Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Best Laid Plans .....



There I was .. full of the joys of the new year, the start of the rest of my life, the beginning of great hopes and plans. My heart filled with optimism, my head doing flips and somersaults in anticipation of the opportunities that lay ahead, I made a very small list of my aspirations and dreams for 2008. Even putting words to the hopes was exciting! I had another week of indulgent, no-work days.... Bliss.

Then, as usual, life intervened.

I should really start at the beginning. Just before Christmas, 3 days to be exact, there was a major hiccup in the water supply to the Palace. Her Highness was not one bit amused. "No water!!" she shrieked and immediately had a fit of the vapours. We soothed and cajoled, made tea and offered half-lies as a means of preventing a major burnout. All to no avail. She fretted and moaned. She let fly about the council's lack of consideration for retired people until we were all fit to expire gracefully. She refused to understand that it was not the council's responsibility since the guilty pipe was on private property. We did our best to get a plumber - Irish plumbers are like gold dust, not a one to be had for love nor money. So, we hauled water til our bodies screamed in protest, we took the daily laundry loads, we trawled buckets up the stairs to the loo, we traipsed backwards and forwards from the most obliging neighbour's house, struggling under the weight of the overfull buckets - I now sport shoulders that Arnold Schwarzenegger would ogle with a degree of the "little green eye". Eventually, GB, aided and abetted by one of his brothers, dug a 2 foot drain, found the culprit pipe, installed a temporary, overground hose and all was acceptable and semi-civilised in the royal domain once again.

Christmas came and went. The Old Year skulked out the back door and the New Year flew in the front. Hope and optimism was alive and well. The visitors were plentiful and jovial, distractions too numerous to mention and all was right in the Kingdom.

And then she did "something" to her "bad" knee.

She doesn't know how it happened. But January 2 blew all hopes I had, of mending my blogging ways, of grasping back some sanity, of catching up with long neglected friends, right down the toilet.

For the past week, Her Highness, when not reclining in the royal boudoir, has been ensconced on her throne, immobile, with quavery voice to the fore, endless requests for needless tasks to be done, no visible improvement, querulously vocal to the saintly Larry and I am quite close to furthering my education by googling "hara -kiri". Strangely enough, GB sees none of this. When he returns from the nightly visit, he tells tale of how sprightly she was, scampering up the stairs to bed, cheerily bidding him "Goodnight!" No moaning, no quavery voice, no tears brimming - ready to fall - no "poor me" carry on. GB has a very low tolerance level for the "mi-adhs" of the world and I think Her Highness is quite aware of this fact. She knows what side her bread is buttered on.

But what kind of an eejit does that make me?

Anyway.

An 18 carat plumber is due early next week "to have a look" and hopefully come back later to perform miracles. The weather is due to settle over the weekend. Daughter no.2 has her driving test in the morning, the psychotic wonderdog has acquired some less than desirable live in tenants and GB has given up the dreaded weed.

Life is truly wonderful.

19 comments:

Stomper Girl said...

Sorry to be dense but is this a mother-in-law story?

J Cosmo Newbery said...

C'est snafu, non?

Lee said...

Think how dull life would be without all this stuff!

Tanya Brown said...

Criminy. Criminy. I'm so sorry. I hope life gets duller very soon.

Ian Lidster said...

May the plumber work magic and may your life become serene again in your palace. Quite like the looks of the place.

riseoutofme said...

stomper ... it is indeed!

jcn ... que???

lee ... dull would be good, VERY good!

tanya ... criminy is right so is a lot of unrepeatable adjectives!

ian ... not MY palace ... my palace is MUCH more serene!

fifi said...

Poor you!
Though your dreams may still flourish, regardless.

Gee, no plumbers. Its heaving with plumbers here, I should send one over. Its the trade of choice since they earn about a thousand quid a minute and then have eight hours a day to go surfing.
humph.

( read out mi-adh, burst out laughing.)

crafty said...

Here's to a dull 2008!

Birdydownunder said...

so we can say you have been busy. But we did miss you.

Pauline said...

Cn you ask GB for mi-adhs lessons?

Barbara said...

I'm so glad to find you alive and well in the Blogging world once again. I thought that month-long streak had ended your Blogging career!

Good luck with the plumbing. We have our own little leak, but we're biding our time until Monday so as not to pay through the nose!

whimsical brainpan said...

I hope everything gets fixed soon.

CS said...

"Then, as usual, life intervened." Damn if that doesn't just keep happening.

Too bad you are so far away, or I'd send you my plumber. He's prompt and helpful, and reasonably priced.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Your mother-in-law,the Queen, sounds exactly like my first husband's birth wench, who claimed helplessness to the degree that he had to help her into her underpants.

I did a lot of vomiting in my brain in those days.

Yes, I can see the wicked troll scampering about bravely for her son while you are her beast of burden. Hara-kiri is not a good idea, though, unless you can trick her into trying it out first.

Hang in there and try hard not to let her take advantage of your good nature.

Does it make me a bad person that I laughed at your exquisite turns of phrase in this most sad tale?

Pam said...

Ok, I'm thick. I've read this post several times (and sympathised, and laughed) but I still don't understand what "mi-ahd" means. Tried it in what I fancy might be an Irish accent followed by an Australian one, but still... baffled. Explain?

Yes, thank you, we now have a restored kitchen. So good.

molly said...

I truly do sympathise, but couldn't squelch my mirth [causing some raised eyebrows at the library] as I read of your trials. Hope the royal plumber fixed the problem....though he couldn't do much about the knee. Maybe GB should up his presence in the royal household,to encourage her highness to behave better. And the sainted Larry??

meggie said...

Some really good laughs here. Just a darned shame they came at your expense.

I am with Isabelle, & don't get mi-adhs?

riseoutofme said...

fifi ...plumber still hasn't appeared ... so may have to import one! Dreams struggling to survive!

crafty ... all the shenanigans here are beginning to get a little old now ... Quiet and dull seems very appealing ..

birdy ... busy??? Never knew I could hate any one word SO much!

pauline ... GB gives me "mi-adh" lesson on a regular basis accompanied by mutterings about the "cerebrally challenged" ...

barbara ... when I look back at Nov now, I am in awe of myself!! But other things did suffer and there is a limit to how much neglect I can inflict on "ma famille" .. but hopefully when plumbers EVENTUALLY turn up, life will return to the usual, manageable mayhem! Hope YOUR leak is a thing of the past!

whim ... thanks! What would I ever do if something serious happened?

cs ... I suppose life intervenes on a regular basis just to prevent us from becoming complacent? Or maybe its just being vindictive?

heart ... you know, I do love this woman dearly ... it just makes me sad that, after a full life of being a very strong woman, she is now so needy. For the most part, her antics make me smile ... Bless her, change me?

isabelle ...and you a glorious Celt!! Mi-adh literally means bad luck ... but a "mi-adh" is an habitual moaner even when things are good!! We all know some of them! Scotland probably has its own version of this?

molly ...the plumbers still haven't arrived! "We'll try and get to you tomorrow, Missus!" The knee is SLOWLY improving ... GB is pacing the floors, day and night, in the throes of withdrawal ...and the sainted Larry is still a saint.

Meggie ... isn't it just as well I have a hide made of leather?! The explanation for "mi-adh" is under comment for Isabelle.

genevieve said...

Hello, RiseOutOfMe, what a great pseudonym you have - I have come here via your antipodean mate Fifi.
I might have known there would be an appropriate Gaelic term for moaners. We diaspora Irish seem to know them by sight, even if we don't have the phrase.
Best of luck with the plumber, and to your daughter for her test.