trouble in paradise (scones and sniping)

The gentle thrum of middlesummer rain assaults my ears, but rests my hayfever. Without my eyes to scratch out I’m at a bit of a loose end. I tell myself I would be weeding were I able to be. Silver linings in strange places.

The day before, Mrs Northern Posh had cleverly arranged for the sun to shine while 8 sundry ladies took tea in her most pleasant garden. We twittered over the geraniums, the roses, the pergola – a lovely Farrow and Ball blue – matching cushions were admired, as was the vine snaking up the house: incipient grapes perfect in miniature.
F10 wants us to grow a vine. I nearly bought one recently. He got quite cross with me. “NO! From a seed,” he said, “It’s got to be. Otherwise it’s cheating and what’s the point.“ He never cheats, of course. Mrs NP was silent on her own vine’s cultivation or quite how it looked so gaudy and good.

The Sexy Nurse kicked off, patting her cleavage, her clothes more off than on as is her wont. Since no men were present she had to import one conversationally and was soon in cheerful flow discussing her rather young gardener.
“But, tell me, Milla,” she said, “foxgloves ARE biennial, yes?”
“Yes-ish,” I said. “Yes in that they are, but they tend to come back every year. At least mine do.”
“And mine!” inserted Mrs NP swiftly, vying for the biggest gardening show-off spot. An authoritative arm waved towards the corner.
“Bugger,” said the Sexy Nurse. “Bloody gardener doesn’t know what he’s doing after all. He’s only gone and pulled the whole bloody lot out. I’ll have to speak to him!” She wriggled happily at the prospect and closed her eyes, slipping into a pleasure zone. Then, “The Post Office is having an Open Day, did you know?” she said suddenly, “Did you get your invites?”

Since the bizarre opening hours of the Post Office occasion us unfathomable hours of amusement, the fact that it was opting to have an Open Day was funnier than it could possibly seem to anyone else.

“What could they possibly do?” asked Mrs Northern Posh with a sinking heart, the enterprise doomed from afar, “Say, here’s the washing powder … bread over there … queue for a stamp here? It’ll be just like any other day.”
“Apart from that the Post Office bit will definitely be shut because it’s on a Sunday,” I said, “not merely probably be shut. Or just shut the minute you walk in. Anyway, no-one will go. It’ll be a disaster. Tragic.”

We discussed an Oldster in the village who nicks inserts from the Sunday papers from the Post Office. How low can you go? Down to the bottom shelf it seems. He slides them into his tartan trolley (a speciality of our village: I think it breeds them, spawning them and leaving them by immaculate gooseberry bushes) but is yet to be caught absolutely red handed.
It transpired that only the Sexy Nurse had actually received an invitation. “I’ll go!” she said, “It’ll be an outing. I’ll bring my own baps,” she chortled, slapping her cleavage again.

Mrs Sensible rummaged in her capacious bag for some sun block. Without a child there to boss about, she picked on one of us, “Mrs Gossip, you’re so fair, do you think you ought to borrow my hat?”
Mrs Gossip assured her that she never burnt, as it happened; she was lucky enough to have lovely skin which went straight to beautiful brown. Or words to that effect. She, too, closed her eyes and beamed at the sun.

It seemed that whatever people said warranted an eye shutting and closed-eyed session staring at the sun. I was quite tempted myself, but feared I would never wake up, that death would take me, and I’d have to be manhandled through the little back door and down the bumpy path at the front and stuffed all unseemly into the Sexy Nurse’s boot. God knows what my corpse would find there. Handcuffs and things. PVC.

Mrs Dull said “no” to a chocolate brownie. Her “no,” accompanied by the steady hand of a traffic policeman held in mid air, suggested that excess calories were the joy of the devil; it was an “oh no!” She further annoyed Mrs NP by wanting only half a slice of lemon drizzle cake. To have more would be very gross. While the rest of us greedily licked our fingers and slurped at things, Mrs NP had to upsticks from the wobbly chair a hostess must occupy to fetch a knife to halve a slice.

Meanwhile Mrs ExecutiveMum (normally found running a small country but on day release from the shackles of her desk), set to lamenting that she had discovered, by foolishly fiddling around on Excel (one could have guessed it would end in tears, never trouble trouble …), that they (by which she means she) had spent £8,000 on presents last year. Again. Problems, problems. Déjà vu was unpleasant for she thought she’d cleaned up her spending habit. Seems not. Either that or she’s really crap at Excel and had done all that work only to bring up last year’s figures again. Possible. I could have suggested it; I also toyed with mentioning that scooping up 4 iPods at the airport as “stocking fillers” for her daughters and godchildren might be one area to trim in the coming months. But I stilled my busy mouth, a bit because I couldn’t be bothered, a bit because I probably know less about Excel than even her but mainly because I’m trying to curb myself from leaping in with pointless solutions or dangerous prattle: step away from a failing dialogue or awkward silence, it is not your responsibility, quit digging, stop lying; keep your mouth shut.

“You’re quiet, Milla,” Mrs Gossip said, her hopes of a little interjection of disbelief at £8K on presents! dashed.
“Just happy listening to everyone else,” I said, spoiling things further.
“T12 not picked for the cricket on Sunday?” she asked.
“Bad ankle,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, disappointed.

Mrs ExecutiveMum tried to re-gain ground with the poverty stricken proles with whom she was stuck for the afternoon by confessing that all her clothes (that day) were from Tesco. Of all places!
“Nice,” everyone said, nodding.
“Yes, their shoes are horrid, though,” said Mrs Gossip.
“My shoes are from there, too!”
We all laughed. Kindly, of course. The iPods, latent guests, slipped into the past. Mrs EM relaxed: so this was what all this At Home Mom stuff was about. Weird.

Everyone moved their chairs about, metal scraping on the terrace, to avoid the very sun we had all been so very ardent to park ourselves in. Mrs Sensible fetched the parasol and I don’t know who screamed the loudest, her or the emerging-with-a-knife Mrs Northern Posh (who favours control freakery with regard to things like manhandling defunct garden equipment) when the thing cracked open and a million woodlice tumbled free. She all but went arse over tit over the badminton net guy ropelet thing which we had all been warned to avoid on our way through, occasioning a desperate squeal audible unto heaven.

Half a piece of lemon drizzle cake was off the agenda, a side order of woodlice not appealing to Mrs Dull. “Protein?” I thought but didn't say.
The Sexy Nurse had another fumble with her cleavage, this time with an excuse and a shriek.
I sneezed one of a million sneezes that afternoon.
Greenflies died floating deaths in our glasses of warming water.
Bloody summer.
It was a lovely couple of hours.
“This is nice,” I said, and meant it. Mrs NP looked a little ragged round the edges.

The news on TV featured piracy in Somalia. The camera scanned an exquisite beach. The voiceover breathily assured us that the ship in the distance, which actually looked quite nice, was a pirate ship. Very beautiful people swarmed in a sort of prison, the bars a distressed blue, of which Mrs NP would whole-heartedly have approved. All the clothes looked so lovely, so clean: random wild patterns matching in saturated colour. We were told that a rather lovely looking chap in a fetching pink top was a pirate. No Pugwash he, rather he resembled an escapee from some urban fashion shot.
The setting was very brochure; but not of somewhere you should consider going. Not if you wanted to come back.
Clearly always some sort of trouble in paradise. Here, there and everywhere. Just a different scale of pest.