Monday 30 April 2012

Secret Service: EPISODE 5

Perfect Retirement Housing Complex
Inner Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  QY4 2PN

My Dear Ralph

My apologies for not writing sooner, but things have been surreal here at the Perfect Retirement Housing Complex.
I foolishly accepted a gift (on the face of it) of two cans of pink salmon from the new inmate two doors down the hall.  This Cat Woman pressed them on me whilst I was perambulating down the corridor towards Pom-Pom's domain a couple of weeks ago and it was difficult to refuse them without appearing a churl.  It is now two weeks later and the aforesaid inmate appeared last night, at my door, wanting to sell me a large metal cat comb for £1.00.  I said that I was not in need of such an item, at which point she announced that, in that case, she would accept a donation of £1.00 for the cans of salmon . . . Well, I was nonplusssed and not a little annoyed over this and refused outright to part with any funds - even if they were ostensibly heading for her favourite charity, the RNLI.  I pointed out that one generally chooses of one's own free will to make a charitable donation and that cash is not supposed to be demanded with menaces at one's own front door.  She has since snarled, on our way past each other in the corridor, that she knows who she won't be thinking of at Xmas, owing to the limits of their Christian charity.  I think that must be me pet!
Meanwhile, I have embarked upon a 'Tree Recognition' course down at the local college.  My dear, the type of person one encounters on these courses!  My fellow members largely appear to be kitted out in Doc Martin boots and many have large, brown, gnarled-looking hands.  I am not at all sure I am going to fit in, especially with my glossy plum nail extensions and lack of enthusiasm for the shaved head sort of hair style.  The weather is horribly wet and one seems to have to tramp for miles around the premises with personages one would generally cross continents in an effort to avoid!  Would it be possible to acquire a pair of green wellies for me dear?
Pom-Pom and I have been looking into the subject of Movement Detector Sensors since you kindly told me that such items might be found in the Cosmos catalogue.  You are quite right dear, and we intend to leap into action on this front and purchase one each at the weekend.  Hopefully, we will soon remember to turn these devices off upon our return from sundry outings and will not be blasting 650dB of sound waves down the corridor from our sirens.  One must be discreet at all times!
How are you getting along pet?  When we last spoke, you said you were heading for Odessa!
Yours
Aunt Agatha

Friday 27 April 2012

An Apiary is for Bees, dear, not Apes

Perfect Retirement Housing Complex
Inner Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE QY4 2PN

My Dear Ralph

Well I didn't like to mention it dear, but the summons to the Council Rent Office was to account for the sudden and excessive spending on my savings account.  In short, they wanted to know what I'd spent £100 000 on during the past several months.  Well, what could I say?  More-or-less at gun point, Pom-Pom did finally confess to siphoning off funds in order to satisfy his habit with the horses!  But he sobbed so abjectly - on bended knee - when I threatened to move myself and the menagerie out, that I took pity on the poor dear and we are now quite reconciled!
I am only 62 pet!  My years may be 'advancing' but they have not yet advanced!  An apiary is for keeping bees in dear, not apes.  One wears one of those hooded outfits which are, apparently, impenetrable to stings.  There is absolutely no need to worry; my years in the field have girded me for all types of challenge!
Meanwhile, Pom-Pom and I attended Hymn singing here last night.  I sat next to Mr Brownie, while Mrs Brownie applied herself to the keyboard.  Personally, I am not all that taken with hymns; they have a somewhat dirge-like rhythm and seem altogether too focused on impending death.  However, Gospel and Boyo (who were also in attendance) sang with gusto, apparently undeterred by the clanking of the keys at the upper end of the register.  We had a go at 'What a Friend we Have in Jesus' and other favourites that you may be familiar with?  We had a short interval during which the Bird Feeder announced that next time (next time?) she would bring her maracas and Mr Brownie and I thought that clapping the lids open and shut on metal teapots from the kitchen could also add a certain je ne sais quoi to the occasion.  Actually dear, it reminded me of that occasion just after we'd moved in, when I was foolish enough to suggest to the Social Committee that they purchase one or two tambourines from the social funds.  Of course, Gerda (the secretary) took great delight in telling me at Coffee Morning one day, that my idea had been voted against by five votes to Zero!  Imagine!  It was at this point, or shortly after, that I realized the 'suggestions' were inadvisable, and I joined the ranks of the others, who either have no ideas at all, or have the sense to say nothing!
What news from your job with the Government favourite nephew?
Yours
Aunt Agatha

Keep on taking your tablets . . .

