Chairwoman of the bored

It was really Greavsie who started me thinking today. There he was, talking about trips to town, theatres, nice meals etc., and I started to think about days and evenings out before I was consigned to the recliner of history (that's something like the dustbin, but made of leather and less smelly).

I remembered a particularly fine sunny Saturday when Katy and I met my cousin Nina and her daughter Milly for drinks in the American bar of the Savoy before stumbling across the Strand for lunch at Salieri's and then on to an Abba tribute show somewhere on the Aldwych. That was a pleasant and fairly uneventful day. Not a lot happened. My cousin lost a sandal in the restaurant and didn't notice until she got home to the garden of England that night, but then nor did the rest of us. Oh, and Katy and I almost brought the show to a standstill by refusing to sing along with the fake Abba. We were sitting in the front row, barely visible under the dry ice, and the fake Abba kept thrusting microphones in our faces, we'd already been forced to our feet, and 'encouraged' to join in. I am a considerate person, so I don't sing in public, and Katy isn't a show off, so we politely declined. We thought that was OK as Nina and Milly were singing enthusiatically enough for all of us, but no, back they came, microphone primed, fake smile on fake face. I'm a coward, so I sat down. But not Katy, like Boudicca facing the Romans she stood her ground, proud, upright, unsmiling, nose to calf with fake Abba, spear figuratively in hand, she faced them down. She didn't sing. They couldn't make her.

Well, I've still got it. whatever it is, to paraphrase the Prince of Wales. The ability to enrage and outrage from cyberspace, to delight myself in the knowledge that out there, there's a young twat foaming at the mouth and gnashing his teeth,

Ah the joy of posting and commenting, particularly commenting. That little frisson of pleasure as you score a particularly fine point, tweak a particularly tender nerve. The anticipation as you return to the blog waiting for the riposte only to find your opponent wanting again.

Oh blog where is your sting

Well, I'm sitting on it. It's exactly like Joey's & Chandler's in 'Friends', but a tasteful cream colour. I believe the manufacturer calls it 'ivory', but we all know what that means.

And I've been sitting on/in it for two years! That's right, two years! And it's all thanks to a plaguey little mosquito somewhere on the Grand Canal in Venice. I am mistress of all I survey, two sofas, television, books, large German Shepherd Dog, the usual suburban minutiae. Also of all I don't actually survey but am aware is there, ie., the rest of the house.

It's noon, and I've completed one third of my daily regime. I've watched the news, completed Su doku, watched my favourite legal dramas on ITV 3, and now await the arrival of lunch folowed by double Law & Order, to be interrupted today by the unexpected visit of Shezbo & Tombo.

Ah, Shezbo & Tombo, a double threat. Shezbo is my teenhood friend and Tombo's her husband, the singer in my late husband's band back in '60s Liverpool. He's a rampant manic depressive and dypsomaniac, she's a former Jewish Princess and current New Ager. Said late husband and I decided to introduce him to her as a little 'Thank you', for introducing us.

Now I await, with what can only be described as trepidation, their surprise mid-week visit.