A Christmas Story – An Abandoned Car

Winter gales swept across the country and in response, the Government swept away all public transport and the need to travel to work or school. The roads of suburbia Dublin at dawn lay deserted, their un-walked footpaths covered in a layer of multi-colored leaves that were further dissolving with each passing day.

Photo by Marta Dzedyshko on Pexels.com

The latest blustery storm had arrived at ten o’clock last night and though I’d stepped out into the darkness, Buttons had had other ideas. He declined all my beckoning to join me in the darkness. So there he sat on the doormat, immovable, fixing me with his unblinking eyes and wearing a serious face that asked,  “Are you quite mad?”

“I mean, … do you seriously expect me to go out in that?”

He had a point. I argued with him, half-heartedly, while I stood out there being buffeted by the strong wind and saturated by the driving rain. He won.  I locked the front door, set the alarm and we both went to bed.

The next morning, we stepped out before breakfast. It had been ten hours since his aborted walk and it would be unfair to expect a dog to clench his cheeks for much longer. Regardless of the weather, we were going to take a walk.

I wrapped up well, while he settled for the warmth provided by his shiny black fur coat, and off we set. Above us, the clouds whirled past in a hurry, whilst around us the wind cut through my lightweight jacket, like a knife through butter. I had it zipped up as high as it would go, yet the cruel wind still found a way inside. I pulled down my Beaney hat hard to prevent it from being blown away and I beat my arms furiously like a swan attempting to lift off, to get my circulation going and warm blood to my frozen fingers.

At least, twice a day we undertook this walk, a must for dogs and humans, but for very different yet shared reasons. My pockets were filled with disposable black plastic bags whilst his bum was filled with ten hours of poop. There would be a load transfer within the hour. He trotted ahead on the lead, sniffing a few tree trunks, cocking a leg over a discarded bottle, basically following his usual modus operandi.

Neither of us sensed that today’s walk would be any different from that which had gone before, every day, for the past six years. Then I heard a roar from the dark menacing sky above and the leaves around us rose as one, from the wet dew-covered grass they’d laid upon. It was as if they’d been plucked from the ground by a giant invisible hand. I watched in astonishment as they rose in their hundreds, high into the air, swirling about. Then I too felt the pull of this invisible force. I’m sure we would have been flying high too but for the dog’s lead that I had gripped so tightly. The wind had pulled the dog to the right of a tree whereas I got pulled to the left. My fevered efforts to release myself, by tugging on the lead, only served to tighten its grip on the tree. The lead was wrapped firmly around my wrist whilst the other end was attached to his walking jacket which tightly wrapped around his waist. There we stood, on our hind legs, man and dog, tied to a tree, defenceless, whilst all around us leaves and branches flew about.

“Slap, slap, slap.” That was the sound of me being struck in the face, more than once,  by flying wet leaves, which were hurtling past me at great speed. I managed to free one hand so I swatted away several more leaves before the wind dropped, as suddenly as it had arrived.  It was as if an invisible giant had grown tired of toying with us. With a final flourish, the leaves lost their energy and fell to the ground. There they lay, scattered across the open grass once more. The deafening noise that had accompanied the storm was now absent and the whole scene fell silent. Not for long, however, as Buttons filled the void, barking loudly. Sadly no one was around to hear him. Eventually, I eased the lead from around my wrist and wriggled myself free. Buttons too, now released himself and we both appeared none the worse for our experience. Above us, the clouds had cleared away and we could see the dawn rising in the distance.

We pressed on and about ten minutes later we reached the Roman Catholic church, a large imposing building dating from the 1970s. I let him off his lead at this stage because Buttons is not a dog that chases balls, lumps of wood, or other dogs. Oh no, the only thing that turbocharges this dog is the sight of squirrels and this area has a small forest for him to explore. Released from the lead, he took off like a rocket, clearing paths with a single bound, cornering trees at high speed, and zig-zagging through bushes, in a frantic search for the one animal that he could smell oh so clearly. Sadly for him on this morning, as on so many others, the grey, long-tailed, furry creatures were probably looking down from on high. When he had worn himself out and the fever had passed I set about attaching him to his lead once more.

It was as I was approaching him, that I spotted the car. It was hard to miss as it was the only car in a very large church car park. A small silver two-door, 2016 registration number with up-to-date tax discs.  It also had a notice pinned by a windscreen wiper to the outside of the front windscreen.

“Will the owner of this car please contact the parish office at 06 23564711,” it said.

