I’m a bit forgetful and I tend to speak in spoonerisms that would have made the professor proud. Tarled and gnangled and slicely fined if not ficely slined, that sort of thing. My husband James who is for the most part no more infuriating than any other man says I’m always getting my mucking furds wuddled. I thought that was really funny for years till someone explained it to me. I know what I mean, and James says what really worries him is that he does too. We have reached that stage in our relationship where we can finish each other’s sentences but don’t usually bother. Lord knows what strangers make of our conversations.

Many years ago I lost my keyring which had my car keys and house keys on it. It was bad enough having James make fun of me for it at the time. When they turned up two house moves later in the bag I keep clothes pegs in to hang the washing up with, it’s got a coat hanger sewn in at the top so I can hang it up on the clothes line, I never heard the end of it. Not a week went by, but James would say, ‘Have you tried looking in the peg bag for it?’ if I happened to just put something down and then be looking for it.

I’m not exactly stupid, but I do get confused easily. I admit I don’t understand thermostats, I don’t care what James says, if the radiator is cool it stands to reason the room can’t be warm enough. And that business about the oven, he says if I turn it to full when I want it warm to reheat some pasties they won’t get warm any quicker. That’s got to be rubbish. Hot is hot, cold is cold. I know the difference and I don’t see what that mark space ratio nonsense he goes on about has to do with warming up pasties. I still don’t understand why the tops of mountains are frozen when they’re obviously nearer the sun, so should be warmer than down here, but there’s no way I’m going to ask James about it because it’ll just be more gobbledegook, so I won’t be any better off, and he’ll laugh at me. And that’s another thing, the other day I just happened to remark the sky seemed lower than usual. What I ask you was so funny about that that he had to get a whisky to recover?

How did I get onto all that? That’s not what I wanted to tell you about at all. I want to tell you about his favourite pair of spectacles which he lost and replaced at least five years ago. We were doing some gardening last month and emptying one of the compost bins. The bins are four foot cubes and we have four of them. We fill and use about half a bin a year on the vegetables. Well his lost spectacles turned up in the compost, and I haven’t heard a word about my keys since. The shame of it is his eyes have changed and the specs are
no use now.

James says it’s nothing to do with his eyes and the reason he can’t read the paper unaided is because his arms are shrinking. He maintains it was all those showers and baths his mum and grandma made him and his brothers take when they were boys that damaged his arms for life. I’m not totally certain, but I think he’s winding me up because as girls my sisters and I were in the shower and the bath far more than our brothers, and I’m sure my arms haven’t shrunk. I’ll ask my sisters before I say anything to James about it just to be on the safe side, but I’m keeping his glasses safe just in case he starts on again about why we have to burn a minimum amount of wood in the stove to keep things warm and me saving wood by closing the bottom up is silly. I know I’m not clever, but I’m not exactly ditzy.