It is easy to get a bit gloomy, like the weather, at this time of year in England; in truth, right at the moment I’m not inclined to say “Dear old Devon” as I usually do (especially when in Australia) because it’s grey, rainy and cold, and we’re waiting for a new heating engineer to come and repair the boiler.

Geoff, the previous heating engineer, who came here so often that I felt we had become friends, wishes to terminate our friendship (I could tell when he suggested that we purchase a new boiler – no labour charges for fitting); in the end (two evenings ago) Geoff’s strained smile could not mask the despair he was feeling at, yet again, being called out to fix his bête noire of boilers – the one that would not respond to all his tweaking and, even worse, reacted with explosive convulsions each time Geoff, with shoulders slumped, had walked out of the premises. Recently, poor Geoff had taken to walking in bearing the same dejected attitude. Somehow I sensed that it was to be his last visit on Saturday – his one year guarantee had been a rash promise, meant genuinely but said with an overconfidence that was to last only two months – and I kissed Geoff goodbye to signify an acceptance of the termination. We would not ask our friend to fit a new boiler, not even for a paltry eight hundred pounds.

“Darling, not many people kiss their heating engineer goodbye,” said Chris when Geoff had slumped off.

“Not many people have such intense relationships with their heating engineers,” I answered.

“What now?” asked Chris as he turned on the hot tap to see if Geoff’s efforts had made any impression this time.

The boiler made not one, but two, ignition explosions, not large enough to blow up the kitchen but sufficient to make one jump several feet into the air (if one hadn’t been expecting it, which we were, so we jumped slightly less).

“Let’s do what I suggested last year and join the manufacturer’s repair and insure scheme,” I suggested a tad pointedly.

Wayne arrived a second after I wrote my first sentence. We shook hands and he asked what the problem was; while we explained, he nodded his head and smiled. He laughed heartily when I asked if we needed a new boiler. He didn’t even want a cup of tea. He did the repairs, tested the work and left within these minutes that I have been writing this. I didn’t give Wayne a kiss goodbye (although he did smell very nice), I patted him on the shoulder; he’s not our friend… he’s Superman.

Would you believe it? The sun has come out! Over the last week, ten thousand miles away in Brisbane, our friend Roland has been photographing the emergence of the first blooms on his frangipani trees. Frangipanis are my favourite flowers. Not only are they pretty but also they have the most beautiful fragrance, which is why we Aussie girls like to put them in our hair. Three months to go before we’ll be back there, but now it doesn’t seem so bad, not now that we have heat and sunshine.

Chris just came smiling into my studio and said:

“I keep turning on the hot tap for fun!”

And if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to do exactly the same.

I thought I looked quite nice last night…until the mirror was brought out. You see, Chris and I were at my niece’s house and, after a lovely chicken dinner and apple crumble for pudding, Katie’s boyfriend, Javi, produced a handful of transfers, or “lip tattoos”, as he called them (thank goodness they weren’t tattoos!).

“Do you think these would sell in England?” he asked, handing them around.

Some were a sparkling green colour, some a sparkling red; there was an American flag design and a Union Jack; one was blue with white spots, another had stripes; one was mint green with “Merry Christmas written on it; but I was attracted to the set of hot pink lip transfers with “tease me” printed on the bottom lip. I held the pink one up to my lips.

“They are a bit big, ” I laughed.

“That’s only because your lips are thin. Anyway, you’re meant to trim them to size,” explained Javi.

“My lips aren’t thin – it’s just that yours are so thick,” I explained back.

To much merriment around the table, I trimmed the enormous lip transfers; Katie held the shaving mirror in front of me while I held the lower lip transfer to my bottom lip with a damp flannel.

“Would you like the other side of the mirror?” asked Katie thoughtfully, because she noticed I had put on my reading glasses.

“No thank you,” I told her hastily before she had time to turn it over to the magnified side, “It’s quite bad enough with my glasses on!”

A couple of minutes later I was half-way towards looking like Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” The top lip transfer was another matter. I held the damp flannel in place for several minutes but the transfer would not stick to my lip. The backing paper started to come off and Katie noticed that the bright pink transfer seemed to have a life of its own – it stuck out in the air independently, like the smile of “The Joker” in Batman, on an invisible face.

