Back On The Train Gang

My Dear Fellows & Princess Normal,

Er Indoors and I have recently become subject to cabin fever. It is because we've had weeks off together. This has manifested itself in a couple of ways. The first is an obsession with Irish customs programme, "Stop, Search, Seize". We love this tv show with an unhealthy passion.

It is about Irish customs officials but mainly Bruce Heller stopping people from importing co-CAYN into Ireland. You can't imagine our delight to discover they also show it in NZ.

"Now, friend, ye're making me very nair-vus," Bruce will say. "Ye've jost arroyved from Bogota on a ret-orn ticket that has you in Doblin for just TREE days, and ye keep sniffin' and robbing yair sto-mack air ye SHOOR ye've not swa-loed co-CAYN??"

There will be an insert of Bruce just to the camera: "We tink we've found a swa-loer," he'll say. "It was just his general de-MAY-nour, that tipped us aff."

Ollie the Drug Dog will sit and stare at the passenger until an intimate search reveals that the passenger is indeed a co-CAYN smuggler.

Er Indoors and I have started imitating Bruce around the house. It started when we were taking the flat-pack furniture out of boxes.

"Now, oi'm going TREW the can-tents of this bax," I said. "Because oi have reason to believe it moight can-tain co-CAYN."

Er Indoors practically PISHED herself.

"As I taat," I continued. "This en-TOIR piece of for-ni-CHOOR is PURE co-CAYN. It will have to be seized and dis-TROYED."

Another manifestation of cabin fever happened the other night. Er Indoors looked at her phone at nineteen minutes past seven, did the Mexican wave to herself and said, "Nineteen-nineteen!"

"What was THAT?" I asked. A little surprised.

"I always do that," she said. "You've just never seen it before. If I look at the time on my phone and it's like, twenty-twenty or twenty-three-twenty-three, I do this."

She did the Mexican wave.

"I'm not sure why," she concluded. "I just do."

So now we both do it. I hold up my phone. "Er Indoors!" I say, "Look!"

"Twenty-one-twenty-one!" we say together. And we do the Mexican wave

This sort of ridiculous behaviour may come to an end today. Er Indoors started back at work. She has a little office set up in the living room and does her work from there.

I stayed out of her way to let her concentrate. I used my time to explore Thorndon, which is a suburb we are thinking of moving to, when we are in a position to buy something here. It was a beautiful day and I ended up at the train station which was built in 1934. It's a lovely art-deco building and I took lots of pictures all with my finger in them. The one you see above has been skillfully edited so that I am not giving you the finger in it. I do hope you appreciate this.

When I got home, Er Indoors informed me that she had read over 600 emails that she received last month. "Most of them were shut," she said in her Kiwi accent. "You know the sort of thing, 'turn out the lights when you leave the office', 'there's cake in the upstairs room', 'where shall we have the Christmas do this year'."

But it turns out there were a fair amount about her manager's bowel movements as well. "She has poo issues," said Er Indoors conspiratorially. "And the toilets in our office are rubbish, so there's usually an update about her constipation and/or diarrhoea."

"Here's one," she said. Then she read aloud:

I have a poo brewing the size of an aubergine. Just thought I should warn you. Sorry ladies.

"But she's copied Matt and James in as well," noted Er Indoors. "There's a whole chain of emails here," she added. "Lots of aubergine references. And one with just a picture of an aubergine."

Maybe I was wrong. It is possible the madness will continue after all.

S.