SOME DAYS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

The first official event of the day was a blood test at the hospital nearby, I congratulated myself on remembering it - a mere post it on my computer & a note on the kettle! I had eaten so was banished until today. I had put the washing machine on and when I looked outside tere was a sizeable pond in the yard I poked at the drain with an old coat hanger, it was not impressed. My remedies for small tragedies of this sort are have a bath or make soup. In the past I would get roaring drunk but the hangovers now make this a dicey enterprise. My tap has needed a new washer for some time and i had turned it off so vigorously that it was now impossible to get any hot water. Then a chubby mouse strolled past me on its way to the cupboard under the stairs. I looked out of the window at the trellis with jasmine and clematis that had collapsed and was sinking into the pond. This had greeted me when i came back from looking at the wonderful Alice Neel's work on Sunday. Ok I thought I will work I had soem printing out to do so I got the documents organised turned on the printer and ..nothing except a green light but no action in the printing department. I investigated plugs and gave up. I was tempted to weep, instead I phoned a friend and offered to take her out for coffee.

I got the dog in the car and hit Aldi on the way.A woman with two sticks was staggering down the steep slope that is part of their 'challenge to the punter scheme' - any trolley is practically guaranteed to do a runner about here unless held at the correct angle.'Want a hand? I have a dodgy leg and that slope is difficult.' I thought I was being kind - 'I've got a BROKEN leg!' She retorted with an air of triumph and I marvelled at the competitive spirit of the human race.I withdrew.
I resisted any temptation to visit Waitrose, I lose all self control in there and find myself spending vast quantities on olives and cheeses and summer puddings and in the mood of today it could be disastrous and I would have to be surgically removed from their pattiserie counter.
I reached my friend's house and kept the whingeing to a minimum initially but after meeting some more friends in the cafe and sussing out plumbers it all came out, a great splurge of piteous bleating, focussed on the plight of the single(ish) householder. My friend made the very sensible siggestion that I flog my house and buy a small flat, in fact there was a block of flats with a view of the Itchen and the park just up the road. I could get prizes for procrastination but now I was on the spot and inspired - this is fate I thought.

You have to be sixty to live here and in fact I had been here once before to a session of the University of the third age in somebody's flat. The gardens are lovely, there is parking for everybody and the facilities are truly excellent. The flats are tiny but adequate and the residents are very friendly and there's the rub. I can spend several days without speaking to anybody though I telephone my girl once a day or more and I have friends. But I am essentially an outsider looking in, critically for the most part. A pisstaker who hates having the piss taken out of myself. A resident told us that the best thing about the place was the people. And my heart sank, a vision of people with the blitz spirit all helping each other flashed into my mind and was ejected at the speed of light.
'Do you allow dogs?' I asked. 'You could ask the management.' She said and we left it at that.
When I come home later in the day the water has drained away and the smell of mice restored,three of the seven kids next door greet me noisily: 'Hello Mo where's the other mummy?' which is what they call my girl. And the mummy is out with her latest baby and she looks pregnant again, I chuck their balls back after having the truncated rap that Nadia specialises in with every second sentence :'Why?' I go the hundred yards to get a beer and treat myself to the the Graun,( a sin after midday) am greeted six times on the way there and back and meet Sister Hannah who tells me the latest on her battles with the council, the neighbours and the world, we finish up roaring with laughter at the casual injustice of the world, as usual.
I don't think I will move just yet.