annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday

I just watched the episode of ‘Call the Midwife’ with Rosie Jones guest appearing as a pregnant woman with cerebral palsy. Really good – it’s a good, solid drama series that looks at social issues that have changed over time – this was set in 1969 so they’re cracking along – and it’s mainly women which is a great relief. I’m so sick of drama about men fighting and killing and swindling and trying to get one up on each other. I’ve been watching that shit all my life and I’m done now.
Anyway, I feel shamed to say I struggled with Rosie Jones when she first emerged on the comedy scene, but in retrospect I think it was about making an effort to understand her at a time when I struggled and failed to understand Sam. And my brother, he lost his speech in his last months with MND (ALS in the US), but he kept his mental acuity and his manual dexterity so he could write notes, which Sam couldn’t. But I turned away from making any effort anywhere else, with anyone else, and that included Rosie Jones. I regret that now, not that it mattered to her any more than my change of heart does, and I have had a change of heart. I think it was provoked by her being on House of Games last week – a light hearted quiz that’s on at 6 pm every weekday, with the same four ‘celebrities’ (in the widest sense of the word) all week, so you get used to them. It wasn’t that I suddenly realised she’s funny and clever – I always knew that – but I suddenly stopped resenting the miniscule amount of effort to hear her properly. She was good as well – she did some of the best pushing to deliver that baby.
I’ve managed to fuck up my finances again, not in the usual way of spending too much, but by miscalculating when various bits of income arrive. I get three small bits, that add up to fuck all, but enough, just. I’m quite low maintenance in terms of zero make-up (I do have one pot of nail varnish, so not entirely zero), hair-dresser about once every six months, hardly ever new clothes, no smoking or drinking, mrs goody two-shoes really. Anyway my teacher’s pension comes on the same date every month so that’s easy, I know when that’ll be paid in, though it’s not much because I wasn’t a teacher for very long, it just felt like it. Then I get PIP, which comes every four Thursdays and my state pension, every four Mondays. I like to make a note in my diary of when these are due but I nearly always fuck it up because they come early if there’s a bank holiday and there’s at least three over the Christmas and New Year. And yes, yet again I’ve written ‘pip’ by the wrong Thursday every four weeks through the whole fucking year and I haven’t dared to even look at the pension. I was at the point of getting on the phone to complain, which would have meant holding on all fucking day when it suddenly occurred to me I might have made a mistake. Sigh.

11:46 p.m. - 22.01.24

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next