Tale as old as time

It’s a fragile Lionel Chaff that takes the lead in the forthcoming Appleton Marsh Players’ production of Beauty and the Beast. You may remember Lionel going cuckoo (Connie’s word not mine) when Modern Man went into liquidation after thirty years of trading on the High Street. I shall never forget the day – I’d woken up to the hammer-blow that Jayne McDonald had split from her husband, Henrik Brixen and later that morning, when Margaret, Beryl and I were in the shop staring at each other in disbelief, Connie hobbled in and delivered the gloomy news.

Lionel will be playing opposite Astrud Gilberto who got back from her East Midlands Beach Samba Tour and went straight into rehearsals. Flo continues her association with the AMPs  playing Lumiere the candelabra and local MP Neil Parish will be turning his back on Westminster for a few days to help out with the lighting and props. Get the dates in your diaries – 23rd to 25th of February; tickets are reasonably priced and can be purchased from DBLW, the Sue Ryder Shop next door, Hair Today Hair Tomorrow and the Community Centre. Come along for a night of fun and entertainment and support Lionel on his long road to recovery.

Don Chaff Tipped for Man Booker Prize

No sooner has the Man Booker jury been announced than Appleton Marsh’s incumbent Mayor, Pepé Rodriguez, has tipped Bovey Tracey author Don Chaff to land the country’s most prestigious literary prize.

The 2012 “Booker Dozen” won’t be announced until July but Mayor Pepé has already cast his vote for “Metal Detecting with Don Chaff”. Hopefully it will be second time lucky for the author and part-time heating engineer who narrowly missed out on making the longlist in 2009 with his auto-biographical travelogue which took the theme of one man’s direction in life and set it against a pastoral Devon backdrop. “Circular Walks Around Bovey Tracey by Don Chaff” was snapped up by Faber and Faber and went on to top the book charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

There is a sense of closure, of completing unfinished business and settling old scores as Chaff returns to the fields around Bovey Tracey in his latest offering, “Metal Detecting with Don Chaff”. The author is back on familiar ground after his brief but disastrous foray into children’s literature. Critics weren’t kind to his “Stillness of Time Travel”, variously describing it as “the worst children’s book ever written”, “the worst book about time travel ever written” and “quite simply the worst book ever written.” But CORGI registered Chaff is a survivor as readers of the second volume of his memoirs, “Chaff by Chaff Inch” will know only too well. Bouncing back with a place on the Man Booker longlist is surely the best way to answer those critics.

The Big One

It’s the one everyone’s been waiting for – it’s the DBLW January Sale.

The door will open at 9.00am prompt on Tuesday morning and, if recent years are anything to go by, we’re expecting a stampede Even more so in 2012 after a brazen display of brinkswomanship when it has become frustratingly evident that customers have been holding off from buying drop crotch pants in anticipation of picking up a bargain in the sale.

Well, this time consumer sovereignty won out! The price of all remaining drop crotch pants will be slashed by 5% with an extra 1% off the “Grey Surprise” colour on the day.

The bargain bin includes an assortment of tabards and a few pairs of sheggings – the surprise hit of 2010 – which were used for a photo-shoot for the West Country Times. We still have a few of the Slovenia flag design bikinis which will be offered on a buy three, get one half-price deal.

It’s important that the sale goes well if we’re to make way for the DBLW Spring Collection (more on that, and a landmark exclusive contract signed with a local fashion house, later). Make no mistake, the January Sale is the fashion retail equivalent of moulting – casting off its old exterior.

But then fashion is all about renewal and DBLW is all about fashion (and, by inference, renewal).

Panna Cotta Controversy

That attention-seeking Margaret Chaff has been at it again. No sooner has she recovered from rolling around the floor of my kitchen with a shattered femur than she’s insisting that on Boxing Day she saw the face of Jesus in her Sainsbury Taste the Difference Panna cotta.

Of course I asked her where was the evidence and she tells me she ate it. But not before her and Don had wept, hugged and communed with the Almighty.

“I’ve never heard such a load of rubbish in all my life,” I told her.

“I took a picture with the camera Don bought me,” she said. “I’ll e-mail it over, you disbeliever.”

