When Dolly went to stand by the french doors this morning, ready to be let out at the very first hint of daylight, I got the distinct impression that she wasn’t too keen on the prospect. By the time it came to be light enough to see the back fence she was still there, still demanding her right of egress, but for the sake of honour only.
“Are you sure about this, Dolly?” I asked. “It looks awfully cold out there.”
The look of sheer contempt she gave me was enough so I opened the door, she hopped out, I stepped out to take the air and check the garden for safety, and…
“Ye gods, Dolly, it’s cold enough to…” I started, realised my neighbour’s kitchen door was open and scrabbled to finish my sentence in a less crude manner than it had begun, “… freeze the clothes-pegs off the line.”
I was quite proud of that. Especially given the hour. And the cold.
Because, cold it most certainly is. Not cold by some people’s reckoning, but more than cold enough to drive me back indoors and, shortly afterwards, to persuade Dolly she’d be better off inside than out, too. It’s a matter of contrast, of course. The actual temperature was just about 0°C but that’s a 12° drop from typical temperatures these past couple of weeks. And sudden. Very sudden.
Dolly decided the best plan of action was to take her breakfast at that point, and then to go snuggle up in bed once more until Graham woke and she could try his door opening skills in case he had access to a more hospitable day than I’d managed.
He didn’t, of course, and the language she rattled off at us over her shoulder as she stomped through the kitchen and back upstairs was not at all lady-like.
“Well, that’s told us,” Graham said. “Mind you, she’s not wrong. Are you going to have to go out today?”
“I gotta sort out the recycle bins and put the trash out, and I’ll do a quick dash for munchies, but apart from that, no. Seems the kind of day it’d be best to stay in the warm. How about you?”
“I’ll need some more paint and stuff tomorrow but I think you’re right. I’ll stay home and keep on painting. Wait a minute and I’ll put a coat on and help you with the bins.”
I was grateful for that. Bridgwater is a little behind the times on individual domestic recycling and require the recyclable stuff to be separated and stowed in a big open plastic box, to be placed outside on alternate Tuesdays. Other places have ‘wheelie bins’ that are much easier for the householder. Quite apart from the inevitable sour smell of two-week old empty cans, even when rinsed clean, the sheer weight of two week’s worth of empty bottles, cans, and paper is right on the cusp of what I can manage to carry.
Two pairs of hands made light work of it, though, and once I’d warmed up again I wrapped up, donned hat and gloves, and took myself off to the supermarket safe and secure inside my snug little cocoon. It wasn’t so bad. For some obscure reason I had taken to whistling one of the summer songs from Oklahoma, and that morphed into Summertime. That saw me right the way round the store. Earned me some peculiar looks but I didn’t care.
Scanning the fruit and veg shelves for recent arrivals, I picked up some really nice little potatoes, from the Channel Islands, and a pack of huge succulent oranges, from Spain, and that alone would have justified the trip. Then I spotted a stackotron unloading a trolley in the meats aisle, and grabbed a pack of freshly made best quality pork sausages before he could hide them behind the four-day-old ones still on the shelf. That really did justify the trip. I also got fresh-baked olive bread rolls, and some decent ham cut off the bone by the delicatessen attendant who’s quite used to me asking for a precise number of slices.
“You’ll enjoy that,” she said. “Fresh in today. I’m having some for my lunch, too.”
“Join the club,” I said. “It’s a good club, is the Fresh Food Club.”
When I got home Graham was well stuck in to the staircase painting job. There are an awful lot of spindles to be painted on two staircases. He’s done the first coat, bottom to top, and is almost finished with the second. It’s a long job but the effect is astonishing, bringing more light into the hall, landings and stairs than I’d have thought possible if I hadn’t done the self-same thing myself to an old Victorian in the mid-1960s.
It’s good to see white coming round again. It’s even better to see the back of all this faux mahogany that’s crept in since.
“How’d you do?” he asked.
“Fine. Nice nosh.”
“Like what?”
“Sausage and confused potatoes for dinner, followed by cherry crumble and custard.”
“Wow.”
“Thought you might approve. We’ll have a few nice salads when you’ve finished this job and the weather warms up again. Meantime, comfort foods seem to fit the bill best.”
While he’s working on this massive job of course there’s more than just menu construction has to be placed in a support role. Dolly and I are both of us being as supportive and helpful as we can manage. Dolly keeps out of the way. I’m at the ready with the teapot and, at the appointed times, food on the table. We’re all of us getting there. And we’ll all of us be thoroughly glad when the job is finished.
The snow that’s been drifting about the Kingdom didn’t come our way today and is not forecast to do tomorrow. That makes me both happy and sad. I love to look out at snow and it’s the only treatment that’ll make our back garden even remotely photogenic. It’s not good to walk over, though, even if I do pull my snow-boots out of the cupboard and fit the little traction chains to them.
Late in the evening, or afternoon, really, as the last of the light faded from the sky, I went up to check on Dolly.
“Fancy a breath of air before it get’s dark, luv?” I asked when I’d scratched her tummy the appropriate number of times as required by the Ritual of Dolly. “I have to tell ya, though, it’s just as cold outside now as it was this morning.”
“Nyaaaaw,” she said and you’d have to be singularly lacking in imagination not to translate that as “No. Go away!”
So I did, and I sang the ‘baby, it’s cold outside’ song as I went, much to Graham’s amusement.
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