 |
| THE KEYS STILL LYING WHERE THEY'D DROPPED OUT MY POCKET ! |
 |
| THE FLOWER THAT CAUSED THE CRISIS ! |
 |
| THE GOLF CLUB WHERE IT ALL TOOK PLACE ! |
 |
| THE TINY UNMANNED CLUBHOUSE. |
 |
| MY CAR WAS STILL WHERE I'D ABANDONED IT ! (see story) |
So I calmly walked back the three holes I'd played before bursting into tears because it was perishingly cold and I could NOT find them !
I searched and searched again, by now crying, gulping back great sobs and promising God that I'd start to believe in him if he made my keys appear !
I emptied the golf bag three times and shook it only to find the keys NOT in it anywhere !
Being the only one on the course and with the light rapidly fading I could do no more than walk tear-stained and shivering into the nearest hotel where the sudden apparition of a broken man caused a great stir and 'first responders' calmed me down and rung for a taxi to take me home !
Bugger !
Strangely, Shirley was totally calm about it and Gemma was put on alert to go to my house in the morning to post my spare set to me !
The ones Shirley refused to put in her bag when we left home in case she lost them !
The internet is so useful for working out bus times and I quickly discovered that with a bus passing by here at about 7:30am, if I caught it I could be back searching before the pre-dawn mowing began and walk the course for however many hours it took to find those keys, "Until you collapse and don't come back without the car or I WILL finally KILL you!" as my loving wife so kindly put it !
I was in bed by 10pm and feeling that it would go down well and get me back into my wife's good books, set the electronic clock/radio for 6:45am and went deeply to sleep !
Now two things then happened.....firstly I was rudely awakened by Shirley's ritual of shaking and repositioning the quilt so violently that a freezing gale blows over me accompanied by much cursing about my better not daring to selfish-pigley hog it all night and.... secondly I was reawakened by a very angry, " What have you done to the radio ? The alarm keeps going off !"
"Erghh? Oi set eet ffur the buzz !" I muttered from a dream about losing my bicycle clips !
"But I've set my phone so why don't you leave things to me ? Now this bloody thing keeps beeping and I can't turn it off without turning the plug off and when I turn it back on it carries on beeping you idiot ! Now I'll never sleep without my music which means I'll be awake all night THANK YOU VERY MUCH ! Zzzzzzzz ! ZZzzz ! ZZZzz ! ZZZZz ! ZZZZZZZ ! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ !"
Strangely enough and obviously under the control of some power greater than the human mind can fathom she woke up two minutes before the alarm was due to go off and telling me to wash quietly so as not to wake the neighbours ( YES !She DID DO THAT ! ) reminded me not to forget to take the Corned Beef sandwiches I'd made the night before after she'd refused to make them on some grounds or other understood only by women !
( She admitted to me later that she had actually forgotten to turn her alarm ON !)
A bus came along, I held up my hand, it stopped and I climbed onboard, asking for a single to town. The driver said, " Just find a seat and sit down pal, there's no charge !"
Apparently it wasn't a bus at all but a kindly coach driver who simply took pity on an elderly man wearing a ski hat and gloves in -4*C, standing weighed down by a pre-school-child's rucksack containing several days food, water, wellies, umbrella, anti-thigh-rub-gel, mobile phone, camera and a large pair of ex-naval-long-distance binoculars which Shirley insisted would help me scan the entire golf course in one sweep !
My car was still where I'd abandoned it the night before but now covered in a thick layer of ice with clear signs on the frosted tarmac that it had been visited by several vehicles during the night !
Police cars I presume, or the local villains !
Surely a car sitting all night unattended in a golf club car park should have sparked a major manhunt for a collapsed player ?
Not for me though !
I searched slowly and methodically, starting with the car doors which for some reason I expected to open revealing the keys sitting in the ignition ! But they didn't open...just like they hadn't the night before even after I'd shouted at the bloody things to open and hit them each several times !
Ten minutes later I found them, exactly where they had fallen out of my pocket when I'd lain on the grass to snap a bloody flower with my new camera !
Of course I'd told Shirley that I ONLY EVER put the keys safely in a zipped golf bag pocket !
Obviously not this time !
Lesson learned ?
PS. Some time after I got back Shirley and I went down to the children's play area which is the only place we can get reception to check up on whether Lloyds and TSB had finally sorted out our banking mess that they had got us into after their split and to take advantage of criminal greed....she had been sent a secret code by our daughter to claim twenty five pounds worth of food for home delivery for only one pound from ASDA !
We got back from that to find out that by using a slightly different code we could now return and claim fifty quids worth for only two pounds and could place as many orders as we liked !
Christmas promised to be cheap this year !
Gemma had done four which included several van loads of beer !
I suggested that I suspected it to be at least a clerical mistake or a computer glich or at worst a criminal sabotage !
Shirley reassured me that it was a genuine offer and the fact that the 'evoucher' bore the warning...'you will be prosecuted if you use this voucher without the correct permissions!' went ahead !
Several hours later I came out of the sauna changing room to find Shirley in a blind panic talking gibberish and muttering something about the urgent necessity to cancel the order as ASDA had discovered the abuse and were prosecuting everyone !
And she'd done it on my laptop under MY name !
We returned to the children's play area where several increasingly hysterical attempts to cancel the order failed until I found a way into ASDA's system and the job got done !
Mind you, the order is still going to get delivered but at full price !
During this ten minutes of panic Shirley actually tutted and complained that she could do without the kids disturbing her !
Yes she actually stared daggers at the children and their parents and said, " I can do without this !" whilst sitting in the dedicated children's area !
She eventually sat back in relief with her task completed and got up to leave when she called out in despair, " David ! My dark glasses have disappeared ! Help me look for them ! Oh God ! You know I can't go anywhere without them ! Oh ! For God's sake ! I put them right HERE ! Find them before some kid jumps on them and breaks them or that'll be another thirty quid wasted ! "
I did look though I suspected she might not have brought them with her !
" Shirley !" I said timidly, " Are you sure you were wearing them ?"
" Of course I was wearing them ! " she replied a little too aggressively for my liking, " Didn't you see I was wearing them ? That is so typical of you not to notice whether or not I've got my sunglasses on !"
Ten minutes later we arrived back in a flap amidst a stream of woes to find them on the settee which of course was where she'd left them, having NOT put them on in the first place !
"Huh !" she growled, " Typical that the one time I come down to get you at the sauna you walked out of the cabin with a woman !"
What on earth's she on about ?
Close one that !
ONE ALL I THINK !
No comments:
Post a Comment