January 2026
Draft, MorryCambi Minstrel
New Year’s Eve, Morecambe
Everyone cancels coming round because they have the festive phlegm cold aka Man-Flu. We have a lovely evening not catching it.
New Year's Resolution: finish novel about Morecambe
Wow, it's cold. Ooh look, snow in Morecambe! The mountains across the bay rise silver against a sparkling sky.
This afternoon we meet Jon, Flora, her sis and Henry the hound at a freezing cottage they've rented for fun in Grasmere. It's only -6 outside, nearer -10 indoors. Later, a huge golden Wolf Moon, with Jupiter slung below like a bright pendant, shines in the heavens as we drive home in Jay’s blissfully warm Honda.
If you get lost in Cumbria, you'll know when you motor across the border into Lancashire because smooth roads abruptly plunge into sink-holes aka pot-holes and tarmac moguls.
Btw, quantum mechanics is just entanglement. An enthusiastic presenter on R4 mentioned this and a 'Jello-Universe' in December. She'd just been on a trip on a 'ferry-full of physicists' to Heligoland. Only taken 56 years, from the time it was discussed by us bright 15-year-olds, viewed by the village with mistrust, sprawled on the grass in the recreation ground.(Pete our leader had read about it.) Nice to know not all science is solved at break-neck speed.
I pour hot water over the ice block in the iron bird-bath; it was saved from rubbish left out in Chiswick. Our home is full of rescued plants, items and cats. Stunned visitors liken it to a mad museum.
Anxiously check our friends in the Lake District aren't snowed in, or toe-less with frostbite. Thank heaven, they've decided to return to their cosy London flat a day early.
1.30pm: Guitar practise.🎸Poor Tony, however much he explains, I cannot grasp the methodology of scales. The brain-blank reminds me of 1970s algebra lessons. His wife Wendy says soothingly, 'Don’t take any notice, Helen. Tony was a child musical prodigy, he played the organ in church aged ten'.
Twelfth night; took down Christmas tree yesterday but can't scrape the 'removable' plastic snowflakes off the sitting-room window.
Jay takes his car in for a Service; he forgot last year so the garage charges him punitive rates.
I've decided on the title Full Circle for my book. It will be written to capture the loud anarchic spirit of Morecambe's West End before it's silenced by passive-aggressive gentrification.
I now volunteer remotely for the Comms department at lovely Lancaster Hospice – no, really – which entails going in once a week to collect paperwork, and ask Ian in IT to smooth out the latest glitch between my Morecambe desktop and Comms. I’m about to join VOICE too, another hospice section, and have volunteered to take Minutes at meetings. The latter makes me worryingly popular.
I’ve tidied my research notes for Full Circle novel into a neat pile.
Crossly pay my Tax Bill – I’d rather donate it to the Food Bank. At a local level we don’t even get recycling bins! The Council’s stubborn excuse is they were nicked back in 2015 from round our way. I had to buy a new wheelie-bin when we moved in in 2016, which I promptly decorated with gaudy stickers.
This didn't stop the guy rendering a nearby tall building from 'borrowing' our bin off the street. He mixed his gloop in it; bin had just been emptied but ... Euw. I spotted the builder up a steep ladder but he looked so knackered I took pity and didn't rock it. Obviously I've mellowed with age and accepted it never occurs to people round our way to liaise or ask, before launching into some activity or other. At least this one's legal.
Noi has offered to come back and do two hours cleaning a fortnight. Joy! It's six years since we’ve seen her and Noi no longer looks sweet 16 – she looks 25 and is sporting black tattoos. It turns out Noi's nearly forty and her small son who used to come round with her, is now taller than both his parents and 16. I need a lie-down.
This morning there's a confrontation in the reception of a private dental practice, in Lancaster:
‘Shall I go and sit down?’ I’ve been stood waiting for ages while a seated woman stares at her screen.
‘There appears to be an amount outstanding,’ she says.
‘I’ve already paid billions, I will pay the remainder when my new tooth is in situ.’
‘No, we need to take it now, or you can’t have the treatment.’
I tongue the huge gap in my molars: ‘This is not how people pay builders. Just saying’.
She looks momentarily in agreement.
‘What happens if I’m not happy with my treatment today?’ I ask loudly. Waiting patients perk up.
‘Well, you’d have to take it up with the dentist.’
The receptionist looks across to her colleagues for help. One of the women could double as Medusa, maybe her dental treatment backfired. She glares at me and I pay before I’m turned to stone.
Kathryn and Ian, who also foster for Lancaster & Morecambe Cat Rescue, come round for a cuppa and addictive chat about les chats. Other friends callously rattle a collection-tin after mere seconds of cat talk. Two hours whizzes past then, sated, our visitors reluctantly refuse the offer of wine. Everyone’s driving, or going home to Get the Tea. People here eat early in the evening, a civilised habit.
