I have always been forgetful. My whole life I’ve had to leave anything I need to take out with me the following morning right at the door the previous evening so that I’ll have to fall over it in order to be able to actually leave. And this has always been at odds with my recall of events from years back, which is excellent. I can remember conversations I had with people years and years ago word for word. I know that my life is busy and it always has been and that perhaps plays a part in my forgetfulness. “You’ve got too much on your mind,” my mum used to say to me. Anyway, for whatever reason I went to Tesco’s this morning, went round and filled the trolley, only to find when the assistant had put everything through the check-out that my debit card was in my coat pocket. And my coat was hanging up at home.
Oh the embarrassment! I felt the need to explain the whole story – I went to the theatre last night and had booked the tickets over the phone and needed to produce the debit card at the box office and had then put it in my coat pocket and forgotten it – to the staff who were lovely about it (while probably thinking “Silly old cow!”) and took take of my shopping while I drove home and got the card and then went back to pay and retrieve my shopping.
And while I have, as I say, always been forgetful, I can’t help wondering if it’s the start of something…..
What a thing!!
The show I went to see last night was the 39 Steps at the Palace in Westcliff. It was exceptionally good. A very physical show which is to be expected when a cast of four play more than a hundred roles, but it had great energy and was extremely entertaining. The only thing that spoilt it was the constant coughing again! I told you all about my previous experience the week before last (see Being Entertained) and last night it happened again. It wasn’t as bad as the coughing during the Mousetrap, but that might have something to do with the Palace Theatre being smaller than the Cliffs. Either way, it was disturbing, especially as the worst offender was sitting in front of me. I thought she was going to bring up a lung at one point, and, as she was sitting at the end of the row, it begs the question “Why didn’t she go out?”. I can’t understand how people are happy to sit and disturb those around them, not to mention the actors. The Grumpy Old Woman in me is begining to think that people need to pass a test before they’re allowed to go to the theatre. Another continual disturbance was the man sitting three seats down from Coughing Woman, who must have checked his Facebook page forty times during the hour and a half the show ran, and the woman to his left who texted throughout the performance. The lighting up of their phones was distracting and I can’t understand why people have the constant need to be checking social media or sending texts while watching a play!
Perhaps, like loss of memory, it’s also an age thing!
I’ve almost finished Clare Baldings’ My Animals and Other Family, which has been a great read, I’ve loved it. And this week I read an article by Jimmy Greaves on alcoholism; probably the best article on addiction I’ve ever read. Jimmy is an alcoholic who’s 34 years sober and his insight and understanding makes for a serious, unsentimental observation of Paul Gascoigne’s present plight.
And the episode of Black Mirror where I’m a ‘background artist’ is on Four tomorrow night at 10pm.
And today I had some lovely news – we welcome into the world Lily Rose Dainton; a beautiful little girl born this morning, my cousin Debbie’s first grandchild. I’m not sure if that makes little Lily my third cousin or my cousin twice removed – I can never remember how that works out. Either way, whatever relationship we have, it’s lovely to have some good news amid all the sad news of sickness and illness that seems to have formed a never-ending stream for the last three or four weeks.
