Immobilised

Overnight, the car radiator had haemorrhaged alarming amounts of water, so that for the first time in four years my classes were cancelled, owing to the prof (me) having no transport to get there. None of the students I rang seemed unduly distressed at the prospect of an English-free Tuesday.

As I scrambled dog and personal effects to make the trip to the garage and walk the couple of miles back, and as Tom refilled the water, it became apparent that my mobile phone was not in its proper place and I couldn't find it. I kept this to myself, as misplaced objects (I being inevitably the misplacer), especially when found to be so on the point of hurried departures, are the scourge of our marriage, that and Tom's refusal to eat pasta in any form, and now would not have been a good time. Using one mobile to ring and thus locate the missing other was not possible, as I have been keeping mine switched off for the last few days.

It started the other morning when the mobile went in the Spar shop. We have a minimalist attitude to the use of mobiles; ours are the simplest available, no pictures, nuffink, we have a deal with Breizh mobile, a local outfit who buy airspace or time or whatever commodity it is from Orange and resell it extra cheap, so network coverage is not always guaranteed, and we buy a card for 10 euros every two months which is enough for our needs, which are few. It's usually only ever Tom who's ringing me, and then only from necessity, so it's always a little unsettling when it goes off unexpectedly. The muzak and other background racket and poor reception in the shop made it hard to catch, but it was something to do with an advert on the internet. No, wrong number, I said, and rang off.

As I arrived at my friend's house it rang again; the advert, the caller said, on the website. Was it you earlier? I asked. No. After a few more I had the reply rehearsed, no, not me, and could they inform the website of the error.

I am very slow. Several calls later it had barely dawned on me that all the callers were male, their tone varied between inarticulate gruffness and a decidedly self-conscious bumptious suavity, none of them had mentioned what the advert was actually for, and they all pushed off sharpish without a query when I told them of their mistake. Nevertheless, I was still half-consciously assuming it must just be a good deal on a Bosch sander or some such. It wasn't until about the seventh call in the space of an hour, when Fi was already on the computer to find out about the website, that I got around to asking what was being advertised. A garbled response which I had to ask to be repeated three times; the second sounded something like 'skart', so I still had some kind of notion of electronic equipment and peritel connections.

When he finally got through to me by shouting 'escort girl!' loud and clear, the caller joined in with my hysterical laughter, despite the fact he was the sad person trying to chase up a prostitute. When she's finally picked herself up off the floor, Fi found the relevant page of the website, an otherwise quite respectable one advertising everything imaginable in free small ads, including presumably Bosch sanders and peritel connection cables. It was soon evident, though, that we would have to open up every 'escort girl' ad to find the one with my number in it, a prospect neither feasible nor appetizing, so I never did find out exactly what they thought I was offering.

So I turned off the phone and finished my coffee in peace. Fi's parting words were, 'now take it easy, Luce, don't wear yourself out...'. I contacted the website when I was home, laying it on rather thick with the 'I am a retired schoolteacher living quietly in the country...' line, and they were back to me within an hour or two to say they had suppressed the ad. The poor call girl must have had a very quiet day.

However, I've rather become accustomed to keeping the thing turned off. Fi's husband, our kind and constant gardener, begged her to give him the number so he could call me and wind me up. It might have worked, as I say, I'm terribly slow. Tom raised his eyebrows when I said he wouldn't be able to reach me during Friday morning, as I didn't want to be disturbed at work, saying far be it from him to interfere when I was busy with clients. But, as he remarked, the chances are someone would just scribble down the number and use it later, not aware the ad was no longer there. When I repeated this to Fi, she asked tartly (oops) now how would Tom know a thing like that? When another friend, trying to arrange a shopping matter with me on Saturday, suggested calling me while I was out, I explained I had been keeping the phone off, and why, adding that I had just ruined a perfectly good anecdote by telling her the whole story in one sentence.

So, that was why I left without my Starfleet link yesterday morning, but by the time I reached the swimming pool, I remembered that I'd put it into the bottom of the tie-dye cotton haversack I took to walk along the old railtrack, along with the big sister camera, a scarf and the book I was dropping off at D and J's, and that that receptacle has an uncanny knack of swallowing objects and rendering them invisible. Thereafter I was able to enjoy my walk, and even take a few pictures with the small camera of the swimming pool,

and the rising sun on its wooden walls,

and the vegetation around it.

The ever cheerful and often cheeky garagiste informs us that the radiator leak is significant but not serious, and it will be ready today. Being carless here is rather like being snowbound, quite cosy and fun ans long as it doesn't go on too long or incur any real inconvenience or cost. I spent much of the rest of the day trying to bring my photos on the computer into some kind of order, one of the many jobs I had pledged to do during next weeks holiday, a sieving process of apparent endlessness worthy of the Danaides. I wonder if a Flickr account would make matters better or worse...

This glorious false spring continues on its halcyon way. Molly overcame her fatigue after such a long morning walk and was up for another by the afternoon, and we visited the hens in the orchard, who meandered towards us nonchalantly, and the foals in the paddock, who nibbled at the zips and cords of my jacket. The unexpected day off was an un expected treat. Life for a (semi-)retired schoolteacher living quietly in the country is far from unpleasant.