Brain Failings.

 My brain insisted on behaving like an engine firing on three cylinders this morning. When I booted up the computer and tried to lay out my regular arrangement of tabs, a simple process which normally takes around two minutes took more like ten. And when I attempted to make a pot of coffee I put the coffee in the mug instead of the cafetière. And when I bought my month’s supply of tobacco at the kiosk in Sainsbury’s, I picked up my receipt and debit card but left the tobacco behind. And they are just the first three examples which spring to mind.

I’m hoping it was nothing more than incipient senility, but who can tell? It might also have been the effect of a dream about which I remember nothing except that the underside of an open umbrella was about to be used as a murder weapon somehow. I’ve no idea how, so let’s say two cylinders instead of three. It’s probably all Buffy’s fault.

But then I called in at the doc’s to arrange my next blood test, and while I was standing in the queue at reception I noticed two young women with their little girls awaiting their appointments. I was struck by the most intense desire to meet the Mistress Mary and talk to her. She’s the eldest of the Lady B’s progeny, and since the Lady B used to be one of the brightest stars in my firmament, I suppose it isn’t so surprising that I should feel an almost proprietary interest in her offspring. (I shall never forget her telling me that she felt ‘quite calm’ during Mary’s delivery. What a lovely thing to hear.) I would so love to be able to say ‘You have your mother’s eyes’, but of course, I wouldn’t lie.