Jackie Jillings

OK, that’s too much hospital drama now

I thought I’d exhausted this theme. In fact, I have a couple of half-started drafts on completely different themes, but this one pretty much writes itself.

Once again, I find myself recounting my involvement in a hospital-related incident. This time, I have had a starring role (somewhat stretching the thespian metaphor now) as an ambulance-driver. A more unlikely paramedic you could not wish to find, believe me!

For the past couple of years, Mr J has taken part in a fundraising bicycle ride from Hampton Court to Worthing. On both occasions, I drove the car down to Worthing and was described as the ‘support vehicle’. I recall ferrying a rucksack or two, and the first year Mr J packed himself and his bike into the car for the return journey, having decided not to push himself too far. Last year, I simply joined the riders for breakfast in a farm café, and cheered their arrival on the sea-front, but otherwise took a decided back seat (well, not literally, as I would not have been able to reach the pedals obviously) as they all happily achieved the there-and-back with no more than a few tired limbs (and some nice financial donations) to show for it.

This year, I had thought very little about it. No-one expects me to turn up for the silly-o’clock start, and I was already armed with the necessary post-codes to punch into the sat-nav, so I was almost on auto-pilot as I swung into the staging post café car-park at 8.30am to join the riders for coffee and pastries. All good. I took the obligatory ‘press’ photograph of them all, clad in borrowed corporate T-shirts for future publicity for the charity, and they set off again. In no hurry myself, I chatted with one of the charity officials before pootling off down the country lanes in search of the A24 to fast-track myself to the seaside where I could await their arrival.

After about 10 minutes, I spotted the group of cyclists ahead of me and they (fortuitously, I felt, to avoid me having to execute a perfect overtaking manoeuvre) turned off down a small lane. With another wave, I accelerated merrily in a southerly direction.

No more than three minutes later, and just as I was negotiating a new roundabout that my ageing sat-nav failed to recognise, I received a telephone call on my mobile, which miraculously connects to the car. Even more miraculously, I succeeded in picking up the call using a button (with a tell-tale green phone symbol – I didn’t go to Cambridge for nothing, you know) on the steering-wheel.”Erm, you might need to come and find us. Someone’s just fallen off. He says he’s fine, but we’re not sure at the moment.”

Hmm – in the approaching distance through my windscreen was a sea of orange cones and temporary road-signs. My brain was still waking up, and this was an unwelcome double challenge: work out how on earth to negotiate the temporary and extremely confusing junction ahead without hitting anything (or crying), whilst also turning round somehow to retrace my route to find the casualty.

Within seconds, I was through the temporary junction (no cones were damaged in the process) and onto the A24 heading ever more rapidly away from the cyclists. All the way round the next roundabout, heading north again, I was soon back at the cones – to discover that there was no exit back onto the road I needed to retrace. Some nervy fannying around and mild (ok, not so mild) swearing ensued as I continued northwards. My very own grey-matter satnav kicked in. Clearly I needed to take the next turning east available. So I did.

It was a very small single-track road with rather sparse passing spaces, and rather less sparse, and almost as large, potholes. I pulled into one of the passing spaces and checked a map on my phone. Mr J and I had set up mutual tracking on our phones the night before. I had thought this strange, but went along with it. How useful now! It proved that my judgment had been correct, and if I continued along this route I would find them.

And indeed, there they were, gathered on a remote rural embankment beside a deeply rutted corner. My appearance was hailed with great relief, not least by the injured party from whom some of the attention was consequently briefly diverted.

There appeared to be no blood, and the unfortunate faller seemed relatively calm although pale – and clearly in pain whenever he tried to move. By this stage he had stopped insisting he would be fine to carry on. He was unable to put his right foot to the ground at all, and was struggling to move it. A hip fracture or some severe bruising were suspected.

The two female cyclists and I tended towards the fracture scenario and all agreed that this needed to be a hospital case. The assembled male contingent reckoned the chap would be fine as long as he didn’t try and cycle the rest of the way to Worthing, and if I could just get him back to his wife, all would be well. Wives can sometimes be miraculous, can’t they? Unsure though I was (and I surreptitiously muttered ‘shouldn’t this be an actual ambulance job?’ to Mr J at one point), events were overtaking me and the patient was already being supported on either side and levered into the passenger seat of my vehicle. His previously dodgy pallor seemed improved, the swearing had stopped (mine as well as his – although perhaps we were both simply internalising our four-letter thoughts by now) so I thought I’d better get on with it.

His bicycle stowed behind us, we set off north, guessing our way successfully back to the main road and thence all the way back to Hampton Court Bridge, where he had begun his day. From there, it was a short way to Teddington Hospital Walk-In Centre where we had arranged to meet his wife. It was only as we drove along Teddington High Street that we considered there might be something worrying in the name of this establishment: ‘walk-in’ perhaps implied that you had to be able to “walk” into it! Sadly, within seconds of our brief discussion on this matter, we received a phone call from the wife (Mrs P) on my mobile (which by this stage I was completely laid back about being able to answer from the steering wheel) telling us she could see we were approaching the hospital (!! this is far too Big Brotherish for me – she was tracking his phone too) but she had just been into the hospital reception to request a wheelchair and been informed that the clue was indeed in the name of this establishment and as a result ‘they don’t do hips’. We’d have to go elsewhere.

I managed to park my car immediately behind Mrs P’s, and between us we levered our patient out of my car (relatively easy as it has large doors and is quite a convenient height) and he confirmed he was still unable to put his foot to the ground. Slowly, and clearly very painfully (the swearing had recommenced, after our long politely conversational trip), the three of us manoeuvred along the pavement and negotiated the much more difficult task of getting him into the considerably lower front seat. More swearing may have occurred at this point, but we gently closed the door on it, and agreed that I would keep the bike in my car for now and resume my support duties down in West Sussex. Mrs P had intended to join us there, as a second back-up vehicle, but I was now on my own, so in case someone else needed transporting somewhere, I made my way back towards the A24 through much heavier traffic than there had been at breakfast-o’clock.

I finally arrived in Worthing around 12.30 and located the small group of riders on a pavement café. One was missing – apparently there had been a second casualty in my absence and his wife had been summoned to deal with him. (What would they do without wives, eh?) People were muttering ‘cardiac issue’ (worrying!) but I was so hungry I had no problem shovelling a rather nice salad into my face. And the remaining cyclist chappies all seemed sure all would be well now that the injured and ailing were reunited with their magic-wand-wielding all-powerful wives.

I confess that my medevac adventure was rather too much ‘excitement’ for one day. I have mentioned before that my record of dealing with hospitals or illness is poor, and Mr J is well aware of this having experienced most of it first-hand. I expect he gave it a passing thought as I sped away with my notional blue-light flashing, before resuming his ride. Lord knows how I would have reacted if the casualty had passed out in my car, or thrown up, or started to scream with pain. I suspect I would have been able to find a closer hospital, my navigation capabilities remaining a reasonably strong point, if only I had managed to remain conscious myself. As it was, I had managed to keep up a steady patter of conversation to avoid either of us thinking too much about it. Clearly in full-on ‘useful wifey’ mode.

I thought plenty about it on the two hours walk with which I rewarded myself along the beach after lunch. What if driving the casualty all that way before treatment had done him some harm? (Once I got home, I Googled broken pelvis – which is what had by then been diagnosed – and it seems that seated immobility in the car was fine, and we probably got to him much more quickly than an NHS ambulance would have done on the day.) What if I’d actually taken a funny turn myself, as per my track record? (Well, I didn’t, so why worry about it?)

There were apparently a couple of punctures to add to the fun on the return journey, but fortunately the ‘husbands’ could manage these by themselves and my services were not required any further. So, after my walk, I successfully located my car on the roof of a seafront multi-storey car park, where I must have left it earlier whilst still in my super-power mode, paid the tiny non-London parking fee – much cheaper than any hospital! – and set off once more to join the A24 back home.

As I edit this piece for publication, I seem to have succumbed to the lurgy and I ache all over. The LFT tells me this isn’t COVID (although to be honest I almost wish it was, to get it over with after all this time – why be ill if it’s not yer actual coronavirus?) but I spent half a day in bed yesterday which is almost unheard of for me. But my ‘good wife’ gene kicked in again this morning and my befuddled brain decided that the best course of action for my ailing body was to do ALL of the housework. This now means that although I am exhausted and hurting everywhere, I don’t have to lift a finger until it’s time to cook supper! And the cat has a huge choice of clean places to soil.

Here is the link to the charity Pelvic Radiation Disease Association (PRDA) for which the riders were fundraising.

Oh, to be 9 years old (but not 10)

*Jillings Towers festooned with 10th birthday party balloons*

We have recently hosted my brother in law and his young daughter H for a week’s holiday. They live in the US and usually join us for Christmas, but Covid put paid to that for the past two Yules, so we were overdue a visitation.

Scheduled to arrive in time for a full family Easter celebration, the visitors got off to a poor start by having their first flight delayed by so long that it became impossible to make their connection in Washington, so – as I was launching myself into the final bed-making round – we received a brief text explaining that they had gone back home to bed and the whole arrival thing would happen 24 hours late. Of course, as the non-travelling participants in this holiday, we were sheltered from the awfulness of having to get up at 3am for the second day running, but it was rather discombobulating nevertheless to have all the plans shifted. I immediately ceased hospital-corner procedures and down-dustered my day in favour of a brisk walk followed by some desultory Netflixing.

Daughter Jillings, who had planned to meet us all at Heathrow (despite Easter weekend closure of the Piccadilly Line to add to the challenge!) and then spend her precious day off on Easter Day with us all, was now not able to see her little cousin until several days later. A huge disappointment, given that she had been planning this for ages. Son Jillings was fortunately able to flex his own schedule and come for an Easter Monday roast instead, no doubt egged on (oh, I’m so sorry!) by the promise of Easter chocolate and a bottomless pit of Hot Cross Buns, and a need to replenish after what had suddenly become a somewhat low-key (and low calorie) Holy Day for him.

I don’t normally attend the big airport meet-and-greet when these relatives arrive at Christmas. Daughter J loves it all and usually accompanies her father on such excursions while I am to be found at home peeling spuds or fretting about whether we have enough wrapping paper for EVERYONE to use when they realise that, once again, they have failed to buy any themselves. But this time, with no younger generation available for collection duties, and no vegetables to peel (at least, not urgently), I decided to throw myself into the welcoming process, prepared a sign-board with our niece’s name on it, and jumped into the car with Mr J to brave Heathrow Terminal 2 short-term car-park (armed also, of course, with a credit card with which to negotiate the extortionate parking machines – I thought the hospital car-park was bad enough but airports are in a different league, if morally less offensive I suppose.)

As we got closer to our destination, several planes roared over our heads on their landing approach. I became increasingly distressed that, although Mr J was driving me to an airport, I would not be allowed to board any of these noisy monsters this time (despite secretly popping my passport into my pocket beforehand – ‘just in case’.) A sense of frustrated sadness threatened to settle – BUT, in the nick of time I reminded myself that this was not about me. It was about a young lady who had been deprived of her father’s homeland and relatives for far too long and needed a proper welcome.

Mr J was bemused by my animation in the Arrivals Hall. (But really, how can this not be exciting?!) I was always going to be the first to spot them, and young H was much quicker than her father in spotting me; the one mad woman jumping up and down waving an A4 handwritten (with several neon highlighter pens, and in wonky capital letters) sign, whooping loudly in order to distinguish herself from the low-key mini-cab drivers half-heartedly brandishing their inevitably misspelt iPad greetings for jaded business-class clients. The mad woman whom everyone else was studiously ignoring was surely just what was needed by a nine-year-old after two days with almost no sleep. And yes, it was!

