PIPING UP

Bloggiana's old friend Bored has just rolled into town from Istanbul where he has been hiding since he dressed up as Her Royal Majesty during the Trooping The Colour Ceremony back in 1982 and waltzed down HorseGuards Parade in the arms of a blow-up Santa.

Back then, Bloggiana and Bored shared many adventures together and even today Bored's arrest-moment, when Bloggiana - dressed as a horse - tried to save him and Bored - in full garter robes - tried to be saved and they both - as they were being carted off to prison - burst into a spontaneous a capella version of Singing in the Reindeer, can reduce them to hopeless dribbly hysterics.

So the fact of Bored's arrival should cause Bloggiana's tired old heart to sing. She should be dropping everything, buying in bulk quantities of PG and cigs, ironing her feather boas, putting on her best chat hat and chatting. She should be getting out her favourite Cleveland Bay outfit, donning her mane and tail, practising her neigh, pawing the ground and reliving old times as surely they deserve to be relived.

But instead of all that, Bloggiana is so distracted that she barely notices Bored's presence.

Fancy a drive round and we can go and bark at the locals? ventures the Ottoman one, whose impersonation of a Jack Russell is one of his favourite turns.

Hmm, comes the reply.

Or how about we dig around in your dressing up cupboard? You can be Sonny and I'll be Cher. Or you can be a lamb and I'll be little Bo Peep.

Bloggiana barely lifts her head out of her elbows.

Happily Bored is not one to be put off and he goes to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, contentedly growling to himself as he does so. Beside the kettle, it so happens there is an opened letter and on the paper are some instructions and Bored reads them and bursts into peals of untrammelled Cappodochian laughter.

Bloggiboots, he exclaims. What's all this about you entering the Winston Churchill Tribute Evening Championships? Darling, how absolutely thrilling!

A problem shared is a problem halved, they say. Bloggiana hears Bored giggling over the idea of her getting in touch with her inner Winston. She hears Cappodochian shepherds dancing in the mountains to the tune of her old friend's mirth. She sees Cappodochian lambs veritably skipping to their masters' dance. And instead of plunging her head deeper into her chest, she perks up.

You really think so? she asks, clearing her throat so that her contralto tunes down to baritone. You really think the thing's a good idea?

Bored lets out another peal of giggles. Darling, course I do. Best idea I heard of since Kellogg invented the Pop-Tart. Now come on darling, time we got down to the nitty-gritty. Time for instantaneous plannobrations.

At which the bottle of Arak, the bottle of suspect foreign import brandy, two beakers and a serving spoon are placed upon the table. And Bored and Bloggiana settle down to the important business of discussing Winston Churchill Tribute Evening tactics.

SIZING UP

Now Bloggiana's yen to buy a shop has taken over all else. And looking for a shop will take her mind off her other worries, she believes, those being her apparently insurmountable indebtedness, the falling-apartness of her horse, the sudden onset cannibal syndrome (SOCS) of her daughter's hamster, the fact that her new found life partner has chosen this exact moment to get up off her sofa, book himself on a flight to somewhere and spend Some Considerable Time out of Bloggiana's life and the other fact that no matter which way she turns, she does not seem to be getting any younger.

To this end, Bloggiana has been trawling through the shop brochures, looking at small shops and large shops and projecting herself, in her daydreams, into a life where retail is king and profit margin is his consort; into a life where she lives, dreams, breathes, sleeps turnover, where stock taking no longer has anything to do with cattle rustling and she finally finds out what on earth a bill of lading is.

All this is leaving Bloggiana thoroughly preoccupied. When she is not lighting up a cigarette or cutting off Tiggy Pott-Hunter's nuisance calls, she is perusing brochures.

What are you up to, old girl? I ask.

Perusing brochures, comes the reply.

Later one of the chickens craps on the Very Expensive Cooker when the lid is up and the dropping catches fire and smoke billows everywhere and flames lick out from behind the cooker and threaten to ignite the tablecloth and I stand there with a bucket of water in one hand and the offending chicken in the other and I can't see Teener but I can hear her coughing and my eyes are streaming and for a moment there it looks quite serious so I ask Bloggiana if she would possibly mind fetching the fire blanket.

Can't do that, she says. Perusing brochures.

Teener and I await developments with bated breath. We scrub the parlour ceiling and wipe soot off the floor and subject the remaining chickens to a Very Serious Chat on crapping - and we wait. Our Dog walks into the parlour smelling of dead badger and then he sits down in the corner to lick his back of beyond but all the same I can see he too looks expectant and he too bates his breath. Adolesco, home from school after his latest spat with Measly Twat-Sniveller led to a four-day suspension and a runic letter from his headmaster, pretends to fill in his Anger Management Workbook but all the same, we can tell he too is agog with expectation.

Then Borederella, Bloggiana's old friend from Istanbul who has come over for a few days to relive student memories (our collective favourite being the story of Bored (sic) mistaking a kilt for a skirt during a Hoffnung concert which Bloggiana was organising at the Edinburgh Festival and doing a very gay gordon on stage with a tuba), tentatively asks the Blog woman if she is making any progress.

Matter of fact, not making any progress at all, she barks. Only thing I'm sure of right now, that's what it's a shop for.

And as we all cock our heads questioningly to one side, the Blog woman replies, smoke-rings billowing from her mouth as she does so,

Why chutney, of course, what on earth hell else would we sell but chutney?

TOTTING UP

But what with Nag looking increasingly rickety on his pins; and the hamster meeting an untimely end; and the Unpaid Solicitor becoming somewhat querulous; and the Winston Churchill Tribute Northwest Regional Championships looming; and Tiggy Pott-Hunter refusing to leave us alone, (dialling Bloggiana's mobile one morning 187 times until finally the Blog woman answered and told her to fuck off, I mean really Piccalilli what does the woman think she is playing at, snot as if I promised to marry the old bag or anything);

What with all the above, and what with the nice man from the electricity board telling Bloggiana that her water heater is broken and her fuseboard is broken and her neutral cable is on the way out and if she doesn't spend £10,ooo pounds on upgrading her electrics, she may well find herself following the cremation route only recently taken by said dead hamster;

And what with Our Dog having only gone and got all his toes on his left foot broken by Dobbin when a casual harmless game of let's play Taunt the 17 hand Hunter went tragically wrong; and then the vet telling Bloggiana that the entire bill for the entire mending of the entire foot would come to something jolly close to the amount she should be spending on repairing her faulty and some would venture highly volatile and jolly dangerous buzzbar;

And what with Bloggiana having only this morning given herself a rude black eye by causing her head to ricochet off the door she was opening onto the wall she was next to, then ricochet back onto the door, this small but undeniably painful incident no doubt occurring owing to Bloggiana having downed just one or two too many Rusty Nails last night when her old friend Borederella blew into town with a bottle of Arak under one arm and a bottle of highly suspect foreign import brandy under the other;

And what with winter coming and the tide of mud rising and the holes in Bloggiana's wellington boots not seeming to self-repair in any shape or form;

And what with the credit card company that has been extending credit blindly to Bloggiana for the last few years suddenly opening its eyes and becoming unblind and now refusing credit to Bloggiana so that when she goes to the shop to buy a bottle of PG (I mean, Piccalilli, it's not much to ask is it, one weeny little bottle of the old white stuff? Is it?), she has to endure the humiliation of receiving a pitying tilt of the head by of all checkout personnel, Learoyd, who of all checkout personnel is the very last one Bloggiana would like to receive a pitying tilt of the head from;

And what with Bloggiana's Erstwhile Life Partner still being not only alive but apparently kicking;

What with all the above, the old Pony Club Commissioner begins increasingly to get hold of the idea that the sooner we can leave our parlour behind, our smallholding, our expensive cooker, our garden full of molehills, our unused garden bench, our gate that is leaning more and more towards starboard and our rich clusterfuck of broken fuseboards and pending debts, the sooner, Piccalilli, we can all sleep easy in our beds.

And we can all move to Marshy Codsdale and run a shop.
　
　

