bit more about posh fucking folk and their posh fucking cars and posh fucking accents, she hung up.

I haven’t heard from George at all, but I’m working on the basis of no news is good news.  If he was in any trouble, I’d have heard from him by now.  Or the police.

The OH was a bit disgruntled when he returned from work and was given his dinner on a tray in front of the telly but once he’d seen the state of the table, he caved in pretty quickly.

I phoned Deirdre after we’d eaten to tell her about the progress I’d been making, but she was out.  Or not answering .  I left a message instead but I’ll probably have to ring again tomorrow to make sure she got it.

Oh and btw, apart from Verity, names are being changed to protect the innocent.  Which may turn out to be me if anyone reads this and takes offence at my description of them.  Verity deserves everything she gets!

Comments:

Verity1 wrote: See, you’ve joined something and now you’ve already met one new person.  I know who you mean by Deirdre and yes, her partner is an animal, totally unreasonable.  He runs the tombola stall at the village fete (which you really must go to one of these years) and not only are most of the prizes rubbish, I’m pretty certain he’s fixed it so the tickets for the few things worth having aren’t even in the mix!  No-one gets past without buying at least £5 worth of tickets and if anyone complains, he gives them a look – you know, one of those that says ‘I may not be one of the Kray Twins but I could have taught them a few moves’ – so no complaints actually get through to the fete committee because everyone’s so frightened of him.