…..Life’s but a walking shadow blah, blah. Now try and say that with a Liverpool accent, which is what I am doing for the role I’m playing in Educating Rita. Oh well, at least I get to learn a bit of Shakespeare.

Dust to be found. More soon.
Just wanted to ensure that I’m late; a real cleaner is never on time – or is that ladies? A lady is never on time – or is it runs? A lady never runs nor is on time.

I won’t be so stupid as to say Spring is here, as that will provoke a snowstorm, or rain, or something else nasty.

The Mimosa is in full bloom – it’s a tree with fluffy-looking yellow flowers, and you can see hillsides covered in it, around Cannes for example.The perfume is lovely – not sharp, but mellow and gorgeous – the only pain for me being that it, along with all the other pollen that will soon be puffing out from the hedges in great clouds,makes me sneeze, and my eyes itch.I have spoken to a few people who never had childhood or even adulthood allergies – but after a few years living here, the pollen has got them too.

You know the way you read a book which leads you to another book, because of something the author mentioned? Well, recently I read ‘How Proust can change your Life’. He didn’t, by the way. Change my life. Or perhaps he has. It was a very entertaining read, and laugh-out-loud in places; the guy who wrote it is called Alain de Botton, and I’ve got him to thank for getting me on to Proust, as it were, so to speak.

The problem is that I have been trying to keep away from too much detail; whenever I tell my kids about the young slim black-haired Frenchwoman in front of me in the supermarket queue, talking on her mobile so quietly that I couldn’t hear a word, even if I was trying – which I wasn’t; or the unusually helpful EDF (electricity company) woman who I spoke to on the phone; or the cashier who didn’t give me the receipt until I asked for it, and hadn’t given me the carrier bag until I’d asked for that twice  – the kids tend to glaze over. So now, in addition to my slowness, I have the anxiety of knowing I’m taking ages, and that I should stick to the interesting parts (none) – which makes the stories take even longer.
“Where is all this leading?”, I can hear you scream. To Marcel Proust, naturellement.

Ole Proustie is great – I’m reading a translation – I’d never manage that level of French; the book is called ‘Remembrance of things Past’, and he goes in to incredible detail about everything.

For example, when he was young, his mother’s goodnight kiss was something he was desperate for, and usually she would go up to his room; but one awful night he is sent to bed early, as there are dinner guests – and he has to receive the kiss in front of everyone and then carry it with him up the stairs, hoping that it won’t evaporate, or that the unfriendly smell of the varnish on the staircase won’t overpower the memory of the kiss – but it’s much more beautifully written than this, obviously.

I’m not quite clear yet on whether I’m reading memoir or fiction – it’s labelled fiction on the back of the book, but it seems to be agreed that Proust was unusually close to his mother, even leaving notes outside her bedroom door at night. I get the impression that he was a bit all over the place, changing his mind and the format his books would take – even duplicating chapters in his other books.

In case you’re interested, here’s Wikipedia’s thing: Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (/pruːst/;^[1] French: [maʁsɛl pʁust]; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors of all time.^[

And rest assured, there’ll be no more short-changing from me, where the details are concerned.

The other day I had to open up a big Provençal farmhouse for viewing by some possible buyers. The owner was away and had asked me to let this couple in. I didn’t time how long it took to open up all the shutters, but I know it takes half an hour to close them.

After politely offering to take off their shoes, to which I politely replied they didn’t need to, the viewers had a very long look around the ground floor, and sat down and talked about how they might arrange their furniture. I pointed out the possibility of turning a different room in to the sitting room – so then they went and inspected that.
I knew when I was spot-cleaning the windows earlier, that these people would be tall – I should have cleaned the higher panes. Damn.

They went up and down the three staircases in turn, to look at the bedrooms and bathrooms, and seemed particularly interested in the fireplaces – were they still functioning, or had they been blocked off? What would I know?! I’m only the cleaner. I gave up hope of getting home in time to take my daughter to her interview.

Before they left, the man told me they were going to have another look at the garden, and let their puppy out of the car, as he would need to stretch his legs by now. Got to love those British euphemisms.

That same day, I received a text from a woman who had got my phone number from a friend of mine; she was looking for someone to house and puppy-sit for the weekend.

The exciting conclusion to this story is that when I phoned the puppy woman, she turned out to be the same one who had viewed the house that very day. I had never seen nor heard of her before, so we both thought it was quite a coincidence.
Well,yes that’s it.What did you expect – something interesting?

Bloody hell. I do try. The rain had stopped, so although it was dark, I decided to take the dog for a walk.