COUGHING UP

Bloggiana may be in the trough of despond about Bubble and about the wave of animal deaths that swim back into her recollection upon finding Bubble's hamster ribcage gnawed to a bony architectural statement in the (wait for it) utility room; but that is nothing to how she feels when she finally opens the post this fine autumn morning and comes across firstly an outstanding fees note from her Unpaid Solicitor; and secondly, a letter from the South Trilby and West Northmoreland branch of the Pony Club reminding her that her mandatory donation towards the sponsored breast stroke-a-thon should now finally be forthcoming.

The Unpaid Solicitor has been silent for a while now. Bloggiana and I had come to dare to hope that he might have expired. Or found himself the subject of his own divorce and thus thoroughly under-snowed by turned tables. Or perhaps been slapped into stocks and egg-pounded to a small blob of omelette on the bottom of someone else's shoe. In our dreams (and particularly in Bloggiana's) the US would be walking along the pavements of a sunny day in, say, Harrogate. And suddenly find himself the entirely unjust victim of a police assault in which he would be clobbered around the head with an ASBO, then sent for a lifetime's detention to a windowless cell with a mid-pubescent teenage boy called Kevin.

Effing bollocks, says the Blog-one, when she opens the first and counts up the zeros at the bottom of the Totals column.

Must say, they're not wrong 'bout the outstanding bit, she adds. Then bites her lip almost in half as she realises she has injected humour into a subject which on her account at least is far from amusing.

Tiggy Pott-Hunter is the signatory to the second letter.

Dear Mrs Bloggiana, the letter goes.

Bloggiana must be inwardly rehearsing for the forthcoming tribute night for her accent has a distinctly Churchillian ring.

blahblah simply splendid efforts I think you will agree blahblahblahblah. blahblahblah Liliana Fox-Trotter and her quite exemplary stroke rate blahblahblah. blahblahblah remind you you were kind enough to offer most generous sponsorship blahblahblah. blahblahblah time you sent off your £100 cheque post haste.

Now many of you will be aware by now that Bloggiana is a little pre-disposed towards going off at the deep end. The incident when she told the vet he was the worst thing that had happened to his profession since Rolf Harris's mother announced she was pregnant, being a prime example of such.

And one or two of you will also have gathered that her approach towards finances is not always exactly completely logical. To wit: she will only ever buy sliced bread when it is on offer. But she will simply never buy smoked salmon when it is.

So you will not be surprised to learn therefore that while the Unpaid Solicitor's bill exceeds Tiggy Pott-Hunter's claim on her wallet by almost 2000fold, it is the latter that really throws Bloggiana into a (as Adolesco would describe it) well wicked blue raggedy-arsed temper init.

Sod the queen and king of fucking Europe, she says. We buried that wretched hamster yet? she adds. Time one thinks to have a little cremation service.

And then rising to her full Indignant of North Westmorland height, the Blog-woman seizes hold of the ribcage, wraps it in Tiggy Pott-Hunter's encomium (so to speak), takes both to the pot-bellied stove in the snug, kneels down, prays to the Lord God of all things Animate, dips into her pocket for the sherbet fountain she had bought specially for the purpose and sends all three firing up the chimney in a shower of fizzy lemon.

EATING UP

Teener's hamster has just eaten Teener's hamster's sister. This was not supposed to happen. The woman in the pet shop said it would not happen because these hamsters were not cannibalistic. If you don't believe me, she said, have a look in the little book of hamsters. So we bought a copy of the little book of hamsters and we looked up the type of hamsters we were planning to buy and sure enough it said these are nice little happy family hamsters. They live together and play together and eat together and sleep together - "just like you and your sisters and brothers do".

So Teener and I bought the little hamsters and the little book of hamsters and a hamster starter kit and a cage for them to share and we went home.

And for a long time, everything went swimmingly. Bubble and Squeak lived together and played together and ate together and slept together just like the little hamster book told us they would. Sometimes we would hear the hamster wheel whirring round and we would run through to the (wait for it) utility room to watch them, Bubble and Squeak, happily playing happy families, running round their wheel side by side. Bubble was slightly smaller than Squeak and had to pelt round the outside at full tilt in order to keep up with his best friend and sibling. This induced in Teener waves of giggles. Even Bloggiana herself was known to laugh at the sight.

Reminds me of that Alan Whicker programme about Palm Beach, Bloggiana used to say, though quite what she was referring to I never really knew.

Then one day everything went wrong. We felt like tearing up the little book of hamsters and writing a strongly worded letter to the lady in the petshop. We felt like we had been duped, Teener and Bloggiana and I, because one day, instead of hearing the wheel whirring, we heard silence. And we went through to the (wait for it) utility room and there it was, a ghastly hamster carnage scenario: the half-eaten ribcage of Bubble being tossed around the cage by Squeak in a kind of high pitched dirty dancing cannibalistic hamster frenzy.

Well fuck me, said Bloggiana. Don't recall them doing that on effing Palm Beach.

A few days on and now the hamster wheel is pretty much full-time stationary. Teener and I sit at our parlour table tapping our fingers and fending off other animal death memories. I cannot help but recall the moment when Bloggiana hoovered up Cheeko the chipmunk. But for the sharp bend in the inflow pipe, Cheeko might have survived. (Bloggiana to this day has retained a wholly ambivalent attitude towards housework.) Teener says she wishes we still had Bertie the beetle.

Only last week, Piccalilli, I'm sure I saw him trotting along the dado. But it can't have been him because of those antennae I found sticking to Our Dog's nose.

And I'd know Bertie's antennae any day of the week, she adds, with a sniff.

Bloggiana herself seems remarkably piano. When we ask her if she wants to help us make a hamster headstone, all we get is a kind of vacant stare. There is a shop brochure in her left hand and a cigarette clinging for all its life's worth to her lips. In the post, an envelope is about to arrive containing confirmation of Bloggiana's place in the official North West Regional Championship Winston Churchill tribute evening.

And all Bloggiana seems to be able to do is sit - as though her animal death memories were simply too many and too great to bear.
　

LIGHTING UP

There have been a lot of mini-dramas this week. There was the incident with the red cabbage. There was the to-do with hamsters. And then yesterday, the power failed.

First thing Teener and I knew about the power failure was when we heard Bloggiana roaring

Hell's the matter with you, you boiling idiot.

I Piccalilli tumbled out of bed and downstairs into the kitchen thinking we had a genuine emergency and instead found the old girl, her gumboots thick with mud, standing by the kettle giving the old Morphy Richards what for.

Any idea what's happened to the lights? wailed Teener, as she groped her way into the kitchen and stumbled over the dustbin.

Hell should I know, came back the response.

And like lightning the three of us had an insight - an apercu as Great Uncle Cymbeline would call it - and realised that the reason the lights were not working and the reason the kettle was resolutely not boiling came down to one and the same and that was that the power had gone off. Or as Bloggiana put it gawn awf.

So I Piccalilli rang the electrician while Teener rummaged for head torches and Bloggiana went into the cupboard under the stairs to dig around for a bunsen burner so that she could make a cup of coffee because without one, she was in her own words 'worse than a fucking bear with a hell of a fucking bad head'.

Two hours later Fusio turned up. His van said Qualified Electrician. And his face said I am helpful and young and friendly. Fusio asked about trip switches and buzz bars and two phase crossovers. He raised not an eyebrow when Bloggiana swore at the bunsen burner - shitting effing useless effing thing, always hated science, bloody buggering gas, never effing hot enough etc etc - and instead got out his testers and his screw-drivers and an impressive box of fuses and began tinkering with the electricity boxes in our (wait for it) utility room because that he reckoned was where the root of our problem lay. Fusio was industry itself and did not break for a cup of tea. An hour after his arrival, he said Bingo and we all raised our head-torches in sync and Fusio said it's your main overhead line love and then he showed Bloggiana the main central fusebox whose butterfly clips he had eased off where the main central fuse had blown, apparently due to a fault further down the cable.

Two hours after that Polio turned up. He came in a big white landrover with ladders and a jumpsuit. He looked like a fireman and a prop forward and a Cary Grant lookalike rolled into one and when his enormous boot lowered itself out of the vehicle and onto Bloggiana's forecourt, I for one could detect a distinct sexual frisson in the air.

Problem with yer over'eds, luv? he asked.

The Old Girl came back quick as a flash.

Not sure if my single phase hasn't blown, she said.

Hmmm, he said. Show me yer trip switch, luv then.

