I do like a statistic.  Just as John Major was the only person ever to run AWAY from a circus, so I was without doubt alone in my longing to leave the glamourous, exciting world of television (sic) to be an actuarist.  Go figure.  This latent longing was recalled yesterday when I read some research that proved that drinking wine prevented you from becoming diabetic.  Result!, fellow topers and clearly true. (Although as with all these ‘Hold the front page’ announcements I only really noticed the headline and was too busy looking for a corkscrew to read the small, inevitably dull details that followed).

I also have evidence to put the matter beyond reasonable doubt, although , like all humans, I am quite capable of persuading myself to believe something I like without a shred of the stuff.  The only time in my life that doctors have been concerned that I was pre-diabetic was when I was pregnant.  And had not touched a drop for months.  Case proven or what?  I could probably save the country millions by offering to do all future research single handed because most of the time the answers they come up with are, to use a well known phrase or saying, bleedin’ obvious.

I was at a meeting the other day when much time (14 minutes of which was, unforgivably, during an airing of  ‘The Archers’) was expended on talk of doing a survey, or to use corporate-speak, a ‘piece of work’ to find out why people joined Friends’ organisations.  ‘Sack the consultants’ I said, ‘I can tell you the answers they’ll find right now and then you tell me how that is going to move us forward one inch’.   Oddly my offer was not taken up but let me share my thoughts on the matter with a more appreciative audience.

Ask anyone a simple question and one hundred per cent of the time they will come up with the reply that they think you’re looking for, whereas the fact of the matter is that people only voluntarily do what they want to do anyway. You, dear reasearcher, just have to ask yourself why they might want to do whatever it is you’re flogging and bingo, you’re sorted.  What’s their  motivation and let’s face it, there isn’t a long list to chose from?  Could be simply sex in which case let’s change the name to ‘Friends with Benefits’ – the way forward!   Sadly the Charity Commissioners might have something to say and we can’t risk another raid by the Vice Squad. There’s no money to be made by signing up so not that one either. We are left with the desire for fame,popularity or immortality.  Give me and my evil sons twenty minutes with a paper and pencil and we will let you have an exhaustive list of how to apply that to membership issues.  Next!

My somewhat jaded palate was also briefly touched this week by the vexing issue of ‘corporate speak ‘ which I mentioned earlier, the gobbledygook that people use in an attempt to blind the listener with science.  Or boredom.  John Humphrey spends his life expressing his incredulity at the nonsense that comes out of the ‘Today’ shows guests and make them explain themselves in simple English, often a task too far. I was therefore particularly pleased to see that ‘The Times’ had a leader devoted to the subject this week.  You may rest assured, reader, that I will never invite you to try blue-sky thinking, that we are not ‘where we are’ and never will be, and the only ‘piece of work’ around here, in the proper sense, is me.

 

How lovely!  It has rained heavily in the night – the cocktail glasses on the garden table are full to the brim – it’s extremely unlikely that they were left that way – and the day dawns sparkling and sunny.  I’m no scientist, clearly, but surely it can’t be beyond the wit of man to arrange for all rain to fall in the hours of darkness?  Stiff letter to the Met Office, methinks.

Contrary to expectations, especially mine, I have returned in one piece from my road trip, albeit with a few more miles on everyone’s clocks.  Doesn’t your heart lift when you finally see that wonderful sign ‘London and the South’ and know that all you have to do is travel in a straight line to get home?

Whilst in the Far North I had promised our route planner that we would look up some old acquaintance and present his regards, said lady to be found in what I imagined to be some rose covered village shop, polishing apples.  It turned out that she worked in a supermarket and was, according to a co-worker ‘Having a fag out the back’.  At least I could understand the local dialect, unlike in Grisly Glasgow where it’s always a wonder that they can make sense of anything I say, given their lack of the Queen’s English but I suppose they must practice by listening to Radio 4 …

The hapless girl was fetched, greetings presented and then nothing would do but a photo shoot in order to prove that she had been located.  Obviously chaos resulted as we re-arranged the girl and the store to make a (slightly) more interesting composition but the staff and the shoppers were all incredibly helpful, not a response you’d get in a London Waitrose on a Saturday morning.  ( I made have mistakenly given them the impression that we were recruiting for ‘Britains Got Talent or something. Whatever)

More mayhem when moving on to a bric-à-brac shop I spotted a fabulous vintage gown in the window, which then had to be dismantled in order for me to buy it.  Given the state of the display I suspect the dress might have been high fashion when it was first draped on the mannequin – Stop Press! Dior’s New Look arrives in the Borders.

