Mad Darby Diaries

I played tennis this morning with Caroline, who is in her late forties so a lot younger than I am.  I told her about my 21 month old grandson who put a tennis ball in the tin then bending down to pick up the second ball the first ball fell out.  He had repeated this exercise for several minutes before my son and I put him out of his misery. We played 2 sets, winning one each.  While I started sweeping the court I noticed Caroline putting a ball in the tin then bending down to get the next one.  The first ball fell out. There doesn't seem to be much difference between toddlers and the middle aged. A friend phoned today to say that he had fallen out of bed and hurt his back.  As he has a king sized bed this would seem difficult to do, so I questioned him further. He said he was sitting on the bed putting on his shorts.  He put both legs in the same hole and didn't notice until he tried to stand up. We don't want to believe we are caricatures of our...

In typical French fashion my garden is not attached to the house.  It is along the road, up a lane and down a path and no matter how many times I shut the gate it is always open when I go there. This garden is about the size of Central Court at Wimbledon and is cultivated by the Triffids.  The Triffids, for those too young to have missed them, scared the hell out of me when I was a child listening to the play on the radio.  And now they are back, haunting me and growing a foot every day, menacing what should be a haven for bees and butterflies. I have tried many ways of taming this wilderness, the most successful being when I asked my neighbour if she would like to grow vegetables on it.  Marie-Jo tackled the garden with a vengeance and soon there were rows of vegetables and fruit bushes.  Then disaster struck.  Her selfish daughter in law ran off with another man so my neighbour went to look after her son and grandchildren.  Within days the Triff...

My family left yesterday and the house is quiet, too quiet.  The tell tale signs of living alone pervade the house.  I put something down and an hour later it is still there.  The kitchen is always clean. I talk to myself - and to the radio, and the television.  In fact I argue with them, which is fairly satisfying as they don't disagree. I don't close the bathroom door and I can go there in the night in the nude. The days have twice as many hours in them. I don't have an excuse not to do all that laundry and wash the floors. I have good memories of their visit and hopefully my daughter in law will send me some photos as once again I forgot to take any.