Get A Grip

Like so many over the last year, every Sunday, 6 o'clock for me, 5 o'clock for them, my family come together on Zoom and catch up on the past week's events. 

Recently my brother has had an issue with his front garden which has had a lockdown makeover. The fresh topsoil has been irresistible to all the cats in the Crystal Palace area, who have travelled far and wide to 'curl one out' on his flower bed to be. After trying various ineffectual things he has resorted to spreading some brambles across the protected area. To his annoyance a cat, like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, tiptoed between the thorns and cocked his nose at my brother by burying an offering in his substrate. 

The family consensus was he was getting things out of proportion and needed to 'get a grip' as my mother used to say. 

This type of irrational thinking made me reflect on my school days and Mrs Darby who was my French teacher and form tutor (a very nice, rational, level headed woman, I was and still am good friends with her son), had 'a thing' about a small patch of grass/mud outside our classroom/portacabin. If she caught you walking across this patch of hallowed turf, instead of taking the long way round on the path, she would go 'mental' to use the school boy vernacular. I can remember thinking how can someone get so worked up about something so unimportant.

We had another teacher, I can't remember his name, because everyone called him Benny Hill. He had a passing resemblance to the sex-mad British comedian, but in no way was he his spitting image. If, when he was writing on the blackboard, students would shout out “Benny Hill!” or hum the theme tune, rather than laugh it off, he would go apoplectic, verging on scary. When sitting in a history lesson once I saw a first year (as they were then) sprint past the window, pursued, a few seconds later, by Benny Hill (the teacher) red faced and foaming at the mouth. 

Rather like my brother, Mrs Darby and Benny Hill we all have something we get worked up about. I would go as far to say, it is unnatural not to get worked up about something. My wife, Anna, gets worked up if I give her the wrong type of teaspoon for the appropriate use (yes, we have different types, I know, weird!).

Since moving to France I myself have got certain things out of proportion. It used to be the band of pigeons pooping on the barn roof - let's just say that problem has now ceased. 

I have moved on to moles. As soon as my back is turned, like Grandmother's Footsteps, a few more will have popped up. My dad told me, on our Zoom meeting, that a few drops of Olbas Oil will get rid of the critters. Well, dad, French moles are a lot more hardy than their English counterparts. It doesn't work...my garden is going to start to resemble the Australian outback with all the eucalyptus I'm pouring into the ground.

The sun is out, as are we, enjoying eating al fresco. A fly has landed on my leg. That's okay....it's only a fly. There's another one...on my food! That's okay. I'm not going to go 'funny' about the odd fly like some people. Another has landed. I can feel the anger rising within. Another lands. I waft them away, but they return with their friends. There are now numerous flies sharing my lunch with me. Ahhh! I rush inside and grab the fly swat with the most swat remaining. For the rest of the hurried meal, I will eat with one arm shovelling as fast as possible so I can get inside and the other with raised swat in hand killing everything that moves. I hate flies! 

The meal ruined. Pudding will be taken inside. Where upon my wife will inform me I've given her the wrong teaspoon. Ahhhh!