Blog 2023 (Archive) - 31 December 2023
J enthusiastically jemmies up floorboards on large landing to check what damage previous owners have wrought. He removes a sack’s worth of rubble resting on the ceiling beneath, as well as miles of copper piping. Not linked to anything, I checked. The copper will be recycled by great local company, White Lund Metals – pretty…
IGNORE UPDATE DATE, IT’S WRONG
FEBRUARY
J has a stonking cold – more macho than an ordinary one. Today he climbed morosely into his car in Sainsbury’s car-park but, before he could shut the door, sneezed so hard he set off an alarm two cars away. He said at least it cheered up a couple trying to steer a rebellious trolley.
I must explore my thesis: Misunderstood Daleks. Foolish humans! When the missionary machines were croaking ‘Exterminate!’ they meant resurrect the dead, as in ‘Ex-Terminate’. Dr Who will never be the same again.
JANUARY
Jonathan’s been on tenterhooks, but now I’ve had a letter from the Pension people. It says, as I expected, that after my many years of paid work I will receive my pension this year. I’m relieved as expected the Tories to have pocketed it by now. Jonathan’s ecstatic that I’ll no longer be raiding the joint account, and unwisely adds: ‘That’ll be something to tell all the people who don’t think you’ve ever worked’. This is news to me: ‘What people?!’ ‘Oh no-one in particular, but I’m sure they all think it’. In case I strain myself committing murder, I go for a nice run instead. Can’t wait to apply for my Bus Pass.
Just when Morecambites thought it was all over – Blackpool having suddenly been awarded dosh by Rich Richi – we hear Eden North is finally receiving government funding. Cue for Gove and RR to appear at The Platform venue to cash in on credit. They also had a photo-op at the much-loved statue of Eric Morecambe dancing, where Gove repeatedly overbalanced trying to pose on one leg. As the courtege drove off, it was stopped by Lancaster Police. Rich Richi was issued – not for the first time – with a penalty notice for not wearing his seatbelt. Morecambe has a new tourist attraction: a joyous blue plaque marking the spot.
I’m setting off early to nip over the Penines to Sheffield to see relatives, belatedly exchange Christmas presents and collect Jonathan. On goes the Sat Nav on my phone, tuned to a straightforward route via motorways … and Relax. Joining the M6 I drive into a wall of torrential rain, gales and spray from heavy traffic. The windscreen wipers can’t cope, a bit of rubber becomes detached and swishes drunkenly across the streaming glass.
SatNav promptly sulks and sinks to a whisper. Getting to Sheffield is supposed to take c. 2.5 hours; four hours later SatNav has re-routed me to Snake Pass which road narrowly winds through a steep and glorious landscape. Despite driving through a mountain stream gushing down the road, I can appreciate the scenery because the rain’s finally stopped and a watery sun emerges. My journey’s a bit spoilt by motorists passing in the opposite direction shouting and making gestures. Obviously too much testosterone. On the descent towards Sheffield, I’m halted by a lorry reversing up the narrow road towards me trailing by a line of vehicles. Pulling into a pass-place, I meet a woman sitting in her parked car awaiting rescue by her insurers. Apparently the road is flooded at the bottom and, while some cars forded it successfully hers didn’t. Her engine’s wrecked. To cut this odyssey short, I finally reach Sheffield, the promised land, 5.5 hours after setting off. Jonathan drives us home three hours later: the motorways are freakishly dry and there is a gentle breeze. It’s as though the earlier storms never happened.
Day Ten of Dry January. Perhaps this tooth-grinding has been precipitated by abstinence from alcohol, not extortionate vets fees. I sip a medicinal glass of white wine.
Dean has had his teeth descaled at the vets and one removed. Apparently there was a tooth already missing, which might explain his costly Camille-Cat act in December. Camille’s toothache has cost us over £1000 in a few weeks. The vet drives a Merc. Apparently I’ve started grinding my teeth in my sleep.
I ring chiropodist after showing my foot to a pharmacist (I washed it first). The charming chiropodist is fully-booked. She gives me the number of a chap in Lancaster; he is permanently engaged: these people have strong constitutions.
This afternoon, we explored the vast cluttered premises of GB Antiques again, next door to the abbatoir. It’s like TK Maxx, I can happily spend hours in these emporia – excluding abbatoir – and emerge refreshed, clutching a chipped Utterly Butterly dish or a designer jumper going for a song.
Lots of cat Home Visits to picturesque villages; almost got trapped in one until such future time as roadworks finished in the narrow High Street. Reversing is not my forte, unless you want a road sign flattened.
I wonder if Pope Benedict is giving Vivien Westwood sartorial inspiration in the afterlife.
Blimey, Iron Maiden are appearing on British stamps!
After exhibitionist gales, an indestructible Buddlia in the garden keels over, revealing another big hole in the garage wall. We cunningly conceal this with a length of fake-foliage, perhaps I should tip off Gardeners Question Time. After sawing off Buddlia branches down one side, I up-prop the surprisingly heavy tree using a rusty pole. (Don’t tell Drew off Salvage Hunters, he covets anything rusty, says ‘It has ‘pateeena’.) Dean the cat is nonplussed and slinks across the newly-exposed garage roof looking for the Buddlia, while birds mockingly cat-call from the apple tree.
Having a Dry January, after feeling too tired to meet for the customary New Year’s Day Walk in the Lake District. It’s Day Four.
DECEMBER 2022
Before hurrying to Mel’s Well in France, I posted yesterday’s ad-lib carol on Facebook and Lo! Water gusheth from our taps. It’s a miracle!
For four days pre-Christmas UU gave to us: no water!
Bottled-water row (a fight started between staff handing out bottled water at Morecambe FC!)
Empty loo cistern
Two mocking gulls
A dry Yuletide to us all!
Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink: fancy Coleridge and Wordsworth knowing about United Utilities! The temperature shot up by 12 degrees overnight after an Arctic spell and water-pipes burst in exultation.The irony of empty reservoirs when we are in spitting distance of the Lake District! For 48 hours H20 is but a feeble trickle from our taps, then dries up completely for 36 hours, then a trickle emerges for a day… A full water-butt and Whiskey are helping us bear up.
I am so chuffed, workers are sticking up for themselves again at last. Postal workers are on strike, as are nurses, barristers, train-drivers, workers at container ports, BT and Scottish dustmen. University lecturers and staff walked out last month.
Rich Richy and his wife Murky could probably foot the increased wages bill themselves, Murky still being a non-Dom despite a bit of belated tax-paying. Sadly Rich’s Green Card has run out, so he won’t be leaving for a US sinecure. I long to add them to the work rota at Citizens Advice.
Get an email from HMRC reminding me an online Tax Return is due at the end of January. I can’t get into my account online. Can’t get through to HMRC on the phone either, on seven occasions. Send them an explanatory letter by Snail Mail. The same happened last year and HMRC gave me £20 as a ‘goodwill gesture’. Will this year’s gesture be in line with 12.5% inflation?
