Hindering Dulcie!

It was a cool night.Do you know it was the first night in ages that I have slept under a duvet all night?!Will was off at 7.15 am and the next thing I knew it was 8.45am. Dulcie was banging about above and I reckon trying to raise me from the dead...if I was dead. A few minutes more and she would have been down to poke me with a stick.Monday in Brisbane and its washing day! Dulcie got in first by taking her bedding down. I had about 4 loads to do as well, all the dirty stuff we wore at Frogknot and stuff from here from last week, plus our bedding.When Dulcie’s load had finished I hung it out and put my first load in the machine.Back in the kitchen Dulcie was making a ‘batch a biscuits’...chocolate drops. She got the bowl out and I put the cup of sugar into it. She was melting the butter in the microwave.“2 level cups of self raising flour,’ she said.I got it and tipped it in. She brought the butter over.“No!” She looked in the bowl. I could sense she held back a weary ‘Good God!’ “The flour doesn’t go in yet, we need to cream the butter and sugar.”Of course we do! I was dumbstruck. Disaster!  I wanted a hole to open up and swallow me into the man cave below. There was a long moment of heavy silence which I wanted to pick up and use to beat myself about the head with...then,“Could you spoon the flour out and get out as much as you can?”Of course I could! I would have done anything to make it right. I got the worn silver spoon her mother gave her and scooped out the flour as best I could.“We all make mistakes,” she said.“Yes, but I seem to make more than my fair share” I said.When I had done my best she tipped in the butter and creamed it up.“It’s coming together fine” she said, “you must have got most of the flour out.”“Perhaps I have invented a new recipe,” I joked.Thankfully they turned out ok. ‘Lovely and crispy’ is how she described them. I hope that wasn’t a kind euphemism for ‘very dry!’To get back in her good books I got the ladder out and set about sweeping the roof of the pergola that was covered with needles and twigs and I discovered an awful lot of possum pooh! It looked so much better when I had finished. Phew!She was happy with it and I was feeling much better.I was on my way down to put in another load of washing.“Could you just put a few things of mine in with yours?” she asked.“Of course!” I was feeling soooooo helpful.“How about we put this in too?” I said, indicating the table cloth on the table.“Yes, ok,” she said.We had pickled pork for lunch.She rang the doctors after lunch and made an appointment for WednesdayThe washing was drying well. I brought in her bedding and helped her make her bed.Danny arrived with his friend Bob. He recently lost his job working for a company that sold blinds and shutters. He is now going it alone, using the contacts he has and had got an order this morning and was on his way to another interested customer in Ipswich.As usual talk turned to snakes. Had I heard of Death Adders, he asked. I hadn’t and was not sure I wanted to. They are short snakes with big heads and big hollow fangs. Hmmm, they sounded absolutely delightful. He told me of the time he used to go touring on his motorbike with friends and his friend accidentally ran over one on his bike. When they got to their camp the chap looked down and it was still stuck into his boot by its fangs. Dulcie chipped in with the tale of when Danny was about 6 and he had stuck his leg through the gate they had on the verandah and had been bitten by a snake. He was rushed to the doctor. Danny said he remembered it well.When they had gone Dulcie asked me to bring in the table cloth but I had already brought it in and put it back on the table.“It looks ok,” I said, “just a bit creased.”“Creased? It shouldn’t be,” she said, trying to smooth it with her hand, “unless you washed it in hot water.”I had. I couldn’t speak! I needed that hole in the floor again.Luckily, the creases came out with the iron and order in the World was restored once more.What a dramatic and traumatic day in Upside Down Land!