AN OFFICIAL APOLOGY

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s all my fault.  I can only apologise, most sincerely, for the truly awful weather: I take full responsibility.  Not only did I foolishly buy more clothes pegs two weeks ago to enable me to hang out yet more wet washing (a really provocative move), but I was daft enough to turn the Aga off, too.  What’s the saying?  ‘Ne’er cast a clout till May is out’.  Well you would have thought I was old and ugly enough to have learnt that there’s sense and truth in most country sayings.  But no, I took it upon myself to go through the various and convoluted steps of slaying the mighty beast that rules in our kitchen – a process redolent both of nasty fumes and tricksome memories: almost 21 years ago I very nearly killed us all by failing to turn the oil off as well as the flame, thereby soaking the vermiculite lagging and causing the most horrendous, noxious gases to be emitted when it was relit.   So now what should I do?   Answers on a postcard please: we can shiver through June, and have nowhere to dry our smalls, or we can give in and crank the beast back into life – in which case we will almost certainly hit a heatwave.  For such is the way of things – in life; at L&F HQ; and most certainly here in rural Lincolnshire.