Argentina has beaten France in the World Cup; I’m glad, their uniforms are nicer than the French ones. I feel sorry for both goal-keepers. One’s dressed as a banana and the other’s lime-green.
Jonathan and I watched the match; we know nothing about football. Every five minutes a player would roll on the grass in agony after tripping over feet, or nothing at all. Then, within seconds, be trotting about good as new. A man in a red top hung about, avoiding the players and the ball. He ran further than anybody else and never rolled on the ground. He’s the Ref apparently. Ref takes the blame for the losing team and also watches to make sure everyone gets to play with his ball, before he takes it home. But why doesn’t Ref watch the game on TV in the warm? He could press buttons when he’s cross with the players and give them little electric shocks (using green electricity). Seems much more effective than waving a plastic card at them.
The Scottish government has passed a popular but controversial ruling, in favour of allowing people to legally change their gender by stating what they are, more quickly. A woman flashed her knickers in the Public Gallery in disagreement. English Parliament feels upstaged and wonders if they can stop the bill receiving Royal Assent. Are they going to tape shut the Royal mouth? I’m sure there’s a law against it. Why is the English government getting its knickers in a twist like the woman in the Scottish Public Gallery? Some of them wear kilts for heaven’s sake.
Dean the cat lies down one morning. He doesn’t move, eat, drink, purr or defecate for over 24 hours. Panicked, I drive him to an emergency appointment with the vet, in the dark, after de-icing the car for 20 minutes. It’s -7ₒ outside. The vets run tests, but don’t find anything amiss during Dean’s overnight stay. This costs more than a 5* hotel with an emptied mini-bar! The cat’s now home and purring on the chaise-longue; I’m setting up as a cat-therapist before I go ga-ga. Herring Gulls talk to their unborn chicks inside the egg and gull embryos communicate with each other through their shells. To learn Dean’s thoughts I’d better learn Felixperanto and brace myself for his ego.
Jonathan probably wishes he was back in hospital: strange smells invade our house like nosy ghosts. The scent of swede boiled in ancient underpants is particularly piquant, but the reek of Cannabis in the hall satisfactorily dulls the olfactory nerve. Personally, I prefer Channel No. 5; you know where you are with drains.
I drive Jonathan home after four days in hospital. He’s not dead, and no longer has back-pain. I burst into tears (of relief).
NOVEMBER
Jonathan given a new date for his back operation. It’s to go ahead at Royal Preston Hospital so I drive him there for 7.30am and wait in the car until sun-rise in case it’s cancelled.
Meanwhile bitches swoon in droves at Romeo, handsome unneutered stranger. I hear one owner say crossly to his lovestruck dog, ‘Really?’ as he tries to lug her to her feet. Romeo hardly notices, thankfully. I dare not let him off the lead, as the Spaniel would smell something fascinating in Verona and I’d have to call, ‘Wherefore art thou, Romeo?’ in earshot of sundry Morecambe Rotweiller owners.
Boorish brags he’s going to Cop 27 which ensures Rich Richy gets FOMO and goes too.
The Tories’ oft-promised tranche of funding for Eden North still hasn’t materialised. We’ll probably have a fifth PM by the time a decision is reached. Little-known fact: lots of levelling up £ in London and none in the North is all down to an Amazon coachman historically mixing up two road signs and delivering them to the wrong towns, in the 1680s. The Downing Street sign was meant for Manchester, the King Street sign for London.
My arm’s returned to its normal length, so I borrow Tracey’s doggie, Romeo. He’s a beautiful tawny Spaniel, the breed that sniffs out drugs at airports. Which can be a liability on our weekly walks in Morecambe. Being Gen Y in Dog Years, Romeo prefers filtered water to the stuff on tap in the bowls outside cafes.The hound vacuums the ground for miles, tail wagging the dog. When the tide’s out we explore varied terrain; occasionally I have to carry Romeo away when he sits down and refuses to move. I wish dealers wouldn’t bury their stuff on the beach, Romeo’s heavy.
Rich Richy isn’t going to COP27 in Egypt because he doesn’t give a toss about climate-change. It only affects powerless paupers who live in places he’s never heard of. Scarborough.
OCTOBER
Before my arm drops off, I reluctantly stop Jack Russell Senior taking me for Walkies; anyway I need to look after J.
It is a worry that the electorate and markets are relieved that Rich-Richy is now in charge. For a start he’s sleazily reinstated Sue-Ellen Bravado, sacked by WheyFace for a national security leak. Sue-Ellen’s parents apparently migrated to Britain in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius. Seeing their English-born daughter hypocritically punishing immigrants, while being a fifth columnist for Farrage, is surreal. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was really Prickly Petal’s love-child.
At least Elizabeth Jockstrap has resigned, albeit without apology for her vandalism while in public office. It’s pretty impressive: if the whey-faced automaton can bring the country to its knees in six weeks, imagine what she could achieve in two years! In the circs, chucking her £115K per annum to stay away is a small price to pay. [Exam question: Discuss.] However, all this will be but a footnote to the fact that a celebrity Lettuce lasted longer than WheyFace in office.
Jonathan isolating to avoid infection. Operation cancelled: one of the three surgeons is ill.
I’ve joined Borrow My Doggy, as I want a dog but housemates won’t play ball. Yesterday, an old Jack Russell who’s half blind and fully deaf but doesn’t let it cramp his style, charged across Heysham Putting Green with me flying through the air on the end of his lead like something by Chagall. I hope the artist’s models didn’t need to shout, ‘Heel!’ at him.
Liz Jockstrap has chucked Quasi-Warting! They got carried away at the ‘Mini’ Budget Disco. She’s been seen with Jezza Hunt. Newsreaders on all channels are huntedly muttering ‘Hhh-unt, H-Unt, H-h-Hunt’ before broadcasts.
Jonathan is suddenly given a date for his back operation and ordered to have a Pre-Op, pronto!
Quiet K and Loud moi have a laugh volunteering at the new Lancaster & Morecambe Cat Rescue shop. It’s wonderfully life-affirming, due to quickly gaining many regular customers, who also stop to have a cheerful chat. They’re very appreciative of how attractive the charity-shop has been made by volunteers and the fact that donated plug-in fragrance makes it smell nice. A quiet chap in his 50s reveals he wears exotic women’s clothes under his anorak and slacks. K and I put aside garments we think he’ll like.
We’re still tensely awaiting news of Jonathan’s urgent-but-long-deferred second spinal operation. The patient’s physical pain is exacerbated by Kafkaesque mental stress cunningly designed to cull patients and shorten waiting lists. Promised phone calls with doctors still do not occur, staff deny knowledge of anything arranged at all, and face-to-face appointments are promised, rescinded, changed to a phone-call, but the phone doesn’t ring, etc. It’s easier to locate the Ark of the Covenant than an elusive medic. I’ve attached J’s stiff upper lip to his spinal column: the gaily-striped bungee cord is keeping him upright and from hiring a hitman.
SEPTEMBER and MISTS OF MELLOW FRUITFULNESS …
Welcome back to Blighty, Darling!