That was three days ago. Long enough to buy a copy of Photoshop in the PC World Sale and to learn how to touch up pictures of cream-based desserts, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Anyway, she’s sent the picture through this aftrnoon. The first thing you’ll notice is the sloppy presentation of the food. What poor Don has to put up with! Then, if you look closely enough, you can see something Barry Gibb-like. It’s by no means conclusive, and clearly Margaret wasn’t overwhelmed enough to let a Holy Vision come between the Panna cotta and  her rumbling stomach.

“Didn’t you think to save it?” I asked.

“No, Doris. Don’t ask me why but it felt right to eat it. Don understood.”

“That’s because Don is a saint himself, ” I wanted to say. That I managed to stop myself was the real miracle.

I’ve got my gloves to keep me warm…

Christmas Day has always been a day to remind me of what’s missing in my life – a husband, children, friends with good taste. So it was with no sense of joy that I climbed into Sebastian’s Picasso this morning for the short journey to Flo’s house.

Flo has a tendency to be pathologically cheerful at this time of year and, even though she doesn’t earn a lot of money, she always puts on a good show.

She greeted me at the door with a glass of mulled wine.

“Let me get my coat off first,” I told her, alert to the health and safety implications of juggling a glass while disrobing.

Sebastian took my coat.

I told him to use a coat-hanger but you’d have thought I’d ask him to get and get it dry cleaned, the way he looked at me. We’ve never really seen eye to eye but thankfully Sebastian is a man of few words. Those words he does come out with I can usually successfully talk over.

“I’ve decorated your chair with tinsel,” chirped Flo.

I could see for myself.

When I  got my new Parker Knoll recliner I donated my old chair to Flo, on the basis that I am a frequent visitor to her house and, as tatty as it was, my old chair was still more comfortable than anything she had to offer. The only problem is that the colour really doesn’t go with anything else Flo has.

Thoughtfully, Flo had put the remote control for the television on the armrest which meant at least I wouldn’t have to watch anything I didn’t want. She knows that for me, part of preparing for Christmas is sitting down with the Radio Times and making a list of the programmes we’ll watch on Christmas Day.

Well, I’m sure you don’t want to re-live the whole of today with me but you’ll probably want to know what was given and what was received.

I was very happy with my haul. Flo bought me a pair of gauntlet-style gloves with draw cord wrist closure. Kirsty got me a re-fill for my Avon Bond Girl 007. Sebastian bought me a pack of four Airwick lavender and camomile plug-in air fresheners which by all accounts are no longer made so are quite hard to find. Margaret had also given a present to Flo to give to me, by way of thanks for when I helped her after she’d broken her femur at my 79th birthday party.  It was a CD by Michael Bubbles; Kirsty played it for me during dinner and it sounds lovely. Flo was also Postwoman for some international parcels. My dear friend from the States, Blarney, sent me a highly collectable corkscrew, fashioned in the image of Pope Jean Paul I – something she knows I’ve been hankering after for a while now. And exiled author Susie Kelly sent me some vegetarian foie gras but, honestly speaking, she could have met this meat lover half way and sent over some free range foie gras.   

It’s fair to say that everyone seemed happy with what I’d bought them. Kirsty went as far as to say she’d been eyeing up the drop crotch pants in the window of DBLW for some time, and she was pleasantly surprised they came in such a jolly yellow. Sebastian seemed content with his English Heritage calendar and Flo was overwhelmed by the fleur-de-lys design cake tin Santa brought her –   a perfect match with her biscuit barrel.

It was quite a warm day today in Devon and it made a nice change not coming back to a cold house for once. Next door, Astrud’s house was in darkness – I think she’s back in Brazil for Christmas. She didn’t send a card. 

I’ll just make myself a mug of Horlicks and then it’s off to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow. The DBLW New Year’s Sale is only a week away. I need to make it a success and create room in the shop for some exciting new stock (more about that soon).

God bless. 

I’m a ladies outfitter, get me out of here!

That’s what I wanted to shout earlier today when Flo cornered me in the staff room of DBLW.

“I’m worried about the crisis in the Euro zone, Doris,” she said, in a tone of voice somewhere between alarm and blind panic.

“Who’s been filling your head with nonsense this time, Flo?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Sebastian,” she confessed, seemingly open to the idea that it might have been nonsense.

“And what does Sebastian know about the finances of monetary union?” I asked wearily.

“I think he read about it,” she said.

“That would be in Nuts magazine, would it?”

“I think so,” she said.

“Are you sure it was Sebastian?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she nodded. ”Sebastian, or Keith.”