Certainly will, Bloggiana replied and the two of them disappeared into the utility room and began chatting in a low-level friendly chat-tone.

For some reason I Piccalilli and Teener decided to eavesdrop. We pressed our ears to the door while Polio bantered with the Blog woman.

First we heard the turning of butterfly clips.

Then we heard Bloggiana say oh the electrician has already looked in there.

Then we heard Polio say he can't do that luv, it's dangerous.

To which Bloggiana said: Certainly looked like he knew what he was doing.

Only qualified electricians can open this box, came the rejoinder.

Pretty sure he was a qualified electrician, Bloggiana replied, keeping an admirable lid on herself.

'Fe wer a qualified electrician, e'd know it's dangerous. Wouldn't have opened it.

Bloggiana at that point must have blown a fuse of her own. Or something like that. We heard a switch flick. We heard some breath sharply intake. The lights came back on and the kettle began to hiss and someone somewhere muttered

Single phase back on full.

STEPPING OUT

But before we can go much further along Bloggiana's road to set up a shop, two things happen. And both are a considerable cause for concern.

The first thing is that Nag - Bloggiana's oldest equine friend - grows markedly worse. Stumbling and hobbling which have been his daily habit for several months now have made way for plain hobbling. On hacks, he tiptoes through the gravel like a cat edging its way through a puddle. He is 17hands high and weighs half a tonne or more and he is afraid to step on a pebble because of the pain. Bloggiana nurses him down the road willing herself to believe that what must be true is not true. She tries to wince herself so that the horse need not. She steers him as carefully and deftly as she can, weaving a pattern down the tarmac which belies the horse's size and her own gauche physical manner.

Nothing is said. I Piccalilli sit aboard Dobbin and make cheerful conversation; or stay silent. Dobbin and Nag chat to one another - but theirs is the language of ears and whiskers and touch and it seems far from likely that Nag and Dobbin are discussing their ailments. At the end of our rides, when Bloggiana reaches the old wood-lined tack room, she slings her saddle high on the rack - above the rosettes for best mountain & moorland, Highland Show, 1975 - and I watch as she gropes for a cigarette, her hand having developed an infinitesimal tremor.

This scenario has been going on for several weeks. The months of stumbling were worrying enough and now the weeks of hobbling are almost too much to be borne. Bloggiana's old copy of the Manual of Horsemanship - written in 1959 by one EF Gelderhorn - shows signs of having been thumbed. The dust on the dustjacket bears fingerprints and the page marked Ringbone has one corner folded down. Once, I dare to ask the old girl if she fears that that is what Nag is suffering from. Bloggiana looks at me over the top of her scarf, under the rim of her cross-country helmet, cig-smoke swirling around her face in cumulo-nimbic formations - and that, as far as I am concerned, is all she needs to say.

And it is the day after that particular encounter between my question and Bloggiana's look that something happens in the Nag department which seems to hail a watershed. Nag is waiting at the gate. Normally when it comes to bringing him in from the field, the old bugger trots off. Swishes his tail, grinds his teeth, utters an equine sneer and says Ciao. Generally speaking, Bloggiana marches after him for a spell, then loses her temper and throws a bucket at the beast. The beast circles her. Bloggiana expletes. Bloggiana walks off. And two hours later comes back and brings the bugger in.

But this day, Bloggiana goes to the gate and there he is. He has his same old face and his same old smile. He has his tall beautiful neckline and his exquisite almost feline elegance. But his sense of humour seems to have abandoned him. And worse still, he is standing with one leg in the air.
&&&
So Bloggiana is more than usually preoccupied. She has signed up to the ShopsRUs website and is daily receiving mailshots about small units here and larger ones there. She could buy a pub in Marshy Codsdale for a song. (Not a good idea, we both conclude). She could buy an industrial unit in Wabbersworth, an old electricity substation on the top of a fell, a cafe with village shop and house combined - all situated at the very posterior of beyond; she could go mad and buy a camper van, then sell our chutney nomadically out of the back.
Interesting and in some ways entirely possible as some of these options are, Bloggiana pays no attention. Her mind is elsewhere - and never is this more evident than when she mistakenly puts bulbs instead of onions in the red cabbage; and all but dies of sudden onset amaryllis poisoning. (SOAP)

And when the next thing happens - which it does shortly after Bloggiana has finally heaved herself out of the loo, where she has been hiding for the three days that have intervened since the red cabbage incident - when a letter arrives inviting Bloggiana to take part in an event in aid of the local Cruelty for Children charity, Bloggiana pays the thing scant attention.
No. Instead, she rips open the envelope,

Never know when there might be a fucking cheque inside,

hurls the contents out across the table

Or even, god forbid, some fucking cash

spots a small box that says tick

'Bout time I had some fucking luck

and before anyone can veto anything she does

signs along the dotted line, ticks in the box marked tick, places the paper in the given envelope and pops her acceptance to attend the Winston Churchill Tribute Night - as a tributee herself - straight into the postbag of the man who has just whizzed into our parlour in a blur to collect just that, our post.

BRANCHING OUT

Bloggiana has had an inspiration.

A coup de maitre, she pronounces.

A fucking genius stroke of a brainwave, she adds, flicking her cigarette nonchalantly over the side of her saddle and watching it idly as it tumbles down Nag's shoulder onto the fallen leaves below.

It is autumn once more. Saddles ahoy, bridles aboard, horses flicked with a brush so that any scurf lurking in their coats is now jumping about on their backs, we are taking our daily amble round the lanes, giving the hedges one last once-over before all their secrets become laid bare to the winter. Around us, rainbows are jumping up in hoops. Overhead, the starlings are swarming, every now and again mottling us with a thousand filigree shadows. Is it morning or afternoon? Neither of us could say. There is a watchfulness about the sky which holds neither promise nor threat. The air is muffled and the leaves - those that remain on the trees - are still and the white crow that last year scudded over the late pasture like a small unfamiliar cloud now only dances before us in legend.

All of a sudden our peace is disturbed by the ringing of Bloggiana's mobile phone. It's the bank.

Shitting hell. Name in god of all things aubergine d'you want now? Bloggiana barks.

There follows a short conversation. From aboard Dobbin, I can hear Miss Pinprick from the collections department of the HSMC (Have Some More Cash) trying to get a word in edgeways. The reception is not that good but I can just about decipher from the other end a succession of but-buts.

But-but, Miss Pinprick utters before she is rudely interrupted.

But-but, she ventures again before being snapped back once more.

But-but-but. And then the hapless woman is finally cut off for good.

Next thing, Nag stumbles and for a few steps, hobbles. He is beginning to show his age and the hobbling takes several strides to dissipate.

Christ, Bloggiana says. Hell's going on around here? Feels like the day of the fucking apocalypse, she adds.

And sucks so hard on her cigarette that she momentarily turns a nasty shade of aubergine herself.

For some time thereafter, Bloggiana and I, Nag and Dobbin continue on our journey wordless. Bloggiana is clearly preoccupied. When a kingfisher flashes up the beck, she does not appear to notice. When the postman slides past us down the lane in a blur only a couple of inches from Nag's tail, she omits altogether to rant. When Mister Nasty's dog does a huge crap on the road in front of her, then barks like a Loch Ness banshee until even Nag sits back on his hocks, Bloggiana sails on in silence.

Still I refrain from asking my old friend if she is alright for I know that to say anything at this point would be to court almost certain verbal electrocution.

Then the coup de maitre must strike. It is preceded by counting sounds. By words that rhyme with overdraft and others that chime with bailiff and some that sound like collections agency and others whose resemblance to last fucking penny I own is uncanny.

Coup de maitre, Bloggiana suddenly blurts out. Fucking genius stroke of bloody brainwave. Coup de fucking maitre.

We'll start a shop, she says. We'll have our very own One World One Chutney outlet. You Piccalilli can write a blog. And I Bloggiana will run a shop.

For a moment, I Piccalilli am lost for words. The idea - coming as it does from the woman who most in the world suffers from random access tourette's syndrome (RATS) - seems beyond fathomable.
　
　
　

RE-BERTHING

et in nostalgia ego
　
We are back! Bloggiana and I have returned from our travels. A whole euro-extravaganza is under our belts and autumn is among us, like an old rusty friend, here to remind us that we should never ever be too busy to apply face cream.

