On Being a Heathen at Heart...

A theatrical tour de force. A coup de theatre for the more pretentious amongst us. "Pretentious?" you ask.  "Qui moi?" Yes, I am a fully paid up member. So a few weeks ago Dearest, son and I set off for The Hampstead Theatre which was for me, a first visit. A really delightful theatre, and one which I have shamefully ignored for too long.
It was a new play, Wild by Michael Bartlett. We were particularly interested in seeing it as we had very much enjoyed his King Charles III which we'd seen in the West End last year. This also was topical. A whistleblower, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Edward Snowden, has been taken to a place of safety. It was WikiLeaks meets Godot in a hotel room in Russia. A game of words until the final jaw-dropping scene. We marvelled, but were not fully convinced by the whole experience.

Yesterday afternoon, we took our grandchildren and our daughter to a matinee performance of Aladdin. It was joyous on every level.  The closest I've ever come to seeing a glitzy old-fashioned Hollywood musical. It could not have been sparklier, more colourful, more lavish...
I love words, and indeed the book was very witty.  But I have such a weakness for the razzle-dazzle... with costumes that make me want to dig out my harem pants tout suite; in fact, the tooter the sweeter. Just need to work on a Koh-i-Noor to jam in the belly button and I'll be auditioning for this show.

A Woman Scorned...

I can't wait for tomorrow morning. No it's not Christmas Eve, though truth to tell the year is simply doing a fly-by. No, it's Bin Day. I have spoken before, about the way that this regular day of the week still manages to catch us out. But that's not it. And it's not going to catch us out tomorrow...

Two weeks ago, dear Readers, I transgressed. I carelessly put a scrunched up piece of black tissue paper into the Brown bin: the one that takes, glass, cardboard and plastic. Most of us can barely get our heads round the logic of combining this odd assortment of disparate materials. But we do our best to toe the line and do our bit for re-cycling.
CONTAMINATED slapped across the top of the bin. Public humiliation. The neighbours wondering what the heck I could possibly have put in my Brown bin. A small scrunched up piece of black tissue paper! I want to cry. I am hopping mad. The bin is filled to capacity and is humming in the heat wave (which is now so over). So for the past two weeks I have been filling black plastic bags with everything that I would have been placing in the brown bin. In readiness for tomorrow.

So tomorrow morning I will be up with the lark. I will be watching those pesky Bin Men as they peer into my bins, as I passively aggressively water my front borders. At the first whiff of a problem I will appear behind my large watering can and remove any offending articles that I may have missed (though frankly, I have given them such close scrutiny that I had to take a shower afterwards). They will empty the bin. I will wait until they are out of sight, then I will quickly fill my bin with all the crud I've collected over the past two weeks and I will wheel it across the road and leave it on the corner opposite which they will then collect on the next part of their round. Ha!

I can't bloody wait. Just don't mess with me. I'm a woman on a mission.

Could you Move a Little Faster...?

My Dearest husband thinks he can toy with time. He thinks he can bend and shape it to suit his will. He always believes that he will arrive promptly despite either wittingly or  inadvertantly leaving himself so little time that it becomes a challenge of navigation or yellow box avoidance. Gone are the days where he could make up for lost time by flying at 110 miles per hour down motorways, and we thank the Good Lord for that. Those perilous last minute dashes for the ferry could never be replicated these days. (Sparing a thought for those poor Dover-bound travellers queuing day into night.) Not to mention the trains that he swung on to, Marlborough between his teeth, as the guard blew a whistle, before the advent of automated self-sealing doors buggered that little trick.

So last night, when he appeared from the office where he had been catching up on some files, at 6.30 wondering if there were a chance of a little smackerel of fodder before we set off for the Proms at The Royal Albert Hall, I knew we were on a sticky wicket. The chap had to be fed. Narrow margins call for culinary simplicity: baked beans on toast. What did he expect? Duck a L'orange?

We left the house at 7.05 for an 8.00 performance.  And the Finchley Road was all dug up, as it has been all year, and so we had to change routes. Dearest was on it. He knows London almost as well as a London cabbie, and certainly much better than our local taxi drivers. Remarkably, we were doing quite well, so I decided it was safe to emerge from the meditative trance I'd put myself in, and survey the scene.

