At least she didn't insert 'actually' in there.

Quirkie and I were out on Friday night and, after drifting into and out of a few venues, found ourselves in the beer garden at the Como Hotel. It was late in the evening, there weren't many patrons left, and the atmosphere was quiet and pleasant. We sat in the courtyard sipping our drinks, the lighting was subdued but not dim. Quirkie looked at me with terrific fondness and spoke, proving instantly that I'm not the only person round these parts capable of diabolical clangers.

What she assures me she meant to say: You are one of my dearest friends and I think you're gorgeous almost regardless of the circumstances, but I feel moved to say that the glow out here tonight is particularly flattering to you and serves to enhance all your best and finest features.

What she said: You look pretty in this light.

Pick Me Up

I was enjoying being in a stinker of a mood yesterday so when I stopped at the shops for yoghurt and rice crackers, I decided to go mental and get a packet of Mint Slices as well. Then, as luck would have it, Quirkie asked if I was receiving visitors and I said, "Yes! Come over! I've got Mint Slices!" She was round in a flash and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours screeching and gossiping. Her four older children were all out living their lives, leaving her with just a baby and an empty house and an encroaching sense of loneliness, and I was cranky so we were the perfect antidote for each other.

But the best part of her whole visit was when she walked in the front door and I said, "Sorry the house is such a pigsty," (as I idly kicked a little pile of dirty - but not soiled - undies out of view), and she looked around and said, "That's cute."

"What's cute?"

"That you think this is a pigsty."

Well, we may only be one human and two cats but we have let our standards slip shockingly. Shockingly.

Momentary Inconvenience

Quirkie and I arranged to have one of irregular catch-ups. On the day we were due to have lunch she rang to make sure that I was still free and to check where she should meet me.

It turns out she was just home from a gynaecological examination so we ranted for a while about how uncomfortable, nay, downright painful, they can be and how important it is not to let your young-ish, male doctor conduct one of these and then I kind of took over the conversation and raved on for a while about all the various aspects of life with which I was not precisely happy.

"So how are you?" I finally thought to ask.

"Oh, you know: pap smear, dead husband - life goes on."

It did give me pause. But it was only a pause.

With Much Ado

So Quirkie once told me that a cold is maximum misery for minimum sympathy. She sure had that right. I've been walking around in a mucus fog for the past few days. There's a kid in one of my classes who is a nice enough boy, really, but he wears mirrored aviator sunglasses and the big headphones with his doof doof music blasting out as he walks into the class, and every time I have to pull him into line he says, in this quiet, easygoing way, "You're breaking my balls." (And I do have to tell you that secretly I find it pretty funny.) And The Antiquer came over last night as I was settling into a nice little coma on the couch. He rang the doorbell and I was on the phone to someone and as it was a quarter to nine I got a little freaked out so I told the friend to stay on the phone so she could immediately call the constabulary if required, and it was of course just The Antiquer who had come back from a four day weekend away with Tam O'Shanter and Small Thing and the Whenwe couple he despises and he just needed to offload about the horror of his weekend and he stayed until 1am so I guess that was about 1 hour per day. And then I got home tonight and saw on the floor a pair of dirty socks and I wondered if I could fit them into the load already awaiting the ministrations of the washing machine and I debated it back and forth for a while and then decided to just go into the laundry and check and then my brain decided to just have a little break so as a consequence I walked through the laundry into what is sometimes referred to as "the littlest room in the house" and promptly deposited the socks into the toilet.

Luckily I had bleached it this morning so I just know things are turning round.

This is all by way of saying: hello, I'm back.

Old Bloody Bert

Quirkie opined here that we're all "a little bit Bert". Possibly so. Though Grumpy has taken to calling me Ernie since I had the nerve to lie in bed eating a few bikkies.

In the Orchard

I also told old Q all about the fruity characters I encountered at a funeral I'd been to recently. Q comes from solid - and, let's face it, fruity - country folk so she knew of what I spake.

