One a penny, two a penny
As you may (or may not) remember from my Christmas report, it's not a major Christian festival in this house unless it involves a reciprocating saw.
After we'd wombled back from the open-air Good Friday service in town, Dad and I decided to menace the pittosporum.
A pittosporum is a native of New Zealand - in these crunchy northern latitudes they can only be grown indoors, as pot plants. At least, according to various horticultural tomes the mother has consulted that is the case.
No one's told ours:
The blasted thing grows like topsy, but sees regular and vicious prunings whenever Mrs Foster decides that she wants some extra greenery for the church flower displays. We completely filled the back of an estate car with branches, chopped up the remaining offcuts for firewood, and headed to town.
Incidentally, for those who don't know, a reciprocating saw is one which does the "sawing" bit for you - a power tool where the blade automatically goes back and forth, meaning all you have to do is apply it to the wood and press the GO button. In theory, anyway. Disappointingly, it's actually much harder work than my Dad makes it look. If sawing things, it's really just a matter of whether you prefer Vibration White-Finger to Tennis Elbow. The saw is a relatively new toy, hence its recent inclusion in family celebrations.
While Dad and I were shinning up ladders, the mother was involved in the equally seasonal task of making hot cross buns.
The more observant may note that she isn't wearing her engagement ring - muggins here was over by the sink, scrubbing it with the potato brush in an attempt to remove hot cross bun dough from the depths of the setting.
She stayed at home to guard the buns against bears while we set off with the mobile foliage dispensary.
Mrs Foster is a redoubtable lady, and has been arranging flowers in the church (with her army of minions) since Bede was a lad. As we pulled into the churchyard she was lugging enormously heavy (I know, I foolishly offered to help) buckets of oasis around and the army was already cranking into action ready for Easter Sunday. I never knew flower-arranging involved so much gaffer tape.
By the time we returned from delivering greenery, the buns were merely warm and faintly irritable; the best kind. Purists will be disappointed to hear that we left the reciprocating saw in the shed and cut them with a breadknife.
The best part of the next two days was spent unravelling the immediate family's computer problems. Our generation may not be able to wire a plug, but we're a dead cert when your anti-virus software is playing up or your internet connection is stuffed. Although as it happens I can wire plugs too. And bleed radiators.
Actually, a considerable part of Friday was spent trying to persuade the uncle that even though I'd spent some time installing software, uninstalling software and generally wreaking havoc on his PC, its subsequent horrible hard drive death and modem failure was a complete coincidence. Honest. It was. Although I concede that doesn't sound very convincing.
Today has mostly been musical. Growling my way through hymns and anthems this morning, playing folk music in a pub session this afternoon, and back to church for a bit more growling tonight. Bits of our pittosporum appeared all over the place.
And the thing in the garden isn't even showing any noticeable gaps where we attacked it with the long-handled shears and, of course, the reciprocating saw.
After we'd wombled back from the open-air Good Friday service in town, Dad and I decided to menace the pittosporum.
A pittosporum is a native of New Zealand - in these crunchy northern latitudes they can only be grown indoors, as pot plants. At least, according to various horticultural tomes the mother has consulted that is the case.
No one's told ours:
The blasted thing grows like topsy, but sees regular and vicious prunings whenever Mrs Foster decides that she wants some extra greenery for the church flower displays. We completely filled the back of an estate car with branches, chopped up the remaining offcuts for firewood, and headed to town.
Incidentally, for those who don't know, a reciprocating saw is one which does the "sawing" bit for you - a power tool where the blade automatically goes back and forth, meaning all you have to do is apply it to the wood and press the GO button. In theory, anyway. Disappointingly, it's actually much harder work than my Dad makes it look. If sawing things, it's really just a matter of whether you prefer Vibration White-Finger to Tennis Elbow. The saw is a relatively new toy, hence its recent inclusion in family celebrations.
While Dad and I were shinning up ladders, the mother was involved in the equally seasonal task of making hot cross buns.
The more observant may note that she isn't wearing her engagement ring - muggins here was over by the sink, scrubbing it with the potato brush in an attempt to remove hot cross bun dough from the depths of the setting.
She stayed at home to guard the buns against bears while we set off with the mobile foliage dispensary.
Mrs Foster is a redoubtable lady, and has been arranging flowers in the church (with her army of minions) since Bede was a lad. As we pulled into the churchyard she was lugging enormously heavy (I know, I foolishly offered to help) buckets of oasis around and the army was already cranking into action ready for Easter Sunday. I never knew flower-arranging involved so much gaffer tape.
By the time we returned from delivering greenery, the buns were merely warm and faintly irritable; the best kind. Purists will be disappointed to hear that we left the reciprocating saw in the shed and cut them with a breadknife.
The best part of the next two days was spent unravelling the immediate family's computer problems. Our generation may not be able to wire a plug, but we're a dead cert when your anti-virus software is playing up or your internet connection is stuffed. Although as it happens I can wire plugs too. And bleed radiators.
Actually, a considerable part of Friday was spent trying to persuade the uncle that even though I'd spent some time installing software, uninstalling software and generally wreaking havoc on his PC, its subsequent horrible hard drive death and modem failure was a complete coincidence. Honest. It was. Although I concede that doesn't sound very convincing.
Today has mostly been musical. Growling my way through hymns and anthems this morning, playing folk music in a pub session this afternoon, and back to church for a bit more growling tonight. Bits of our pittosporum appeared all over the place.
And the thing in the garden isn't even showing any noticeable gaps where we attacked it with the long-handled shears and, of course, the reciprocating saw.