TALES FROM THE VALE It makes a little less sense with the example given by the farmer keen on the ‘buy two’ quote. He said, ‘I went to buy a Land Rover, I beat ‘em down in price as much as I could, then when they agreed, I said, how much each if I do’ave two’. The other farmer asked, ‘Yeah, but trouble is, you’ve now got two Land Rovers, and do ‘ee need two?’
The philosopher answered, ‘no, but t’were worth it to get so much off’. My wife Kae was born in Dorset. She’s instinctively grasped this logic – and has improved on it. She’d returned from ‘a little look around the shops’, before I’d got home. She proudly appeared in a stunning dress. She looked awesome. After a few days, I discovered on the back of a door in a spare room, two other new dresses, different colours, same style. ‘I’ve got 28 days to return the ones I don’t want,’ she said. Three months later, they were still there. ‘So they are,’ Kae said, with unconvincing surprise, when I pointed this out. ***
I’ve been given the manuscript of a book of reminiscences of a local farmer, my dear friend Brian Trevis. He is the son in the previous anecdote with Prince Charles. Another of his chapters begin ‘I was just easing myself into a luxurious deep bath of soothing hot water, fizzed and frothed to perfection by my usual, half a cup of Surf and a squirt of Fairy Liquid….’. Well, we all take personal hygiene seriously, but this was rather an industrial approach. But, I did point out to my wife, who’s seen it as her duty during lockdown to keep Amazon couriers busy, that maybe we’d have a bit more spending money (and room in the bathroom) if she didn’t keep buying shampoos, bath oils and body lotions. ‘We could probably afford a country mansion, with a deer park and helicopter landing pad,’ I suggested.
‘We haven’t got a helicopter,’ she replied, not even looking up from her laptop. ***
As I write this an American craft has landed on Mars (I can imagine the farmer above saying, ‘what be they doin’ there then, they silly buggers should sort out this planet first’), so I was going to cover that, but Mars isn’t in our planned readership area. In fact, it’s further than Wimborne; about 40 million miles further, in fact (turn left at Marnhull). Won’t get there just yet in your electric car – no charging stations on the way. Or when you get there. Need a diesel for that trip. After lockdown, obviously, as going to Mars isn’t really an essential journey. *** I had a chat with a mate who lives in France. He’s received his vaccine appointment. It’s March, 2022. I told him I’m having mine a year before him. At a time when even Germany’s biggest newspaper (Bild) carried the front page headline, ‘England, we envy you’, we’ve got to applaud those who are making Britain’s vaccine roll-out the envy of the world. *** I mentioned to a friend that I’m editing a book for a literary agent and it’s agonisingly exacting work, and takes forever. My friend said, ‘Oscar Wilde was asked, ‘done much writing, lately?’ to which Oscar replied, ‘I spent the entire morning putting a comma in, and I spent the entire afternoon taking it out again’. It’s a bit like that. I can picture our farmer, saying, ‘call that a day’s work? He b’aint done a day’s work in ‘is life. Not a bead o’ sweat be on ‘is brow. Sittin’ at a desk wi’ his spectacles. That b’aint work. Farming be work.’ To be fair, he’d have a point.
33
