Imperial Leather

Jackie spent the morning weeding and planting. I chipped in with an hour of clearing up the leaves and other debris from our recent burning session.

After lunch I received a call from BT level 2. This is a more experienced adviser than the poor cannon fodder who field the first problem calls. Since we have had no interruption for the past eighteen hours or so, and I am convinced the problem is outside the house, I was not willing to waste my time or hers by going through the checks all over again, whilst I hung on to the phone when I could be doing something else. We compromised. I hung up. She asked me a few questions, then ran the checks, and called me back.

Well. What do you know? The problem is outside the house. Something I have been saying for a fortnight. There was a term for this, which I didn’t catch, since it was spoken in an Indian accent. There are three possible areas of difficulty: the exchange, the cabinet in the street, or underground. At least that is what I understood. An engineer is to be given the task of investigating this, and I will receive a phone call in three to four days time.

I was at last being given some sense, but we won’t hold our breath.

Our new bath was delivered on Thursday when I was in London. The man who brought it would not help take it upstairs because he wasn’t insured for that. At least he put bit in the hall, which is where it stayed until Jackie and I took it up ourselves. It helped me relax after yet another long distance technical conversation.

Sprinkler and cosmos

We then planted up yesterday’s three rose purchases and gave the whole of the rose garden a good sprinkling.

Rose Garden 1Rose Garden 2

These are two views from the bench by the orange shed.

Clerodendron trichotomum

The clerodendrum trichotomum undergoes quite a metamorphosis during its flowering. In future posts I will demonstrate this.

Butterfly Speckled Wood

Butterflies, such as the Speckled Wood, are enjoying the sunshine.

18108983_Soap_167533cWhen our new bath is installed our visitors may well be supplied with Imperial Leather soap. Alexander Tom Cussons 14.7.1875 – 20.8.51, chairman of the eponymous company, is best known for manufacturing this body cleansing agent.  He also manufactured a number of others which have since been discontinued. These included Apple Blossom, Linden Blossom, Lilac Blossom, Blue Hyacinth, and beautiful rose perfumed soap that led to the naming of the famous Wendy Cussons Rose. The rose was bred by Gregory & Sons of Nottingham, and was intended to be named after Tom’s daughter Marjorie, but instead she asked for it to be named after her brother’s wife, Wendy as she bore the name Cussons. This extremely successful fragrant hybrid tea has won many awards, and is still available today, over 50 years after its introduction.

Rose Wendy Cussons

Ours is now blooming.

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in spicy barbecue sauce, savoury rice, and boiled new potatoes, followed by vanilla ice cream. Neither of us imbibed.

25 comments

  1. “There was a term for this, which I didn’t catch, since it was spoken in an Indian accent.” I can think of a number of terms for it but not on a family blog… 🙁

    Reply

  2. Blasphemy! Heresy! “Neither of us imbibed.” What is the meaning of this statement? A beautiful post both in imagery and verse…only to be marred by such profanity! But then, I could only hope those words were fiction. And perhaps you’ll double up I. The next post.

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  4. What was the name of that movie or television show where the IT man answering the help line for a technical computer problem was an American pretending to have an Indian accent? It was funny, but actually trying to deal with IT problems never is. Derrick, I was in a bakery two days ago and I pointed to a muffin that was labeled, “Cobblestone Muffin” in the bakery case and said, “I’d like a Cobblestone muffin, please.” The salesperson looked on the computer screen and said, “We don’t have any today.” I said, “No, they are right here in this case.” She came around the counter, looked at the name, went back to the computer and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sell it to you if it isn’t on the computer.”
    Ginene

    Reply

  5. I hope they give you a proportionate disc out off your bill for the duration of the difficulties. Your garden is soooooo beautiful, though, I imagine you going out and sitting down in it with the wine you didn’t have at dinner.

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  6. Don’t know if you got the same ads over there for imperial leather…I used to love them as a kid in the 80s…… ‘Tahiti looks nice!’ 🙂 I hope the frustration with the connection ends soon for you. We got so fed up with similar problems here we disconnected the landline. Or at least, it disconnected itself via a falling tree in a cyclone and we didn’t reconnect it 🙂

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  7. We had a problem with our phone/internet connection so I rang complaints and was soon talking to a lady in the Philippines. She ran checks and talked me through as if she knew all of Australia by heart. She finally ran the check right up to the front door and said she would get a technician to come out in a day or so. All this is a Filipino accent. T% minutes later an Aussie voice came on the line. He was a Telstra technician and he lived down the road from us and was on his way home. I was in his book for tomorrow but as he was driving past could he drop in now. Half an hour later with a new modem the whole house was back on line. Nothing like that has ever happened since and never before.

    Reply

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