Match

16:10

Right. I’ve removed myself from Otherhalf.com. Clearly casting my pearls before swine. OK, let’s give Meredith’s Match.com a go. Urgh. Start your love story. This doesn’t bode well. What kind of man is going to sign up to something with that tagline? Still. Small action steps. I am a woman seeking a man aged… OK, let’s be realistic about this. 43 to 53. That’s a good broad sweep, and I’m not dismissing the 50-plus-year-olds out of hand. I was born on … 03/03/1968.

Oh my God. We’ve now clicked through to a nine-page profile to be completed. I’m already losing the will.  No. Keep going.

You are: ready for a new relationship.

Your marital status: divorced.

You live: with kids. Kid! I live with kid, not kids. No option for that though.

Your personality. Sociable, adventurous, enthusiastic…  I’m busy clicking away, yes, yes, yes to everything, and it only lets me choose one! How ridiculous! Well, I’ll go for adventurous. Better than sensitive or stubborn.

Your eyes: grey

Your height: 5’7”

Your hair colour: hmmm. No ‘mouse’ option. What can I get away with? Dark blonde? Once I’ve done my home highlights, I might even be light blonde!

I’m ploughing on, but really, this is designed to show people like me up. Clearly I’m a well educated woman, as far as it goes. But I have to tick high school or the ignominious school of life. Or lie. Yes, lie: graduate degree.

For goodness’ sake. What languages do I speak? English! Which isn’t even an option. Plus ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in about 20 languages. That’s probably what it means.  I start clicking away, but they only allow two choices. Honestly. It’s so limiting. So prescriptive. You are allowed a masters, but only one personality trait and two languages. OK, tick French and … who wrote this thing? Indian? Chinese? Well, tick Chinese.

Your occupation: I’d rather not say. Good option. Sounds as if I’m something intriguing and mysterious like a spy. Or a bunny girl.

Your income: the options start on less than £25,000 and go up to £100,001 to £150,000. Blimey. Well I’ll click £35,001 to £50,000. Don’t want to seem like a hopeless case or a golddigger.

Your style: click bohemian, sophisticated, cool… Damn! Only one option again. I’ll stick with sophisticated, otherwise I’ll end up with a load of hippies.

Sports you enjoy: Argh! Just when I need the cover of one option only, I’m allowed multiple choices, thus showing up my deficiency in the sporting arena. Oh well, let’s tick some adventurous-sounding things. Things that require money and sunshine. As Auntie Pam used to say, don’t go after money, just mix where money is. Rock climbing, motor racing, surfing, windsurfing, sailing, horseback riding, swimming. Oh and I’ll tick cricket too. I can see myself doing cricket teas on the lawn. 

16:55

Just had to stop for a coffee. This is exhausting. Right: your interests. Hallelujah! We’re allowed multiple interests! Oh yes. I’m motoring. Dining out, travel/sightseeing, cooking, the outdoors, movies/videos (how old is this site?),theatre, museums/exhibits, music, singing/playing instrument, camping… hmmm, better tick cars if I’m going to pull a man with a Lamborghini. On the other hand, maybe I’ll pull a grubby old mechanic. No. Untick cars. Drawing, photography, the arts. The arts. Hmmm. It’s stopped ticking. Maybe I have too many interests. I’ve been outed! Not a porridge-brained stayathome but a woman bursting with interests! OK, untick drawing, camping, although I quite like a man who can put up a tent. Tick wine tasting.

Favourite local hot spots or travel destinations. Ooh! I can fill in my own! Here goes. 

17:15

Had to get the atlas out. Have done exhaustive list of places I’d like to be taken on holiday by my £100,001 to £150,000 earner. Now, favourite book. I’ve gone blank. Favourite book. Favourite book... Bridget Jones’s Diary? Hmmm. Should go for something more highbrow. I know, Don’t Tell Alfred. One of Nancy Mitford’s more obscure works.

Oh God. I’m really losing the will. The kind of films you prefer. Musicals! Except no men like musicals. Except men born pre-war and queens. Not even Gitface liked musicals. Untick. Please don’t tell me I have to tick sci-fi and westerns, though? I settle for drama, comedy, and war. That’ll clinch it.

