I recently had a Mummy’s Weekend Away with friends on the
Isle of Wight, leaving Fester in charge, if not control, of Chateau Midden and its
occupants.
My orders were to “Phone when you get
there safely, Thunderthighs worries.”
I was met off the Ryde ferry by DrD
and DrE, retired GPs who were both medical students when we shared a flat in
Richardson Road. DrE lives on the island
and had broken a tooth so went to the dentist while DrD and I went to a
teashop, where I attempted to phone home.
The phone rang and was answered; then
there was much swearing and nothing but the sound of the radio for some
minutes. After some futile hellos I rang off. A few minutes and half a cup of tea later I tried again.
“I rang a few minutes ago. What happened?”
"You rang. I went for the phone
in the office and knocked that thing that holds the envelopes, it jumped up and
knocked the bookshelf and beetle welly puller offer fell off and hit the
laptop".
By now I was entertaining the tea
shop with hysterical laughter.
"Oh that's great! You
laugh! Half a pound of cast iron beetle
flying through the air."
Being an entomologist Fester
tends to pick up any entomological inspired ornaments. Being from Sheffield he has an affinity for
things made of iron and steel. In Ludlow
we found a red cast iron beetle shaped welly puller offer, in Ironbridge a
black one, and he could tell you which species of beetle they’re meant to be. As he claims they are purely ornamental they
are on a shelf in the office.
But at least it didn't hit his
head, or anything sensitive, and the laptop is ok.
When I rang on Saturday I got
“The toilet’s bust, I’ve got it working with a piece of string.”
Apparently “the
square plastic thing the handle bar goes through is comprehensively bust” and
it was my job to ring Will Fixit when I got back. I’ve no idea why Fester couldn’t phone him
immediately. On my return I emailed Will
a photo. He eventually replied to my mobile and phone messages from his holiday
hotel in Prague. We are now operating the flush with a piece of baler twine. It
works best if you surprise it.
(To be fair Fester did have to pay the milkman for a whole
month’s milk. I had a senior moment
writing out the cheque last time and forgot to put the firm’s name in, just the
amount.)
For reasons I won’t go into here I have a small collection
of penguins on the toilet windowsill, they look good against the white.
This morning Fester was up before me.
He went to the loo.
He was a long time.
Then there was a lot of screaming and swearing.
I’ve learnt that, unless my name is called, it’s better
for my blood pressure to walk away from these situations and find out what’s going
on afterwards.
So I popped up to the loft to use the loo in Thunderthighs’
en-suite.
“What’s wrong with Dad?”
“I don’t know. I
think he’s swearing at a piece of string.”
When asked what was amiss his reply was “I was trying to
retie the bit of twine so that we have something to pull and a bloody penguin
flew down and fell into its constituent parts in the cistern.”
I suppose we should be grateful he thought to put the
toilet lid down.
“Which penguin?”
“The one at the end with the earmuffs. The wet one!”
Fortunately that penguin is plastic and a sort of jar, its
head is the lid. I keep the wing-nut
that tightens the toilet seat holders in it.
Also, fortunately, said wing-nut is plastic so I was able to fish it out
of the cistern quite easily.
“I suppose this’ll all go on facebook!”
You suppose right old son.