We'd reached Kensington Gardens. And so had everyone else. At least they were on their way home and no-one was moving anywhere. There was no option but to abandon ship and set off alone in the direction of the Albert Hall while Dearest grappled with what appeared to be an insurmountable problem. His Nemesis had arrived but it gave me no satisfaction as I briskly walked the mile alone.

I arrived with four minutes to spare. Checked the latecomers policy. He had a window of 15 minutes and that would be it. Judging by what I had seen, his chances were nigh impossible. I was disconsolate. This was his evening. He had really wanted to hear Beethoven's Choral symphony..
Then at 8.04 when the orchestra were still tuning up, a hot, sweaty figure slid into the seat beside me.
"That's why I like an aisle seat," he whispered, before the burgeoning swell of instruments drowned out my response.

Royal Albert Hall

One Way of Cooling Down...

Is it a heatwave? Technically not, apparently. This is because there have been brief respites from the overwhelming stretch of sunshine and sweltering temperatures. To be a true Brit you have to moan loudly about the miserable summer we've been having, so chilly... and then moan even louder when an open window produces no respite; bus or tube travel is devoid of oxygen; tarmacadam on the roads caramelizes before it disintegrates and train rails buckle and bend.
As I took the train to Milton Keynes on Friday, a much cooler, fresher day, it was the latter that came to mind. It is almost twenty years to the day that there was a serious rail crash at Watford Junction.
Our son was thirteen at the time and was intent on doing a project on the Paranormal for his Year 8 project. At that time there was a great deal of Buffy, Moulder and Sculley, going on in this house. Body-snatching was a routine experience. (Shame I ended up with this one..)
In the local newspaper, there was an article about an artist who claimed he foresaw future disasters. He would dream about them, then draw them and photograph his picture next to a clock in a Bank to give veracity to the time and date. The Watford rail crash was one he had recorded in this manner. The authorities whom he contacted in advance of the event were dismissive, and his warning ignored.
I thought it would be a great idea for the project-writer to contact this gentleman and interview him.
This was what we did. I supplied a cream tea and a tape recorder and he duly arrived with examples of his work.
There, in front of us, was a picture of the crashed train and he pointed out a red-haired lady who was the one fatality. We listened to  his experiences, rapt, and astounded  by the ordinary way in which he spoke of his second sight. This would certainly put some oomph into an arguably ordinary schoolboy project. And pictures too!
A few years later as I did a school pick-up I saw my son speaking to a red-haired lad at the school gate. As he got in the car, he said that he was the boy who'd lost his mother in the rail crash. The lady in the picture we'd seen, also had had red hair.
It was a very hot summer's day but I shivered.

Uniform Days..

On the hottest day of the year, our grandchildren are fitted up for their new uniforms in  readiness for September.  I felt for them and their mother. As the pictures came in of them, pink-faced, sweaty fringed and blazers that swamped them, it seemed not that very long ago that I was kitted up for my own secondary school.
A navy woollen blazer similarly enveloped me, as my mother nearly passed out from the expenditure of such an item. Her dismay obviously made an impression on me, as I vowed I would never require a new one. I was true to my word. The sleeves were let down, in the fullness of time, but as the burgeoning bosom developed, pushing the halves of the jacket to each side, I carried my overlarge satchel in front of me, defiantly, camouflaging my excesses.
If only excesses could be so easily camouflaged these days.
Apparently, I looked bit glum at the breakfast table this morning. Dearest asked why I looked so sad. What was I thinking of?
(Dear Diary moment this..)
I said I was thinking about my holiday wardrobe. Which I was. Really. I haven't updated my summer clothes because A. the weather has been lousy and B. I have been waiting for the weight to fall off me.
Now I have missed the boat because everything is sold out in size 16.
"You've got to be bloody joking!" came the reply. "If that's all you've got to worry about then you are very very lucky!"
I know he's right. But I still have this problem.
Life is sartorially simpler if you wear a uniform.

Getting Over-heated....

