Salad Days

A colourful mixed salad on a white plate with a pot of white dressing

At the age of 68, rather than writing myself off (literally), I decided I still had a lot to offer the world of employment. I was prompted to this by friends who refused to give in to age and have built successful careers after retirement – made me feel a bit ‘undynamic’, actually. But it […]

Cat expressions

kitten in a box lid

In my experience, the feelings of cats are usually ‘expressed’ from their nether regions (see what I did there?) In years gone by, I and certain members of my family-stroke-social-circle (another pun) owned pets of the feline variety. Now, I wonder what we were all thinking. There are so many reasons to keep cats safely […]

My Mum – again

As I have mentioned in the past, my mother is 93 (born 1929). Currently, her energies are directed at moving herself into residential care. This project, she is undertaking with her usual energy, and to support her in it I and my siblings have been visiting regularly. Mum loves it when I am at her […]

Can you hear me Mother?

My mother is 93 and very deaf. She has been quite deaf for years. In fact, when she was my age, she was noticeably hard of hearing. I am deeply grateful that I don’t seem to have been saddled with such an affliction. A visit to Mum is fraught with misunderstanding. A visitor might come […]

Measuring up

Today, Whizz, Mavis, Horace, Kerching and I will set off for Shitstable – so named because of its unenviable connection with raw sewage. We head for a rented house where we will entertain the Shitstable and OtherTV and Bogthin (work that one out!) branches of the family – by that I mean my sister, brother, […]

Voting with our hearts

It is quite obvoius to me and presumably to most of us, that the Conservative party has shown a lack of wisdom during this parliament, and it follows that those who voted them in showed poor judgement too. It is so easy to think that we have a two, possibly three party system, a vote […]

Me-bike

Whizz has a new job. It involves a short daily commute – about 10 miles – to Duckchester. Accustomed to working from home and taking daily exercise on our cross trainer (another story), he soon found this sedentary job resulted in noticable expansion of his girth. This was not good. Neither was the soaring cost […]

Dog story

Our poor old Milo quit this life on Boxing Day 2021, but our step-dog, Grabber, padded into the breach to help us through our sadness. Grabber belongs to Beamish, the man who rents one of our rooms. This little Cocker Spaniel is the dearest thing. Unlike Milo, who spent most of his days lying beside […]

Horace Memories

Story Number One Horace and two girl friends decided upon a weekend away and booked a self-contained flat on AirBnB. In the flat, they had a choice of a double or twin bedded room. Her friends were kind enough to let Horace have the double, while they shared the twin – I wouldn’t dream of […]

Spirit of…

Each of us is subject to our emotions. Given the present state of the world, it would be easy for us to lose hope. What difference will our small action make in light of the enormity of the evil and selfishness we witness daily in our newspapers, on our TV screens and hear on our […]