If only....

Two things have evolved to brighten my life as I have grown even older. 1) I absolutely don't have to eat my greens and 2)  I don't have to hold back on some of the ripostes and/or deeds which, before, would remain politely unsaid or un-done. So you can be sure you have the gist, an example would be that approaching the outside steps to the entrance of my local hospital I veer to the right because on that side is a complete hand-rail. On the left it starts short. Inevitably, some able-bodied lout/ess will attempt to pass me on the right. Yesterday, I swivelled round and said icily "You will find there is more room on the other side of me".

It is worth bearing in mind that visitors to the Out Patient clinics whose enquiry desk I staff are, perforce, stressed and anxious. Nevertheless, they are also too often rude. When someone barks at me "Where are the stairs?" I meekly direct them to the closed doors behind which there finds itself a staircase. Under my breath I spit "Where it says 'Stairs' ".I now allow myself to say it above my breath. This is reckless in the extreme and likely to be a sacking offence. There is no real excuse for rude to be met by rude whatever the age of the combatants. However, the sign is two feet tall and bright red and it gets a bit (lot) wearisome when, out of 181 queries 50 of them are for the stairs. (Because we are issued with a clicker to press for each query, of course. What did you think? ) I have recently been known to march to a lovely window table in a restaurant where I was  being shown to one next to the toilet facilities. I have waited all my adult life just imagining this defiance. Last week I actually told the man who cuts  and dresses my hair that I found it too fancy. Normal practice would have been to pop in to the nearest public loo and brush it in to something more sedate and age- appropriate, as the Guru puts it. Sadly, some of the 'I-wish-I-hads it is now too late for. Family pressure stopped me buying a motor bike when I had a holiday studio outside my home town, where the 'bus service was unreliable and, in any case, didn't go from door to door. This meant that I was obliged to drive two hundred miles in order to have wheels when I got there. Now, even I don't think an old lady with balance problems ought, at this stage, to be riding a motor-bike.. Oh dear, I wish I had danced more. I wish  had done more naughty things. Gap years were the times your elderly Grandfather forgot when he had done what so there was no round-the-world exploration and no frolicking in the moonlight in far away places. Someone close to me has told me of an article suggesting that cannibis was good for pain. My Doctor agrees but is not able to prescribe it. So how to go about acquiring some. I can't ask the young in case they assume I assume they are using it. So, picture Liz, at Camden Town Underground station, for instance, with paper money clutched in her hot little hand, a very old lady waiting to see from whom she may score,( which, back in the day, meant netball.). I don't think so.   Bore da