From this point onwards, the whole week went swimmingly well. Highlights included:

several trips on double-decker buses across London – regular services, not the touristy ones – sitting upstairs at the front
meeting the ravens at the Tower of London
a sleepover at her cousin’s (Daughter J’s) flat
a ‘trainee’ session at the same cousin’s restaurant, where a be-aproned (and trained) H proudly welcomed the rest of the family and showed us to our table for lunch and later created a fantastic ice-cream dessert for us
an Easter Egg hunt in the back garden of Jillings Towers on the ‘day that we deemed to be Easter because they missed the actual day’ (I think this was the first time I’ve bothered to hide eggs in the garden. Apologies to my own children for depriving them of this when they were small, but in my defence I don’t recall such a sunny Easter time. Son Jillings made up for this in his enthusiasm for the search, but his young cousin triumphed spectacularly, perhaps due to having had more practice.)
a train trip with her father to the Jurassic Coast to look for (and find – hurrah!) fossils
a trip to the Jillings fatherland (hmm – can I say that? Well, I have) in Suffolk where an English pen-pal turned out to be a hit in real life as well as on the page, lunch was taken at the traditional pub, and several relatives later gathered for tea to maximise H’s exposure to her UK heritage, which could have been terrifying but turned out charming
a walk in Richmond Park, armed with a loaned camera so she could take (very good!) photographs of the stunning azalea and rhododendron displays
a quiet afternoon chilling out in our garden, underlining the dawning realisation
Chilling rather than freezing
that England – previously seen only in December – has trees with actual leaves, a sky that is sometimes prettily blue, and garden lawns that can be lain upon to read without the need for six layers of clothing (chilling now meaning relaxing rather than getting frostbite)
a birthday party with all sorts of balloon and bunting trimmings in the aforementioned back garden – featuring a pre-requested Colin the Caterpillar cake (my relief knew no bounds when I received this request a few weeks earlier. My baking skills definitely include the ability to go to M&S and buy one of these. I found they even do baby Colins which are perfect for candles.)

*Many Colins make light work of cake preparation*

We felt honoured to hold H’s tenth birthday party. During the build-up to it throughout the week’s stay, there were several references to getting older and growing up. We imagined that reaching double figures was a really big deal and would be approached with excitement, but it turns out we were wrong about that. A party, presents and a cake, were most definitely eagerly anticipated – but the progression towards teenage and adulthood was decidedly not. H’s father told us that she has become tearful at the thought of change and has specifically stated she does not want to grow up. She wants to keep her fun-filled childhood a little longer.

Paradoxically, this suggests self-knowledge and maturity beyond her years. Living, as she does, as an only child between two separated parents, she perhaps gets the best of both of them and a great deal of undivided attention (although we spotted no sign of being ‘spoiled rotten’ as you might expect from such a situation) but I’m not sure that accounts for it. Maybe this is normal anyway and I just didn’t notice it with my own children – or perhaps they didn’t have the opportunity to express such thoughts.

So, in order to make H feel truly comfortable (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it), I was more successful than usual in mining my own inner child – the one that rarely got an outing even when I was an actual child. As a result, I managed to complete the obstacle course at a local playground, much to my own astonishment and to the horrified bemusement of Mr J (who, along with H, failed to notice my brazen cheating at a couple of key points, but I must insist that my performance was still a triumph in tight denim and boots with heels (ok, fairly sensible heels, but still…)). I also spent a good five minutes sitting partially in the cup-holder of H’s car seat whilst hysterically trying to work out how to operate the middle-seat seat-belt of our car, milking my dilemma with squeals and child-friendly expletives for all it was worth to the delighted screams of laughter from H – and with three elderly Jillings brothers each displaying his own variant of nervous bewilderment from the other, wider, seats in the car. H loved it (shhh, so did I). (Horrified afterthought – were H’s screams due to me actually sitting on HER rather than the cup-holder. Oops!)

She also loved Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise (which I would urge you to watch if you’ve not seen it before – so silly) to which Daughter J introduced her – and we spent the last couple of days of the visit improving our collective performance of this, particularly on car journeys. I like to think that my very own perfectly timed and pitched ‘Ron WEASley!’ went unsurpassed, although I gather it is now no longer funny to intersperse adult conversations with such gloriously honed contributions. Boring!

In addition to the Harry Potter spoofing, in solid family tradition, we created another regularly repeated phrase to punctuate our family interactions. I recall the last Christmas visit included far too much declaiming of ‘I’m Spartacus’, and inevitably H came up with something with which we could all torment each other ad nauseam this time. For reasons that I have still not fathomed, the word ‘Pigeon’ was in favour. H would shout, or mumble or even whisper, this word at fairly regular intervals throughout the day, sometimes quite insistently. Son J proved himself a patient and resourceful cousin in this regard, and somehow managed to build whole lengthy conversations with H.

For example, taken from our walk back to Waterloo on Hungerford/Jubilee bridge – H: Pigeon, Son J: We, H: Pigeon, Son J: are, H (forte): PIGEON, Son J: crossing, H (sotto voce): Pigeon, Son J: the H: Pigeon, Son J: Thames, H (yelling): PIGEON!

You get the general idea*.

For my own part, I tried to counter her Pigeons with alternative birds, but my aging brain struggled to find many examples quickly enough to keep up with her, and I resorted eventually to responding in French (well, an approximation of a French accent at least) with ‘Pigeon’. OK, not clever, or original, but it seemed to meet with her approval. These were the last words we uttered to each other at Heathrow and we have continued the exchange via WhatsApp across the pond. Such are childhood memories established. My brother and I once documented the ridiculous phrases we associated with our own childhood and presented this to our parents on their 50th wedding anniversary – I’m convinced such things are massively important and influential in life. No doubt at H’s 21st birthday she’ll have an embarrassing group of English relatives shouting nonsense from their deliberately-allocated furthest-from-the-action table – even though several of us will be in our seventies by then.

Anyhow, all has now returned to normal – bedding has been washed, stray socks retrieved, bunting and party candles bundled away – but there is at least one person in this house who still rather wishes she could be nine again.

PIGEON!

*Or not. Perhaps you needed to be there. Sorry!

Beyond the Fringe

I’m slowly coming back down to earth after a barn-storming performance on stage last night. Luvvies, daahlings, we were magnificent!

And good heavens, what a high it brings!

The performance in question was a 10-minute set of British folk music – four pieces sung by Pielarks at our local Rose Theatre, as part of the Mayor’s Cultural Celebration ‘Vibrant Kingston’.

Pielarks is a wonderful folk choir which kept me going (on Zoom, then in the vicarage garden and latterly in a freezing church) on practically every Monday morning throughout the pandemic. I joined this group as soon as I retired from full-time work, and it has structured each week of my life nicely for more than three years now, bringing new friendships and musical knowledge and even allowing me to indulge in occasional songwriting.*

We perform occasionally in pubs or at street parties, plus a couple of times for residents in a care home and once at a wedding – generally on a fairly informal basis, but, we like to think, to a pretty high musical standard. Although folk music is not a particular favourite of mine, and even now I know precious little about it compared to my fellow Pielarkers, it is very enjoyable to sing. I especially like the fact that, for Pielarks, it is arranged in six voice parts. Never one to sing the actual tune if there’s an alternative available, these arrangements appeal to me so much that although the social aspect of our lockdown Zoom rehearsals was inevitably ‘restricted’ , I was at the same time ‘liberated’ because I could attempt all the different parts to my heart’s content whilst on mute without annoying anyone else (although my attempts at Soprano would usually exile the cat to the further reaches of Jillings Towers). Six parts also makes a very rich sound now that we can sing together again.

A real stage in a real professional theatre was probably the biggest and most formal venue we’d ever graced – certainly in my own membership times. However, despite the starry excitement, this presented two small problems for me: we would be going onto this stage (1) without any printed music or words and….(2) in costume!

I have never been good at learning words. I don’t know why. With age, this has – I suppose naturally – become even harder and I was completely terrified at the prospect. Having said that, my diligence paid off pretty well, and I surprised myself with almost total recall on the night – although right up to the last moment it was touch and go. Who knew whether performing to an audience – without fixing my gaze through my office window on a particular branch of the tree in my next-door-neighbour’s garden whilst furiously casting around my grey-cells for the opening word of the next verse, or like several of my fellow singers in our last rehearsal, screwing my tightly-closed eyes even tighter in search of that elusive phrase – would unlock my fluency or clam me up completely?

Dressing up was something else though. For previous performances, I have cobbled together some semblance of a rustic nineteenth century look with the help of a few donated items and an old silk skirt found in my wardrobe. This time, we were trying to be more authentically pre-twentieth-century, and our leader had sent us a selection of pictures of the sort of thing we might choose. Like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights, I froze for several weeks and pretended this was not happening. But once again, a loaned item came to the rescue in the form of a superb red and white striped apron (which I might need to keep!) which I managed to team with my red silk skirt and an old black blouse.

The big day arrived. I had half-heartedly tried all my costume items on earlier in the week, although not completely to my satisfaction. With a couple of hours to go before our dress rehearsal, I assembled my various garments for a perhaps already rather last-minute fitting. One of the borrowed items was a voluminous underskirt/petticoat which, despite its not being on show, I was determined to wear as it gave bulk to my flimsy skirt. The problem was that it was ever-so-slightly too long, and more than three people of my girth could have fitted in the waistband which had a cuttingly-thin drawstring so needed careful adjustment and fixing to avoid unseemly slippage. I experimentally heaved, tied, tucked and pinned myself into all this garb with increasingly frantic adjustment. By mid-afternoon, with time running out, it became clear that I would never be able to re-create this arrangement under pressure in the theatre and in front of fellow Pielarkers, so I decided I would simply leave it all in place for the duration. And thus it was that, unbeknownst to fellow cast or audience, I was at least 80% safety-pin below decks on the night.

Now for my hair. I had singularly failed to find a suitable hat and had secured agreement that I did not have to wear one. Trouble was, the absence of a hat in which to hide my hair meant that I would need to style it somehow instead. Apparently no-one before the twentieth century had a fringe. Certainly not such improbably-dyed blond bangs as I currently sport. Hmm. I had been thinking about this, peripherally, pathetically, pointlessly, for weeks, as the fringe grew ever longer and greyer. Finally, on the day before our appearance, I had purchased a stout black hairband (in desperation – and in Boots) and convinced myself it had an air of Victoriana about it. It would have to do. I decided not to worry any more – as they always say, it would be alright on the night.

Then, just before the ‘night’ in question, I remembered that not only did I need to make the fringe disappear, but, for the character I was envisaging, I would also need to put my hair ‘up’. This has only once been achieved successfully in my lifetime with my unbiddable locks – by a professional make-up and hair stylist for a well-known Netflix production at stupid-o’clock one morning in a godforsaken caravan somewhere (hahaha) using a plait and multiple fixing pins which I was still finding in my head days later (ok, exaggeration, but a scary amount of pinnage nonetheless) – and I boldly decided I could recreate this myself, with just 30 minutes to go before the time I needed to leave home.

Well, Mr J’s face when I asked him to plait my hair was quite something. But that man has been in the forces, and is of course a sailor to his core, so he is nothing if not resourceful. “Well, I know how to splice a rope,” he offered. That would have to do. In fact, once I had twisted the resulting ‘spliced’ hair into a couple of black scrunchy-things and forced the new headband into place, the whole structure felt secure and (without looking at the back, because that might just complicate things) I decided I was ready. Slapping more foundation and mascara on my poor old physog that it has seen for a very long time and jamming a couple of hot-cross buns and a flask of water into my bag, I set off for the theatre.

Just a twenty-five minute jog through Kingston town-centre in my swishing skirts later, I crossed the final road to the theatre and hailed one of my fellow Pielarks. He was polite in his response, and possibly slightly alarmed. It dawned on me – he didn’t initially know who I was. By the time we reached the stage door (oh, the excitement!!!) I reckon he’d worked it out. He was not the only person to be confused. In fact, even Mr J wondered who I was when he spotted me talking to our son later – and he’d seen me as I left home! (Perhaps that’s just his old age though?)

*I’m sure that’s elegance and not just old age*

Someone actually asked me – why do you look so different? Do you usually wear glasses? Yes, that was part of it as I had abandoned my modern specs (learning the words by heart having the additional advantage of not needing them to read anything onstage, I suppose) but the greatest disguise appeared to be the disappearing fringe. The exposure of a forehead which hasn’t been on display since 1985, and which has furtively been adding age-spots and wrinkles all this time. I most definitely looked older, although I like to think that there was an air of sophistication too. #

We milled around in our dressing room for a while, where I discovered how nervous I have become in confined spaces with other people. I am still waiting to catch the lovely Omicron and this would be one of the worst weeks to do so, as we are expecting a visitation from overseas next week which is already 18 months overdue. So I periodically clutched at my mask, and spent as much time outside as I could – showing off my non-fringe to the tourists in the Market Square and by the river – between rehearsal and performance. Perhaps the health nervousness calmed the performance nerves which seemed not to trouble me, which in retrospect is a little odd.

We were organised and in good voice for our rehearsal and all went well. A few last-minute plans were set, and we were ready to go. We watched the first half of the production from the Upper Circle, and in no time at all we were gathered back in the wings for our own bit of the show at the start of Act II. We were pre-set, which meant we walked onto the open stage as the audience began to return to their seats following the interval. Here goes.

