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.