The Elizabethan era ends on the day before Jonathan’s return from France (see rant) – except it hasn’t. Sadly, good, loyal and conscientious Elizabeth has departed, but bad, callous, foolish Liz remains.
Bloody roof’s still leaking and roofer not answering his phone. I’ve issued the kittens with water-wings.
Slashing and burning the back garden, an apple bounces off my head. If I’d been born back in 1670, I’d have discovered Gravity before that upstart Newton. As it is, there’s a maggot in my hair scaling a lump on my head.
I’m amusing myself thinking of Prince Philip meeting Jean Luc Goddard Up There – but at least
Hilary Mantel and the Queen will hit it off, what with a shared interest in Royal history.
I’m desperately trying to ignore the fact that Lancaster Council hid a tendentious tender for hotels instead of a public park, behind news of the state funeral. Also that Liz Truss exists, never mind that KK has smilingly issued a mini-budget culling all English citizens earning under £50K pa – Boris being too idle to finish what he started. If only there were consequences for these Thatcherites on steroids! When I rule Britain, they’ll all be on delayed Universal Credit in cramped damp bedsits – without their mates to help them out.
The kittens are still wobbly, but already fighting each other and stealing adult cat-food between milk feeds – at under three weeks’ old! Obviously geniuses, especially Elel.
Covering the progress of the Queen’s (alleged) mortal remains round Britain, has been a minefield for presenters. A man on Radio 4 News intoned: ‘The coffin is in the air’. The tour was reminiscent of (alleged) saints’ toenails or a finger being hawked round this sceptred isle in medieval times.
Willow has had three Enormous kittens! Mother and Burton, Londsdale and Elel all appear healthy which is a relief: it’s apparently Willow’s fifth litter in five years, poor little thing. All of them will be spayed/neutered once the kittens are weaned, before going on to good homes.
Drag myself to Preston at the crack of dawn to have front parking sensors fitted to my first car, bought when I was 63 I must add, having tried to be ecological before- Oh, have I banged on about this before? Anyway, now I’m a petrolhead and Bertha objects to bouncing off other vehicles while settling into a parking space. I don’t feel anything, until another driver bangs rudely on my window.
Turns out ebikes are ugly unless they cost £1m; obvs. I’m a design victim, or gullible. Annoyingly, my Beloved doesn’t want us to pay that much. I’ve now got a Boardman ebike; it’s okay I finished the Challenge first. At least we have plenty of green electricity with which to charge the ebike battery. For now. With stratospheric energy costs looming, we’ll soon be pedalling frantically in the kitchen just to generate enough power to boil an egg. (The cats refuse to use a treadmill.)
I’ve been trying to achieve 300 miles of cycling on local trips for a MIND challenge – only 80 to go. I rashly joined the local elderly CTC to increase my mileage, thinking I’d be able to keep up and it would be lovely to chat while sailing through stunning scenery. On the day, the octogenarians vanished en masse over the nearest mountain, muscular calves a blur. I was 25 minutes late to the coffee-stop at Ireby, where they’d kindly waited for me. So Jonathan and I have been arguing, sorry discussing, the merits of e-bikes.
JUST A RANT – WHILE THE HUSBAND’S AWAY …
everything breaks! Things that have worked uncomplainingly for years go on strike, thunderbolts fall out of a clear blue sky- No, really. I can’t work out how Jonathan sets it all up, before escaping on another tough trip to carouse with mates in France. My heart bleeds thinking of my Beloved, braving long delicious meals dehors, dragging himself to rural vineyards, the agony of deciding how many dozen bottles they should buy, having to speak French! He finds it hard enough to answer me in English. Driving along sunny empty roads through Showing-Off Scenery … Sour grapes? Moi? Oui.
J’s been gone barely a fortnight, and all hell’s broken loose:
Bank Holiday Monday, I’m woken at 7am! By clandestine noises out back. I peer blearily and Violent Neighbour and a bloke have just hacked back a beautiful Magnolia tree to stumps, probably because it lit up the maladorous alley. They’re now rapidly sawing back a tree of ours to just past the boundary.
In the shower, I yelp as cold water pelts down. There’s no hot water, not anywhere in the house. Pressing buttons on the boiler in the kitchen, watched by the cats, makes no difference.
Buy a flannel when shops open and leave a message on local plumber’s phone.
Deafening crash in the small hours, outside, so I go back to sleep. In the morning, the sheltered back garden is a scene of devastation. A very long folded metal ladder leaning heavily against the high garden wall, has been unbalanced by a freak gust of wind and fallen across the patio, blocking most of the basement tenant’s view of the garden and smashing a thick marble table on the patio, which kindly stops its fall. I can’t even lift the ladder so there it rests, across the shattered table, until Jonathan returns like Ulysses to his Penelope.
Two days later, our basement tenant says she was checking her electricity meter and almost got locked in. Meter’s in a dank closet under the front steps. Luckily she’s not equally traumatised by her diagonal view of the ladder. ‘The door-handle has stopped working, can Jonathan fix it?’ ‘No,’ I say, sneezing after another cold shower: ‘And I’m rubbish at fixing handles’. I direct the tenant to the management agency: I can’t have any more skeletons in the closet.
Our cats still shimmer with fleas, but the vet’s receptionist will only let me buy one lot of Bravecto with which to kill them – fleas, not felines – instead of one for each cat. Apparently it’s Bravecto’s policy: the cats need to have been seen recently by the vet. ‘But Pearl and Dean haven’t been ill,’ I protest. ‘We’ve got Frontline,’ she offers. ‘Does it work?’ ‘No.’ I go home and utilise the flea-comb, on myself. Can’t wait to have a hot shower.
Willow, the small fostered cat, is free of the blighters. Lucky that, as she’s hugely-pregnant and would fall over if she tried to scratch. If it goes on like this, I’ll have to get her a scooter to travel between her litter-tray and food-bowls.
I open my laptop to research drug-dealing vets. No internet connnection. None. Nada. Zilch. The Troubleshooter and EE say nothing’s wrong with signal, must be a loose cable. I jam all the cables into the router several times upstairs, turn darn thing on and off and breathe deeply. Still no internet connection. I go outside and cycle ten miles at top speed for my 300-mile cycling challenge for MIND. This helps my mental state. Go indoors: no internet. Need gin and an en-gin-eer. After an interminable phone call with a touchingly-sweet youth at EE, he finally agrees with me. And an engineer even has a window free! In five days’ time.
On Friday I call the plumber before I succumb to Hypothermia or BO. He comes out saying he never received my previous message, bless, and fixes the problem in under five minutes. As far as I could see, by looking sternly at the boiler and opening and slamming the front a couple of times.
On Sunday I look up to see water falling onto the sofa in the Foster-Cats Room. It’s trickling through an ancient stain on the ceiling, for which we had the roofer out only three weeks’ ago in case it ever leaked. This entailed lofty scaffolding being erected in the back garden – the scaffolders beheaded a blue china cat in a rose-bed in the process, ‘though I suspect it was the gnome wot done it – and seven roof-tiles were replaced.