And I just loved it! Walking around with my swishy skirt swishing, my eyes boldly scanning the auditorium, my nerves (and my fringe) nowhere to be seen. We chatted amongst ourselves in a semblance of olde-English banter – no one could hear us as the audience were either still at the bar, or chatting noisily themselves at this point. (But, would our bucolic characters really have talked about porn-stars all those years ago dear fellow Pielark?? Really? You know who you are!) The house lights went down. A hush fell. The Pielarks froze mid-chat (and mid-swish).

*Ready for the off – unrehearsed perfection*

The Mayor came on stage to introduce us and as she retreated, our humble note-giver blew a few notes on his recorder – and we launched into our Fa-la-la opening number, this one being without actual words to allow us to both sing and walk to our set positions. (Oh come on, remembering steps, notes AND words all at the same time would truly have been beyond us – well ok, beyond me anyway.)

Once fixed in our line, we carried off the other three numbers remarkably fluently, to tumultuous applause. Our exit was also achieved whilst Fa-la-la-ing, many of us waving back at the audience, especially our families if we had spotted them and our oldest member who had decided to sit this one out in the Dress Circle.

There followed several other acts from different cultural backgrounds – the Bulgarian dancers eliciting in me a strong costume envy despite my own noble efforts. One of our own number also participated in a Morris Dancing display – which elicited no such envy in me, but a considerable awe at the dexterity required to wield one and a half sticks each, managing to strike only the other dancers’ sticks and not beat each other to a pulp. A Korean choir sang beautifully, the Indian dancing was colourful and graceful. As a side note, it appeared that all the other singing groups brought folders of music on stage with them – ha!

It was a well-considered and very enjoyable event. What fun to be scurrying (or swishing) around backstage, where all the real actors hang out during the professional productions, pushing through corridors of excitable Bulgarians and up stairwells lined with giggling ladies making final adjustments to their gorgeous saris, and then waiting in the darkened curtains of the wings – of the actual stage.

I love a stage. I have no idea why. Whilst I’m not shy, I am not usually even slightly the life and soul of a party, and don’t particularly relish being the centre of attention. But I love to show off on a stage. Performing, declaiming, singing, being someone I’m actually not. I had been especially keen to get onto this particular stage because the other three members of my immediate family have all performed there at different times, Mr J being possibly one of the very first performers even before it officially opened. And now I’d made it too! Hurrah!

I think we were all pretty pleased with how it went, and it somehow brought us more together as well, in a way that Zoom and even the camaraderie of a cold morning in the church cannot achieve. We’ve been missing those pub sessions.

On my return home, I was on a high – thinking I could join a drama club or brush up on my songs or monologues and get on an open mic night somewhere. Ludicrous ambitions surging.

Then I spent 15 minutes retrieving all the hidden safety-pins from about my person and taking down my hair. By which point, safely back behind my fringe, I recalled the exertions of word-learning and dressing up – and retreated to the sofa for the reassurance of yet another hot cross bun and a late-night TV weather forecast.

But in my inevitably humdrum daily existence, it’s nice to know there’s a hidden starry life lurking tantalisingly somewhere beyond the fringe.

*Songwriting – see here for an earlier post on that.

# With the wonderful benefit of day-after hindsight, next time I think I will look for a simple bonnet – there were some lovely examples on display. Mine was, I believe, the only unadorned head – especially without the fringe – and especially with a black blouse was far too severe. Victorian, yes, but not quite in keeping with everyone else. Ah, we live and learn.

Another hospital drama

In a bizarre quirk of timing, not seven days after writing about (among other things) the remote possibility of being an Extra in the BBC’s hospital soap Casualty, I found myself donning PPE at the entrance to a ward in my very own local hospital and striding forth with my very best acting chops at the ready.

I like a challenge (Do I? Do I really? I think I may be kidding myself as well as you on this one. But let’s go with it.)

The first hurdle was to find a place to park. Unusually for me, I had to take my car (all will become clear) and, in anticipation of confusion, I had looked up where the hospital car parks were earlier in the day, and found out how to pay etc. I even loaded up the special parking app on my phone – obviously, this was different to either of the ones I need for other local parking. Why make things straightforward? Anyhow, pleased with my forward planning, I noted just before I left home that the hospital car-park was showing as ‘Quiet”. Excellent.

As I turned into the main site entrance just five minutes later, I realised immediately that ‘Quiet’ must be code for ‘Completely Full and therefore gridlocked’. Ho hum. I decided that I would opt for the larger space near the maternity unit which would surely be quieter. Aren’t all babies born in the middle of the night? However, when I got there, it was apparently closed – although others seemed to have got into it, and indeed be driving around in it, some of them quite obviously going the opposite direction to the worn white arrows on the tarmac. OK, I’ll go out and start again.

I recalled that the parking information online had told me I would be photographed on entry to the site, my number-plate captured, and thus my time would be monitored so that a calculation of the correct fee could be made for me to settle on departure.

As I turned into the main site entrance for the second time, it crossed my mind that I was perhaps confusing the monitoring camera (which I couldn’t see, despite having plenty of time to look this time because I was immediately in a queue). I did another circuit, this time loitering briefly in the central area along with a couple of other cars whose drivers eyed me suspiciously – sizing me up to judge whether, should a vacant space become available, I would unfairly speed into it. I drive the kind of car which is often heartily disliked by others, but one of its features is that it is rather less nippy than most of the smaller vehicles on lurking duty and the chances of me executing a reversing hand-brake turn into a tiny space before my competitors were next to infinitesimal.

Once again, I emerged onto the main road and then swung for a third time into the main entrance. Tired of the main car park options to my left, I boldly took a right turn towards Accident & Emergency. Getting closer to that Casualty dream? Well, it most definitely DID also say that this was the direction to a further public car park. But I’m afraid this must have been a lie because, once past the ambulances (eyes firmly fixed elsewhere) and a couple of police cars, there was a tiny space in which about 30 cars had already jammed themselves, leaving no turning space and resulting in an interesting, and far too long for comfort, reversing manoeuvre on my part. I tried hard to look professional and focused as I sailed, backwards, past the paramedics, policemen and bleary-eyed relatives who, presumably (hopefully!) had other priorities than marvelling at my fabulously executed eventual three-point turn.

Once again I left the premises, and proceeded to perform two more circuits and bumps (not literal bumps, fortunately) of the main car parks, gesticulating angrily, then the last time hysterically, at the probably non-existent camera just in case someone could actually see me, before giving up and finding a roadside space next to the rear entrance to the hospital, which required one of my existing car-parking apps and was – typical! – cheaper. I immediately forgot my frustration in self-congratulatory smugness: not only was this location cheaper than the hospital car park, but it was almost certainly closer to the department for which I was headed. I am an actual genius.

Sadly, this genius was also by now more than ten minutes late but, buoyed by my success, I strode happily up to the nearest hospital signpost and, although perhaps a little sceptical by this stage as to the accuracy of signage hereabouts, followed its directions to the largest building in sight and entered via a busy doorway. Here goes.

I had dutifully donned a new disposable mask which I had remembered to bring from home. I knew which floor I needed and I headed confidently towards the lifts. I reckon if I had been a tiny bit more confident, I would have made it unmolested, but my eye was drawn to a couple of hospital staff sitting to one side of the corridor on the approach to the lifts. Their gaze locked with mine and I was asked to explain myself. My mission duly stated, they reluctantly agreed that I could pass, but I was handed a brand new mask in a wrapper and asked to put it on. My remonstrances that the mask I was already wearing had only just been removed from its own wrapper seemed initially to cut no ice, but then for some reason they relented. I am sure it looked completely box-fresh at this stage. I tried to give back the mask they had handed me. A small unseemly wrangle ensued. Apparently I had touched the mask, it was therefore ‘unclean’, and the stern lady quite definitely no longer wished to have it. I have kept it as a memento, in the bottom of my bag with all the other useful bits and bobs (and used masks that I know I should throw away, and will definitely never use again, but keep forgetting are in there until the latest theatre door-keeper highlights them with his little torch before sighing and letting scruffy-bag-lady into the foyer, judging that she may not be an actual terrorist, but is certainly breaking several of the laws of hygiene and good order).

I went up in the lift and followed more signs, encouraged by the helpfulness of the last one. And thus it was that, only one quarter of an hour after the allotted time, I arrived at the requisite ward and introduced myself to the ward-sister (or someone who looked quite important at the nurses’ station). “Oh, you’re Jackie! That’s great. So good to see you.” Weird. A bit over the top – luvvie, almost.

“This way.” We marched along the corridor. “Right, here we are. You just need to put these on first.”

Aha – my costume. A choice of Small, Medium and Large surgical blue nitrile gloves (chose Small – I have stupidly tiny hands), and a fetching white disposable polythene apron. No-one was going to help me into this – it was one of those do-it-yourself jobs. Note to self – if ever doing this again, put the apron on first. After an age pulling those horrid gloves on, I realised that unravelling the ridiculously flimsy ties and neck-halter elements of the apron was completely impossible. A kindly passing nurse obliged with the unravelling, but no-one seemed to want to assist with tying the tapes around my middle and, despite repeated attempts during the next couple of hours, I’m afraid to say that that apron was never fully secured at any point. It’s just possible that will-power and static electricity played some sort of part in the semblance of tied-up-ness I managed to achieve most of the time. At least, from the front.

And so began the jolly farce which was today’s assignment. The nurses continued to flit in and out on cue to change bedding or silence an alarm. A smiley young porter made a brief appearance early on with a wheelchair, ready to whisk the star player away – but his enthusiasm was quickly dampened as a different-colour-scrubbed nurse declaimed her one disappointing line: “We’re waiting on the pharmacy to send one more pack of pills before we can discharge him.”

Exit porter, ward left – pushing wheelchair.

We waited around. I realised I had put my apron on (insofar as it was on at all) over my coat, and wondered idly why it was that I was not massively over-heated. My previous experience of hospitals was that they were always far too hot. It turned out that the window was pushed open as far as it could go – almost certainly a pandemic precaution – so that explained it. Our star player was wrapped up carefully in a thick dressing gown over his pyjamas, and we managed some chit-chat although, whilst sitting close to the open window may have been Covid-safe, it was also incredibly noisy. We were regularly deafened by the insistent thump-thump-thumping of a demolition vehicle repeatedly smiting a huge pile of ever-decreasing concrete pieces which had once been the hospital stores and delivery bay (I know this, because in a previous incarnation I delivered several boxes of home-sewn scrubs there). No wonder the other (non-starring) patients on the ward remained stoically non-verbal throughout the proceedings, preferring to stay in ‘seriously ill’ character.

By now, I realised that I would need to extend my parking time. Fortunately the friendly app on my phone reminded me and as I shelled out a further 65p, I was able to pat myself on the back once again that this was an absolute bargain.

Eventually, it seemed that my turn had come to play my part. A full set of drugs had materialised, a charming nurse (with a beautiful but sadly non-projecting voice especially through her surgical mask) proceeded to test our hero on his understanding of the dosage of each tablet. My role here, it seemed, was to repeat all questions in a louder but quite definitely not patronising voice, hiding my own irritation that we were still close to the thump-thump-thumping window. How could anyone realistically be expected to hear over that? Still, the next action sequence would be more exciting, and as a second porter – much larger than the first – hove into view, we readied ourselves expectantly.

Sadly, the props department had failed us and the porter had arrived without his wheelchair. He ambled away, muttering forlornly, and we were left to twiddle our thumbs in time to the thump-thump-thump, which was becoming more and more tedious.

My parking app alerted me again and I fed it another 65p – perhaps slightly less enthusiastically than last time.

FINALLY – the larger porter returned with an actual functioning wheelchair, we loaded up and set off triumphantly up the corridor, our hero graciously waving farewells to the lovely nurses. Remaining firmly in character, I tried to explain where exactly I was parked. After several misunderstandings – no NOT the front of the hospital, no NOT in the sexual health clinic car park (might that have actually been even cheaper? – note to self to check for any next time) – it transpired that the porter was partially deaf. (Perhaps he had been working too close to the demolition site. Thump-thump-thump…) This was indeed strange dialogue.

The porter turned out to be a natural with the wheelchair and also a canny navigator. Once we had our destination agreed, he spirited us through ‘staff only’ lifts and subterranean corridors, from which we rapidly emerged, blinking, into the light – to find my car not twenty yards away. Offsite yes, but perfectly located and with the passenger door splendidly accessible for our be-wheel-chaired star. Oh hurrah!

And cut!

You may be thinking this was an odd Supporting Artist performance. Well, yes I suppose it was, but I must now own up to the fact that, whilst I suppose I was indeed ‘supporting’, the only artistry (or acting) required on this occasion was for me to play the part of someone who can actually go into a hospital ward without passing out! A self-confidence trick, if you like. For which I reckon I would be due an Oscar or an Emmy, if they had not recently been so devalued.