We are back! And besides being one year older and considerably wiser, we now have a handbook to go with the blog - a One World, One Chutney guide which Bloggiana swears will make that ridiculous woman from HSMC Miss Pinprick choke on her own statements.

Now that we are back, Bloggiana and I Piccalilli have done a number of things and the first was to sign off from our internet dating site - because Bloggiana has bagged her man and I too seem to have a friend; because we have grown tired of the cyberness of the winks and the virtuality of the hugs; because altogether, the whole thing - we are fully agreed on this - was compelling and amusing but utterly unproductive.

Since we have been back, we have waved goodbye to Adolesco who has been obliged to return to school; and to the dags on Our Dog who has been favoured with his most coveted experience of the year - a haircut; and we have said hello once more to Teener, greeted home from her excessively long sojourn in the outback of beyond with Great Aunt Vegemite.

Naturally enough, as we walked back into our parlour and saw the hens roosting above the Very Expensive Cooker; the autumn rain bouncing down the dados; heard the mice scuttle through the kitchen cupboards and the birds nesting in the roof, our hearts lifted. Bloggiana picked up the rates bills that had been piling up in the post box and whirled them round her head, as though they were part of an umbrella and she were singing in the rain; I wandered about the lawns stamping on molehills, left foot, right foot, my inner Shirley Temple and my outer Michael Jackson making contact at last. Bloggiana opened her duty free crate of shiny butts and embarked with gusto (and both smoking hands) on packet number one; while I stood firm, legs akimbo, and tugged and tugged on the corkscrew until finally the screwtop lid gave way and we could drink our PG freely once again.

Bloody good to be back, pronounced Bloggiana, lighting up a fag, spitting out pieces of screwtop lid and settling into last year's New Zealand rug on the sofa.

But bless my sainted thong collection, didn't we have a blast? Now how about it Piccalilli? How about we start planning a Whole New Adventure?

ONLINING ON

Bloggiana is doing her online tax return. It may be some time before she recovers her equilibrium sufficiently to return to her blog. In the meantime, she says to anyone who has any grasp of the runic online language in which Her Majesty seems to specialise, Fuck it and fuck it to hell. The whole thing is a woeful shambles.

Bloggiana may next be seen plying her trade on the streets of Barrow in Furness. It seems there is the small question of having to pay a tax bill. She is hoping that with plenty of practice, she will be able to offer Her Majesty's Inspectors some sort of payment in kind.

MORE DREAMING ON

Today apparently is the saddest day of the year. (Or at least Monday was but I Piccalilli am riding the crest of an artistic licence wave and am thus pretending that Monday is today.)

Bloggiana knows that today is the saddest day of the year because it says so, in a miscellaneous column in The Guardian. I know it to be true because I can read Bloggiana’s lips.

We decide to go outside into Our Garden. There perhaps our friend the yellow wagtail will cheer us up. Or perhaps one of the many wrens we have dotting in and out of the compost heap will dot in and out of our dreamthoughts and make us smile. Last week when I was hock-deep in mud, I caught a glimpse of a female goldcrest and that definitely made me happier for some considerable time. Birds are wonderful. Both Bloggiana and I are agreed on this.

Alternatively, if we are not to be cheered by birds, we could be buoyed up by the sight of newly appearing snowdrops. I once read an article about an organisation called The Snowdrop Society. Members (galanthophiles) gather in conspiratorial huddles during the season and dispute which species is which. They are passionate apparently, dedicated to their cause, this despite the fact that it is almost impossible to distinguish between one type and another. Every winter, we wait for our snowdrops to appear and smile when they do – they always seem so brave, jaunty in the cold, stubborn in their resistance of the deep frosts and the harsh mid-season winds.

Bloggiana and I wander through the garden, stumbling on the occasional mole-hill, blinded by the light from the snow on the tops, fingers blue with the wind, minds numb with sorrow. Tomorrow the estate agent comes and tells us exactly when we must begin to market Our House. Yesterday it was Christmas and we ate goose and drank more wine than was good for us. Today a credit card statement popped through the door with the bill for the wine and the bird. Soon we have to begin to face the question Where on earth are we going to put all our stuff?

So the gloom that grips us seems real indeed. We go together to gather the eggs, only to drop one on the way out. Fucking hell, exclaims the Blog-woman. To hell with our omelette, I chime, though in truth I am really very sad to see it go. We go to climb the hill, to embrace the view of the Lakes hills and the sands of Morecambe Bay and the twinkling rumble of the M6. To the east, the Dales shiver beneath their white mantle. To the north, the sky is dark with oncoming rain and we descend the hill at speed. Fuck the view, exclaims the Blog-woman and once again, my sentiments chime with hers.

Then something must get hold of us. Perhaps it is a sudden realisation that a miscellaneous column of The Guardian should not be marshalling our mood. Whatever it is, suddenly Bloggiana and I turn to one another and say let’s plan a road trip. We could Thelma-and-Louise it. French-and-Saunders it. Jeeves-and-Wooster it. We could pack Bloggiana’s unfeasibly small car with food and wine (PG, natch), cigarettes and wine. We could abandon Teener, Adolesco, Nag, Dobbin, Our Dog, the birds and snowdrops to their own devices. And we could drive. Where shall we drive to? asks Bloggiana from atop the muckheap, her favourite place for declaiming. Not sure darling, I reply doing my best to sound like one of the Bogarts. When shall we go? asks Bloggiana. Not at all sure my sweet, I reply.

Now it is Monday evening and we are sitting in silence, looking at the dim flames in our fire. Nothing is said but two things are certain. 1. We are no longer sad. 2. We can’t wait for our trip.

BARRELING ON

Skipping for a moment the bombshell that Bloggiana has just dropped – that for the last five days, she has been shacked up in a bedsit in Gretna with the redoubtable IluvBigKnockers, her new internet friend (or Randolph as he turns out to be) - I Piccalilli find myself sharing instead reminiscences with the Old Girl about Lady Dyke whose sudden demise Bloggiana has just alluded to.

Now you may recall that Lady Ravelston Dyke had one and only one friend and that was Great Uncle Cymbeline. You may recall also that it was she who bestrode Edinburgh’s Newtown like a veritable Boudicca, pounding through the salons of the Scottish great and good (sic), her hold on the reins of Coffee Morning protocol unswerving. Lady Ravelstonia, the very scion of social standards, who would not have been seen dead in the street without arrow straight stocking seams and a pale fixed demeanour worthy of a pioneering shower maintenance officer from Belsen. Lady Dykiana who even at the age of 101 was known to drive round the cobbled Ainslie Place at 60 miles an hour, scattering small dogs and old ladies like so much scree; and whose defence of that treasured thing, the conveniently situated private parking space, was fierce enough to make grown truck-drivers weep.

About the Coffee Morning Queen’s departure, it seems that Bloggiana and I have mixed feelings. I mean, says Bloggiana, now that the old bat has popped it, do you suppose that means we will have to visit Great Uncle Cymbeline even more frequently? This is a daunting prospect and, PG-drenched as we are, it manages to reduce us both to silence for some considerable time.

Luckily our conversation picks up once again when Bloggiana reminds me about that CM we once attended in Morningside when we were children and could not have been expected to know better. In those days, our greatest dream was that Lady Dee would keel over. Her grip on our uncle was such that if he offered us a biscuit, albeit mouldy, and she was around, we would have to hand the biscuit back; and sit each on a bentwood chair, our thumbs tucked under our buttocks, until dusk. And should either of us have been caught in her presence with the glimmer of a smile on our lips, Lady Dyke was as swift to pounce on us as a kestrel to swoop on a mouse.

Great Uncle Cymbeline took us to this particular coffee morning because Lady Dyke took him and we were for a moment in his charge. Guilelessly, we went along in our gingham dresses and Start-Rite shoes. We took our country bumpkin manners and our giggles and found ourselves adrift in a sea of lilac hair dos and distorted vowel sounds. Moments after we arrived, Bloggiana was targeted by a woman in tweed tights and brogues. I say, aren’t we lucky to have the Coffee Morning Queen of the New Town here in person, she remarked. Bloggiana, who had managed to smuggle a bottle of Irn Bru under her dress into the back of Uncle Cymbeline’s Austin Allegro, burped. The lilac toupe atop the tweeded one was seen to tremble and quiver.

