It seems most unlikely that any parent sets out with the express intention of killing their children, but sometimes it appears as though that is what we did.   As a baby I assume that I was left to cry until my parents heard me – there were certainly no baby monitors about – although to be fair I did have a nanny – so I imagine that she was supposed to be alert to my every sound.   Having said that, the first Nanny only arrived after my mother had left me outside in my pram during a snowstorm while she played bridge as she had forgotten all about me!   When I was growing up my brother and I ran wild on the farm, climbing over farm machinery, playing in grain silos, jumping in and out of muddy ponds and crawling all over asbestos roofs.   We rode our bicycles, without brakes or helmets, down to the local town to play on the swings and slides at the Rec – where everything was set in concrete and a fall would have meant a broken limb at least.   One of our favourite games was to see who could hold on to the electric fence the longest.   Our father had an old car with a dickey seat (this was an open seat outside the car at the back).  It would be completely illegal today and was probably highly dangerous even then, but we loved it.   Safety seats and air bags were things of the future and people drove drunk all the time.   Somehow most of us survived.   Of course, there was far less traffic in those days.   Added to all that I longed to be a boy – mainly because I was always made to be the squaw in our games of cowboys and Indians (not sure you are allowed to call then that today) when all I wanted to be was a brave!   If it had happened in today’s generation I would undoubtedly have been prescribed hormones and would have a beard and an even deeper voice that I already have.   Not to say that old women can’t produce quite fine beards if they’re not careful – although most of us try to prevent this.

Fast forward twenty years and women were advised to eat liver during pregnancy for the iron.  Likewise. we ate shellfish, soft cheese and under done steaks.   I smoked and drank throughput my pregnancy and gave birth to an 11lb baby!   When, my son was born I carefully put him to sleep on his front as we were advised to do in order to avoid cot death.   A generation later parents were told that this highly dangerous.  Now all babies are put to sleep on their back, although I think there was a short window when parents were told to put babies to sleep on their sides propped up by pillows.  We did have a baby monitor which seemed very modern and advanced.   It could also prove to be quite a trap for an exhausted mother as it was easy to forget and after excusing oneself from the dinner table ostensibly in order to check on the baby only to be heard by all one’s guests asking the sleeping infant  ‘Aren’t these people ever going to leave?’   When my son started school I used to do the school run in the morning and take loads of children in my car – as many as I could fit in without any thought to seat belts – if we had stopped suddenly I hate to think what might of happened – but we didn’t think like that then.   Where were ‘Elf and Safety?   They must have existed, but I certainly wasn’t aware of them.  

Once my youngest grandchildren came along the world had changed yet again.   You couldn’t have paté or a nice Camembert while you were pregnant – as for drinking and smoking – these were practically criminal offences.   Once the baby was born there were sensors to put under the mattress that detected if the baby had stopped breathing – we used to use a mirror to see if it steamed up as the baby breathed out.   Modern babies don’t eat salt until they are a year old.   You can download a breast feeding app – I’m not quite sure what this does – but the fashion for feeding has changed enormously from the days when ‘posh’ women employed wet nurses to feed their babies, and then came the advent of baby formula and people were able to stop breast feeding, then came ‘breast is best’, so women were encouraged to do it, at one point there was a fashion for using alternate breasts at each feed and I wondered if that didn’t make you feel a bit lop sided.   In my day we were very discreet when we fed out babies either going to another room or draping a shawl over the working surface!   Today women breast feed everywhere without anyone turning a hair.  

One can’t help but wonder what the next generation will do.  Luckily babies are pretty resilient and most of them survive each new method of child rearing as every set of parents flounders around doing their best and listening to the guru of the day.

Obfuscation is a good word.   According to the dictionary it means “the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible. An example being: “when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation”

This seems to me to be exactly the case when celebrity couples announce that they are divorcing.   “It’s completely amicable” they say, “we still love each other very much”.   No, they don’t.   If it was that amicable and loving they would stay married.   In most cases I imagine that the highs of moonlight and roses have been replaced with the “I can’t find any clean socks” and “Did you remember to put the bins out?”  It happens to every relationship but the couples who weather that usually settle into a perfectly happy and comfortable relationship.   But some people need the perpectual high of ‘being in love’.

That is just the beginning – ‘Your call is important to us’ intones a computer generated voice when you call a company to complain or make an innocent enquiry.   No, it isn’t – if it was they wouldn’t make you hang on for forty minutes listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on a loop.   ‘See you later’ say people you’ve never met before, and are unlikely to meet again, when they serve you in a shop.   We all do it.   “We must have lunch” I say to an acquaintance who I bump into accidently after a gap of many years.   If we actually wanted to see each other we would have arranged to have lunch at some point during the intervening years.   These are, of course, mainly white lies and for the most part help the wheels of society turn smoothly.   I can’t be the only person who claims to have read a book that everyone  is talking about when I have in fact only read the reviews but I hear myself saying ‘I found it very powerful’ (I am sure I would have if I had bothered it read it) or the other favourite ‘I found it a bit derivative’ – and what book can you not say that about?  