“Hold on,” said Kate in a knowing tone, “I think the plastic is still on.”

It was. After several more minutes of crafting, the upper lip was in place, or almost in place – the ends had curled and, unable to adhere, hung down at the sides of my mouth like a catfish’s whiskers.

“Here, I’ll cut them off,” offered Katie as she brandished a huge pair of kitchen scissors, which at close range, looked like garden shears.

“No, I’ll do do it,” I took dangerous looking cutting implements from her and carefully undertook the tricky operation myself.

At last the cosmetic surgery (of a sort) was done and I inspected it in the mirror. I burst out laughing again and Katie was howling and rocking back in her chair.

“I look like Baby Jane,” I pronounced, “or….”

“Aunty Win!” Kate and I exclaimed together.

Now I’ll have you know that there was nothing wrong with our Aunty Win – she was the dearest, kindest little lady – but in later life her sight wasn’t the best, or perhaps she thought her lips had become too thin, for her red lipstick used to go well over her natural lip-line. Needless to say, she was an exceedingly attractive lady and I wouldn’t mind looking like her… in time.

Heartened by the success of my lip transfers, my niece opted for a jaunty Union Jack pattern and we took a photo together. You will note that the first photograph is not of Katie and me but two pumpkin heads that the boys carved out for Halloween fun.

This is another of Darren’s jokes.

A nice little harmless lizard, the type that loses his tail if you catch him by it, was walking under a gum tree in an area of bush north of Cairns when someone whistled to him from above. The lizard looked up and saw a big male koala sprawled on a branch overhead; the koala’s legs hung down languidly and in one hand was a joint or spliff (the lizard wasn’t quite sure of the difference but he knew it wasn’t a normal cigarette because the koala looked “spaced out” and his eyes were like two black saucers – not flying saucers).

“Say man, want to join me up here for a few puffs?” asked the koala, adjusting his sweatband that bore a poppy motif.

“But I’ve never tried it before,” called out the surprised rather straight-laced lizard.

“Just try a little puff – for the experience man,” the koala urged.

The lizard guessed that it was no fun to get stoned on your own so he joined the koala for a puff or two. The lizard felt a little high, but put the unusual feeling down to being up a gum tree; in fact he was convinced that he was immune to the effects of the puffs.

“I feel a bit thirsty,” the lizard laughed (he wasn’t sure why it struck him as so funny), “Got any water up here?”

“No man,” replied the koala, “but if you go down to the right of those two bottle-brush trees and past the big bush oak, man, there is a creek full of water.”

So the lizard followed the koala’s directions and found the creek; he was just about to dip his little head into the water when a pair of reptilian eyes surfaced and nearly made the smaller reptile shed his skin. Funnily, his giggling stopped.

“Please don’t eat me,” he cried.

“Why shouldn’t I?” sneered the crocodile.

“Because… because we’re related, and besides, I’m too small to be of interest to you. Do you happen to like fat, spaced out koalas?”

“Well, there is that, you have a point young fella. Spaced out eh? Now where did you say that fat koala is?” the crocodile wiped a tear with his tongue (at least the lizard thought it was a tear but it could have been saliva.)

The tiny stripey lizard stayed by the creek and quenched his thirst while the crocodile sought out the koala sitting in the gum tree past the bottle-brush trees.

“Hello there!” snapped the crocodile.

“Hey man,” the koala’s eyes widened, “you sure did drink a lot of water!”

I have a confession to make. Oh, it’s nothing awful but, all the same, I need to get it off my chest. It concerns dinner tonight. Why would I have to make a confession about dinner? Well, normally it is just Chris and me so when I think something tastes a bit funny, for example mince (mince often tastes funny to me which is why I sometimes go vegetarian), I might ask Chris, “Do you think this mince tastes peculiar?” And when I ask him that he always comes around to my way of thinking and we throw it out and go veggie for a while. Anyway, it wasn’t mince, it was a beef casserole with dumplings…

When I tasted my first mouthful of dumpling I thought, “That’s odd, it tastes like I used old suet.” I know what old suet tastes like because I once made a spotted dick (not to be confused with Moby Dick) for Dad and when I checked the date on the suet packet it was about three years out of date – and it tasted like it! But it wasn’t old suet to blame this time because I didn’t have any suet in the cupboards and I had to make the dumplings from vegetable fat, not out of date; I checked on the Internet first to make sure that you could make dumplings from anything but suet – they advised any other fat but they got it wrong – the dumplings were exceedingly light but dry and floury. I noticed that neither Chris, nor Susannah and Darren (our daughter and her boyfriend) went back for second dumplings, which is weird seeing as they were so keen on dumplings initially.

