Blanche Hackett

What a miserable week we're having. I nipped into the wool shop this morning to get out of the rain but it didn't let up. So I thought whilst I was there I might as well get some wool. I was just standing there trying to make my mind up whether to knit myself a long vest with a flap, or go the whole hog and knit an all-in-one bodywarmer with a mandarin collar and kneepads, when who should walk up but Blanche Hackett.

'Blanche!' I cried, 'I haven't seen you since the harvest festival at St Agatha's, when you fell against the font and grabbed the Vicar's surplice.'

'No,' she said, 'I've been in hospital again having my seventh baby, and that's seven in six years, I feel as if I'm never off my back.'

'I don't know how you do it, Blanche,' I said ' Washing all those nappies in this weather, it must play havoc with your hands. I only have to rinse through a couple of tea-towels and my hands are raw.'

'I don't mind that so much,' She said 'It's my nerves, they're shot to pieces. I only have to hear a bedspring creak and I come out in a cold sweat!'

'Come along Blanch,' I said 'What you need is a bit of lunch, something light, come back to mine and I'll do you a bit of fish poached in milk'

'Oh that sounds ideal Lal. The last thing I want at the moment is something heavy lying on my stomach.'