shoo

“Shoo.”  It’s half past seven in the morning and Anniemay is vacuuming and washing the downstairs floors.  We’re expecting a car-load of relatives from up North and she knows her domestic handiwork will come under intense scrutiny (she regards anyone from Manchester as a “spy for my mother” - with good reason - her mother once ran a finger along the top of a door to check for dust).  So she is busy engaged in the Southern (and modern-day) equivalent of ‘donkey-stoning the front step’.  (There is a video of this ancient practice on a Manchester University website - trust me.)  Google ‘donkey-stone’.

“Shoo” again. 

Me, being male and by definition ‘in the way’, I have to find something useful to do while the floors dry.  I retreat to the garage with my camera.  A little while ago Anniemay bought a pair of fancy trainers that contained these paper mache ‘shoe-shapers’.  I failed to throw them out on the basis that they might make a blip some time.  That time has now come.