Next week's schedule is going to be very busy. I have spent much of today organising next week's projects. On Monday I am working in a group of artists,making sketches at one of our local theatres. My follow-up task will be to choose selected sketches to paint up. Lots of focussed work with creative juices primed and ready.
On Tuesday, I catch up with business work, and do my usual parchment runs in the nearby towns. Wednesday finds me helping in the new Charity Shop where I am in charge of the parchment marketing, Thursday finds me at the Faery Physio and the Community Radio Station, and then we are back to Friday again. Maybe I'll get some me time then, but it's more likely I'll be catching up with toadstool tidying, garment laundering and garden development.
It is good to be busy, especially when I love all the things I am actively involved with.................
Working at the Charity Shop arose out of the blue. You will all remember how much I loved the charity project run by the Ladies of Mercy, and was broken hearted upon its demise. However it has performed the old phoenix trick of rising from its own ashes, bigger, better and in new premises.
Way back in May,it was announced in the Daily Scandal , our local broadsheet, that the Charity had found a new home, and would be requiring new volunteers. Some of the former volunteers were quite elderly, nay, even quite ancient in fact, and they felt they could not undertake a new enterprise, so the door was open for me to sweet talk my way into a much cherished role as Parchment Coordinator. I do other tasks as well, but sorting and pricing the myriads of parchments handed in, takes much time and patience. It is a task close to my heart, though, and I feel that this is a skill I have to offer.
I have made many new elven friends, and met many differing types of elven folk on both sides of the counter. Some quite astoundingly magnificent in their commitment to their Charity posts; some quite outstandingly notable by their strangeness, their thrawn demeanour, or their obvious ability to "create a storm in an empty toadstool."
"There's nowt queer as folk", especially woodland folk , and the infinite complexity of their range of odd behaviours, is fascinating to observers of the populace as myself.
Pendragon delights in my Wednesday tales of things seen and done in the name of good works. But life at Dingley Dell Academy , with its own peculiar band of denizens has fitted me well to observe the rich tapestry of beleaguered souls presented to me mid-week.
I spent the afternoon looking out and organising my art materials for Monday, then ventured into the gardens front and back to continue planting out our winter display.
The new paving in our front garden makes it look bigger. I have only started potting up the new pots,but the four now ready do look stunning. Pendragon phoned me twice when I was out there - once to tell me he has found a goblin tiler to complete our bathroom makeover, and secondly just to determine how I was, and to wish me telephone hugs and kisses before he started his overnight shift at the Metropolis Infirmary. I miss him on Fridays. No one opening the door at seven and calling my name; no one telling me how fine his supper was; and no one to cuddle up to after lights out.
He will be home tomorrow.
I was knee deep in flowering winter pansies, when I heard a snigger from behind. I knew before he spoke, whom it would be. Shilpit Senior ,the goblin from number 3. I didn't look round ,hoping he would just take my silence for absorption in my task. But no- silence just seems to incite him to further menace.
"Is that you working on your little garden ?" he said. He laid special emphasis on the words " working " and "little", and on both occasions it was with a derogatory sneer.
I turned ."Yes, it's very little I said." But small and beautifully formed."
He turned his back to me. "Oooh, he said, just like yourself, eh ?"
I didn't answer him this time. He always had to have the last word, and it was always carved out to be slightly demeaning. I continued with my dibber and spade, and when I looked round discreetly a few minutes later he had gone. I couldn't enjoy my relief for it was immediately followed by a flashback of our last encounter. The Fearless Faery and I had been enjoying a mid-morning chat across the fence, when the sniggering voice from number three interrupted us. He did not wait for us to offer any reply but immediately went into a gormless tirade as to why Pendragon and I were dollarts to have paved our front garden, plus a treatise on how the workmen had undertaken the work, a blur of technicalities neither of us wanted to hear, and then completed his pontification by stating that he would never have had THAT paving, ever.
"It's not your garden," I said."You don't have to have it. But we do want it, it's our garden,we love it, and that's what matters."
He just stared at me , aghast that I had had the audacity to answer him. That was not what he had expected. He quietened to a peep for a few seconds, then finished by adding, "You've got the best garden now. It used to be mine, but it'll be you now."
I turned back to my planting. It had completely missed his goblin sensabilities that maybe that was not important to us. We were not in a race to bypass the Shilpits. We just wanted to be enjoying a lovely garden space.
He sidled off towards his front door, banging it shut as he entered.
It would have been easy to counter his nonsense with equal insults but to what end.
The Shilpits have problems of their own a-plenty, no need for me to exacerbate them.
Tomorrow, I have to spend a little time at the Charity shop tidying my parchment empire. There will be lots of time to complete the morning with lunch at the Buttercup Bistro, and a meander round the Dingley Dell Used Parchment Emporium.
Later,Pendragon will make a stunning supper, and we'll talk till the night falls.
On Sunday, I have calls to make on the woodland phone to catch up with Piccallilli Peasegood, and old friend Revillatta Windspa.
I'd better leave a good part of the day free for that, as such calls can eat up a whole afternoon. Pendragon usually punctuates these get-togethers with at least a couple of acorn coffees delivered to my perch in the Blue Room.
May your Saturday find you busy with your favourite things, my friends, and Sunday take you to your favourite spots. May a weekend of warmth and harmony be yours.
From Amarantha Willow, the Rainbow Faery, from number five.
