Thursday 25 March 2010

A boring mundane life

Many years ago (in the 1970s) we lived in a village that had and still has, a great community feeling. There were many, many organisations that met in the village and sometimes it was difficult to fit everything into life. I ran the Girl Guides on Tuesdays; my boys belonged to cubs and scouts on Mondays and Thursdays and I helped out occasionally. My daughter and I were in the Church Choir so that was Wednesday evening and Sunday every week. Once a month there was WI on Wednesday evening (a bit of a rush after choir practice) and there was Young farmers, Village Produce Association, Junior Football, senior football, Rugby club, Cricket Club, Young Wives, Mothers' Union, several darts teams and The Village Hall association (Bingo every week).

I was not a member of Young Wives but I did get roped in to help with the entertainment they put on every year for the Senior Citizens club. This was always in the summer because there was so much else going on around Christmas time. One of the props for one of the sketches was a log that was thick enough for someone to sit on but, theoretically, was small enough to go in the back of a Ford Cortina - the one with the ban the bomb rear lights.
My friend J, who always managed to persuade me to help her had been clothes shopping in the village and when I arrived at her house for lunch before taking the log to the village hall she had several pairs of jeans to try on before making her final choice and returning the unwanted ones to the clothes shop in the High Street. We had pasta and salad for lunch, together with a bottle of sparkling wine and then she tried the first pair of jeans. Someone had said that if your jeans were tight you could lie on the floor and zip them up so J hobbled into the lounge with the jeans around her knees, lay on the floor and tried to get them on. Within seconds I was crying with laughter as she wriggled and twisted. She decided that this particular make of jeans had small sizes and then attempted to get out of them. I was no help because I couldn't pull the bottoms of the legs while standing on the settee because it was soft and I wobbled. Every time I wobbled I laughed and this made me wobble even more. The wine was having a slight effect on my balance too.
Eventually we lay exhausted on the floor the jeans between us and decided that it would be better to take them all back and try again tomorrow when we had more time. We finished a second bottle of sparkling wine - it is thirsty work trying on jeans - and then went outside to put the log in the car. What we found was half a tree! there were twigs and everything. We opened the back doors and began. First I pushed and J pulled then we swapped. Then we sat on the log while we got our breath back - laughing and pushing is hard. Then we both pushed and then we both pulled and then a friend's husband took pity as he walked the dog and he put the log into the car while we held the leash and stopped laughing.
As we were driving to the Village Hall a neighbour stopped us and asked where we were going. We explained and she sighed, "LIfe is so boring and mundane isn't it?" she asked and then stared in amazement as we both shrieked with laughter.
I remembered this story today because I have spent the last two weeks looking after my DGD who has had Rubella (even after her shots and boosters) followed by a tummy upset and now she has Chicken Pox. I mentioned this to a neighbour and she said "Well at least your life is not mundane". I told her the story of the log and she agrees that my life has certainly never been boring or mundane