I am on the 09.38 and pathetically I eat my sandwich immediately the train gets moving. I mean I’ve had my breakfast – the sandwich is my lunch – but I simply can’t be on the move without eating. When I was a kid I was the sort of girl who ate her sandwich before the coach had left the coach park for the school trip, which meant I then had only the apple when I was really hungry at lunchtime proper. I suppose greedy would be another way of putting it.
I go to the loo next to the buffet – the one with a funny round door. I think it’s the disabled loo because you could get a herd of elephants in it, as opposed to the usual ones which are so small you have to reverse into them and if you have a bag you get it stuck on the handle…This one has the strange door which moves very slowly indeed. And it has a ridiculously complicated locking system. You get in and you have to press the button that says ‘Close’ first then the ‘Lock’ button inside, and it closes very very slowly while you pretend to do something other than get ready to pull your pants down, and then it lights up a new button saying ‘Locked’…So I’m on the loo, midstream as it were, and someone obviously touches the ‘Open’ button from the outside wanting to get in. Despite the fact that I think I have locked it, and the light says ‘Locked’, the door opens very very slowly indeed, revealing me on the loo. I attempt to stop it opening, but stupid thing is programmed to complete the action very very slowly irrespective of what button you push. So there I sit, slowly revealed on the loo doing a number one. I think the bloke waiting might at least have moved on to another carriage, but when I finally get out he is still standing there. I might know not to trust something as complicated as that sort of fancy closing door. What was wrong with a bolt?
Or a normal door you can slam shut with your foot? See, now I’ve been on a rant. Breathe…It’s not good for me. I need a megaphone.
April 15th
The entire world has gone eBay mad. Three people at work today had to break off conversations or meetings to go and put a bid in, or see if they’d bagged something on eBay. It’s not like they’re buying and selling antiques or Picassos, they’re buying and selling old ice skates, or a single mattress or a duvet cover. Have these people got more time on their hands than is properly decent?
April 16th
Decide to have a go at eBay and sell running machine that has been sitting in spare room for four years. Suddenly I can see the point of it. It’s basically the same as taking things back to M & S but this way you can take things back when you have used them for a while, or try to get money for all the rubbish in your spare room or cupboard that is annoying you or you have gone off. Stuff that is not nice enough to go into your recycling-presents box. It explains exactly why the whole world has gone eBay mad. Copy down model number and take it in to work; will join the rest of them and pretend I am checking work-type emails but am really buying and selling crap on eBay. The website is easy enough to find – and I key in selling running machines. The number of entries is so large it is in the millions, and get on the list and you soon see that – surprise surprise – the entire world is trying to sell its running machine. When I say the entire world I mean exactly that, because at least the first 20 of the entries of people selling running machines are in Minnesota or Florida or downtown Washington, so the first task is to find running machines in this country to compare price with, and then to sort them down and find one with the same model number as yours. By 11am I had found one similar model and decided how much to sell it for, and had got myself on to the selling part of the website.
Work-work was building up all the time, but undeterred, I put my ad on, and then wonder ‘well, this is all very well but what happens if this person from Devon wants to buy it, how do we get it to Devon, and who pays for that, and how do they manage to pay me for it without seeing it first?’ Can’t help thinking that putting an ad in the local paper is infinitely easier. But on I go. Now for the really time-consuming stuff, filling in your postcode and your birthday and you have to make up another stupid password and user name and code name and it all takes you till lunchtime. Then you have to decide when your bidding starts and ends and put it in 24-hour clock mode so that the whole world (literally) has the chance to bid for your wretched running machine. Have to log off because Jocasta on prowl, and when I get back I have forgotten the new user name and have to start all over again. Virtually whole day spent on it.
April 17th
No takers for the running machine. Nothing achieved at all. How much time do these people have to waste that do eBay all the time?
