“Is it the house with the blue car outside?”

“No.  I don’t know anyone with a blue car,” she says emphatically.

She redirects him and then the penny drops. 

“The rabbits are made of stone,” she says coldly stopping herself from inferring “bleeding obvious” as, of course,  it isn’t to him.

Back goes The Gas Man to look for Peter Rabbit and Benjy Bunny by the back door.

“Whose blue car is that then in your drive?” enquires The Friendly Gas Man.

 ”No idea.  It is quite worrying,” says Sally thinking she will have to go home to check in her lunch hour.

Later that morning  Sally gets a phone call from her partner, Mike.

“Can you pick me up tonight?  I left my car at home this morning.” 

That would be the blue one he has owned for the past four years, parked in the drive.

I’m seriously worried about the origins of my gene pool.

I’ve had a flurry of email exchanges this week with my sister regarding my UK family.  Firstly she gets a call early in the week from Madre to say that AJ (Madre’s sister and Aunty Joan to you and I) can’t get through to her on her mobile and wanted Sally to tell her why?!  After a series of phone calls from Sally in her office in Shaftsbury elbow deep in calculating staff salaries and really not in need of distraction, she surmises that the two of them are sitting in Madre’s car outside AJ’s house.  She decides to forego the desire to enquire as to the logic of the whole situation and with a heavy sigh turns to the job at hand and sure enough it is soon revealed  that AJ can’t get through on speed dial because the phone she is using does not belong to her.

This grannies-on-their-mobiles situation followed on from last weekend when  my sister found herself driving up from deepest, darkest Dorset (we always refer to Sally’s choice of abode as deepest, darkest Dorset I think it may have something to do with the fact that none of us have ever forgiven her for leaving Hertfordshire although I can talk) to do her filial duty in the TV department of John Lewis.  Madre’s telly had died after 14 years – older than the family dog Snowy who was coaxed through his  final years with a cup of tea and asprin every morning.  Being Madre (a war baby) she had to wait for the sales and so had sat through all of last December looking at Strictly, Eastenders and Antiques Roadshow through a three inch band which only stops its flickering after twenty minutes. 

It apparently took three rounds of the TV department and three breaks – two for the loo and one for a lengthy lunch after just twenty minutes of arriving , before she finally made her choice and her massive television is due to arrive this Thursday.  Cousin Christine’s lovely hubby Christopher who gets called out on a regular basis - and who secured his place beyond the pearly gates years ago – will be going along to Madre’s to install the behemoth.

The time spent in the TV department of John Lewis with Madre, has now, I assured my sister, secured her a permanent place next to Archangel Christopher, and we laughed along with Madre who admitted that she went all dithery in the face of the technological wonders in the television department.  She sent me a thank you email for her JL vouchers “I am lucky to have such lovely, generous girls as you and Sally but that DVD you got me for Christmas was only o.k.” – in Madre speak this means UTTER RUBBISH!!!