Scaffolding’s gone now, so I can’t check our roof for holes. I did have a roofer round in 2016, who nimbly leapt out onto the fourth-floor sill and I had to physically stop him scrambling up onto our roof. I still had Southern sensibilities and didn’t want to trip over his corpse in the yard. Wish I could find his phone number now. Or Jonathan’s drone.
END OF RANT
I LOVE ALL INSECTS …
| HELEN POSKITT | EDIT
…except mosquitos, those things that burrow under the skin like Alien – and cat-fleas.
I was looking forward to Adele coming over. But best laid plans and all that – this morning our three cats shimmer with fleas! I comb the cats – in gauntlets because they object – and vacuum like a maniac, but the fleas bounce happily onto me.
I can’t see Adele at the cafe for a cream tea while doing St Vitus’ Dance: jam and cream’ll go everywhere!
We can meet at the bus-shelter up the road, by the Battery. Thank heaven for the usual Morecambe gale.
And if we freeze, there’s always Bare laundrette.
AUGUST
It is incredibly hot and sunny and Morecambe is thrumming with life. It looks as cheerful as it does in postcards of the 1950s and ‘60s. Mobile phones are not in evidence. Beaches are crowded with families sun-bathing on towels, or chatting under parasols, or shrieking in the sea’s shallow waves, while small children squat on the sand nearby seriously building castles. Ice-creams, sunhats, buckets, spades and beach balls abound in dazzling sunshine. Chips and sun-block evocatively scent the breeze. Families, friends and lovers stroll along the wide Promenade licking ice-creams, admiring the view.
This is not what I moved North for! Where’s the rain gone?
Later in JULY
I never got to learn Latin at school and it rankled. The A Stream were the Chosen Ones; us splashing in the B Stream were forced into weekly Domestic Science lessons. Nightmare! I forgot to add margarine to my Victoria Sponge one week, then eggs to a grubby savoury the next. The interesting patina resulted from me scooping the gloop off the classroom floor after dropping my mixing-bowl. I didn’t even get marks for thrift!
Happily, I have rectified this ancient grievance – don’t be daft, I still hate cooking – with fascinating Latin lessons. These are imparted by Mabel, an enthusiastic Romanophile and Latin expert, via Skype. As she says, effecting the modern transition of Classics to the contemporary world – perfectus!
Now I can’t decide if I had horrific 48-hour Flu, then Covid – in which case I’m on Day 9 … Or I’ve been dutifully house-bound for 9 days when in fact I’ve had Covid for 12. Why is the ‘government’, aka Hedonists Club squatting in Downing Street, saying people can mix normally after five days? Bonkers. I’m desperate to go to the Tip with household recycling and a couple of bin-bags [was too weak to take out the full dustbin 10 days ago, violins off] Can I do this if I drive with all windows up, in a mask and stay well clear of other people while jettisoning stuff?
Been trying to complete my Tax Self-Assessment Form early online: despite the fact I always do it this way – classic case of Hope triumphing over Experience – HMRC annually send me a paper form and envelope, while each year the officious online system sulks. This year Jobsworth is convinced I have another account. Nope. I’ve just waited half-an-hour on the phone to speak to online help staff, without luck. Poor Loves are inundated. Oh well, still a few months to go before I admit defeat and complete the paper form.
JUNE
We’ve just had a friend staying. He’s lost weight since we last saw him, so I’ve put on five pounds selflessly accompanying L to all the best local cafes. Customs noticed our friend’s weight-loss when he returned from Europe recently: ‘This doesn’t look like you,’ said the officer suspiciously, looking from L’s passport photo to his face. ‘But it is me,’ said L, nonplussed. ‘I’ll have to get my manager,’ she said, and walked off with his passport.
The manager slowly looked from the passport to L’s [thinner] face and back again. ‘It’s not you Sir, is it?’ Weary travellers in the queues behind him perked up with interest or seethed silently at another delay. ‘It is me,’ L croaked. After another ten minutes of this, L doubted his own identity. Had he metamorphosed into a beetle? If Border Control didn’t recognise him, did he still exist?
L’s credit card was squinted at doubtfully, finally his National Trust card magically allowed our friend to re-enter the UK. He’s lost his taste for foreign travel, particularly as he hasn’t gained any weight despite my best efforts.
Our first proper vacances for years is approaching, with friends at their house in the South of France.
I expend so much energy beforehand (see below) preparing for eventualities while we’re away for ten days that, on departure day, I try to wave Jonathan off and go back to bed. I’m still huffy about having to board the plane at Liverpool.
Fish feeding-block, tick, arrange neighbour coming in to feed cat on weekdays, tick. Check neighbour, and other friend who is living-in over week-end to cat-sit, have keys. Give week-end friend details of another mate she needs to let in, who is dumping her stuff for future visit, staying over and departing next morning on her own holiday. Tick. Make up beds for cat-sitters – don’t let cats in, tick. Clean up new cat-sick under middle of double bed, tick and retch. Transport violent foster-cat to another fosterer currently without cats, after blood splashes seen on landing and our cats hiding under the stairs. Tick. Lie down. Tick. Pack bag, try and close it, tip out half the stuff, tick. Bag-zip breaks. Take out Teasmaid, tick. Parcel up case using bungey ropes, tick.
Finally released by French Customs, who try and keep us waiting as long as the unfortunate Algerians now we’re Ex-EU, we arrive. It’s great to see our friends again and to assure each other we look exactly the same as several years ago. C and J-L have gradually created a veritable garden of Eden. This still encircles their house in an isolated valley, although large areas inland from the Cote d’Azur now resemble the Home Counties. Eden is home to several new monumental amazing iron sculptures, made from recycled metal. Also (currently) 16 feral cats; C loves animals. The felines gradually steal closer during our stay, curious about strangers, but draw the line at being touched.
Silence usually reigns in this beautiful oasis, as the nearest neighbours reside in a cemetery. Unfortunately for our peace-loving friends, live noisy people have moved into a house up on the hillside and reveille to the valley. Happily invisible behind mature trees, sadly they have lungs like opera-singers and body-clocks like owls. They have scoffed at all our friends’ pleas for the occasional bed-time before midnight.
This sunny morning, I silently padlock the miscreants’ grand gates closed with a massive chain and walk away smiling …
In the following days on the terrace, as well as normal wildlife J and I see and hear a beautiful Golden Oriole, red squirrels whisking round tree-trunks and wild boar blundering through the undergrowth. Badgers turn up at night to eat cat-food C puts out for them in the conservatory. They previously stole the cats’ food anyway and this way the lawns aren’t so diligently ploughed.
It was all worth getting out of bed for.
MAYday!