But then you get the scammers – the out and out liars who claim that they are from your bank and try to persuade you to transfer money to a ‘safe account’ or you get a text purporting to be from your child or an old friend stuck abroad in a desperate situation and needing money.  Apparently if you answer that (most people don’t) you should ask in the text ‘How is Bob or Ken or…?’  If you get a reply saying that ‘Bob, or whoever is fine’ and you know that they don’t exist you can safely assume that this is a scam.  

I, myself, have been approached by Brad Pitt, who apparently for some reason wishes to follow me on Instagram.   I did suggest to a friend that he would have a hard job persuading me that he was in need of money when they pointed out that he was more likely to ask for my bank details because he wanted to send me some money!  How kind of him.   Unfortunately, I fear that there are people out there who will believe these things.   I was listening to a podcast the other day about scammers and this woman in America, who sounded perfectly normal and not like a congenital idiot, had ended up giving this man nearly half a million dollars!!   He said his name was James, he was living in London and that he was half French and half German, which explained his intriguing accent.   Five seconds into hearing a clip of his voice it should have been obvious to most people that he came from somewhere in West Africa.    Her family, who had approached the makers of the podcast and the producers themselves had all told her she was being scammed but she refused to believe them.   The did finally manage to prove it to her when she told him she was flying to London to meet him and he suddenly blocked her. 

A lesson to us all not to be too trusting, on the other hand if your best friend asks you if her new dress makes her look fat be very careful.   If she is still in the shop, trying it on by all means be honest, but if she is just going into a party lie through your teeth!

This blog has been mainly about lying and being economical with the truth, but I just wanted to have a mini rant about packing as an appendix.  I might be economical with the truth from time to time but not with packing.  I’m going away next week and I am already stressing about what to take.   You can read endless articles about sensible, minimalist holiday packing.   I start off like that.  Two dresses, two pairs of trousers, some t shirts and a couple of pairs of shoes.   Then I panic   What if it’s cold – I add a couple of sweaters and a pair of thicker trousers and then some socks for good measure.   It might be wet – I add a waterproof jacket.   Maybe we will be going hiking – better put in the walking boots.   We might be asked to a dance – I haven’t been to a dance for at least a decade, but I would hate to be unprepared.   I’ve forgotten bags – I’ll need one for the beach and then another one for going out to lunch, and an evening one.  Maybe the t shirts are a bit informal – I’d better put in a few shirts as well.   Then I find a unworn skirt that I bought specifically for going away – better put that in.   I’ll need a sun hat and maybe a rain hat.   Oh Lord, I’ve forgotten a nightie and dressing gown – maybe two nighties as it’s bound to be hot.   I think I’m going to need another suitcase.   And that is what happens every time and yet, to my astonishment and annoyance when I get to my destination, I realise that the perfect dress or the ideal trousers were the ones I left behind!!!

In the world we live in today are we supposed to talk about ‘person’s’ best friend?  It is all a bit ridiculous.   When I talk about ‘Man’ or ‘Mankind’ I mean the human race.   When I talk about dogs it is an inclusive term for dogs and bitches.   Technically I don’t have any dogs, I have three bitches, but I wouldn’t go around saying ‘I love bitches, I’ve got three of them’.  I have black Labradors – I’ve never tried Googling ‘Looking for a black bitch’ but I’m pretty sure I would get into all sorts of trouble if I did that.   We Brits are supposed to a nation of animal lovers – dogs in particular and I have to confess that I have sometimes been guilty of using what I describe as ‘coochie coochie coo’ language when talking to them as in:  “Who’s a clever little girl then, are you so clever, you’re a clever, clever little girl aren’t you?’   You know the sort of thing    It’s actually making me feel a bit nauseous just seeing it written down – note to self to stop doing that.   But even I don’t refer to the inevitable sad demise of one of my dogs, over whom I will weep buckets, as ‘passing over the rainbow bridge’ and as for the expression ‘fur babies’ – not only have I had a human baby but I have been present at the birth of hundreds of puppies. It is an amazing experience to see any new life come into the world but why would, people want to refer to them as ‘fur babies’?   And of course:  “They understand every word I say”!   Do they?   I know people who tell their dog how long they are going to be before they go out.   “It’s all right, Mummy’s only going to the shops, she’ll be back in an hour.”   An hour or a week probably doesn’t feel much different to a dog – left with a nice juicy marrow bone I very much doubt they care how long you’re gone – but that might just be Labradors who definitely think with their stomachs.