                                   Yes, that's me. Worried. I thought that it might not be clear from my writing that I am concerned. So I thought that you might need a visual marker. You know, to set the tone.
Now you are beginning to worry that I have lost my marbles. Yes, those bright yellow ones with silly faces on them.
I confess I have an ambivalent attitude to emojis. They are there like shiny additions to the toy cupboard that jump up and down saying "Use me! No, use Me!" Someone's birthday? Why not bring in a birthday cake? A balloon? Well, hell, let's throw in a glass of red wine for good measure. Oh, go on, make it two... Soon your conservative text is peppered with tiny visual images that require magnifying glasses to decipher. I once sent my daughter a thumbs up to which she instantly responded, "What on earth is that ?" And sure enough, without glasses it could surely be mistaken for some primitive penile symbol. No wonder she was discombobulated. So you see, after that, I eased up on the emojis. Frankly, they are a young person's plaything and we elders should leave them in the cupboard where they belong.
As the children were growing up, Roger Hargreaves produced the series of Mr Men books and then to even things up The Little Misses. Did I rant and roar about the simplicity of the tales like various librarians had done about Enid Blyton, a generation earlier? No. I'd lapped up Enid Blyton from the Famous Five to The Naughtiest Girl in the School, and  as a parent, was happy enough when a Mr Men book had been selected at children's bedtime because it meant a quicker getaway. (Shameful confession, but sometimes it was hard to promote literacy at the end of a long day with an even longer night ahead..)
So why am I worried when I read today that Penguin Random House will release four Emoji books about Heart Eyes, Sassy Girl, Laughing Crying and Pile of Poo. It makes me weep to think that literacy can become this reductive. But there we are, hardly surprising when, by all accounts we are in the midst of Pokemon mania which is causing much excitement amongst the young. Popping Candy for the Mind. And dangerously addictive.
Like all crazes, it will burn itself out, and hopefully before too many people have been mown down by buses or fallen from cliff-paths. It is just another example of mind-manipulation and an opportunity for another big boy conglomerate to squeeze the pips out of a gullible populace.
It might be the heat, but I sound really old and crabby.
Who needs an emoji for that?

When Do You Need a Pitchfork...?

I can work for hours producing a stand-up-and-cheer Sunday lunch and Dearest will say, "Bloody great Horseradish!"
Dearest daughter will arrange a plate of his favourite cold cuts and cheeses, only to be asked, "Where did you get this chutney?"
We call him Condiments Man, but he is unrepentant. I thought that it was an idiosyncrasy of the less loveable kind, until this evening.
The builders have left the building. That is not to say they will, in time, return, bringing gifts of bathroom cabinet, wall-hung loobrush, and heated towel rail. They have cleared our small garden of all the rubbish that this small project has spawned. In fairness, they left things pretty ship-shape. So I set to with verve and determination to address the small space I'd, of necessity, neglected for the past five weeks. I weeded, pruned, planted and brushed until the whole garden was a dead-headed testimony to my relentless endeavours.
I ushered Dearest into the trig and trim garden.
"Wow!" he exclaimed.
I could hardly contain my delight. At last!
He wondered out into across the patio.
"Just fantastic! I love those pink flowers peeking over the fence..."
Dear Readers, he is referring to the Mallow (Lavatera) that is peeking over the fence from
our neighbour's garden.

One Step, Two Steps, but no tickling....

What a political pantomime this week. The Principal Boy has taken his final bow; the Chancellor has jumped down a trap-door (or was he shoved?); Theresa May is Fairy Godmother brandishing a wand and declaring that all will be Fairer. And we have Boris. Yes, Boris, can you believe it? As Widow T'wanker. No, neither could anyone else. I can only imagine that the Duke of Edinburgh who competes with an equally toe-curling line in non-pc quips, was already booked. I am bringing the curtain down on this political extravaganza.
It was curtains this week chez nous. Bedroom curtains arrived, that is to say. Much to the huge disappointment of the neighbours who had been enjoying a late evening performance of our own devising. It certainly was a performance too. Flinging ourselves in darkness illuminated by distant landing light and the passing headlights of cars across ill-fitting, nails-protruding, wooden floorboards that creak and groan with every footfall.
"Did you remember the water?" or "Did you lock the French door?" and the whole bloody performance called for an encore.
I am very pleased with the curtains; Dearest also pleased, but rankled by the lack of Axminster underfoot. "Must get a bloody carpet asap," he said, nursing a small puncture wound on his foot. This was my moment...
"I think we need the step down into our room to be made bigger, and not be covered in carpet. So I think we have to ask Anthony if he will make a step for us like the one he made for us downstairs."
There was an intake of breath, and a Jeezus, as the imagined luxury of softness underfoot receded into yet another week of ouching his way out of the bedroom. At the end of a long wearying day, it was not surprising that he might feel that this would be a step too far.
The next day I called Anthony.
"It's me," I trilled.
"Yes,?" came the terse reply.
Two steps too far. Obviously.
Yesterday, Anthony measured up. Result!