We’re back home in Morecambe. Dean has a rat larder: that’ll teach me to pull out the sofa looking for cat-toys. A rejected head and long tail lie beside a pristine fresh rat laid out for later. Above this, Katz rule OK! is sprayed in blood along the freshly-painted skirting. Put that in your pipe, PoohTin. In the past fortnight a dozen dead rats have appeared: on the landing to be experienced bare foot in the night; clinically dissected on the lawn; catatonic in the hall. Oh and two large (thankfully dead) birds, for variety. We clear away the rodents quickly – Caligula had slaves to do this sort of thing! – hoping the cat will be detered by our gluttony and give up. It’s more likely Dean wants us to realise Rat is his preferred diet, not Wimpy Whiskas, and for us to start providing. Or he’ll be forced to drag the neighbour’s live Python through the cat-flap …
Jay has been given the run-around for months by medics – or would have been if his painful back had been up to it. All the patient patient needs is a ‘face-to-face’ consultation with Ray of Sunshine, his consultant. The man doubles as the Scarlet Pimpernell. My beloved was fobbed off with the promise of a phone call. No-one even called on the day to say there wouldn’t be a call. Cue for more delays and unreturned calls by Jay to elusive admin staff about a F2F, but another call was arranged by them instead. Following protests, call was reluctantly reorganised … Finally a face-to-face was promised for last Wednesday! We could scarcely contain our excitement.
Then the phone rang and someone said the F2F been cancelled, but Jay would receive a call instead – Oh, hang on, no he wouldn’t, cos no-one in to do it. But the manager would Definitely ring him to explain what had gone wrong and to arrange a F2F. Cross my heart and hope to die. Manager didn’t ring. After two days, J rang her … He might be able to attend a F2F clinic at the end of May, depends if a nurse can be found.
I’ve attached Jay’s stiff upper lip to his spinal column: the striped bungee cord is keeping him upright and from hiring a hitman.
Sorry, another shaggy-cat story, Bora’s escaped. My professional pride is dented! First fostered-feline to escape through the secured top window in six years. Bora, a huge white and tabby Tom, prowls as if he’s the cats bollocks. To be fair he is: all our cats are eunuchs. However Bora’s Go Forth and Multiply mantra needs nipping in the bud. [Is that book Nuts in May by H E Bates?] Anyway; Bora’s room is suspiciously quiet when I enter clutching my phone, open at a search for a suit of armour with which to wrestle him to the vets. I gawp at a small gap in the double layer of chicken-wire nailed round the small open window. How the hell did he make himself small enough? Must have looked like furry toothpaste being squeezed out. He had to have done a pawstand on the narrow vertiginous gutter, somehow righted himself and slunk along the gutter past neighbours’ windows then jumped down to a fire-escape … Or Houdini scrambled up the steep roof tiles and sashayed along the windy ridge.
Paranoid, I examine the back garden for a splatted cat. Zilch, phew. I totter out to the front yard, ditto. Seriously consider installing a defibrillator.
I apologetically break the news of The Great Escape to the previous owners, in case Bora goes visiting. Thankfully they haven’t moved house yet and also see the funny side: ‘Bora’s used to going out and about, he’s got a girlfriend round the corner’.
Two days later, ex-owners Mum and daughter knock on the door. The little girl’s almost invisible, clutching a huge calm cat swaddled in a pink blanket. The miscreant had been apprehended, bold as brass, sauntering along the pavement with his fluffy girlfriend.
I carry a suddenly manic cat upstairs, on the third landing he bites me then takes up residence inside a tower atop a cat-scratcher the size of a tree. Early next morning, we only get Bora to the vet in time for his appointment by Jay unscrewing the tower, as Bora is still a baleful immovable lump inside. The vet is slightly surprised.
Bora’s back here now – the vet said he was angelic. Yeah right! – and hissing escape plans behind the sofa.
REST OF APRIL …
I’ve got a water-tight excuse for not doing my Blog: had my foot operation for a sports strain at Blackpool. Not at Blackpool, the appendage was damaged in Morecambe. At the hospital a nurse kept muttering about Arthritis, silly woman.
It was a relief to have the operation (under local anaesthetic, so I could check the surgeon knew his stuff) as an excuse to avoid a ride on the Big Dipper. The wooden carriages soar above Blackpool. Jay is unwontedly keen to show me the attraction’s highs and lows. Surely 34 years of marriage covers it. When I asked if the loud rattling from the Dipper could be Death Watch Beetle Riskitatus, he laughed. The behemoth is 99 years old – the Dipper, not Jay – and confusingly designated a Grade Two listed building. Perhaps I’ll nominate our Victorian terrace, it’s built on Morecambe sand. Only takes an incoming gale for the entire street to step back from the sea. Meanwhile, forbidden to go near deep water, I was a flannel Dipper for a fortnight after my op. It would have evoked my 1960s childhood but I couldn’t source a flannel that doubled as sandpaper.
Celebrating my recovery or because I need a haircut and look like Worzel Gummidge, Jay suggests a visit to Wray Scarecrow Festival. A most enjoyable afternoon!
WEEK 12
There’s a piece of street art on the Prom opposite our terrace: a huge empty picture frame. I think the idea is you admire the panoramic view of Morecambe Bay and Lakeland Fells through it, but a surprising number of visitors have their pictures taken inside the faded frame with the main road and our terrace as a backdrop.
Five years ago I suggested on a Council feedback form that it refurbish this popular attraction. Instead, the Council renovated the entire two-mile Prom, with new tasteful stonework, steps, seats, surfacing, signs and playgrounds. At least one sturdy toilet-block, many seats and an old iconic seaside shelter were demolished. Only the wooden picture-frame was ignored.
It remains extremely popular, which is heartening in this age of more sophisticated entertainment. I regret not fitting a YouTube webcam to the frame years ago: people do the oddest things in it. From family and school photos to gymnastics, to model-shoots, to children and dogs playing round it, to cyclists posing with their bikes, to a man who reclined in it one day last Summer in his hammock … Each to their own.
This week, an aspiring guitarist with additional electronic keyboard, amps, etc. occupies The Frame for an hour at twilight. He poses in silver trousers and sunglasses, while deafeningly replaying the same five notes on his electric guitar to a recorded drumbeat. Or it might be neighbours banging their heads on the party wall in frustration.
Foot operation done – tick!
Who knew a fortnight of enforced bed-rest could be so interesting?
Like Virginia Woolf, I can wonder about a mark on the wall for hours. Ours is less likely to be a bohemian snail than graffiti, from small cat’s projectile sneezing. She has Assertive Runt Syndrome (ARS – see Pooh-Tin) and phlegmatically tags territory.
April Fools Day: we’re off to have my foot- dressing changed at a Blackpool clinic. If the podiatrist removes my bandages with a flourish to reveal he never operated at all – a planned April Fool’s jape for Reality TV – there’ll be a Snuff movie instead. I can get by on one crutch.
After days of unseasonably hot weather, we wake to a clear icy morning. Outside the bedroom window, the balcony is strewn with straw, as is the front garden. From the eaves above Mrs Sparrow shrieks, ‘Drop that stick Elmore – it stinks of manure! I’m not living in a barn. Get down to Grand Nest Designs and buy some Sparrowovski raffia’.