As for handbag dogs and people who have entire wardrobes of designer outfits for the wretched creatures. I can’t help feeling that is is so undignified. Unfortunately, I’m ashamed to admit that I have forced my dogs to wear antlers at Christmas and the overall effect is one of complete humiliation and embarrassment on their part, coupled with ‘Well, I suppose if we want our dinner we have to put up with this’.

 And some people indulge their dogs much more than they do their children as they tell you with pride how naughty they are – I have to admit I have done that myself – ‘she’s such a character’ I say! As I take a photograph of the dog with its head in a cereal packet.  

On the other hand I get quite cross when someone’s dog jumps up at me or tries to hump my leg.  ‘They’re only being friendly’ their owners tell you.  ‘I can tell he likes you’.   Well, I’m quite a friendly person and I like lots of people, but I’ve never thought of showing this by jumping all over someone when I’m covered in mud nor indeed have I ever tried to hump any of my friends’ legs  however affectionate I have been feeling towards them.   As for people who allow their dogs to chase ponies in the New Forest saying ‘They only want to play’ – don’t get me started on them!!!  Having said all that, I am definitely a dog person – they say there are no bad dogs, only bad owners and I think that for the most part that is true.   There are a plethora of programmes about badly behaved dogs and the gurus that can sort them out.  Of course, we only see the ones they have managed to sort out – I can’t help feeling that there will be some failures particularly with older dogs.    We have to accept a bit of bad behaviour in the puppy years – they don’t know that emptying out a carefully planted flower pot is wrong until we tell them.   However…..

Two cats have deigned to live with me over the years, but I have owned countless dogs.  And if I was going to anthropomorphise things I would have to say that one might have a cat as a friend, they would probably make quite reasonable and interesting people, but just imagine how annoying a dog would be as a human.   They are a bit like the seven dwarves (or I should probably say seven persons of restricted growth) – Needy, Greedy, Noisy, Smelly, Hairy, Bouncy and Slobbery.   Although to be fair they are mostly Happy!   And as someone once said the best thing about a dog, unlike a partner, is that the later you get home the more pleased they are to see you.   And they are the best company.   After my husband died I would have found the house unbearably empty without the dogs.   We love them to pieces – I have seen strong men cry over the loss of a dog and if you are a dog person you wouldn’t be without them, they seldom live long enough whereas many people live far too long.  

I’m definitely going potty. Nothing new there then.  I read the newspapers in total incomprehension most of the time.    There are words and phrases I simply don’t understand.   A TERF for example.   I have Googled it and it stands for Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminist – whatever that is!   And who knows what ARFID is – again thanks to Google I know that it stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.   What?   No, me neither.  

It is showing my age to admit that I enjoy watching repeats of Midsomer Murders and Poirot but they are on in the afternoon so I record them and watch them later.   All the ads are aimed at my generation and I am sure that it is only a matter of time before I start thinking that the mobility scooters are quite appealing and the bath with a seat that you can walk in and out of seems very desirable and that must be but a short step to sitting staring mindlessly at the screen all day.   As it is I waste a lot of time looking for objects that I had a moment ago but that have now moved only to be discovered hours later somewhere I swear I never put them.   I live by myself so I can’t accuse anyone of trying to gaslight me.   Life is confusing on so many levels.   We are, apparently aiming to live in a paperless society, but the junk mail I receive is probably the equivalent to a small forest.   And whereas computers are supposed to make things simpler – don’t get me wrong I love my computer and I’m far from a Luddite – but so often they make life more complicated.   Shopping on line is great, but I often think I’ve bought something only for the computer to freeze half way through and throw me out so that I have to start all over again or I discover that I have failed to click on the final button

As for the rules of relationships, I’m just glad that is all in my past.   In those far off days, when I worked in an office it was considered quite nice if a male colleague or boss complimented you on your hair or your dress.   As for wolf whistles – I used to find them very cheering on a dreary Monday morning – or maybe that was just me.   Today all of these are virtually criminal offences, although on dating websites it appears to be common practice to send photos of your genitalia to someone you fancy.   There is also a programme (and I hastily add that I have never seen it) called Naked Attraction and I believe it does exactly what is says on the tin!   The idea that one might end up in a relationship with someone based on what is commonly (and I use the word advisedly) referred to as a ‘Dick Pic’ seems to me to be totally at odds with the prudish attitude to office banter.   Obviously, there are shades of bad behaviour and no one should have to put up with anyone pushing the boundaries too far but I can’t help thinking that Mrs Pankhurst and all those redoubtable women at Greenham common might have dealt with things in a more robust manner.

