BUSY BUSY BUSY

 I'm busy.

I've got things to do. You know. Stuff.

I'm not used to being busy. I am used to stuff. The Old Girl's forever telling me about stuff:

"Can you please move your stuff."

"Whats all that stuff? It must be yours because I know it's not mine."

"Fuck! The shed's full of your old stuff."

"Get stuffed!"

Richard rang today. Well, I'd better rephrase that. Richard sort of rang me today. I had two unanswered calls from him on my cellphone which I noticed when coming back into the house after DOING STUFF. I called him back and he'd forgotten that he'd rung me. On prompting he kind of remembered but insisted that he'd only rung once. I let that go because, well, you know, (he's getting on a bit). That comment in brackets was the typing version of sotto voce which I just realised is a complete waste of time given that the readers of this blog, unless by a miracle that Tony reads, didn't attend 3P classes at college and have no idea what bloody sotto voce means. I mean, I might as well bloody shout it out - RICHARD'S GETTING OLD AND FORGETFUL!

So (sorry about that), I asked Richard what he'd rung about and, after a long while he remembered that he wanted to know what date my upcoming birthday is. When I told him he said "I knew that." I don't know if he heard my "Sheesh" or not but I had to cut the call short because, now you know, I had stuff to do. I had to get on with it.

The outside stuff had been done by this time: completion of cleaning the brickwork on the drive using strong (and dangerous chlorine products, best to be done while The Old Girl is away); mowing the lawn; ripping out some weeds (the more obvious ones that The Old Girl will notice their removal on her return on Saturday); putting more rubbish in the trailer for future trip to the tip.

The indoors stuff was pending: listening to National Radio with an intro of Nina Simone's Strange Fruit; catching up on the 2022 Commonwealth Games* coverage and watching live women's cricket with New Zealand beating Sri Lanka; preparing tonight's dinner of basil chilli chicken; sampling a few glasses of Stoneleigh rose. The  housework can wait until Friday.

Sorry: not the 2022 Commonwealth Games but a pic of me bowling the winning shot at a tournament in the early 1990s

* Hasn't this been a wonderful games event no matter what scathing comments Robert makes about it? Well done the New Zealand team. You young people (and the lawn bowlers) are stars.