The beds.

Just as we sat down to Sunday lunch the phone went. It was the owner of the bed shop. The van with our long awaited furniture was making slower progress than he'd thought and he was only just south of Paris : - 'Thanks for being so patient I should be with you around six'. With that he rang off. So much for being here first thing in the morning and so much for my chance to explain how patient I was feeling. At six thirty, as I was wondering whether to open a bottle of claret for dinner, the phone went again. ' Oh Hi. I'm just passing Cahors , I'll be at the house in about an hour'. At eighty thirty he phoned again (yes, Oh Hi!) to say he was off the motorway and would be with us in twenty or so minutes.

The driver eventually arrived at the front door at nine fifteen last night as bright and breezy as though he'd only been on the road for an hour. It seems he had left the showroom on Saturday afternoon after loading the van but in his ' haste' had forgotten to wear a watch. As a result he was using the clock in the delivery van unaware that it was six hours slow. This only came to light when he turned up for the nine o'clock ferry from Dover to Calais on Saturday night only to discover it was by now two am on Sunday!

I sat in amazement listening to this dysfunctional tale of woe while 'the font' decided that the poor boy must be starving and promptly insisted he sit down to eat something hot. Never again shall I spend a Sunday evening helping to unload beds in the pouring rain. He eventually left at one fifteen this morning, brim full of energy and keen to get on the road to Rheims to load up his by now empty van with cheap champagne . It was only as I lay my head on the pillow that it struck me that the beds arrived on the very day the house emptied. Wilf and Digby sat in the hallway following the unloading of the van with close interest and thoroughly enjoying the entertainment. Digby had that look on his face that seemed to say ' why don't we do this every night?'.