Carols

Mrs Boothby has entered our lives again, this time unaccompanied by her cat. “Can’t you put a plank across that hole?” she said the moment she walked through the door. I mumbled an apology though why I don’t know. It’s not as if the hole is my fault. The reason for her visit is that she’s organising the annual carol service and would we like to participate. “It’s a small church in another village. Very charming. Lovely acoustics. Do you sing?” Actually, Monica and I were both members of a choir in the UK, quite a well-known one and I wasn’t sure that the standard out here would be quite what we were used to. I said we’d think about it. “I shall be conducting,” she said, “And you do understand, if you want to participate, you’ll have to be audition.”

Sometime after she’d sailed out – and the way she spoke to me I was extremely glad I hadn’t put a plank over the hole - Monica come back from seeing Mrs Rupert about some yoga class or other. It turns out the hippy wife, whose name is Marigold, has an octopus like grip on anything locally to do with keep fit. I told that Mrs Boothby – somehow I can’t Patricia her– had come about a carol service. Monica said what a nice idea. I pointed out I wasn’t entirely sure the two of us would be comfortable under the baton of Mrs Boothby. I mean, how do we know she’s any good.

She was on the phone late that afternoon, as curt as usual. Rehearsals start at the weekend. Monica was all for it, so that evening, I have to say frankly with a bit of sense of doom, I was dragged round to Mrs Boothby’s house. I had to rootle about in the outhouse to find a plank to put over the trench but it’s a good ten minutes’ walk and I wasn’t wearing the right shoes. However, I could tell that Monica wasn’t going to take no for an answer so we had to go.

The smell of cats in that house is overpowering. She breeds Burmese and the place is awash with them. “They’re musical,” she explained, as we started to warm up and several of them began to yowl.  Anyway she seemed satisfied that we could tell the difference between a quaver and a minim and said we’d do. I can’t say the experience was a happy one and it doesn’t bode well for the future. As we were leaving I trod on of the cat’s tails and got thoroughly ticked off for carelessness. If she hadn’t been watching I would have kicked the little bugger out of the way. It was completely dark when we got back to the house and as I was walking over it the plank broke and I was pitched into the trench. Monica was remarkably unsympathetic and you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife for the rest of the evening. So much for good cheer to all men.