We’ve had some invigorating weather over the last couple of days. As we drove to Inverness yesterday we could see snow on the higher northern peaks and on Friday hailstones fell here. Which perhaps was the reason I dropped my purse in the street. I've just changed purses, alweays a traumatic and unsettling event. I bond deeply with my purse (British purse not American purse) so when the sad moment comes that I have to set it aside it almost has to be surgically removed from me. A year or so ago Sophie bought me two purses, one teal with a metal ornament and one in shades of pink. I chose the pink one for immediate use making my farewells to the incumbent holder of my cash which was anyway a cheap stand-in because I had had the loved one stolen from the counter in the shop (daft of me to leave it there so no more than I deserved I suppose.) That was an easy transition. I loved the pinkness of the new one, the softness of the leather, and the number of compartments just right for my needs. We have been together now for what feels like a very long time. Recently it has started to shed coins all around me every time I take it out and although I will never part completely with this friend the bending to pick up those silly little 5p pieces from the grimy Post Office floor was getting a bit tedious so I’ve pensioned it off for special occasions when cash isn’t in much demand and taken to the teal-with-ornament purse, also soft leather and a colour much to my taste. For about a week I've been trying to become accustomed to its alien newness. Friday morning in the wind and lashing rain at 10.30-ish I took it out, located the right card and withdrew money from the ATM. At the end of this operation I had very cold wet hands (and has anyone else noticed the dripping gutter or cunningly shaped funnelling architrave just above every ATM?) As usual I put the money carefully into my purse and shoved the purse into my big purple bag, zipping it up to keep the parcels dry. At the Post Office I stood in the queue for what felt like an hour to get to the desk and once there piled the book orders onto the counter then rummaged amongst the debris at the bottom for the new purse which I couldn't find. Showering old tissues (whoops, should have disposed of them like the leaflet says) empty chewing gum packets, bits of fluff , more silly 5p’s and several old shopping lists around me I rummaged some more, increasingly frantically, but still no purse. The nice assistant expressed sympathy, I threw everything back in and hightailed it up the road to the last place I was sure I had had the runaway. By now I'd worked out that so cold and wet were my hands after I'd taken out the maney I'd probably not shoved the purse INTO the bag but into the space between my mac and the bag, from whence it had descended to the ground. No purse lay in the puddles on the pavement so, full of dread, (I REALLY don't have cash to lose these days) I called in at the bank belonging to the ATM to ask if it had been handed in. It hadn’t, but as I was telling the Teller all about it a lady in the next queue asked ‘Have you lost a purse? I was just in the Post Office and someone was saying they had found one.’ I beat my way against the wind and rain back to the Post Office to be told, yes, a nice lady had picked it up and was taking it to the Police Station. Back I wheezed to the house, grabbed the car key and by now soaking with both rain and perspiration, drove off to the Police Station, woke them up to be told that no purse had been handed in yet, but a form should be filled in, the purse described and my claim to it laid. Back home again I rang Chloe to ask for a loan of some of the cash in her practice room because one parcel had been especially needed Saturday by the customer. Clutching enough cash to post it I puffed back up the road where Linda, the head honcho at the PO, told me who it was who had picked up my purse, a hairdresser working at the other end of town. Off I set in an easterly direction, against the prevailing wind, and when I finally found the salon (there seem to be dozens in this town, you wouldn’t think it could support so many but as new ones keep appearing I suppose it can) I was totally out-of-breath and anyway incoherently grateful to be reunited with Teal-Green runaway purse. A reward seemed a bit much but I made an appointment to have my hair cut by her next week. I just hope she’s as good at cutting hair as she is honest.
As I have quite a history of lost, stolen and strayed purses, also front door keys and car keys, I’ve a habit (irritating I’m told) of constantly rootling about in my bag to see if I still have everything I should have and I can’t leave the house until I’ve checked at least three times. Sometimes obsessive-compulsive behaviour is the only way to go.
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