Oh, My Days!

 The promise of tomorrow will never vanish away the problems of today. I think we depend too much on that idea - I know I do. Sometimes I have this crazy notion that whatever irks me today will somehow, magically and without any effort on my part, vanish overnight and not irk me with such great intent tomorrow. Cue myriad moments of disappointment. Because, I have learned, it’s not tomorrow that has the cure. For a start, tomorrow never arrives, does it? We can only live in today.  No, the cure (if that’s what you want to call it) lies within ourselves, and our lone journey through the life that is gifted us, learning how best to deal with the irksome, how to manage it using the capabilities within us. Sometimes, we surprise ourselves and manage it quite well. And ‘pouff!’ The irk is gone! Sometimes, we make a right pig’s ear of it and the irk lingers like some dead thing stuck in a drain, growing stinkier by the day until we remember we have a set of drain rods in the shed and althoug

On Christmas Day, His Lordship Malarkey presented me with the title deeds of Malarkey House. See, here they are... They have been witnessed and signed by important public figures like Jane Austen, Mr W Shakespeare, Monty Don, Jennifer Saunders and Her Maj the Queen, so I have no doubt of the legality of the aforesaid Deeds.  And here is Malarkey House... As you can see, a Georgian pile, four storeys and an impressive frontage. Mr Darcey will be along ANY moment now.  Having spent a couple of sleepless nights wondering where the heck to locate such a substantial property I arose this morning to supervise the moving around of Damson Cottage furniture in order to accommodate the new, er, accommodation. And then I set about emptying boxes and boxes of furniture and other exciting household items, and arranging them as best I could given I had no such practise of these things as a child. A new learning opportunity, if you will. After two hours, maybe three, this was the initial outcome. Bec

 How was it, then? Did you take out your rubber stamp and whack ‘CANCELLED’ all over your Christmas Day, as was suggested by the increasingly poisonous and hysterical media of this country? Did you wail and moan about how the day had been ruined, and eat nothing but brussel sprouts boiled for three hours to a flatulent mush and a side serving of dust as penance?  No, of course you didn’t. Neither did I. Christmas this year was very much like Christmas of last year - lovely food, lovely company, lovely happy vibes. Because it is what we make of it, isn’t it? Christmas Day. And life, come to that.  I chatted to my Mum, my children, my grandchildren, my brother, my niece and my lovely Kentish friends via FaceTime, Messenger and the telephone machine. We had a couple of friends around to share dinner with us. Dinner was roast goose with a homemade apple, prune, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, roast parsnips and roast carrots with rosemary, thyme and onion, spiced red cabbage (home

It all began, I think, when Australians abbreviated ‘barbecue’ to ‘barbie.’ I remember hearing it in the embryonic days of  the Antipodean lunchtime soap opera ‘Neighbours’ so must have been 30 years ago or so. I remember thinking, ‘I had a Barbie as a child,’ because a Barbie was the equivalent to the Sindy doll. Mine had hair you could extend by giving her pony tail a sharp yank. It was high tech for a doll in the ‘70s. Anyway, Australians were all for ‘chuckin’ another prawn on the barbie,’ and from thence it all went downhill. What are these? Correct! They are roast potatoes. If you said ‘roasties’ you can leave now and never darken the door of Damson Cottage EVER again because, quite frankly, if you can’t be bothered to use the correct names to identify items, then I can’t be bothered to entertain your hideous abbreviations. They are not funny, trendy, or clever. Just get a grip, will you? You’re not an illiterate toddler.  There was a minor celebrity type person on the radio the

 I do wish the government would desist with their mantra ‘Don’t Kill Granny’ in order to scaremonger the masses into towing the random and often bizarre and nonsensical rules of their increasingly lunatic handling of this corona virus. For a start, it’s never been ‘Don’t Kill Grandpa’, has it? And given the statistics that men are more susceptible to the virus than women, perhaps it ought to be?   But no - they’ve gone for the weaker sex stereotype of elderly old lady, white of hair (okay, so that is me, but that’s the only concession I give to grannydom), stooped of back, wrists and ankles the size of Twiglets, spending their days shuffling ‘twixt armchair (where they vary their pastimes between falling asleep, knitting and trying to find something decent to watch on the telly that doesn’t have annoying background music which makes their hearing aid whistle) and the loo because no-one told them to start a rigorous pelvic floor exercise routine immediately upon giving birth. Or taking

 I have fallen out of love with writing. My 50 year love affair with the Art of Wordery appears to have died. I felt it loosen its grip on my soul during November when I was trying to shoo along this year’s Christmas Story and found I could write no further than six days into the usual twenty four day tale. What I wrote was good. It was funny. I was pleased with it.  And yet....from nowhere...it stopped.  So no story this year. Not even a forced story. Writing suddenly became a pointless pursuit. And I extend my heartfelt apologies to those of you who’ve stuck with the Much Malarkey Manor fantasy all these years. Your encouragement and responses have lifted my writer’s heart more than you can ever know and without you I probably would have called an end to this ‘Being a Writer’ malarkey years ago.  It hit me hard, I won’t lie. I’ve invested so much time honing my craft ever since I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was at primary school. It was my game plan, my career of choice. I