One of my visits on the return journey was to the gardens at Castle Alnwick, somewhere that has been on my must-see list for years.  Reader, spare yourself the petrol.  Lots of hard landscaping, lots of water, lots of topiary and pleaching,  (Look it up.  Thank me later) but not what I’d call a garden.  I am almost tempted to use the word municipal but the thousands of visitors were enjoying the fish-n-chips and ice cream and I didn’t hear anyone complaining about the lack of plants so perhaps it’s just me.  It often is.

Before I even start the engine let me say a huge thank you for all those birthday greetings – would that I had clearer memories of the various celebratory events to share with you, although doubtless someone, somewhere is cruelly posting a video on YouTube …

As a reward I am going to give you a sneak preview of chapter one of my new soon-to-be best seller, the no-holds-barred tale of the adventures during my summer road trip, incidentally still under way.

On the Road.  Chapter One

Having recently trailed round the back roads of Dorset in a fruitless attempt to locate Dartmouth,  I decided to invest 300 English pounds in a new sat nav for my road trip north which turned out to be surplus to requirements until Carlisle as someone from the very area I was visiting in Scotland had provided me with a blindingly brilliant route which meant we crossed the border in about three hours after leaving London.  Sadly my high spirits and good nature, as usual you are no doubt thinking, got the better of me and I allowed my travelling companion, Thelma, to take charge of navigation.  Readers, it is not in my nature to be harsh but this was a girl who wasn’t even allowed to ATTEMPT geography O level.  Days later we were still hopelessly lost having driven around every small town in the Borders while she tried to spot familiar landmarks.  Given our destination was next to the bloody River Tweed and a mountain even I imagined she would be able to find it.  We ended up telephoning our hostess who drove through the night to the rescue.

Next day we decided that given the weakness of her map reading we had better brush up on her history skills and give her a practical demonstration of the American political practice of water boarding. This had to be temporarily delayed, no water being available as Thelma, who had been given the apparently simple task of washing up the night before, had managed to block every sink in the house.  I was scouring the streets at six in the morning searching for chemicals and plungers whilst Louise, the third member of our party,  struggled to find a printer that worked in order to get Thelma’s air ticket sorted.

It was like Black Friday at a Comet store as she unearthed endless, long-abandoned computer accessories from cobwebbed cupboards. We decided that going to Guantanamo would be a more deserved destination than Gatwick and I resolved find my way back to England alone and guided by the stars, that being a more reliable option.

Air travel plans had to be abandoned after about eight hours of Printer-gate as it transpired that Thelma had not brought any photo ID with her on the grounds that it would have been “too heavy to carry” meaning that the entire Men’s Final was passed in trying to book a train ticket instead.  And, by the by, crying over a blister?  Try childbirth, mate.

In the spirit of an educational Hansel and Greta re-run we finally gave in to her whining to go for a walk  (Walk? Walk? Why?) and drove her into a thick forest with detailed instructions, doubtless instantly forgotten,  on how to get back.  We went home and not being minded to construct a gingerbread house, proceeded to sample a delightful locally sourced gin which had the same name as the house!  Fate or what?  Four hours later there was still no sign of our rambler but it being a Sunday we thought the police wouldn’t locate the body till the next day at the soonest when we would probably have sobered up enough identify the remains.