My other peeve at the moment is the ‘Independent Inquiry’.   These seem to last for several years at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds and reams and reams of paper.   However, I’m pretty certain that they must be very popular with anyone who is on one.   What a wonderful job to chair a Public Inquiry – it must be money for old rope.   Admittedly you would have to sit through hours of meetings and probably read thousands of dreary emails but you would be paid a King’s ransom.   Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone is going to want me to head one of these – apart from the fact that I have the attention span of a gnat I would almost certainly nod off during the meetings.  Although would anyone notice?   At the end of the day these Inquiries produce reports.   Then people have to read them – although I have never met anyone who has ever read one.   Probably lawyers – who are used to reading through documents in incomprehensible language.   Presumably the recommendations are supposed to be implemented.   That must take many more years – if indeed it happens at all.   And of course, they all have to be translated into Welsh!   Really?   How many people who only read Welsh are going to read these reports?   Are they really translated into Welsh – maybe there is some very rich scammer somewhere who has claimed to write Welsh fluently and has written pages of gobbledegook – would anyone notice?

Just thinking about it all makes me think I need a stiff drink – but there again there is total confusion.   I read that the health benefits of drinking a glass of red wine a day are that it provides antioxidants, limits plaque buildup in your arteries, boosts HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind of cholesterol), and may reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes.   On the other hand women are told to drink no more than six small glasses of wine a week and to have at least two alcohol free days!   Is it any wonder I live in a state of permanent confusion?   What the hell – I’m going to go mad and have several glasses of wine!!!

   If you dream you’ve found a toilet, don’t use it.   What a great piece of advice.   It hasn’t happened to me so far, but with age and the necessity of getting up in the middle of the night it can only be a question of time!   Sir Thomas Beecham famously said that you should try everything once except incest and Morris dancing which still strikes me as pretty sound advice.   However, many old sayings are not relevant today.   I was brought up on things like –  A stitch in time saves nine, but I can scarcely thread a needle and most people today would rather throw things away than mend then – although that is probably changing back now, but perhaps the modern version of it might be A stitch in time tells me I’m not ready to run a marathon.  Don’t cut off your nose to…..No!  Just don’t cut off your nose, never, under any circumstances.  

Advice is always readily available.   Most people are flattered if you ask them for advice and only too happy to give it (frequently unsolicited).   For every problem there will be several, probably conflicting, pieces of advice.

Asking for advice can be a good way of clarifying your thoughts.   Depending on your reaction to the advice you can often work out what to do.   For example, if you were thinking of having a face lift and your friend said that you should definitely do it and your reaction to this advice is that you now have a good reason to go ahead, then you must have been leaning in this direction.  On the other hand if you feel even more hesitant then it probably means that you aren’t really keen. Although you could question what sort of friend it is who tells you that you need a face lift!   Go with your instinct, but try to ask people you respect for advice.   And be very wary of gratuitous advice.  It depends not only on who is giving the advice but why!   If you ask your ‘best friend’ if you should go on a diet you have to think of it from her point of view as well.   Has she got your best interests at heart or hers?   If she really loves you she might not want to hurt your feelings by suggesting you are too fat but equally if she fancies your boyfriend she might not want you to lose weight so that she would have more of a chance with your boyfriend.  A bit convoluted but hopefully you can follow that!

Some general advice that is good and to the point, for example: No matter how nice the hand soap smells, don’t leave the bathroom smelling your fingers.

My parents gave some quite reasonable bits of advice.   My father’s were:  Always keep a bottle of champagne in the fridge as you never know when you might need it.   I still do that to this day.  Secondly – Never put your hand in front of your mouth when laughing because people will think you have badly fitting false teeth!   Have to say that has never been a consideration of mine, although I don’t put my hand in front of my mouth when laughing so maybe…!

My, much married, mother gave me two pieces of advice, the first was: Never learn to change a tyre or you may have to.  I have changed a tyre in my time although not sure I could do it now.   In the days before mobiles if you were stuck on a lonely road, you didn’t have much option.   Her second piece of advice was:  Always be on with the new love before you are off with the old.   I didn’t actually stick to that one – quite a tricky game to play unless you are naturally fairly devious.

My grandfather had two remarkably sound pieces of advice and they were – Always turn you car round on arrival and Never drink anything out of a jug (by which he meant a punch or mixed drink).

Other general pieces of advice are: If you want to look Young and Thin hang around with Old, Fat people. And You don’t need a parachute to go skydiving, you only need one to go skydiving twice.. 

 

What advice do I gave – I like to think that it is sage and worth listening to but the only thing I ever seem to do is to tell people to ‘Drive Carefully’ and as my son invariably replies “Thank goodness you said that I had been intending to drive like a maniac.”

