Count in the Crossfire

It's true what they say, in a war zone it's always the accountants that suffer.

The Archdruid has been on holiday less than 48 hours and already it's driving me to distraction. My first problem, Dear Readers, came about on Saturday, less than an hour after Eileen had left the premises. I went to the safe in the Beaker Bazaar to issue the floats for the tills, and there was no money. I went online and checked the Beaker bank account - no money. I can only presume that Eileen has accidentally taken it all with her, as she has a habit of doing.

Then the phone rang, and it was Eileen - giving me a great long list of instructions. I have to count the attendance at each meeting in the Moot House. I have to tally everybody that is in the refectory for dinner. I have to count the Beaker Fertility Folk out when they next decide it's time for a fertility festival - and then wait around for hours to count them all back in again. I have to rate the anxiety levels of the Gibbon Moon Folk - thankfully currently low, as the moon is waxing steadily. Although they are more nervous than generally at this phase of the moon, as they seem to believe that the Perseid Meteor shower is bits of the Gibbon Moon falling off.

The one thing Eileen didn't "help" me with is the cashflow issue. When I told her that we had no float and no Community balance and how was I to pay any bills, she simply told me to "sell more doilies". She has a way with debt reduction that George Osborne must envy. And so I have been tramping the streets of Woburn and Milton Keynes, selling doilies. Returning, exhausted, from my travels I found Hnaef looking at yet another pile of Methodist Worship Books that had been reduced to Papier-mâché by yet another outpouring of the sprinklers in the Moot House. If it were not that we pick them up cheap from Church of England ordinands when they finish their courses, I have no idea how I would make ends meet - buying so many Methodist Worship Books every year.

So I now have enough money to issue a float in the Bazaar. And when the banks open, I will deposit the remainder so we can consider keeping the lights on. I hate it when Eileen goes away.  She keeps such iron control over things normally, that it all goes wrong when she is not paying any attention.