Perfect Retirement Housing Complex
                                                                                                 Inner Hamlet
                                                                                                 CORSETTSHIRE  QY4 2PN

My Dear Ralph 

Thank you for your latest communique.  Pom-Pom and I are a little confused.  Did you mean a job with the local government dear?  Things certainly aren't run as they were in my own era.  Still, it does sound like you may have found an exciting position in the neighbourhood Vice office.  I hope you will remember to keep on taking your tablets as it will certainly be desirable to confine your physical activities to the keyboard and paper.  (They will expect that remember pet.)  Good luck today anyway.  Pom-Pom and I will be thinking of you beavering away on the database and making permitted phone calls.  Perhaps, once your probationary period is over, they will let you out to make a higher contribution on the streets?  Keep us informed!
Pom-Pom and I have been feeling slightly down in the mouth this morning.  We were reflecting on Pom-Pom's unfortunate spree on the horses and our resultant admission into the Perfect Retirement Housing Complex!  We have tried to join in with the spirit of the things here, but have come to the conclusion that Coffee Morning, in with the natives, is altogether too ghastly.  They do that thing with the obligatory raffle tickets and edible prizes on wheels.  I myself do not much care for choccie biscuits and peaches in a tin.  I also rather feel that Our Leader does not much appreciate my penetrating insights into the lack of glass in the greenhouse and the resultant stiff breeze blowing through!
Meanwhile, there was somewhat of a cataclysm in the passageway outside Pom-Pom's door this morning.  Bellowing through the walls came the voice of Sock-it-to-Em, who was expounding on Snake in the Grass' alleged propensity for nicking everyone's milk money (not to say entire bottles) from the alcoves outside.  She is quite right, of course.  Pom-Pom and I have often discussed the possibility of acquiring a car battery and wiring it to the foil bottle tops in the hopes of zapping the culprit with quite a quantity of Megajoules.  Imagine the fantastic sound of crackling hair and the aroma of blackened toast wafting along the hallways!
We did happen to open the door to survey the scene and there was Our Deputy also lined up against the wall.  Unfortunately, nothing effective is ever done to capture these offences - and the offender - on tape.  Indeed, the impression tends to be given that us inmates are so ga-ga, and such unreliable sources of information, that absolutely nothing needs to be done about the security issues that we raise.  And this, pet, is quite wrong!  What we need here in Perfect are surveillance cameras!
Yours
Aunt Agatha


Thursday 26 April 2012

Silent Valley Water Company

Perfect Retirement Housing Complex
Inner Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  QY4 2PN


My Dear Ralph

The news today, dear, is that Pom-Pom is still much exercised on the topic of the 'poisoned' drinking water emerging from the taps at his abode.  We finally made contact with Silent Valley Water Inc. and they kindly informed us that, as our supply was at the end of the supply chain, it would be possible to open a valve and shunt our water on to a new destination.  However, our afternoon beverage still tastes heavily contaminated with Substance X and Pom-Pom is now considering their view that his recent purchase of a cheap plastic kettle may be causing phenols, from the plastic, to be entering our cuppas.  He has now ordered a slightly more up-market stainless steel kettle and we hope this will solve the problem.  I will keep you posted!
The corridors have otherwise remained comparatively silent.  We have had no sightings of the Management, although Pom-Pom informs me that the daily roll call was performed, as usual, through the intercom.  I myself, almost immediately post-admission, came to the conclusion that I had to extricate myself from these proceedings!  So, last week, I submitted a letter (in triplicate)  to Perfect relieving them of any responsibility for being found, rotting, in my room at some future date.  This also has the added bonus of enabling one's activities to be slightly less under the floodlit glare of any managerial attentions!
This morning, I have bowled up and down the hall one or two times but, so far, have only had sightings of the Biscuit Eater and Dinkie.  Dinkie and I spent several minutes despairing (in whispers) over the lurid lime paintwork on all our front doors and Dinkie is considering requisitioning a pair of sunglasses from the cache of summer accessories residing in a hallway cupboard.
It is now raining.  Rain, somehow dear, renders the hours spent surveying the compound, below, even lengthier!  No-one appears to have been evacuated by ambulance today, but our telescope activation sensor seems to require a new battery.  You couldn't just run out and get one for us dear, could you?
Pinkie and Perkie, meanwhile, are doing splendidly thank you. However, we do find that their florets fade somewhat in the brilliant sunlight from the exterior.  And splashing water on their rosette of leaves has occasionally resulted in 'leaf scorch.'  We have not, as yet, decided on a name for our Poinsettia, but gather that the time for ensconcing it within a darkened box, will soon be upon us.  I think I may have to remind Pom-Pom to place a date for its retrieval on the computer calendar - or else the poor thing may expire, forgotten!
Yours
Aunt Agatha