Walking this route twice daily I knew the car hadn’t been parked there for long. I guessed we’d passed this spot yesterday evening at about 6:00 pm.  I walked all around the car, peering inside each window to see if I could guess whose car it might be. The front seats and footwells were clean and devoid of any rubbish. On the back seat, a brown paper bag of grocery shopping had fallen sideways. A packet of sliced Parma ham was lying next to it. On the far side of the back seat lay a copy of “Empire”, a movie fan magazine. However, the biggest clue of who the owner might be was a silver walking frame lying sideways across the back seat.  

Putting it all together I surmised it was probably an elderly lady, living alone,  a churchgoer who spent her winter afternoons in the cinema watching movies.  She might not have needed the walker if she had gone to the service last night as she’d parked very close to the church doors. Once seated inside there was no need for the walker unless she went up to the altar for holy communion but maybe the priest brought the communion to her. I looked over at the large sign outside the church. Yes, the evening service was at 8:00 pm last night so that supports my theory. But why did she abandon her car?

Had she fallen ill during the service and been taken away by ambulance? It was a possibility but I dismissed that theory because with church attendance numbers low I’d imagine the woman and her car would have been well-known to the priest if she lived locally. They wouldn’t have needed to place a note on the windscreen.

Had she been from another parish but had attended a funeral at this church and fallen ill? That was another possibility. I pulled out my mobile phone and checked the church’s website for funerals scheduled for yesterday but there were none.

Was it possible she parked her car in the church car park but she had no relationship with the church? It was a distinct possibility. The car park was used by parents and teachers of boys and girls in the primary schools nearby. On the opposite side of the street was a large gated apartment complex. Maybe she was visiting someone there and didn’t have the access code to the apartment’s car park, so parked in the church car park instead.

It was all a bit of a mystery. Buttons was getting restless and I was beginning to feel the cold myself so I took one last glance around the vehicle and then, for some inexplicable reason, I reached out and tried a door handle. The door opened. Before I could stop him Buttons had wriggled past me and was in the car and on the back seat. He grabbed between his teeth the packet of Parma ham.

Annoyed, I pulled him from the car and then spent the next few minutes wrestling with him in the car park over the packet of ham he had clenched between his teeth. You’d swear I never fed him! The packet, as it turns out, had already been opened so during the ensuing tug of war, it split wide open spilling its meaty contents on the wet ground. I was left holding the empty packet. I threw it in the car and slammed the car door shut. Meanwhile, the victor stood nearby eating his ill-gotten gains. It was hard to be angry with him as he was a rescue dog that had been underfed by his previous owners. He’s had a thing about food ever since, a bit like his owner.

We set off for home and were approaching the petrol station when he pulled hard on the lead and we veered to the right, towards a vacant piece of land. Public access was prevented by a pair of tall metal gates hanging from concrete pillars, themselves covered in graffiti. Draped across the gates was a metal chain and lock and beyond the gates, a short path led to what appeared to be a field. The field as far as I knew was just scrubland with a few trees dotted about. The rear gardens of surrounding housing estates backed onto it on two sides while the school and a park bordered the others. This was the only way in.

It was at the centre of these gates that Buttons was showing huge interest, sniffing loudly, his ear pricked up, his nose twitching, and his body tense. If it was a squirrel, I couldn’t see it but he was definitely in hunting mode.

“What is it, boy,?” I asked. I reached out and pulled on the metal chain. The gates parted slightly, a little more than I had expected. Probably enough for a small dog or small person to squeeze through. Buttons was unusually persistent. I pulled him away but he started barking and barking, straining to return to the gates.

“OK Boy” I assured him with a pat on the head. Firstly, he and then I squeezed through the narrow gap. My jacket got covered in flaking orange metallic rust that fell from the gates and I tore a leg of my jeans on a jagged metal upright. Once through we walked onwards into the wilderness along paths probably only used by wild animals such as foxes, rabbits,  and of course squirrels.  The graffiti sprayed on the side walls indicated generations of young boys had been in here too. On we pressed with Buttons, still on his lead, pulling me along, impatient to get to something ahead of us.

Now he stopped one paw in the air, his nose twitching again. He’d heard something.  I listened too but heard nothing at first, nothing but the roar of passing traffic. I stopped by his side and stood perfectly still and then I heard it too. The sound was coming from ahead of us. I released him from the lead and he darted off into a clump of bushes about twenty feet away. I followed more cautiously, carefully avoiding fallen trees, building rubble and discarded glass bottles. I reached the bushes and decided the safer option was to walk around it. And that’s when I found them both, Buttons and the woman.

