If you have been, thank you for reading ;-). Having awarded myself a Purple Fairy Bank Holiday yesterday, I was supposed to be a Worker Bea today. I have failed. Do I feel guilty? Yep but only mildly. Cos, actually, there is only me to tell me off and I'm rather bored with the concept of self flagellation.
So just what has today been about then? Well, I had intended to be as daft as a brush all the live long day and me and LL managed a flying start this morning with our potty posts on Facebook. Then I spoke/chatted with five of the people I love and made an arrangement to swap seeds and stuff with K and her daughter tomorrow. I did the crucial chores between bouts of pain but not the ones that were on my 2DoMent List. Oh! I had great plans to get out into the garden and to try and deal with the runaway hedge, the rampaging grass and the dastardly dandelions infesting one of my pots which houses a rose.
I did have a bit of a scare early in the day: My MollieMoo did not attend me with her early morning enquiries after my health. I kinda thought she was punishing me for, yet again, letting that flipping dog occupy the BEST spot when sleeping with THE Purple Fairy. I didn't panic straightway because I thought she was safely tucked upstairs in or on my bed. I called up the stairs and invited her to partake of breakfast. Nothing. Zip. Nada. No little answering squeak and big eyes peering at me from the top of the stairs. No matter I thought, she'll surface when she's hungry or when she needs the 'What DO you mean you haven't cleaned the litter tray' facility. With half an anxious ear tuned into possible MollieMoo sounds, I carried on carrying on.
Since poverty has gripped me in it's horny hand, I daily think of ways of making money, food, fuel, all resources in fact, go further. One of the side effect from this has been the reduction of speed as I travel in Florence. Those who know me, know that I am no stranger to the 70, 80, 90, and heaven forfend! 100 miles per hour on the speedometer. However, now, as I eke out the pitiful amount of fuel I cannot afford for Florence, I try to estimate the number of trips the amount in the tank will take me to the nearest town. Fortunately those clever French engineers have created a guesstimator that tells me how many miles I have fuel for. The result of this is that I appear to have lost contact with the accelerator and tootle along at sensible speeds watching to see if the guesstimator's predictions increase. For shame!!! Oh my Goodness, I will be wearing beige next!!!!!! And if this distancing of myself from the gas pedal, as my American chums say, continues when the hell WILL I be able to play my Meatloaf and my Bonnie Tyler tapes, just answer me that!!!!
Actually, I am beginning to think that the cocktail of medications I now take is having a crucial impact on my view of the world. I did something today I never, ever, thought I would be capable of. I was shocked. Nay! Stunned. I spent £1.90. No! Really I did! I spent £1.90 on a copy of the, oh I can barely bring myself to even type the word; a copy of the GUARDIAN! I have never, ever, knowingly even read a paragraph from the Guardian, let alone bought a whole newspaper before. Some people, I assert wrongly, judge your character and your politics by the newspaper you read. (For the purposes of this discussion I discount the Star and the Daily/Sunday Sport by reason of their efficacy as toilet paper.)
When I was being brunged up I avidly read the Daily Mirror from cover to cover because that was the newspaper my father read. And, besides, I just loved Andy Capp. As I grew older I became uncomfortable with it's tone, the newspaper's tone not the tone of Andy Capp. At about the time I was going out with a rather gorgeous, highly intelligent young man (no! I don't know how I snared him either) he thought to add to expand my intelligence by 'encouraging' me to read The Times. Every day, he brought me a copy. Every day I looked at the front page. Sometimes I even unfolded the broadsheet and looked at the second half of the front page and once, I looked at the back page. Michael would test me on what I had learned each evening. After about a fortnight, he became, how shall I say? perturbed. Perturbed at my lack of progress in the intelligence stakes; confused that I could not answer the simplest of his questions posed by the big issues of the day and covered by The Times. This lead to friction. Miserable after the fourteenth fight over my inability to get beyond the front page, I yelled at him that I couldn't understand the bloody headlines never mind the bleeding paragraphs underneath the headlines. Michael, somewhat dignified I thought, withdrew from the role as edjumactor of the Thick One. It may come as a surprise to you to know that the relationship, sort of, well, failed actually.
Somehow I found myself in the world of the Daily Mail as I grew older. I read every word, including the back pages; all the columnists - oh how I miss Keith Waterhouse!! My day was incomplete if I did not obtain a copy. In fact I got vexed if I could not buy a copy and have been known to walk several miles to bloody well get one!!! I consumed the newspaper in the same way as I consumed books; greedily, totally without pausing for breath. I could not bear it if someone handled or read MY newspaper before I had! My love affair with the Daily Mail lasted throughout my Second Age until the reading gene broke down about three years ago. Since then I have bought the local newspaper for my nearest town (generally to see if I recognise any of the arrestees as my 'boys') once a week. I have occasionally bought a copy of the Mail at the weekends and struggled with the sheer weight of them!!! Sadly it would be fair to say that sometimes, not only have I not unfolded it, but I have used it to light the fire without reading a word.
So why the Guardian I hear you say? In my defence, I say that, as a person of conscience (God! what a curse!) it appears to have cornered the market on the collective consciences for the Nation. From the MPs' expenses scandal to the present revelations of the JobCentre Plus targeting people in order to reduce their benefits. It seems to chime with the burgeoning rage of the silent majority. So I have brought the first copy home today. I am comforted that the bundle should last me at least a week in reading terms - provided of course that I can concentrate long enough to absorb the contents. I'll keep you posted as they say!
And so back to MollieMoo. By midday, it would be fair to say that the panic was indeed beginning to surface. No answer came the stern reply to all my callings. Taking my courage sternly by the throat, I ascended the stairs and went to my bedroom. Harrumph! Did I really leave the wardrobe door open like that; and that pile of freshly ironed clothing dumped on the bed, and what about clean bedding you were supposed to be putting away! The answers, of course, were yes; yes and oops! No MollieMoo; no MollieMoo in the spare room, the bathroom, in the walk in cupboard, not a single glimpse of her. I was, by now half expecting to find a corpse, inside or outside of the house. Looked around the downstairs again - nope. As I was about to totter along the road and to check the dykes, I had an Eureka Moment; opened the door to the Garden Room and sleepily, MollieMoo blinked at me as she lazily lifted herself off the cushion and squeaked at me. I swear she said 'What took you?'
take care, love and peace
THE Purple Fairy xxx
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