“Another dumpling?” I offered.

“They are quite filling,” answered Susannah, patting her stomach.

However, I must conclude that the dumplings, though definitely odd, were not responsible for the “old” taste that I could detect. I wondered if it was the herbs I had used, in both the dumplings and the casserole itself – a double whammy! But, no, it wasn’t a herb taste… and my mixed herbs were fresh; well, not fresh – they are dried – but newly bought.

As I delved into the meat and vegetable part of the dish my taste buds continued to assailed by the “old suet” flavour and, whilst the conversation around the table carried on, my mind wandered back to the steps of casserole preparation. There were the potatoes – bought on Saturday, no queries about them. Likewise the carrots and the onions – perfection. Ah, but what about that quarter of a swede (an orange vegetable – not a person from Sweden!); yes, what about that bit of swede I had found in the vegetable drawer of the fridge? Some of it had gone into the pumpkin soup and that tasted alright – didn’t it? Or did it have a slightly “old” taste? Or was that the previous pumpkin soup from last week? It could have been… It probably was… oh dear. That bit of swede still looked okay….

All I can say is that nobody mentioned anything about the funny taste, but that there was plenty left over for tomorrow… if anyone should have a yearning. I say, want to join us for lunch? Or have a doggy-bag? Yes, do call around if you’re longing for hearty winter warming food with funny dumplings, but please, don’t let on to Chris, Susannah or Darren about the suspect swede. Shh!

And here is a quote from Moby Dick, which could have some resonance with the diners at our house tonight (if they read this, which I hope they won’t) – “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

You probably think it a bit odd, though not hinky (US – dishonest or suspicious) I hope, for a woman of my age (whatever that may be) to buy an enormous pack of PG Tips teabags just because it had a free dinky minky monkey looking at me through the packaging; but honestly, how could I resist?  Look at his dear little face – could you resist him? Chris dubbed him Minky.

Having got Minky home I didn’t know what to do with him. I thought he might be a good paintbrush holder… but no, he doesn’t have enough orifices to be of any real use in that area… and he kept mucking around. Poor Freddy, who sits sedately on a special bench (not Special Branch) on my desk every day, quickly became an object of ridicule. Now, as you can guess from the photographs, Freddy has a thing about his baldness, which is why he wears a nice wig made from the “old man’s beard” that I picked last year – no, not Chris’s beard, you know… the plant! Minky pinched Freddy’s wig and later, with his great bulk and weight, the naughty monkey upturned the bench and sent Freddy flying head over heels.

It seemed to me that I should enlist the services of another, larger and more responsible, monkey called Andy. Now with all the babies being born into our family recently Andy has suddenly become weirdly paternal, I say “weirdly” because these days modern parents have completely different ideas on how to bring up babies and children. Needless to say, Andy is rather old-fashioned and believes in the old methods. Andy, who really belongs to my sister Mary (but she couldn’t handle him so we gave her some much needed respite care) was touchingly concerned that Minky should have something to eat; and to think that I had reservations about leaving Minky with the older monkey – I worried that Andy might be jealous. On the contrary, Andy took Minky on his knee and tempted him with the other half of his banana; Minky doesn’t fancy half-eaten bananas – I think he worries about the spit from old monkeys. Andy put the young recalcitrant over his other knee and, after an exercise in tough love, I stepped in and tossed Andy onto the floor… because I love him.

After a nice cup of PG Tips tea and a Tunnock’s Caramel Bar (I know what naughty monkeys really like) Minky said that he would like to emulate me and become an artist – Bless his heart! I gave him a pen and paper, and Freddy, happy again in his wig of old man’s beard (and not terribly bright), was content to let Minky draw his portrait.

“Show me, show me!” begged Freddy when the portrait was done.

“Keep your hair on,” said Minky.

