It’s only 9.o’clock but it’s as black as Newgates Knocker outside. I’ve had to turn up the heating, put on a grey fleece, close the windows and drink a mug of something warm.
It’s 14 and a bit weeks until Christmas and I am not the only one who thinks we’ve been robbed of a summer. I can’t blame the weather so I’m going to blame David Cameron – why? Because I can.
I am sorry for the silence but my lovely blog publisher has been up to his neck in it, and even though I’ve only been away 4 days, it does feel like I’ve been away four months.
Before we left Sussex Jim and I walked the dog round the houses, we nibbled on the blackberries, which are huge this year, kicked over the acorns and collected up a fistful of conkers, all shiny, new and brown. The first conkers of 2007. I brought four back to London. They are sitting on my desk staring at me looking good enough to eat. It’s a pity they’re inedible but conkers are poisonous, they contain an alkaloid called saponin.
So I then wondered what IS the purpose of a conker?
Is it their lot to be boiled in vinegar, strung up on a string only to have their heads banged together. Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Does anybody play at conkers any more? or have the health and safety police banned that too? .
Ad Infinitum
A Moth in my Pocket
I walked over Battersea bridge today smiling. Two reasons, the first being that my face in repose, with its down-turned mouth, has the look of a depressed camel – ever since I saw myself in a shop window and wondered who the miserable mare was staring back at me, I decided to smile even when there was nothing to smile about. Not inanely, you understand, because I could be mistaken for a wayward lunatic, but gently with just a hint of a smile playing on the lips.
A smile ‘playing’ on the lips. As phrases go, a particularly ridiculous one, don’t you think? Playing what exactly? A round of poker? A game of Tiddlywinks? A card of Bingo? Anyway, I always try to remember to effect a smile just in case there’s a hidden camera in the hedge or somebody is watching from the top deck of a bus.
The second reason for having a hint of a grin was the weather. It wasn’t sunny, to be sure, (Sorry to sound Irish. It just slipped out) but it wasn’t cold either. The grey clouds were only thinly veiling a rather delicious blue sky, and the boats moored on the Chelsea side of the river had the look of Amsterdam about them. The water was high, as were my spirits. I dug my hands deep into the pockets of my dalmatian dungarees from ‘The Inn at Little Washington’ (I believe I have already told you about that particular establishment), that wee smile gamboling on my gob, when before I could say ‘pass me the camphor balls’, a moth flew out of my pocket. A little silvery grey moth, or ‘merth’, if you’re talking Clouseau-ese. I thought Peter Sellers would have said ‘A merth has flown out of my poche’ which made the smile play just a little bit harder.
The world’s my oyster
I didn’t have a lot of sleep, owing to the old man’s birthday bash last night. But I was called this morning, at 8.24 precisely, by Radio Kent for my opinions on whether women were happier and more content than men. Apparently the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ Campaign did a survey and discovered what is blindingly obvious – that we all want clean neighbourhoods, nice friends, good health and money. Did they need to survey that, I wonder?
Anyway, they called me from their studios in Tunbridge Wells. I struggled into my dressing gown, slumped on the settee and bleary-eyed, gave a less than sparkling interview. Five minutes later they hung up.
I crawled back into bed. The old man was out for the count so I meditated, after which I got trainered up and had a jolly good run along the river bank. At 11.00 I headed off to the West End.
Birthday bash
Having Jackson in the flat is a real alarm call. I wake at 7.00 (although this morning it was 8.00) and walk down the hall into the living room. Jackson has taken up residence under the table, next to the settee half-on, half-off the old red rug from the cottage.
He lounges over his big tartan bed and his toweling throw (just in case he gets really wet when we go out for a walk) and it’s quite clear that he really feels at home. It takes him slightly longer to get up because his hips are so arthritic but he’s so bouncy now that he’s having a proper breakfast.
I don’t wash, or put on my glasses. I just jump into my pj’s, pull on a t-shirt then dress Jackson. There is a little red dustbin full of biodegradable bags which is attached to his hand-woven rope lead which is attached to his green collar. I swing the ribbon with door keys over my head and off we go. I’m now prepared, just like a scout, for anything.
Rien ne Change ci rien ne change
I have had many hairdressers in my time. Back in 1962 my father took me to a salon in Dunstable as a treat. I think it was called ‘Curl up and Dye’. I came out looking like a very bad imitation of Alma Cogan. Like the girl in ‘Hairspray’. I had a big personality and a tush to match. Back-combed and lacquered to within an inch of its life, each follicle had been pulled and scraped to frame my 13-year-old face. It was the style favoured by 45 year old typists from the pool and swinging insurance clerks. The flick-ups and fringe made me look like a startled bat in a bush. The minute I got home I washed it out. I can still smell the lacquer. Or maybe it’s the new Hermes perfume that Christian sprayed on me this evening, but more of him later.
In my teens I had a shiny bob. I would wash my hair with a shiny-hair shampoo then, hanging my head over the bath, pour diluted vinegar onto my scalp. The jug would rest on the edge of the bath. No stand up showers in them days. Posing in front of my full-length, purple-framed mirror, I would fashion the sides into kiss curls, and then endlessly comb the rest of the hair to make it turn under, like Kathy McGowan on ‘Ready Steady Go’, or flick it up like Sandy Shaw.
I read last week that Sandy is having her feet re-sculpted. She’s a granny and clearly feels the need for a foot lift! But I digress.