For this was not a fortuitous Supporting Artist job, but a favour to provide a lift for a friend.

Whom I have now unexpectedly seen in his pyjamas. (Do they not allow going-home clothes any more?)

Oh well, he’s now also seen me ludicrously dressed up like this – so we’re probably evens.

Soapy secret

I’m not sure why this should be a ‘guilty secret’, but that’s often how such admissions are framed. Oh well, here goes…

I insist on watching Casualty, the BBC’s long-running hospital soap which airs on a Saturday evening, between the latest daft game-show and the late evening News. It has been a stalwart of the popular scheduling since September 1986. I looked that up so as to be sure, but I remember watching it occasionally in my ‘young professionals’ shared house all those moons ago, along with Cilla Black’s Blind Date (which Wiki tells me began 10 months earlier, but didn’t last! Haha – only 18 years that one!).

In my time, I have watched Brookside (but not till its demise), EastEnders (until I finally couldn’t stand the misery any longer) and Coronation Street (which used to be funny, and only on twice a week, which was just about achievable) but not – I think – concurrently. Even back then, there were only so many hours in a day and I had a job and eventually children to deal with. I even tried El Dorado – do you remember that? – possibly for the whole of its one-year-only-cos-it-was-so-rubbish run. It may also be the case that I was briefly addicted to Neighbours, but in my defence this would have been during an exhausted postpartum period when it was a convenient accompaniment to breast-feeding. I must remember to ask my offspring if the theme tune sets off any saliva-based reaction.

Slightly worried about Casualty though – why do I cling to it? I have certainly not watched it for the entirety of its broadcasting life. In fact, this addiction is a relatively recent thing – six or seven years maybe.

It’s not even that I fancy any of the characters (which used to be a reason why I watched some rubbish when I was a teenager – or for many years anything with Martin Shaw in it, obviously). I’ve sporadically wondered whether Dr Dylan might be my cup of tea, but decided really not. I have just spent the last 10 minutes trying to remember the name of the other character I had considered as a possible attraction, but I think that the length of time scrabbling in the memory banks says as much about the level of attraction as it does the state of my general recall. (Iain, the paramedic, and I’ve decided against him too. Far too smarmy.)

Some of the acting can be truly dreadful. I notice this in phases – for weeks it will seem fine, and then I’ll watch an episode and genuinely question my televisual judgment. How Charlie Fairhead can be one of the highest-paid soap actors beggars belief. If he really is so well-paid, he must surely know where an actual BBC body is buried. And yet, we love him still.

Not only do I insist on watching it, but I have also developed a Malteser habit to go with it. Even when in the throes of a ‘being careful what I eat’ initiative, I will still allow myself some Maltesers to accompany my Casualty fix – the small pouches contain very few calories I’ll have you know, due to the air-holes in the malted centres (and the fact that there are only a handful of the wretched things in the pouch, of course – I buy larger pouches or boxes when my resolve weakens). Only once have I found the gory drama realistic enough to put me off these spherical chocs, but I still managed to wade through half a boxful before the nausea got the better of me.

I’ve tried hard to think why I feel the need to watch this programme. It is not that I need something to brighten a Saturday night; I frequently watch it at a different time on catch-up and I most certainly would never stay in on a Saturday evening because of it.

Is there a particular fascination with hospitals? Hmm, I think not. I cannot be relied upon to remain upright and conscious in such places, whether I am a patient or a visitor. Let’s gloss over that for now. Mind you, I watched the recent This is Going to Hurt series based on Adam Kay’s NHS memoir, generally through my fingers and with my legs crossed whilst cowering behind the sofa, and wasn’t tempted by a Malteser at any point, so gruesome and starkly realistic a picture it painted of NHS obs and gynae. (Brilliant series, by the way. Peculiar mix of fascination, horror, empathy, antipathy, humour, schadenfreude and surprise – ‘are they really showing that??’ And the lovely Ben Whishaw, playing good and bad and everything in-between – with added placenta.)

Calm down!

Back to Casualty, which may elicit fewer triggering childbirth flashbacks but definitely has its claws in my psyche somehow. Perhaps I have a need to follow another group of characters’ lives aside from my friends and acquaintances – without actually being involved with them, having to pick up their pieces or make any effort. Not sure about that. Maybe it’s escapism? Hmm – more likely it is habit and the equivalent of comfort eating (or indeed actual comfort eating, what with the Maltesers and all).

It’s a shame that they film Casualty in Cardiff. I could otherwise set myself the target of appearing in it as an Extra (sorry, I mean Supporting Artist) which might act as some form of closure. It seems that almost every actor I see on the London stage has at some point had a role in Casualty. Maybe that’s why it still exists – as part of the career path of aspiring actors. But, I’m not prepared to go and stay in some godforsaken Welsh Travelodge just so I can say I’ve sat next to a pile of pretend vomit in a pretend triage area wearing a borrowed cagoule and a realistic (but pretend) facial scar.

Well, I’m not proud and I’ve decided I don’t care if I’m addicted. There are worse things. And better things over which to ponder.

Mysterious? Nope – that would imply some hidden depths. And I’m firmly rooted in the shallows.

Oh god – remember the Shallows? (Plays Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper on Spotify loop for 2 hours – Noooooooooo……..)

Slides indoors – part (1) – Bum

To pass the time in the duller days of winter, I have been spending considerable hours indoors scanning old photographic transparencies/slides to preserve them for posterity in virtual cloudy places. I’ve mentioned this before, and it is likely to be an ongoing task for some time yet. I am perhaps one-third of the way through now.

The photos are nearly all taken by my father, who only occasionally handed the camera to my mother to take a candid pic of him. He had a knack of taking unposed pictures (something I have inherited, much to the annoyance of my offspring and also my own irritation now that I realise we have very few nice posed pics of our family as the kids grew up). Dad’s photos would often involve my poor mother chomping on a banana, or scowling against the sunshine, or turning away to try and hide some unwise sunburn. A family group would rarely include more than one person actually facing the camera. How many photos are there of our behinds? Millions – seemingly.

But here’s a thing. Amongst all the rear-views, I found a picture of a lunchtime picnic stop on one of our many organised group walks back in the early 1980s. A group of people, mostly – as per usual – facing away from the camera. One of them in perfectly-fitting Wrangler jeans, just the right relaxed posture with one bum-cheek slightly higher than the other, and with long glossy hair down to her waist. Just what I wish I’d looked like, how I sometimes imagined I could be. Then – bloody hell! I realised – it actually was me! I double-checked the clothing with other pictures where my face was visible – yes, it was quite definitely me.

So that explains a lot about those years! (And the less said about that the better. Sorry.)

It’s probably one of those lovely flukes. There are very few front-facing pictures of me in which I look even slightly acceptable to my own hyper-critical eye, and perhaps the rear view is generally preferable anyway – an easier win.

I have never been good at choosing clothes, despite being hugely picky. The number of photos there are of other people’s weddings when I was in my twenties and wearing some godawful dress and silly hat – truly dreadful! Of course, some of it is a fashion-dated thing which is fair enough, but my friends generally managed to look a whole lot better than I did, both then and with hindsight. I had no clue. I guess I didn’t really mind (much) or even notice (…much?) at the time, but with hindsight I feel I may have missed an opportunity to make the most of youthful assets.

Pull yourself together woman! It was my mind – my wit and intellect – which was important, although this mind did, of course, need to include the superpower that is ‘splitting a restaurant bill without recourse to a calculator’, the preparedness to take on administrative tasks for others, and an almost unfailing ability (yeah ok, apart from once) not to drink myself to the point where I needed anyone to carry me home.

I have found a few other gems so far: my pre-sixth form party (a precursor of the now popular School Prom I suppose) photo showing a sylph-like but modest and wholesome adult-child – I don’t suppose this was height of fashion stuff at the time, but at least it was flattering; and a chance snap of a skinny me alongside my best mate at university in her best tennis whites. We both look relaxed and carefree and most definitely not provocative or flirtatious, but there seems to be more flesh on display than I remembered. (And how on earth DID I think that bright turquoise fitted towelling shorts would be ok? – haha, I remember now that I had a pair in pink as well! Again, this may explain some things.) For some reason, I don’t feel up to sharing these – but I am so inordinately impressed with the bum shot that I have been unable to self-censor this time.

Ah well…’Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone*‘

*’Gone” or at least hidden beneath a layer of post-baby fat for 20 years and then somehow redistributed so that no amount of dieting or exercise can recreate it.

Country House break(ages)

In belated celebration of my latest ‘big’ birthday and my daughter’s slightly more recent (and much smaller!) birthday, the two of us had booked a couple of nights in a manor house hotel in deepest Kent. In fact, ‘deepest Kent’ conveniently also contains Ashford International rail station, so that we were able to rendezvous there at a civilised time on Sunday; me in the car, Daughter Jillings on the train (an unusual combo for us, considering my usual affiliation to train travel and her strong preference for Uber), and drive the final few miles together.

My arrival at Ashford was almost unbelievably timely and, with no more than 3 minutes to wait, we were re-setting the Sat-nav for our stately destination and congratulating ourselves for our successful getaway. Also chuckling that each of us had almost rushed up to greet the wrong person in the arrivals hall – ridiculous, given that we saw each other no more than three weeks ago and should have more than a vague idea what the other one looks like.

We found the hotel without difficulty, but finding our way inside proved altogether trickier. Deciding (thank goodness!) to leave our bags in the car for now, we pottered elegantly towards what we thought must be the hotel entrance in an attractive courtyard. Confusingly, however, there were a couple of wedding cars parked jauntily outside the unmarked (and closed) main door and we decided this must be a private wedding party. Better potter round to the other side and try there.

Ten minutes later, and having discovered no other obvious entrance, and pottering with increasing unease and decreasing elegance, we were back in the courtyard in a more reckless frame of mind – hunger and thirst winning out over timidity. We did, after all, have a date with Afternoon Tea which we were not prepared to compromise. Through that unmarked door – a wood-smoke-scented reception hall with comfy sofas and a couple of desks manned by smart-looking staff. Hurrah! Our mini-break could commence in earnest.

We were given a window seat in a wood-panelled room, overlooking the grounds (and one of the many footpaths along which we had recently pottered) and our order taken. I refrained from taking the champagne option, but Daughter J was on good form and gamely selected a pink version with which to launch our two days of indulgence. She is so much better at this than I am. Initially I thought the bubbles might have gone to her head rather too rapidly though, as she suddenly appeared horrified at something on the window-ledge beside me and started jabbering about headless chessmen. But this was no hallucination – indeed the decorative chess-set beside me, on closer inspection, had mainly been decapitated. How odd! This was in fact the first of several breakages we were to discover (or possibly instigate) over the course of our stay.

I could now proceed to give a blow-by-blow account of the next two days, but I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that, although we declined to avail ourselves of the spa facilities at what was apparently the original Champney’s site, we spoiled ourselves at the hotel with room-service, full English breakfasts and a slap-up restaurant dinner, and enjoyed a bracing and sunny day out visiting the beaches at Whitstable and Margate. It was weird for me to be the one doing the driving on this kind of excursion. Mr J usually does all that and this modus operandi has suited us very well over the years. It was liberating in a way though. (Except when I couldn’t find my way out of the hotel car-park – but I think Daughter J was over-critical of this even if I did almost repeat the error on the second morning. After all, I did then manage to get us all the way through Tube-stricken London to her flat with only one very minor inadvertent diversion which was most definitely the fault of the Sat-nav).

The offending sofa, after it had been mended.

It was a wonderful birthday present. Daughter J had said to me on my actual birthday that she thought what I probably wanted most was to spend time with her, which may sound odd but is in fact entirely perceptive and accurate. We had a laugh together – particularly when she fell sideways off the sofa in my room as the elderly rope-and-ball fastening gave way and the hinged arm fell to the floor. We had only just started the wine by then. It’s moments like that which are so precious: a shared ridiculous experience with a sofa, a beheaded chess-set, a disguised entrance or a confused greeting of the wrong person. We tried, in vain, to mend the sofa but it was quite clear that the original breakage was not of our doing, and after finishing the bottle we decided there really was no point practising our joinery without the correct tools. This is something else I would normally rely on Mr J to undertake. I’m sure he would have given it a go, even after – or particularly after – a shandy or two. Housekeeping managed to lash it all back together somehow whilst we were at the beach, and we chose to sit in the bar on our second evening sampling cocktails instead of negotiating soft-furnishing hazards.