The earlier part of the day had been spent on an Agent Orange assault on the garden – undertaken whilst Madame Thelma lounged in the bath looking at the pictures in The Mail on Sunday – and it was decided, in retrospect unwisely, to have the conflagration of a 20 foot pile of green waste at the same time as the gin-tasting.  Ta da!  Smoke boarding! Hopefully a better lesson than writing out 200 times “I must pack my passport and not block drains”.  Verily, the way forward.

The adventure continues ….

 

Here I am again, albeit two days late, up at 5.30 if you please in a dizzy attempt to snatch a few moments with my devoted reader(s) before the whirl that is summer society in London continues.

 

I have even ventured out beyond the M25, something I have frequently declared verboten especially during the hotter months.  My dear chums have purchased a charming apartment in a gorgeous place in Devon.  I refuse to give further details because it appears to be completely undiscovered by the Ordinary British and I intend to do my bit to keep it that way, ably assisted by the Ministry of Transport whose signage department have also been sworn to secrecy.

Even I, a woman with navigational skills which would impress Vasco da Gama (Look him up by next week and stop interrupting), even I, and my SatNav, got hopelessly lost and ended up on a single track road, navigating by the stars.

Back in Real Life the hours between 2.00 and 7.00 have had to be stripped to accommodate Wimbledon (Matches hopefully completed before The Archers takes precedence) and given the unbearable heat of late it is a blessing to be watching it in one’s own home within arms reach of a cold drink.  Or two.

Matters came to a head on Saturday when I had 18 for lunch, reduced to a more manageable 17 when a certain B.H. Roberts failed to appear. Unfortunately we had to eat lunch at breakneck speed as I was due at an evening event at 7.30 but after years of practice  we were able to squeeze in coffee and chocolates thanks to my legendary organisational skills and the guests all working their socks off.  They can come again.

Elder son has returned from Nice and brought with him a delightful young American who ended up staying a week.  Another adorable addition whose only drawback was that she had to be at Heathrow by 4.30 am to get a flight to Latvia. (And again: look it up etc etc).  Luckily this was after double party day so the opportunity for bedrest would have been limited at the best of times.  A popular combo called U2 was appearing at Twickenham stadium so we simply retired to the third floor balcony and listened in.  Location is so, so vital.  Yet another lesson for life.

 

No, not a cricketing reference, muppets, rather a Phoenix-like rebirth from the dust of my recent despair.  And before we proceed let me state YET again that this is meant to be a lighter look at life.  The people and events described are almost always my own delusional  flights of fancy.   Or life.  Whichever version you can handle.

And what has bought about this miraculous return to form?  Step forward my oft maligned boys.  They have both been abroad lately, thank God escaping the hellish heat that was England, and generously providing me with a much needed opportunity for a thorough spring clean (I think you’ll find that the National Trust book on housekeeping agrees that one good dusting a year is the way forward) carried out without disturbing their slumbers with that noisy Hoover. And the clattering row that accompanies the skip delivery.  I’m not a woman for doing things by halves …

Seven days in, a text – always a bad sign – although it begins with a cheery “Hey, Ma” – my own in-house abbreviation for ‘The Madonna of All Sorrows’.

“All is good here”.  Spookily reminiscent of those frequent calls home from university which invariably started “I’m in the library and …” Of course you are and I’m busy mucking out the unicorn. Several more anodyne snippets referring to the weather and then the inevitable “but”.

“I haven’t screwed up majorly”.  Majorly?  For this adjectival abuse we paid for decades of schooling?  And I have already managed to work out for myself that we are not talking real disaster here.  On past experience that involves an air-to-land transmission from the helicopter-bourn secret police of a minor country in the Balkans.  At best.

It is, deep relief, merely a request for an ‘advance’ to pay for a hotel, made necessary by the train having the temerity to leave on time.  Have we taught Johnnie Foreigner nothing?  There is even a receipt for the unexpected outlay and as he observed “I know this is irritating but having to pay 150 euros was more irritating for me than you can imagine!”

Ah, my oft lamented lack of imagination.  How much it spared my parents, certainly in terms of financial outlay.

Spirits restored all round, he closes with a cheery “Hope all is well with you.  Have a good day”.

And the same to you, dear readers.  Have a very good day.