Sofits and Fascias and Dalek Supreme

Another fine day dawns over Much Malarkey Manor. Really, it's like Summer is feeling guilty for short-changing us on the weather front during August and has come puffing back shouting 'Sorry about the poor service last month - here, have a freebie Summer extension for a couple of weeks.'

And as the back garden farming community hate to see a day of good weather go to waste (it's pretty much on the same level of sin as wasting food), Mrs Miggins is on the doorstep pretty sharpish this morning, catching me in the act of eating a wholemeal multi-seeded bagel.

'Sofits and fascias?' she says, trying not to stare too hard at my breakfast plate.
'Sofits and fascias,' I agree. 'Would you like some bagel before we start? Save you dribbling on mine?'
'Please,' she says.

After breakfast we head for the North Wing of Cluckinghen Palace. Mrs Miggins has expressed a desire to repair and repaint the sofits and fascias before Winter sets in and I have agreed to help her in return for her assistance in cleaning the 'conservatory' roof of Much Malarkey Manor whilst we've got the ladders out.

'Wouldn't you rather get a man in to do the work for you?' I asked when Miggins first broached the subject.
'Certainly not,' said Miggins. 'The recession is biting at the coffers of the Palace, too, you know. Besides, if a hen can't managed her own sofits and fascias, what use is she to the rest of the world?'

I wasn't really sure how to answer that one, so we struck our mutual maintenance deal and agreed the work to be done on the next fine day.

Which is today.

Once up the ladders we strike up an easy conversation. We discuss the Liberal Democrat Party Conference which kills a minute and half and then Mrs Miggins agrees that if the Manor freezer becomes over run with passata I can put the over flow in the second chest freezer in the South Wing larder.
'I'll get Mrs Pumphrey to remove her badger,' she says. 'She should have stuffed it ages ago.'
I vaguely remember Pumphrey taking her Level 2 Taxidermy Exam last Winter.
'Wasn't the badger supposed to be her final assessment piece?' I ask
'Yes, it was,' says Miggins, 'until Tango Pete put a wild boar her way. So the badger went into the freezer for future stuffing projects. And then she got distracted into macrame.'
'I can see a wild boar might be a more impressive piece to present to an examiner,' I said.
'It's the tusks,' agrees Miggins.

And then we got onto the subject of Doctor Who. As Miggins and I both enjoy Radio 7 we have both noticed a sudden influx of new Doctor Who malarkey in the evenings. I have to say we don't approve because when Doctor Who starts taking over the airways it generally means something funnier and more entertaining has to give way. Which is a shame.

'What I don't understand,' says Miggins, pausing in her sandpapering, 'is why the Daleks are supposed to be the most fearsome creatures in the Universe. I mean, they're little more than motorised wheelie bins really.'
'I know,' I say. 'In fact I posed the same question to Andy last night.'
'And what did he say?' says Miggins. 'MRS SLOCOMBE, STOP JIGGLING MY LADDER IMMEDIATELY OR I'LL POOP ON YOUR HEAD!!'
'He said that it was what the BBC wanted,' I say. 'AND YOU CAN LEAVE MY LADDER ALONE TOO, BETTY SLOCOMBE. MY MULTI-CHEERIO THREAT STILL STANDS, YOU KNOW!!'

I feel my ladder give a shudder as Mrs Slocombe gives it a final kick and mooches off muttering something about how much a broken limb or two would really have brightened up a potential dull-on-the-action-front day.

'And also,' says Miggins, 'I heard a Dalek announcing on the radio yesterday evening that they were a Dalek Supreme. Is that anything like a Chicken Supreme?'
'I imagine you'd have to cook it for longer,' I say. 'What with metal being a bit on the tough side.'
'And if you added three Dalek Supremes to Diana Ross, would they make a Mo-Town singing group?' asks Miggins, her brow wrinkled in deep and complicated thought.
'Ah now,' I say. 'That is a common misconception in the world that isn't fixated on the whole phenomenon that is Doctor Who. It's Davros Ross, not Diana Ross, that worked with the Dalek Supremes.'
'Davros Ross and the Dalek Supremes,' muses Miggins. 'Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it?'
'They only had one hit record,' I say.
'Which was?' says Miggo.
'When Will I Exterminate You Again?' I say.
'And that was a hit?' asks Miggins.
'There are Doctor Who fans out there who will buy anything,' I say.

We continue to sandpaper in companiable silence. Occasionally, I whistle and Miggo crows but luckily there are no cocks or men around to hear us.

'And the Dalek standing in the corner of the garden over there?' asks Miggins.
'Is a compost bin,' I say.
'Good,' says Miggins. She seems oddly relieved. 'Just checking.'