In my humble opinion neither a lady’s age nor weight should be bandied around freely… so I won’t begin to do so now; anyway, it had nothing to do with my little weight gain during our visit to Brittany last  weekend. And also, I ask you, how much difference could be made by imbibing of a couple of bottles of wine (twice daily) and partaking, overall, of several loaves of French bread, half a slice of hard German rye bread, a kilo of delicious salty Brittany butter (a speciality of Le Conquet, which, heaped on a half-slice of rye bread, makes the aforementioned almost bearable), a nibble of goat’s cheese and a taste of ricotta – sheep’s cheese (I always follow the crowd), fish and chips from the Irish pub, and one healthy oyster?

Thankfully, I was spared the agony of discovering any weight gain for a full five days after our arrival home because our “old faithful” bathroom scales, perhaps a little delirious following the euphoric effect of not being trodden on from Thursday to Monday while we were away, had decided to fluctuate its readings within a range of one and a half stone (about 9 kilos); this depended on which tile it rested on, which way I leaned, which foot I put on first and whether or not I breathed in or out, none of which effects were unusual in themselves – it had always been possible to assuage the figures using these methods – but hitherto the range had spanned between a less remarkable, and more believable, one to three pounds. Thus  Chris and I reluctantly abandoned the ritual morning weigh-in and promised ourselves a new set of scales from Trago Mills on Saturday, which was yesterday.

“I’m not going to use those scales again!” I cried, throwing myself onto the bed and kicking my legs in a similar way that I did as a two-year-old.

Now I know you shouldn’t weigh yourself in the evening but, honestly, would anyone expect to be twelve pounds heavier? It had to be the scales. Who says that a new set of scales has to be right anyway?

After my tears I noticed that I hadn’t put away the big box of winter clothes I had brought down from the upper cupboard in the morning (luckily, the jeans still fitted – I couldn’t be that fat!). The slight problem was that the filled box was heavy and the cupboard was high; also, the step-ladder was upstairs and it wasn’t very tall anyway; I would use the same Queen Anne chair, with the spindly legs, that I had used earlier.

Funnily enough, I managed to replace the weighty box without mishap (so it wasn’t my increased weight to blame). Maybe I put my foot a bit too far forward and too far to the right on the seat of the delicate antique as I mounted again with six hats in my hands. It all happened so quickly that I can’t tell you what happened first; was it the tilt, the wobble, then the crack, followed by the hats being thrown into the air, then the fall, the scream, the pain in my rear, the abrasion on my back, the sore knee… the groan? It seemed to happen all at once.

Chris was a dear. He let me swear a bit without telling me off – guess he thought that meant there wasn’t much harm done, not much more than wounded pride and a bruised bottom. And this morning he delighted in telling me that he had fathomed the secret of the new scales (he had read the instruction leaflet – he, too, must have hated those scales):

“You see? You just have to tap the centre of the scales with your foot, like this, and it re-calibrates it back to zero.”

So I waited until he was out of sight and gently tapped my foot; and holding my breath, stepped on… Unfortunately for you, I don’t hold with ladies giving out personal information willy-nilly so you will just have to take my word for it that the reading wasn’t quite as shocking or bad as yesterday. Nevertheless, I’m no longer drinking alcohol or eating bread or fish and chips; and the closest I’ll get to butter is the nice butternut pumpkin soup that I’ve made for dinner.

It is getting colder and darker of a morning now and I sense that it is my primeval instinct to hibernate making it hard for me to open my eyes. I don’t want to stir, or get up and get dressed and go to the gym; I think about it but the overwhelming desire for sloth and comfort makes me pull the winter duvet up under my chin, and I don’t want Chris to draw back the curtains on another grey day (even though I’m enjoying painting a grey scene on my most recent canvas), but he does so anyway. It doesn’t help that “the men in orange”, the workers on the sea wall repairs, who are like the shoe-maker’s elves, have been working all through the night with machinery clanking, generators thrumming and lights blazing (or so it seems in the darkness of the early hours).

At last I succumb to the urging of Chris and I sit up and halfheartedly sip my cup of tepid, weak, watery grey tea (which is how I like it, except that it must be hot). We decide to go for a cycle ride to Cockwood, if it’s not raining – it’s a good way to get the circulation going and allay the onset of hibernation.

I don’t know what to wear – it is cold when you start out cycling but you soon warm up – so I put on my three-quarter length electric-orange sweat pants with the palm tree motiff and Malibu printed on the pocket (I note that I match “the men in orange” but I quite like that as they are our heroes); and I don a white t-shirt, which looks rather plain and utilitarian, so I throw on a multi-coloured floral top to cover the plainness and make me feel summery; a white cardigan and mauve and pink socks with a friesian cow pattern completes my ensemble. I think I look colourful but a bit odd; Chris says I look cute but I suspect that he doesn’t want me to waste any more time by changing.

The tide is out at Cockwood Harbour and the sun is hidden by layers of grey clouds; the mud smells a bit, and I can tell that Chris wants to go.

“Let’s just take a look at my boat,” I implore. He can’t say no. I love the idea of buying that boat but Chris says it isn’t worth twelve hundred pounds, even with a motor.

We agree that, if I manage to buy the Orkney long-liner at the right price, it would be a sweet little vessel for taking out into the estuary (not the open sea); and I could paint it like a narrow boat even though it is a round, bumble-bee like craft. It will be the prettiest boat in Cockwood Harbour – if only….

Seeing as the tide is out we walk under the railway bridge to the estuary side. Well, it may not be particularly attractive on a grey day, and those rocks covered with bladder wort seaweed (if that is what it is called) look big, looming and warty, however, it’s still nice to be out in the fresh air, regardless of the funny, fishy, seaweedy smell which is around this side too.

We take a new route on the way home – we’ve never been on this cycle path before – after all these years of living here. We wonder if it was made at the same time as the big cycle track – the gates look the same. Even under a cloudy sky, it is beautiful. Chris says the sun is trying to come through. The path runs along beside a tree-lined waterway cutting across from Dawlish Warren to Exeter Road, near the new Sainsbury’s supermaket (in case you want to find it). The sun shines behind the thinner clouds, bringing light if not warmth and we cross over the main road to take the more scenic country lane route on the last leg of our way home.

We arrive back invigorated and hungry; I am so glad that I got out of bed this morning. All the same, I don’t rule out hibernating when the clocks go back next weekend; and we’re looking forward to Australia in the new year, but until then, we must enjoy the grey – a bit like getting older…not that I have any grey…

Can humans hibernate? As a driver survives for TWO MONTHS trapped without food at  -30c, this theory could transform medicine

By JOHN NAISH
UPDATED: 15:48, 21 February 2012

Few can fully imagine the frozen nightmare that Swedish motorist Peter Skyllberg endured for two months, trapped and slowly dying inside his ice-bound car on a remote track after it became bogged down in snow drifts last December.

As his body temperature plummeted in the Scandinavian winter, he would have fallen ever more deeply into the grip of hypothermia.

The condition would have rendered his frozen brain disoriented and prone to hallucinations in the darkness of his snow-sealed vehicle.

Peter Skyllberg was trapped for two months inside his car. Miraculously, the freezing temperatures and scarce oxygen may actually have saved his life

Thoughts of rescue or escape would have faded as his consciousness slipped away.

And as Skyllberg, 44, lay shivering in his dark, dank tomb in temperatures as low as -30c, the air inside the car would have become ever staler as oxygen levels fell.

Curled up in his sleeping bag, his starving body would have started to shut down, muscle by muscle, organ by organ.

Miraculously, however, the freezing temperatures and scarce oxygen may actually have saved Skyllberg’s life.

The world watched in astonishment as he was pulled from his car on Friday, emaciated, in a torpid state and barely able to talk — but alive.

The story of Skyllberg’s escape from an icy death follows a series of astounding incidents where men, women and even children have survived conditions so cold that they should, by all accounts, have frozen to death.

But these cases have inspired doctors to investigate how such medical miracles occur, and their discoveries are opening up a freezing frontier of medicine.

For far from being deadly, extreme cold could offer a new way to save the lives of people who have suffered heart attacks and strokes. Some experts believe it may even provide a cure for certain cancers.

The circumstances of Skyllberg’s icy incarceration give us clues as to why he survived his ordeal.

When he was found on Friday near the northern town of Umea, just south of the Arctic Circle, he had been snowed into his car since at least December.

As Peter Skyllberg’s body temperature plummeted in the Scandinavian winter, he would have fallen ever more deeply into the grip of hypothermia

Although he had no food, he had been able to drink melted snow.

As Dr Ulf Segerberg, the chief medical officer at Norrland’s University Hospital in Umea, explains: ‘Humans can tolerate a month of starvation, so long as they have water to drink.’

But he was also buried deep in snow, and research indicates that conditions inside this freezing, fusty tomb may have set off a ‘hibernation’ response in his body.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2103961/Can-humans-hibernate-As-driver-survives-TWO-MONTHS-trapped-food–30c-theory-transform-medicine.html#ixzz3H4S9nc00
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“English Apart” is the name of the English language school set up by my brother-in-law Glyn and his Welsh friend Emlyn; the school in Brest (Brittany, where we spent last weekend) is a great hit with students and the employers who send them there to improve their English.

Having arrived at Roscoff early on Friday morning we – Chris, Bobbie (our youngest daughter), Martin (her boyfriend) and me – drove straight to English Apart to see Glyn. Almost immediately, Glyn enlisted our services as English folk (although, strictly speaking, I’m an Australian and Martin is Polish, not that the students would have noticed). Firstly, he introduced us to the group of students downstairs – the beginners, as we were to find out.

“‘Allo, my name…is…Sherry,” said a swarthy man of about forty eight as he held out his hand to shake mine.

“Hello Sherry!” I answered enthusiastically in an attempt to hide my surprise.

Sherry, who needed a shave, looked a tad bewildered.

“Tcherry,” he tried again.

“Oh… Cherry?” it was my turn to look confused, “What a pretty name!”

Cherry smiled.

“In England Cherry is a girl’s name,” I said slowly and in a French accent so that Cherry would understand me better.

At that moment Glyn interjected:

“He’s not called Cherry, his name is Terry, and he’s a hotel receptionist!”

“Oh,” I looked at the dark-skinned, balding receptionist with the five o’clock shadow from the day before, “sorry, but I thought you said Cherry, not Terry.”

“I ham Tcherry, no Sherry,” he laughed at the misunderstanding and nodded his head profusely.

While the going was good I made my getaway and moved on down the line to a group of three young women who were to be my students, or rather, they chose me to answer their list of questions. Already the others had been pairing off for questions and answers at tables in different parts of the large room; I was the last to get cracking and I had the biggest group.The nervous blonde introduced herself as “Kerry”.

“Kerry?” I asked to make sure I had got it right this time.

“Ker…ry,” she faltered a little.

“That’s funny,” I said, “your name rhymes with Terry!”

She looked blank.

“You know, a rhyme – a poem, a verse? Like William Shakespeare – Terry and Kerry?”

“Ah Shakespeare!” she seemed to grasp my point but I thought it unwise to pursue the matter any longer.

Then I met a shy girl with a barely audible voice; her name was “Sea Lion” or Celine as Cindy, the bright one, pointed out. Cindy asked most of the questions.

“‘Ave you hever been to Paris?” she read from her exercise book.

“Oh yes, I love Paris. I have been to Paris many times, the first time I went with a boyfriend, not Chris; that was before I was married,” I spoke incredibly slowly to ensure their comprehension.

Obviously, I tried to make my answers as interesting as possible – gesticulations helped. “I live in Dawlish by the sea (wave motions) and a railway line (choo, choo – arms making circles); “I was born in Australia” (hop like a kangaroo) – strange, they didn’t know that kangaroos come from Australia; “I am an artist” (move arm up and down with imaginary brush) – I think they think I’m a painter and decorator.

There were some vaguely embarrassing silences while I waited for either a response to my answer or the next question. My French accent, which came out quite naturally, seemed to be of some help; occasionally I noted a spark of understanding in a pair of eyes – a momentary relief from the blank expressions – and I felt something akin to the satisfaction of being a good teacher. My mind wandered ahead – I fancied that I might be offered a part-time job at English Apart.

The clever-clogs chaps upstairs were so advanced that I asked them the questions.

“How could I impress a French person with my knowledge of French?” I asked.

“Comment t’appelles-tu?” suggested David.

