Mad Darby Diaries

 I am moving house, I need temporary accommodation for two months, I have packed 24 boxes so far, no-one wants to buy my furniture, I am undergoing treatment for cancer, I haven't seen my family for a year and not likely to see them for some time and it is raining.  Well of course it is, it's Wimbledon. So when my sister said she couldn't understand how I was coping with it all, I confidently replied, 'well I know what I am doing'.  I have moved more than 39 times, so have had plenty of practice.  I have had cancer before too so I am an old hand at that as well but I can't count on other things or people tipping over the apple cart or putting more hurdles in my way, just to test my resilience. A Tory MP, commenting on Matt Hancock's resignation as Health Secretary said, 'he is a man of great honour, an honourable man, which is why he has done the honourable thing and resigned.'  He knowingly broke the rules and cheated on his wife, so where exactly i...

 On Saturday I sat in the sunshine in a café in Saumur with friends.  We had a good laugh and then we went our separate ways.  I strolled across the bridge to the island where I had left my car and drove out of Saumur onto the main road.  Then it happened - the sunshine turned to floods in seconds.  I couldn't see the road or the sides of the road.  Cars were forced to stop and put their flashers on but you could barely see them so I decided to keep driving.  It was a nightmare journey, the rain was so heavy and the visibility down to nil, it reminded me of the hurricanes we used to have in the States. I eventually made it home through floods and downed trees.  In the 6 feet between my car and the house I became soaked right through, and the power was off.  It stayed  off until 7am the next morning, 16  hours later.  I have an all electric house so I couldn't even make a cup of tea.  I gazed wistfully into the fridge and f...

 Yesterday I went to the hospital (again) to see the radiotherapist and hopefully get dates of my treatment but that was not to be.  They need my records from when I had radiotherapy 19 years ago in the UK!  They have left me to try to find out how they can do it.   'Just get an email address and we can put in an official request,' she said.  E mail addresses from the NHS?  You must be kidding.  The first task is to get them to answer the phone. Someone must have read my plea to remove the mask wearing outside because they have, at last.  Some people have taken it a step further.  On the tram yesterday I spotted 9 people not wearing a mask at all, numerous people with it down below their chin and most of the others with it under their nose.  I felt like ripping  mine off too, they are hot and uncomfortable, but I am British, I obey the law. My son was supposed to come in July but EasyJet have cancelled all their flights.  ...

 The year before last I dropped a bottle  of whisky while unpacking the shopping.  I rushed to get the mop but before I could do much most of the whisky had run under the fitted cupboards.  Short of dismantling the kitchen there was little I could do, apart from picking up  the glass.  This morning the bottle of softener slid from my hands,  bounced on the tiled floor, spun round and managed to cover just about everything.  My bare feet skated, ungraciously, across the floor,  which was like  a sheet of ice, but warm.   Unable to stay upright I grabbed a cloth from  under the sink and tried to clear a path for me to walk on.  Having failed miserably I managed  to crawl to where I keep the mop.  When I returned most of it had seeped under the cupboards, leaving a slippery film across the floor.  It smelled better than the whisky but oh dear, so  much more difficult to clean up.  I hope my buyer...

The news this week has featured the G7 in Cornwall, although all the shots show nine, and they are nearly outnumbered by the royal family.  There they all are standing within 6 inches of each other, chatting and laughing, and then you see their ridiculous elbow bumps, instead of shaking hands.  Add to that the photo shoot where they sit 2 metres  apart.  What's the point?  That is not following science, that is defying logic.  While on  the subject of logic, why, in France, are we made to walk about outside with masks, which are hot, uncomfortable and in 30 degree heat, downright stupid.  It is time to ditch the masks outside. Numbers of covid cases have dropped dramatically in France, so much so that the numbers are below those in the UK, so why do we still have  to quarantine for 10 days in the UK?  While I am on this rant I am losing patience with people who are just too lazy to go and get vaccinated.  They want the freedom with ...

 How many passwords can one hold in  the head?  How many things can one do at once?  I know women are multi-taskers but does that mean physically we can do more than one thing at once or that our brains are set up to think about multiple things at the same time?  My brain is at saturation point, full of words, numbers, squiggles, cryptic passwords, nonsensical ones, and they tell us not to  write them down!  Even Einstein wrote his theories on a blackboard,  he didn't try to keep them all in his poor head. I have moved so often that I am more or less a minimalist but I have always lived in fairly large properties and this time I am moving into a very small apartment, which means I have to get rid of stuff, lots of it, and this is no easy task.  It's in good nick so I would like to sell some of it but that is no easy task.  I may have to cut my losses and give it all to charity, who are already receiving a fair chunk of it. Someone slappe...

 I don't use the phrase lightly but in the UK the biggest rip off is the cost of having a test for  covid 19.  I would like to  highlight a small but equally irritating rip off in France.  On Tuesday I bought a box of 50 Green Tea with mint teabags for 2,25€.  Yesterday in a café in Angers I was charged 3,90€ for 1 cup of green tea with mint using 1 teabag.  It is not much better in Saumur where the cost is 3,65€.  Nothing can justify this , absolutely nothing. I was told yesterday that the doctors had removed all the cancerous cells along with the tumour during my operation two weeks ago.  Reprieve for me for a while, but not for a friend who sadly died this morning after deteriorating over several months. I  have noticed that since companies have relied on the internet to  conduct their business they are asking the customer to do more and more of their work.  When I was looking for an estate agent one asked me to measure all...