A few moments later, Bloggiana and I managed to reunite by the tea-trolley which was bedecked with doilies and a fancy assortment of confections, so we were told. Bloggiana and I found ourselves bewitched by a bowl of miniature fruits. There were small but perfectly formed apples; and plums; and bananas. Being a carbohydrate fiend, I plumped for a banana. Bloggiana dived on the plums. Neither of us had tried marzipan before and we both promptly retched – arcing small but perfectly disfigured banana and plum all over the remainder of the fancy assortment of confections. Lady Dyke was momentarily distracted from her wielding of the samovar. Tea arced all over the Morningside carpet, splashing the tweed tights and causing a ruckus. Someone came and had a word with Lady Dyke and moments later, she had assembled us back in back of the Austin Allegro.

Journeying back to Uncle Cymbeline’s flat in silence, we knew we had a long day ahead of us on the bentwood chairs. But we also knew we had managed to cause the CMQ’s crown to tarnish slightly. And twenty-seven years later, atop the Expensive Cooker, that still gives Bloggiana and me fathomless giggles.

BANGING ON

So we sit on top of the Expensive Cooker and drink. The PG slips down a treat and it is some time before I Piccalilli realise that a) my buttocks are emitting a slight melting smell; b) we have been silent for at least half an hour and c) that someone seems to have placed a woolly gauze between me and anything in the outside world that might be connected with reality.

Thus I forget entirely what it is that I have most recently asked Bloggiana; or where it is that she has just been and just returned from; or indeed anything at all. When at last I do hear Bloggiana speak, she appears to be saying something about someone being tighter than a gnat’s arse and meaner than a box of traffic wardens – and I realise she must be referring to Great Uncle Cymbeline, because who else is there among our acquaintance who could possibly fit such a description.

Now I should tell you – before I continue with the GUC narrative – that Great Uncle Cymbeline has been batting around the margins of the cricket-pitch of our existence for many years now. His foibles, apart from his extreme Scottishness, range from his insistence on carrying a black umbrella on all occasions to his friendship with the otherwise entirely friendless Lady Ravelston Dyke – a woman who has never smiled, who drives her mini-metro as though it were a hearse and she the grim reaper, who styles herself the Coffee Morning Queen of the Newtown and who is capable of reducing even the most resolute of Scottish traffic wardens to tears.

Far in the past is buried the exact nature of our relationship with Great Uncle C. He was somehow related to someone long since dead. My mother used to take us to see him once a year – and in the back of the car, on the journey from Our House to his large and almost entirely empty flat, we would inevitably be sick at least once. It seemed to take forever to get there and when we did, Bloggiana and I would be offered a glass of bitter lemon that had gone brown through old age; and if we were lucky a stale rich tea biscuit or a piece of shortbread with most of the sugar shaken off. If we dared to complain, our mother would quite simply burst out crying so that the trip was dreaded by us on almost every level imaginable.

Improbably Great Uncle C did not die. He was tall and thin and beaky and stooped. Largely he did not notice us as children but every now and again he would and then his attention would take the form of a terrifying question like Well? which he managed to imbue with so much intonation and so many syllables as to make the brown bitter lemon seem almost desirable. If we could, we would slip from the front sitting room where there were no chairs and wander through the house. All the woodwork seemed to be painted a bright duck-egg blue and the lino in the kitchen had colonised itself into a series of mild, mustard coloured molehills. In the downstairs loo, there was brown paper which was so old and so brown, we preferred to cross our legs all the way home. On one occasion, in order to avoid questions, peeing, bitter lemon or any kind of encounter with a biscuit, Bloggiana shut herself into the lift until it was time to go.

Combing through these memories, now, on top of the Expensive Cooker, across the woolly gauze of Pinot Grigio, I find myself still utterly perplexed. What on earth could have changed to make Bloggiana enjoy her trip to Scotland and her stay with Great Uncle C?

Thing ish, the old girl says, sounding quite extraordinarily muzzy, thing ish, I never quite made it to GUC’z flat. You shee, on my way north, the old shit rang to tell me it was not convenient. Something about Lady Ravelston Dyke having gone on a final journey. Sho then I thought I would shend a message to my friend from the internet, you know the IluvBigKnockers chappy.

And with a conspiratorial wink, Bloggiana raises her glass and chinks mine. So you shee, I’ve just shpent the most shplendid week. Not in the Naplesh of the North. But in Gretna. In a bedsit. With Randolph…

BASHING ON

(in which I Piccalilli introduce a new character, Great Uncle Cymbeline (pronounced to rhyme with Valentine))

It is all too much, pronounces Bloggiana. She is standing next to a wheelbarrow with a special delivery court summons in one hand and a half-eaten horse carrot in the other. Around her lie the scattered contents of her wheelbarrow which has just blown over in one of the year’s latest wind events. Upon her person is her glo-warm, stay-bright, lemon-yellow equi-fleece – a Christmas present that already sports a large hole, thanks to an unfortunate moment with a cigarette, a lighter and an earlier wind event.

I have had enough, she goes on.

And in case we are not already rapt by her protestations of despair, Bloggiana picks up her fork, hurls her half-eaten carrot into the air, hurls her fork after it and causes such an almighty clatter that Mrs Bliggins falls off the charmingly named Lilletta and bruises her coxics.

Why, what on earth, Bloggiana? we exclaim, simultaneously trying to coax Lilletta back into her stable with the rescued carrot and removing the fork from the soft-top of Mrs Bliggins’ cabriolet.

I can’t possibly say, the Old Girl sobs. But it’s all too much. And I’m off. Off to great uncle Cymbeline’s.

And indeed the Old Girl is as good as her word. We watch her break into a run – away from the upturned barrow, the now windswept court summons, a lame and yet inflamed Mrs Bliggins. We watch her throw open the door of her unfeasibly small car and climb in. We watch the gravel fly as she tears out of our yard. We watch her indicate right and turn right – towards Scotland.

Now a few of you may know that Bloggiana has to be in very dire straits indeed before she will contemplate a visit to the S-place. When you mention its name to Bloggiana, all she hears is Abu Greib. Or the shed in Cold Comfort Farm. Or the workhouse in Oliver Twist. For Bloggiana, Scotland is ‘too, too ghastly’; full of value meals and dreadful shops and worst of all, full of Scots. So the idea that Bloggiana is going to take refuge with Great Uncle Cymbeline – who lives alone in the Naples of the North, who has never married, who eats nothing but value meals and who only watches television on Budget Day – brings us all up Very Short Indeed. During the five days of her absence, I Piccalilli and Bloggiana’s friends share a great deal of anxiety between us. I mean honestly, I say to Gluggyella, this time it must really be serious.

Then five days go by and bless us all if the unfeasibly small car doesn’t reappear in Our Drive. I know she must be back because Our Dog leaves the stool he was delivering in the dining room only half-complete and instead stands at the front door, dags hanging, and howls. Bloggiana walks in and I greet her with a tumbler full of PG, a lit cig, a smile. I am nervous that the Old Girl will be in a filthy temper because generally speaking when she does go to Scotland, she comes back with piles, chilblains and a parking ticket. In a Pilates style sweep of her body, I raise my eyes slowly – from her quads to her midriff to her pectorals, finally to her oculars themselves – and find to my astonishment that the Old Girl doesn’t look too bad.

Why Bloggiana, I exclaim, how the hell was it?

We take our tumblers through to the parlour and sit down on top of the Expensive Cooker. Fuck the piles, the Old Girl bellows, lifting her glass ahoy. Cheers, she adds. And then proceeds to tell me All About It.

HEATING ON

Bloggiana has got herself into a great deal of trouble because at the holiday let which she runs - between blogging, hacking, drinking and smoking - she failed to spot a dodgy lightbulb. This meant that Mrs Pinched-Bottom, the incumbent at the time, became incandescent with righteous indignation and Threatened to Lodge a Complaint.