Jay kindly sets off at 8.30am on a Sunday, to accompany me to a neck MRI appointment at Preston. Luckily we don’t have to depend on public transport or we’d be up at the crack of dawn. The MRI scanners are housed at an odd location, in a couple of large lorries parked behind wire fencing. This site is beside a closed hospital, at the end of a narrow turning. I feel sorry for the young staff, an Indian radiologist and an Arabic nurse, both working a 12-hour shift.
The cramped changing area inside the lorry is not designed to conceal anyone disrobing. The Velcrose fastening on the thin curtain rips open if you sneeze, swear or sigh.
Drag myself out for a Run, now I have new trainers that fit. Foolishly, I bought decorative running shoes in an online sale, only to find them very heavy and too big. What is it with sizing? I have gorgeous boots which, like Cinderella’s ugly sisters, I can hardly jam my toes into, yet I can’t bring myself to part with them. As Georgie* would say, it’s ‘very diffy’ to return some online purchases anyway. I’ve searched miniscule oriental address labels in vain on packaging. Serves me right for shoring up Chinese sweatshops.
I collect Sharon from a car-cluttered cul-de-sac in Bare. Turning my Jaguar round - I'm bad at reversing more than a couple of yards - is complicated by her partner having parked across the entrance to their immaculate drive. After almost colliding with the gatepost, I ask a passing youth to turn the Jaguar for me. He does this with aplomb and a millimetre to spare. Marvellous!
Attend Speed-Awareness Course, on Zoom – what possessed me? Why didn’t I trot to the centre in person? I hate phones, even ones where you can all see each other. My misdemeanour happened on Bay Gateway, where there's a short stretch sporting 40mph signs in the midst of a 50mph zone. On the day, I was absently speeding at 45 while SUVs whipped past me at 65mph. The speed detector in a lay-bye must have had a field day.
The course instructor is a kind, humorous and non-judgemental woman. Which works much better for communicating the dangers of speeding to her varied group than being scolded, as in olden times. Also made me blush for being a past teacher-cum-dragon. Karma is a bitch.
Jay is unhappy because I recently flogged a large model sailing ship I bought ages ago in Acton at Bollo Lane Auctions. I bore it home to our houseboat in the pouring rain, which led to jokes at the bus-stop. It transpires Jay really liked the boat but the man's just not taking down-sizing seriously. Anyway, the boat was rehomed by a lovely retired couple: the man enthusiastic about restoring HMS Victory to her former glory, while his wife wondered where it would go.
Off on a Home Visit to a woman in Halton who wants to adopt a rescued cat. We have a great chat in the kitchen while her ten-year-old granddaughter serenely draws next door in the sitting-room. The rehomer confides she has not only rescued dogs, cats, a rabbit and a tortoise over the years, but also Piranhas.
This new website is almost ready, hurrah! I broke the last one – soon after BreaksIt - so fingers crossed it doesn’t happen again. As a backstop, we could join the EU again.
Carol and Dave are visiting his nonagenarian aunt in Liverpool, who has all her marbles, unlike me. We’ve known them for an astonishing number of years and don’t see old friends often enough. We happily convene at Maray, a small restaurant Carol and Dave know in Liverpool, where the food is delicious and the staff joyful. Fortunately we all recognise each other and get on so well that health is scarcely mentioned.
It’s good doing the Guardian Cryptic Crossword: apparently an Axolotis is a loveable Salamander.
In a sociable month, we meet Steve for lunch at The Italian Orchard, where an efficient staff of elderly Italian men serve the food so charmingly that this customer forgets she's an OAP.
My new molar is in; marvellous! But needs screwing in further in a final appointment next month. I try and tell Jay all about having the gum trimmed - he’s booked in for a new tooth - but he promptly practises French loudly on Duolingo.
There are roadworks galore in Lancaster; humanity is not at its best. Someone needs to invent flying emergency vehicles, not just helicopters. If I was younger I would offer patients piggy-backs to A&E along the pavement. Btw, how long does it take for drivers’ ears to bleed when trapped beside an agitated ambulance? There's obviously a demand for ear-plugs, they've gone up to five quid in Boots!
A dermatologist at Lancaster Royal Infirmary obligingly sprays my back with liquid nitrogen in case any of the new marks are pre-cancerous. Morecambe drug-dealers are missing a trick: rather than wait months for an out-patient visit, people could nip into back alleys to score cans of LN.
Jay goes to check mildew in the loft for the young couple who adopted beautiful kitten, Balou, last year. They live in a new house and Jay reports all seems fine on the building side. He suggests installing a dehumidifier in their loft to stop condensation wrecking items stored up there.
Every day’s a school day: I thought youngsters wisely rejected possessions and exist nowadays with a phone, laptop and capsule wardrobe. Oh, and a pampered cat.
See Mapp & Lucia*
FEBRUARY ... Please go to separate page.