The moments we regret

After all, I will not have to let M destroy my car. The guy who is interested in the Range Rover hasn’t taken it yet, but in the mean time, one of M’s customers – a large car repairing company had a nice van for sale. This customer is particularly trustworthy and I encouraged M to buy it, feeling sure it would be reliable. Even if he has to write off the Rover, it would be a shame to miss out on this. I asked M what colour it was and he thought about it and came up with ‘red’. However, it’s here now, and I see it’s a rather nice shade of turquoise.

I had to take my Nissan to the garage today. They summoned me due to some fault on the headlights and carried out a free repair. As I had to leave it for two hours I walked into Guildford and browsed. It was a lovely day, and I was glad I hadn’t taken my anorak (just in case) or my umbrella (just in case). I ended up buying a cardigan in Debenhams and some tops for GD2 (belated birthday present). When I walked back with my purchases, I felt very virtuous – a half hour walk accomplished. Then I rushed out again after lunch to the bank, and returned home and spent an hour on the bookkeeping. So a full day.

I’d been to the bank yesterday, for some reason being completely disorientated. There was a man varnishing the front step, and when I tried to go in, he said ‘It’s closed.’ A burly security guard appeared and barred my way. ‘It’s supposed to be open on Wednesdays,’ I said petulantly, ready to get into an argument about how they dared to close it on yet another day. ‘It’s Tuesday,’ they both shouted at me. They must have thought, ‘Poor old dear, doesn’t know what day of the week it is.’ True.

I visited The Archers’ website a couple of days ago, and started a thread about the pronunciation of the letter ‘H’. My goodness it sparked off nearly 200 subsequent comments, both disagreeing and agreeing with my view. I won’t go into that here, as I don’t want to start another war along the lines of ‘regional accents’ and people being superior, etc.


On the way to the garage I listened to Madeleine McCann’s mother being interviewed on Woman’s Hour. Many people are critical of her for leaving her children. I think it’s very easy to do something thoughtless that seems safe at the time, but which you never stop regretting if something happens. I can remember leaving my son at ten months old in the bedroom when we stayed at a hotel in Majorca. He climbed up the parallel bars of the cot and landed on the floor, and we found him there crying when we went up. Much worse than that was when I was late picking up my daughter from school when she was about five or six and she started walking. When I found her, she had reached a road, and was hesitating there. Thank goodness she didn’t attempt to cross it. Surely everyone has done some stupid things in their lives and have been lucky, because nothing serious resulted from it.