Accident

It was an accident. I swear on my fabric stash it was.

You see, everything is temporary in our house at the moment and that includes the shade on my bedside lamp. It is slightly too big but it does a good job of temporarily replacing the one that got broken in the packing.  Only, it being slightly too big, when I caught it with my hand as I tried to put the light out, it slipped and overbalanced the lamp base. Which toppled onto the water carafe, which poured its contents over the radio alarm clock.

Now I did scoop it up quickly, but the first dribbles seem to have seeped into the base. And caused the radio to come on. Which ought to be a good sign of me not having drowned the thing. Save that it was on even though it was turned off. And would not turn off, whatever buttons I pressed.  Radio 4, on and on and on. (Dennis likes us to wake to the Today Programme. For myself, I would choose something more serene or upbeat. But I will give you that having to listen to John Humphries interupting and hectoring a politician who is intent on ignoring both question and reality in their desperate attempt to convince me of the sense of whatever inane policy they dreamt up overnight does get me up quickly. Newshound Dennis manages to snooze serenely through the first twenty minutes or so of the baracking and slimey avoidance).   Of course, the radio turned off when I did the electrical equivalent of smacking its bottom for tantruming and pulled its plug out. But when I plugged it back in, it started again. Not good.

But not a disaster, because a little while ago my Dad won an ipod docking station/ alarm clock and a large bar of chocolate in a raffle. Dad having no real need of (or idea what to do with) a docking station, I was given it the day before this happened. My ipod-less sister got the chocolate.  So I get up and go and get it. It has four pages of instructions. All of which have large simple diagrams for 'quick set up'. None of which tell me how to tune the radio. And of course I am only reading the instructions after I have spent time trying to fathom it out myself. It suggests I download the manual online. At gone midnight? Not good.

But not a disaster, because it is after all, a docking station. So I dock my itouch, set the alarm and go to sleep.

And at 6.41 am ( because this, like all other digital clocks you or I have ever set, skips the time you are actually trying to set it to by one minute) I start gradually to rise out of my sleep, eased out of it painlessly by  the gentle and interesting tones from the ipod. I snuggle down and let myself have a couple more minutes to enjoy....

Or I would have done if Dennis had not, within five seconds of it going off, sat bolt upright and demanded, "What is that?"

That, my dear Westminster-Village-wannabe-resident-political-conflict -thriving husband of many years, that is Annies Smith's quilting podcast.

It was, I swear on my stash, an accident.

PS. By the time I got home he had fixed the original alarm clock and asked me,"What is Patchwork Tsushin anyway?