Behind the bushes lay a deep ditch and at the bottom of it, covered in mud and caught firmly by some brambles was an old woman who stared up at me and mouthed something I couldn’t quite catch. Slowly I slid down the side of the ditch and was at her side in seconds. The fact that she was alive and awake filled me with hope that maybe this story could have a happy ending. She lay face up but was unable to move. Looking at the state of her coat I think she’d rolled down the side of the ditch but she was pinned to the spot by the barbed brambles and lay in a few inches of water.  Buttons stood by her side sipping the muddy water, thirsty I suppose from eating the salty Italian ham.

Fortunately for her too, when she’d gone out she’d worn a heavy winter’s coat with a hood, tall black boots, and a scarf, for all those pieces of clothing had prevented her from freezing to death.

“How are you love?” I asked.

“I’ve been better,” she answered “but I’m a bit stuck”

“I can see that,” I said “I’ll get you free and out of here in no time. Listen, is anything hurting, any bones broken?”

“I don’t think so son, I haven’t been able to move for so long so I can’t be sure. I’m willing to give it a try if you are?” she answered. “Before we do anything – have you a phone with you?”

“What?” I said.“Yes, I sure have my dear. What’s your name” I asked, as I pulled my phone from my pocket and started to key in 999.”

“Alice” she answered “Alice Timmons”  

My head shot up and I looked hard at her. “Timmons?” I asked – but before she could answer, my call to the emergency services was answered. “Yes, yes, ambulance and fire brigade. A  woman has fallen into a ditch by the petrol station on Ballinteer Road, D16 K456. No, it’s not at the station but on a patch of wasteland behind it. Entrance is by some gates chained together which they’ll have to cut to get past.”

“Yes, she’s awake and breathing but I’ll need help to get her out of the ditch” I added.

I put the phone down and relayed the news to Alice “They are on their way and will be with us in ten minutes.”

“Let’s see if we can get you a bit more comfortable,” I said and with that, I joined her in the bottom of the ditch. Dirty water flooded into my runners and saturated my feet as I squirmed about with Alice removing the brambles one at a time from her coat and hair. She seemed in good shape save for some scratches and cuts that ran across her forehead. Her hands were frozen and she looked very pale.

“Can you move now? If I get under your right shoulder and you grab my arm we’ll get you out of the water on the count of three. Ready?”

She nodded.

“OK, one, two ….. three!” I counted and with both of us giving it everything, she moved the vital six inches, out of the water and onto the ditch bank. We both lay there panting. 

“How long have you been here?” I asked her when I’d got my breath back.

“I’ve no idea. What time is it now?” Alice asked.

“Twenty past eight on Monday morning,” I told her.

“Lord God, I’ve been here ten hours and twenty minutes then” she announced.

“You’re good with numbers,” I said grinning.

“I’m not senile if that’s what you meant” she snapped back, and then smiled.“I’m sorry love. It’s been a bit of a rough night.”

“Well, we have a few minutes, tell me about it,” I said.

“I’d been to mass in St. Joseph’s last night and Father Peter, God bless him, he rambles on a bit. Now there is someone who may be senile. He was celebrating mass on his own and sure there were only a handful of us scattered about the place.

He started going on about the message from Jesus in his sermon on the mount, about how blessed the cheesemakers were. What good was that for us to know? I doubt if there was a cheesemaker in the church to hear the good news. Anyway, he dragged it out and the final “Go in peace” wasn’t heard until gone nine.

I shook his hand at the door and walked across the path to my car. I noticed the racing clouds above and felt sure it was about to rain so I got to the car as fast as I could. I looked down to root in my handbag for the car keys and I remembered putting them in the door lock when I felt myself lifting off the ground. It was a strangely wonderful sensation just floating up into the sky. I thought I was dreaming.

“You became Mary Poppins then?” I tried to add a bit of humour. (To my younger readers, Mary Poppins was a Disney character who could fly using her opened umbrella.)

“Not quite, eh – but what’s your name?” she asked “I need to know who I’m thanking”.

“I’m Mark and this here” I pointed to the dog nearby “is Buttons”

“Nice to meet you both,” she said before continuing her story. “Anyway, there I was high in the sky and being tossed head over heels when I felt my handbag slip out of my hands. Then I looked around and saw that I was high in the sky, above the roof of the church. It was all happening so fast. I struggled to get myself upright and to stay that way. My coat had burst open and I grabbed the sides and used it like wings to control my crazy movements. It worked. All the while I drifted above the empty car park and saw that I was heading towards the garage. I knew if I landed on the concrete forecourt there I was dead.”

