Some mornings when I wake up I feel so dead I ring Dave - who is in his study - and ask if he’ll bring me a cuppa. And being a sweetie, he does.
He gives me the tea, and draws the blinds and the trees look beautiful in the morning sunshine. Then he goes back to his graveyard research, and I can’t face the news, so I read the last few posts on the blog to see if I ever write anything that isn’t about Gaza. I don’t very often and I must try harder. Then I still can’t face the news so I check Garrison Keillor’s blog for a new post. There is something about reading GK first thing in the morning that is ineffably comforting.
This is how he describes someone you can find in the news:
“He’s the man who never told a joke or made fun of himself or petted a dog or put his arm around a friend who wasn’t bought or paid for.”
The other day after I washed my hair I left it loose for a while and Dave exclaimed in surprise “Your hair is so long it would go in a plait!”
Dear reader, I have been wearing it in a plait everyday for four years, and this is what you get when you’ve been married for 54 years and counting. Your spouse does not see you.
Yesterday I saw my tweezers on the dressing table and they reminded me I hadn’t checked for whiskers lately, and when I did I found the most horrific one in full view. OMG I need to live with a friendly female who will point such horrors out.
This weekend is Derbyshire Open Arts, which means local artists - amateurs and professionals - open their homes to show their art, or gather in village halls to do the same. Dave and I spent Saturday morning visiting some.
When we go in, Dave (the asocial introvert ) immediately engages the artist, saying things like “Tell me about your painting” while I (the sociable extrovert) am tongue tied, and hang back and look at each piece with a scrutinising eye.
I am in awe at Dave’s ease in engaging with strangers. On the way home in the car I said “You’re amazing. I never know what to say. If someone said to me Tell me about your paintings I’d be tongue tied. Pretend you don’t know me and ask me a question, just for practice.”
“OK, why did you paint the mugs almost life size?”
“Oh, because my husband made me buy all these huge canvases I didn’t want and I need to use them up.”
Eat your heart out Frida Kahlo.
4 comments:
But he does hear you! On-call tea in bed, very nice. Do you think it’s a female thing to notice things like whiskers and … plaits?
We have American visitors staying. No one has mentioned the man in the news. Says a lot.
Thea xx
The answer to the first question is that Dave is not a visual person. Re the second comment about the man in the news…we have an agreement with Isaac (in the USA) that we won’t talk politics when he rings us up for a chat.
Oh gosh! You made me laugh!! And I also have a persistent whisker that needs tweezing! My late friend Ann was the one who would peer at me and say: Hey time to tweeze!
It takes a woman!
Post a Comment