A Walk In The Woods

I only intended to take a short walk this evening because I'd been busy, weeding the garden, dealing with scutch grass, baking, checking the hens every hour because those fuckers aren't doing their job. One solitary egg today, not enough for the amount of corn, layer's pellets and leftover porridge youse are getting, not to mention all those shot brassicas I'm hauling into you. Then there was sorting and shelving the non-fiction. Today I did horticulture and Irish, then I made dinner, then I opened a bottle of compensatory lockdown, had one glass and went for a walk in the woods.

Bert said,

Do you ever check out those new trees I planted?

I said,

No. Not for ages.

Bert, Hannah and I all go to different places in the woods. I hack around Dave's Camp, Bert moseys around the deciduous end and Hannah favours the witchy, swampy bit.

I went to Bert's newly planted trees, tramped through the witchy, swampy part and was heading to Dave's Camp when I realised I'd lost my phone. Backtracked - no phone. I went home, borrowed Bert's phone, went back to the woods. Of course, in my distracted mood, I tripped on a tree root, fell over, narrowly missed a nettle patch and said out loud,

Of course, that was going to happen!

When a body is in one's sixty-seventh year, a body does not spring up from such a fall. Instead, a body takes stock of where it is, where the nettles are and how it is going to shift itself to a standing position. Afterwards, it might think to itself, what would Madonna have done in such a circumstance?  One decides that Madonna would not have arisen from the ground with any more dignity than Nelly, and would certainly have cursed far more than Nelly did. Madonna is not used to nettles, nor would she appreciate them as a food source for so many moths and butterflies as Nelly does.

I was ten minutes from home and it was time to employ Bert's phone. It is a simple gadget and as I am accustomed to a smartphone I find it decidedly un-user-friendly. At least I am number one in his contacts list which makes things easier. This wasn't always the case. It irritated me that the Aarons, Alans and Arthurs came before me so I changed my handle on his phone from Mary (my real name) to A Wife. I ring A Wife and I hear a little tinkle in the distance. I walk towards it, the tinkle is louder, and there is my phone hiding in a patch of dead branches. If I could I'd have taken a photo of the wee darling but Bert's phone takes shite photographs.

You know, losing my phone was worth it for the pleasure of finding it again. I went home, met Bert on the way who was wandering out to help me look for it, went indoors, poured a glass of wine, set up the moth trap, put the porridge loaf in the oven and watched an episode of Normal People which is a whole other story.