221. With his head tucked underneath his arm…
“It’s Mrs Jellywoman, isn’t it?”
I am at the gym (thanks for all the helpful hints – so far, so good), face to face with a jolly woman, probably in her mid-sixties. Though she might be ninety-eight but really, really benefiting from regular work-outs. She does look familiar but I can’t quite place her. I’m vaguely thinking Jacob’s nan; Jacob, whose suggestion for a word containing the ‘ee’ sound was “weed – like what you smoke.” Maybe, maybe not…
217.When troubles come…
Life can turn on a sixpence.
Ann from next door and I were chatting yesterday whilst sweeping leaves off the pavement. Ann has an uncle – we’ll call him Pat – in his mid-nineties. He’s been married for forty-seven years to his second wife. Let’s call her Jess. She’s about ten years younger than Uncle Pat, so mid-eighties. There are two sons, both abroad.
194. Now is the summer of our discontent…
Stop there. Your name is not Mary; you are not calling from Microsoft – go and get a proper job. I’m busy. Goodbye.
Stop there, person that is almost certainly not called Peter. At what stage in your life did you decide to become a crook? Suppose it was your grandmother who had picked up this phone and was even now installing your evil malware? Now, I’m very busy – I need to get to the shops – go and rethink your life choices.
Hello.
Hello. Now that winter’s here…
162. “Oh no,” said Jellywoman, “I can’t stand this…”
Probably, my own fault, to begin with. Shouldn’t have had the tea. Shouldn’t have gone online.
Last night to our local flea-pit to see ‘Carmen’, streamed live from the ENO. Brilliant: sultry, sensuous and edgy. Matched the weather, which has been hotter than Spain.
“Well she’s no better than she should be,” was ActorLaddie’s verdict. How true.
158. Equally mysterious mysteries…
“I’m thinking of writing my dissertation about the work of David Lewis on modal realism.”
“Arf?”
“His idea is that there are a number of possible worlds, of which this is one. That when something happens, there is another world in which that thing hasn’t happened and events follow through from that.”
“Like in the film ‘Sliding Doors’? So there’s one world where Gwyneth Paltrow ends up with the chap who played Hugh Grant’s deaf brother in ‘Four Weddings’ and one in which she doesn’t?” I say.
“John Hannah,” says ActorLaddie.
Hello, whoever you are….
Dear Person who read over a hundred of my blog posts yesterday,
153. Whatever…
I’ve had a cover story ready from the start.
If you’ve read my first blog, you’ll remember that I’ve always intended to blame a bite from a radioactive trifle in a freak Ocado delivery. And that I can now become JellyWoman at will, with the amazing super-power of being able to slide under doors.
151. Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible…
I head into After School club to donate some cakes left over from a playground sale of … well, cakes. We’re raising money at Thrush Woods to sponsor Faith, who’s running the London Marathon next week for Parkinson’s UK. A couple of mixed infants skip up to me, arm in arm.
“Have you still got Parkinson’s?” asks one.
“Yep.”
“OK.” And they skip off.
141. Waugh and peace…
Unable to sleep the other night, I started listening to a wireless programme about Evelyn Waugh and the writing of his first novel – “Decline and Fall.” He was a strange cove to be sure – and, of course, married someone who was also called Evelyn. It must have made the arrangement of Secret Santa presents a complete nightmare.
The Jelly Chronicles 