 

Procrastination is an excellent word. The dictionary definition is:  To put off intentionally and intentionally the doing of something that should be done.   Should be done – that’s the key.   I prefer to call it displacement activity – after all I should clear out that drawer but on the other hand I probably don’t need to do it today just when I’ve made the decision to write another book.   I’m definitely going to start actually writing any time now.   I’ve worked out the plot and the characters – that’s the hard part, now all I’ve got to do is write it.  I even typed the opening sentence.   That was  when I noticed that my computer screen was a bit dusty. I had a nice little kit for this with a special cloth which was in the cupboard in the utility room.   I did find it eventually, but that cupboard was a frightful mess and it took quite a long time to sort out.  However, on the plus side, all the glue is in one place now and I checked to make sure it is still working.   I have no idea how protesters manage to stick themselves to building – I wonder what glue they use?   I can never manage to stick anything except my fingers.   I’ve just Googled it and it appears that the strongest glues need heat to make them work really properly but Gorilla glue is highly recommended.   I have got some but don’t think I’ll try sticking myself to the kitchen wall – I’ve just had it painted.  While I was at it I thought I would look for that air spray I bought years ago to clean my keyboard – it has definitely disappeared but I did find several keys.   I have no idea what doors they work on – I tried every door in the house, but they are now in a tin marked ‘unknown keys’.   By the time I’d done all that it was time for a cup of coffee.  

Now I feel I have had a very productive morning.   Granted I haven’t actually written anything but I have certainly been busy and done several things that I have been putting off for ages.   Procrastinating about them in fact.   Of course, nothing inspires you (or perhaps it is just me) to tackle boring tasks more than the necessity of doing my accounts.   Trying to find receipts that I know I saw last week but have now disappeared or to remember where that mysterious deposit of £159.76 on my bank statement came from.   Or ringing the insurance company to find out why my premium has increased so much when I haven’t claimed for anything in years.   I am sure there are people – very successful and organised people who get up bright eyed and bushy tailed every morning with a list of things to do that day and work their way methodically through that list, crossing off things as they go.   I’ve got a list – several lists – and there are items on these lists that get transferred with monotonous regularity to every subsequent list.   ‘Sort out attic’ has been on my list for nearly thirty years now!   Sometimes, in order to have a sense of achievement I write things down after I have done them so that I can cross them off.   And the basic items that go on my list to bulk it up a bit such as ‘post letter’ – however I do draw the line at every day activities such as ‘clean teeth’ – it would have to be a pretty empty, desperate day before I added that to a blank sheet of paper and I think might be followed by ‘put head into oven’ – although that would be pretty useless as a) my oven is electric and b) I have a feeling that you can’t poison yourself with gas now.

There are two nice quotes about procrastination and the first is: ‘Procrastination gives you something to look forward to tomorrow’.    And the other is attributed, as so many sayings are, to Oscar Wilde – ‘I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do the day after’.

Well, at least I have a beautifully organised cupboard and I have written this so that is a start.   Now to actually write the novel and I think I’m going to start by putting it on my list.

Umbrage – it’s a good word, it could be a town in Italy or a herb, one might ask ‘How is the sauce?’ and hear the reply ‘Very good, but it could do with a little more umbrage’.  However, taking umbrage is a common reaction today but it is difficult to know when one is offending someone.   Oscar Wilde famously said that “A gentleman is never unintentionally rude” which is all very well but how do we know if we are being rude or not?  I could have made up some ridiculous examples of things that one is no longer permitted to say but they wouldn’t be as unbelievable as the things that are actually out there.   For instance, I read yesterday (and it isn’t April Fool’s day yet!) that rowers are being asked not to use the expression ‘catching a crab’ as this could be upset vegetarians.   And Afro wigs are frowned on – for heaven’s sake they are supposed to be a bit of fun – because they are ethnically insensitive.   I am a Scot and there are hideous ginger wigs attached to tartan tam o’shanters on sale in every tourist shop north of the border – and if that isn’t offensive I don’t know what is – so why don’t Scots make a fuss?   I’ll tell you why – because we still have a sense of humour!    

So much of it is just absurd and doing its best to take the joy out of life.   I’m quite surprised that Mother’s Day survives as the very word Mother has been called into question – soon we will have cards for ‘Person who has given Birth Day’.   I heard this week of a girl who had recently had a baby being asked by the midwife if she was ‘chest’ feeding!

I hate the expression ‘stand with’ as in appeals asking people to ‘stand with’ victims of a disaster – what is wrong with support – however no sooner do I get my head round something than it has gone – apparently asking someone to ‘stand with’ you discriminates against those in wheelchairs!   No, I’m not kidding, it was in the Daily Mail, so it must be true.!

Now Oxfam has come under fire for issuing a bizarre ‘inclusive’ language guide to staff which is peppered with suggested Do’s, Don’ts and the potential pitfalls of any faux pas. Here are some examples that Oxfam says should not be used, the reasons why, and what should be used instead:

Avoid: Mother or father because in patriarchal culture, social norms around gender result in designated roles for parents so use parent instead.

