Mad Cow Disease - For Doris

Dear Doris, in a very tactful 'psssst' sort of way (putting the seventies Schweppes adverts to shame) has had occasion twice, recently, to correct my facts on this blog.

The annual 'for-the-kids / because-its-expected' gross pig-out with complimentary family arguments is actually next Sunday, not next Friday.

Under normal, more anal circumstances, when being 'on the ball' is everything to me (no thats not the one my parents missed when they cut mine off at birth nor the one on my husband that I have yet to scare into permanently living somewhere up inside,) - under normal circumstances I would be desperately grateful for the information and eternally beholden to anyone who would save me from looking like a prat for a second longer than necessary.

Currently, however, it is just another fact to absorb; another number to crunch whilst dispassionately and logically calculating how near certifiable I have become in the last week or so.

I think it's early onset senility.

When the men in white coats arrive, I shall be the first to comfort and reassure them that it's perfectly understandable and probably overdue.

Put it this way:

Today I went to the local supermarket with my son. In the drinks aisle I made one retired gentleman look truly uncomfortable and confused by adamantly grumbling about how, since the shop changed hands, they had stopped stocking my beloved Aqua Vita*, the best, most deliciously antacid drink available if you happen to overdo it at Christmas.

I meant Aqua Libra, and my darling son considered his options for five or so minutes too long before educating me on the error, after which discourse I forgot what aqua vita actually was and felt obliged to ask him, loudly. He's alright Jack, he scarpered back off to Eastbourne. We, however, have only one supermarket in Dead-End-By-Sea and now I need a head transplant before I dare go back in. I guess we'll be living on buttercups and fillet de guinea-pig until Husband takes back the financial reins and associated shopping duties.

Forgetting what day is Christmas is bloody peanuts, really.


* NOTE: As evidenced by googling for the term, not everybody has adopted the slang meaning for this latin phrase literally translated as 'water of life', but by the look on that elderly gentleman's face its farely obvious, in retrospect, that he assumed I meant piddle.