Rat trap...
I was stood up yesterday. I don't know about you, but when something is booked during the week, it's BOOKED. Between work, the husband and my ramblings, a lot has to be moved about to make way for extra curriculum stuff, and it makes me cross when people cancel something which has been in the diary for at least a fortnight.
Take yesterday for example. I have been waiting for four weeks now to have the final appointment with my dentist. This would have been the one after which I would be happy to grin like a Cheshire cat, rather than the taut smiles reminiscent of the joke about the Wide Mouthed Frog (if you don't know this one, it's a classic). So yesterday was all planned so that it wrapped around my appointment at 11.50. As this appointment meant leaving work early, I came in an hour earlier than usual (I am, and always will be, extremely conscientious). Firing up my PC, I started trawling through my emails, stopping every now and again to deal with the more straightforward ones.
At around 9.15, an email pinged up into my inbox from my dental surgery, informing me that they had cancelled my appointment as my dentist was ill, and would I phone them to rearrange it.
Well, that really hacked me off as not only was I going to have to walk around another week with part of my teeth looking like a row of bombed houses, I was also going to be working a lot longer than intended. I must confess though, I did down tools a few minutes early which made me feel marginally better.
It was then off to get some cash from the hole in the wall for Andrew, the Ratman, who was coming to check the traps and poison to see whether he'd had any success. And it was here that my day reached whole new levels of Grrrrrrrr..... I went to five, yes five, cashpoints before I found one which was able to give me more than an account balance on the screen. I eventually decided that I would have to park up and go into Wallingford for the cash. This meant buying a parking ticket (nothing smaller than a £2 in my purse) which made me seethe yet again. Believe it or not, it took me longer to queue for the bloody ticket machine than it did to get the money out of the cashpoint, but cash duly got, I headed back home.
Second bombshell of the day then happened. Andrew was held up, and wouldn't make it. 'Not to worry', I said to the husband, 'if he can get here around 4.00 on Wednesday I should be back from my ladies lunch'. (This is with the sublime Mrs E and several other long term friends from son number two's school before last).
So I then cracked on making a pudding for the aforementioned lunch. Just as I had the food mixer on Warp Factor 9, there was a knock at the door. It was Andrew, the Ratman.
'Aren't you coming tomorrow now?'
'Didn't you get the message?'
Turns out he'd called the husband and told him that he would be with us after all, but just a little later. Nice of him to share this news with me...
There was a modicum of success with the noisy critters in the loft. Several corpses were retrieved and removed, traps reset and loft hatch firmly closed again. The husband insists on this being closed at all times, and I am sure that his fear of mice is why, ten years after moving in, we still don't have a loft ladder.
Andrew was lucky I was in, as I could have been doing one of many important jobs.
Most of which involve roots or wrinkles...
Take yesterday for example. I have been waiting for four weeks now to have the final appointment with my dentist. This would have been the one after which I would be happy to grin like a Cheshire cat, rather than the taut smiles reminiscent of the joke about the Wide Mouthed Frog (if you don't know this one, it's a classic). So yesterday was all planned so that it wrapped around my appointment at 11.50. As this appointment meant leaving work early, I came in an hour earlier than usual (I am, and always will be, extremely conscientious). Firing up my PC, I started trawling through my emails, stopping every now and again to deal with the more straightforward ones.
At around 9.15, an email pinged up into my inbox from my dental surgery, informing me that they had cancelled my appointment as my dentist was ill, and would I phone them to rearrange it.
Well, that really hacked me off as not only was I going to have to walk around another week with part of my teeth looking like a row of bombed houses, I was also going to be working a lot longer than intended. I must confess though, I did down tools a few minutes early which made me feel marginally better.
It was then off to get some cash from the hole in the wall for Andrew, the Ratman, who was coming to check the traps and poison to see whether he'd had any success. And it was here that my day reached whole new levels of Grrrrrrrr..... I went to five, yes five, cashpoints before I found one which was able to give me more than an account balance on the screen. I eventually decided that I would have to park up and go into Wallingford for the cash. This meant buying a parking ticket (nothing smaller than a £2 in my purse) which made me seethe yet again. Believe it or not, it took me longer to queue for the bloody ticket machine than it did to get the money out of the cashpoint, but cash duly got, I headed back home.
Second bombshell of the day then happened. Andrew was held up, and wouldn't make it. 'Not to worry', I said to the husband, 'if he can get here around 4.00 on Wednesday I should be back from my ladies lunch'. (This is with the sublime Mrs E and several other long term friends from son number two's school before last).
So I then cracked on making a pudding for the aforementioned lunch. Just as I had the food mixer on Warp Factor 9, there was a knock at the door. It was Andrew, the Ratman.
'Aren't you coming tomorrow now?'
'Didn't you get the message?'
Turns out he'd called the husband and told him that he would be with us after all, but just a little later. Nice of him to share this news with me...
There was a modicum of success with the noisy critters in the loft. Several corpses were retrieved and removed, traps reset and loft hatch firmly closed again. The husband insists on this being closed at all times, and I am sure that his fear of mice is why, ten years after moving in, we still don't have a loft ladder.
Andrew was lucky I was in, as I could have been doing one of many important jobs.
Most of which involve roots or wrinkles...
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