We got to the end of the road and turned round as usual. Fine. Then as we were starting to go down the hill, a jeep full of shouting people roared past. Next thing there was a loud explosion – either the jeep backfiring, or somebody letting off a banger – the car was out of sight by now. Alfie and I had synchronized heart attacks; we turned back and headed for home – he ran, his ears flat with fear, and I followed his lead – though obviously without the ear-flattening.

We had barely reached the gate, when there was a very bright flash of lightning followed by thunder. Exhausting – and that was without much walk…

I have just lent ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King to a friend of mine; she is roaring through it from what she’s told me. I am reading ‘If you want to Write’ by somebody Ueland – it’s good, but it must be a publisher’s nightmare, because the author is promoting that idea that we can all learn to write, and that we all have something to say – we just need to find it. God help us. No wonder the world is so full of badly written drivel, and mundane conversations…

The Stephen King one is very good, which is why he is getting a new paragraph. I haven’t read any of his novels – too creepy and horrible for me. ‘On Writing’ however, was recommended to me. I wasn’t expecting much, but it is brilliant – he is very generous with his writing experience and advice, and includes great little (if that isn’t a contradiction) anecdotes from his life. He’s got a real bee in his bonnet about adverbs, she added unnecessarily.
By the way, did you know his first book was published because his wife hooked it out of the bin?

Remember – you heard it first on Mundane Conversations.

I decided to cook the porridge oats this morning – usually I just have them uncooked with almond milk (which has probably never seen an almond in it’s life).The almond milk is just sweet enough that you don’t need to add sugar to the oats/porridge – and a sprinkle of cinamon – which is supposed to boost your metabolism;not sure if that is a good thing, as mightn’t you end up eating more?

I need to have a word with those Stats people, as there’s no point in me getting excited about the visitor to my blog if it’s me!

More incredibly interesting minutae coming soon.

…..unless you happen to have eaten a LOT of, a lot of saturated fat, a lot of carbohydrate generally, and now a third member of the extended family is showing the same mystery bug symptoms as the first two affected.  ie. nausea and feeling cold.

Not feeling great myself actually, but this is more of an age thing – if you’re a woman in your fifties you might know what I’m talking about; I don’t mean the menopause – there’s no pause involved here. Without going in to detail: when I say heavy loss, I’m not talking about the money spent on Christmas presents. Enough of this. We’re going to Cork tomorrow. I’m too tired to write anything brilliant right now. More soon.

The above was written at Christmas, so sorry if it’s out of order with the rest of my scintillating scripts.

During our recent Christmas trip to Ireland, my grown-up son and I boarded (not with planks of wood) a bus in Dublin city centre.Being the tourists that we were, we didn’t know that Irish bus drivers – though strictly speaking,this one wasn’t, don’t accept notes;we didn’t have enough change between us for the bus fare, so the driver said “Ask the other passengers for change – they’ll give it to you”.

While my son cringed in to the handrail, I addressed several old ladies at the back of the bus.
“Excuse me, does anyone have change for 10 euros,please?” Almost before I’d said it, about six women opened their handbags and wallets and held out money to me.I didn’t take any of it at first,as the change was coming from so many different sources, I couldn’t figure out who to give the 10€ note to.

One lady sitting by herself behind the others said “How much is the exact fare,love?” I told her 5,50 and all these women started pouring change in to my hands. And they were all smiling and laughing! I thanked them,made sure they understood that I wasn’t going to sing for them, and went with my son to pay the driver.

Then I went back and sat down with the lady who had asked how much we needed. I offered her back all the excess change, but she wouldn’t accept, and said “Light a candle for me next time you go to church” – actually, she might have said mass, but that’s one detail you are spared, as I can’t remember.

And there’s more! Remind me to tell you about Aer Lingus letting us on the plane after the gate had closed and our suitcases had been taken off – they put them back on again, and we were allowed to board, even though we were about fifteen minutes late.

I am reading a book called  Creating Affluence, that my daughter bought. She says she knew it was a “spiritual” book when she bought it (online-where else?) – I’m not convinced.And I’m not convinced by the book either – you know, all that stuff about everything being made of the same stuff. And that you just have to think of a word for it to become reality, because everything begins with thought, and there is an “infinite supply” blah blah. Well, there isn’t an infinite supply. Take land, for example – suppose everyone on the planet wanted a piece?Once we have bought it/built on it, that’s one bit of land less, isn’t it?

I love all these books like ‘The Secret’ and ‘Creating Affluence’ and ‘How to get Rich’ (might have made that one up, but I doubt it);they do create affluence – for their authors.Anyway, check back here in a year and see if all my thought-words have concretised – I’ll let you know.