“So what did you do Alice?” I asked.

“Mark I did the only thing I could. I aimed myself towards the small forest and at the last moment I pulled my coat in tight, to my side. I instantly lost my ability to fly and I dropped like a stone. I fell through the swirling mass of branches and leaves. I found myself tossed from branch to branch, but always going downwards. I left the landing in the hands of sweet Jesus himself. If He wanted me to live I would. I was aware that I was slowing down and then suddenly I fell out of a tree and crashed landed in  a clump of bushes, before sliding backwards into this ditch!”

“And you’ve been awake, lying here ever since?” I asked.

“On and off,” she said and before she could say anymore we heard the sounds of voices approaching. My phone came alive with a call and I answered it.

“Aye, we can hear you. Head to the end of the path and turn right by the clump of bushes. We are behind it,” I said.

I turned to Buttons “Buttons, go and bring them to us” and that’s what he did.

Alice was examined by the medics and carefully lifted by the firemen from the ditch. Seems she got away with a touch of hyperthermia and a few cuts and bruises. Her handbag and car keys were never found.  As we accompanied her to the ambulance she turned to me and said. “When I gave you my name, you seemed a bit shocked. Why?”

“Alice Timmons?” I said and she nodded.

“That was my grandmother’s name,” I said, “and you know, she looked a lot like you but…”  

I paused

“ she couldn’t fly.”

A Christmas Gift Only We Can Give

With Christmas barely a week away the hunt for suitable presents is reaching a fever pitch. Parents are hitting the shops with definite lines of inquiry. At least for them, they know intimately their recipients and have a list of products to aim for. Specific things that must be wrapped and under that Christmas tree on Christmas morning, come hell or high water.

If so they are the lucky ones, for there are many of us with a list of names but no specific gift list to work off. We enter the shops with only the vaguest inkling of what we are searching for and for whom. For us, there follow several hours of traipsing up and down shopping isles, seeking divine inspiration from a benign God.

The next paragraph will come across as a bit inhuman, clinical, and monetary but it is effective so I had to include it.

If you are at the stage of life when you have grandchildren to cater for, I’ve found the best approach is to agree on a present value per child and then transfer that amount to the parents’ bank accounts so that the parents will purchase what’s desired by the children, not my best guess that could be miles off the mark. Sometimes the money we supply will only go towards an expensive game or toy but it’s better to enable the right present to be under the tree than for it not to be there at all. Expectations run high in some quarters. On the day when we visit, we are generally told which present came from us, so we can seamlessly take the thanks.

Buying gifts for people of a certain age, for whom this Christmas isn’t their first rodeo can prove awkward. I probably should include myself in this group. This group generally have enough stashed away in the bank to buy whatever they want throughout the year. They don’t need or want anything.  That’s the buyer’s dilemma, in a nutshell.  What do you buy that doesn’t gather dust on the sideboard or get rewrapped and given away minutes after your departure?

Food and drink come to mind as relatively safe offerings. We do have one person on our list who asks for a certain branded bottle of whiskey every year. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. However, others are allergic to metal, are vegetarian, or simply, male.

The average male can be hard to buy gifts for as many show no interest in shopping, for anything, full stop. God bless the sports fanatics but even then, how do you know they don’t already have whatever you are buying them? Some men buy clothes and shoes expecting them to last their lifetime and don’t see the need to change or keep up with the fashion seasons.  

I have to own up to being one such man. I buy clothes and, to a lesser extent footwear, with expectations of years of use. When, for example, the Asics running shoes are replaced by a newer pair, the old set is downgraded to everyday use for the next year or two. After that, when they begin to show further signs of wear and tear, they become garden/DIY runners. We are talking a minimum of five years before they enter the trash can.

About ten years ago I carried out a cull of my wardrobe. I  filled a black bin liner with T-shirts, jeans, shirts, and jumpers that I could live without and walked into a local “Cash for Clothes” shop. I  stood behind another man, who was at the counter with two bags of clothes. I, naively assumed that they weighed my bag and paid me by the pound so you can imagine my shock when the shop assistant opened his bag and checked its contents, extracting and examining them, item by item.  It looked to me as if he had laundered and ironed them or just bought them as they were in immaculate condition. I knew, there and then, I’d made a big mistake and turned on my heels and left the shop never to return.

