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.