Avoid: Sanitary products, feminine hygiene because the words imply that periods are in themselves unclean, so use menstrual products or period products instead.

Avoid: Women and children, because ‘Women and children’ reaffirms the patriarchal view that women are as helpless as children so use women, men, girls, boys instead.

There are 92 pages of this rubbish and you can look it up on line if you are bored out of your mind and don’t have a life but personally I almost lost the will to live after reading the first few.

What is Oxfam doing?   Oxfam was started to support families in dire need all over the world not to employ people to write this drivel.   Many people will, I am sure, disagree with me and think that there is a need for everything to be spelled out, but a bit of common sense, a sense of compassion and a sense of humour would surely do the job just as efficiently and far more cheaply.    We have to take our pleasures where we can and as I get older I take a lot of my pleasure from being a grumpy old woman although I’m a bit of a wimp and tend to curse at people from the safety of my car.   But it seems that I am not alone.   The other day I had a confrontation with a woman when we came bonnet to bonnet in a narrow lane.   She had a passing place a few feet behind her and I had one down hill and round the corner from me so it was logical that she should reverse.   After a lot of gesturing from us both she finally and very reluctantly went back – straight into a hedge!   She got out of the car and stomped towards me in a fury shouting, rather unreasonably,  ‘Look what you made me do!’   I replied calmly, and very irritatingly, ‘I don’t see how it can be my fault if you don’t know how to drive’.   I had my finger on the window button as I could see that her fists were clenched and I have no doubt that she was dying to punch me in the face.   In the event she satisfied herself by shouting ‘You a***hole!’ in my face before storming off.   I have to confess that I got the giggles but I do hope that it made her feel better.

We really have to get a grip and stop taking umbrage at absolutely everything or eventually all communication will be impossible, no one will dare speak to anyone else, AI will write sanitised emails and the logical conclusion is that we will eventually lose the power of speech and revert to grunts like the cavemen of old or the teenager of today!  

*Ambridge – Just in case there is anyone out there who doesn’t know this is the home of The Archers!!!

It can become more and more difficult to find things to laugh about as we get older – unless we discount accidentally seeing our reflection in a mirror!   We have to take our pleasures where we find them.  One of my favourite pastimes used to be eavesdropping – unfortunately even with my hearing aids in I find it more difficult today.   I contend that people mumble but they would disagree.  The best overheard remark ever was one that a friend of mine swore was true (not entirely sure I believed her but it is too good not to pass on).   She said that she heard this remark in a restaurant in America:  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.   She’s the only maid in New York who knows how to get creme de menthe stains out of chinchilla.’   Of course she may have misheard.   I frequently mishear things now – particularly song lyrics.  

There is a song by Paul Young, entitled ‘Every time you go away,’  that contains the line ‘Every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you’ and I have always heard it as ‘Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you’.  Apart from the possibly slightly cannibalistic undertones that seemed very sensible – a pork pie is always welcome on a journey.

Without wishing to sound like Pollyanna I have always been a glass half full person.   Old age means that you sprout unsightly hairs that grow at the speed of light on your chin but on the plus side you hardly ever have to shave your legs.   You can be sad that all those beautiful high heeled shoes sit in the cupboard looking at you but the joy of being able to wear comfy, flat shoes when you go out is undeniable.   No one will ever fancy you again, and that is sad, but no one will ever fancy you again and that is very liberating.  You become invisible which might seem like a sad thing but it is actually a good thing – you could become a spy or a first class shop lifter!   I lead a rich fantasy life and whilst shinning over rooftops in pursuit of a burglar is probably not on the agenda any longer following someone in a crowd is a doddle.   I have actually practiced this when getting off a train or bus and whilst I don’t actually follow anyone home I’m pretty sure I could if I wanted to do it.

Another thing to be extremely grateful for is that we don’t have to do internet dating.   When I was young we met new people at parties and there were a lot of them.   I seem to remember that was the main point of a party – to meet the love of your life.   Today I am just thrilled if I manage to talk to someone at a party and we can both hear each other.   Today girls have to go on-line and navigate those choppy waters.   I hope that I would be savvy enough not to allow myself to be catfished, but as they say hope springs eternal and I can imagine that if you had been alone for a while it would be only to easy to believe that this gorgeous, solvent, charming man was real and not some scammer from overseas trying to part you from your money.

Sex education for children – it would now be considered terrible but we learnt by trial and error – We scoured The National Geographic Magazine and I seem to remember a Naturist Magazine called something like Health and Efficiency – where you could see naked bodies.  I had a brother so had a good idea of what boys looked like but many girls did not and our sex education was mainly about rabbits which didn’t help very much.   It is so much more complicated today – I find it very difficult to understand most of it but if it is on a need to know basis I can happily remain in blissful ignorance.