WEEK 11
I feel blessed to have this panoramic ever-changing view: speak to many Morecambe-ites* and they say, ‘What? Oh, that’.
Reminds me of visiting a French mountain village, with a jaw-dropping view of snow-covered Alps. Dazzling white mountains cut into a burning blue sky, dead ringer for a toothpast ad. Locals – mainly the men – sat companionably outside bars all day, with their backs to the backdrop. Facing the main road, they watched passers-by and shouted news to each other above the din of traffic.
Anyway, this morning a giant pulled the plug out of Morecambe Bay, England. His brimming bath-water has fast receded, uncovering 120 square miles of sun-lit golden mud, stone groins, crustaceans, lug worms, salt-marsh, river-beds, sea-weed and shells. A pastel-blue streak of remaining water underlines lush hills on the far side of the bay. Behind and above the bright green slopes, mountain peaks show in delicate outline.
In the foreground, a lantern-post – 30 foot high and a half-mile out – stands marooned, anchoring its shadow to the silt. At high tide, the green light on top flashes just clear of restless waves surging into the bay as fast as galloping horses (as local lore accurately describes).
Now we see birds glitter like tiny diamond exclamation marks along the distant strand. Nearer, white gulls soar and swirl towards us on the Promenade, their wings outlined in silver pen. House-Martins and sparrows whirl up to the eaves of houses behind us, trailing straw from their beaks, to build nests.
[The hyphen is an endangered species*.]
I’m paddling
Statue on Prom with kite-surfer
Right, that’s enough lyricism. Yesterday we went south to Blackpool, a town we like very much, with its differing architecture and iconic Tower, many seafront hotels, buzz, stoicism, long beautiful promenade, trams, sky-scraping fair rides, brazen illuminations, cheap drinks and food – and the town’s unbowed philosophy that visitors enjoy themselves.
WEEK 10
Spring has sprung! Light at 8.30am when foster-kittens Olga, Olive and Jet are delivered to Bay Vets, yelling crossly, to be spayed.
As a treat, J takes me to The Barn at Scorton for decadent Afternoon Tea. Even I can’t devour all the cakes so we bring the rest home in a doggy-bag (sic) which we hide from the cats.
3pm: Bay Vets very apologetic. Vet opened up Olga, searched in bafflement, called in a colleague who said, ‘Did you check?’ Olaf seems fine, but chances are he’ll be catatonic on a therapist’s couch within the year.
J and I visit friends in Frodsham for the first time in two years and celebrate joint Piscean birthdays. We repair for lunch to the Sticky Walnut restaurant in Chester. Food good, décor bland. Such luxury at our friends’ house though, carpeted stairs! Us humans are too adaptable: I know – now – where the stubborn nails are on the uncarpeted treads at home, but the knowledge is employing vital grey cells which I could use for … I’ve forgotten.
Back in Lancashire, all’s gone quiet about Eden North. Hope it hasn’t gone south (northern for down the drain).
J enthusiastically jemmies up floorboards on large landing to check what damage previous owners have wrought. He removes a sack’s worth of rubble resting on the ceiling beneath, as well as miles of copper piping. Not linked to anything, I checked. The copper will be recycled by great local company, White Lund Metals – pretty sure I saw a Transformer lurking in their yard on my way home from the pub. The heaviest pipe I’m keeping back, to brain Pooh-Tin with when he reaches Morecambe.
Had to have a lie-down after viewing Six Nations rugby game: England v Ireland. ITV should post a clear warning at the start that one’s team might lose. I’m still confused after a ‘Mild Language’ warning appeared before a gardening programme. I expected to see Prince Charles wooing a wallflower, instead the presenters got tetchy about roses.
WEEK 93/4 – WHAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR jk rOWLING …
I am reading Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older without Getting Old by Andrew Steele. Fascinating book! I had high hopes – no fool like an old fool – but now have misgivings, there’s no photo of the author.
On the top flight of stairs, chez Morecambe, we have been attaching plinths to the wall with heads on a la Scottish National Gallery. (See below.)
Granted, Soames’ legacy includes a classy selection of stone busts, but our heads are thought-provoking – just call me Salome. Only joking, the most grotesque head here is probably the Messerschmidt. Fortunately, when the copy arrived from Ebay it was half the size I anticipated.
An arthritic foot bone is going to be shaved, so I can wear elegant shoes once more. Yesss! People look at me quizzically, so I add ‘And to stop the pain’. This rears up if I wear anything other than unflattering old boots but, like many women I suspect, I’m stoical about foot-pain after running everywhere in high heels in my Yoof.
Only downside I can see, post-operation, is that I’ll be bed-bound for two weeks and unable to exert gentle pressure on J to do chores or DiY. Thankfully one has a mobile phone.
Two new foster-cats have arrived: mother (grey and white) and timid son (white, with half a black moustache). I named her Gracie as she sings a lot, and Jonathan concurs: ‘Grey. See?’ Oh dear. Naturally I call the boy Tache – half the word moustache, which I thought clever – but J keeps calling him Mouse.
Mary, my Latin teacher, said her neighbour reported three cats had recently been stolen from their street. She was naturally perturbed. To our relief it turns out cat is slang for catalytic-converters. The thieves noisily remove them from parked cars in broad daylight. Hiding in plain sight! Bet the brazen blighters even wear fluorescent tabards.
WEEK 9
First week of March and just heard that Pooh-Tin could well detonate a nuclear weapon. How do insane old men get their sausage fingers on the nuclear button? It’s a terrifying trend, we had President Reagan in the ’80s to sweat about, then Trump recently and now Pooh-Tin. Two thousand courageous Ukrainian civilians have been murdered by his forces since Pooh-Tin waged war on their blameless country a week ago. Many courageous Russian anti-war protestors at home are also making their voices heard, and being imprisoned and worse.
I’m determined to survive until my Birthday next week. Where’s my copy of the Protect and Survive government pamphlet from 1980? I need a laugh!
WEEK 8
Can’t believe I didn’t remember to mention Valentine’s Day last Blog! Time concertinas with age I find … What day is it? Only joking, I memorise the day and date each morning in case a doctor still wet behind the ears has me banged up for being over 60. Bette Davis said, ‘Old age ain’t no place for sissies’ – fair enough, but she forgot to add there’s nowt as tough as old women.
They’ve seen and done it all! I knitted my T-shirt from sheep’s wool gathered from frosty hedgerows. I fumbled it to thread between rheumatic fingers in a damp cottage, dyed the yarn in crimson blood … As if! Bought the T-shirt at Help the Aged.
Old women are hard and bright as diamonds; nostalgia like bindweed is shrivelled at source. We order our tasers from Amazon, but cleverly disguise ourselves as prunes so as not to frighten youngsters and be forced to use them.
Btw I had a lovely Valentine’s Day! It was also the 34th anniversary of me concussing my Beloved and proposing to him. My husband has been wary of answering in the affirmative ever since, but perhaps he’s just forgotten the word.
