Wednesday's dramas.

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. ~ Francis Scott Key FitzgeraldLast week we spent on the deck getting everything screwed down that had to be screwed & everything nailed that needed to be nailed. Consequentially this week has been very quiet. I use the term quiet loosely. There are of course the usual dramas but I have been too tired to do more than yawn hugely at them & hope they've rolled away by the time I open my eyes again.

Wednesdays around here, as everyone knows, we just run from the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning until we drop into bed at night. I like Wednesdays but they are exhausting & Ditz wound up & over~tired is just horrible to deal with. Prima Donna in full mode. Oh Yeah!

So what I don't like is dramas on top of dramas to fill my Wednesdays. They leak into Thursdays & my week disintegrates around me. Dearest, in his wisdom & foresight, has decided Wednesdays are a good day for me to do some extra running around. This invariably means leaving the island a little earlier ~ only somewhere in the rush Liddy needs collecting from work & Liddy wanted to come with me to do some running round of her own. Now this is all fine & dandy only I am getting old & it takes less & less before the old brain goes into overload & the inevitable result is DISASTER!

Firstly we found Liddy's car unlocked & the contents of her console strewn all over the floor of the car. Her L Plates were missing & our first uncharitable thought was to blame Theo! Which we proceeded to do, quite roundly. As it turns out Theo was not to blame. Thank God for steering locks & that no damage was actually done to the car, an absolute miracle given no~one has been near it in more than a fortnight.

So standing in line at Bunnings to pay for a couple of heaters to take the chill of our big open plan rooms designed for Queensland summers & not the icy depths of winter & fishing through my wallet for Liddy's key card I was horrified to find I also had Dearest's key card & Dearest needed his key card! We piled the heaters in the car & rushed back to the jetty scanning the crowds for someone, anyone, trustworthy enough to hand the card to & deliver it safely whence it belonged.

There is almost always someone for these sort of emergencies & God did not let us down this time either. I rang home & we proceeded to the next stage, which now included Ditz clock watching, an activity she invariably indulges in when she thinks we are starting to run late for choir. Someone counting off the minutes does not contribute to my equilibrium.

Liddy has been paying off a road bike ~ or more accurately Liddy has been handing me her hard earned cash on Wednesday & I have been paying off her road bike as I pass through Cleveland. This week she wanted to collect it. She is missing the physical activity soccer gave & the bike is her way of training & getting fit for next season. Along with the bike Liddy acquired a bike rack for the car ~ which needed to be fitted, didn't it! Ditz & I left Liddy to it [with the car] & hoyed it up to choir on shanks pony.

I settled into happy obscurity with the inevitable book while the music rolled over the top of me. It didn't even register when Liddy burst through the door in a major flap yapping away at me like a mad woman. I came to consciousness dimly as Alison commented I was rehearsing [I was?!] to which Liddy tartly commented she hadn't realised because I was actually reading. Alison, in mock dudgeon, snapped that no~one read through her lessons! while the choir howled with laughter. Honestly, she must think us a doey lot. Ditz regularly goes *off the air* too.

Liddy. Bike. Liddy finding herself with her brand new, hugely expensive bike strapped in it's bike rack to the back of her car & parked at the bike shop had run, yes run, all the way to choir to get me to run [she had to be joking!] back to drive the car because Liddy is still on her L~Plates. I am grateful that she didn't just think, oh well, it's just round the corner & I'm a pretty good driver, & driven herself. I'm sure the thought crossed her mind but she did the right thing though I did find her driving round & round the car park looking for me because the car park is not the open road & therefore not illegal. *sigh*

Then there was the drama when we got to the mainland jetty of struggling with unfamiliar straps & things so both bike & rack could be taken safely home. You try doing that in the pitch dark with only a street light on it's way out to see by. Liddy invariably gets snappy in these situations & snaps at Ditz, who is only trying to be helpful but takes offence & gets all huffy ~ fun & games, ladies! It was late & it was cold & a dinner of Maccas is not enough energy for my girls to run peaceably on but it was the quickest thing going Wednesday so that is what they got.

Once on our own jetty I handed over my white jacket & Liddy shot off home while Ditz & I manhandled the heaters down the pontoon & jetty. She nearly beat the car home & parked her bike in her bedroom. She is taking no chances with this bike & Ditz has been told not to so much as breath over it on pain of death.

Home at least meant caffeine! Hot, milky, sugared caffeine! The psychotic one informed me he'd been abandoned all evening & didn't think much of it ~ until he discovered the boxes provided a heat source! Then he abandoned me! Deserted for a heater!