Saturday February 2, 2008
I have a feeling we’re settling in to a nice, easy-going weekend, not doing or wanting to do very much, resting up in anticipation of a busy week ahead.
I say easy-going, and so it shall be, though the morning started with the event I’ve been dreading since October–the arrival of the finally discounted and negotiated bill for electricity and gas supplies since we moved here eighteen months ago. It comes out considerably less than my worse fears and we’ll pay it off next week, hopefully, without the need to touch savings. It could have been worse–this is an exceedingly efficient house to heat.
I sat down carefully at the kitchen table to open the envelopes. When I’d done and we’d discussed tactics, Graham handed me a smallish padded envelope. “There,” he said. “That’ll cheer you up.”
It contained a new copy of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on DVD, fully remastered and restored to ‘better than’ its original brilliance.
“Oh, you little darlin’” I cried, and meant it.
I saw the original movie on first British release in about 1944, in a huge cinema in Leicester. My mother and I had been evacuated away from the V1 flying bombs–we didn’t stay long but that’s another story–and she’d decided we needed a bit of joy in our lives. So she pawned her best coat and blew the money on cinema tickets. I was only a little tot but I’ve never forgot the impression. Regardless of what we may say about Disney now, and I shall never forgive him for what he did to Winnie the Pooh and a good few other English classics, Snow White was a work of pure genius.
I shall enjoy sitting down to watch it all over again. Graham doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to have to sit down with me and watch it, too. If you’re going to give a truly delightful and thoughtful gift you’re rather obliged to share in it.
He spent much of the day yesterday moving methodically through the house with two brushes and two cans of paint, dabbing here, straightening lines there. Snagging, he calls it. That means that, so far as paint goes, the interior of the house is finished. He wants to paint the front fence and the front door, and we need to dress up the little front garden a bit, all in the interest of maximising ‘kerb appeal’. Then, a couple of trips to the dump, and we’re ready to go into a major cleaning and tidying operation. And then… we’ll be ready to call in the agents.
Hey ho. It really does begin to look as if, as the little fellows sang: It’s off to work we go.
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