Day Thirty Two

Day Thirty Two

Just before lockdown, I foolishly left my cash card in a small, local vegetable shop. By the time I realised and  rang them, they too were locked down.

'Sorry, all our vegetables in lock up now.'  I was told.

I can imagine carrots and spuds being locked down, they are, after all root vegetables and locked down in the soil until harvested -  but Spring Cabbage and Spring Onions?  Far too lively.

The staff, who know their onions,  won’t be idle during lockdown. They’ll be mopping up after the leeks and making sure the golden coaches turn back into pumpkins after midnight.

I contacted my bank about the card and they said they would put a temporary suspension or what they called, ‘a warm hold’ on my card.

This sounded far too cosy for a calculating institution like a bank however hard they try to inject friendliness into what is, essentially a business designed to make vast profits from our anxieties. 

My great Aunt Jessie, and most people of her generation, were braver: they kept all their money at home.  Hers was neatly stored in a Victorian chamber pot beneath her bed. 

 She called it  ‘a guzunder’ and had one in every bedroom. 

At home when I was a child, we had several potties because, despite having a bathroom,  our lavatory was outside.

We were allowed to use the po-po, a green enamel thing, not at all like Auntie Jessie's beautiful chambers, only for wee-wees.

During one of my stays with her, I needed the facilities in the night, so hopped out of bed, lit the candle and pulled the po from beneath my iron bedstead and was scared half to death by a gigantic eye looking up at me. 

 Some wag had decided to make it well night impossible to pee on a peeper.   

This pot is called The Good Companion anti-splash Thunder Bowl.

There are various theories about why eyes were once  popular. One of which was to defy the evil eye.  It was necessary to destroy its power by defecating on it.

Eye pots were once popular wedding gifts. In Stockport, Cheshire, the groom's friends would have an eye pot inscribed with his name and that of his fiancee.

 The night before the wedding, they repaired to a tavern where the  pot would be filled with beer and the groom encouraged to chug until he needed the pot for its original purpose.

In France the pot was filled with chocolate.   Can't say I fancy eating from even a pristine potty, I'd be ganaching my teeth.