Mad Darby Diaries

It was so cold this morning that the car doors had completely iced up and wouldn't open but I am an optimist so I am going to point out that the days are getting longer now and spring will soon be here.  Well I did say I was an optimist.  We are nearly into 2021 and there is some hope for the Brits getting vaccinated en masse while the 27 EU countries still talk about it.  There are 5 groups in France and the last time I looked I was in group 5 so I have some time to go before it is my turn.  A few days ago I was briefly in group 3 but despite my advanced age I am not old enough  apparently, hence my demotion.  I haven't wished I was a year or 2 older since I was 12.  It is not that I particularly want a vaccination but I do want to travel again and feel that a vaccination will be the only solution.  Will the French succeed?  Well the flu vaccine never did arrive here  so I am not optimistic. I used to talk to myself a lot, now I don't b...

So it is Christmas day and for the first time in my life I am completely alone, like millions of others I daresay, as this is an extraordinary year.  At least I have family, even though they cannot be physically here, and we will zoom and skype etc but there are many others who have no-one at all and under those circumstances why don't they put something interesting on the television?  Something funny we can laugh at, not sentimental Christmas films that either make you cry or turn the damn thing off.  Monsieur Toutee has the right idea, he is out there fixing his tractor.  If I had a tractor I would be too, although it is icy cold outside.  I had my second cataract operation this week.  Has anyone tried to put cream in the eye without sticking it on your eyelashes?  And as for the eye bath I have become adept at washing eyes, nose, ears not to mention the amount that runs down the neck.  I assume they give you more of these things than you need t...

 For the last three years the week before Christmas has proved challenging because something always goes wrong.  Last year 2 of my tyres burst on the way to collect my son from the airport in Nantes, this year my car broke down in Thouars and previously my family arrived at three different airports after diversions and I drove for 14 hours picking them all  up, including Paris.  Still a bit of excitement is welcome in this groundhog day world that we are living in.   On Monday I will have my second cataract operation, which hopefully will go as well as the first, and then it is Christmas, or at least in the rest of the world there is an attempt of it.  In my house there is no Christmas.  I shall be spending it on my own and contacting my family via skype.  I am philosophical about this and it bothers me less than I thought it would.   What has happened to the post?  I don't know if it is the UK or France, or both, that is causi...

I am running out of patience with the health insurance company, and in fact I hate all insurance companies.  They take your money year in, year out but when you need them to pay out they will think of every excuse in the book not to do so.  As soon as I resolve this current problem I shall change insurance companies, not that the next one will be any better but because it is the only power I have over them. Now I have that off my chest, I will count to 20 before I go to the States and throw Trump out of the White House myself, along with Mitch McConnell  and Lindsay Graham who are so desperate for power that they will lie and cheat along with their narcissistic leader. Yesterday I went for my check up following the first cataract operation.  My appointment was 10.00am and the waiting room was packed.  I was eventually seen at 12.30pm when about a gallon of drops were put in my eye.   I signed forms I couldn't see and paid an undisclosed amount of money...

 The plasterer came yesterday. and the day before, to fill in the last of the holes and paint the ceiling, which had fallen down after a water leak.  He talked to himself, all the time, non stop.  He was fairly old and had been sent by the insurance company.  He gave me 4 pieces of paper to fill in, one of which was an evaluation of the work, so I put it to one side.  Another was a form declaring that I didn't have any symptoms of covid 19 and that I was taking all precautions to  protect the worker.  As I looked at him standing too close to me and and with his mask hanging down on his chin I had the impression that it was I who needed protecting.  On day two I had to complete the evaluation form.  He had left a terrible mess, including a filthy floor on day  one, he had slept in his van and smelled like it, he knocked the smoke alarm off the wall and broke it, so I had to go out and buy a  new one today and he blocked my kitchen si...

 Now my eyesight is getting better, not for reading though, I can look in the mirror and see just how old I look and how grey my hair is.  I can't complain about the latter, I was well into my 60s before I even had a grey hair and I have retained my brown head of hair all this time.  Until now.  The truth is out, I definitely look my age.  Of course the truth is out only to me, everyone else has obviously known this for some time. Vaccines are coming, to the UK anyway, but not the flu vaccine in France, which seems to be in very short supply.  I have never had the flu vaccine but was going to this year because of the covid 19 but no pharmacy has any so my good intentions are for nothing.  In this solitary life I am leading during the pandemic there is little chance of me catching flu anyway. Brexit is fast approaching.  Will there be a deal?  Will Trump leave the White House?  Will Boris Johnson learn how to make a decision?  Will m...

 I have always had trouble telling blues from greens, orange, reds and yellow much to the scorn of my grandson who knows his colours better than I do.  When my sons were teenagers I would appear dressed ready for work and wait for them to tell me whether I could be seen in public.  If they ignored me I knew that I passed muster but if they collectively shook their heads and muttered 'no I don't think so', I knew I had my colour co-ordination wrong.  When they all left home I resorted to wearing one colour or black and one other colour.  This way I rarely went wrong although I am told that dark blue doesn't go with black.  As I can't tell much difference between black and dark blue it is a moot point. This week I went to have a cataract operation on my right eye.  Two days later I can see that what I thought was dirty brown paintwork on the house opposite is actually blue, and I can see it is blue.  I can't wait to have the other eye done now....