Lucky Day

Firstly, a big Malarkey welcome to new a new visitor to the Manor - Staci! Thank you for hopping on board and I hope you enjoy the atmosphere.

Secondly, I've just had a book clear out (only a minor amount of sobbing on the stairs, clutching precious tomes to my chest before consigning them to the box-to-take-to-the-charity-shop), thus a message for Cousin Richard - the whole range of Philippa Gregory(one careful lady owner) if you want them. Let me know. Perhaps Auntie P can pick them up in her (dented!!!!!!) car on Wednesday????

Thirdly, Mrs Miggins has ONE tail feather left. She looks like an idiot.

'I do not!' says Mrs Miggins. 'I look like Minnie-Haha. I look like a coquettish squaw with a cute feather in her head-band, standing on the banks of the Shenandoah River waiting for Hiawatha to come along in his bear-skin.'
'Who's coming along with a bare skin?' says Mrs Slocombe (who laid an egg yesterday after a good 2 months lay-off). 'Not Tango Pete, I hope. I've only just had my porridge.'
'A b-e-a-r skin,' says Mrs Miggins. 'From a b-e-a-r.'
'Are you sure it's M-i-n-n-i-e, and not m-i-n-i as in car?' says Mrs Pumphrey. Mrs Pumphrey has heard of my plans to construct a chicken winter gazebo from Wilkos plain shower curtains. She is not, as Malarkey follower Di predicted, happy with the 'plain' aspect. She wants either a) giant pink gerberas b) giant yellow daisies or c) Rennie Macintosh roses.
'If it was m-i-n-i,' says Mrs Slocombe, 'she would be Mini-car-car!!'

And Misses Pumphrey and Slocombe fall about laughing at the expense of poor, semi-naked Miggins.
'Come into the kitchen, Mrs M,' I say. 'And I'll measure you up for a long cardi.'
'Could I possibly have a liberty bodice, too?' says Miggins. 'Only as I get older, things seem to be heading south a bit too readily. As you know from your own experiences, of course.'

I am not offended. Us birds of a certain age with dubious egg production must stick together.

And fourthly, today is the 10th of the 10th of the 10th. Which is supposed to be very lucky.

Here are the lucky things that have happened so far today.
1) The chickens got to have free-range of the garden, now all edible produce has been harvested.
2) Andy climbed a ladder and changed three light bulbs without falling off.
3) There isn't a 3.

That's it. I suppose it's only Archer's Omnibus time, so plenty of the day left for more lucky happenings. But it got me wondering. Does luck just happen or, as many people believe, do you have to make it happen? I know that sitting in a chair staring at TV makes nothing happen except eye strain, brain muffling and constipation. But does going out and doing stuff, or taking risks actually perpetuate 'luck.'

Some people don't believe in luck. I do.

'So do I,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Listen...luck, luck, luck, kcluckluckluck..cluck, cluck,cluck...ouch!'
'Well, stand still then,' I say. 'I can't possibly measure you for a liberty bodice if you keep fidgeting like that. You know what they - many a slip twixt pin and chick.'
'Do they say that?' says Miggins.
'Well, I say that,' I say.

It is also Old Michaelmas Day. Yesterday, the Michaelmas daisies in the garden bloomed. How's that for timing? Or was it just luck? It is also St Paulinus of York's Day. Apparently, St Paulinus was riding his ass (like you do) across Lincolnshire, when he realised his ass was hungry. He spotted a farmer with a full sack of grain.
'Mayst I have a handful of lovely grain from your very full grain sack for my hungry ass?' asked St Paulinus of the Farmer. (I'm paraphrasing here.)
'Sack?' said the Farmer. 'This isn't a sack. It's a stone.'

This was because the Farmer was a) a meany and b) a smug git who was much too happy with his ample grain store c) possibly mad for thinking he could mess with a saint.

'A stone?' said St Paulinus. 'Then a stone it shall be!'

And he turned the grain sack into a stone, because saints can perform pointless miracles like that.

Unlucky for the farmer. Or was it stupidity. Or meanness?

Unlucky for the ass because he was still hungry.

'Why does no-one ever think of the ass?' says Miggins. 'That's what I want to know.'

