Speaking freely, if indistinctly

I've just got in from a meeting and I'm eating my dinner, so please excuse me typing with my mouth full. I fed the Sage and Ro before I left, but I didn't have time to eat then, as it falls to me to get the room ready and that takes half an hour.

I treat the PCC (that's the committee that runs the village church) very well. Tea and coffee freshly made, jugs of water on the tables and sufficient bowls of sweets to be within easy reach of each person, so that no one has to make a conspicuous lunge for the M1nstrel or the jelly teddy bear (tonight's offerings). I go for quite childish sweets. If we were relaxed at home, it would be the sophisticated hand-made chocolate truffle or the petit four, but at a meeting which can, just once in a while, plummet to a nadir of dullness, then resorting to nursery sweeties cheers us up no end. Jelly babies are popular and so are Malte$ers. L1corice Allsorts, you either love or hate and I don't serve toffees as they inhibit free speech.

Plenty of free speech tonight, as we were debating one specific item. All amicable, if sometimes quite heated.

I spent (ooh, back in time like Memento) the afternoon in the shop. I went in, just before lunch, clutching my lunch of ham and salad (particularly nice multi-grain) roll and danish pastry from the bakery. It's an indulgence. Why do I not make my own lunch? can't be arsed... do I hear quietly in the background? 'Tis true.

Eileen was a little pink and panting. "It's been hectic" she said. "I've been rushed off my feet, all morning. Sometimes, I had to use both tills at the same time." I looked round at the empty shop. We agreed that, because it was such lovely weather (God bless British Summer Time), everyone had shopped in the morning so that they could garden or relax in the afternoon.

I'd taken Shaggy Blog Stories and Tough Puzzles to entertain me in quiet periods. Half way through the afternoon, the sun shone in the gap between the Gay Shopper and the pub and I eyed the warm sunlit patch at the front of the shop. I cleared some of the in-front-of-the-shop display, so that I could carry a chair out there. Of course, this was the signal for 20 minutes of keen shopping by the inhabitants of Yagnub. Eventually, I sank into my sun-warmed chair and read contentedly between customers for the rest of the afternoon.

In other news, Dilly's little nephew Brock has chickenpox. He and his little brother Davison were over here last Tuesday for Squiffany's birthday. I gather the incubation period is 10 days. We'll know by the weekend. 6 months is, perhaps, a little young for Pugsley to be inflicted with an annoying illness, but he is robust and I'm sure he'll be fine, even if he gets it. The son of a friend, the youngest of three, caught it early and had a post-viral infection that affected him for a long time.

I've finished eating and I've poured the last of the wine. I will not go to bed for an hour or two, lest I am inflicted with Digestive Disorders or the Cauchemar. Last night I did not sleep well. It was the inevitable result of a couple of nights of sound sleep. From long years of habit, if not totally knackered, I don't really sleep at all.