 |
| Photo Derick on the Loch |
At Rest in St Conan’s Kirk
The picture has nothing to do with the story but Tamsin lives up the road a bit
The last lesson of the day was Mr Crisis’s science lesson. He told us he gets messages telepathically from his family who reside on Zeta Reticuli. Hang on I tell a lie, it is Epsilon Boötis. They keep him posted on family events and stuff.
He says his pet animal is feeling quite depressed, like down in the mouth sort of thing, and not at all himself. By all accounts he has now lost all three of his squeaky balls.
I am sure some of my readers are aware on Epsilon Boötis one’s pet can converse with their owners, or so Mr Crisis says.
Look, I won’t divulge the animals name, firstly as it would be a pointless exercise to do so, and secondly remaining incognito at least it gives the animal some semblance of anonymity.
I have had quite a few thumbs up for my blog, well at least two. Tamsin’s blog is collecting a few followers as well and her stories are making sense at last, somewhat like mine.
It is Friday night and this evening Nathan's folk group ‘The Sheriff’s Men’ had been booked to do a gig in the hall next to the Rickmansworth Baptist Church Twilight Years Nursing Home….for the Aged.
So from Tamsin’s point of view she was safe and Nathan was off the streets for the evening. No, it’s not that Nathan is a threat to Tamsin; I think Tamsin is just nervous of boys which I know is hard to believe, some might say even laughable. Though on second thoughts it could be the game that has been played out down through the ages by the two differing species.
Well she is almost 16 years of age now for heaven’s sake. Mother once said I was a philosopher, father is not in agreement and says, on the contrary, I exhibit disturbing thought patterns. I am not sure who is right as regarding fantasies or disturbing thoughts…… I might harbour.
Anyways I told mother I have made my relationship quite clear on numerous occasions with the stable lad, what’s his name, Andrew someone or other who my mother says has taken a ‘shine’ to me and despite what mother thinks no relationship exists. So he and mother can forget all about the ‘shine’ stuff. It’s not going to happen.
Nathan did ask me to ask the other girls to come to the gig at the nursing home…for the aged, to get the numbers up a bit. Anyways it was Charlotte, that’s Charlotte Patterson, who I told you her mother is an actress, she is not famous or anything like that, that’s her mother I am referring to. No, I think she only does commercials for hair, toenails and dewaxing ears and stuff like but she is on TV a lot.
Where was I going with this? Oh yes, Charlotte goes to the Rickmansworth Table Tennis club so this evening Nathan asked her to entice some of the members of her club along to his gig also to make up the numbers.
Nathan also asked Rhonda if she would lead a sing-a-long with the ‘clients’ at the nursing home. Rhonda Appleton does not have a good voice and did not even make the cut for the college choir but readily agreed as there were no chance of drunks blowing raspberries at her and free coffees were in the offing for payment.
Rhonda led a lovely sing-a-long with many old-time favorites like the ‘Daisy, Daisy’, ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ and ‘Que Sera Sera’. Finally before finishing up with ‘You Are My Sunshine’. I must add “The Sheriff’s Men’s” musical abilities shone. I suspect it was because most of the songs consisted only of three chords.
I think Rhonda will be asked back again next week.
Later in the evening as I walked into the dorm, I again wondered if I had slipped into someone else’s dream.
As I entered Elspeth was asking Rebecca to ‘Thay thumthing in German’.
Elspeth has a lithp, sorry a lisp.
Rebecca replied “No Elspeth I would rather not, if you don’t mind”.
“Oh go on Rebecca, pleeth pleeth” urged Elspeth excitedly, egged on by Tamsin.
You see we learn Latin, Italian and French in college but not German. There was one exception like when on prize-giving night the Marchioness of Cirencester awarded Eustasia Alexopulos, the daughter of the Greek ambassador, a commendation for her keen grasp of the Greek language.
Well the truth is Rebecca’s knowledge of the German language is extremely limited through watching only old war movies. She especially liked the movie Colditz. By all accounts her grandfather was a prisoner of war for a while.
After some encouragement from the other girls Rebecca reluctantly agreed to Elspeth’s request to ‘thay thumthing in German’ . She replied ‘ I don’t speak German very well ’. That dear reader was a masterpiece of understatement.
She paused, that’s Rebecca, firstly distorting her face before saying in a pretend deep guttural voice,
“Vee haf vays of making you tork”.
What followed can be best described as a stunned silence, born of a moment of incredulity by the listeners of Rebecca’s translation of the German language. I thought I heard a whispered, stifled swear word before Elspeth holding her stomach slowly sank down on her knees, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming down her cheeks laughing hysterically, pounding up and down on the floor with her fists.
Looking down at Elspeth and choosing her words extremely carefully and in a slow measured response (whatever that means), Rebecca irritably snapped, at the same time moving her head side to side like she does “It’s not that funny Elspeth. I have only just started learning German”.
As I wrote earlier, I sometimes wonder if this is all just a dream; like someone else’s.
Well that’s Friday over with.
Tamsin was again our guest for the weekend. I did suggest to Tamsin she should go home more often as her parents might not recognize her now she is getting older, and when she knocks on her door of the ‘Grange’, her parent’s house, her mother might think she is just a homeless person looking for a free meal and cheap lodgings for the night.
On Sunday Andrew the stable lad, you know the one I was telling you about earlier, will be driving me and Tamsin to her home, the old Presbytery at Loch Awe.
When we arrived at Inveraray Castle on the Saturday father and the Carter-Browns were socializing in the saloon. Mother said Mrs Dalrymple would be along later. The Carter-Brown’s pet fox Reynard must be really behaving itself. He was wearing a rhinestone collar, but he is not allowed to lie on the furniture. The very last thing they want is fleas annoying the tourists in the saloon.
There was a knock on the door. It was Mrs Dalrymple. Her fur boa always makes me think she is wearing a rabbit around her neck. Obviously I don’t mean a show rabbit, I mean a wild one.
I like Mrs Dalrymple. In fact I think the world needs people like her. I often think mother might be her alter ego. They both have a similar interest with the ‘other side’ or our ‘dear departed’ or ‘the dead’ as Tamsin likes to describe them.
She had no ouija board or tarot cards with her so I suspect tonight might be a bridge night. If we were to mobilize Mrs Pasta, the Italian kitchen lady, we can have two bridge tables going. Mrs Pasta need not go home she can stay the night. The Carter-Browns had bought Reynard’s bed with them, so any fleas he might shed can be contained to its own bed and not throughout the saloon.
Oh, and I must ask mother to get the piano tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment