It’s no joke being a frazzled and exhausted housewife…. except in this instance. This came to me by way of Roland, the “Birdman from Brisbane”, who knows quite a lot about birds of all descriptions.

The Frazzled Wife

A distressed young woman, who after twelve years of marriage had lost the bloom of youth, also had become extremely tired both physically and mentally.

“I, I don’t think I can… I can’t… sorry… take it anymore,” she sobbed and burst into tears at her doctor’s surgery.

“Sit down and tell me all about it,” soothed the middle-aged doctor and he patted her shoulder as he directed the poor wife to the chair opposite his, “now what is it you can’t take?”

“I hate my life,” she began, “I can’t stick the kids – they are noisy, disobedient, lazy, obnoxious and selfish. At eleven, eight and six, they know their Human Rights and choose to ignore mine. They spend most of their spare time on PlayStation or playing games on their phones and the television is blaring constantly. It’s like being in a nightmare!”

“Why don’t you turn the television off?” asked the doctor.

“My husband loves sitting in his ‘Captain Kirk’ chair and watching television, especially football – which is why we had to have Sky – and he has it up loud to block out the noise of the kids,” she replied.

“Oh dear,” said the doctor softly, “of course your husband has a bad back if I remember rightly?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t stop him from doing anything… apart from all chores to do with the house or garden,” she raised her eyebrows before continuing, “I have to do everything! My life is one long round of servitude from the moment I wake up at five o’clock in the morning until I go to bed at nine – and no, I don’t have time for a social life. I don’t even have time to sit down to eat my own breakfast, let alone read a book – I used to love reading…”

“There, there,” said the doctor patting her arm.

“Oh Doctor, “I’m so exhausted, stressed and on edge – my nerves are shot through – is there anything you can give me to help?”

“My dear,” said the doctor, “you need something for yourself, outside of the family, something to give you an interest or make friends.”

“That’s a joke, I’m either taking one or other of the kids to their activities, or I’m too tired to think of having any activities or classes of my own,” she said despondently.

“I have it,” said the doctor, “I really think you would benefit from running ten kilometres every day. Would you give it a go? You might want to start by doing less and build yourself up to more.”

The frazzled wife acquiesced for she was desperate to do anything to help her appalling situation.

“Listen,” said the doctor, “begin straight away and I’ll give you a call in two weeks to see how you’re getting on.”

Two weeks later the doctor saw the memo in his diary and was prompted to call the patient to whom he had offered the extraordinary advice.

“Hello,” he said, “This is your doctor calling to find out how you’re progressing.”

“Hi Doctor!” the young wife sounded full of the joys of spring. “Thank you so much for your good advice. Because I was in such poor condition it was quite hard at first but I followed your suggestion and took it easy. Now I feel strong, fit, capable and even happy – I’m a new woman!”

“I’m so pleased I was able to help,” the doctor smiled to himself as he spoke, “and, if you don’t mind me asking, how are things at home now?”

“How in the heck would I know Doctor?” the wife replied surprised, “I’m over a hundred and forty kilometres away!”

At length, we had nearly come to the end of our bookclub meeting (and a very jolly gathering it was – so good to see everyone again after a four month gap!). My brother-in-law Geoff, who is not one of our bookworms returned home and joined us in the lounge room for a cup of coffee.

“Oh Sally, I met an old boyfriend of yours and he mentioned you and Mary – he knew Mary too,” Geoff said looking across to where I was sitting on the arm of the sofa, next to my sister.

“”Who was that then?” I asked.

“Do you know I can’t remember his name? But I think he was something to do with the Teign Valley Stompers.”

“I never went out with anyone in the Teign Valley Stompers,” I protested, “Mark Whitlock’s brother was in the Teign Valley Stompers but I never went out with either Mark or his brother!” I looked at Mary for support.

“No, Sally didn’t go out with either of them,” said Mary, “and neither did I!”

“Who are the Teign Valley Stompers?” asked Reuben, our handsome bookclub leader.

“A traditional jazz band,” answered Geoff.

“They won ‘Opportunity Knocks’ years ago,” added Mary with surprise but then she nodded her head as if to acknowledge that Reuben was originally from Plymouth, and he’s a bit younger than us.

“So I wonder who it could have been? Don’t you even remember his Christian name?” I fixed Geoff with my gaze.

“No, but he lives up Hazeldene Road.” (Geoff is a part-time taxi driver, therefore he remembers addresses more readily than names.”

