321. The naming of cats is a difficult matter….
It’s gone midnight; the tail end of Storm Amy. So still very blowy but thankfully no longer raining. Which is helpful as I am currently walking the streets: torch in one hand, box of dried cat food rattling in the other.
“Molly! Molly!” I’m trying to pitch my voice in the sweet spot between “audible to cats” and “ not disturbing the neighbours.” I’ve got the streets to myself – Saturday night in suburbia – just the occasional urban fox… Oh God, she might have been attacked by a fox! She’ll have never come across foxes before. “Molly!”
320. Baby you can drive my car …
A friend has been prompted to look back over some of my old blogs, checking for any advice she can pass on to another friend, who has had a recent Parkinson’s diagnosis. “I notice,” she writes, “that you don’t do it anymore.” (Meaning, I’m assuming, writing the blog, rather than having Parkinson’s. If only…)
Do I not? It can’t be that long ago since…
Ah. December 2022. Well, who knew? Apart from my friend, of course, the canny lass.
It’s possible that nothing has happened in the last two and a half years to merit a blog. Or perhaps I’m just ‘scruciating idle. Or both, in fact – the two – to quote my niece Ezza (a woman of infinite resource and sagacity) – are not mutually exclusive.
Anyway, this is where we are. The question now is where should we be and – more to the point – how the flip are we going to get there?
Continue reading →317. It’s a fair cop…
As I’m handing her this month’s bag of audiobooks, Miss Briar says “your hair looks lovely.”
I’m a little surprised as, running late this morning, which I was, for my mobile library round, what with feeding my sister’s cats, I’d roughly scraped back my hair (which, incidentally, needs both a wash and a cut) into an elastic band and pegged it out of the way.
I realise that sounds as if, had I not been running late, I’d be sporting some magnificent up-do. I wouldn’t. My hair would look the same but described a little more succinctly.
Continue reading →316. For the love of oranges …
“The thing is,” says Pa, “every now and then, Sainsbury’s have an offer on chocolate oranges. Three for the price of two, that sort of thing. So…” He waves a hand in the general direction of the bed and shrugs.
The bed in the box-room at Ma and Pa’s house is stacked with an assortment of what I guess supermarkets would call ‘stocking fillers’. Post-it notes, socks, sherbert lemons, scented candles, tins of gin, chocolate raisins, pens, home-made Ma-malade and chocolate oranges. Many, many chocolate oranges. All the chocolate oranges, in fact.
ActorLaddie’s nephew, Alan-in-Australia, when he phoned to give his condolences, mentioned that he’d had a fancy for a chocolate orange the other day but none were to be found anywhere in Sydney. That’s how many chocolate oranges are in the box-room.
Continue reading →308. Ending in tiers
“There were so many old people!” says Ma.
Well, yes. A vaccination centre for the over 80s is likely to contain folk of a certain vintage – and all a jolly sight wiser, for sure, than the idiots who have spray-painted ‘Covid hoax’ and the like onto the walls of said centre and of our local station.
Continue reading →171 Everything’s coming up Roses…
And what season is it? asks Julia.
The painting is called ‘The Last Day in the Old Home’. Through the window on its left, we can see leaves turning golden and brown and branches starting to bare. It’s Autumn. The answer’s Autumn. Pick me, Miss. Fifty years ago, I’d have stuck up my hand.
150. That’s why you’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties…
Aunty Elsie and Aunty Bess are giving me lessons on how to do The Twist. We twist down; we twist up again. Well, shake it up Baby now. There’s standing room only– no, twisting room only – in Aunty Vi’s lounge because The Family – Pa’s family, that is – certainly know how to throw a party.
107. Disappointment…
Knowing that it was my birthday;
Continue reading →
101. Broth Spoiling for Beginners.
“Do you have trouble cooking?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Maria frowns, pen poised over ‘No’. I’d not reported trouble dressing, washing or cleaning. But cooking?
“Well ActorLaddie is such a good cook, you see. He’s a hard act to follow. Also, he does the shopping so he knows what we’ve got in the cupboard. If he’s out for the evening, by the time I’ve staggered in from school, I have terrible trouble cooking. It’s all I can do to make porridge.” Maria is looking perplexed, so I relent. “Tick ‘no’,” I tell her. “I can cook porridge.”
“I’m from Sicily,” Maria smiles. “Men don’t do cooking.”
100! What do they think I am? Dumb or something? Why, I make more money than – than – than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!
One of Pa’s cheques had bounced. The cheque in question was from his current account to his building society. The cheque in question apparently had his signature on it. The cheque in question had not been written by Pa.
Pa’s cheque book was still safely in the bureau and there were no obvious signs of a break-in. But both building society books were missing. Phone calls revealed that both accounts had been emptied.
The Jelly Chronicles 