Another great reason to be cheerful is the time to read.   In my youth I would have felt guilty if I had sat down to read in the middle of the day but not any more and there is nothing like the pleasure of re-reading old favourites such as P G Wodehouse and how lucky we are to have been able to read everything in the original before it has been sanitised and prefaced with dire warnings by the sensitivity police warning of sexism, ageism, racism and sizeism!    How long will two of my favourite PG Wodehouse quotes survive.  

“He was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when! …”

And

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”

I would strongly object to a written warning in a book by Charles Dickens telling me that some of the views expressed by the author may be upsetting to the modern reader.   Quite frankly if you aren’t able to work that out for yourself you’re very unlikely to be reading Dickens.

Too many people today appear to have had their sense of humour surgically extracted and are unable to laugh at anything.   According to my old friend Mr Google Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released by your brain. That activates and relieves your stress response.  So there you have it – the importance of laughter.   It turns out it actually is the best medicine.  

Is it just me or do other people have fantasies of being in a position of power over someone who has somehow belittled them in the past?   The man you fancied who didn’t fancy you back or the sales assistant who looked down her nose as she said she didn’t think they would have anything in your size!   Something miraculous would happen and the object of my unrequited love would fall under my spell or I would lose several stone and go back to the snooty boutique only to find all their clothes too big!!!  Those sort of dreams rarely come true and bearing a grudge or allowing something to ruin your life is a waste of time.   The Chinese, who have proverbs for almost every occasion, have two ones that I really like:  the first says  that before you seek revenge you should make sure you dig two graves and the other is that holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. 

If someone pinches your bottom – and believe me in the ’good old days’ that was a common occurrence – it would be far more satisfying to fail to recognise them next time you saw them (preferably selling a copy of the Big Issue as you sail past in your Rolls Royce – well we still have to fantasise a bit!) than to have been in therapy for the last twenty years.  Nothing could more satisfactory than bumping into the gorgeous, popular girl who bullied you at school fifty years ago and seeing that she is grey haired, fat and living a very boring life while you have just climbed Kilimanjaro.   School reunions must be purgatory – I have only ever been to one when I went with a friend whose daughter was there – but I failed to remember any of the people there.   Even the names were lost in the mists of time.   ‘I’m Piffy, or Puffy or Biffy or Buffy’ they screeched at me as I tried to fix a pleasant smile on my face while I desperately tried to work out if this person had been my best friend or my arch enemy.   So I suppose that was a triumph of a sort.

We did of course have some more safety in our youth.  Presumably terrible things happened but we weren’t so aware of them.   People kept things to themselves.   An unmarried girl who ‘fell’ pregnant (such a strange way to describe conception) would be deeply ashamed, as would her parents and it would be kept hidden from the world.   Sometimes the child would be passed off as the girl’s sister with her parents bringing it up and others were adopted.  There must have been many horrible assaults and rapes – probably just as many as today – but everything was brushed under the carpet and people were expected to get on with life.   And that may or may not have been a bad thing.   Nice, middle class girls were a bit safer.   They wouldn’t go out after dark on their own.   We were brought up to be hyper vigilant because men only wanted one thing!    I wasn’t at all clear what that one thing was for several years.   When I was caught kissing a boy in the garden of my boarding school the headmistress had me into her study and gave me the dire warning that ‘No one wants to buy a cake after a slice has been taken’ – something that I subsequently discovered to be a big fat lie.  But had a boy attempted to go further than a kiss I would have stopped him with the greatest vigour.   As breast implants weren’t an option I had to make do with my brother’s football socks and I’m not sure I would have survived the mortification of anyone seeing these as they popped out of my bra.   Added to which we were forced to wear the misnamed ‘roll on’ – it was more like a heave on requiring huge physical strength and danger of dislocating a digit.   The idea that that any man would have the strength to have his way with you after he had succeeded in releasing you from this tortuous garment was inconceivable.   Obviously, an assault is a nasty and possibly traumatic thing although I’m not certain that it often results in the much bandied about PTSD.  I talked to a girl recently who told me she had PTSD because her neighbour was playing loud music.   This just belittles the suffering of soldiers coming back from facing the terrible atrocities of war who often bear mental as well as physical scars.   But as we can see from the Invictus games if you can create a triumph over tragedy your life will be so much better.   Anyone who has been subject to a violent assault will have their life changed forever, but how people deal with that change makes a difference.   Katie Piper is an extraordinary young woman who was the victim of a brutal acid attack by a spurned boyfriend.   She was an extremely pretty girl and she (after many, many surgeries) is a beautiful woman who has become an author, activist and television presenter amongst other things.   She has undoubtedly had some very black moments during this time but she has gone on to lead her very best life.  Everyone can remember her but who even knows the name of the pathetic apology of a human being who threw acid in her face.   She is the epitome of living well being the best revenge

