Saturday night. 11.56pm we have just returned from dinner with friends in Benaulim and had a chat with the four guys working on the little garage flat. No signs of them packing up for the night. we are assured it will be finished soon. We are not holding our breaths.
Other curiosities this week have been:
Buying buttons. On show a shop girl a clear button and asking if they had some the answer came back that ‘no madam! You are not getting! Only in black’. On expressing disappointment, the girl produced a box of clear buttons of the correct size. She said,’But they do not match, they are not right’. On close inspection she was in fact right, they did not exactly match, just fractionally less clear. We decided that we could overlook the very slight discrepancy at least they were not black
A patient is travelling 600 miles or so to consult with Alison. He is totally unable to make an appointment during the two days available and will call when he is here on the off chance that Alison will be able to see him.
Unexpected closure of our clinic room. Friday morning a call from the manager of the building. ‘Tomorrow we are closed for painting’. Our robust response:’You will open for us! We have eight patients with appointments’ Silence. A query from him about the timings. ’9.00am to 7.00pm.’ Silence. Then ‘Yes we will be open. They will paint on Sunday’.
Painters, of course, put the fear of god in us. They paint more than required. Liberally. So at the end of Saturday, we take the needful precautions. While doing so, we ask the manager when the painters will be doing our room. He has no clue, probably some time. He does not know the painters gang leader or the boss. Absolutely no idea, except that the painters are in the building now and will be leaving sometime.
We hope they won’t be around as long as the 10x10x10 crew.
Sign on the off license door. ‘We are closed today due to family function. Will open next week.’ We wanted to add sometime.
Buying light bulbs on Friday. Shop closed. No sign. Saturday. ‘You were closed yesterday’ we said. ‘No, not closed’, they said. Yes – No stuff for a bit. Then ‘Oh yes! we shut at 10 am’.
Life’s always interesting, if a tad frustrating.
