A Time to Laugh, A Time to Cry

A perfectly miserable Monday. From 8.30am to 6.30pm a continuous, dreary procession of order enquiries, research into availability of maritime insurance books (seriously), more order enquiries, research into availability of accountancy titles, more order enquiries, a credit control enquiry, a purchase ledger enquiry, a sales ledger enquiry, research into availability of books on calculus, a chat with Josette at O'Reilly & Associates (highspot of working day), more order enquiries....ugh!

Then it was (yawn) time-to-go-home. Get into car (decide that it was a non-aggressive evening, so no high jinks around the corners), off I go, and on goes the radio. Radio 4 and a slightly pompous literary quiz, just interesting enough to hold my attention - "Which otherwise fully-employed author is quoted as saying 'If I want to read anovel, then I write one'?" (answer - Disraeli), and things like that.

Approaching the village things changed. A delicious quote from (would-one-believe) Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate nearly had me crashing off the road. It was so funny that I hooted out loud, chortling uncontrollably and was still smirking when I walked into the house to find the wife having a serious phone conversation with my sister.

I took the receiver and chatted with the sister about the joys of her recent "Captain Corelli" holiday on Catalonia (all the tourists were English, and mostly from Manchester, oh dear!). I replied with anecdotes on the subject of "snobbery" from that Radio 4 programme and she then, shyly, told me that she was planning to marry her "Simon" next year and I instantly offered warm and affectionate congratulations. Hooray for her, and I hope it goes better than the last one, etc. She then told me that her first call had been to our Mum, and that the news had rendered the dear parent completely speechless.

Later in the evening I phoned the said parent who, it turned out, was anything but speechless and (after careful consideration) was full of beans about it.

Funny how cheerfulness can take over from "doom and gloom" in a very short space of time.