Sunday the 12th of Never
It’s 12.14pm on Sunday the 12th of Never. Jim is on his hands and knees screwing screws out of one drawer so that he can put another drawer where the old one came from so that the first drawer goes in where the second drawer used to be because its easier to open the second drawer where the first drawer was and who cares about the second drawer anyway?
The cling film and tin foil have gone into the top cupboard which is full of Tupperware, plastic takeaway boxes and the bottom drawer with the first drawer in it now has only the silver service my mother gave to B to take away to university and a canteen of ersatz gold knives and forks my father no doubt ripped off from Walthamstow market when he was alive and still kicking.
Don’t you just love DIY on a Sunday morning? Especially since you have only had 180 minutes sleep, walked the dog, bought breakfast, done a radio show, put in the washing and made enough phone calls to keep BT in broadband till 2012?
My husband did a midnight matinee of Merchant of Venice last night. It was lovely, although it could have been seven o’clock, or nine, since there was no way of seeing the sky. The crowd were up for it though. I stood in the ‘yard’ preferring to be a ‘groundling’.
Flat white
Soho is one of my favourite places in London. Berwick Street market has been around ever since I started dieting. I once got a job in Harley Street to pay for my habit – I sorted files so that I could buy bags of mangoes and grapes from the stalls. Some of the geezers still remember me. At least I think they do. Either that or they think I am a pole dancer from one of the bars. The only pole I have swung on is the white one on a double decker bus, although unfortunately I lost my footing on the 306 when I was 16 and slid down the greasy pole holding on for dear life until we reached All Saints Church hall. The skin off my knees remains forever ingrained in Borehamwood High Street.
I lost loads of weight on the ‘Beverly Hills’ diet along with all my hard-earned cash but the diet came to an abrupt end when one of the mangoes started writhing around on my draining board. It was full of maggots. You could hear my screams from Wapping to Winnipeg.
Who’d have thought it?
The first day of August and it was warm and sunny. I ate blackberries and porridge at the kitchen table with a shaft of sunshine lighting up my oats. Then I put on a bikini. Don’t panic – this is not webcam.
The only way I can be espied is if somebody on the golf course downs clubs, shuffles their balls and looks at me through a telescope. So I felt fairly safe as I took the mower out of the top shed and prepared the garden for the first mow of August. Not many bees a-buzzing this year, which is worrying, but a lot of ants. I hoovered up the daisies, shredded the dandelion leaves, gave short shrift to the occasional buttercup and trimmed the comfry. Then I started to think about my life, and all that goes with it and had a fleeting thought that I had better be careful about the electric cable because if I mowed over it, and cut it, one of two things could happen. One, I could die, and two, I could die as Jim would feed me to the jaguar that’s meant to roam the Ashdown Forest. In the event I didn’t cut the lead but I did get it caught up on an azalea bush and the last cut – which really is the deepest – came unstuck from Jim’s bodged gaffer tape. The bloody machine stopped. Just like that.
FullMoonday
Well I don’t know about you, but I feel as nutty as a fruit cake. But then they say that happens with the full moon, don’t they? Whoever those they are. The Moon is staring at me through the window. Just hanging there like a big white dinner plate.
Today I drove back to the cottage from the Capital City. Had Mr. Bibby fiddle with my cranial fluid. He finally gave me he go ahead – I can run 5 minutes every other day. I’m not complaining. Every little journey starts with a tiny little step.
Saturday night on the wireless was tricky. Lyn Hall came up from Gloucester and Jenny Rea came across from Ealing.
Lyn Hall had a carrier bag with jars of home produce and Jenny Rea (to rhyme with tea) had a crate of M&S summer drinks. We ate and drank on the radio with me fielding more bits of paper than in a Bombay skip.
I will get used to it but right now I know as much about creating a radio programme as I do about performing keyhole surgery on a wildebeest in the dark with my tweezers and a battery-operated headlight.
What d’ya wanna make those eyes at me for?
I had to get dressed today as I had an appointment at the opticians. I put on a pair of trousers that were loose enough to pull down when I needed to without having to undo the button or zip. Which was nice.
I put in my contact lenses, first time since April, and applied some posh lipstick and mascara. Which was nice.
Then I wore some fancy shoes that rubbed a bit but were casual and flowery. Which was nice.
Then I drove into T’wells.
I’ve got a moth that has taken up residence in my little red car. There are those who would tell me to roll up a newspaper and kill it but I can’t. I’m like the Hindus with their sacred cow. I have no desire to commit murder. The moth flutters around the cab and terrifies me in case it gets in my line of vision. It’s a big orange thing with a massive head. Where it lives when the car is parked is anybody’s guess, It’s a bit like Schroedinger’s cat. When I’m not in the car, and it gets dark in the garage, does the moth still exist? Or does it only materialise when I get into the car and turn on the ignition? Only Mr.Moth and Mr. Schroedinger will ever know.
Anyway, Mr. Moth (I’m assuming he’s a he but she may be a Mrs. Moth for all I know) and I drove through the traffic and parked opposite the Italian shop that has closed down because of the arrival of a baby boy. It’s taken them all by surprise. Making fresh pasta everyday and looking after a new born has obviously taken the biscotti because the windows are papered over and the shelves empty.
I walked to the optician and bought a pair of reading glasses to go with my lenses. Not in an accessorising sense, but to enable me to make out little print. You see, my lenses give me an overview. I need readers to help me see what’s in front of my nose. My mascaraed eyelashes were so long – and yes, unlike Penelope Cruz and L’Oreal, I am telling you the truth – that they pressed up against my new royal blue frames. But I bought them anyway ‘because I’m worth it’.