Getting a Grip....

Huzzah! For Andy Murray: a great result and well-deserved.
Huzzah! For Wales: for getting further than anyone imagined in that football competition with the wrong-shaped ball, and funny unfathomable off-side rules..
Huzzah! For Lewis Hamilton: at Silverstone ( and for Force India for another great result!)
Huzzah! For Theresa May (whatever your political persuasion) for getting a grip on the tiller. Someone needed to.
Blimey, it's all been happening here. I have to add a personal Huzzah! For surviving a visit to the son et lumiere this weekend.  I had to go because Dearest was having a friend to stay for a Birthday Bash. Yes, loyal readers, it was Malcolm. So yes, I blame my latest brush with Death on Malcolm. And why not? Being a bloke, he will never read this.
I gathered up my overnight bag and de-camped to Belsize Park on Friday night. This took enormous dedication of spirit on my part, as it meant that I had to say goodbye to the walls I'd watched being papered in our bedroom all day, and say hello to a bedroom striped with experimental Shades of Grey (Honestly, Farrow and Ball grey... What are you like?)
Obviously, this was not a real problem, as it was counter-balanced by spending an entertaining evening with our son who introduced me to a new gin called Copper House (by Adnams). Delish! And totally different from Hendricks ( my gin of choice). I mention this in passing because it has very little to do with the possible, but not conclusive, hangover I may, or may not, have experienced on Saturday morning.
I showed my son my ex-bunionated foot on Saturday morning. He thought the wound had healed well, but we both noticed that the big toe is standing slightly proud of the ground. We thought that I might mention this to Mr Singh as this might be affecting my gait.. This was before I took a shower in his bath which has a shower attachment over.
Well, it did have a shower attachment over; and it still has a shower curtain rail with the tiniest crack by the wall fixture...
The shower curtain actually saved me, as this was the moment in my life when I transitioned from the agility and sure-footedness of a Welsh mountain goat into someone who goes off-piste sans skis. Bloody hell! I slipped, slalommed into the shower curtain which saved me, but caterpalted me against the opposite wall, whereby I grabbed the shower head to avoid total freefall. It could have been nasty.
So .. Huzzah! I survived another visit from Malcolm... He's blissfully unaware. Bless. 
Not this Mother's Ruin?

Reading the Small Print...

I've got three pairs of glasses on the go. No, not drinking glasses. Far too early. Reading spectacles.
I have four pairs actually: one missing in action, presumed dead, or at least squished, bent or misshapen by some colossus of clothing piled in one of the many corners upstairs. Do call in for a rummage, if you're passing. The missing pair  just happens to be the fancy expensive ones bought in a bona fide, wallet-busting opticians, naturally. Of course it wouldn't be one of my growing Tiger collection. In a shop of this name you can buy them for four quid. Bloody marvellous.
I was in there yesterday, as I happened to be passing, and thought I had better supplement my dwindling stock. I also bought something I have long resisted.... a glasses chain! So now I can assume an entirely new persona in my retirement- Mrs Slocombe from "Are You Being Served?" And would you Adam and Eve it? This very ghastly sit-com from the 70s is being revived. I read it today. It's frightening when things like that come together. Makes you feel as though we're all part of some grand plan.
Lately, I have been getting on Dearest's nerves. I say lately, because until quite recently I could read every and anything no matter how small, sans lunettes. Never be smug about this. Because one day it's like someone has been tampering with your optic nerve in your sleep because no matter how hard you peer, squint, shut one eye, stand on one leg, the print that you had no difficulty with the day before, has become grey mush. Now I've started to peer at texts as well (although this week our granddaughter showed me HOW TO ENLARGE THE FONT: great stuff). So whenever Dearest says Look at this, while holding a piece of reading material, a text, or Credit Card statement (gulp) it precedes a ten minute foraging for a pair of specs. You can feel the irritation level is up there with woman-searching-in-bottom-of handbag for keys/passport/ tickets..
But no longer! This ample bosom which has fulfilled no useful function since breastfeeding, has been given a new lease of life as the ledge upon which my chained glasses rest. I tell you, it has revolutionised my life.  I have won an extra half hour in bed in time saved from looking for my perishing glasses.
As I looked at them fondly at the end of the day, I could see the flotsam and jetsom of the day's grazing, caught on the lenses. Excellent. A bedtime snack...