PerfectRetirementHousingComplex: day one.

My Dear Ralph

Just to let you know dear, that Pom-Pom and I have finally arrived at our new demesne in Corsettshire.  Our new abode is not quite so delightful as one might have hoped - the grey concrete frontispiece looks a trifle forbidding and I could see how one could mistake the rectangular, tower-like, structure at the far end for a gun turret - but we were anxious to leave a multitude of Pom-Pom's creditors to the rear of us so-to-speak.  Under such circumstances, choice is scarcely at a premium.  You will remember that our precise address is strictly hush hush, won't you pet?
I do wish one of us had thought to inform the Management of the Perfect Retirement Housing Complex that Pom-Pom and I are a duo as - owing to my being a notable Peasebody and Pom-Pom a (less famed) Percival - we have been separately accommodated - albeit on the same floor.  (This may actually be a plus point owing to our previous squabbles over a largely incompatible television itinerary and other little issues not suitable for mention here.)  My own domain is inhabited by a rather scurfy pink carpet which, due to lack of funds, I am presently unable to replace and a salmon pink wallpaper.  I can at least apply Magnolia to this latter excrescence.  Give that we are at the apex of the building it is just about possible to discern the communal garden below through binoculars.  In fact, within a week or so, I had discerned what appeared to be a starving cat hanging about the periphery.  Pom-Pom had also spotted said animal and we have spent quite a number of hours winging slabs of dinner out of the window in its direction.  At least, we did do this quite openly until a large, laminated, notice appeared on the notice board downstairs to the effect that some inmates or other were feeding up the rats!  I ask you pet.  If this is the sort of mentality demonstrated in one's very first week in our new abode, what new horrors can possibly be in store?  Mabel, next door, has since whispered - in confidence - that it is best to lower dinner at the end of a rope after darkness has descended.  She has exhorted us to do this at the least possible speed because the security lighting snaps on at the slightest provocation.  We appear to have moved to a class A establishment if one invokes the nomenclature used by custodial dwellings.
Another challenge presented itself during the course of our trying to located a private means of egress from the building.  Having attempted to depart via a minor door located at the front of the dwelling, our activities were promptly leaked to the Management by an inmate occupying a premises over- looking the car park.  This Ferret does appear to have eyes rather closely juxtaposed but possibly my opinion is affected somewhat by recent experience!  Anyway, the upshot of this individual's report was that Pom-Pom and I were hauled into the office and told that it was dangerous to attempt to leave by the afore-mentioned exit because a) we might slip on the grassy slope or b) someone might suddenly swing open a window and decapitate us!  The whole thing seems to anticipate a constant state of siege, death and disaster.  Life - as it should be lived - contains an element of risk!  In my experience, it is the disasters that one has not anticipated that all so frequently end up occurring!  In any event, that leaves us deciding between exiting by means of an abseiling rope or the actual front door.  This may sound all too silly to you pet, but there are a large number of inmates who seem to spend nearly all their day loitering just inside the door and most of them are excessively nosy.  Pom-Pom may not, after all, wish to admit to any regular habit down at the betting office and I, myself, may be off to hone my skills down at the local gun range.
How are you doing dear?  At least you have your very own domain to reside in and that is undoubtedly a boon and a blessing given what I have had to relate thus far!
Yours
Aunt Agatha