Twas on a Friday the thirteenth morning oh, to be precise. I have to tell you that rather perversely I have always felt Friday the thirteenth to be lucky for me. For example it was on Friday the thirteenth 1969 that Pa first asked me for a date................mmmmmmmm? On the other hand my son is convinced that bad luck will befall on this fateful day and I must say that some frankly appealing bad luck has happened to him on that date from time to time.
Superstition is a very personal thing, for example when ever I see a magpie I always say “Good morning sir.” or Good afternoon, or evening depending upon the time of day. This has been going on since I was a child and I cannot remember a time when I did not do this ritual which was prevail ant amongst the children in my home village.
If I bump one elbow I always bump the other for luck, this was pasted to me by my mother and her mother before her and it would be unthinkable not to do it now. I consider these odd little foibles harmless enough but let my tell you a story, a true one which happened to me almost forty years ago.
I was at Drama school and a party of us were to be taken to London's Phoenix Theatre to see a performance of The Canterbury Tales. Since the show was in the evening and we had arrived in the late morning we were told to spend the day as we pleased and met outside the theatre half and hour before curtain up. Three of us decided to go to Oxford Street to see the shops......er I mean sights and arrived there after a degree of trouble on the underground when for some reason I cannot remember we ended up at Cock fosters. No sooner had we arrived that an ambulance in full cry , sirens and flashing lights sped past us, my friend turned round three time and said “Hold your collar and don't swallow until you see a dog.”
She became very agitated so we all did the turning round bit and gripped our collars for dear life.
Now I do not know if you have ever tried to find a dog in this part of London but we spent hours handing an to our collars and occasionally spitting as we could not swallow and damned uncomfortable it was. I suggested Harrods which I had heard had a pet shop ,but another pointed out that we would soon be thrown out if we went about that famous store spitting every few minutes,. The next crackpot idea was Buckingham Palace on the chance of spotting one of the resident corgi,s until I remembered that her Majesty always walks her dogs in the back garden!
I was beginning to think that bad luck would be preferable to continuing in our present predicament when a taxi stopped beside us and a lady alighted.....with two dogs. We swallowed in unison, and for the first time in over an hour. This all goes to prove how nonsensical superstition is and yet if I wear to spot a magpie right now you know what I would do?
This afternoon my son and I vacuum and steamed the floors right through the house, a poxy job at the best of times but on a humid day like today almost unbearable. Before I became disabled I used to hoover the downstairs rooms daily, not any more, now I am lucky if the hoovering gets done twice a week and so of course the job takes longer as the floors are dirtier. Both of us were very sweaty and very tired by the time the job was done., and for a time the air around us was blue with purple edges.
Dinner tonight was our usual cold meats and cheeses with the wholemeal bread made early this morning before breakfast. The grocery delivery arrived on time, intact and for once complete which Is nothing short of amazing and I cannot remember when this remarkable event occurred last.
This morning my left hip joint popped again , this happens so often these days that IO refuse to attribute it to the date and day. Of course as I write there are still several hours of Friday the thirteenth left so it will not do to be too complacent just in case........what am I saying.... lets face it I am no better than my superstitious son!
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