Armageddon meets Harvest Festival

The day started.

Then it dribbled on for a bit.

Now it is ekeing out its end.

I only have to survive until six o’clock and then I am going out.

Bring it on baby.

I don’t particularly like the play Julius Caesar, but for a bit of peace and quiet I would happily go and watch a short film about digging ditches if I can sit alone in the dark for a bit.

It has been one of those days.

This morning I needed to call the bank.  I needed to check some things.  They have a security routine they always take you through electronically before you get to speak to a real person.  It involves various questions including providing two digits from my pass code.  The line was so bad I misheard the digits they wanted and managed to lock myself out of my own bank account. 

Then followed three hysterical phone calls to the bank in order to be let back in to ascertain just how little money I really have.  At first I answered the security questions wrongly.  Which was nice.  I set them about eight years ago and promptly forgot them.  They were: ‘Name your memorable place’ and ‘Name your memorable name’.  I had no idea what I had said.  I could have said anything. I clearly did because the information I provided was bogus and meant that I then had to call a man called Phil who was very self important and seemed to think he was in charge of the Fraud Squad and I was going down for a nice long stretch in the big house.

He refused to talk to me on my mobile phone because it was not secure.  I pointed out that we weren’t Gene Hackman and Wesley Snipes.  He was talking to a middle aged housewife who he was making late for harvest festival, and does it really matter for the -27p I undoubtedly have in my account.  He did not like my tone of voice and refused to go any further unless we conducted our business over a land line.

He then rang me back after ten minutes.  Ten minutes in which I know he was sitting by the phone sharpening his pencils and writing ‘I am an anally retentive half wit’ on his jotter.  It took five minutes for me to convince him that I wasn’t in fact the crappest bank robber in existence and that yes, those really were the pitiful details of my financial life.  Then he let me reset my password and normal service could be resumed.

By then we were on the verge of being late for school.

The children had been howling at me for the ten minutes previously, demanding that they get to school ‘stat’ before armageddon started and the jig was up.  I got downstairs to find Tallulah half dressed, all the stuff for harvest festival still scattered over the kitchen table and Oscar wearing flip flops.  This did not help my mood.

Nor did Tallulah trying to balance a jar of curry sauce on top of her water bottle and knocking over all the drinks on the breakfast table in the process.

I took them to school with a continuous ‘Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!’ style rant as an accompaniment.

On the way back home Oscar and I dropped into his nursery to deliver some Harvest Festival goodies for them.  Oscar got very confused.  Last week when he went in one day they had a session with the music and movement meister Mr. Jo Jingles.  It must have been on the same day they told him about Harvest Festival, because he was absolutely convinced that Mr. Jo Jingles lived in the church and was just hanging about slavering for some tins of Ambrosia custard and chick peas in his god like and rapacious way.  It took about twenty minutes to sort that one out and ended in terrible disappointment: ‘I don’t want the poor people to have my food. I want Mr. Jin Jingles to have it. IN A CHURCH!’

Eventually we finally set off to town where we had errands to do.  Uncle Robber came.  We went for lunch. They had no coffee. No coffee! How can that be? It was a tragedy of epic proportions, but by the time we found out Oscar had decimated half his garlic bread and there was no going back.

Shortly after this I had a phone call from Jason.  It went like this:

Me: ‘Hello babe. How are you?’

Jason: ‘I’m not as good as you.’

Me: ‘Oh! Why not?’

Jason: ‘I’ve just had a car crash.’

Me: ‘Oh my God!’

Basically, he had gone out at lunchtime and was sitting stationery at a junction with a lorry behind him.  It was one of those junctions where they have lots of traffic lights for different feeder lanes.  Jason was waiting to turn right.  The lorry driver behind looked down at something on his lap, up at the lights, saw a green light, didn’t ascertain which green light it was and just accelerated, straight into the back of Jason.

This resulted in a dented car and Jason spending two hours in Queens Medical Centre to find out that he has mild whiplash.  It could be worse, and I am profoundly glad it isn’t, but it is our new  car. It is the car we have owned since Friday night.  We have had it less than seventy two hours and now it has to go back to the garage.  Jason is devastated. He hasn’t had an accident for ten years and now this.  The good thing, apart from the fact that he isn’t badly hurt of course, is the fact that he was stationery and the bloke drove into him.  We will have no trouble with the insurance claim.  The fact that we have to make one is a bit of a pisser, but there you go.

Cars and us just aren’t happening at the moment are they?

Still, at least it wasn’t me that did it.  No amount of hypnotherapy in the world would get me back into a car after something like that.

Still. We must be grateful for what we have.  The harvest festival has been and gone.  Only two pensioners turned up. Clearly they’re as thrilled about the idea of getting a box of Pot Noodles and some pickled lychees as me.  Jason is home and has some very nice pain killers and the car doesn’t look too bad, even though it is not well.  The children are all celebrating Tilly’s bear’s birthday in the bedroom which seems to involve lots of whining and the words ‘Noooooooooohhh’ stretched out over a five minute period followed by: ‘I HATE you!’ and ‘It’s NOT FAIR’ and ‘It’s just a stupid teddy and it’s not real.’  I shall go and kill them all in a moment. I’m just working up the strength.

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