I'll start with a red beret...

Wednesday

Harry and I are walking to collect Nancy from school. There’s plenty of time, so the plan is to have a pleasant stroll and chat, as I remind her at frequent intervals.

‘We’re supposed to be ambling,’ I keep saying breathlessly, as she marches ahead purposefully.

‘Oh yes,’ she says, slowing briefly, but this is a girl who runs regularly and is a genuine multi-tasker.

‘You need a dog,’ I say. ‘Then you’d be used to stopping while they sniff about and wee on things, and you could throw a stick every now and then. That would slow you down.’

I demonstrate by sniffing the air in an exaggeratedly canine sort of way and she throws a stick for me but it’s further ahead down the path which rather misses the point because I have to run forwards to fetch it, thus speeding up our journey rather than prolonging it. I’ve forgotten that she is not skilled in the art of procrastinating; the concept is alien to her. This is a girl who is up at dawn, re-decorating the spare room before jet-washing the patio and hunting out all stray items that are past their sell-by date while waiting for the banana bread to bake. She has no idea how to procrastinate.

But, to be fair, it has taken me years to perfect the art.

Thursday

I am minding my own business at the gym, resting between sets while doing reps of my overhead press (I know! Get me!) when there’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a very old man standing next to me and shaking his head. He’s wearing a black t-shirt informing me that his Body Is A Temple. To what, I don’t know.

‘Don’t just sit there!’ he barks.

‘I’m resting!’ I protest. ‘I’m between sets!”

‘You could be burning calories,’ he says. ‘Get up and move. I’m 95.’ The latter is the typical sort of non sequitur that old people bung into conversations at random.

Dutifully, I stand up and before I have a chance to bark back any non sequiturs of my own - you can hear rhubarb growing in the dark or my husband’s bigger than you – he nods with approval and stomps off to no doubt harangue some other unsuspecting victim. For the rest of my session, I keep an eye out for him, while hiding behind various pieces of equipment and making sure I stay vertical at all times, and feeling really cross with myself for doing so at the same time. 95 indeed, I mutter to myself, peering out from behind the lat pulldown machine, I’ll give him 95. I have no idea what I mean by this. It is, I have to admit, a non sequitur.

I do really enjoy my visits, but despite my dedicated attendance at the gym three times a week (pauses for round of applause), there is a trainer there who both recognises me yet apparently mistakes me for someone else; she sees me every week and but regularly says, haven’t seen you for a while; everything ok? Despite my reminder that she saw me only last week, she nods sadly, clearly thinking, poor old dear.

That’s the trouble with having grey hair. We really do all look alike.

Sunday

Out for lunch with Lucy in Birmingham where we have an exquisite lunch at Cuubo. The waiter tells us all about the delicious wine we’ve ordered in incomprehensible but delightfully accented English. We nod happily and toast each other. Our elderly neighbour whispers conspiratorially that he is a regular customer because he enjoys the theatrical service as well as the food. We learn from John, as he introduces himself, that he recently became a widower and so decided to take on various challenges to distract himself. At 85 he learned African drumming (quickly discontinued when he discovered he had no sense of rhythm), got his neck tattooed, had his nipples and nose pierced (not as painful as he’d feared), and launched a very short-lived career as a left-wing stand-up comedian; the routine hadn’t gone down well in front of his audience of Tory naturists. I have to ask him to repeat the last bit.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It was a bit disconcerting because you’re supposed to imagine your audience naked to help you with your public speaking, but when they already are…’ he shrugs as our waiter brings him his bill.

We watch as John puts on his dashing red beret, waves and leaves the restaurant.

When I’m 85, I’m going to start with the red beret…

Friday

Everyone is coming to stay for the weekend; not everyone, obviously, but a goodly number. Tom, Helen, Lucy, Nancy and Elliott, plus Holly the Dalmation. So I am planning a lavish Indian feast, with selected recipes from the Dishoom book. I have invested in special spices and black urid daal lentils for the famous House Black Daal. Oh yes, I think, rubbing my hands, this will be the Feast of all Feasts!

I start preparing the lentils for the House Black Daal at ten o’clock, as they take about two and a half hours to cook. They do not take two and a half hours. By five o’clock, I am suffering from repetitive strain injury from all the stirring and the lentils are still stubbornly rock hard. I check, double-check and triple-check the recipe. ChatGPT tells me that I should have soaked the lentils first.

‘But it didn’t say that in the recipe!’ I tap out plaintively to my AI best friend.

‘They absolutely expect those lentils to be soaked – even if they don’t spell it out clearly,’ Chat says, no doubt accurately but unhelpfully.

Eventually, after a lot of soothing words from Mr Young and the application of some Malbec (me) and double cream (daal), they begin to soften and actually it does taste really, really good by the time Saturday night arrives. So good in fact that it all gets eaten.

So, if you ever think of making the Dishoom House Black Daal, please either soak the lentils first or invest in a wrist support and plenty of Malbec.

In an emergency, I’ll even lend you Mr Young until the crisis is over.

Sunday

As the sun is shining, me and Mr Young take both dogs for a walk with Nancy and Elliott while Lucy is out for the day. Everything goes swimmingly for the first three paces until Holly decides that she needs to relieve herself urgently. Mr Young cleans this up and we walk on for another ten paces until Holly once again realises that perhaps she hadn’t quite finished the job and stops to perform this act just as we are crossing the road. Mr Young hurries to clean up this second pile while traffic builds up and I shepherd Ruby, Elliott and Nancy across to the opposite pavement. We walk on for another twenty paces until Holly pauses, we wait for a split second, then she executes what we all agree is her pièce de résistance. After tackling this, Mr Young wisely decides to go back to the house for some more poo bags and our brave little gang tentatively proceeds on our walk. Ruby has a brief toilet break on a grass verge, but she is clearly embarrassed by its puny size after the magnificence of Holly’s evacuations and we tactfully clear it up as quickly as possible.

Mr Young joins us on the field some time later and both dogs run back towards him. Unfortunately Holly continues to run…past him and into the middle distance. Mr Young has to chase after her, but he is no match for a sprightly dalmation seeking her absent owner and he only manages to catch up with her after she’s stopped by a passer-by further down the road.

 Lucy messages us after we get home. How’s Holly? I tell her the truth. She’s fine. 

 I don’t tell her that Nancy is still laughing because she thinks our entire neighbourhood will now be calling us the Poo Family.

We may have to move.