A Christmas Gift Only We Can Give

It’s a time of the year when I envy those with skills in artistry, woodwork, music, or painting that can create that unique personal gift

and then it struck me…. I can write…….I too can create a unique gift!

Maybe I could fashion a poem or a story that could amuse, entertain, or fill ten or twelve minutes of your life with a new short story.

So, dear reader, I have written a short winter’s tale and it will be entering your email box on Christmas Morning, Monday 25^th December 2023 at 7:00 am GMT.

I hope you will enjoy it and it struck me that since many of you are writers too, maybe you could fashion your own unique Christmas tale and post it on that morning too.

Thinking more about it you could make your story more personal by including old friends and family, even deceased persons. Why not? After all, it’s your story and you have absolute power as the writer to populate your story world with whoever you wish.

Getting Rid Of “Stuff”

Part of growing old is letting go, of “stuff,” and it’s not as easy as one would suspect, even in this digital world. I say “Stuff” deliberately as it’s an all-encompassing word that can apply to anything a human can possess and yes, it can include other humans.

The appreciation that, life is for living, but we aren’t supplied with an infinite period to live, meant that some people were dispensed with, along the way. They devoured too much of my time in too many negative incidents to merit inclusion in my final years.

I began material downsizing this year when we sold our country home to people who wanted the house and garden, but not our contents. We were faced with clearing the house of all our belongings, be that by selling them, taking them to the local dump, giving them away, or moving them to our new home.

Some items earmarked for moving with us missed the final journey as it didn’t happen. We were exhausted and Christmas was celebrated. It was over the following months that I’d searched for something only to realize that it had been left behind. The timescale had been ridiculously tight but somehow we had achieved it and the property sale went through on the agreed date.

It hurt to let go of things we loved. The polytunnel (read greenhouse), the garden, the hot tub, and the ride-on lawnmower. OK, the ride-on was probably surplus to requirements given that our new front garden is the size of a doormat, but I must be allowed to miss it, can’t I?

The homes were vastly different in size so hard decisions had to be made. Many items made the journey but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that a second cut of possessions was needed. I mean, the front room was jammed with a leather three-piece suite of furniture, thirty binliner bags of clothing, and three mattresses. Even the dog couldn’t find anywhere to sit.

The second cut was the deepest in so far as the “stuff” that I most cared about, that had moved house with me, for forty-plus years, across various countries, was a big part of the problem that needed fixing.

Selling “Stuff”

Vinyl Records Now we get to the meat of the matter. My vinyl record collection originated when I was a teenager in the late 1960s and grew exponentially until 1980 when I moved to live in England. By the time I felt settled in England in 1990 I shipped them over. Consisting of a thousand singles and five hundred albums, each record held a memory for me. Letting them go was hard, one of the hardest things I have ever done. I took comfort from the fact that the buyer was a geek, like me, just half my age and with a great knowledge of obscure Irish folk rock bands. He examined every record before pronouncing himself satisfied. “How much?” he asked. “I genuinely don’t know” I answered. “I’ll give you three hundred,” he said and I nodded. That was much more than I had expected. I helped him load the cardboard boxes into his car and knew they were going to a good home.

The furniture disposal was the most shocking element of the exercise. I tried to sell the furniture, that in its day had cost thousands, but to no avail. I can only conclude the country must be awash with sideboards, dressers, beds, couches, tables, and chairs. Even modern IKEA units costing a thousand new are barely attracting interest when sold second-hand. Even if priced in the low hundreds they attract a limited response. You see, it has nothing to do with the condition of the unit. The truth is people today only want to buy new.

The dark brown, mahogany-shaded furniture is out of fashion. It was all I can recall seeing when I was a child of the 1950s. Room after room of my grandparent’s houses was filled with gloomy, lacquered polished brown wood. Piano’s, sideboards, tables and chairs. Even the three monkeys on the fireplace, “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” were made of, you’ve guessed it, polished brown wood.

Back in the day, I gladly accepted a used fridge, bought a second-hand television, and fitted my employer’s old office carpet, retrieving it from a skip late one night. I can remember just being thrilled that finally, at thirty-two years of age, I had a place I owned. OK, the television sat on an inverted packing box with a pair of rabbit’s ears perched on top and the gas cooker was about to be condemned, though I didn’t know that at the time, but little things like that weren’t going to dampen my homeowner joy. I’d come a long way from the working man’s hostel just ten years earlier.