Hasn’t Mr Pooh-Tin got any sensible female relatives? The short man (see Syndrome) is almost 70 and, judging by recent anti-social behaviour, it’s way past time he was moved into a nice Twilight Home for the Deranged. Siberian staff in particular are excellent at coping with deluded old despots.
I’m now fostering three kittens … But I won’t bore you.
week 7
I eventually locate the house at the tip of Cockerham Sands, after scraping past a farmer’s truck on an endless narrow track curving between sodden fields complete with lakes reflecting a bruised sky. Above the whipping windscreen wipers, Sascha loudly complains in the cat-carrier behind my seat. Madam SatNav has given up, after bossily sending me down a track with no passing points, where a farmer lurched past in his brimming truck and I expected Death by Manure, instead of planned chocolate.
The cat-fosterer who is courageously taking on Sascha before she kills our cats, tells me on the phone that he can see me and to keep driving. I do and become becalmed on a thin rise before a farm. A splendidly clear sign states: NO ENTRY! PRIVATE PROPERTE! NO TURNINK! The last is a worry. I reverse painfully between ditches for aeons, then see a man running towards the car. He’s framed against a dramatic backdrop of skeletal trees wind-bent, arthritically, in the same direction. [Think BFI, 1950.] Turns out he’s the nice fosterer-chap; he lives in a cottage next to the farmer’s sign. ‘I suppose it is a bit off-putting,’ he muses.
I enjoyed meeting Storm Eunice, but her brother Dudley trailing crossly behind isn’t much fun. Jonathan moved into the quiet back room last night, his nerves shot by the racket out front. I did run Sellotape along the keening double-glazing in our bedroom, but the poor man flinched at new booming noises from above, under the eaves. I was woken in the night by Jonathan shouting, ‘Not the roof!’ in his sleep.
A painful lump has been annoying my right foot for months. It’s come to a head – the issue, not the lump – as I can no longer wear pretty shoes! Limped to a foot consultant; it must be worse than working in a shoe-shop, but the man’s surprisingly cheerful. Perhaps his sense of smell has atrophied. Turns out my Lump is Arthritis, so ageing. I’ll tell everyone it’s a sports sprain.
The same day, Jonathan and I stop for a delicious meal at the Cartford Arms at Great Eccleston and take a coastal ride on Blackpool trams. Despite the cold, the sun comes out to play, beaming gold above us. Marvellous! I let Jonathan drive my car home; it gets exhausting banging my (non-arthritic) brake-foot on the floor on the M6.
Storm Flatulence has gate-crashed now – or is it Fenella? Who thinks up these names? It’s the third Heathcliff episode in Morecambe in a week, aka Storm Force 14. We normally chortle at the breezes Southerners call gales. Mind you, no-one has a face left up here, but perhaps heads just get blown back to front.
Good things always come in threes – our entire Victorian terrace, built on sand, is being blown back from the sea not into it – but I do worry that it’ll become fours in this age of More is More. I still recall being a greedy six-year-old (not a lot changes) and firmly thwarted by my Nan. ‘Less is more’, she said, thriftily doling out her delicious treacle pudding and lump-free custard. At school dinners, us kids held the custard jug upside-down over our heads for dares. [The skin held firm.]
More excitement! In two days’ time we will all experience a palindrome. No, it’s not a pandemic. If you’re still awake at 22:02 on 22.02.2022 you’ll see a Unicorn or Boris, depending on whether you’re a glass half-full or half-empty type of person.
WEEK 5
Never heard a Hoover belch before … (cue for a song). Plaster dust is marvellous as dry shampoo! Who knew? I’m off to make my fortune.
The many stairs are blissfully free of the appalling brown carpet we inherited when we moved in over five years ago, but are now sporting lethal carpet-gripper spikes for the week-end, as a means of staving off Dementia. As in: if I don’t remember to don slippers I become a human colander and spray blood all over new glossy paintwork. Now where did I leave my Ugh slippers ..?
CAT PARAGRAPHS, please skip if allergic!
Aghk! Oberon (moggie) just belched in sympathy with the Hoover. In his case it’s prelude to a Big Barf, through the banisters. He’s two floors up – Ouch! Ow! Youch, Oh F!!!***₩!! it! So much for Swear-Free February.
Just seen a tempting advert by Stannah Stairlifts. How much are escalators? Never really fancied bungee-jumping, but in an emergency – and elastic’s cheap.
Sascha aka Houdiniella (fostered pedigree) runs rings round me. Leaning into the hurricane in our front hall – okay Gale Force 8, but I am 64! – I’m trying to shut t’front door, hugging a sack of cat-litter as ballast. Pedigree dashes past me into wild night. Only to be briskly blown back indoors, thank God. Winning against the door, I see Pedigree bolt down the hall towards the cat-flap in the back door. She bounces off. It’s locked to the outside, I sag with relief and drop the cat-litter on my toes. Through a mist of pain, I see Deans’ face framed in said cat-flap; rainwater drips off his whiskers. He’s stuck between a King Lear storm and GBH on entry by menopawsal Pedigree. [See what I did there?] She would also mug him for his microchip-activated collar and escape that way. To be continued …
Don’t talk to me about trying to transfer money from ReAssure to a better pension company. What should take a month [why that long?] has been going on since July 2021.
Carl is patiently removing spikes from our stairs with a jemmy and claw-hammer. Eat your heart out, Bob Geldoff – I do like Mondays after all.
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WEEK 4
Glorious morning here; gales frolicking along the seashore but the view of the bay hasn’t blown away. Yet. What a night! No, not shades of grey, but the bedroom windows flexing in sonic booms. I checked at 3am that fighter-jets weren’t zipping across to Heysham. Not to mention a keening Kate Bush tribute, as sand whipped through double-glazing onto the window-sill courtesy of Storm Corrie. Ridiculous the fashion for anthropomorphising the increasing numbers of hurricanes, typhoons, etc. Even evil Disney isn’t powerful enough to quell Nature. She will run out of patience soon, stop scratching and obliterate human fleas once and for all.
I must go for a run – despite the (external) wind – apparently the bathroom scales are working perfectly. Panting along Yorkshire Street, I hear shouting. Someone is being threatened inside a closed-down shop, what’s more they’re elderly. Us OAPs must stick together! I‘ve requested a Taser for my birthday. I hammer on the decrepit shop door.
Eventually a nice young man opens it. He points to a theatre poster: it’s an Am Dram rehearsal for Steptoe & Son. NYM tries to flog me a ticket. I don’t need one – heard the whole play jogging from the Polish mini-mart on the corner.
Carl the builder, fearlessly and perfectly painting our vertiginous staircase, is listening to Tony Benn’s speeches on his head-phones. I ask him to put them on speaker.
Talk about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted! Storm walls have been erected across entrances all along the Promenade, now the weather’s back to normal. Dog-walkers on auto-pilot keep crashing into them. Bet it’s because Gove – the one who looks like a par-boiled pig, apologies to all decent*swine – has finally ‘approved’ Eden North. Boorish promptly cashes in: he’s whizzing up to Morecambe today. He cancelled a recent trip: a family member had Covid – is that a flying pig* over Ulverston? David Cameron likened his old mate to an oiled piglet; well, he would know.