Life becomes more and more of a mystery to me as the years go by – some days I can waste hours looking for the pen that I was writing with a minute ago and that has now, inexplicably, vanished or the loaf of bread that I bought yesterday is nowhere to be found!   And then on top of that I am left in a permanent state of confusion by practically every aspect of modern life.   I’m not a luddite – I can use a computer and I have apps to park my car and download train tickets – in fact I think I’m quite good on all of that but still there is scarcely a day goes past when I don’t read something that makes me think that, as PG Wodehouse would have said, it’s time I handed in my dinner pail.   There is just so much I don’t understand.   Take the Harry and Meghan – we can hardly avoid doing so at the moment – Rachel Johnson wrote that Meghan had a more exotic background than Harry.   I think that sounds glamorous and rather to be envied but apparently it is racist and she has now apologised for writing this and says she would never do such a thing again!   As for the speculation about the colour of their baby  I obviously don’t know the context but I can’t see why Harry and Meghan should be so offended by this.   Given the choice I imagine that most people would choose Meghan’s colouring over Harry’s!  It is only too easy to take offence – one of my favourite sayings is  ‘He who takes offence when no offence is intended is a fool’.   

When I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth there were three classes of Englishman (and yes, if we’re going to be woke about it, this meant mankind and that was all encompassing and included women).   We had Upper Class, Middle Class and Working Class.    Social conversation was quite proscribed – you couldn’t discuss Politics, Religion, Money or Sex.   Men, presumably talked about cars, sport, travel, farming, or hunting, shooting and fishing (although maybe that was only in my life as a farmer’s daughter).   Women talked about children, fashion, cooking and gardening – known by my misogynistic family as ‘ribbon talk’.      I’m sure all the other subjects were discussed but behind closed doors and in those carefree days before the advent of social media most people kept their views to themselves and their nearest and dearest.    Today someone only has to have a passing thought before they post it somewhere and immediately someone else disagrees with them.     Many things are far better – we live in a much more fluid society.   All those years ago you were probably Protestant, although we did know a few Roman Catholics.  Today you can be anything from Pagan to Jedi Knight.  Living on a farm outside small market town I don’t remember there being any Jews in the neighbourhood as for anything more exotic we didn’t even have a Chinese or Indian restaurant.   As for black people – there weren’t any in rural England – the first time I actually spoke to someone with a black skin was when I was in my twenties.   I can’t believe that this would happen today.

Food was pretty limited as well – If you had asked for an avocado in the local town you would have been eyed with deep suspicion and no one would have known what you were talking about.  If you gave a party everyone just ate what was on offer or went hungry – there were no vegans, no lactose intolerant, gluten free, pescatarians.   It has to be said that we lived off a pretty boring diet. Presumably people did have food allergies but I never knew about them.    We didn’t have takeaways – Wimpey bars were the first to sell hamburgers in the UK and they opened in London in 1954 and I’m pretty sure they didn’t reach my neck of the woods for years.   Hamburgers were an exciting, foreign food.  

Our world was smaller with limited choices, but it was simpler.   There were men and there were women and not much in-between.   There were one or two famous cases of people changing sex, but this was headline news.   Today there is a mind numbing array of terms for sex and gender none of which I understand.   You were heterosexual or you kept quiet.  There were plenty same sex couples living together but it never occurred (to me at any rate) that they were anything other than friends.   This was just after the war and many women lost their chance to marry and most of us had a maiden aunt and if she decided to live with a same sex companion we took that at face value.   Today not only is everyone out and proud but they insist on telling you about their sexuality – they even ask on forms.   What possible interest can it be to anybody unless they want to have sex with you?  

Everybody on the BBC spoke with the same clipped and quite boring accent – but regional accents are very much the norm today.  Then it was the BBC way or the highway particularly as regards to pronunciation.   Who of my generation could forget Angela Ripon talking about Zimbawe.    I love regional accents – particularly northern ones and local dialect – round these parts a bumblebee is known as a dumbledore and at one point there was a fear of these dying out.   However, the pedant in me still finds ‘innit’, ‘like’ and ‘you know’ very irritating.

Fashion was quite prescribed too – women followed magazines that told them if skirts were up or down this season or if pink was the new navy.   Today anything goes.   My teenage granddaughter dresses really imaginatively and I am envious when I remember that I was forced into tweed skirts and scratchy Shetland wool jumpers.   I was only allowed to wear trousers for playing outside at home or jodhpurs for riding.   The freedom is lovely but it was difficult enough knowing what to wear then but somehow even more difficult when anything goes.

However I’m an optimist and I still believe that there are many things that are better today and unless we want to curl up and die we had better learn to live with them but I still found this headline confusing on so many levels – Trans Comedian Plays the Piano With Her Penis.