I need a new phrase for 'not a good day'

 

So last night I did go to bed early.  I went to bed early . . . and read.  Till it wasn't anything like early any more.  Or rather, it was the wrong kind of early:  the military-bloke-across-the-road getting off to an early start kind of early . . . which is the kind of early that makes you think involuntarily of a John Le Carré novel, and also makes you want to be asleep not because the ungleblarging sun is already coming up again* but because you want to be able to say 'no' and mean it if any dark-suited guys with empty eyes knock on your door some day and ask if you've  noticed anything strange about your neighbour—although he's probably only trying to be quiet because he doesn't want to wake the neighbours**.  In terms of staying up late this overactive-imagination predawn twilight mystery scenario is still to be preferred to hearing the kid-across-the-road going off to school, but is still quite late/early enough.  So I'm a little short of sleep.  (Again.)  Make that a lot short of sleep.

            Meanwhile my voice teacher is still among the missing***, which means another unleashed Monday afternoon with a dog minder already booked in.  I've forgotten how to play hooky, how sad is that?  So I pulled myself together and went into Mauncester with a short list of three crucial items†.

            I failed to find even one of them.††

            I came home††† feeling snarly and out of sorts and mainlined frightening quantities of brutally stewed tea in the faint hope of being awake and alert for bell ringing tonight, which was going to be at Colin's garage—I've told you about Colin's mini-ring, haven't I?  He has an eight-bell ring of itty-bitty, small-bucket/large-flowerpot-sized bells hung in the roof of his garage—but they're proper change-ringing bells, they're in full-circle frames and the little ropes have little fuzzy sallies on them, they're just titchy.  You ring them like normal tower bells . . . only a lot more gently.   They make me crazy.  As the months pass and my reluctant experience on the dire little gremlins increases—Monday evening practise is held there only occasionally‡—I have gone from being totally freaking hopeless to merely paralytically erratic and prone to minor bouts of hysteria.  We got through most of a touch of bob minor and it wasn't me that fired it out.   —Whereupon Colin called for Cambridge.  And when that Did Not Go Well‡‡ he decided to drill me on . . . well, it's called 'making places', and it means hanging around at one 'place' in the row, instead of moving up or down through the pattern, which is what you're usually doing.  There's a distressing amount of making places in Cambridge.  It's basically a problem of bell-handling, it's what's zonking up my Cambridge in the tower, and I can't handle those frelling little tin cans anyway.   

            I tell myself I have to be nice to Colin because he's my conductor for my new schedule of practise quarters GAAAAAAH.  And I had to be nice to Niall, who is the evil ratbag who (eagerly) suggested the charming educational method that has the poor slob on the four endlessly making places, because he was my ride home.  I was the poor slob on the four, of course.

            Extra chocolate has been needed tonight.  And a nice cold bottle of prosecco.  

* * *

* Didn't it just do that at pretty much this time yesterday?

** Having perhaps not grasped the depths of free-lance depravity occurring right in front of him.  And in front of his tender, innocent daughters.   

*** I just hope she's not damaging her throat, yelling at her builders.  YOU SAID YOU'D BE OUT OF HERE A FORTNIGHT AGO!  You also said that the floor and the walls would still meet at 90° angles, the door would still open, and the ceiling would be where it was before you arrived!  You weren't supposed to do ANYTHING to the ceiling!  And furthermore, the tiles I picked out of the catalogue were blue, not magenta!   

† That I've been failing to find on the internet.  It's scary how much of my shopping I do on the internet any more.   Other old people will remember when The Monster Mall killed off little local downtown shops;  what I'm wondering is if what I'm seeing now is the comeback of the little local downtown shops while the internet kills off The Monster Mall.  

†† There was also a deeply embarrassing moment when, having found something else to buy, and flashed my new-issue store card^ at the clerk at the till, she politely pointed out that I hadn't signed it yet and did I have some other card with a signature on it^^ that she could just look at . . . and I discovered that I hadn't signed any of them.^^^ 

^ Why do they do this?  I don't need a new card every three months when I only use the freller about twice a year.  And the shiny new logo isn't going to make me use it any oftener. 

^^ Preferably mine 

^^^ Please note I've now signed everything, including my library card, so don't bother to pick my pocket. 

††† to beautifully walked hellhounds 

‡ Thank the gods 

‡‡ We got through to the end on the second try, but Colin was hoarse from shouting.^

^ It's okay though.  He doesn't teach singing.