It was a regular Saturday morning and all was well chez Murrell. The ducks were having a laugh about something: their merry quacking and splashing was the soundtrack to our semi-purposeful putterings. One of the chicken ladies was making a song and dance about producing an egg. Min had let herself out for her morning constitutional and the three remaining canines were busily underfoot. As I say, it was a normal Saturday.
I think I was just reminding Geoff that he had a cup of tea going cold on the side, when his mobile made an odd noise.
‘Is that mine?’
‘Dunno. Lemme check. Yep, it’s yours.’
‘What’s it doing? How do I answer it?’
‘Don’t ask me!’
Yes, it was a completely normal day!
It turned out it was one of the many alternatives to a standard telephone call from our friend Jac. I listened to one side of the conversation.
‘Yes mate. No problem. What size do you need? OK, no problem. See you soon.’
He hung up. ‘That was Jac. He wants to borrow an axe. We have got one, haven’t we? They are at the market and they are coming over.’
Well, we don’t, strictly speaking, have an axe. We have a small hatchet type thing that I bought when we first had the wood burner installed. I thought we might need to chop kindling. Or something. It has a little plastic blade guard, which has never been removed, and a pale green handle. I see it around the place from time to time. The last time I remember seeing it was when I thought I might have to put one of the chicken ladies out of her misery. I tried to imagine how I might bring myself to use it and then conveniently lost track of where it was.
And now we had people coming to borrow it.
‘Have a look in the van vault.’ I suggested. I think I might have seen it in there. The van vault was covered in jars of screws that Geoff was sorting, so while he made a start, I hastily got dressed.
I had a feeling that I had seen the hatchet somewhere else more recently. Maybe in the cupboard in the tower of the Chicken Palace? Or was it in the shed in the dog pound? Somewhere in the other shed? Or perhaps in the barn? Would it be easier to ask Lesley next door if she had an axe she wouldn’t mind lending?
‘Why would Jac think we had an axe?’ Maybe having all these trees made us the sort of people who would have an axe? I suggested that if we could not find the hatchet, we could offer to lend him the chain saw.
Time was ticking on. We were going to have to admit that we were too chaotic to know where we kept our various tools.
Maybe considering how scatty Jac and Denise already knew we are was what stirred a vague inkling of an idea. They know we often forget to take certain things with us to gigs, even if they are on the table waiting to be scooped up on our way to the door.
I poked my head out of the door.
‘Is there a chance you misheard?’ I asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Do you think Jac was asking if we have any eggs?’
After a good laugh at ourselves, several cups of coffee from Geoff’s latest gadget, ginger biscuits and a catch up with our friends, we waved them off with a box of eggs and no axe.
Late middle age is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Failing eyesight, dodgy hearing, forgetfulness and related inconveniences are often viewed with dismay. In our case, they just seem to add to the rich seam of daftness that runs through our life, and which we mine with great regularity.