Here's Looking at You..

Simply Mal fortuna...?

"Older people waste less food because they are twice as likely as younger generations to ignore best before and use by dates" according to recent research. Yes and? Why do we need surveys like this when any of us could have told them the answer. Saving them both bother and expense.

However, this weekend I defied the findings of research. I hurled out tins and items from my larder cupboard that were years, yes years, within the use by date. How could this be? Well, if you've got a moment, I'll tell you.

We had people to stay over the weekend. Renovation not concluded upstairs, but thankfully a very lovely bathroom, all but finished downstairs. The under stairs cupboard in the process has received a makeover: tiled and painted, after having been left in its raw state since we moved in. It was finished by Friday evening; guests due Saturday lunch time. Entire contents of cupboard strewn, stacked and spread across most of the downstairs.
Dearest stepped over detritus (did he even see it?) with yoga bag (and now own yoga mat, upon my insistence) and said he would be back in good time. I wouldn't describe this as the merest whiff of domestic turmoil, because it was an amber alert in fairness. Neither would I with any confidence, believe that his assistance which would have commenced with the most chilling of all questions:"What would you like me to do?" would have lasted any significant length of time before he decided to disappear to the office. So I was resigned to tackling this Herculean task of restoring order by myself.
I was doing quite well, when I happened to open the larder cupboard in the kitchen and was met with the rankest of smells. Putrefying fish smell. Gross most gross. I picked up a tin of tuna with pincer-like handhold and squinted at the details through the oily bracken-coloured label. Good for another couple of years? Dear Lord. Not on your Nelly. Out it went. Followed by another couple of tins of tomatoes that had also been mysteriously sullied. Satisfied I had got rid of the offenders, I closed the cupboard door. The smell continued to hang in the air.
Right. I took every item out of the cupboard and wiped it down with an anti-bacterial cloth. Brutally expelled ANYTHING that had an expired date, cleansed the wire baskets and inhaled. Not deeply. No need, because the smell lingered with, by now, embarrassing intensity.
I used to think that losing your glasses, or your keys, or your vital info for your tax return could lead you to the brink of insanity.
I would like to add to that list: a repugnant odour that cannot be expunged and a husband returning home ( festooned with purchases from Daunts in Marylebone), fifteen minutes after his guests have arrived from Southport.
I am so well-mannered. I didn't create an even bigger stink. I saved that for later.

Towels: Fluffy and Metaphorical...

New towels didn't go down well with Husband-on-a-short-Fuse. I haven't bought them yet. I only casually mentioned them in a "New bathroom-new towels!" jaunty aside. Do you know, it's remarkable, isn't it, that you can be talking about things of great note and it is all white noise to your other half... Then you decide to mention new towels and suddenly, there's an awful lot of humphing and grumphing. I ignore it. Can't spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar, I say.
I blame Brexit. And why not? Everyone else is blaming it. For everything. Politicians are mud-slinging on a monumental scale. It makes soap opera look tame. Wildly entertaining, if these morons were not in charge of our country. So Husband-under-a-black-cloud has nothing to do with my towel colour choice. (I am drawn to the green. But then you can't beat white.)
Someone else arrived under a black cloud last week and that was my Polish help, Ewelina the Magnificent. She has been in the country for nine years. She and her husband are settled and their only child has started nursery. She was worried about the way the vote had gone. She said she hadn't known how much the British hated the Poles. She had been reading the paper and was very upset. I did my best to explain to her what was going on, and how I felt sure that she still had a future in this country, but I was very upset on her behalf.
Our house has been renovated by a team that included three Polish workers. Their work ethic is exemplary and the quality of their work, second to none. Most people in this area appreciate the contribution to the work force made by the Polish community. Sadly, it is not the same everywhere in the country.
A few weeks ago I decided that I would offer a weekly lesson to Ewelina to improve her English. Her command of English has plateaued because she does not get to speak much during her working day.
Even when I engage her in conversation she is almost running on the spot in her desire to get back to the job in progress. So I am taking her in hand.
I might have thrown in the towel as far as working in a school is concerned, so I am very happy to be picking up a new one.