Right then. Mrs M is gallivanting around Dorset and I have been left in sole charge of Chez Mackie. Not a problem. House-sitting wise, I have always been able to nearly muddle through in a semi-convincing way.I really thought that I was getting away with it this weekend even with the added pressure of the hound.
It’s now time for the check over the homestead (before her return tomorrow) in the vain hope that I can avoid her usual assertion that I have turned the place into a complete mess.
Dougal is out being walked by the next generation and I am making a serious effort. I got the hoover out and sort of ran it around to disturb the dust. I then went to put out the rubbish.
When Mrs M and I first became romantically involved, I still had to go home to Perth for the holidays and I counted the hours until I could rush back to her side. One evening I was driving back to her, courtesy of the family car which I was due to deliver to Dad at Waverley Station the next morning. As I approached the Forth Road Bridge, I established that I had a total of 2 shillings and three pennies on my person in various coins of the realm. Not a problem again. The bridge would cost 1/6d and the phone call to my beloved to say that I was about to arrive was going to be a well spent 6d.
I got to Cramond to find that I still had a shilling in change but no essential sixpence. This had to mean that I had shortchanged the Forth Bridge Authority. More importantly, I was going to be rolling up to Mrs M’s parents without prior advisement which was a serious social gaffe in those days.
So. I drove back to the Bridge (about 7 miles and wasting parental petrol, to be fair), parked in the hotel car park and hurried down to the toll gate where I confessed, handed over another 3d and got a shiny 6d in exchange so that I could make the call.
I realise, of course, that this tale tells you something slightly dark and disturbing about me but that’s just the way I am. Many of my fellow lawyers are the same. Things like that really matter to most of us.
That explained, back to the rubbish. I have just discovered to my horror that Mrs M has put food waste in the plastics waste bin. I felt violated by this and wondered if our relationship could ever recover. Then, I remembered that she has, for all of our years together, done far more for that relationship than I ever could have.
I have, therefore, decided to forgive her momentary lapse. All that I am now agonising about is whether I should scrape the food waste out of its present repository and consign it to its proper place or just leave it.
I think we all know the answer to that one.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I really, really hope your true confessions don’t start a rash of marital ‘meæ culpæ’ because I’m already blushing at the thought of mine. They’re all Backside’s fault of course but when the axe falls we both get it in the neck.
My brother reckons I have latent OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I retorted that he has CDO, which is the same thing but in the correct alphabetical order. 😀
OZ
Hah, JM.
I read your 5-1 draft post. This was where you scored with easy household tap-ins like “press” and “stoor”. On the cleaning front, my wife does all the housework as she says I am too glaikit to do things right. She doesn’t even trust me with the messages as I sometimes drink the skoosh before I get home.
(that might make it 5-4 but those three strikes were goal of the season contenders)
On a more serious matter. I can’t believe they killed off Deek Henderson.
Oh bugger JM, you are as bad as my model!
Unlock the sporran and call in a maid service!
Haw, JW. Interesting. I was using the WordPress ‘New Post’ facility and had fondly thought that my ramblings were private until I chose to expose them in public. I was unco proud of ‘cowp’ to be fair.
I then worked out that Deek had to be in ‘River City’ which I have never watched in the past and probably never will in the years to come. Googled to find out how he popped his clogs and learnt that he got hit by a speeding car.
Now that I know this, I am gutted as a modern, caring person. Where do I leave the required floral tribute?
For goodness sake, JM, how much mess can you have made over a weekend? How much dust has collected in three days? I realised Edinburgh was pretty grubby last time I was there, but that was the streets, not the interiors of private homes. As for the food waste, I would move it, though it does depend how fussy your binmen are. Don’t tell Mrs M – she’d think you were just covering up your own sin. I am of course horrified that you did not immediately run wild and blow that thruppence on some Barr’s Irn Bru or similar.
CO, good evening. I am assuming that you intended to put the word ‘current’ before ‘model’. If not I am slightly confused,
About this maid service which you suggest, Not necessary, Mrs M and I have lived and loved together for too many years and we know our rules.
We will both be content if she comes home and finds significant but non-major fault in my housekeeping. I will be happy to have nearly coped and she will be happy that she has managed to drag me up to a close approximation to adequacy over the years.
Quite right JM, current was omitted, it was the horror of contemplating your trashy solecisms!
When I was at business I always had cleaners that did my own quarters too.
Since I have married the (current) model and retired I have preferred to spend the mite on gardening help rather than in the house. So I have declared anathema and aversion to the vacuum cleaner, it is definitively against my religion. Spousal unit I have to say has taken up this challenge with a degree of equanimity but tends towards the anal.
Now I am off to the greenhouse to plait onions another anal habit that appears to have overcome me in old age! Happy cleaning.
CO #8.
‘Trashy solecisms’?
I like it. I don’t agree with it because I personally believe that my solecisms are pretty classy but it is, in fairness, a palpable hit.
Moving on, I have cleant to my own satisfaction and await the spousal judgement on my efforts.
‘Cleant’ as the past participle of the verb ‘to clean’ is my latest solecism. For me, it rhymes with ‘lent’. Interestingly, it does not seem to be out there yet if Google is to be trusted.
Just call me Shakespeare!
It is an alternative meaning, doesn’t always have to pertain to language can be behaviour, trashy as in garbage and solecism as in wrong garbage in wrong bag, definitely the curse of the bin men upon you!!
Just wait till they eviscerate your bag on the street.
Cleant’l do.
Watch for the dog crapping on the carpet as she walks in the door, don’t you just love them?
Jm, for my money ‘cleant’ has fine provenance, if you meant it.
I think Mrs M is lucky to be heading back home. I’m in Dorset as I type and the weather is pretty awful. Not so bad when one is at home but very wet and windy for walking. I’m planning on leaving here tomorrow. Saturday was the last good day. 😦
I thought ‘unlock your sporran’ was a euphemism when I first read it. made I larf anyways. ….