“That rings a bell,” I said. (In Geoff’s case it would have been a door bell!) “Hold your horses, I think Chris Hutchence lives up there. Now I did go out with Chris for six months when I was just eighteen and he was thirty. Is he bald?”

“He doesn’t have much hair… and it’s white!” Geoff, who doesn’t have white hair, added gleefully.

“And does he have a moustache?” I looked at the bookworms and gestured a big moustache. “He used to have a big moustache and long curly hair although last time I saw him he was going bald.”

“Yes, he has a moustache,” confirmed my brother-in-law.

“And is he rather short?” I asked.

“Yes,” Geoff nodded.

“Oh, I don’t like short men,” said Jo, our newest bookworm.

“He was a ‘Medallion man’ too,” I continued – for Jo’s interest – and she pulled a face.

“Nothing was his scene,” I began and for a few moments I got lost in a reverie, thinking about Chris Hutchence. “Every time I suggested we do anything like play a game, go dancing, hiking… anything, he would always answer, ‘It’s just not my scene’.”

The expressions on the faces of the bookworms urged me on.

“Well, one day I wrote him a letter – it was in the days when people still used pen and paper – and I I wrote, ‘Dear Chris, I’m sorry but you’re just not my scene.”

Everyone laughed and Geoff said:

“He is pretty short. I expect it is him.”

“He used to wear built up shoes,” I looked at Jo before turning to Mary and adding, “of course, I was taller in those days.”

“But you were only about five-feet six,” Mary raised her eye-brows.

“Yes, I know,” I laughed, “but when I had my platform shoes on I was about six feet tall!”

And that’s the long and the short of it! (Incidentally, the book we were discussing was The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, whose writing often included the transitional expressions, “At length” and “In short”.)

Yesterday was possibly the most miserable day I’ve had in years. Why? Well, at the start of the day at least I had Whatsapp capability on my fairly new Huawei Smartphone, even though that was all I had – no email service (ever) or phone service (since before we left for Spain over two weeks ago, and then I had signal only long enough to make two calls!); and on my old Nokia, which I still use for taking photographs (because it takes better photo’s than the Smartphone), I could actually receive calls on occasions and, on fewer occasions, even make a call. Therefore I had been relatively happy, if not ecstatic – all my communication needs were met to some degree – until Chris suggested that I change the sim cards between my two phones and reset my Smartphone back to “Factory Setting”.

Suffice to say, my morning was utterly vile and totally frustrating. The “resetting” measures had deprived me of the little pleasure left to me in the Huawei phone. The only thing we discovered was that the phone still stole money from my Tesco Pay as you go card, which I had kept in the old Nokia for that reason. My brain felt like a shrivelled walnut and, in tears, I went into my studio to console and lose myself in painting (a lovely commission of three figures in the shallow water of an ebbing tide – will show you when I’ve finished). As I painted and listened to the dulcet tones of my Kindle-reader reading me “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas (pity Miss Kindle can’t understand that in French ‘St’ is short for Saint not Street!) Chris ordered me a new phone over the Internet. The better brand Samsung should be with me in a few days.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I found that my relatively new but disappointing Huawei had started to buck its ideas up. Upon re-installing my Whatsapp (wonderful app that it is!) I also found that I was offered the opportunity to set-up my email address (never happened before) and my phone service was returned to me (not that it had ever been brilliant on that score – two calls!). So thrilled was I that I used all three services immediately, regardless of the fact that there was no need for me to call anyone, or write emails, or send recorded messages on Whatsapp. Then I discovered how to turn up the volume and set the ringtones for all the different goings on…

Now it’s late – very late – and I can’t go to bed. Why not? Surely? Well, earlier on I kept getting “Hello, hello ya…” singing noises and after a while I was pleased to find that it was the phone working, not that I answered in time; then came the “Honk, honk” of an old bicycle horn – could have been a text to tell me I missed a call; and when I was about to close down everything for the night a sheep bleated – “Ah, Whatsapp,” I thought and I was right. I had just finished replying to my daughter-in-law Jaimy, who arrived in Brisbane yesterday (Facebook knew before me – more reliable than my phones!) when I heard the blast of a triumphal horn. “What’s that?” I asked myself (not Whatsapp – previously more “What’s up Doc’?”). It was none other than my late owl brother Robert sending me an email.

The Huawei sure is making a last bid effort to impress. Now I shall not feel so guilty passing it on to a family member in need of a Smartphone. And now I really must go to bed – even the triumphal horn has stopped for the night.