sore point

Anniemay and Kelly are supposed to be going for a bike ride first thing this morning.  They’re doing the Cheshire 50Km Cycletta in two weeks time and Kelly needs the practice.  It’s about 10.30 and I’m in the garden looking at the lawn.  Anniemay wanders over; “she’s not coming is she?”  No, I guess not.  She swaps her lycra for gardening clothes and I find myself with a lot more to do than stare at the lawn.

Once Anniemay has a pair of secateurs in her hand, nothing is safe.  She’s half way up the half-dead Birch tree and I have to intervene.  Not through any macho ‘this is man’s work’ posturing, but simply because she cannot reach any further. 

I climb the ladder with my saw.  Our neighbour looks over the fence; “I wish you could have seen his face”, Am says afterwards.  Apparently it was a mix of disbelief and resignation - ‘oh no the crazy old couple next door are up that tree again ….’  

Mark, our neighbour, who seems to have every tool or appliance known to man, brings round a scaffolding platform so that I can stand securely whilst wielding the saw.  Now a third party is involved I’m well and truly committed.

Eventually the tree is nothing more than a trunk.  Dan wanders bleary-eyed into the garden just before lunch-time, with a ‘what are you doing?’ look.  What I say, is not what I’m thinking, which is something like ‘your mum is supposed to be out on a bike ride which means I should be in sitting in the summerhouse with a coffee and the papers, listening to the Archer omnibus instead of being stuck up a tree …….’

Kelly is contrite about missing the bike ride and offers to cook supper, which goes some way to placating me.  I’m more concerned about her though; she’s not ridden her bike for more than a couple of miles at a time and so has no idea if the saddle will be comfortable enough for 50Km.  If not, she may end up the one with a sore point.