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Margery and Paul visited and lunched with us today. Jackie continued her usual garden maintenance before and after our friends were with us. When they arrived, I was doing some dead-heading in the front garden. For some strange reason Paul thought this was to give the impression that I had been working at the task for rather longer than was likely.
After Paul and Margery had taken a tour of the garden we sat down to lunch and enjoyed the usual convivial time with them. Just as they were leaving, my camera arrived.
Please understand that what follows was truly hilarious and I surprised a number of people with my laughter. Goodness knows why, but I was genuinely amused. Firstly, I had to charge the battery. This was not unexpected, and I could see how to do it. That was fortunate because there was no instruction manual. Again, no real problem because I found one on the internet and downloaded it.
There was also no memory card. I rang Camera Jungle whose representative told me they didn’t stock memory cards. They did once, but they don’t any more. He told me what type I needed but said there was a whole range. He advised me to contact Jessops to buy one. He didn’t know the phone number but would look for it. I asked if it was the one I had been given yesterday. It was. He was off the hook because I still had it.
I phoned Jessops and waited an age to be transferred to the sales department. There a very helpful young lady said that she could take the order but wasn’t technically trained. She was instructed to give me the number of my nearest store who would tell me what I needed. I could then ring the sales department again and place the order. I had explained that I was a long way from Southampton where I believed was my nearest store. She told me it was in Waterlooville which is in fact rather further away. No matter, any phone number would have done.
I kid you not. By this time I could hardly speak for chortling.
I rang Waterlooville, shared another bout of merriment, obtained the required information, and called the sales department again. Naturally I was answered by a different person this time. He quite liked the story, too. I placed the order.
You have to laugh, don’t you? (If you don’t I’ve wasted my time writing this up).
Unbeknown to me, Jackie had planned to take me on a forest drive with my new camera. Even if I had all I needed this would not have been possible. It is likely that I would have read all the books in my library before I got my head around the 220 pages in the manual.
In the meantime she took me out with my point and shoot. She was herself rewarded when, just outside Ibsley, we passed Heather Cottage, the garden of which had her shrieking with delight.
It was a quintessentially English cottage garden. Note the thatcher’s pheasant on the roof.
Further on in the village, a friendly jogger opted to cross the road in order to avoid the ponies and their fascinating, to one, droppings.
A stream at Gorley reflected the neighbouring trees.
It was only after I further examined the row of donkeys waiting to enter Hyde Primary School that I realised one was more aroused than was immediately apparent.
On the village green mares were tending their foals. Two youngsters were asleep on the grass. I disturbed one which began to whimper
and was soon latched onto its mother, thus disturbing her own contented grazing.
Another mare gave her offspring a tender nuzzle.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s pork fillet baked in mustard with new potatoes and crisp carrots and green beans. She drank her Hoegaarden/Bavaria mix, and I drank more of the Madiran.