A very satisfyingly empty room-service tray, in the morning sunlight

Aside from the enjoyment of time spent with my daughter, this getaway gave me added confidence in driving (at least retrospectively) and a reminder that I really do like to be away from home more often than has been possible these last two years. At a small friends’ reunion before my trip, one of our number – a recent retiree – was telling me he has been overseas several times in the past three months and was about to set off again. My own timid response that it is all a bit too difficult these days was met with “You should just get on and do it. Honestly, it’s not really that difficult and it’s absolutely worth it. Go for it!” So, it was good to be reminded of how much I enjoy being somewhere new, and I do feel that a new era of travel bookings may be imminent.

By the way, I noted a few negative comments on Tripadvisor for the hotel and had determined to ignore them before we arrived. It has probably seen better days, ’tis true, although the public rooms, the staff and the food/drink were properly excellent. From our perspective, we just wanted something different and luxurious. We had booked two of their best rooms and were delighted that they were located side by side with glorious views across the grounds, with tons of space, large four-poster beds, huge bathrooms which were slightly old-fashioned but clean and functional (allowing Daughter J to have a bath overlooking the grounds whilst apparently also eating Turkish Delight and half-watching a movie on her laptop – there’s decadent for you. I told you she was better at this stuff than I am. Although I successfully polished off all the free biscuits in my room for a pre-breakfast. Does that count?).

Yes, we could criticise the WiFi coverage, the fact that my TV remote didn’t work (but I could borrow Daughter’s because what self-respecting 27-year-old ever watches yer actual telly these days anyway?), the delicate sofa and the lack of a mini-bar. I might have complained about these (apart from the mini-bar which I honestly only ever raid for over-priced water in dodgy overseas locations) if I was on a work trip, or paying an astronomical price for a private trip. But compared to London prices, this was an absolute bargain.

And as an experience together it was completely priceless.

Now I’ve eulogised too much. Better get onto the websites and book the next adventure.

Drying Lego

I wonder, sometimes, how I can be so foolish. Perhaps it’s the giddy windy weather setting me in a spin. Whatever the reason, I have been galvanised into clearing my office, which still, to all intents and purposes, looks like my son’s bedroom.

Said son moved out several years ago, and this room has been my main daytime abode throughout two long pandemic years. I have raised with him the need to reduce the number of books, toys and clothes of his which we still house here. Anything he truly wants to keep but cannot currently accommodate in his shared flat, we can crate up carefully and secrete in the loft space – which we are currently freeing up by a process of slow winnowing and mutual grumbling, but progress is most definitely being made and we are making some delightful discoveries along the way. More of this another day.

Yesterday, however, seized by a ridiculous urge, I grabbed a large red plastic bucket of assorted Lego which has been stuffed down the side of my desk for ever, with the aim of offloading it either to a Charity Shop or a gullible neighbour. It has been lurking beneath the scrappy cardboard box which contains three dust-mottled half-empty bottles of evil-looking exotic alcoholic drinks (at least one of which I may have brought back from one of my many work-related jaunts back in the day), several assorted cables for long-forgotten handheld games or phones, numerous scrappy receipts, a leaflet explaining how to play Labyrinth and a trombone mute. (Don’t ask!) There are undoubtedly other items in this box but at present I feel unable to probe more deeply. Might need an actual hurricane to make me as giddy as that!

Back to the Lego. This is where I fear I became totally deranged. I tipped the contents onto the carpet. Halfway through this manoeuvre I remembered where this Lego bucket – which has no lid – had previously been housed. It sat, for many years, in the bedroom fireplace and, on similarly windy days or torrential rain, would receive sprinklings of mortar from the chimney stack. All of which was now deposited on the carpet, and quite clearly adhered liberally to every single brick.

I had to leave the room for a while.

Later, energised by a sneaky jam tart and accompanied by the smart new vacuum cleaner, I returned to the pile of rubble and resisted the urge to sweep the whole lot into the bin and be done with it. But I am made of sterner stuff, and it amused me that these plastic bricks did in fact now resemble a demolition site more accurately than in pristine condition. I determined to do the right eco-thing and clean these bricks so that they can be enjoyed by a new generation of kinder-Bobs.

I fetched a plastic bowl of soapy water. The cat was confused. He doesn’t like items of furniture or equipment changing position around the house – and has a deep suspicion of water on the move.

So, he left me to it, and I began laboriously dunking the bricks – largest pieces first – into the bowl and then wiping them dry with a tea-towel. Except that they didn’t dry properly at all. The raised blobs on the upper surface could easily be dealt with, and the outer flat sides too, but the tiny spaces around those blobs was trickier, and the towel made no discernible useful impact whatsoever on the interiors. Maybe I’d best leave them to somehow drain.

I rapidly realised that squatting on the bedroom floor and transferring each brick from floor, to bowl, to towel was going to take forever. Not one to boast an excess of patience, I gathered all of the pieces – apart from a few rogue Duplo bricks and a couple of orphan Playmobil firemen – and chucked them into the no-longer-quite-so-soapsuddy water. This exercise would be better completed in the kitchen, where I could stand at the sink and place the clean items on a series of towels on one of the work surfaces.

Two hours later, I realised it should have been suppertime and I was still somehow absorbed with my Danish construction activity. Whilst waiting for the wretched things to dry (which they stubbornly refused to do), I had of course resorted to trying to group the different colours and shapes in order to identify what particular models they were intended to make. The plastic bucket had a list of original contents on the side, most of which I could see – but there were several other kits in here. Or parts of them.

At a critical moment (who am I kidding? – this was just one long pointless waste of time) the cat determined that it was indeed his supper time and launched himself onto the nearest work surface to more than mild surprise at how many tiny bricks he could dislodge and scatter across the tiled floor, thus undoing any semblance of regimentation I had so far achieved. At the same time, he proved that the drying process had largely failed, as the resulting dispersal was accompanied by liberal watery deposits.

My stomach triumphed and I poured all the ‘sorted’ larger bricks, base-plates and figurines into the ready-sponged bucket, and then the tiniest pieces (which might be dangerous for a three-year old or a cat – oh how virtuous am I?) into a small plastic bag, and switched my focus to food.

When I later moved the plastic bucket into the ‘holding area’ which is our living room, I realised I could still get a whiff of pencil shavings and gravel – the same aroma that you find in most second-hand and Charity shops. No doubt there will be some top-notes of damp-mould too by the time we get these out of the house.

Unless anyone has a magic way of drying the wretched things. With zero effort on my part.

On a more positive note, I have received permission to chuck away the old alcohol bottles. So no doubt my next plea for help will be for ways in which to remove the garish red stain of Fuoco dell’ Etna from my sink!

Valentine jockey

As the sun shines outside my window, I am persuaded that Spring is not far away and my mood improves accordingly. Another reason to celebrate is that we have got the torment of Valentine’s Day out of the way for another year. I sometimes wish I could either be completely dismissive of the day and ignore it, or embrace it fully with all the romantic posturing that would require of myself and others (primarily Mr J of course).

Sadly, I sit in an awkward hinterland where buying a card for my beloved and expecting one back still seems to be some sort of necessity. We usually succeed in each producing an unshowy card and a small edible gift for our ‘everlasting sweetheart’ (although both of us avoid Hallmark rhymes or couplets) – and then move on.

Imagine, then, the heart-stopping fear on 14^th February (earlier this week) when sitting at the breakfast table, happily contemplating a large box of Maltesers, when there was an urgent knock at the door and the terrifying ringing of our extra-loud doorbell. Oh no! Surely not a bouquet? This would upset the balance entirely – especially as Mr J had already eaten most of his jelly babies.

He rushed to the door (I was rooted to the spot both by my unromantic fear and the fact I was still not general-public-presentable) and I heard a polite exchange. Followed by an excitedly grinning husband brandishing what appeared to be a slightly oversized and massively bubble-wrapped hockey stick! Well, this was a new one.

I feverishly searched my consciousness for potential Valentine-related horrors – what on earth could this be? An over-zealous florist’s idea of pass-the-parcel? A huge Hotel Chocolat confection? A sex toy (oh god, oh god, surely not)?

The grinning Mr J announced, “It’s a jockey wheel!”

Well, it appeared neither wheel-shaped nor humanoid, although perhaps of similar weight to a professional race-horse rider. And I’m “Jackie” not “jockey”! I was none the wiser.

Turns out, this was just another of the random items Mr J periodically brings into the house. Indeed, it was not for me and I quickly dealt with my fleeting disappointment (that’s female conditioning for you) and relaxed into a natural banter during which I discovered that this was, in fact, destined for the sailing club boat trailer. Phew, at least I would not be required to engage in any sort of romantic grappling this time.

It has however reminded me of other items Mr J has produced:

I returned to the house a couple of weeks ago to find him perusing a collection of hand-pumps, plastic ties, nozzles and tubing all laid out carefully on our dining table. He was musing aloud whether these could be useful on any of his boats or bicycles. There’s somehow always a need for some kind of gadget for dealing with the bilge. However, in response to my tentative (and indeed foolish) enquiry, it was revealed that this collection did not have its origins in the chandlery, but was in fact an enema kit from an earlier less cheery time of his life. At this, without further ado or comment, I swiftly ‘la-la-la’d’ myself upstairs before he could elucidate further as to whether the kit had ever been used. By the time I returned downstairs it had disappeared. I didn’t enquire further and have not subsequently encountered any of it.

On a similar theme, I once returned to the house to the excited announcement by Mr J that we could, after all, have a downstairs loo. This is something for which I have campaigned over a very long period of time and heretofore been denied on the basis that it would compromise the storage capacity of our under-stair cupboard. Imagine, then, my disappointment to find that he had simply installed* a port-a-potty on the kitchen worktop. I believe this may have induced an appalled Facebook post at the time and elicited a suitable amount of knowing sympathy from friends and relatives. I suppose I should just accept that, after more than three decades of sharing quarters with someone, it is quite likely that romance, if not entirely dead, may take different forms.

By the time I am finally posting this, the sunshine has been chased away by Storm Eunice and I am hiding in the front of the house whilst the back windows are rattling and there is an endless alarm emanating from somewhere up the road. So much for Spring.

*port-a-potty is generally used in a caravans or small boats and installation required lifting said item and placing it squarely on the work-surface. No plumbing or complex fixing required. Perfectly safe and hygienic – because NO-ONE WOULD EVER USE IT obviously!!!

The Turing Test

In an attempt to increase the intellectual heft of this blog, and un-mire it from the misery-bog of headaches and related grumpiness in which it has tended to reside over the past few weeks, I thought I would write an insightful piece about yesterday’s cultural adventure: a luncheon at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, which included a talk from Sir Dermot Turing about his famous uncle, Alan Turing (as featured on the latest £50 note, the subject of a popular feature film The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and lauded for his work developing the first modern computers and for his contribution to the code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during the second world war – just in case you didn’t know.)

I will confess at this point that the adventure was less out of character than it may seem, due to the fact that the speaker is an old friend of mine (gawd – what a name-dropper!). Additionally, one of our closest mutual friends has RAC Club membership, and had invited us as guests to the event. We had joyfully and secretly plotted to plant difficult personal questions and possibly lob a few profiteroles should they be available on the day (they weren’t, which is probably for the best) at our friend.

Alan Turing was far less well-known outside of government and academic circles when we all (by all, I do not include Alan himself who died in 1954) met more than 40 years ago, although we did learn back then about the Turing Test: essentially a method of enquiry in artificial intelligence to determine whether or not a machine is capable of thinking like a human being, referred to by Alan Turing in 1950 as an ‘imitation game’ from which Mr Cummerbund’s 2014 movie took its name.

I deemed it important to purchase a new dress for the occasion, given that jeans and some other forms of casual wear are not permitted at the RAC Club and the only other suitable dress I own is about ten years old. To add to the supreme effort made on my part, the sleeves of this new dress (which is far from dressy, but is suitably ‘not jeans’) were too long and I spent a distracted hour on Saturday evening hemming them up (to very slightly, and hopefully unnoticeably, different shorter lengths) whilst Mr J supportively snored his way through Match of the Day.

On the day, I donned my dress, disguising the sleeves (just in case) by adding a timeless black jacket, and dug out a pair of under-used black boots to complete my outfit. It was nice to have something for which to make an effort.

In our typically independent fashion, Mr J and I travelled separately up to Pall Mall – him on his trusty ancient motorcycle and me on a probably slightly less ancient Southwestern train. I treated myself to an additional one-stop hop on the tube to Westminster to shorten the walk to the Club, in grudging acceptance that my gammy leg/hip/back should not be subjected to prolonged urban yomping just yet. Emerging from Westminster underground station, I successfully negotiated the placard-waving anti-government-lies protesters (surely a hopeless cause) and struck out purposefully, if a little carefully, towards St James’ Park under the watchful eye of a police helicopter buzzing gently in the grey sky.

