Moving House?
IF SO DON’T MAKE TRAIN SOUNDS with your bottom in the air!
I’ve just moved house. I haven’t moved often in my life. I know some people are regular movers and really good at it. I’ve decided I’m not good at it.
At one end of the moving process it took me forever deciding what to keep and move to the new house, and what to give to the charity shops. At the other end I’m doing it all over again. It’s proved impossible to squeeze a quart into a pint pot as the UK saying goes.
For you young ones out there, a quart is 1.136 litres, a pint is 0.568 litres. Mind you I didn’t know these figures, I had to look them up … as you can tell I’m not a clever clogs!
Anyway, what I really want to tell you is how I’ve already ruined my chances of being accepted as a normal, everyday, sane person in my new area.
It’s oh so embarrassing!
It’s all down to the local plumber who saw me in an unusual position. I thought he was downstairs, but apparently he’d needed to check something in the upstairs airing cupboard. Just my luck!
So, there I was in the bedroom, surrounded by packing cases, kneeling on the floor with my head tucked into my chest. I had a three-minute timer on my phone, which was playing “The Railroad Runs Through the Middle of the House” by Alma Cogan. I only know this song because my mother loved it so much and played the 78-rpm record all the time.
The problem for me was that I was caught kneeling on the floor, my head tucked into my chest, with my bottom waving madly in the air in time to the music. I accompanied this movement by singing and making train noises at the top of my voice. I cringe even thinking about it now.
I spied the plumber’s shoes in the doorway too late to rescue the situation. He’d obviously seen me, but he’d disappeared by the time I’d raised my head.
Should I pretend it didn’t happen?
What to do? I didn’t know whether to explain myself or just pass it off and play along with his ‘didn’t see anything’ decision. I decided on the latter. Wrong decision. Matters took a turn for the worse later on!
For you dear reader I will explain myself. For the past eight or nine years I have suffered from nasal problems due to several allergies.
The Hospital Consultant I saw a few years back said not to let things get out of hand, and as soon as I feel myself sinking to my knees in symptoms, I should start a month’s course of Flixonase Nasule Drops. Moving house is enough to make fittest person in the world sink to their knees I’ve decided!
Oh, Flixonase works, it’s fantastic, but twice a day you need to kneel down, and bend right over as you insert the drops into your nose, then you have to stay like that for three minutes.
It’s very boring kneeling there, head uncomfortably tucked into the chest for three minutes, which is where, for me, the music comes in.
I suppose had the plumber not been local or had I not moved to a very small village, being caught in this compromising position wouldn’t have mattered too much. However, energetically waving my bottom in the air and making train noises is just not what a grown woman should be seen doing.
Later that afternoon it felt too late to explain my unusual behaviour, in fact I had no idea how to initiate such a conversation. ‘Did you see me singing and making train noises as I knelt on the floor earlier?’ … Doesn’t quite sound right does it?
Anyway, as he was leaving the plumber lingered by the front door, then he turned to me and asked, ‘Are you the new lady who joined the Ladies WI Group in the village this week? My wife said that someone new had enrolled.’ My heart sank, oh dear, now I’d really muddied the waters. I could hardly lie that it wasn’t me, even though I felt like doing so.
So, it looks as though I am going to have a reputation that will travel before me as an eccentric woman –
What’s new my husband would say!
— — — — — —
If you didn’t click on the link for “The Railroad Runs Through the Middle of the House” earlier, do take a minute and listen now … I feel sure it’ll make you smile, and you might understand why it’s bottom waving music!
