But here’s how the day panned out instead.

I arranged to get my hair cut. Before leaving the house I approached the tomatos in a particularly uncoordinated way. Fell when the bamboo cane I was leaning on snapped. Also lost my balance and scraped the top of my foot. I think it was to do with all the spiders there, they make me nervous. And I’m still feeling bad about deliberately wrecking two webs to get to some of the back ones. 14 plants have given us so many, and they’re not even over yet. The garden looks bare with the three trees gone and the light seems harsh.

Looked up chutney recipes and decided to look in Woolworths and the pound shops on the high street for preserving jars.

Went to UK Salon on the high street. Natalie has gone, so I had Paula. A 15 year old boy washed my hair. We talked about all the hairdressers in his family, water parks and Alton Towers. It took about 15 minutes, and he massaged my scalp. I don’t think I’ve ever been touched by a 15 year old boy before. Oh hang on, of course I have. I think he might be big one day – Jamie. Paula was talkative. She was very emphatic about how could you, in good conscience, recommend a mother of 3 a style that would take half an hour’s work every morning, especially if she were no good with a hairdryer? I said that many hairdressers would try to sell a mother of 3 a high maintenance style. We identified that I wasn’t very good with a hairdryer. I thought we were in agreement, and was about to tell her that I like to be out of the house in 15 minutes every morning. Then she stopped, pointed the comb at me in the mirror and said “10 minutes, now, there’s no excuse. There’s no excuse for not making the most of what you’ve got.” But that would only leave me 5 to wash, dress, collect my food and leave.

Then I went to look for clothes. That took a long time, and I bought nothing. A bad year for people of my height, shape and vintage – am I really supposed to dress as a sack? Again?
The over-large preserving jar I bought will, once opened, give eating the chutney a sense of urgency. I mustered up several more of similar size. Then I remembered to go and see Alan and thank him for bringing in our vegetable box from the other day. We looked at the gone trees from his side, and at his garden.

Then instead of making chutney, I attacked the weed clump between the path and the drive, litter-picked the front garden, pruned back the lavender, buddleia and alien ground cover I bought from the back of the Hobgoblin, which is growing like topsy and threatening to strangle the baby lavenders and rosemaries. A neighbour who used to know Matt’s nan and grandad stopped and then we had a cup of tea. I’d met her at Alan’s once but we hadn’t talked. It was easy talking with her. She told me that her grandfather threw her mother out for getting pregnant, and that her mother had to go to the workhouse. When baby neighbour – call her May – was born her nan told her grandad that if he wanted her adopted, he’d have to take her away himself. He intended to go through with it but broke down when he saw the baby. So May was taken in by her grandparents but her mother only joined them after her grandfather died. May’s mother got into a serious relationship, and suddenly May had to leave her nan and move in with them. She hated her stepdad. She also hated new school and used to truant. One day she came home and her mother was being beaten up. Her boyfriend was pinning her down with his knee in her chest. May ran screaming into the street and a neighbour came beat up her stepdad. May and her mum moved back with her nan again.

May’s first husband had an affair with her best friend, she was the last to know, and it took her two years to leave after finding out. They had a big fight, and when she left her seven year old son John chose to stay with his father, who was the more indulgent of the two. She was broken hearted and though they talked on the phone occasionally she didn’t see him again until he was 17 when she visited her ex-husband who was dying of cancer. Then she and her son managed to, with some setbacks, build a relationship. A few years ago a neighbour asked her if her John was gay. After denying this, he eventually told her that he was transgender. When they go out, she’s to call him Kim. She’s fiercely protective.

Things seemed to have settled down for her now. She picks fights with the shitty kids in our area, and tries to get her second husband to move house, which is a challenge since he was born in the house where they live now – his mother’s house. May says it’s not quite hers. She’s got pep – I like her. She used to clean this place for Matt’s grandparents. George used to sit in his chair while she washed the windows and tell her she’d missed a bit.
Then I did some more weeding and pruning. Then I watched a couple of the 4 DVDs I impulse-bought in Woolworths. The better one was Noam Baumbach’s the Squid and the Whale, but it wasn’t brilliant. The Jeff Daniel’s character wasn’t real, and the plot was too neat. On the other hand, the actors were superb – Owen Kline in particular.

Matt is in Brighton. He only left work at about 5. When I spoke to him this evening I reminded him not to have an affair. I almost wish I’d gone. But then I’d have had to have had fun, which I don’t enjoy.

Being There is on, but can I keep my eyes open?