April 18th
The nanny state has gone bonkers. Notice in Holland and Barrett they are doing a promotion on brazil nuts, and have a bowl of them for people to help themselves to by the till. Which is lovely. But next to the bowl is a big sign saying ‘this product contains nuts’. Never! What next, signs on the roads saying ‘contains cars’, signs on hospitals saying ‘contains illness’? No, we should have some more useful ones like on a Saturday girl, ‘contains stupidity’, or on a pair of grannie knickers, ‘contains no sex appeal’. But the best one yet is one at Bristol airport. You get off the plane, go into the terminal and as you walk in you trigger an automatic voice warning and a hazard triangle with a flashing yellow light, saying ‘caution stairs, caution stairs, caution stairs’. Well OK, if the plane had just landed from another planet and aliens whose stairs might frankly be very different were disembarking maybe, but we’ve all just flown in from Newcastle and as far as I can see a flight of stairs is a flight of stairs.
The world has gone doolally.
April 20th
Pottered about for an hour before breakfast which is my daily routine now, so much so that I am wearing slippers and dressing gowns out. And my choice of slippers has become critical: I like them not too sloppy, yet not too stiff, they need to be functional so that I can take the rubbish out, put a wash on the line and bring some coal indoors in them. Slippers are the new Jimmy Choo as far as I’m concerned. I say that as if I ever had a pair of Jimmy Choos, which obviously I have not. But it sounded good.
Fancy new mobile arrives special delivery. With a manual the size of a novel. But can’t find anything that tells you how to answer it. Spend day unable to take any calls, have to email everyone at work to say I have just got fancy new mobile and am not able to answer calls or pick up messages. Sniggers all round.
April 24th
Spent whole day at home trying to work the new mobile, on helpline and on website scrolling through the Getting started section, and the Frequently asked questions, which curiously don’t include easily the most frequently asked which must be: ‘Why was I so stupid as to buy one of these things in the first place?’ The keypad is so small it’s the size of a post-it note, and from this I am supposed to be able to text and, call me old-fashioned, make and receive phone calls…None of which I have yet mastered. I can’t even turn the thing on without putting my reading glasses on, which is not good for my image. Might need to move up a gear, go into bifocals, or resort to one of those silly chains with them on round my neck.
April 25th
Get annoyed on phone to fancy mobile HQ, and say I want my money back. Have to parcel it all up, take to the post office and queue, and then pay £10 to send it back registered special delivery. Feel like having toddler tantrum in post office.
April 26th
Find myself out in town after ten, which is unusual, on a Friday night and am truly appalled. The kind of things that people get up to in full view of everyone on the street after dark are beyond shocking. Standards have quite simply plummeted. And young women seem to be the worst offenders. When our mothers had a night out with the girls, it involved a giggle at a Tupperware party, or a glass of sherry with the Avon lady; now when young women drink with other young women anything goes. The ruder, the drunker, the more debauched the better. And it’s not – dare we say it – exactly ladylike.
Women out on the town drunk as skunks is bad enough, but what’s with the hen night thing?
What happened to girls waiting to be asked? Fluttering their eyelashes? Women at hen nights hunt in packs. For men presumably. They hire horrid stretch limos, lean out of the window, or as I saw the other night, all dressed presumably in their various bridesmaids’ dresses, satin numbers with a lot of bust darts in hideous shades of apricot, burgundy or lemon. Only they’re all a bit tight now because they were bridesmaids five years ago, and they get drunk, and their tiaras tip over at an angle and they have to hoik their bridesmaids’ dresses up to avoid the slops of beer. Yuk, they make a scary sight…presumably to men as well as to everyone else who sees them.