When my parent’s home was being sold seven years ago I rescued their furniture. I would have bought the house but it was financially out of my reach so I had to settle for the furniture. For fifty-seven years I had the comfort of knowing, that if the world went to hell in a handbasket, if my life became rubbish, if I fucked up entirely, I just had to catch a plane, hop on a bus or walk the roads to reach the blue front door of number 34 Merville and there would be a bed and unconditional love for me. I only pulled that trick once and it worked but I knew I had to face my demons so I flew away again and sorted things out.

On the house clearing day, I remember walking down the drive of their house and coming across a metallic skip containing an artificial Christmas tree and its decorations, dating from the 1960s. It had presided over all of my first twenty-five Christmases.  From the first when I was the only child present, through to the latter ones, when four boys sat on the floor ripping wrapping paper from presents faster than their mother could read the gift tags that accompanied them.

I picked up a small faded plastic reindeer decoration that had fallen onto the concrete and stared hard at it. My mother’s one alcoholic weakness was a Babysham at Christmas and this reindeer was identical to the one on the Babysham bottle. I smiled as I remembered how one sip from the wide-rimmed glass had such an effect on her. The bubbles from the sparkling drink would slip up her nose and in no time at all, she was coughing and spluttering with her eyes watering. She’d blush with embarrassment and pull a tissue from her pocket to wipe her eyes before disappearing back into the kitchen to see to the dinner.

In this country, you can’t give “stuff” away. Seriously, most charity shops are not interested in furniture anymore and definitely none want old or used mattresses.

Selling “stuff” Online is now a cheap, easy activity but it’s also been a frustrating exercise. I’ve encountered people whose only aim appears to be to waste my time.  

Online Time Waster – See the conversation below which follows my advertising of a table and four chairs for sale. “Mary” asked for photographs and a confirmation that the table and chairs were still available.

Tue 3:49 PM

I sent  “I’ll accept 225 if you can collect soon and for cash”

Mary  “Ye no problem can collect today can you send me more pics, please”

Mary  “We’re you based” ……………….she means “where are you based”

Mary, “I can collect in about an hour and half“

I sent “I’ll accept 225“

Mary “OK I’m coming from Enniscorthy leaving bow” …………she meant “leaving now” She lives about an hour and a half away from me so that much stacks up.

Tue 4:43 PM

I sent “You’re coming a long way, OK  GPS will find us. Call 05798564 if you have problems”

Tue 7:20 PM I sent  “Still on the way?”

It is now two and half hours since she departed and still no sign of her.

I went to bed at 11:oo pm.

Wed 12:43 AM

Mary “Yes I’m still on the way I got held back.”

Mary  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes”

I woke up on Wednesday and read the above messages. So having promised to collect at 7:00 pm she didn’t and at 1:00 am, during the night, she proposed to collect at 2.05 am!

Sufficient to say, that I never heard from her again.

Online people who aren’t who they say they are. The table and chairs went to an “Ellie” whose picture showed a rather serious-looking middle-aged woman with glasses and slightly tinted short hair. A person not to be messed with but that’s fine. I like dealing with no-nonsense people. She’d been on Facebook since 2013 so reassuringly long. The online conversation traveled the normal route, of Ellie trying and succeeding in reducing the price. Then there was a pause as she had to source a man with a van to collect the furniture.

By 11:00 pm on Tuesday, we had an agreement on the price and I gave out my address. The ball was back in her court, to return to me with a collection time. Unusually, she went quiet – until 2:00 pm the next day.

“I’ve just seen this now. I wasn’t feeling well last night so slept it out,” she said. Must have been a hell of a good night to sleep in that late.

“Let me call my man with a van and see if he can collect it this evening” she answered.

Later she said “The delivery guy said he could be at your place between 10 am and 11 am tomorrow for pick up. Does that work for you?”

I agreed to the time and it was only when the delivery guy, Lionel, turned up, that I began to suspect, I wasn’t dealing with Ellie. Lionel began a serious examination of the furniture. I thought I’d not seen such a diligent courier worker in my life. It turned out that Lionel was paying for the table and chairs – out of his own money. He would only be reimbursed, by a man called Paddy, upon delivery to a rural town in the midlands.

I guess the table and chairs are sitting, right now, in a furniture shop’s front window priced at six hundred for the lot, and sweet old Ellie doesn’t actually exist.

Getting rid of “Stuff” ain’t easy.