Beyond the usual edgy hubbub of Parliament Square, there appeared to be no traffic at all – how lovely! Instead, there was a distant, but clearly audible above the chopper beats, more melodious beat of a military band. I found myself cheerfully marching in time, as my sensibly-heeled black boots came into their own. Not only was I on my way to a cultural event, but I was now an integral part of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Hopefully the helicopter’s occupants were focussed on the protesters in Whitehall and not filming the ridiculous strutting antics of middle-aged women for Twitter-sharing/shaming!

With only a small nagging thought that these closed roads might impede Mr J’s approach to Pall Mall, (haha – perhaps I would get there first!) I slowed to a less rhythmic saunter (ok, I’ll give him a chance) and then climbed the many steps at the Duke of York (not the Pizza Express one) monument with care, to avoid aggravating my stupid aches and pains. I also avoided accidentally presenting myself at the Reform Club, which I believe I may have done once on a previous visit as it is next door to the RAC Club and flies a flag outside in the same manner which to those of us less accustomed to hobnobbing may easily find confusing.

I reached my destination in perfect time and discovered my friends, and the triumphantly-first-to-arrive Mr J, already ensconced in one of the delightful Club sitting areas. Having successfully changed the guard en route, I now changed my demeanour to ‘polite society person’ – swapping my modern quilted coat for a demure expression (and a plastic numbered token) at the cloakroom, and settled in to enjoy this brief interlude in a different world.

There was a drinks reception, at which I eschewed the champagne and chose a refreshing elderflower fizz in my entirely characteristic bid to avoid falling over before the main proceedings. We then decided we should present ourselves to our old friend just to warn reassure him of our plans to throw food and ask awkward questions behave ourselves impeccably. Sadly, he had already spotted our names on the guest list and cleverly ensured that a) we were sitting at some distance from the rostrum and b) the MC was briefed not to take any questions from our table (which was somewhat unfortunate for the other six people seated with us I suppose).

The luncheon itself was delightful and we chatted in a civilised fashion amongst ourselves and with the others at our table, proving that we have not become completely uncivilised during the enforced unsociability of recent Corona times. In due course, it was time for the post-prandial address. Our ludicrous questions written on the small pieces of paper provided at the table remained precisely where we had left them – on the table – but we dutifully focussed our attention on the speaker. Having had my back to the lectern during lunch, I now turned my chair around and settled, legs crossed and half-finished wine glass in hand, to enjoy some intellectual stimulation.

I have read Dermot’s book Reflections of Alan Turing recently – a jolly good read, as it happens – and so was familiar with the themes of his talk which are covered in the book. This does not mean I was not paying attention, but … as Dermot discussed his famous uncle’s mathematical problem-solving skills, I was on a problem-solving mission of my own. I had suddenly become aware that I could not uncross my legs to alter my listening position. My legs appeared to be somehow fastened firmly to each other. This was an alarming development! It is one thing to challenge myself on an intellectual level, but when it comes to problems of a physical or dexterous nature, I am more challenged than most at the best of times. And this was not the best of times!

I had honestly only had the one – admittedly quite large – glass of red wine, and yet was bemused at my strange new impediment. Was I imagining it? In a bid to surprise my recalcitrant limbs into disentanglement, I tried once again to shift my position and re-cross them. Nope – still firmly joined together at the knee area.

I missed a whole slide’s worth of content as I wrestled with the problem both mentally and physically – including surreptitiously fondling my newly-linked anatomy whilst keeping my gaze fixed firmly on our speaker, until I discovered that the buckle on one of my stylish knee-high marching boots had hooked itself firmly into the 40 denier tights-leg (oh I so want to use the word pantyhose here, but I’m just not sure I can – it’s American, and just sounds too rude) of the opposing knee.

There followed protracted fumbling with the buckle and the tights, without dropping my gaze below lectern level. To no avail. Nothing was budging and I was increasingly concerned that applying too much force would result in a huge and unsightly hole in my tights-leg (pantyhose really would be better here, wouldn’t it?). What to do? We were still only 20 minutes into the scheduled hour of the talk.

Eventually, and after draining my wineglass, I gave up the fiddling and refocused (mostly) on the talk which was clearly being well-received in the room. I could reconcile myself to this same cross-legged position for the duration of the talk – although the circulation in my feet might ultimately be compromised, but I’m already struggling to walk so what’s one more injury going to matter – and I told myself that it would not be a problem if I either somehow hopped or shuffled to the Ladies Powder Room (or was that down in the basement hundreds of steps away?) at the end of the talk to untangle myself in private or instead summoned up all my tremendous lower body muscle and boldly ripped the two limbs apart in situ and styled out the resulting ragged mess.

My mind continued to race until it could compute no more, thus giving new meaning to the Turing Test for me, and I was failing that test, incapable as I was at this juncture of thinking at all*.

The talk came to an end, the questions session followed, and I maintained my hopefully elegant rapt pose, leaning forward gently to emphasise my engagement with the material – whilst the material around my right knee remained gently but less elegantly wrapped around the buckle protruding from my boot-clad upper left calf.

Applause! Dermot was done, and people leapt up to purchase copies of his book. I glanced back at Mr J to my left. “I can’t move, my legs are tied together, you’re going to have to help me,” I whispered. A blank look, and then his first thought was that the friend who had been sitting to my right had somehow contrived to tie my bootlaces together during the course of the meal (a wheeze which sadly is not entirely without precedent, although I think in fact that was a different friend – and anyway these boots have buckles and zips but no laces) – and then, of course, he just laughed. And I laughed back (that’s the wine!), as we discussed which one of our party should crawl under the table and invisibly grapple with the offending attachment whilst I bid polite goodbyes to our newly-befriended table mates.

In the end, now that I was able to jiggle more freely, I succeeded in releasing myself and, remarkably, there was not even the smallest of holes in my pantyhose (there, I’ve done it). What a load of fuss about nothing!

I’m not sure that this particular cultural event has raised my intellectual game, but I have never been so careful not to cross my legs on the train home.

*In fairness to myself, and to correct the inaccuracy of my ridiculous analogy in this piece, my reaction to the unfortunate hook-up described is entirely human, and it is thus that we rise above the machines. Now, what’s the betting that the first machine to pass the Turing test convincingly will laugh at me? Continue reading The Turing Test

If I go out one more time with the wrong glasses on…

… I’ll maybe need a different sort of prescription to deal with the consequences.

Yes, it’s great to have a pair of spectacles which are good for reading books, laptop work and occasional looking up at visitors to my desk (if there ever were to be any apart from the cat and Mr J, neither of whose eye I really need to catch). I forget what they are called, but they have proved to be an excellent choice.

But the flexibility these specs bring me can often result in me using them for long periods of time – most of the day. Accustomed as I have been for many years now to using varifocals, I am reliably able to negotiate stairs and other mixed-distance hazards whilst wearing both types of glasses. My distance vision is still pretty good (it used to be excellent and was one of my superpowers at a time when I was not aware how precious such superpowers can actually be), and I probably automatically peer over the top of these special work specs when wearing them around the house. I know I’m not supposed to wear them when walking around, but consider this to be a minor transgression, forgive myself and keep on doing it.

However, in the past month or so I have regularly found myself halfway up the next road before realising that I am wearing the wrong pair of glasses. Stuff them into my pocket and carry on, not really a problem, just annoying. Another sign of the approach of senility, stupid forgetfulness and mild inconvenience when I need to check my Fitbit or the messages on my phone.

Yesterday I did a huge supermarket shop – a special treat for me, which had previously seemed to cure a lingering headache although sadly this time did not work so well in that regard. Much to my astonishment I found myself at the top of our road in the car, blinking in irritation that the bright sun shining obliquely across the tarmac had blurred my vision even after I’d got back into a shady bit. No, in fact I was driving the car wearing ‘the wrong glasses’. This was a first! And slightly more inconvenient because, although I could still easily pass a driving test sight test without any specs, the checking of dashboard instruments is harder without the close focus lens. Mind you, on the short trip to the supermarket, the only instrument I might need to peruse would be the speedo and, to be honest, the traffic is so bad and the street furniture so plentiful that there is little opportunity to exceed the speed limit at this time of day.

I will have to create a detailed checklist for use before every foray outside my front door. I am already checking for outdoor slipper-wearing. I can get halfway to the railway station at the end of the road before I remember to do this though, so my nearest neighbours may be in for a treat at some point.

As it happens, such forays are being curtailed at present due to the onslaught of multiple limb/joint pain. I am almost pathologically unable to rest, and have no real idea whether these aches and pains will be improved by inactivity or made worse. I simply cannot bear to engage with my GP again right now to ask, and have been unable to self-diagnose online (paranoid hypochondriasis, anyone?). I still haven’t quite forgiven him for telling me I mustn’t take my headache medicine any more. Having survived the whole of January without it, I am pretty definitely no better than before. I seem to have the same number of headaches, but now they are not actually going away because I’m taking no medication. So I seem to be in a worse position, although I suppose a debilitating stroke is less likely as a result of giving up the triptans. Who knows?

Still, cheer up! It looks like Spring outside, a slightly larger proportion of our elderly radiators is working than was the case last week (due to chatty plumber’s intervention on Saturday), and I’ve just been reminded (by writing about my fear of going for a walk in my slippers) that last week I was walking in the RHS garden at Wisley behind a woman who was wearing non-matching leather boots. Both were black and had the same sort of heel, but one had a tan leather panel and the other did not. This could, of course, be a new trend that I should look out for on social media, but I rather think it was someone of a similar ‘certain’ age as myself (but with more boots) who had rushed to finish her outfit in order not to annoy her other half any further before popping out for their walk and lunch, and then had to style it out having decided to commit once they had merged onto the A3.

There but for the limited shoe collection go I!

(Maybe boot lady was also wearing the wrong glasses.)

Are you having a laugh?

Well, you should be. Laughter is most definitely good for you.

A twice postponed comedy gig at my local theatre (Kingston’s Rose Theatre) finally took place last night to a packed house. My tickets, purchased on a whim back in 2020 I think, were finally usable. Hurrah!

And didn’t it feel good?

Oh yes, despite some lingering and barely policed mask-wearing, this was an evening for proper laughter. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much or so fully since my first re-encounter with my old college friends last May. Proper belly laughs, guffaws and rippling titters all round.

I was accompanied by Mr J, a brave move on his part as this was a “Sixty FFS” gig by a self-declared post-menopausal Jenny Eclair and the audience was likely to be a wine-or-gin-fuelled collection of women of a certain age. Indeed, on arrival, it was clear that the predominantly female fan-base was limbering up in groups (not yet giggling ‘gaggles’ – those were saved for the interval – this after all being a generally civilised outpost of west London) at the bar, largely sporting leopard-print and undoubtedly TENA-braced for a jolly good time.

On the end of a row, and with a clear path to the exit ‘just in case’, Mr J felt safe enough as the house lights dimmed.

Considering her great age (Ms Eclair is in fact very nearly 62 now, approximately 18 long Covid-ey months my senior), our entertainer burst on-stage with surprising gusto and, despite recent surgery, maintained an energetic patter of relatable truisms for more than an hour and a half – scuttling or striding around the stage, baring her middle-aged soul (and her knees), and – impressively, to this relatively under-endowed member of the sisterhood – regularly and illustratively hoiking and jiggling her bosoms.

[I will big myself up (yes, much needed Mrs AA-cup) here by ‘confessing’ that I had a random thought before the performance that, should we be asked by Jenny in an audience participation section which of us had had breast augmentation I would reply that ‘no, two were quite enough for me thanks’ and, blow me down with a handbag fan, she referred to her own breast reduction op as the removal of her third mammary. Great minds thinking alike? I should be doing this for a living, I thought, briefly and ludicrously.]

What joy to be laughing so much. I’ve watched and listened to plenty of comedy on TV and podcasts over the past two years, but a live act is quite different. The laughter is bigger, more satisfying and infectiously shared – those masks not as impermeable as we thought huh?

I guess the trick is to scuttle/stride along a clever line between the widely relatable, exaggerated or not, and the idiosyncratically personal. The audience will laugh in recognition of themselves or their friends and family members, and will either feel better about their own lot because they are not experiencing the same level of problem or, if they are, they are not alone and ‘a trouble shared…’ etc. Mr J and I even exchanged knowing glances more than once – chords were struck here and there for sure.