April 27th
My mother has invited me to her creative writing class end of term do. At her house. She introduces me proudly to everyone and insists I sit next to the guest speaker, a poet from Yorkshire. The first batch of neatly ironed corduroy arrives in very good spirits – early of course. Once you’re into your sixties you’re early to everything. The women have dressed up their jackets with brooches. There’s a lot of beige, some pleated skirts, and they’re all wearing comfortable shoes. I pretend I am really too busy to be here at all, but am offering my mother moral support. I fiddle about with the mobile and pretend to check messages etc. – it doesn’t pay to make yourself too available for the over sixties. They all seem to be having such a fantastically good time. Joan puts up the cheese and biscuits for the break and nearly wets herself with some in-joke with Dennis, who is dishing out the wine. Giggling, larking about. My mother looks flushed. If you didn’t know their age you wouldn’t be surprised to see them handing round a joint, and snogging one another. Perhaps they’ll wait till my back is turned.
My mother’s turn comes round to read aloud one of her creative writing pieces. My heart sinks in anticipation of an embarrassing dollop of her. She stands up. Please no, it’s going to be awful. They applaud her supportively. She must be popular.
‘My poem is about ageing,’ she says. ‘Growing old disgracefully.’ Her stature surprises me, it’s as if I am looking at her for the first time. Her hair looks better cut than usual, her trousers (slacks as she would call them) are nicely cut with a comparatively trendy top covering the bulgy bits. She starts to read this wonderful poem about enjoying being older. And how liberating it is not to have to worry about your waistline, about what people think of you, about your sex life (sex – I don’t think I ever heard her use that word before – I think I might have a funny turn). Then she goes on to talk about the mask of old age – that you are still the same young woman or child inside but the world now looks at you with a mixture of pity and indifference. It strikes me that what I’m experiencing in my own midlife crisis is what she has been through and come out of the other end; she has emerged with integrity, grace and a devil-may-care attitude. The group are having a good time. They don’t have to worry about spreadsheets, management speak, their careers, their image or what people think of them. They just don’t really give a damn. If they want six gin and tonics and some clotted cream, then that’s what they’ll have. Given up worrying about cholesterol or getting a hangover at their age, sod it. Live for today. Let’s go and sit in the garden and potter about in the park…Let’s not bother to clean the kitchen floor any more. Life is running out and I can’t be arsed any more. Let’s start collecting margarine pots and plastic bags. Old age is looking more attractive than I thought. I come away from her house feeling chirpy for once.
April 28th
YOUNGEST has been auditioned and given a part in the summer term production of In the Mood. Great excitement, until we are sent the rehearsal schedule which stretches throughout the summer term and into – can you imagine – the autumn term too. Twice a week. Better be bloody good. Except you know it won’t be, it’ll be 60 girls standing on stage all at once, trying to get a look-in with the usual three getting all the solos and the limelight.
April 30th
One of the wonderful things about being of a certain age is that on the whole it means I am excused dating; having been married to the same man for 18 years I have got rather out of practice. Not that when I was in practice I was any good at it in the first place, mind you. I could never read the signs accurately: either someone fancied me and thought he’d made it crystal clear over a period of six months and then years later admitted it and I had never noticed, or I fancied someone and made a complete hash of trying to convey it. And I was completely rubbish at dumping people and getting dumped. I would do anything not to have to actually dump someone, avoid them, pretend I was about to elope with his best friend, anything; and then when people dumped me I didn’t really get it, when they said the euphemistic ‘I think we are getting too serious’, I was stupid enough to take it literally, and suggest perhaps we should see one another, then, less frequently. Dur…These days people probably just do it on the text – ’ u, dumped’ or ‘u fancy one?’ – dating must be a lot easier.
This newfound rush of libido is getting out of hand. I’ve started to fancy all sorts of absurdly unsuitable and frankly rather odd people. Went into Doug’s Shoe Bar to get some shoes heeled, and found myself rather fancying, well, Doug. He’s late fifties, little specs and wears shorts all year round. Nice knees. Think I might need to see a counsellor.
∨ The Secret Diary of a Grumpy Old Woman ∧
May
May 1st
GRUMPY OLD MAN in a strop about us not having any single cream for his beloved late-night Mr Kipling Bakewell tarts. ‘It’s in the fridge.’
‘It’s not, I’ve looked.’
