At our weekly catch up Maggie seemed to have a bit of a torn face, and I was the only one brave enough to ask why.

“It’s Martin,” (her husband) she frowned.

“What’s he been up to now?” We all laughed, but Maggie wasn’t laughing as she explained.

“That’s three long weeks now he’s been on a diet.”

“Martin?”

I queried this because everyone knows Martin is a road worker (or Highway Operative as they are called nowadays), and loves his stodgy food now and again, and even although he seemed to have been on every diet under the sun, he never managed to lose any weight.

Which was why I was surprised when Maggie stated his latest fad diet had lasted three weeks.

“Like clockwork, every single night for three weeks I made him up healthy salad sandwiches for his packed lunch.”

“I gave him beautiful fresh tiger bread with low fat spread, the best cuts of lean meat with salad.”

“I even packed some low fat crisps and a Milky Way for his afternoon snack.”

“And I also made sure he had no money with him so that he wasn’t tempted to eat more than his calorie allowance.”

“I also made him……..”

Maggie ranted on and on before I interrupted her.

“Maggie, three weeks is not a bad start to a diet.”

“How much weight has he lost?”

“Not one ounce.” Maggie’s blood pressure was rising as she repeated.

“Not one ounce.”

“But if he…….” I attempted to find out why Martin’s low fat diet hadn’t worked.

“I’ll tell you why Janice.”

Maggie took a gulp of her wine before adding.

“The sneaky lump has been selling his sandwiches to that lads on the building site.”

“Really?”

“Yep, and buying himself a roll and sausage at the burger van twice a day.”

Maggie was raging that her daily efforts had been wasted, but we thought it was quite clever of Martin to sell on his sandwiches and get what he really wanted.

Just as we were laughing at Martin’s antics, Fiona discovered her mobile phone was missing.

“I’ll dial it for you.” I offered.

So I dialled Fiona’s number over and over whilst we all sat in silence listening for her ring tone.

Silence.

I dialled again as she searched in her pockets and handbag.

“I definitely had it when I came in here.” She confirmed.

Out of the blue a girl whom we didn’t know shouted.

“Anybody lost a mobile phone?”

“Yep.” Fiona sprung out of her seat.

“Well there’s one down the toilet in the ladies.”

And sure enough Fiona’s latest mobile was submerged in a toilet with the lights still flashing and vibrating like craze.

“OMG.” Gasped Fiona.

“I must have left it sitting on the cistern.”

All eyes turned to me as the realisation that every time I dialled Fiona’s phone it must have vibrated along the cistern until it finally took the plunge!

Oops, I thought to myself as I turned to Christine who was unusually quiet.

“Is your mobile working today then?”

You see, a few days earlier when I tried to speak to her on her mobile she sounded very distant and muffled.

I put it down to the fact that the phone signal was bad and eventually called her husband Jim.

“I think she can hear me.” I explained.

“But I can’t hear a word she is saying.”

“No worries Janice.” Jim had a tone of resignation in his voice.

“She’s probably hit the mute button on the side of the phone again.”

We both laughed because Christine still hadn’t quite got the hang of her ‘new’ iPhone, which incidentally, she got for Christmas!

Apparently Jim phoned her number various times and as we later found out, she could hear him but he couldn’t hear her.

Jim phoned the mobile company and explained the situation but the mobile expert really had no viable explanation.

“Tell her to bring it in to the shop.” Was his advice.

So for the remainder of the day they communicated by text message.

Returning home Christine threw the useless phone on the couch, and out of interest Jim picked it up to investigate the mystery of the muffled voice calls.

A few seconds later he roared.

“Christine.”

“Christine, could you come here a minute.”

“What’s this?” Jim pointed to his bewildered wife’s phone.

“What’s what?”

“This.”

Apparently my good pal had cracked the bottom of her mobile phone cover and attempted to fix it herself.

“Janice, she bloody well wrapped sellotaped round and round the mouth piece of the phone.”

Jim sounded frazzled.

“No wonder we couldn’t hear her!

My pals’ amateurish DIY attempts to fix her mobile phone didn’t go down well, I can tell you!