Anyway, the Sack Stone still stands in the middle of a field in Lincolnshire. Attempts to move it have resulted in either death for the movee, or global disaster, like the onset of World War One.

You see? You try and generate a bit of luck for your ass, and this happens.

But ever the optimist, I wish you your own spot of luck on this, a lucky day.

Lucky Stars?

Now here's a funny thing. You know how spontaneous acts of luck rarely pass my way? I'm not complaining, you understand, because I know how fortunate my life is in many, many other ways - I am blessed with a happy, healthy family, a nice home, a job, a good brain and the capacity to enjoy my life in lots of fulfilling ways. (And chickens, says Mrs Miggins. Don't forget the chickens. As if, I say.) No, I'm talking about little spots of unexpected good fortune. Like finding a five pound note on the pavement. And then finding ANOTHER five pound note the next day on a different pavement. And then being gifted a huge sack of onions by a kindly neighbour.

You may have gathered that these three spots of fortune have all happened to me in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, on my walk home from work, I found a fiver. No-one around, looking like they were searching for a lost fiver. And then, this morning, when Andy and I were on a first thing in the morning dash to town to run some errands, I found another fiver on the pavement, again with no-one else in sight.

And then, on popping out to the recycle bin with some recyclables just after lunch, our neighbour across the road dashed over and said, 'Do you use onions? Only I've got two sacks and we'll never get through them all.' So, because I do use a lot of onions, especially now we are being vegetarian, I accepted the gift with a grateful smile.

I can't help thinking how odd is this sequence of events? There must be a reason for it. The only thing I can think is that I've been given the title of an international best seller - 'Two Lost Fivers and a Sack of Spare Onions.' So if I do NaNoWriMo again this year, that's the title sorted.

Anyway, the rest of the morning has been filled with running errands and buying bee-suits and cot beds.

Here is me in my bee suit. It's very comfy. Light-weight, many pockets, many zips, much velcro. I did start to write this blog whilst wearing my bee suit, but the gloves kept getting in the way of the keyboard. We've had to order Andy's bee suit as his size was out of stock. Norman of the bee farm phoned to say that Andy's suit would be three weeks in arriving. 'That's okay,' I said. 'We're not collecting our bees until the end of this month, so we've got a few weeks to spare. And I've got my bee suit, so I can always wade in as the Lone Bee Keeper, and Andy can watch from the safety of the kitchen window.'

'Or he can just run very fast,' said Norman. And we had a bit of a fellow beekeeper jolly laugh moment.
And after the purchase of bee suit and bee gloves, we zipped across the countryside to the retail park and Grandad Andy bought Baby Kayleigh a cot bed. It's a very nice cot bed a la sleigh bed style. And after it has been used as a cot, then a junior bed, it can be converted into a little sofa! With underneath storage space. AND the brochure declared it to be 'a lovely piece of furniture that will become an heirloom for generations to come.' So I suspect, that once I start shrinking in height (as ladies are wont to do when they grow more aged) the cot bed will come back my way for use in my dotage when my children consign me to a shed at the bottom of the garden. Good job we got a foam mattress, then. I understand they are easy to wash.

Now I was under the impression that this here cot bed would need to be ordered for home delivery a couple of weeks later, given that it is a hefty piece of furniture. But no. Andy paid, and the cashier said, 'Just wait over there and the cot and mattress will be brought out for you.' Andy said, 'I'd better go and rearrange the car then,' on account of the fact that not only had we been and bought a bee suit and gloves, we had also done a dash around Wilkos for a bag of bits and bobs and another dash round Sainsbugs for four more bags of bits and bobs, and Andy had done a dash around Pets at Home for cat litter the day before, sacks of which were still in the car and therefore space was at a premium.

The cot and mattress were huge. But we got them in the car, along with all the other stuff we'd amassed. Hurrah for the people carrier, I thought as we trundled home. And the cot and mattress are even larger now they are stacked in our hallway, preventing access to the stairs.

So there we are. Another busy Saturday morning. This afternoon Andy is out in the garden putting the finishing touches to the newly revised Cluckinghen Palace penthouse suite, I am faffing around in a bee suit but I shall be making jammy flapjacks any moment now. The chickens are still arguing about the whole ladder leading up to their pod thing. But I reckon they'll be okay when they feel the blunt end of my welly boot nudging up their derriere.