Mad Darby Diaries

Yesterday I joined the walking group at 8.30am for our weekly walk.  We go about 9km and it takes us about an hour and a half to two hours.  (They are not fast) After all the kissing on both cheeks for everyone (about 20 of us) I mentally added another half hour to my morning.  Suddenly everyone started jumping in cars and at the urging of someone I jumped in too.  'Where are we going?' I asked.  'Thouars. we are going to walk around Thouars.'  And so we did.  We walked and walked and walked.  We scrambled down banks and climbed up steps, inspected railway buildings, long time abandoned, strolled along the river and  admired the views.  I looked at my watch.  12.30pm.  Where had the morning  gone?  At the top of yet another slope the leader of our group tried the door of an old church but it was firmly locked.  Ah, I thought, we are nearly back to the cars so with luck I should be home by 1.00pm, two and a half ...

I cycled to the village shop this morning.  Standing in front of me in the queue to pay were two children, a boy and a girl about 8 or 9 years old.  They were each holding a can of orange drink.  The lady in front of them suddenly spotted the cans and began lecturing them on how bad all canned drinks are for one's health.  The children stood quietly listening to this tirade until the boy meekly said, 'I didn't know' but still standing his ground clutching the can.  The lady turned to the rest of us in  the shop and said someone should tell their mothers.  I kept my counsel while one or two others nodded in agreement.  The children didn't seem to be intimated at all, they remained quiet and polite.  The lady bent down and kissed both children on each cheek and warned them to mind her words.  She paid and left.  The boy and girl paid for their drinks and departed but not before grabbing some chocolate from the shelf and paying for th...

On Saturday I participated in a tournament at our club.  I had to play 4 matches.  The player closest to my age was 20 years younger  and there were 16 of us.  We began at  8.30am and by the time I played the fourth match my toes hurt from all the running and pressure on my trainers.  The rest of me was in good shape and I survived the day coming in 7th place, but it was a long day.   I arrived  home at 8.00pm tired after a 12 hour day and having to speak French all day had increased my feeling of having had a good work out.  At home I soaked in a bath and felt fine, congratulating myself on still being able to compete with the best of the them. Sunday morning I woke up feeling like a truck had run over me,  I went downstairs walking like the geriatric that I am and wondered if I could make it back up to my bed.  After consideration I decided that I could drink my tea quite comfortably downstairs.  I checked my toes, 2 ...

I played a home tennis match today against a team from Niort so it was down to us to give them breakfast and lunch.  During lunch all 7 players talked at the same time so it was almost impossible to follow the conversation.  It wasn't that 2 people were talking to each and another three doing the same thing.  They were all participating in the same subject but simultaneously.  How do they manage to listen to each other?  Perhaps they don't.  To make it worse they were all, without exception, talking with their mouths full of food.  A cardinal sin in my book and very unpleasant to witness.  I was just about to help myself to some pate when the woman sitting opposite stuck her knife in her mouth, then plunged it into the pate.  Another cardinal sin - putting one's knife in your mouth, and even worse then using it to cut food that others are sharing.  I may be fussy but it just puts me off my food.  I gave up and went to put the coffe...

I am losing my past.  The friends and family who shared that past and my memories are disappearing until I find myself only being in contact with people I have met in the last few years.  My past is like the writing on a chalk board being erased line by line until it is gone.  I lost my last contact with my childhood yesterday when I visited a friend I have had since we were five years old.  Somehow we have managed to keep in touch even though our lives took completely different paths but yesterday when I visited she had disappeared into the realms of dementia, lost in a world that her family and friends do not belong to. My disappearing past is my own fault.  I have moved so many times, made good, close friends and then lost touch with them when I have moved on.  Never one to look backwards, I now have no choice but to look forwards.  To what I wonder?  Well first of all hopefully to the demise of Trump, to a Brexit deal so that I can keep my ...

I drove to the ferry a couple of weeks ago and stopped in a service station, not one with petrol and shop, just toilets and picnic tables.  As I stood munching on my ryvita and cheese, followed by an apple, I watched the French unload their lunch.  Out came tablecloths, real cutlery, china plates and serviettes, bowls of fresh salad, cheese, ham and the proverbial bread and wine.  Yes they know how to travel in style.  I read a book once about the British and French armies in North Africa.  The British sat down any old place with a tin filled with corned beef while the French army set up tables, cutlery and all the trimmings and even candelabra.  Well at least they seem to have ditched the candelabra. My son, my sister and I went to Spain for a few days.  It was challenging.  My sister is terrified of everything that involves travel and technology, even putting a train ticket in the barrier to get in and out of a station defeated her.  She...

I give up trying to understand what is going on in the heads of the politicians in the UK - on all sides of the spectrum.  They all voted to trigger Article 50 so I assume they all agreed to respect the result of the referendum.  I could understand why no-one wanted the Irish backstop as negotiated by Theresa May but since then the whole situation has changed.  We have people who want no-deal, those who don't, and others who want a withdrawal agreement but refuse to sign it.  Corbyn has been pushing for a General Election for months and now says he won't agree to one.  And does anyone in Parliament actually care what the people think?  I know that to the rest of the world, the UK has slid into a democratic abyss from which I am not sure it can recover.  It is difficult to even support or agree with one side or the other when they keep changing their minds every five minutes.  I say sack the lot of them, put a toddler in charge and he or she can p...