Three things you can’t live without: Cocktails. My eyes. My ears. Very existentialist. That’ll pull the intellectuals and sophisticates.

Oh God! Now I have to write an essay about myself. This is excruciating. Save and continue. I’ll come back to it.

Taking stock

Out with the old financial year, in with the new! Time to take stock. I can’t believe it. A whole month has gone by since my unfortunate change of circumstances and now the Easter hols are upon us, so I can’t spend all day job-hunting and inventing things. 

Blog posts written: 31 (yay!)

Blog followers: 4 (Meredith, Arthur, Phoebe, Lily)

Ads on blog: 3

Revenue from ads on blog: £0

Items sent for review: 0

Dogs sat: 1

Revenue from dogs sat: £0

Job ads responded to: 3

Job offers: 0

Ads offering services placed in local newspapers: 1

Services hired through local newspaper ad: 3

Revenue from rendering service: -£20

Expenses from rendering service: £300

Home-cooked dishes cooked for profit: 0

Money saved in supermarket swap: £6

TOTAL REVENUE: -£314

After all that effort! So much for Goal No 2. Have been neglecting Goal No 1. What was it again? Ah yes. I choose to be in a mutually loving relationship by 17^th September. Right. Bite the bullet. 

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Hmmm. Madagascar sounds nice. Just a quick click...

How green is my valley

The sun is streaming down with godlike rays, glinting on the lake, bringing out the velvetiest, cricket-pitchiest green slopes of Mistle Hill. Dusty, who has been dawdling with her nose to the ground, has just spotted me up ahead. Oh Lordy! She’s thundering down the hill towards me... I prepare to dive to left or right, but she misses me by inches and charges straight past me, down the steep slope. There’s no way I’d be thundering down the hill like that at 88. I’m already not doing it at 50.

Who’s that up ahead? In a cap, with a stick. Dusty bounds off to find out. She’s doing little leaps of joy around this person, who could be the vicar, or, if I squint a little more, could be Muriel, or…

‘Morning, Eliza. There’s a parcel for you in the box!’

Ah, it’s Prue. Honestly, I need prescription binoculars. A parcel, though! How exciting! I know – it must be products for review! A bumper pack of Touche Eclat! A lifetime supply of MAC lipsticks! Maybe a present from EMI? All my old albums digitally remastered on CD! Doggie chews?

I open the metal lid to find what looks disappointingly like a book from Amazon. I blog on such a diversity of subjects, it could be about anything. Writing the Perfect CV, perhaps? Finding the Perfect Man? I tear it open. Oh. Microsoft Office 2007 for Seniors for Dummies. It appears to be a gift from Meredith. Well it’s very kind of her. I shall look at it in due course. 

The phone is ringing as I open the front door. Ah, Candlebury Motors. It turns out I'm the luckiest woman in Britain! I am in the tiny minority of broken cam belt-befallees whose engine has survived unscathed. Only another £300 down, then. I am quite dizzy with ecstasy.

Anecdote atrophy

Sal calls to thank me for supper. I tell her about my atrophied cam belt putting paid to my first bit of gainful employment.

‘Are you allowed to do that?’ she asks.

‘What, ferry old ladies to Candlebury and back? I’ve got a clean licence. Well, apart from three points for going through Nether Mistle at 37 miles an hour.’

‘Oh I’m sorry. Giles is always getting caught there. They hide behind the telephone box and jump out at you with their guns. No, but I mean, does that make you an unlicensed taxi or something? Is that legal?’

‘Oh God. I didn’t even think of that. I thought as long as they were wearing their seatbelts and couldn’t sue me for treading on an atrophied banana skin I’d be all right. Anyway, it’s irrelevant now since I don’t have a car.’

‘Well, assuming you get the car back, I’d check with your insurance. You don’t want it invalidated, the way people drive on these country roads. I’m always taking to the hedge.’

I tell her about the old ladies and their memories. ‘The amazing thing is, they seem to take it for granted that they can’t find the right word or remember what they were going to say. Lavinia was funny. Muriel said to her... oh God!’ It’s gone. My anecdote. Wrested from my grasp! A horrible example of life imitating life.

‘I have to write down funny things now,’ says Sal, ‘or they’re lost for ever.’

