Seventy odd years ago the world was a simpler place because there was so much we didn’t know.   We were past the point where doctors actually recommended cigarettes to calm the nerves, but nobody turned a hair to someone smoking whilst pregnant.   As for foetal alcohol syndrome we’d never heard of it.   Everyone I knew drank while they were pregnant.   I had an ashtray beside my bed in hospital when my son was born.   We lived in blissful ignorance and didn’t feel the need to share everything.   Cancer was virtually never spoken about, until someone died, and medical conditions were usually kept private.   At most we might have been told that an aunt had ‘women’s problems’, or a uncle had ‘plumbing problems’.    It would have been thought an invasion of privacy and undignified to discuss these problems in detail.   I had an Italian boyfriend and I had to explain to him that ‘How Do You Do’ was a greeting and not a question and the proper response was to say  ‘How do You Do’ back and not to embark on a long description of some (imagined) problem with his liver.  He had an excuse of course because he was foreign!   The stiff upper lip is (or perhaps was) a British characteristic   We don’t need to know everything about everyone. Someone’s sexuality should be their own business (and that of anyone they want to have sex with) but not casual acquaintances and, in the case of public figures, it shouldn’t be a topic for newspaper headlines.  As for ads on television.   In those far off innocent days when there was no commercial television newspaper advertisements were discretion itself.   I can remember sending off for a free sample of charcoal biscuits as advertised on the back of a book of stamps – they were supposed to help with digestion – but we only wanted them because they were free.   We didn’t realise that they were designed to help with flatulence – although as I recall we didn’t need much help with that!   There was something called trapped wind, but that would have been a blessing in a small classroom!  Today commercials talk openly of erectile disfunction and incontinence pants on television.   I can’t imagine how horrified and embarrassed I would have been if one of those had come on when I was sitting with my parents.  

As for sex education, it was extremely rudimentary – we learnt about reproduction in rabbits and when it came to people we just picked that up as we went along trying to sift the facts from fiction, which led to some weird theories but most of us worked it out in the end.

Our parents had just been through a war where family and friends had been killed or badly injured so they weren’t very sympathetic if we fell out of a tree!   We lived a much freer (and probably much more dangerous) life although the only injuries I remember, apart from the usual cuts and grazes – we seemed to have permanent scabs on our knees – was when my brother broke his arm falling off a wall and I came off my bike and shot through the wheels of the of the mobile grocer’s van but was amazingly unhurt apart from having gravel embedded in my stomach that took weeks to work it’s way out!   I don’t think Health and Safety existed – ponds didn’t have signs saying ‘Danger Deep Water’ and likewise it wasn’t deemed necessary to have a sign by a sink saying ‘Danger – Hot Water’ or indeed a warning on a packet of peanuts informing the consumer that the package ‘may contain nuts’.   In those days the government made the assumption that most people had a vestige of common sense and didn’t need to be nannied every step of the way.

My generation was pretty stoic – we weren’t encouraged to make a fuss.   If we fell over and hurt ourselves we wouldn’t be given a sweet (they were in any case rationed at that time) unless we were being particularly brave.   We didn’t get points for crying.   My father brought me up and he had some very strange ideas.   We were never allowed to complain about our feet – not that I remember having anything wrong with my feet – but he felt that only the very poor or the very careless would have ill-fitting shoes that would cause problems.   Being car sick was forbidden too – for some reason it was considered ‘common’.   I can’t imagine children today even know what that means.  

We either didn’t know, or didn’t care, about what went on behind closed doors.   We talked about having a gay old time but never equated that with the male couple who lived in the village.   Homosexuality was illegal so people were discreet and whatever happened in their home was none of anyone else’s business.   A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be is probably not a saying that anyone grows up with today.   There must have been domestic violence, probably quite a lot of it, but it wasn’t discussed much, if at all.   The terrible thing is that even today most abuse within the home is kept hidden so the knowledge that it happens hasn’t made it go away.