“That’s way too easy. Who would be impressed with that? Isn’t there something else you can think of?”

“Que pense-tu de politics Français?(What do you think of French politics?)” David looked at Vincent for confirmation.

Several minutes later I was still memorising my sentence to impress when Glyn appeared upstairs and commended me on my great teaching ability.

“Cindy, Celine and Caroline just told me that you’d been to Paris before with your previous  husband,” Glyn laughed.

“Who’s Caroline?” I queried.

“Kerry,” he quipped.

And over the phone that evening, when trying to impress a certain Portuguese friend with my increased knowledge of French (since last time) I asked:

“Que pense-tu de politics Francoise?”

Joking apart, and to be frank (or Francoise), it doesn’t look like I shall be offered that teaching post at English Apart.

Quite early on in the four month long saga of our ailing boiler Geoff may well have regretted his rash promise to guarantee his work for a year; he seemed loath to return, sometimes we were angry, sometimes we were embarrassed; sometimes, hoping for a miracle, we left it for a while rather than make that call to our frustrated heating engineer. But, hats off to Geoff for keeping his word and for not attempting to extract any more money from us (a mention of the price of a particular new part fell on deaf ears and since then he has been stoical).

Periodically, upon turning on a hot tap, we have endured the sounds of a fog horn (sometimes like that of a small fishing vessel, but mostly like the Queen Mary!) – short bursts, long bursts and staccato – or we’ve been startled by explosive pops, sometimes frightening blasts (inside and outside), followed by the smell of gas; then we were back to the fog horns and, finally, nothing – no pop, no ignition, no comforting purr and definitely no hot water, let alone central heating. And it is getting cold now.

Geoff came around when we got back from Lorna’s funeral yesterday.

“You hate us and our boiler – don’t you?” I joshed.

“I should have just bought you a new boiler,” he joshed back.

After all this time and so many visits Geoff feels more like a friend than a boiler repair man; and, as I discovered through our countless conversations, he is so much more than that. Our former art student heating engineer is also a photographer, art historian, art collector, world traveller, ex-husband, father, boyfriend and an excellent cook – to list just a few of his achievements.

Geoff was interested to hear about a funny coincidence at the wake only an hour earlier…

I had remarked that one of Lorna’s neighbours at the gathering bore a striking resemblance to the English comedian Hugh Dennis and a conversation about celebrities ensued (as they do). At last I mentioned the chance meeting I had years ago with the beautiful actress, Jean Simmons (of Spartacus fame) who was considering moving to Dawlish at the time. She had been surprised and delighted to find that someone recognised her – “It doesn’t happen very often nowadays,” she told me. And I felt good because I was the only one in Dawlish, amongst all the throng of people passing by, who realised who was in our midst. Just as I was saying what a lovely lady Jean Simmons had been, an old gentleman, hitherto silent as he sat on the sofa, suddenly became animated and said:

“My family, who were jewellers, lived in Golders Green and Jean Simmons’ father and my father were friends. He could remember when Jean was a little girl. She was lovely.”

Geoff agreed that, indeed, it had been a great coincidence.

“But I have an even more unlikely one…” began Geoff gleefully.

“It happened years ago, when I was still married, and we were in Ceylon. We were visiting a Buddhist temple in the jungle of Candy. I had left my wife half-way up the rickety stairs – she was afraid of heights (I could sympathise) – and I had continued going up; there was a log-jam of people coming down and we all had to stop and shuffle by one another. I heard an apparently Sinhalese lady speaking in perfect English.

‘Are you English?’ I asked.

‘No, but my sister lives in England. Perhaps you know my sister?’ she suggested.

I thought, “Oh yeah, how likely is that going to be’ – I mean, Sally, in the whole of England with a population of sixty million?

‘My sister has a hair-dressing salon in a little seaside town called Dawlish,’ she told me.”

“Not the one in the Strand? Not the one my mum used to go to – and her husband was the parking attendant at Somerfields?” I interjected.

“Yes,” Geoff laughed, “I brought home a letter for her from her sister!”

Geoff was right, I couldn’t outdo that one!

And of the boiler? So far so good. I bet Geoff doesn’t want to see the boiler again until next summer but he’s quite welcome to call in for a cup of tea when he’s passing.