“Or Keith? Keith Jackson?”

“Keith Clifford.”

“Keith Clifford from Totnes?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing back in Appleton Marsh?”

“He didn’t say.”

“But he mentioned the Euro zone crisis?”

“I think so.”

Flo clenched her teeth and frowned. I knew the look.

“You’re confused, Flo. I think you’ve mixed up something on the news with your encounter with Keith Clifford.”

“Hmmmmm.”

She thought about it.

“Possibly,” she said at last.

“Are you sure it was Keith Clifford you bumped into?”

“Yes! Of course I’m sure!”

“Just checking,” I said, not sure about anything.

“Have you finished with me?” asked Flo, raising her eyebrows.

I looked at her. She looked back at me.

“Yes, Flo,” I said eventually. “I’ve said all I wanted to say.

She smiled and squeezed past me.

Semi-reclusive

Not since Carole Decker’s (no, not that Carole Decker) ex-husband, Trevor lived next door have I had a quieter neighbour than Astrud Gilberto. I don’t know whether she’s on tour or what she’s up to. She never said she was going away. Her curtains are never closed but that doesn’t mean much; when all’s said and done she comes from a different culture and there is a bit of the exhibitionist in her.

What should I do? I mean, she could be lying in agony on the floor having slipped on her travertine tiles! DB is on the horns of a dilemma…

Audrey’s Memory Foam Misfortune

It doesn’t seem so long ago that Audrey Brown burnt her chin when tucking into a three cheeses Crispy Pancake. A magma chamber of fat erupted, sending a cheesy pyroclastic flow down her front and giving her a nasty burn.

I’m sorry to report that last night Audrey was beset by more misfortune.

By all accounts Audrey went to bed early and fell asleep while doing a beginner level sudoku. Apparently (and this is what Margaret told me) as she nodded off, her head was tilted to one side, her chin propped up by her palm – elbow digging into the mattress, pen to her mouth in contemplation, spine contorted to avoid a hot water bottle which was still too hot.

And, thanks to her much-lauded memory foam mattress, that’s how she stayed all night. Literally, Audrey didn’t move an inch.

It was her sister, Doreen, who found her after Audrey failed to turn up at the floating yoga (Flo-Yo) class at the David Lloyd gym in Exeter. The class wasn’t until midday which means, by the time Doreen discovered the contorted and set Audrey, it was gone one o’clock.

“It was like a scene from Herculaneum,” is what Doreen told Margaret Chaff.

Poor Audrey. The memory foam had preserved her posture and her limbs were so stiffened, her joints so seized, that no amount of encouragement from her sister could raise her. In the end Doreen had no other choice but to take a bread knife to the foam while training a 1.8kw ceramic tower fan heater onto her prostrate sister.

Poor Audrey. What an ordeal.  And what next?

The drop crotch comes to Appleton Marsh

DBLW customers expect me to stay ahead of the fashion curve. There’s a good reason for that. I have form. I have previous. For the last fifty years my shop window has showcased the most up to date designs in ladies wear; at times the journey from the catwalks of Milan to Appleton Marsh has been a very short one. 

Continuing this tradition I am pleased to announce the arrival of drop-crotch pants in our flagship High Street store. Elegant, flattering, practical, this stunning design from east European fashion house Slav-Style is certain to turn heads in the South Hams. These pants are available in four pleasing colours: grey surprise (shown here), antique pine, simply very bright yellow and, exclusive to DBLW, Lincoln green.

Stock is limited. Being a highly successful businesswoman means keeping an eye on working capital at all times. Four colours, six sizes (10,12,14,16,18,20), MOQ (minimum order quantity) of 48 for each size and colour, means I have 1,152 of these to shift before Christmas. Any more and I’d be losing sleep.

If I’m honest, I thought today they looked a bit lifeless hanging there on the rails. By 2.00pm we hadn’t sold a single pair so I ordered Flo to model a pair of the pine ones for the rest of the day. What a face she had on her.

“I look a bugger in them, Doris,” she said.

“Can’t you at least raise a smile?” I asked her.

“Catwalk models don’t smile,” she said, with a deadpan expression.

It was a mixed blessing that no more customers came in for the rest of the afternoon. I’ve returned the pants to stock and I’ll rethink our marketing strategy tomorrow when Flo and I are back on speaking terms.