After a couple of stories she said, "I just know that any minute now you're going to start describing someone and I'm going to have to say, 'Er, yeah, that's my cousin.'"

We agreed that this would be awkward. But also hilarious.

Timely

So I've just been on the phone to Quirkie. For those of you who read her blog and have been wondering where she is, her return is imminent - and yes, Bill Jr arrived safe and sound. She just hasn't been able to blog because of me - yes, me! That's the kind of crazy power I wield. She felt it would be wrong, since we are actual real-life friends, to announce the birth of her fourth-born via a blog without telling me first. Neither of us are spectacularly good at regular contact. What she didn't realise was that I'd been obsessively checking her blog thinking that if I couldn't get hold of her in person she would surely announce something there.

We had a lovely conversation until it occurred to her that it had been lo some fifteen or twenty minutes since the school bell had rung and her other offspring would be waiting for her by the side of some lonely, dusty road with only the occasional passing tumbleweed and pervert for company.

Screaming with horror at this realisation she abruptly hung up in my ear. But that's okay. We'll pick up where we left off in six months or so. If not, then no doubt we'll catch up at Bill Jr's 21st.

Grovelling

Yesterday was Quirkie's birthday. I neglected to call her so am hoping this makes up for things. Slightly. Also, you may wish to head over to her blog and wish her happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Q, old bean. And I meant it to sting.

Wheel Away, All the Way

Quirkie does evil things.

People like me rely on checking out what everyone else is doing with their bins so I know what to do. Luckily I live next door to a sensible, reliable Old Fart. Oh. That's right. Also: he's a stickybeak.

Old Blokes always know which week is recycle bin week. They have a complex, logarithmic, matrix system stuck on their fridges which will calculate which bin week is which for all time, or the onset of Alzheimer's, whichever comes first. They come round to visit each other in the middle of the day, curtains firmly drawn against the sunlight, and admire each other's matrices and debate their relative merits. They compare and contrast, if you will. So when troublemakers like Quirkie start, er, making trouble, I just have a squiz at Old Fart's bin arrangement and I'm back on track.

The only problem with our particular Old Fart, is he's also a neatness freak. Can't stand bins left out haphazardly on the kerb after the garbos have been. So he stalks the street, returning everyone's bins to the exact spot where he thinks they belong. In our case, that's right next to our driveway gate, thus providing potential robbers with an opportunity to jump the fence and break in through the privacy and gentle seclusion of our back yard. It's nice to think robbers can rob in peace.

Hall of Mirrors

Thanks to Quirkie for alerting me to the best blonde joke ever. It's here.

We can laugh and laugh: Quirkie has red hair, mine is mousy-brown.

Grumpy will laugh too. He's bald. Then he'll remember that and cry.

Advertise-ments

If you haven't checked out Grumpy's blog yet, please do.

Also, this little number is quite charming.

But if you can't have a day off, have a long lunch instead.

As I just arranged with my friend, Quirkie:

To: Quirkie
From: hazelblackberry
Subject: lunch!

The boss is away all day Friday so a long lunch is definitely on the cards - am I meeting you out the front of my work at 12 or 12.30?

------------------------------
To: hazelblackberry
From: Quirkie

God, don't do that to me. Lunch with an exclamation mark in the subject box means "Where the hell are you we had a lunch date right now!"

So, 12? (Friday)
Looong luuunch. Aaaaaauuurrrrgghh....

------------------------------
To: Quirkie
From: hazelblackberry

Sorry, put exclamation mark to indicate enthusiasm. Didn't want to send lunch w/out exclamation mark in case you thought I was about to deliver bad news. Punctuation: civilisations have risen and fallen on its back. Or have they?

------------------------------
To: hazelblackberry
From: Quirkie

Like The Roman Empire? I mean, the Roman Empire! The. West.
Hhhh
I'll get back to work now.

[At least one of us is doing some. - Ed.]