‘It is definitely in the fridge. Look properly.’ What does he want, a grid reference?
May 2nd
Unusually pleasant shopping trip to buy big new fridge with GOM. Have been daydreaming about buying one for weeks – especially during hideously pointless Powerpoint presentation on Nurturing Change last week. Hideous waste of time that was. Have always wanted fridge with ice crusher and cool-water dispenser like they have in Friends, and am planning to buy some stainless-steel shiner from Lakeland to polish on weekly basis. Am salivating at the thought.
I don’t often go shopping with GOM, but I notice he is so much more friendly to people than I am. Feel ashamed. He’s especially friendly to people with young children, turning into a premature grandfather without the grandchildren, leaning into babies’ prams and making mad Donald Duck impression noises and doing that thing with his fingers and cheeks saying ‘pop goes the weasel’. It was fun when he was a young dad, when the girls were little and we went to playgroup, but now he’s just a bit scary frankly, people look taken aback, and it’s very ageing. Makes me feel older – being married to a trainee grandad…Wish there was a subtle way of telling the world that I’m probably still ovulating. I suppose I could buy some leather trousers.
May 3rd
Spring is finally here, bird table activity very brusque, have bought Ladybird book but so far only thing I can recognise is a robin, and that’s because it has a red breast and you get them on Xmas cards. Have started to put my failed breadmaker loaves on it, but to date the birds haven’t eaten any of them and there is a pile of loaves like house bricks, and about as heavy, on the table.
If it falls on someone’s foot there will be major mishap. It looks a bit like a piece of modern art. If I lived in Islington I could sell it to the Tate Modern and call it something daft, make some money. But have to admit defeat and bin the loaves since the birds – whatever make they are – have ignored them. Ungrateful wretches.
The days are suddenly longer and sat outside at lunchtime with Tupperware (lockable obviously): cottage cheese, low-fat coleslaw and raw carrot, since it is Monday and the diet has started big time. Came back to desk and had toffee crisp from machine, followed by usual self-loathing…but I feel so much better having been outdoors, watching the trees with their new leaves waving in the breeze. Am made happy by simple things now I find. Got home and told the girls what lovely leaves I saw at lunchtime, and they gave me that look – the one that means: ‘You sad o
ld cow who cares about the frigging leaves?’
All this longing for fresh air and outdoor activity can only lead to me being one of those mad old bats who swim in the Serpentine or the North Sea every morning even in October. I’m developing the body for it too.
May 4th
I’ve been looking forward to today for months. I am ashamed of myself. Utterly ashamed. That I feel this way about YOUNGEST’s next appointment with the orthodontist.
State-of-the-art orthodontistry will guarantee that YOUNGEST emerges after 18 months with a set of teeth like Julia Roberts to go with her babestastic walk and skinny-winny hips and thighs. But in the meantime, while she is still in this chrysalis stage, she will have to wear a hideous brace. Or that’s what I’m hoping. Let’s be honest, it’s going to make me look that bit better by comparison. Shocking, I know…
What did YOUNGEST do to deserve this? Apart from ruining my pelvic floor, giving me early onset stress incontinence and what she used to call my jelly belly. What she has done is turn me into my own mother. Now that she is approaching adulthood, she is making me come out with attitudes that my mother used to come out with when I was her age.
I’ve started putting my kitchen rubbish in old carrier bags rather than in the bin, like my mother does. I hoover on a Saturday morning when everyone is still in bed, like she did. I’ve not bought any extra strong mints yet. YET. But none of this was going to happen to me. I was going to be the very model of liberal, enlightened motherhood. I went to National Childbirth Trust classes. I drove a 2CV. But suddenly since YOUNGEST became the sneery teenager from hell, I’ve started to use my mother’s vocabulary. ‘I’m just popping out to the shops,’ I say. ‘Cheerio’, ‘Mind how you go’ or ‘Whoops a daisy’. It’s all so middle-aged. So uncool.
The Secret Diary of a Grumpy Old Woman Page 7