Monday 6 September 2010

Sorry...., but MINISHED!


A sudden event has restored my faith in – well, everything.

My cherished sandals, reported as missing here on this blog on the 23rd of June, appeared on the table in front of me, yesterday afternoon at 7.13pm.

Of course we are not talking random materialisation here; they were transported from where-ever they had been these last few months (everywhere except in the friendly embrace of my feet it seems) by my charming wife - who discovered them buried underneath the debris of a teenage son’s life in the darkest corner of a wardrobe where he hides anything that could possibly be used at school (to which he is about to return after an absence of what frankly constitutes a hazard for the poor teachers who are about to meet him).

My god what a tortuous paragraph.

But you get my drift – they were well lost.

I hope the timing is not mal-fortuitous as the weather forecasters are announcing a break in the summer that has blazed on around here enough to have me dipping in the pond this second September week.

My joy at being reunited with my favourite footwear – which in the past has drawn jealous compliments from my brother-in-law - is slightly diminished by the fact that they were in a plastic bag with a leaky tube of sun cream and their black leather now sports a frightening white fungoid growth.

Incidentally I heard a sun cream expert interviewed on French radio this spring who explained that to achieve the level of protection indicated by the published sun-factor, in accordance with the tests devised to obtain this, our consumption of the product would need to be one tube per week. In fact average consumption is one tube a year.

Even given the fact that in most of the British Isles even in mid summer all you need is a woolly jumper, this disparity is alarming.

However my joy at being reunited (see above) ……. was dramatically minished by the fact that I had obviously stuffed them with treasure before packing them alongside the sun cream, putting them in my son’s travelling bag and forgetting them.

Why he chose to tip them into his wardrobe, instead of giving them to me remains, like much of fatherhood, an unfathomable mystery.

An inspection of the treasure convinces me that the sandals disappeared after a February trip to the island of Tenerife – in a desperate early attempt to smear sun cream on our bodies.

There are…two bottle tops for my collection, a plaighted wheat sheaf, four pearl white miniature shells, three twirled shell interiors – one in the shape of a labyrinth, four tiny conch shells and, and, and!!!!!!!!

A perfectly round ball of volcanic lava!

It would be perfect if I could tie that denouement into some pithy philosophical observation of life and its, er, roundness – but I can’t.

Sorry.

8 comments:

Dave said...

Rolling lava rocks don't gather moss.
If like my daughter, he'll need to floss.
On the debris, I can't get no handles.
But I sure am glad you found your sandals.
On the matter though, of toothbrush holders.
I think now, before we both get older,
As none has graced my street door floor mat.
You'll send it now or eat my hat.

popps said...

Jugglers, poets, midwives?
ps hang on to your hat, i have to go to Toulouse first, which i haven't, but will this end of week.

Dave said...

Toulouse you say to buy that holder?
I think you excuses just got bolder.
What trickery with mirrors and smoke?
I can't believe it, you'll make me choke.
Get thee hither to a neighbour,
Tell your jokes and curry favour.
He'll believe you in a jiffy,
What to me just sounds quite iffy.

When delivered as you promised.
I'll write an ode, or even sonnets.
No more sense but just more polished.
With some metre, less rhymes demolished
Than this drivel I've here written.
As if by dogs that I'd been bitten.
Take no offence, if truth you utter.
Just write me off as some 'auld nutter.

popps said...

Things will surely get much, much worse
Casting aspersions in rhyming verse
I’ll even say, being bolder
You wont get your toothbrush holder
Until I travel to city distant
My speed the same, despite your insistence
Then I’ll pack it, seal and post it
Over Europe’s Irish coast bit
It will be there in time for All Saints
So stop your whining Mr Com plaints.

Mary said...

I am no poet
And I know it
So I will just say
In a very clumsy way
That Dave and Popps
Have made my day!

Mx

popps said...

Oh no – look what you’ve started
Clear joined up text, strangely parted!
Spreading across nations, into houses
Used by Canadians, wearing blouses.
It’s sure to start an international incident
A very nasty blog based predicament
How to stop this rhythmic nonsense
Before it becomes literary pestilence?

Mary said...

Too late to stop the nonsense, I'm afraid
As my rhyming talent is much delayed.

Still playing with words can be contagious
Though not intended, it often enrages.
Those who must find it all quite outrageous.
Must be one of life's advanced stages
To be doing this rather than earning my wages.

Can't help myself, it's so much fun
Can't stop until the day is done.

Pity me but do not run
In the direction of the nearest pun.
Time to write more, I have none.

Mx

popps said...

There you go, that’s much much better
Now your going hell for leather
Mixing word, idea and rhyme
Surpassing Wordsworth’s, Dave’s and Mine
But frankly, me, I’ve had enough
I’m off to soak in a deep hot bath.
No more peeps from me tonight
I’ll be in bed sleeping tight
Dreaming of other places
Seas and trees and strangers’ faces
Then off to the city, like I told ya
To buy a bumble bee toothbrush holder
For Dave, now silent, who started writing
This Poetic joust, a kind of fighting.
So please, anyone else join in
Make yourself heard above the din
Good night, farewell, I’m all done in.