We are of course laughing at ourselves as much as we are laughing at our on-stage representative. I could smugly (behind my mask, obvs) object to some of the implied mid-life sartorial choices: no, I don’t have a gilet (do I?) and nor do I have a favourite cardigan, named or otherwise – although I will concede that I too abandoned any form of undergarment with ‘control’ in its title some years ago now and was mildly relieved not to be wearing my best Breton-stripe top (or indeed any form of Breton-esque wear from my wardrobe) when Jenny cast her eye around the auditorium for such an item. I also took heart from the fact that I am apparently luckier than most of my age and gender in the sleep-versus-wee night-time stakes. I believe this largely singles me out from my contemporaries both male and female, and certainly gives me a clear lead (if we were to be competitive, which of course we are!) in that department in Jillings Towers.

(NB. The ability to sleep solidly through the night when heavily pregnant with neither nocturnal bathroom visit nor morning mattress-shaming, is still one of my proudest lifetime achievements. I tried to think of other great personal achievements to list here, but sadly nothing springs to mind. I have possibly slept through them.)

And Jenny, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe your bed-changing frequency, although if it is true I am slightly in awe despite myself.

Aside from the glorious comedy, I think what impressed me most was the fluency of patter. How anyone of this apparently tricky age can retain a train of thought and a cogency (great word that!) of delivery for 90 minutes is a wonder in itself, even with an interval – well, especially with an interval – getting back on-stage without forgetting where we last put our specs, or leaving our iPad in the ladies, or inadvertently starting back at the beginning of Act 1. I will now quietly unsubscribe from the Edinburgh Fringe performers’ email circulation list which I peculiarly seem to be on. I think that ship has sailed, if it ever was more than a ghost ship in the first place.

Anyway, hurrah for laughter and hurrah for menopausal, peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women everywhere.

Now, what was it I was actually supposed to do today?

Old tat

Lurching from grumpy drizzle-tinged days to bright frosty headache-ridden frustration, shot through with occasional online-shopping-induced positivity, this week has been a real January rollercoaster. Oh what fun we have! Fun, if you like it with dollops of inconvenience: neither of Mr J’s motorcycles would start this morning when he needed to be somewhere, and our central heating has finally given up the ghost, just four weeks since requesting a plumber’s visit (and sadly still one week before our scheduled appointment).

However, my relief today at NOT having a headache (after a particularly bad day yesterday), boosted me as I scuttled into town to pick up four new books I had ordered from Waterstones. For no apparent reason, my thoughts wandered as I walked – and I was somehow congratulating myself that the scruffy shoulder bag I was carrying (I carry it everywhere these days) was now 20 years old. In fact, it is probably precisely 20 years and one week since I purchased it in Disney World, Orlando, at the end of our holiday there – one of the few holidays inflicted on our children which they actually agreed at the time was properly suitable. The bag was an unaccustomed spur-of-the-moment purchase in a tourist shop, probably at an inflated price, in which I intended to pack other tat which the offspring had persuaded us to buy over the course of our stay.

This bag has thin white stripes on black, with the outline of large Mickey Mouse ears and the usual Disney logo. But the back and the straps are conveniently plain black, and this means that I can hitch it over my shoulder with the plain surface showing, thus hiding my naffness (at least in the bagging area) and promoting my preferred anonymity (which will be further enhanced when my blondness finally grows out). I think the bag sat unused in a cupboard for several years, but since we have all given up our plastic carrier-bag enthusiasm in favour of reusable totes etc, it has been promoted to ‘essential item’ status and is used on pretty much a daily basis.

This gives me great satisfaction. What had seemed to be an extravagance has turned into an eco-friendly choice. Mind you, given that it has now lasted through several years of heavy use, it is clearly indestructible and almost certainly would not biodegrade any time soon, so the only eco answer is to continue to use it forever. No matter – I have avoided the lure of this month’s Accessorize Sale and can retain my halo for now.

In a similar vein of old tat, we recently came across a photo in my father’s old transparency collection of a pre-children Mr J sporting a blue sweatshirt which he still wears for rowing.

Our children are fast approaching their 29th and 27th birthdays. This means that the sweatshirt is at least 30 years old. It has some paint stains but is otherwise little the worse for all that wear. (Possibly unlike its owner and his partner.)

I suppose Mr J can at least congratulate himself on still being able to fit perfectly comfortably into his thirty-year-old sweatshirt.

We always were a stylish couple.

Nectar

Oh dear. I just read my last blog. Sorry.

I have re-emerged, in time to go to the theatre last night (excellent Force Majeure at the Donmar Warehouse), to do the housework today (hurrah, just think of the calories consumed), and a bit of shopping (to try and kick-start this year’s Nectar points collection, having used 42,000 of them over Christmas. I am the QUEEN of Nectar!).

I also chirped up enough yesterday to suggest to my family that I might join the Conservative Party and become a local councillor – this in reaction to receiving a letter addressed to me personally from an existing local conservative Councillor (the singing one, although I’m not quite sure that’s relevant to anything), suggesting I put myself forward and enclosing an application form. I felt slightly less ‘special’ when I realised that Mr J had received the same and I am assuming the whole street got them – maybe several through the door of our neighbourly LibDem councillor?

Nevertheless, I thought I would engage my family to assist in making my decision. Sadly, my WhatsApp pic of the Application form with the comment ‘Shall I?’ seemed to meet with a wall of shocked silence followed by a belated ‘Oh lord!’ from my son. They’re no help at all!

This was, of course, a joke on my part. I cannot abide party politics (happy to look at each policy as it comes and even at the overall balance of a manifesto when necessary at Election time, and realise that this is the way our democracy works etc, but I simply can’t nail my colours to one particular mast – at least not one I’ve yet seen) and despite sporting a Conservative Party badge in some recent filming (which it is just possible I will never live down if they use that particular shot) I cannot imagine ever aligning myself with any one of the parties which offer themselves to us on the ballot papers. Even the Loonies, although I do get upset if they don’t stand so that I can at least consider voting for them before plumping for something more mainstream.

No, I’m sorry, but the application form will only be used to produce a spoof entry for my own amusement and then be chucked in the recycling with all the other junk mail.

Hmm, unless perhaps they were to offer me Nectar points… Now, there’s a policy idea for someone.

Migraine or Covid? Or Daisy May F***ing Cooper?

Today’s achievement?

Listening to most of that f***ing Daisy-May sh***ing Cooper’s f***ing memoir on f***ing Audio-bloody-bubble with a raging migraine – AND NO F***ING DRUGS!

At the lowest point (so far – not out of the woods, as I slink back to my bed – and it’s still daylight) I feared I had become Covidified, with a bit of a fever as I cowered in bed with my eyes closed glugging Coca Cola* as if my life depended on it, with Daisy chuffing and fuffing away on my brand new smart speaker (it will probably need a factory re-set now to unlearn its acquired sweariness, and I will have to try and quash the re-emergence of my own original Gloucestershire twang – when she says ‘Cheltenham’ I was quite definitely back there behind the counter in Boots), but discovered I was just overheating because the cat had managed to sneak in and sit on me. It is truly ‘one of those days’.

By the way, Daisy-May’s book is interesting and funny (and very potty-mouthed, of course) and certainly gives an insight to her journey to fame and fortune. As an aspiring (expiring?) writer myself, I sort of took heart from it.

Except that, after hearing the awful stories behind her eventual success, even today I don’t think my life is sh*t enough.

*Coke is GP advised. I hate it. Hasn’t worked. Is clearly rubbish.

Something to look forward to – please

That’s what I need. Something to plan, something to look forward to realistically.

We had a pleasant Christmas (following a slightly bumpy start) and undertook some light socialising to brighten the dodgy betwixt days at the end of December. We’ve just learned that one of these events may have resulted in a friend catching the virus, and the rest of us are now waiting nervously to see if we all succumb. We thought we were so careful – just four of us in a large cafe space with very few other punters, sitting at a table next to the endlessly opening outside door.

I’m not sure whether that is what is making me grumpy, but today I have been facing up to 2022 and I really don’t know what to think. Prospects are not enticing.

No big holiday planned.

No small holiday planned either, although there are a few ideas knocking around. Probably won’t need my passport.

No clear plan for any activities yet. Half thoughts have crossed my mind of maybe doing a course this year (but I don’t want anything with exams!) and actually pulling some of my random scribblings into something more coherent, more widely shared and even saleable. (Hahaha, but I do like earning money. Being paid on Christmas Eve for my recent Netflix antics was quite a buzz. – Hmm, maybe I’ll be a film star instead. Yeah yeah sure.)

A few theatre tickets are in the phone wallet, but I fear they may all be cancelled – or I’ll be isolating or something. There’s also a production at the Bridge Theatre for which I’ve not even bought tickets, and I’m supposed to go to every production they do. I can’t miss one, but somehow I don’t have the get-up-and-go to get up and buy tickets. Might have to be an impulse buy on a glass-half-full day. If I have one soon.

I’ve been reading up on medication overuse headaches (oh lord, I’m scraping the barrel here), and it seems that I really do have to swerve my triptan lifeline for at least a whole month. So that’s my January mapped out. Painfully. Really looking forward to that!

Mr J has found several boxes of my father’s old photos – or rather slides. These need to be digitised. He bought a scanner years ago which we promptly hid away somewhere. But it seems that this could be my lifeline for 2022 – a project to get all these old images into the Cloud (or step one, onto the old computer in the back room – let’s not get ahead of ourselves). It seems to take more than 10 minutes to scan and save just 4 transparencies. I reckon this might also take care of 2023.

Send help! I’m not sure that looking forward to Project Pix is enough.

If I’ve written a miserable pile of words, I like at least to end on a more positive note. I was about to use the cop-out one – “at least I’ve got a blog-post out of it. Haha.”

But then I realised that in fact I have achieved something even better earlier this evening. I worked out how to stop Metro.co.uk sending me those stupid alerts which pop up on my screen 100 times a day – and I actually stopped it. Of course, it was a matter of seconds to achieve and I immediately thought no more of it, but I now realise happily that I have not been interrupted whilst writing this blog with any Emmerdale or Eastenders revelations, or salacious gossip of any sort, AT ALL. It’s been annoying me for so long that it feels like a huge weight is lifted. Hurrah!

(That last bit’s an exaggeration for dramatic effect, but hey, it’s definitely cheered me up.)

Wassail’s a girl to do?

In answer to my own question – HOUSEWORK!

I need a sit down, but my conscience doesn’t allow me to read a book or take a nap when the cleaning is only half done and none of the Christmas veg has actually yet been prepped, so a blog-post is essentially now being used as a justifiable excuse to rest my aching limbs awhile before the pandemonium of Yule truly begins.

I enjoy Christmas Day when we get to it, but it’s hard work in the preparation. I stupidly set high standards for myself and the last few days usually pass in a haze of cake decoration, mince pies, washing, ironing, bed-changing, vacuuming, scrubbing and bleach. These activities are often jumbled together, as I have limited staying power and the attention span of a gnat. I lurch from one thing to another in a haphazard fashion – although by some housewifery miracle this method does usually result in being able to tick off most of the necessary items by the end of the day.

Now, it is fair enough to expend all this energy when preparing for the arrival of one’s mother-in-law, or even one’s own parents perhaps. But Mr J and I are now the “top” generation (a term preferred to ‘oldest’), my own offspring don’t expect a great deal from me – after all, they lived with me for many many non-Christmas days and I’m unlikely to have reformed in my old age – and our other visitor, my brother-in-law, will likely not notice if some surfaces are less shiny than others. Nevertheless, I am programmed to make an effort regardless, and this year is no different. Except, now that I am retired there is more time to plan and spread the tasks out. And having Christmas Day on a Saturday somehow makes the ‘last-minute’ days greater in number, so I have definitely felt ahead of myself some of the time. I fear that will be my undoing at some point in the next 24 hours, but so far so good.

