Saturday 8 September 2012

Levering off the kickboards . . .

10 Forsythia Grove
Outer Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  ZY6 4GT
 
My Dear Ralph
Thank you for your communique informing me that you are off to a political rally in the metropolis.  Do try not to get shot, bombed, or knifed, won't you dear?  I know I managed to dig out that last bullet you had embedded in your thigh, but next time we might not be so lucky!
I myself have been engaged in sawing up a giant piece of hardboard for the purpose of attaching it to the kitchen plankwork.  It really is too bad when the employees of the local timber yard insist on selling you a piece of this stuff in the standard size only - and refuse to slice it into smaller pieces.   They were quite immune to my entreaties pet, and the atmosphere only lightened when we were all engaged upon trying to stuff this hardware into the Banger 0.9L.  I think it may have been a mistake to turn up accoutred in my magenta mini skirt and long string of necklace beads - particularly when it transpired that I was going to have to clamber into the vehicle with said workmen immediately to the rear (so-to-speak) in order to work out how to release the back seat catches.  I don't know dear.  I think I may have detected a certain amount of sniggering emanating from the posterior of the situation.  I did endeavour to turn around and glare but, unfortunately, my necklace caught on a boot ceiling hook and some thousands of beads were then viewed bouncing across the car park!  (I was feeling too cross to collect them up; I am content to wait until I can amass the funds to withdraw my pearls from the pawn shop!)  Also, my stockings have the most frightful - and totally irreparable - hole in them, owing to the difficulty I had in extracting myself from the boot, once practically immersed in it.  However, I did succeed in purchasing a set of brand new blades for my Stanley knife and a packet of about 1,000 annular ring shank nails (20mm in length).  I do hope these are not too long?  It would be rather perturbing to accidentally puncture a gas main secreted under the kitchen planking!
My next step was to saw the hardboard into four pieces and, all I can say, is that someone should have told me that a junior hacksaw might not be equal to the task!  I am still perspiring now - some ten hours later.  And none of this would have happened if those gentlemen from the yard could have been prevailed upon to saw it up themselves!  In the absence of their help, and in the absence of sufficient hard space on which to place it, I was forced to lay it prone on the carpet - and, even then, it kept up strong efforts to roll back all over me.  I now have a few bread slice marks in the pile from where the saw cut a little too deeply!  In fact dear, I feel in some need of a tranquillizer as cutting it up was only the first step of many!
Having been informed that it was necessary to lay this board damp, I decided to embark upon the task of hosing it down in the garden.  And my garden, as you may recall dear, is particularly small - so small that it was rather difficult to control the hose.  Well poor Chumley was ejected over the garden fence, on the end of a particularly strong jet, and I have not seen him since!  I hope he has not been washed down some subterranean drain or other.  Anyway, while the board was soaking out of doors, I decided to lever off the kickboards!  It is lucky that I am a former operative - trained never to give up however trying the circumstances - because someone appears to have used screws with a type of head unknown to any form of screwdriver in a normal citizen's possession.  (I do hope you are not sniggering at this pet because, believe me, I am at least as normal as many of the citizens around here - and I am thinking of that chap with the mauve eye patch and a chipmunk secreted in his waistcoat.  I keep bumping into him in the precinct.)  In the end, I felt forced into resorting to shooting them off with one of my hand guns!
Finally however, and with a deep thrill of joy, I am pleased to relay the fact that said hardboard is now nailed in situ on the planking.  And I now only have to acquire the vinyl floor covering.  My only small matter of concern is that I have still not sighted Chumley!
Yours
Aunt Agatha

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