Now as all you chutney lovers will be aware, New Year 2009 got off to a jolly cold start. According to the man in The Times, the cold snap was due to the death of La Nina. (To which Bloggiana said I don’t give a tinker’s what the man in The Times says, it’s absolutely shockingly fucking freezing. ) Here in the frozen north, the cold snap had been going for some weeks and by the time Mrs Pinched-Buttocks came to stay, it was truly embedded in the bones of Our House. Indeed on the night after Hogmanay, we found ourselves sitting swathed in our duvets, fan heater ON, multifuel stove ON, central heating ON, candles LIT, hairdriers ON. In an attempt to shift the ice from the inside of our windows, I had decided to push the boat OUT and we even had the electric cooker ON and the lids on the Expensive Cooker UP. All this would be meat and drink to that saintly idiot who calls himself our bank manager – but Bloggiana and I were semi hypothermic by this point and when the tele-hecklers rang from Bombay to tell us we had exceeded our overdraft limit again, it was all we could do to get our lips to form the Go Away phrase which is our watchword on these occasions.

Rat-a-tat-tat. Bloggiana stumbled to the door, tripping over her duvet and cursing like a French mercenary. Rat-a-tat-tat. It was Mrs Pinched-Bodice. What? boomed Bloggiana as she opened the door furiously. Sorry to disturb you but are we expected to provide our own Toilet Roll? Mrs P-B asked. Bloggiana would have rolled her eyes back into her head as far as they would go - but they seemed to have iced up inside her sockets.

Half an hour later, rat-a-tat-tat once again. Mrs P-B brought a cohort this time so now Bloggiana – a pale shade of blue – was faced with an Embassy. What now? she asked in her best how-lovely-to-see-you-again voice. Sorry to disturb you but the central heating will not turn off. It was half-past ten at night and the moon was staring down on the Embassy as only a ten-below moon can. Why not leave it on then? Bloggiana suggested coolly.

The following morning, Bloggiana and I – not having died overnight, much to our surprise – were woken by a further rat-a-tat-tat. Now Mrs Pinched-Bottom had brought Mr Pinched-Bottom and two of their friends, Mr & Mrs Curled-Lip. Sorry to disturb you but none of the lightbulbs are working. None of the lightbulbs IS working, Bloggiana said crisply. And I don’t believe you. You are not sorry to disturb me.

And at this, Bloggiana pulled her duvet round herself, wiped the rim of rime from her upper lip and closed the door in a firm and some would venture unfriendly manner. Mrs Pinched-Bottom was left standing on the doorstep with her hands on her hips and her mouth agape. Mrs Bloggiana, she shouted, Mrs Bloggiana, if you don’t come and replace those lightbulbs, I will write to the agency and lodge a formal complaint. By this time, Bloggiana was deep beneath the covers. Through the permafrost, I could have sworn I heard the Old Girl whisper a neat and perfectly formed Fuck Off. But then again, maybe the cold had made me start to hallucinate.

NOT MOVING ON

Bloggiana has taken temporary leave of her senses. After the last fiasco with Nag, when I did not call the vet and her horse nearly died, she has called the vet. This is because Nag, being a thoroughbred, ex-racecourse, with a brain not much smaller than a marrowfat pea, has done it again. This time, I’m thankful to say, Bloggiana was here. And this time, it was her decision, against her normally formidable better judgment, to call out the vet.

Of course, as these things go, Nag has managed to injure himself at peak-rate time. That means not on a Tuesday morning or indeed on any other weekday morning – but on a Sunday evening, when the vet is tired after a long day in the pub and a big afternoon in front of the telly and will only emerge (in his best 4x4) if you make a substantial contribution towards his second timeshare property fund.

Nag seems to have pulled something. It looks serious – because the horse seems able only to pivot on one leg rather than moving on four – but on the other hand, there is nothing on the outside to be seen. We run our hands down tendons groping for small areas of heat. We spin him in small circles round his stable, although this seems a little unwise after a moment because if Nag doesn’t fall over soon, it seems likely (we had rather an epic lunch) that both his swivellers will. We pick up his foot and tap it, looking to the uninitiated no doubt like a pair of water-diviners who are vaguely in pursuit of a new well. But it doesn’t matter whether we ressemble experts or winos or nature freaks because the fact remains that Nag, when left to his own devices, remains resolutely planted on the spot.

When the vet finally does turn up (and he does so not before our mid-afternoon hangovers have matriculated into something jolly murky indeed), it turns out that we have been allocated the cow vet. But where is the horse vet? expostulates Bloggiana, small rain clouds of fury gathering over her by now increasingly foggy brows. Called out to a cow emergency, comes the reply. The cow vet takes a look at Nag and chews on a mouthful of imaginary cud. He says little, although when he pats the horse in a recalcitrant kind of a way and the horse jumps in a who on earth do you think you are kind of a way, the cow vet jumps too. As though he were not used to handling creatures so flighty as horses. Which indeed he is not.

Hmmm, he says, glancing at his watch, hmmm. Touch of colic, I reckon, he pronounces sagely (which, for those of you not in the equi-know, means a hiccup of some kind in the horse’s internal digestive system). Think I’ll just give him a large dose of painkiller, see how he goes overnight and you can talk to my colleague in the morning if he doesn’t seem much better.

By this time, Bloggiana’s late afternoon hangover that matriculated into murky early evening pain has now evolved into brain-ache of the most befuddling kind. That must be it. What other explanation could there possibly be for the fact that she allows the cow vet to tell her that her three-legged horse has lost the use of one limb because he ate something that disagreed with him? I too am befuddled. I fail to say anything. And Nag, after a hefty dose of tranquilliser mixed with anti-inflammatory drugs and who knows what else, stands on the exact same spot, only now he has a dreamy look in his eye. And could, I swear it, be ever so slightly swaying.

Hazily I tell myself we haven’t heard the end of this. Gratefully I wave off the cow vet. Guiltily I say to my friend that all will be well and climb into bed as fast as my dream-boost sleep-enhancer (or electric blanket, as I like to call it) will allow - and before the Old Girl has a moment to reflect on exactly what has just taken place.

LOGGING ON

And as if all that weren’t enough – as if onslaughts from bank managers, outgoing spouses, horse dentists and general computerised tele-hecklers weren’t enough, as if 2009 hadn’t got off to a tempestuous enough start, what with frozen pipes, missing lovers and dying potplants - Bloggiana opened up her inbox this morning and found that the internet dating game was back on the agenda.

Ohmigod, she exclaims out loud, causing the poinsettia to shed the last of its leaves, it’s someone called IluvBigKnockers.

Now it so happens that tonight Jollyosa, Gluggyella, Chumsky and a Spanish friend of Chumsky’s who seems to be known as ¿Que? are coming to dinner. This means that Bloggiana, far from scouring her inbox and playing with her facebook, should be In a Total Panic. She should be peeling things and chopping things and working out exactly how many bottles of PG go into six and exactly how many of her sister’s pheasant breasts she should be defrosting. Teener and I have watched Bloggiana closely over the years and we know well that if she is not In a Total Panic, that means that the dinner A. may be a triumphant success or B. may not be served at all. We also know that if Bloggiana is In a Total Panic, at the very least, the table is likely to be laid before the guests arrive.

Of course, it is a moot point which frame of mind we prefer the Old Girl to embrace. Total Panic can equate to Total Rudeness, followed hotly by Plentiful Swearing and Much Banging of Pans. For my nerves, this is trying. For Teener’s too. For Our Dog’s, the experience amounts to the canine equivalent of a pre-brain-haemorrhage migraine. On the other hand, Total Absence of Panic means that Bloggiana can spend the entire morning moaning over her inbox, batting her virtual eyelashes and generally e-flirting with some wag from cyberspace who imagines that IluvBigKnockers is a reasonable or indeed attractive moniker.

As usual, of course, it does not matter what we would prefer because Bloggiana is her own woman and the internet dating game is intoxicating by anyone’s standards. Ok listen to this, listen to this, my alter ego hails out loud, as I juggle packets of cumin, jars of harissa paste, bottles of rape-seed oil and handfuls of dates (I know, I know). IluvBigKnockers says he thinks I’m fab. No, we trill. Yes, Bloggiana trills back. And not only that, she carries on triumphantly, he wants to meet me. No, we trill again. Yes, Bloggiana trills back.