As for being a consumer – we have far too much choice today.   When I was young you just bought shampoo now you have to decide what hair type you are and then search through hundreds of different types – is my hair dry and fine, oily and coarse, dry and coarse, fine and oily – I don’t know, it’s hair!   As for creams and unguents for the face – that is a minefield.   I do occasionally buy some expensive cream that is thrust at me by a salesperson who assures me that I will look years younger – I have finally realised that this requires me to use it regularly, frequently in combination with several other expensive creams, and that just having them on my dressing table doesn’t work.   It is all so complicated – it could take up several hours a day – and in the case of famous film stars I’m sure it does, but then it is their livelihood.   My mother used something called Vanishing Cream – whatever happened to that?   I think the clue is in the name!

Sweet Mystery of Life at last I’ve found you.   Oh no, I haven’t, quite the contrary – the mystery seems to deepen on a daily basis.  But who could possibly have found the mystery of life?  Stephen Hawkings?  Einstein?  I don’t even understand how electricity works.   Why doesn’t it leak out of the sockets when there isn’t a plug in them?   As for telephones?   How can we speak to people in China – and often on a better line than when we try to talk to someone in Gloucestershire.   As for flying – I’m not a particularly nervous flyer but a part of me always wonders why gravity doesn’t pull the plane bac k to earth.  

On top of that we are offered so much conflicting advice that it is a miracle any of us make it through the day.   And what is more that advice keeps on changing.   I have just been listening to a programme on Radio 4 about the start of life talking about the evils of smoking and drinking during pregnancy.   Whilst we weren’t exactly encouraged to smoke whilst pregnant people wouldn’t have said anything if they saw us smoking and as for drink, in my mother’s generation they were actively encouraged to drink stout while they were expecting.   What has happened to stout – does it still exist?   Apparently it does – I have just googled it  – stout beer.  The definition of the word ‘stout’ means brave or strong, and the malty dark brew took this name on due to its bold dark taste. Well, who knew – not me.   One day we are told that low fat spreads are the answer and then no sooner have we made the change then the advice comes that butter is better.   Anyone with any sense will ignore most of this advice.   But one piece of advice that I try to follow is for balance.   I can remember teaching my son to stand on one leg when he was little and now I try to do it when I’m cleaning my teeth – although I am slightly nervous that I might fall over and break my hip and it wouldn’t do much for my desire to stay young if I was unable to walk without the aid of a Zimmer frame.

Getting to the end of one’s life makes one (or at least me) more philosophical.   I can’t help wondering how much time I’ve got left.  At the moment, I’m really enjoying the party, but it can’t be too long before people start clearing away the glasses and dimming the lights.   It’s probably time to leave.   These thoughts are not particularly morbid – it has to come to us all and the older we get the more friends we lose.    The answer, we are told, is to take plenty of exercise and get lots of fresh air – and I certainly do that and I was pretty pleased with myself when I managed to climb over a five barred gate the other day – admittedly it probably wasn’t the most graceful activity but I did it.   To stay slim – that is top of the list for 2024 or in my case to get slim.   All my life I have known that if you eat more you put on weight and if you eat less you lose it, so I have no idea why I bemoan the tightness of my clothes whilst rummaging through the ‘fridge in search of some tasty morsel.

Putting on socks has become part of my exercise regime already – I often have to have a rest after I have wrestled my way into them.    Added to that the problem of the little toes.   What age were you when your little toes started to take on a life of their own?   If putting on my socks is hard enough the whole thing is exacerbated when my little toe sticks out and get stuck without any orders from my brain.   And sometimes I’m walking innocently across the room barefoot  – usually when I am on my way to the loo on one of my nightly visits when my little toe finds a piece of furniture to hook itself around.   Oh, the agony and indeed sometimes the blood!

Another protection against old age and in particular dementia is wearing hearing aids, but sometimes mishearing is quite entertaining.  I swear I heard someone talking about ‘training to be a lesbian’ – I have no idea what they were really saying.  But I did find out that the newsreader wasn’t talking about ‘Releasing the prostitutes’ but ‘releasing the hostages’.

