Wild Weekend

In my wild youth I had a wild friend.  Her name was Loani.  People stumbled and bumbled around her name like a rock in the shallows.  "Leonie?" they would hopefully mumble.  "Loo-ah-knee?" they would stutter.  "Leilani?" they would squeak....We used to titter about it behind the ABC Shop counter as we relieved Joan for her lunch/potty breaks back in the last century...nay the last millenium....Names are very important things....People get a bit "thing" about their names if you don't get them quite right....I made a point of remembering how to say Loani's name and practised it furiously when I first met her.  If I got it wrong...well, she called me Olix....and that's how she inscribed my very own copy of her latest book last weekend.  "Look !" said Cas..."She must be a bit tired from signing all those books...she's spelt your name Olix rather than Alex...." ...so I told him the story....


And so here we are....so many years later...and as she said to me....in our wild youth...if someone had come and tapped us on the arm down at the RE and said "She'll be famous for her tea cosies one day...." well, we would have howled with laughter.....shrieked like hyenas....we still do come to think of it.....

How many glasses of wine, cups of tea, bowls of lentils, pints of stout have we consumed together dear friend as we shared the stories of our day?  Each tried to outdo the other in embellishing...."Wait til I tell you about the one I had today.....she rings me and she says.....can you tell me what happened in Blake's Seven last night?  I missed it......"    "No, no, no...." she'd shriek "I can do better than that....wait til you hear about this one......she wanted to let me know that she's just past Uranus and on her way to Pluto....and she wants to know what's the weather forecast for Pluto"  We'd get licorice all-sorts in our days at the ABC on the phones.

Well now we are here in the more settled time...we're more matronly...more sober....more domesticated....less licentious....we've got to let the young uns have their time in the limelight....and be a bit respectable...but .....in case anyone cares to know.....or ponders on the stray potty word that escapes our lips or wonders if the wild laughter could possibly have come from our table....well ...they only have to look at the teapot and its fabulous cosy to know......tea hee!