Major Senior Moment

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I planned to do deal with the ironing from two washes (half of which was still in the tumble drier) and get the next load moving. It was nice to contemplate visiting my cousin in N. London on Sunday, where my other cousin and spouse would also be present. So a day of catching up to be followed by a day of relaxation. I washed my hair, which always looks better the day after, having deliberately left it the previous day. Our arrangements had been made hurriedly by email, after the holiday and during the time when the family were with me.

I was still tired and didn’t make much progress. I even had a sleep in the afternoon. Waking up somewhat brighter, I remembered we must ring M’s aunt who wanted us to come over. I’d given her a copy of my novella, A Bottle of Plonk, for her birthday, so I asked her how she liked it. ‘I thought it was wonderful,’ she said. (Cheers.) I’m going to loan it to D (other nephew) but this time, I’ll ask him to return it to me. He never gave me back the copy of your other book.’ (Groans.) ‘Tell him to buy his own copy,’ I said, somewhat sharply. When are people going to realise that if they don’t buy books, there is no financial reason for anyone to publish them.

In order to arrange a meeting, I fetched the calendar. As soon as I looked at it, I realised that the visit to my cousin was that very day, not Sunday. We dropped poor Auntie speedily, got changed in record time and charged off down the motorway. Fortunately, our invite was not for lunch but for afternoon and a meal in the evening. We were still 3 hours later than we meant to be, but managed to sit out in the garden for a couple of hours, before the meal was served and it ended up a really nice day. We got home finally at half past midnight.

After the Lord Mayor’s Show - Sunday, I did the ironing. In spite of watching one and half hour of Frasier on Sky, to accompany it, nothing could mitigate the boredom. I was also miffed that instead of recording last week’s Apprentice, I accidentally recorded Jeremy Paxman interviewing the potential Labour deputy leaders. (So that’s two senior moments.) I managed to reduce the contents of the washing basket, but I still have to strip the beds in the spare room and the granddaughter room. And the VAT remains unfinished.

I listened to Anthony Horowitz this morning talking about the dilemma of writers these days, who must be so careful to avoid accusations of racism, etc., that they are hamstrung when describing their villains. I also heard the other day that Disney were being accused of making children think that all elderly people were horrible because of images of Cruella de Ville and wicked stepmothers, etc. No wonder Americans use English people as their villains in films; it’s almost the only way to avoid being described as racist. In a way, it’s good when any particular race or minority group can get through the period when they are being over-protected and move to being able to be a criminal or any sort of unpleasant person, without cries of protest.