Life of Di

The life of Di

A monthly column by Di Wade, the author of ‘A Year In Verse’

TRAVELLING CUPS OF TEA

It’s astonishing how far a cup of tea can travel. One minute I’d a full cup of Yorkshire sitting beside me this morning, (waiting to do duty as vital fortifier for the day ahead), the next I’d caught it with my sleeve, and my quick reactions notwithstanding, it’d run the length of the window bottom, drenching everything in its path: And while I was assiduously wiping plastic, ornaments, stray CDs, and about six hundred batteries, I couldn’t help but notice the weather beyond the window. Yesterday, I’d exited the house into a howling world of flying dustbins and having half Niagara Falls dumped on one before one’d cleared the top step. Today, when I was going nowhere so couldn’t have cared less if it’d teemed, tipped, or tossed down cats, dogs, and baby killer whales, it seemed all was calm as a millpond, and bright as a cornfield slumbering in the sun. Sickening, but how often was it thus?

It was a similar story, if in reverse, to Morecambe a few weeks ago. Arriving with thoughts of a good long walk, my parents and I were twenty minutes into this when the heavens opened - and we spent the next half hour huddled under an umbrella, vainly seeking somewhere into which to duck for a while. I was just thinking I’d write to Morecambe council later, and suggest they build more precincts or amusement arcades against such inclemency when the precipitation abruptly stopped – just long enough for my dad to remove and stow his waterproof, before starting up again. Nice one. But Fair do’s, it soon afterwards relented at last, allowing us to do justice to the wonderful wide prom, including checking out seabirds, admiring fishing boats, and looking out across a bay misty enough to hide gorillas, haunted houses, or fairy castles if one were of a fanciful turn of mind. The main point for me however was that the rest of the week, most notably when I’d been tied to my computer, had been an absolute scorcher. Now however, when I was free to utilize and enjoy it with knobs on, and longed so to do, it was as though someone had flicked a switch. Moreover, when halfway home later, the sun finally came out like a good ‘n, it was hard not to feel mocked akin to carrying one’s tea into the living-room a few nights earlier, when this had abruptly parted company with the tray and landed on the floor: Wrongside up of course so that that’d been me for the next three hours – down on my hands and knees scraping potato salad and coleslaw off the carpet: And knowing full well that with my eyesight and non-smell, I could likely be doing this till dawn, and still have a carpet resembling a child’s tantrum with paints, and ponging of whatever mayonnaise does pong of when merrily soaking into one’s wilton.

But the upside of things going pear-shaped when they could as easily have gone just peachily, and with gay abandon, is that one is doubly thankful for small mercies, and positively ecstatic when things DON’T make like the Goes Wrong Show. Just last Saturday, my dad and I had a nice walk up at Fleetwood, putting the world to rights about boxing, rugby league, and Olympic sailing while closer to hand, boats bobbed on the incoming tide, and the fishermen of England hardily sat and did their thing: And although the day was grey, the rain kindly held off till we’d got back where, after a fitting fish pie, and a spot of competitive Scrabble,--which I won,--it later halted sufficiently to allow me to get home without getting soaked.

So nothing earthshattering, basically just an autumnal day which didn’t sheet it down on us. However, the end result was a feeling of warmth and satisfaction: And when Saints beat the Dragons, and Fury overcame Wilder, all seemed sound as a cup of Yorkshire tea, and temporarily right with the world.