No hearing aids in the world can make the BBC and above all Radio 4 any better.   The announcers/presenters all seem to have these very breathy little voices that remind me of David Attenborough talking about the shy little marmoset peeking out from behind the ferns.   It’s fine when he does it about wild animals but why is it necessary on a documentary about Joni Mitchell?   And I find the giggly voice very irritating too – maybe because I am a grumpy old git, but I quite a like a bit of gravitas on the radio.   On the other hand I rather enjoy new language – I probably won’t try to incorporate Rizz into my conversation , although I quite like it – it is derived from charisma, and I think that is rather clever.   Where ‘drip’ comes from I have no idea, but my grandson explained it to me and all I know is that it has nothing to do with what the cold weather does to my nose!   It is wonderful to add to one’s vocabulary but hopefully not to the detriment of words already in use.   I heard a presenter on Radio 4 talking about someone who had found what seemed to be a grenade in their garden but the bomb squad told them it was a Victorian finial – and she had no idea what that word meant!   How depressing that the BBC has sunk so low.   While I was in America last summer I went on a whale watching cruise and it was amazing – we were surrounded by humpback whales and they were awesome – I was filled with awe.   That evening when I placed my order in a local restaurant for dinner the charming young waiter said ‘Awesome’ when I told him I would like my steak rare.  

And so the mystery of life continues to baffle me – and hopefully keep me on my mental toes!

Probably everyone knows that Oscar Wildes’s last words were supposed to have been ‘Either that wallpaper goes or I do.’   This is almost certainly not true but a famous wit like Oscar Wilde couldn’t possibly be allowed to die without a bon mot on his lips.   But leaving the realms of the apocryphal I thought it was wonderful to find out that Nigel Lawson ate some prosciutto, figs and mozzarella washed down with several glasses of red wine followed by a glass of Armagnac before dying five minutes later.   He was 91.   Wouldn’t that be everyone’s dream?

Barry Cryer was pretty amazing as well telling a joke the day he died – for those who are interested this is the joke.   A man and his wife are walking one day when they spot a bloke sitting alone in a bus shelter on the other side of the road.   ‘That looks like the Archbishop of Canterbury’ says the woman.   ‘Go and ask him if he is.’   Her husband crosses the road and asks the man if he is the Archbishop of Canterbury.   ‘Fuck off’ says the man.   The husband crosses back to his wife who ask.   ‘What did he say?   Is he the Archbishop of Canterbury?’   ‘He told me to fuck off’, says the husband.   ‘Oh no,’ says the wife.   ‘Now we’ll never know.’.

It seems to have been a week of famous endings because apart from the two examples above there was another one from the cartoonist Tony Husband who worked for Private Eye.   The magazine held a party on a boat last week that was setting off at 12.30 from Westminster Pier.   Tony’s train from Manchester was delayed and he missed the boat, but he drew a little cartoon of him standing on Westminster Pier waving at the departing boat that he sent on his phone to fellow cartoonist Nick Newman and shortly afterwards Tony had a heart attack and died.  

Obituaries are often both informative and amusing – in one this week it was said of the deceased that he was at his best before the end of lunch – I’m sure most of us have met people like that!!!

Obviously, we cannot choose out own deaths but with any luck we can ‘live’ until the end of our days.    Showing the same esprit as in our youth – albeit taking things at a slower pace.   Although to see Angela Rippon doing the splits is either an inspiration or mightily depressing.  A very dear and special friend of mine is seriously ill at the moment and she is quite remarkable.   She still has the most amazing enthusiasm for life and wants to know everything that is going on.   She asks me about my family and friends, we talk about books and reminisce about things we have done and places we have been to in our lives and she fills me with such admiration.   If it was me, I have a nasty feeling that I would just curl up and feel sorry for myself.

It would be wonderful to believe in heaven and think that at the end of my days on this earth I would go to a celestial paradise.   I discussed this this a clergyman many years ago and I said that heaven would be great because amongst other things I would be reunited with all the dogs I have owned.   He said that there wouldn’t be dogs in heaven and my retort was that if there weren’t dogs it wouldn’t be heaven.   His (stupid) argument was that dogs don’t have souls therefore they couldn’t go to heaven.  In my opinion anyone who has looked into a Labrador’s eyes and still thinks they don’t have souls is a very sad person.  

And finally and apropos of absolutely nothing, I see that Kim Kardashian, who is nothing if not an astute businesswoman, although I fear she would not be the most amusing dinner companion as she appears to take herself rather seriously, anyway apparently she has invented a bra with a built in nipple.   Showing a nipple used to be considered rather unseemly and something to be avoided.   In fact you can still buy stick on nipple covers.   Just goes to show that it takes all sorts.

