Number One Daughter called this morning.
She suggested that I listen to a podcast whose lady speaker had some interesting and inspirational ideas.
I listened to it in the conservatory this afternoon, after I had been for my walk, and whilst I was balancing on a stool trying to tie back some of the Coming To Get You geranium that is now occupying so much of the end wall that we can no longer see out of the kitchen window and it is impossible to get in and out of the door without becoming entangled in its clutches.
It is considerably taller than I am, and probably weighs nearly as much by now. It is huge. It resisted being tied back, and there was a fight.
When I die you could probably avoid funeral expenses for me if you just leave me in the conservatory. The increasingly massive houseplants will probably get their roots into me and finish me off in less than a week. The Swiss Cheese Plant has got half a dozen fruits on it, I wonder if Booths would be interested in a supplier.
The podcast was, as she had promised, jolly good, although it started off from the slightly depressing premise that all of your old-age ailments are entirely your own fault for being too fat and lazy. Much of ageing could be avoided, the lady promised, if only you took more exercise and stopped eating nice things. Then your joints would stop hurting and you would feel better.
Given that I am currently suffering miseries with a stiff shoulder, which I suspect is related to repetitive manipulation of steering wheels and gear sticks, I was not encouraged to discover that I could have avoided it if only I had done proper exercise in my thirties.
I had thought that walking over the fells every day counted as exercise, but the lady thought not, and talked inspirationally about seventy year old tri-athletes and suggested that I might try running as fast as I could for four minutes three times a week.
I felt my joints trying to shrivel up and slope off just at the idea.
When it got to the end I decided that I had been Inspired anyway, and although running for four minutes is probably not going to happen any time soon, I might try standing on one leg whilst I cleaned my teeth, which was one of her other suggestions for fending off old age.
She didn’t mention cold showers and standing on one leg with your eyes shut, which are my current fitness regime. I wonder if that means it might be all right to stop doing them.
Also Number Two Daughter called yesterday afternoon.
She wanted to show me some pictures of some lovely new towels they have bought. They are bright blue with lots of flowers on them and I liked them very much.
“Whilst I am on, Mother,” she said, with a hint of impatience in her voice, “you might be able to tell me something. My friend Kayleigh has got a little boy and they after they read Jack and the Beanstalk the other night he thought he would like some magic beans. When Kayleigh wondered where they might get some, he said, with all confidence, The Lady will have some. Get them from The Lady. When she asked What Lady? he said: The one with the dog that tried to steal all our sandwiches when we went for a walk that time.”
No prizes for guessing that one, readers.
“Why,” asked Number Two Daughter, “might my friend’s little boy think you are the sort of person who might have a pocket full of magic beans, Mother? It isn’t even as if you said anything to him. He must have just looked at you.”
I pretended I had no idea, but of course I had, guiltily. I always wear the sawn-off orange corduroy dungarees when I go for a walk. They are very short, in order that the mud finishes up on my easily-washable legs and not crusted on to a pair of trousers. That morning I was probably also wearing the bright pink T-shirt, along with large muddy black boots, and possibly, if the sun was shining, a wide, floppy hat.
I can see why a small child might have thought I looked peculiar.
“I wish you would remember, Mother,” continued Number Two Daughter, who knows me well, “that when you go out of the house people can see what you look like. Also,” she finished, “some of them know me.”
I apologised humbly, and wondered whether the best outcome would be for me to have a good look at some catalogues and discover what the middle classes wear to go for walks.
I think it might be easier just to grow some magic beans.
