General Witterings -
Rosy Thaws Out

Great Fannys of the World Number 236:

Fannys in Literature:

Tom Sharpe:  The Great Pursuit

Hutchmeyer says:  "You tell Baby she's old and you can kiss yourself goodbye.  She'd have your fanny for a dishcloth.  I mean it."  (It doesn't make much more sense when it IS read in context!)

I wouldn't like it to be thought that life is one long party over here.  There were two or three very pleasant social occasions over the Christmas and New Year period, but other than that, I tend to lead a quiet life.  Fanny is performing a useful function in getting me out of Rosy every day - in the previous three winters, I've often spent three or four days without leaving Rosy.

However, for those who want a more active social life, there is one here.  The other five or six live-aboards seem to spend more time on each others' boats than on their own.  They have "coffee mornings" and "afternoon tea" and evening aperitifs, but at each occasion they seem to ignore the tea and coffee, and concentrate on slugging back the red wine or Pastis.

Near us, there is a small, low-lying wood.  It floods to a depth of two or three inches in the winter, and during the cold spell it froze solid.  We took Jess and Fanny down to it, and they had great slip-sliding fun, and gave us (and other spectators) considerable amusement.  The dogs learned to take little steps - and to keep the speed down - very quickly.

One of the things about living overseas is adjusting one's needs to match the availabilities.  For example, milk was all too difficult in the deserts of Oman - hence I now take black tea and coffee.  Here on Rosy, in a car-less lifestyle, all sorts of simple things become difficult.  However, I would have thought that talcum powder would have been reasonably straightforward - but it ain't.  There is even a dearth of it in the nearby supermarkets, so lord know how they keep their crutches soft 'n' sweet.  When it IS available, it's in the "Baby Goods" section.  The Laird of Strathnaver scrounged a lift to the nearby Gien super-duper-market, and promised to bring me a pot of talc.  All that was available was a "Poudre Vegetale" containing zea mays, magnesium stearate, titanium dioxide, sodium phosphate, perfume, prunus dulcis and methyl paraben.

FMOB!!!  All I wanted was talcum powder!!!  Furthermore, it came in a cunning pot with holes in the top that refuse to let any of the sodding stuff out, so at least it should last me quite a while.

Us military gents are, of course, used to better things.  Our leaders provided us with little deep bronze green painted tins, decorated with the WD arrow, and said to contain "Foot and Body Powder" or, in military-logistics-speak "Powder Foot and Body".  The contents were unspecified, but were generally reckoned to include:

• Powdered granite - to grind off hard and rough patches of skin
• Anti flea powder
• A powerful fungicide to counter foot-rot and crutch-rot
• A perspiration evaporator
• A birth control agent
• An agent that would react with such stinging ferocity to any VD scars, pimples and lesions that the sufferer developed a strong psychological aversion to any further exposure to infection

In the old days, when fighting was done in reasonably straight lines, with the chaps standing quite close together, a perfume was included.  But when Her Majesty's enemies took to using sneaky jungle warfare tactics, the perfume was omitted.

Toodle pip!!

Bill