A day of drama

It’s Mahri and Gilmore’s cocktail party tonight. I rang to ask what I could bring. Wine perhaps?

“Bring grapes,” she said.

“Or mixers. Like lemonade.”

Later I spoke to her again, just to check.

“Bring dessert.”

“How many people?”

“About 20.” She expressed a preference for profiteroles.

Jeanette and I are going to Dundee with her friend Rhoda where I am sure we can find desserts. Jan is making a lemon cheesecake. We hope that M&S has profiteroles.

On our way to Dundee, we stop at the craft shop, handily situated in the middle of nowhere. Jeanette needs lampshade moulds. We end up buying more balls of Can Can wool.

“Tea?”

In the craft shop cafe, a sign tells us to ring for service. A rather doddery old fellow in his 80s appears, dressed in baggy blue denim jeans tied with a belt but also held up by wide braces – he looks like a cross between John Wayne and Mick Jagger. We order pancakes and truffles with our tea, and he coughs rather nastily as he shakily reaches for the cakes. We all try to pretend we didn’t notice - because we are thirsty and hungry and there is nowhere else nearby for refreshments – and cross our fingers behind our backs that he is not harbouring any infectious disease.

Rhoda pours her tea, stirs in the sugar, and takes a sip.

“Ow, that tastes foul! It tastes like poison!”

Jeanette pokes her nose into the teapot.

“Och, I think someone’s left detergent in the pot, it smells awful. Send it back,” she says.

The doddery man duly returns with a replacement pot.

Rhoda pours her tea, reaches for the sugar, rips the top off the sachet and is about to pour it into the cup.

“Oh my, it’s pepper – silly me.”

“Do you think you put pepper in the other cup?” Jeanette asks. We scrabble around on the tabletop and find an offending empty sachet of salt, which we all find hysterically funny. At least Rhoda is not the victim of a strychnine attempt.

In Dundee I purchase chocolate brownie cake, raspberry roulade, cherry friand and a large tub of double cream – M&S is clean out of profiteroles. We walk through the town centre, finalise some Christmas shopping and head back to the village. It is dark, and 6.30pm, when we pull into the lane. Mahri’s party starts at 7.00pm so we are in a rush to get home and change into our party frocks before heading up the hill.

But when I reach my cottage, disaster strikes. No matter which way I try, my key will not turn in the lock. Jeanette uses the light of the screen of her mobile phone to act as a torch, and we see a small piece of metal lodged in the keyhole.

“Let’s get Eric!” so we head back into the village to find Eric, the local handyman and fixer.

“He might be having his tea,” I say, when our banging on his door raises no response, despite there being lights on inside. Jeanette phones him from her mobile. He says he is in the shower as he is very dirty, but will be come on over once he has cleaned up.

This is an emergency, so Jeanette and I realise there is nothing else for it but a cup of tea and a mince pie to keep up our strength, while we wait for Eric.

Eric arrives and examines the lock. He shakes his head solemnly.

“Aye, this is the worst thing that can happen,” he says. “The worst thing.”

According to Eric, the only way to get into my cottage is to break the door down, tearing it from its jamb. Before he does this, he will see if a knitting needle will do the trick.

Jeanette calls Gordon, who is always calm and full of good advice in a crisis. All Gordon says is, “I’m glad I’m not there”. He also suggests we get the ladders out of the shed and send Eric up to break and enter via one of the upstairs  bedroom windows. Then he can open one of the double-glazed windows downstairs and I will be climb in that way (Santa-wise, ho ho ho). Tomorrow we can get a locksmith.

Eric is mortified that he cannot find a way to open the mortice lock; the knitting needle failed. Determined not to let us down, he decides to try the key one more time. We hear him stomp back down the lane.

“I am one lucky man! It’s opened!”

With the wind at about minus 10, we all hop around for joy and declare Eric a hero, but his rescue mission is not complete yet. With the front door wide open, and Jeanette holding the torch, he proceeds to pull apart the door lock and handle which are both stuck fast.

“It’s okay, Eric,” I say. “Come back in the daylight. I don’t mind not locking the front door.”

“Och nay,” says Eric. “Black Jake might get ya.” And while he tells us how recent events have caused Black Jake’s ire to well and truly rise to heights of supreme anger which might lead to heavens knows what other mayhem, he pieces together and replaces the lock, squeezes Fairy Liquid on it (I was out of WD40) and heads back to Gladys and his tea.

Reader, the story of Black Jake will have to wait for another day, for right now we are late for cocktails at Mahri and Gilmore’s.