I was up early, wanting to maximise time in the promised warm, dry weather; to catch up on the weeding around the aubergine, bok choy and kale: she had always loved her Kale! I had been paying the blackbirds with bread, to scrape the weeds, but they were on a ‘go-slow’. I alerted them to a pending showdown.
Something was missing from my daily routine, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. No matter, it would come to me eventually. I was in the garden by 10.
An hour in, I saw but ignored the flashing lamp that alerted me to the front doorbell activation. Piss off, whoever you are.
It was Doug whatsit, he had my drill, the one he’d borrowed last month, “just for an hour or so!” We had met at a Men’s Shed shindig, me the newbie and him, as I was to learn, the Club’s dullard!
He was now striding purposefully down the driveway, waving my drill and what could have been a couple of meat pies. “Morning tea and ya drill” he proffered, as he put them on the potting table.
Lip reading had become a recent proficiency, so I obligingly read about his trip across town earlier in the day, and the terrible traffic. Apparently, a dog had run across the road in front of him, and he only narrowly avoided hitting it. He told me about his neighbour, who had a fall last week and had seven stitches inserted. I learnt about his meal last night!
I allow the glazing to descend as I set my auto-nodding and grunting routine into gear. Thirty minutes later, and I’m sure he hasn’t twigged to my hearing impairment. I have learnt about NATO’s latest Ukrainian counter-offensive; seen that Albo has found a rationale for exiting the AUKUS fiasco, and that the government had found and recruited fifteen thousand RNs for the Aged Care sector and extended the budget surplus by five years!
The Bok choy was weeded, and I was just turning my attention towards the Kale as Doug backed into the wheelbarrow and went arse-up. It was like Chernobyl: the barrow went into the potting table, which fell over, tossing the seedling tray, drill and pies high into the sky. It scared the bejesus out of Rover, but only for the time it took for him to smell and realise food was potentially in the offing. He scored both pies.
My chuckle was taken the wrong way. I helped Doug to his feet, but a testy “humph” was thrown at me as he stated his need for the loo. He stomped, unbidden, in through the kitchen.
He was emerging as I was putting the kettle on. We both saw the hearing aids at the same moment: on the table, charging, their green lights winking. The penny dropped as he asked “Are ya deaf, or sumpin?” I parried against his querulous look, “Ah yes, deaf as a post actually, without these little beauties!”