When in bed at night I often listen to podcasts about true crime and the other night I was listening to one about a serial killer.  My friends think this is weird – just carry on reading and you’ll find out things that are really weird – but I like them.   Tucked up safe and sound in my own bed I hear about these terrifying people – I usually prefer to listen to American or Australian crimes as they seem further away from home.   On this particular night there was a psychologist talking about psychopaths and their cousins sociopaths.   At three o’clock in the morning I determined that I was at the very least a sociopath and very possibly a psychopath.   I can be very self-centred and quite manipulative in order to get what I want and I can often show little regard for right or wrong – particularly with regard to the speed limit.   The fact that I haven’t yet murdered anyone could well be because I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life in prison.   I have frequently entertained murderous thoughts – particularly while waiting behind someone in the Post Office when I am in a hurry and the person in front of me is trying to send a parcel to Outer Mongolia that needs a lot of complicated customs forms to be completed and when it comes to payment they have a purse at the bottom of their bag and want to pay in coins and are determined to find the exact amount.   If I had a knife in my hand the temptation to use it when this irritating person is saying calmly ‘I know I’ve got a 5p in here somewhere’, is almost overwhelming.   However, the fact that I haven’t killed anyone yet probably means that I am only a sociopath who are defined as antisocial and willing to violate rules.   Well, I’m not that anti-social but I’ve never been keen on rules – particularly ones that don’t make sense.    

This got me thinking once I woke up and so I got onto the internet and disappeared down a rabbit hole of information and misinformation on the human psyche.   There are so many conditions out there and they are ever changing.   Take ADD and ADHD – apparently ADD has gone out of favour and it is all ADHD now.   It didn’t exist when I was young – or maybe it did, but it certainly wasn’t recognised.    Apparently, people are diagnosed with this in adulthood – that could explain a lot – all my school reports said that I should concentrate.   So that’s it – I don’t have a ‘Butterfly Mind’ as I like to describe my inability to focus on any one thing for very long – who knew I had ADHD all along.   And a bit more research tells me that the fact that I still use my fingers to count with doesn’t mean I’m completely stupid but that I have Dyscalculia.   Well, there you go, not an idiot after all – more likely a genius.

But it doesn’t stop there – wait until you get to phobias.   You wouldn’t believe (unless that is you had wasted several hours that could have been spent sorting out the piles of paperwork on my desk doing some research) all the different kinds of phobias that exist.

Did you know that the term NOMOPHOBIA or NO MObile PHone PhoBIA is used to describe a psychological condition when people have a fear of being detached from mobile?   What do they mean ‘this term is used’ – by whom?   Most of us know that panic when we can’t find it and we ring it and wander round the house listening only to discover it is in our pocket the whole time.  But we wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) describe this as a phobia.    What do you think fear of losing glasses is?   There doesn’t seem to be a name for this, or I could have changed the name of this blog!

My personal favourite has to be:  Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, that, ironically, is fear of long words!  Sesquipedalophobia is another name for it.   However, The American Psychiatric Association, showing very good sense, doesn’t officially recognize this phobia.

Another one that I am very keen on is Arachibutyrophobia.   You are never going to guess what this one is.   It is the fear of having peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.   It is said to be very rare – I think here they are mixing up phobias with dislike.   I can well imagine that some people might hate the feeling of peanut butter on the roof of their mouth – but that’s not a phobia.   I hate doing my accounts – but I couldn’t call it a phobia – although hang on a moment – maybe I can.  Of course, I’m wrong – Financial Phobia affects up to 20% of the population!

But is this all a bit of a cop out?  I would be far too frightened to walk across a rope bridge over a ravine but surely this is a rational fear of death not a phobia.   If you tell people things enough they tend to believe them.   When nits became prevalent among the middle classes someone had the brilliant idea of telling posh mothers that nits only like clean hair!   I can just imagine nits fleeing the slums of the world after turning their noses up at the dirty conditions and refusing to attack all but the freshly shampooed head.   I don’t think so.

But in many ways this all sounds like excellent news as it means we never have to take any responsibility for our actions – it’s not our fault it’s a phobia or a syndrome.   On the other hand, would we really want to live in a world where every personality trait can be explained away?   We are all unique and we don’t need to be put into pigeonholes.   As they say in France Vive La Difference!

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.