Hot sunny day, pretty much mimicking yesterday. Didn’t venture out much otherwise I would have got burnt.
Got up at about 8 which is earlier than usual, because as I pushed back the shutters and saw the mist on the hills being burnt away by the heat of the early morning sun I had a “Seize the Day!” moment and jumped out of bed all motivated. With such an early start I should be able to get a whole load more done than usual, and really take advantage of the early start.
Unfortunately I didn’t have a “Seize the Keys!” moment to go with all this early motivation.
I only have one pair of keys for the van. That’s van Ludwig, of course – the one that I use all the time and is my lifeline for everything that I do or anywhere that I go. Van Toolshed I have 2 sets of keys for and I never lock that so the keys are kind of irrelevant. But this morning I wanted to go and get some hinges for my kitchen cupboards and I wanted to go into town to pick-up my cheque-book and wanted to go and get some proper shopping for the week because Paul is coming, and so Ludwig would normally be my van of choice….but without keys Ludwig is as useless as yesterday’s baguette.
I couldn’t find the keys anywhere. I started at 8.30am calmly thinking where the fuck I could have left the keys. I thought back to when I’d last used the keys and this was sometime on Sunday (2 days ago). No panic, I haven’t been anywhere since Sunday so they must still be in situ somewhere sensible, so I looked in all the usual places I might throw the keys casually. Then I looked through all the pockets of all the trouser’s I’d worn since Saturday. No luck: Raised my official concern level to Annoying.
Had a look around where the keys always hang always (a.k.a. the key hook). No they definitely weren’t there. Checked to see if they had fallen off the hook and that meant sifting through my toolbox which was gravitationally below the keyhook. No, still no sign: Raised my level of concern to Some Concern.
Had a look downstairs. Perhaps I had taken them downstairs and put them on my bed-side table or other surface when I was tidying-up last night. Had a good look round downstairs, but still no keys. Concern level: Problematic.
Earlier, I’d put the washing on with all the clothes that I’ve been wearing over the last week, and obviously I’d checked every pocket and orifice of each item before thrusting it into the washing machine, so I really didn’t think the keys could have got in there. Besides, there was no graunching noises coming from the machine so I didn’t suspect that any more. But where else to look? I had to think about everywhere I might have been in the last 48 hours since the keys were last used.
Went and visited everywhere in the house I’d been in the last 48 hours. Started to look PROPERLY in all the places I’d looked before – you know like taking the trouble to move things around a bit and lifting things up and looking beneath and doing the kind of searching that only women can normally do. I looked everywhere, and there was still no sign. This was one hour into the search & so I was forced to raise my level of concern to F-ing ridiculous.
I had to take stock of the situation. I was already at women-strength searching, and I was beginning to move furniture; take all the bedding off; shake all the covers off the sofas; look down all the gaps in the floorboards; chip-out the mortar in the brickwork etc etc.
I decided to recheck everywhere I’d searched everywhere again so far. That always works whenever you’ve got a girlfriend who asks: “Do you want me to have look for you?”, but you don’t want to give-in just yet. Except that I haven’t got a girlfriend to hand at the moment, although I did think about ringing Ilka because she would probably suggest somewhere I hadn’t looked ever in my life. “Have you looked down the back of the giraffe?”, she would probably say. And without there ever being a giraffe in my life ever, there the lost item would be. Such is the wonder of good-looking girls.
But with no such giraffe, or any sign of the keys, I was forced to raise my concern level to critical.
At such a level, there are not many more options available. One is forced to take stock of the situation and think about damage limitation. I mean, without keys my only means of transport is my bike – or an illegal drive in the toolshed of course – both would be impractical in the long term. I thought about how I could get a set of high-tech Mercedes keys engineered or replaced in this part of the world. I mean, it would be difficult and very expensive for me to organise a Mercedes hit-squad to come out (or even find!) my house in the country. I think the nearest dealer is easily an 80km round-trip, and then they would have to have specialist equipment these days to “hack” the code and then re-program a new set of keys. I could just imagine them saying: “No you must buy a Peugeot van – je suis désolée!”.
But as always with these things, I resorted to logic to solve the problem. It was clear that nothing had left these premises since Sunday, so the keys MUST be in the vicinity of the house and so it was simply a matter of … erm hermetically sealing the house or similar to find the keys? I started by doing a spring-clean of the house, and then I checked through all the rubbish bags and then I checked through all the recycling and then I checked through all the kitchen waste, and then I checked through all the sawdust and offcuts of wood that I’ve been throwing in a big bucket. Still nothing. What? no reward for all my F-ing LOGIC !!!
You can imagine my calm at this stage. My early start to the day had been ruined by TWO HOURS of fruitless searching. I had to upgrade my suspension of disbelief to: this cannot be happening to me! So much for seize the day … more like seize the bloody throat Aaaaaarrrggghhhhhhh!
Of course I checked and rechecked all my pockets and every single item of clothing I could have possibly worn since Saturday. I also tried dropping the toolshed van keys from different vantage points in the house and garden and barns to see if they bounced into areas as yet unexplored, but no. Without any sign of the keys I then got onto a blaming phase of the crisis and tried to blame impossible 3rd parties. Unusually for me, there was no wife, girlfriend, friend or children to blame for hiding the keys somewhere, so I had to resort to animals. The magpies were top of my list for a while, but then I suspected that it could be some sort of post-mortem revenge of the rats – that’s just the sort of thing I could imagine them doing in their last breath as they disappeared down their rathole to die with a shiny set of keys between their teeth! Bastards!
Oh this is getting silly. I’ll just have to go next door and look in the yellow pages and phone for a Mercedes technician (a.k.a. Mechanic) and get my life back in order again. I’ll have to bite the bullet and pay for a new set of keys, and swap (what is in effect) 10 minutes of Orange Mobile international call charges for some true mobility once more.
On my way to next door, I glanced in the toolshed van and there ….. there ….. were the Ludwig Van Keys …. Sitting on the passenger seat as if nothing had happened. How the fuck did they get there? ???? At last I can get this day started as originally planned 2 hours ago.
You see, that’s what comes of saying “White rabbits” at the beginning of a month. Have I had a very lucky morning, or a very unlucky one? What would have happened if I had driven first thing in the morning… philosophers, please discuss.
Unphilosophically I can of course tell you what happened when I drove off in Ludwig. I went to St Cere and bought some white wall tiles and some hinges for the kitchen units and some bolts. Then I went to L’Éclerc and bought enough food for me & Paul for a week. . . . well ish.
Spent the afternoon and evening on the kitchen worktops. I wanted to get enough done so that they can be used now without any further fiddling while Paul is over here. I think I accomplished that.
I’m not entirely happy with my cabinet-making efforts in the kitchen as it happens. I’m still having some problems with the poor quality French wood – it’s prone to warping and being cut at the wrong length and being the wrong colour or grain and coming from the wrong tree and just generally being appalling. As a craftsman I was thinking of blaming my tools for the disappointing outcome of my kitchen construction. Instead I think I’ll just blame the wood, and perhaps those bloody white rabbits again.
No further diary-ing in the next few days I suspect. Paul is coming tomorrow and I’m off to meet him at Brive station at lunchtime. He is staying for 6 days, and so I’ve got to get my liver trained-up. It’s going to be good to spend some quality time with Paul, of course, but this will be the most time we’ve spent together since teenage … or maybe ever. Not sure we ever got on that much.
At least I will have someone to blame for hiding the bloody van keys.