Teener and I are worried about the hors d’oeuvre. If Bloggiana intended to make something with eggs, it’s too late. They become literally free range when Bloggiana reads out something ILBK has said about her thighs being the texture of chicken nuggets. If she planned a little bon-bouche with roasted vegetables, she needs to crack on because the oven is cooling, there are not many peppers and the day is fast easing its passage towards six o’clock. If there really is a plan afoot for the breasts (the pheasants’), perhaps now would be a good moment to launch said plan? I venture somewhat warily.

But my entreaties fall on deaf ears. ILBK has obviously hit the turbo button on his flattery output. Now it seems Bloggiana is receiving praise not only for the texture of her thighs and the substance of her breasts; but for her piquant sauce, her dressing, the way she handles a sausage. I would like to stuff your ravioli with pumpkin, she reads out. Are your scallops hand-dived? she reads on. Finally, when the old girl’s hot banana brownies receive a mention, I decide it is time to ring our guests and warn them – dinner will be very haphazard indeed.

RASPING ON

It does not seem to matter what the bank manager may have to say about our accounts; or the horoscope columnist about our prospects; or the cognitive behavioural therapist about our failings. 2009 is here, life goes on and the horses still need the dentist.

In actual fact, the horse dentist came to our yard this weekend - at Sunday lunch time to be precise. He pulled up in his silver sport cabriolet 2.75viT, its unique and cutting-edge folding roof system firmly closed against the horizontal wind and rain. Hello, I said heartily. How you doin’? he replied equally heartily, all the while bouncing out of his easy-entry front seat complete with leather heated upholstery and moving sinuously past the rain-sensored headlights to the innovatively designed boot area. With his twinkly Irish smile, his snaffle-bit shoes, his coral pink cashmere jersey, the horse dentist looked for all the world like a young Bond contender. I stroked my inner Pussy Galore. And purred.

Chatting apace, we moved towards the stables where Nag and Dobbin were poised for treatment. In his suavely manicured left hand, the horse dentist carried the tools of his trade – a very shiny stainless steel bucket, a selection of steel brushes, a pair of overalls, a thing that was probably used in the making of the Hannibal Lecter films and a lot of rasps. Like his car, his toolbox is surely a perfect blend of form and function, I thought. Nag and Dobbin visibly shuddered on his arrival.

Now as it happened, this Sunday lunch time, I was alone at our yard. Bloggiana had decided to go into a decline, not least triggered by a succession of abusive e-mails from her Outgoing Spouse. The Outgoing One seemed to have touched on the very rawest of her raw nerves and Bloggiana was so wounded, she could not even find the strength to come and stand on the muck-heap and make obscene gestures. In spite of my best entreaties, she simply would not budge from her place next to the Expensive Cooker and when I left her, she was sitting with the laptop, a bottle of PG and a decidedly disconsolate look. I made a mental bet with myself that by the time I had returned, she would have done something very sinister indeed to her inbox.

All the same, my hours with the horse dentist passed sweetly indeed. As small pieces of enamel flew, as sparks came and went, rasps grew blunter, horses groaned and flailed in their ordeal, we exchanged breathless stories about our shared horror of vets; of dressage judges; of RSPCA inspectors. The horse dentist told me how the credit crunch was causing the value of the beast to plunge and the builders of the charabancs they travel in to go bust by the dozen. He told me that in place of his silver sports cabriolet, he almost bought a van that blew hot air down the back of your neck – but then thought better of it.

In the ebb and flow of our conversation, I happened to mention Bloggiana’s ongoing troubles with the Outgoing One. I happened to mention how disappointing it was that the many kind gentlemen who had offered to break the legs of the Outgoing One had yet to come good with their offers. With not even the slightest hint of a pause, the horse dentist said he knew someone who could help. Did his horses’ teeth last Friday, he said. Ever such a nice man to meet but you wouldn’t want to cross him, mind.

At this, my ears on Bloggiana’s behalf pricked right up. How absolutely splendid I said. Are you sure he’d do it? Not a doubt in the world, came the rejoinder.

Apparently the man in question is a gipsy by the name of Billy Rough. When the horse dentist came to leave, I planted a hearty kiss on his Brosnan-esque pout; and tore back home to my old friend Bloggiana, a business card, a number and a plan welded to the inside of my equi-gilet like amalgam itself.

PASSING ON

Twenty-four hours of non-stop smoking and intensive intake of Pinot Grigio and the words Stringent Cutbacks ringing in our ears. The very nasty letter from the bank manager is preying on all of our minds – to the extent that when any of us (including Bloggiana’s daughter Teener) goes to the loo, we take a good deal longer than normal. It just does seem to absorb more time when you are working with only one sheet of loo roll.

Then after 24 hours, Bloggiana and I agree that this gloom thing is not really our style. I know what, the Old Girl says with the first hint of cheer in her voice since she found a photograph of the bank manager taking part in the 2008 Fluxcombe Nora Batty lookalike competition, let us go back to the Girlsville College magazine obituaries column. At this, the Old Girl disappears. Teener and I sweep up the crumbs from our toast ready for breakfast tomorrow (crumbs excellent with milk and water). By light of candle, we scrape the scrapings from one chutney jar into another. A small broccoli leaf that seem to have escaped from the chopping board is picked up and placed into a bucket – just in case one of our chickens feels like it turning into an egg.

And as we work, we hum – not too loud lest we lose more body heat than we can afford but loud enough that we don’t hear Bloggiana coming back into the room.

So that when we turn round and she is there, fully bedecked in a college scarf, Starsky and Hutch dark glasses and fuchsia pink jersey that seems to have a tail to it – the jersey being not unlike a tailcoat except fuchsia pink and knitted – both of us jump. Why Bloggiana, I exclaim. Mu-um, expostulates Teener. And Our Dog too must be taken aback because he begins to howl, almost but luckily not blowing out our candle.

Never mind all that, Bloggiana says dismissively. Take this, she says, handing over the magazine, then stepping backwards into the tail of her jersey and landing somewhat sharply on the sofa. Now read.

And we are back to our old friend Jeannie May. “First eleven hockey at primary school,” I read. “Captain of netball. Poetry prize, Literature prize, Debating prize, Most consistent winner of the Egg and Spoon prize. Head girl. Leading Brownie of the year, Duke of Edinburgh Platinum award, Highest Grades in the school award. Head Girl. Crikey”, I say, almost involuntarily.

“Read on”, bids Bloggiana.

“One of the earliest intake of Girlsville College”, I read. “One of the first girls in the college to study Applied Zoology”, I read. “Leading light of the College Theatrical group,” I read. Crikey again.

As I read, I find my mind wandering slightly. I picture Jeannie May and an image of Bloggiana’s old nemesis, the Blue Stocking, looms into view. Her meteoric professional life, her charmed family existence, the charities she supported, the good work she dispensed all round. By the end of the penultimate paragraph, I am ready to stifle a yawn. But Read on, Bloggiana bids imperiously.

And then I read: At the age of 66, Jeannie May died relatively young by today’s standards. This was due in no small part to the fact that she remained an enthusiastic smoker to the end.

I look over at Bloggiana and see that she is lighting up. A spark drops from her cigarette butt onto the tail of her favourite student jersey and flares up, causing a brief storm of fuchsia coloured smoke. Thinking fast, I bound to the kettle and extract the latest bank manager letter from the spout. We hold the letter over the heat, watch it disintegrate, raise our glasses and toast Jeannie May. An impeccable woman, we concur. And laugh until our eyes hurt.

DREAMING ON

Last week – I mean literally the moment the yuletide goose carcass had hit the bottom of the dustbin and the new year was but a twinkle in the eye of the 2009 calendar – Bloggiana found herself on the receiving end of a very nasty letter from the Bank Manager.

Now as you can imagine, Bloggiana is not Generally Keen to deal with financial matters; and equally, she is not Terribly Good at dealing with financial matters. Sometimes we find that the reason the kettle is not boiling properly is because there is a bill lodged in the spout. If Bloggiana is feeling really very spooked (usually a bill with more than two zeroes achieves this reaction), we may find that the chimney starts smoking. Or that the chickens’ are no longer bedded on straw but small shredded strips of invoice paper. So a call-up from the Bank Manager is the very worst way a year could start in Bloggiana’s book and for a day or two, we can’t see her for cigarette smoke and we daren’t go too close to the sofa where she lies lest the fumes of Pinot Grigio cause us all to pass out in a toxic faint.

