I DON'T do DUSTING...

in order to get the full force

of these words, you need to say it out loud, in

a Billy Goat Gruff voice.

Yesterday on arrival back from lipreading class and

shopping, I was just putting the car away

when up the drive came a group of people.

Ted being an ex-copper decided to investigate,

like you do, or to be more precise...

like you did in his day!

They were looking at our row of cottages, and telling their

daughter's French husband and family about them living in the

cottage at the opposite end to us, thirty years ago.

Like a galleon under full sail I got stuck in

'Come in and have a look at how our cottage has changed since you left!'

Now I ought to own up here, that to coin a phrase...

I have got previous.

All my life I have the desire to show folk a good time.

The joke in the family is I would invite

strangers in off the street, and believe you me, I have!

What's this got to do with dusting?

Well...

I invited them in, secure in the knowledge that the house was clean.

Why?

Because Ted does it while I'm out of the way. 

'Have some tea, coffee, cake?'

They, I could tell, thought I was some mad half-crazed woman,

and to be honest they'd be sort-of right.

The mum and I (she, I suspect was out of a similar mould)

got on like a house on fire.

Our row apparently, was the hospital for the row

across the way, which was the Workhouse.

Details of which, I am sure as promised, she will send.

I have this funny notion that when in foreign

lands, the only way to get a feel for the country

is to see the locals in their homes.

In Palau a couple of years ago, in the restaurant of the hotel, 

we got chatting to a lovely family celebrating their

very old grandmother's special birthday.

We raised a glass to her, had a super time talking

and having fun.

The next day, the waiter said the family had thought how lovely we were(?)

and wanted to ask us to come to their home.  They decided against it

because they imagined we would think it strange.

Well, you can tell exactly, how upset I felt?

Kindred spirits.