Spending pennies (no not *that*)

Wonderful day, but didn't get out of the house as early as I would have liked.

It was so lovely out, a jacket was barely necessary - about 62F (17C) - and sunny - although the breeze was a bit stiff which meant perpetual dust in the eyes. Ah London.

A funny thing happened today. Veronica (cleaner) was doing the ironing and Christopher (handy-man) was under the stairs painting the shelves. I went into the front garden to test the temperature, and just as I turned to go back inside, the front door started to swing shut with a gust of wind from the back. I ran at the door and just as my hands made contact !SLAM! it was too late! I yelped, knocked, and Christopher came to the door. He likes to tease and this was the banter through the letterbox. --Who is it? --It's me! --Who's 'me'? --You know, the 'me' you greeted this morning! -- ...There's no one home! --Are you a ghost?
Then 'the ghost' let me in. Veronica was in the kitchen doubled over with laughter.

One day I will ask Christopher if he lives on sugar alone, because he is always beamingly cheerful and he even talks bouncy. The Perky Polish Chappie who belongs at Disney World.

As pretty as it promises to be tomorrow, I think I must stay in and print out CVs, do laundry...Maybe take a walk in Regent's Park. I walked today, all the way from SJW to Waitrose on Finchley Road. I didn't feel like spending train or bus fares. Plus, it was a lovely day to walk, and I had my most comfy shoes on. But then, I bought so much food that I couldn't see myself trekking the half-mile from SJW station to the house, so ended up dishing out a fiver for a taxi. Only the second time I've done that, mind.
Egad! You know you're desperate for a proper job when you start counting the pennies in a conversation. (Plus, what if my dad is reading this?)

Oooh yum! I just opened the package of Ferrero Giotto I bought today at Waitrose, and popped one in. They're white wafer balls with a hazelnut cream centre. Smaller than Ferrero Rocher and without the bothersome solid hazelnut. (Only 1.49 for 40 pieces!)

...This is what happens when I don't get my usual chocolate supply from Fortnum & Mason, I get led astray.
Suzy went to F&M to buy a christening bib for her new grandchild, due in July. She'd had lunch there and was still full to the gills hours later. So while my feta and courgette balls were in the oven and my pita bread in the pan, and I was humming away with Mozart, I heard my name hollered from the back of the house. The smell was too naughty.
When I was washing the dishes later, Suzy popped her head in and said, to my puzzlement, "Oh you are a tantalising woman! [Cheeky pause while I raise my eyebrows] ...With your delicious smells emanating from the kitchen!" She said after that, she and Michael were forced to eat ................an apple.

**********

From Blackadder the Third:

Edmund Blackadder:
Oh, God! If you want something done properly, kill Baldrick before you start!

………………….

George:
You look as happy as a man who thought a cat had done its business on his pie, but it turned out to be an extra large blackberry.

………………….

Edmund:
And if you don't answer, then the booted, bony thing with five toes on the end of my leg will soon connect sharply with the dangly collection of objects in your trousers.

………………….

Ambassador: I hate you English. With your boring trousers and your shiny toilet paper and your ridiculous preconceptions that Frenchmen are great lovers. I'm French and I'm hung like a baby carrot and a couple of petits pois.

………………….

Edmund:
Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?

………………….

Edmund:
Honestly, Baldrick, sometimes I feel like a pelican. Whichever way I turn, I've still got an enormous bill in front of me.

………………….

Edmund:
This man probably owns half of Lancashire. His family has got more mills than you've got brain cells.

George:
How many mills?

Edmund:
Seven, sir.

………………….

Baldrick:
Hire you a horse? For ninepence? On Jewish New Year's Eve in the rain? A bare fortnight after the dreaded horse plague of Old London Town? With the blacksmith's strike in it's fifteenth week & the Dorset Horse-Fetishists' fair tomorrow?

………………….

Edmund:
We're as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod.

………………….

Edmund:
Baldrick, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips & telling the Prince that you walked across a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?