Thursday 24 May 2012

Fizz - Bang

 I woke up in the middle of the night last night, to the sound of a small explosion.

I did what any sensible person would do in that situation.

Rolled over and went back to sleep.

This morning, when I went into the kitchen, bleary eyed and aiming for the kettle, I noticed water on the kitchen  surfaces.  Looking up, I saw water drips on the ceiling.  Remembering the explosion, I started to wonder whether my water tank on the floor above had burst.

After a bit of modest detective work (it was a bit early for that sort of thing really, but I did my best), I discovered that a bottle of bubbly, left over from the house warming party that had been stored on top of the wall unit, had burst.  It was actually champagne dripping off the ceiling.  

This is the second alcoholic explosion I have suffered in recent months.  The other one was a very alarming bang, when the small can of tonic I had left in the deep freeze to chill, then forgot about, burst. In so doing, it blasted open the freezer and flew across the floor.  My friend and I thought someone had broken in, and had to hold hands to summon up the courage to investigate.

Quite nice to know you can still do that as an adult, hold hands for moral support.




The Ice-cream man comes again

After a particularly long day at work, I was nearly home and saw the aforementioned ice-cream van driving down my road, blaring 'Oh, oh Antonio' again.

There was something reassuring about the worn, gaudy pink livery, until I read it.

'One lick and you'll come again'.

I'm going to laugh every time I hear those chimes now.






Tuesday 22 May 2012

Manna on Wheels

Ah.....  Here I am at last.  Sitting in my (new) back garden, in the early evening sunshine.

I was listening to the birds singing earlier, when their call was rudely interrupted by an ice-cream van blaring out, 'Oh, oh Antonio, he sells ice-cream' on ultra-amplified chimes.  It reminded me of a very elderly lady I nursed a few decades ago (am I really old enough to say that sort of thing?  Help).  She was very frail and lay in her hospital bed staring at the ceiling, all the while singing, 'Oh, oh Antonio'.  During one particularly dull shift she taught me all the words.

Anyway, I felt a bit annoyed with the van, and was relieved when it went away.  After a few more minutes, I could here the dulcet tones of 'Antonio' a few streets away to the right, then after a little longer, more muted and further round to the left.

I remembered where I grew up was on a main road, so we never had the benefit of an ice-cream van, and I was jealous of my friends who lived in side-streets where this vehicle of dreams would appear randomly,  dispensing treats.

As I fell into a slightly depressed moment of nostalgia, I noticed some ants worrying around the patio.  They zig-zagged around, looking for something more interesting than the next bit of paving stone.

To one side of the garden, a bee landed on a flower a little too weak to support it, and the stem sagged, forming a rather pleasing parabola (the maths degree evidently wasn't a complete waste of time). The bee bungied along with it, and hung on in there.

I realised we were all looking for manna.

Monday 7 May 2012

At last!

It happened.

 It really happened.

I had a list of jobs to do, but realised NONE OF THEM WERE URGENT, and LAY ON THE SETTEE STARING AT THE CEILING to enjoy the moment.