WEEK 3
THIS WEEK, i
… Repossessed two black and white kittens from an estate. Ms Lyre was given every opportunity to pay our animal charity for Jack and Jill. The harpy has lied so blithely to us volunteers to avoid parting with money, she could give Boris lessons. The charity needs this payment from cat rehomers to cover our vets fees.
Watched by a meandering dog, I argued with Ms Lyre’s adult son on their doorstep with Ms Lyre screeching at me from his phone-screen. She appeared to be driving. Her offspring was wearing nowt but saggy tracky bottoms; it made me nostalgic for vests. At last, after centuries had passed, he thrust two huge wriggling kittens at me and shut the door. The duo have been neutered/ spayed as a matter of urgency, after Jack tried to mount Jill in the car.
… Waved Jonathan off to France after Covid restrictions were lifted and the French welcomed back Brits with open arms (cough). Must ask if he was made to wait hours at Passport control, as punishment for leaving the EU. My husband swore it was cheaper to travel via Paris, staying there for two nights … However, I have received reassuring photos of ancient exhibits in the Louvre. Any mistress, unless she’s a connoisseur of sarcophagi or has a death wish, will have run for the hills.
… Met up with three fellow-writers in Lancaster. Feedback on each other’s creative projects was briskly dealt with, then an erudite discussion ensued about Rowan Atkinson’s love-life. I couldn’t understand it. Why would anyone want a wife half their age? Cue to be bored senseless by their youthful outlook: been there, thought that 30 years ago, got the T-shirt! Not to mention all that dangerous physical exertion! Cordelia went quiet and looked shifty. I’ll check with Rowena: she’ll know if Cordelia’s got a toy-boy. It would explain the bags under her eyes.
WEEK 2
A Tormented Creative bent or ripped windscreen-wipers off seven cars on our road last night and left a wig-mirror (he’s vain, that neighbour) in artistic tatters. CCTV shows a tall guy, with a hat. The camera’s night-vision’s not what it was – bit like mine.
Btw, apparently WordPress makes it very diffy to Follow me here – stalkers take note.
Still, this week has been full of incident. I collect a pedigree Chausie cat – she yowls so loudly in the carrier on the way home, other motorists swerve. Sasha now purrs like a Bentley, and roars like a Tiger when she’s elated, but desists from ripping us limb from limb. The relief after Ms Hissy! She is still behaving like an angel to her new humans, painting me as a pathological liar with Munchausen’s.
Rachel, a fellow writer, inspires me to enter a comedy drama for BBC Open Call. Neurotically formatting and submitting the screenplay takes the whole of an unwashed week-end – not least because Auntie BBC has lightly added tough questions to answer, a la interviews. So unfair: might sue due to loss of greying grey cells. Unless I win of course.
Richard from Lancaster & Morecambe Cat Rescue arrives with grain-free food for pedigree Sasha; I’ve already procured the requisite raw meat. Local White Lund industrial estate is marvellous: bustling businesses wield industrial plasma and slate-cutters; others supply cradle-to-grave services for cars, lorries, homes; massive ironwork is forged; ditto metal recycled; glass cut; printing done … And raw meat in sealed boxes is on sale from a vast freezer. Oddly, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover springs to mind.
Guitar practice: if the Gallaghers can do it, it can’t be that difficult. It’s been three weeks now. Why can’t I play Stairway to Heaven yet? Must be the plastic plucking thing.
I’ll miss Boorish, with all his mischievous creativity with Truth and naivety about grown-up parties. Lizzy Truss isn’t amusing at all, unless ejaculating about Pork.
Jonathan’s tall with a hat.
First week of january, 2022
NEW YEAR’S DAY
Got up at 7am, it’s a good job I like Jon and Flora. Back when evenings were light, we’d rashly agreed to go walking this morning with them in the Langdales – not a wine bar, Southerners. Jonathan drove us there from Morecambe in his Honda Jazz Hybrid. This is a good car – a paradox when not a green-electricity-powered vehicle, I know – but Jaz is the English Bull Terrier of cars: ugly, modest and goes miles on a tin of Unleaded. Only drawback is it’s too noisy inside to hear Radio 4 and I got lipstick in my ear when we swerved to avoid a speeding tractor the size of a container ship. Why’s everything so BIG now? They do say impotence is a modern problem.
Huddled in the passenger seat under a hangover, and all Jonathan’s gear in case we get caught in an avalanche or typhoon, I fearfully recall that t’other Jon’s walks are fit for the SAS handbook. If a mountain crops up, as his friends fondly say he’s like a rat up a drainpipe. I’ve noticed tall men like the two Jons don’t suffer from vertigo – stands to reason or they’d never get out of bed. I’m short and have had to be talked down from Nursery slopes at ski-resorts while toddlers whizz past.
In the event, it is a wonderful day: incredibly warm due to the vagaries of climate-change, rain holds off and Jon is a bit tired from the day before. Apparently they nipped out for a hike up hills and down dales, through scree and mountain streams with intrepid friends Mike and Caroline. Not to mention Henry, their enthusiastic Dulux Dog who admires ‘Burnt Ochre’ (mud to us).
Take down Christmas decorations and ancient deciduous fake tree three days early, and find on lower branches ‘chrome’ tubes used to cover unsightly pipes. Wondered where they’d gone. Promptly put them round the wires of the pendant lights in my office; lights now resemble big up-turned wine glasses stuck to the ceiling. Probably need to cut down on my drinking. The mound of Christmas decorations will be tidied away when someone next stays in the spare room, so I might not need to at all before December. Boorish – now sporting expensive haircut to hide his bald patch – has delayed introducing another Lockdown, despite millions of Europeans being forced to stay indoors with relatives and remain sane for the foreseeable. Either all English will be dead by Winter or on Zoom. I’ve a book running on how soon Boris will stop carrying Carrie now she’s all Mumsie and meander into the sunset with umpteenth nubile blond ripe for impregnation.
I’m still fostering cats for a local animal charity, currently Ms Hissy is inhabiting the attic. Re-homing this grey and white beauty might be tricky. She’s not keen on men, flattens the ears and hisses like a Python. She bit clean through Jonathan’s thumb last year when he tried to persuade her to go to the vet. Jonathan ended up in A&E being given a Tetanus jab and a prescription for Penicillin; I admit I wasn’t as sympathetic as I might be, being an old hand. Bit like mothers when partners complain of a blister. Ms Hissy’s predecessor, tiny Lucretia Borgia, attacked another fosterer, then bit me in the arm before she cuddled up. Arm came up like a gas bottle overnight, cue for Tetanus jab, etc. I hope Royal Lancaster Infirmary doesn’t bar us.
Soylent Green was set in 2022 … If anyone offers a green wafer, particularly in ginnels in Morecambe’s West End, take it with a pinch of salt.