‘I didn’t write it down because it was so simple. It was something like, “the name has flown out of my head,” and the other one said, “Well, when it flies back in, let me know.” Or, “It’s in the back of my mind,” and, “well, when it comes to the front, let me know.” It was quite a common expression, but what struck me was the way neither of them missed a beat. But here am I doing exactly the same. I’ve completely lost the plot.’

‘Well, when you find it, let me know.’

‘That was it! That was it!’

‘There you see. I don’t worry about forgetting things, because it always comes back if it’s important.’

The trouble is it doesn’t always come back if it’s important. I don’t just forget trivia. I forget really important things like whether someone’s mother or father has died. I went to stay with a friend once, knowing her mother had died. On the second day, we drove past a pretty cottage and she said, ‘That’s my mother’s house,’ and I said, ‘Oh, who lives there now?’ and she said, ‘My mother.’

Cam belt catastrophe

Well. I am now down 20 quid instead of up 30. I had to call Candlebury Cabs to fetch the ladies while I waited for the AA. I must say, though, good old Muriel, pushing my car to the side of the road while I steered. So, I am now on the bus on the way home, penniless and carless. Darren from the AA ran a diagnostic on his Toughbook and asked if I’d had the cam belt changed at the last service and I said I had no idea and he said he had a pretty strong hunch it’d gone, and in 90% of cases that means it’s buggered the engine. Except he didn’t say buggered. He said something about pistons and valves. So it’ll either be 300 quid to fit a new cam belt or the engine’s a write-off. Marvellous. Or, to paraphrase, buggering hell!  

My first job!

No, this isn’t an April Fool! No sooner had the Mistlebourne Mag been popped through the letterboxes of the ancient denizens of the village than they were all on the phone to me! Could I take them into Candlebury Market and back on Friday mornings? And perhaps give them a hand getting their shopping to the car? I warned them if it’s a wait and return job, I’d have to charge parking on top, but they were undeterred. Ching ching! Three times £10 round trip equals £30. We’ll probably be there all morning but never mind. It’s galvanised me into a) washing the whole car and b) hoovering the inside. It really is remarkable how much banana skins shrink when they’ve been around for a while.

I am now on my rounds, picking up my three ladies. Muriel and Iris insist on getting in the back, in deference to Lavinia, a rather formidable woman in a camel coat, with thick foundation smeared in the wrong places.

‘Don’t you look smart?’ says Muriel to Lavinia. ‘Doesn’t she look smart?’ she murmurs to Iris.

‘Are we all strapped in?’ I ask cheerily.

Muriel taps Lavinia on the shoulder. ‘You look like you’re off to a Remembrance service.’

‘Well,’ says Lavinia, smoothing down her coat. ‘One’s got to keep making the effort, haven’t you, or you just a.. a... ‘ Her mouth continues to open and shut, but nothing comes out.

‘Atrophy?’ I offer, having so recently been there.

‘Yes atrophy, that’s it. It’s good to have the young around, isn’t it?’ she says to the others. ‘Good to have somebody who’s on the ball!’

I smile. This is going swimmingly. Better not go over 30 as we go through Nether Mistle.

‘You’ve been away, haven’t you?’ Muriel asks Lavinia. ‘Where did you go? Tell us all about it!’

‘Ind... Zm... Kenya. We went to Zimb – Zanz – Namib – Niag – Nairobi, that’s the place, Nairobi. We stayed in this marvellous place but it was a long way away. We got on this rickety old plane and we stayed in this place with – you know – what is it on the floor? You know... s- st- stone, that’s it, stone flooring. Stone everywhere. Stone basin. Stone sideboard. Everything natural, none of this plastic, plastic you have nowadays.'

Muriel and Iris are oohing and aahing in the back. ‘How did you get into the – what do you call it?’ asks Muriel. ‘The thing, you know. The jeep I suppose you would call it.’

‘Vehicle,’ says Lavinia.

‘Yes, vehicle. How did you get into the vehicle?’

‘You get used to it,’ says Lavinia with the air of a battle-worn hero back from the front. ‘You get used to it.’

Oh God! It’s a short step from here to there! Hang on, what’s happening? Am I out of petrol? No. The car’s losing power, just as I turn off the main road for the cut-through to Candlebury. I glide to a halt right in the middle of the side road. Oh God!