borntobesting:
it was probably just routine maintenance. They do that every once in a while.
I think you are right Born.
I happened to be called to the village Post office to take a telephony conversation today, it was at almost exactly ten to eleven by the hall clock because it's been stuck at that time since the "Lavinia" years and Lambert refuses to fetch Lorenc the jeweler to fix it, or at least move the hands occasionally.
The journey was more or less uneventful to a degree but I didn't let that stop me. Everywhere I looked there was no snow and no traffic was blocked despite how things might have been had there been any, which there wasn't.
The postmistress, Milly was eager to show me how to work the confounded machine but she still glared at me in a most malifiscious way when I began to hum "Milly Molly Mandy" just over my breath, but only because I know it annoys her but that's her fault for selling me some ice poles that tasted of vinegar twenty two years and sixty one days ago.
After plugging me into everything, and picking up another hand piece so that the old bat could listen in ( She says it's all about security what with walls having ears, loose lips sinking ships and iron railings being stolen from the houses leading down to the well on beach lane) anyway, after that, I could hear through some crackles and pops my good and very rich friend Spielberg wittering away inside the beastly machine.
After some confusion during which a friend of Milly (Molly Mandy ha ha) wanted some tripe for her husband and the boys and a trotter for the dog, but instead was invited to listen in to Spielberg which resulted in him telling Flo ( the tripe buying lady) what he actually wanted to tell me, I eventually got things sorted out and his voice from the device told me all he wanted me to know.
When questioned about whether he knew anything about goings on in the colonies ( I had been worried, that's why I asked) he told me and I believed him, that every one was making preparations for some sort of Tea Party to which inexplicably I had not been invited. As an aside he also mentioned that a friend of his niece had overheard a man on a ladder shouting to a lady in her backyard who his niece thought had said she had heard it from her husbands bosses seamstress, that someone else had mentioned that someone had seen a man with a broom sweeping the steps at wgt. So you see, this is what I would categorically term "routine" maintenance, just like you said.
I was so pleased with this little snippet of excitement that I cried aloud " Barry Spielberg! Oh you are a wonder! Do you know, I bet Mio will be asking about just this later today!"
On reflection it is just as well I cried aloud otherwise he might not have heard me, and the sentiment would have been wasted, which I always think is such a shame.
Of course by roughly ten to eleven (by the hall clock) the whole village knew of the call and I had impulse purchased a ball of string which was set out on a lovely and enticing display stand by the post office counter.
There was once again no snow on my return home.
I hope this clarifies things.
Lizzie xx