The Christmas tree is decorated – I think we were quite good lasting until 21st December before lugging it in from the garden. It would have looked a lot better if my daughter had been here to do it (my preferred option) but I took a leaf from her book and played a Christmas album whilst decorating
The Christmas cake has marzipan and icing on it. I will not boast that it is ‘iced’, as it is in fact possible to see through some of the icing this year.
The spare beds are all made up and only one of them has since been used by the cat. Most of the bedding has even been ironed (at some point)
The fridge is full – although worryingly not as full as in previous years. This hopefully just means there will be less waste, but as we don’t usually have much waste, it is possible there has been a huge oversight I have yet to discover
I have gathered together in the kitchen all the various special Christmas food items I have been secreting around the house for the past month (at least, I think I have). I have to hide it, or it gets eaten early.
The presents are wrapped and under the Christmas tree – apart from one still to be wrapped and one about which I made an executive decision to open this afternoon when particularly peckish at tea-time, having just received it from a friend who had explained it was home-made Parkin (and I am very partial to that)
I have definitively decided not to put any Christmas lights outside this year, so can tick that off the list
Two of our bathrooms are now sparkling, including the shower which received unaccustomed deep-clean treatment yesterday for which I dressed myself in a peculiar outfit of ancient T-shirt and rolled up holey jeans (and of course continued to wear for the rest of the day – no wonder there is little romance in this house) thus avoiding Viakal damage to my regular stylish togs. There is a third bathroom (yes, I know, the middle-class shame of it) into which I do not normally venture, it being the preserve of Mr J. He keeps it clean, but as it will temporarily be used by our daughter and her house-cat (again, I know!) I may pop in before their arrival and spruce up those bits I know he will have overlooked (mirror, tiles, towel-rail etc)
Half the house has been vacuumed (I refuse to say Hoovered because I once had Electrolux as a client and they told me it annoyed them. I am a loyal person – also, of course, a literary pedant). There’s no point doing the rest until just before people arrive (and then not again until New Year??? – can I get away with it?)
Mr J has removed several crates and boxes to the shed. This outside-of-the house task may have been hastened by his having to listen to me as I caterwauled along to the Eagles Live album on my headphones whilst tackling the top floor. Apparently this is completely fine when the vacuum cleaner is on and drowning me out, but less so when I’m dusting and polishing. Surely better than my usual endless repetition of whichever Wassail has decided to be my ear-worm of the day? Well, maybe not. It’s likely something to do with incoherent lyrics, general mumbling, and random switching from the tune, to the Backing Vocal, to an ‘interesting’ harmony, to the guitar solo etc. I wonder if it was even possible to tell what I was listening to? I am sure it improved my productivity though!

Now I have deemed it too late in the day to stomp around doing more cleaning, I will go and wrap the last present and hopefully by the time that is done, it will be a suitable o’clock for the final ‘you’re not allowed to eat any of the Christmas food’ supper decision* of the year.

*From Christmas Eve, everything except the turkey, the figgy pudding and the Christmas cake (however amateurishly iced) is fair game! And expected, along with no cleaning, to last into the New Year.

‘Tis the season for emergency sprouts

Deck the Halls and all that, but I am already an emotional wreck, lurching from the depths of Omicron-induced trepidation to the heights of newly satisfied consumerism.

In the past 24 hours, I have heard of more people who have tested positive, within the two-to-three degrees of separation required to instil alarm, than I have heard in any whole month of this wretched pandemic to date. The tsunami or tidal-wave (take your pick, depending on which side of the border you are sitting at the time) of Covid cases arriving by Christmas is now almost inevitable, and my mind is racing with all the possible consequences that could bring for everyone, but more particularly for me and my anticipated Christmas guests.

We host the family Christmas every year, and this time are only expecting our two offspring and one of Mr J’s brothers (the other brother being persona non grata due to his living in the USA with his young daughter – who in fact tested positive last week and missed her ballet performance, just to add to the sob-story). So, it is not a huge event and there is no problem at all to scale up or down a little as needed. But it’s the uncertainty that gets me – and, worse, the possible need to make decisions and judgments about what we should or should not be doing. Last year was disastrous on that front and I am not yet fully recovered – I could quite easily do an Allegra on the pavement if provoked.

As a result of my mounting concern, I took myself to the supermarket this morning and did a second ginormous shop (the first being last week where I bought all the Christmas non-perishables and anything too heavy or large to lug home in my backpack). The idea today was to avoid the busiest times at Sainsburys next week – so minimising as much infection risk as possible – and to buy as much as reasonably possible in case we end up grounded in the next couple of weeks.

So determined was I to be prepared, I have purchased for the first time in my life, an emergency pack of frozen sprouts. Although no-one particularly likes sprouts in this household, and the sprout-hater we love to bait with them will be safely over the pond this time, I could not contemplate being without them on 25th. Or indeed on 26th when it is mandatory to make bubble and squeak with the (deliberately) left-overs. So I can rest easy that the last few cubic inches of space in my freezer are now occupied by Sainsburys finest baby sprouts.

Of course, I have had to hide the more attractive of the festive fare in a number of dusty and well-concealed corners of the house lest it be pre-emptively consumed by a foraging Mr J. My own biggest challenge will most likely be remembering what and where it all is. No doubt there will be takers amongst my friends when I unearth yet another box of biscuits in February?

I believe we are now prepared. I hope so, because I have spent all of the December food budget now, with little more than pennies remaining for fresh fruit and veg next week if allowed.

This exercise has cheered me up immensely. Whilst I hate most types of shopping, I love a good supermarket session and I also take great pleasure in stocking up the cupboards to the brim, provided I am sure we will be able to consume it all without waste. So far, I am confident that is the case. A small dance around the kitchen has therefore been deemed appropriate.

So, apart from a few walks to pick up parcels which are being delivered to local shops, and Mr J’s annual motorcycle foray to pick up the turkey, we can now batten down the hatches and hope for the best in the full and certain knowledge that we (and indeed the cat) will not starve this Christmas even if confined to quarters.

Now I can focus on washing all the bedding, tidying my office which is also my son’s bedroom, marzipanning then icing the cake, making mince pies, wrapping presents (when I’ve located them all), decanting the raspberry gin, making detailed lists (several times because I’ll mislay them), vacuuming, ringing my aunts, dusting, etc etc – and generally being the domestic goddess I always knew I could be.

Unless I’m in bed with Covid, in which case someone else can do all those things.

Or not.

My theatrical want of a bodkin

I am pleased to report that my enthusiasm for Best of Enemies at the Young Vic was shared by the real critics and there have been several 4- and 5-star reviews in the newspapers and stage websites this weekend after Thursday’s press night. Perhaps I’ll challenge myself a few more times and build up a track record. Some confidence in my own opinions would help of course, but I have to start somewhere – and, of course, the seats at previews are usually much cheaper.

I have also been reminded today of something I omitted to mention about my visit to the Young Vic – my mask. Since my visit, the government has reintroduced mandatory mask-wearing in theatres. The Young Vic were already doing this, presumably partially out of self-preservation, not wanting the audience to infect the cast, especially in such an intimate performance space.

Whilst I acknowledged in my review the diligent mask-policing by the theatre staff, I forgot that my own mask-wearing was initially problematic that evening. I entered the theatre wearing an easy-to-put-on standard blue disposable mask, as carried in every coat pocket I now have. Once seated, I retrieved my heavy-duty triple-layer handmade mask from my capacious handbag ready to make the switch, only to discover that the drawstring had come out of the right-hand side of the mask in transit (or more likely in the wash and I’d stupidly not noticed earlier).

This is no ordinary mask. It is of a weird design which uses just one string (in this case a long piece of soft bias binding or similar) which threads up through one side of the mask and then down through the other side. The resulting loop at the top is placed over the head so that it sits on top of the ears (and can be tucked under my long hair so as not to be too obviously silly from behind) and the two ends at the lower part of the mask can be tied together round the back of the neck. This assembly process is, in itself, quite tricky for someone as ham-fisted as myself, but I have become reasonably competent over my many visits to the theatre.

But now, my dexterity – and ingenuity – was tested to the limit. The flimsy bias binding needed to be threaded through the narrow right side hem. Ideally, this would be achieved using what I believe is known as a bodkin. (Yes, I did listen in Home Economics and Needlework classes, but probably now only remember those things which had interesting-sounding names – like ‘bodkin’ obviously, and Spotted Dick.)

I didn’t have a bodkin in my capacious handbag. I had many other important items which I will not bore you with, but no bodkin. I tried a ballpoint pen. I managed to force this upward through the hem-space – just about – so the next step was to somehow attach the binding to the pen so as to pull it back through. I poked the nib through the binding fabric – wouldn’t hold. I trapped the fabric between the nib and the pen case – wouldn’t stay. My fingers, and a large section of the binding, were by now daintily ink-blotched.

I could hear that the audience around me, which had initially been sparse due to the fact that I had arrived at the time stated on my ticket and most people had instead decided to do as they pleased and wait longer in the bar before taking their seats, was nearly at capacity now. I kept my eyes determinedly on my hands and mask. To be honest, it was not helpful to the proceedings that my glasses were still misting a little with each breath under my disposable mask – but perhaps it afforded me a little more perceived separation from my fellow theatre-goers as I could not focus on them anyway.

I then recalled that this mask has a removable wire across the top. My husband folded the ends of about 100 of these little wires when we were helping with PPE back in lockdown #1. Aha! Folded ends! A bit like a bodkin then.

It was a relief to find that the wire was in situ. I have turned up to the theatre before with this freshly washed mask into which I had forgotten to re-insert the wire after the wash – making for a baggy fit and spectacle-fogging even worse, and no doubt the Covid particle barrier less effective. Anyhow, I now eagerly removed the wire, fashioned a slightly different hook from one of the folded ends and shoved it through the already punctured (from the pen nib) binding end. Determined poking and easing into the tiny hem aperture ensued, as I saw out of the corner of my eye the last few punters sitting down and the ushers departing.

And finally – success! How I managed to then re-insert the wire in its rightful place, remove my inferior mask, don the industrial version and tie it correctly, I do not know. But as the house lights went down, I raised my head – glasses still misting ever so slightly now – to enjoy the performance.

Of course, another benefit of wearing a mask throughout proceedings is that no-one can see who you actually are. So the mad woman with inky hands wrestling with bits of wire and fabric in the very middle of the audience on Tuesday will remain just that.

Unless they want a warm-up act for a conjuring show.

Oh, and if you ever come to the theatre with me, please pack a bodkin – just in case.

More drama

Yes, I have been up to that there London again, to see another preview of a new play – in this case Best of Enemies by James Graham at the Young Vic. I have been meaning to visit this theatre for some time now, and had somewhat randomly decided that this play – about which I knew very little when I booked – was to be the one for my first visit.

As it turned out, I saw an article in the press last weekend which gave me a little more background to the play and I wasn’t quite sure whether this would be right for me. After my last preview experience at the National Theatre (Moira Buffini’s Manor, which the critics have largely labelled a turkey – appropriate for this time of year I guess), I was worried that a black actor playing a 1960s conservative Republican – with all the questionable throwback politics that would likely entail – was possibly going to be just as silly-Woke or tokenistic as Manor had turned out to be. And perhaps more earnest and less fun.

But this would tick off another theatre, and it was raining, so I might as well sit indoors somewhere warmer than home.

In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have once again rushed to write a quick review before the professionals get their pens on it. I will rashly predict that this will get a more favourable response.

The real drama this week however, was my latest attempt to take my own blood to send to UK Biobank for research antibody tests. This should not be a drama any more. I did this sort of test every month for six months in 2020, and became quite good at it. The test and equipment were very slightly different this time, but it all seemed fine. Of course, I forgot that you’re supposed to drink two glasses of water 30 minutes before taking the blood, but once I had remedied that, and then run up and down the stairs a few more times to get the blood pumping, I was all ready to go.

My cat had other ideas however. He has changed since I previously did this, and is much more needy now. He seems to need to leap onto any surface we might be using and socialise madly with us – thus my initial attempt to use the sanitised work-surface in the kitchen was quickly abandoned when he skidded into the bowl of warm water I was supposed to soak my hand in. I scooped everything together and retired to my office upstairs. I somehow created sufficient space on my untidy desk, quickly wiped it with sanitiser, and I was in business again. Using the lancet, I punctured my left ring finger, wiped away the first drop of blood as instructed, and proceeded to drip contentedly into the tiny vial I had carefully positioned for the purpose, also as instructed.

And then, my lovely cat scratched at the inadequately-latched door, and he was rapidly in and attempting to jump up onto the desk. Considerable screaming and bad language ensued (mostly mine). He was ejected, but not before a large area of desk, paperwork, laptop, carpet and door frame had acquired a police-precedural-reminiscent bloody be-spattering. Given that this was one of my smaller blood-vessels and most definitely not a pumping artery, the spread was quite impressive. I could have filled several tiny vials if I’d adopted this anti-feline windmilling earlier.

Ah well, I suppose it’s better than being bored. And we like a spot of drama now and again.

(Tempted to say ‘Out, damned spot: out, I say!’ here, but that would be corny and I have run out of energy to shoe-horn it into my post in a convincing way. Perhaps when I publish my book I’ll have more time. I’ve got Christmas cards to write now.)