Mad Darby Diaries

 Have you ever felt, or looked like a goldfish?  We all know  someone  who talks incessantly, totally unaware that perhaps the other person might like to say something, and never listens anyway.  I know  someone just like this.  This morning I had coffee with her.  Even when I managed to start a sentence, she limited to me to 3 words before she talked right over me.  I lasted an hour, not having managed to complete one sentence.  I said I had to go as I had lots to do when she stopped me in my tracks.  'I can't stand that woman, you know the fat one.  She talks and talks and never lets me get a word in edgeways.'  If she had been 'large' herself I would have shown her a mirror.  Two  weeks ago I turned the heating off, opened all the windows and  went for walks in the glorious, warm sunshine.  Today I kept the windows closed, put 4 layers on and huddled up in my winter coat as the temperatures plummeted...

 I played golf this week, the second time in a year so you can imagine the results.  I used to play a lot before I switched to tennis, and I wasn't too bad at it although I was never going to win anything.  The advantages of tennis is that it takes 3 hours at the most, it is invigorating because of all the running and we can play in all weathers - indoor courts.  Golf, I find, is exhausting, even though it is just walking around with a trolley, stopping occasionally to hit a ball.  It takes hours to get round the course and if you are like me you only  play in good weather.  Golfers tell me that you can play golf into your nineties.  Well, I read about a Ukranian who is 93 and still plays tennis.  He said the war was not going to stop him. All my neighbours have cats and one has dogs.   'Don't you have a cat?' they ask.  Well no I don't.  It is not because I dislike them, I have had dogs before, but they are a tie and I do...

Saumur was so relaxed today with the population finally able to walk around, go into shops, mingle freely, with no masks.   I don't care what some people say it is not natural in the western world to cover our faces.  I want to see the expressions and most of all I want to be able to understand what they are saying.  Finally we oldies can go back to lip reading. I asked for an estimate to re-cover 2 upright chairs and having waited 3 weeks to receive it I went to the shop and asked for it.  The next day they emailed it to me - 2000€!  As I could buy 2 new chairs for that, I binned it.  I was telling this to a French friend who said, 'Ah yes they do that, estimate ridiculous amounts, when they don't want to do the work.' We all ridicule the 'red book', an enormous tome, which details the legal working practices in France but ridicule no more.  P & O only sacked British workers as sacking a worker in France is fraught with difficulties and can b...

 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks' the saying goes but that is not strictly true.  Look at how the senior population have embraced the internet.  Of course I can't include my sisters who absolutely refuse to even use WhatsApp or for that matter get a mobile phone, let alone a computer.  There are some things that I would willingly embrace but I recognised that, even in my youth, I would never learn how to have a decent serve.  This morning, while playing doubles, I was being persuaded to stand at the net.  I know, having years of experience, that I do not perform well at the net, in fact I am  totally intimidated by a ball whizzing straight at me from 3 feet away, so instead of smashing it right back, I duck.  Thankfully my usual doubles partner knows this and we are a winning team with me running backwards and forwards, side to side at the back of the court while she intimidates the opposition on the other side of the net. This morning I wa...

 When Putin invaded the Crimea he received a slap on the wrist, which did nothing to deter his power crazy path.  For all the talk, the response of the  world is verbal but their actions are weak and ineffective.  The Putins of the world are bullies and with his allies, Trump for one, he will continue to be a bully because no-one stands up to them.  That is why Trump, despite his outrageous cheating, lying and bullying, remains above the fray, untouched by any punishment. Boris Johnson can lie  and cheat but with no consequences for his actions he remains in power.   It is not easy to stand up to a bully as an individual.  I should know.  A few years ago I was in that position and what did I do?  I moved to another town to avoid conflict and so that I could live in ignorance of the nightmare I had left behind.  It should, however,  be easier for a nation, a group of nations, to stand up and act.  The problem is that a...

 Have you noticed that some people only have mouths and no ears?  Or so it seems.  Interviewers do it.  They ask a question then talk right over the  person trying to answer it.  Politicians do it but that is more a method of not  answering a question.  Some people just talk for the sake of talking, rarely listen to anyone else, never achieve anything and destroy all  chance  of conversation.  I had two  such encounters this week.  One, a French lady who as soon as another person opens their mouth to speak, jumps in and gabbles away nineteen to the dozen until everyone glazes over and all chance of any conversation or discussion is dead.  One brave soul said 'I am speaking, please wait until I have finished.'  She did but you could see the agony on her face at having to wait thirty seconds.  During that time her ears didn't function at all because she jumped in again with something totally irrelevant. The se...

 For some reason I seem to have less time now I live in a town.  There are French friends here of course and it is easy to pass an afternoon just talking.  The other day 3 of us had been chatting in my kitchen for a couple of hours when another friend popped in to tell us it was his birthday so a spontaneous chorus of happy birthday broke out, not me of course, I can't sing a note, and demands to break open the bubbly.  It is essential to keep a bottle in the fridge for just such occasions so I duly produced one.  Life in France is so hard. The government website for changing my address on my identity card is finally working.  Yippee. Here are a couple of things to think about - Careful grooming may take 20 years off a person's age but you can't fool a flight of stairs.  Every man is a potential genius until he does something. I was stopped by a police car the other day at 10.30 in the morning.  They said I should have had my lights on, then they ...