Forty five unanswered computer-dialled calls and seven more unopened letters later, Bloggiana emerges from the fug and barks at me to find the fucking car keys. She is wearing her least clean Husky jacket and her most smelly wellington boots. Her face is wearing the very image of thunder and I get the car keys in a jiffy, faster than I thought my shaky legs could possibly carry me. To the delicate tones of a Wagnerian aria, we set off – in the direction of the godforsaken town where the godforsaken bank buggery manager lives, as Bloggiana says more than once. Weaving through unknown suburbia and then equally unknown urbia, I drive her very small car several times round the same small roundabout, then once or twice up the same one-way system. There are no fucking places to park the fucking car, Bloggiana spouts needlessly. I find myself grinding the gears – again – and over-revving the engine – again - to such an extent that it is hard to tell where Brunnhilde ends and Volkswagen Lupo begins.

In the event, I let the Old Girl see the bank manager alone. You could accuse me of being a coward and you would be right. I Piccalilli am a coward. I sit in the car chewing the real-faux-leather cover on the steering wheel and wishing my New Year’s Resolution had been to smoke more. When eventually my friend emerges, her thundery look does not seem to have abated and something about the way the mud flicks off her boots as her feet hit the ground makes me suspect that the meeting went about as badly as these things can go. We drive back to Our House in silence.

Doing my best to keep my hands over the chewed bit on the steering wheel, I find myself musing. What about that two-week sojourn on the French Riviera we promised ourselves, I wonder. Without having to turn my head to the left, I and my dream-ego have a pretty good idea that the question is now rhetorical. Next to me, Bloggiana seems to be grinding her teeth in a most unladylike fashion.

GETTING ON

The Old Girls’ Association magazine has just dropped through the door and Bloggiana – somewhat the worse for wear after her first New Year’s Resolution lapse of the New Year – is poring over its contents. The pages flick slowly and I, Piccalilli, rummaging through the drawers looking for something else with which to make chutney labels, am paying scant attention.

Outside Jack Frost is dancing in silver ribbons from tree to tree, slithering surreptitiously across the gravel in sheets of battleship grey. Owls twit-twoo but their shriek is tinged with an icy throatiness. The bats seem to have fallen still and the stars peer on as though they had nothing else to contemplate but a world descending into a deep chill. And since Our House is as cold on the inside as it is on the outside, I find myself moving across the kitchen in a skittish, bunny-like fashion, hoping upon hope that, even if I must jiggle simply to remain conscious, I will not thus restore my circulation to the point where I can once again feel my chilblains.

Then a shrill cry rents our parlour air in two. For a moment, Our Dog and I look towards the window. The vixen in the back paddock has been extremely vocal recently and perhaps it was she, posing once again as a rape victim, raising her rusty snout to the moon and letting roar. Our Dog and I must be enjoying an unusually symbiotic moment however for both our heads turn at exactly the same moment from a window-ward direction to a sofa-ward one. All at once, we both realise that it is not she vixen but she Bloggiana, browsing the pages of the Girlsville College, Camford OGA magazine, who has uttered the cry.

Christ, exclaims Bloggiana once again. Will you look at this?

Now before I go on, I should explain that Bloggiana’s alma mater Girlsville College Camford was once an all-women’s institution and in its day (and in Bloggiana’s) it boasted a population made up almost exclusively of Blue Stockings. (Not unsurprisingly, Bloggiana found herself somewhat out of place at the college and chose to amuse herself beyond her own college gates with university types more to her liking – Heavy-Drinkers-and-Smokers being her favourite.) So generally speaking, when the OGA magazine arrives which it does once a year, Bloggiana glances at the thing and then dismisses it to the rack in our downstairs loo where every now and again, stuck for something else to read, we plumb its improbably solid depths.

This year for some reason Bloggiana – first hangover of the year in full tilt – has chosen to give the thing some attention and while nursing her head on the sofa, has been reading the OGA magazine obituary pages. It seems she has got as far as the first paragraph of the eulogy to the late Jeannie May MacFadyen (née Ormée-Knott) and it is this that has caused the Old Girl to howl in such a disconcertingly vixen-like manner.

Christ, she howls again. And now she is holding the magazine out at the end of a shaking arm. Between hopping and label-manufacturing, I turn to Our Dog and ruminate. I think she wants me to read it, I say. And Our Dog, riding the crest of our unusually symbiotic wave-moment, nods back at me - and woofs.
To be continued.

MOVING ON

Golly, says Bloggiana. My old friend's hands are on her hips and she is standing atop the muck heap at our livery yard, looking over a winter wonderland the like of which you could not pay for in the New Forest. It is the first working day of the year and we have come to muck out our equi-beasts and Embark on a New Regime, Take Control, Think Straight and generally pay lip-service to Our New Year's Resolutions which for the moment seem remarkably sensible and robust.

Knowing Bloggiana as I do however, I have a keen sense that it is not the rime on the sycamore that is causing the old girl to mumble forth in awe, nor is it the hoar on the cobwebs that span the gates and fences like acrobats; the joyful song of the wagtail who seems to have mistaken winter for spring; the hush everywhere, the muffled windless hush resulting from our first real snowfall in twenty years. No, I have a strong feeling that what Bloggiana is reflecting on is the events that have already taken place in this short year.

Take Bloggiana’s cousin Rubirosa for example. Last year when we left her, she was Very Sad Indeed because her love life had taken an unforeseen turn; because her inner strength was at something of a low ebb; because on the other side of relentless wit and good humour lies madness and the poor darling girl had had a glimpse. This year Rubirosa cannot see that on the other side of madness lies relentless wit and good humour. She has taken to her bed and there she remains sleepless. Tears no longer come because they have dried up but her eyes hurt and her heart too.

Or take Adolesco, Bloggiana’s godson. Last year when we left him, he was rubbing his knuckles with pride because he had recently had the best of Measly Twat-Sniveller; because he had gained an all-time record high score in Wars of the Baby-Shredders; because Christmas had brought him not only hand-held devices galore but other intoxicating things like Money and several boxes of Quality Street.

This year, Adolesco has been sat down by the gracious wonderful great-aunt who had been sponsoring him through school and put straight on a thing or two.

Adolesco my dear, the great aunt found herself obliged to tell him, the credit crunch may have closed down the only shop where you can buy CDs in Fluxcombe. And it has also robbed me of all my savings. Darling one, I can no longer afford your School Fees. Adolesco – who up until this point had been looking forward to returning to school and thrashing Twat-Sniveller at the shredding game – is forced to Grow Up In An Instant. Why great-aunt, he stammers, are you sure? Tears – not huge like Rubirosa’s were last year, but small, like those of a young boy whose previously secure life suddenly looks entirely perilous – seep out of the corner of Adolesco’s bambi-like eyes. Bloggiana is there and she too has to choke back her dismay. The great-aunt wrings her hands in despair. And inwardly curses the ghosts of sub-prime past.

And it is not only Rubirosa and Adolesco who are forced to stare into the long distance of the winter wonderland and question what on earth life is all about. The ghosts of sub-prime past have long tendrils, long indeed and they seem intent on re-shaping all of us. Our Dog, for example, has already moved from Family Value meat-style dog food to Special Crunch-busting stuff which is so far removed from anything meat-style as to be almost worthy of a Tommy Cooper routine. Nag and Dobbin, our beasts who are in part responsible for the muck-heap atop of which Bloggiana still is, are faced with the very real possibility that at £35 per bale, haylage is more than they will be allowed in future. Last year it was £25 per bale. And that was stretching it, says the Yard Owner. (I should explain that if hay = prosecco, haylage = krug, the gold-top of hay, the platinum credit card of hay. Haylage is the cocaine to hay’s tobacco – and like all such pleasures is one that Nag and Dobbin will struggle indeed to relinquish.)

So Bloggiana, I say (all the while noticing a small rim of rime accumulating on the mid-life whiskers of her top lip), golly what? The Old Girl turns to me, steam rising around her as last year’s digested haylage and this year’s winter wonderland atmosphere make contact. Golly and Fuck-a-Doodle, comes the reply. It’s a fucking mystery to me, Bloggiana adds. And at this, she shifts her weight slightly.

And the vapours she triggers into the upper air could be those of the Delphic Oracle herself.