A Year of Much Bickering by Jane Ayres

A Corvid Cocktail Party for Crichton and Cynthia Day 31…The house mates are in the doldrums. It’s official. We have now been cooped up for a month of Sundays, in as much as every morning we get up late, read the papers, play Scrabble, and Crichton bleats for a roast for dinner with gravy. I for one am finding the Sabbath atmosphere is beginning to lose its novelty, but this might have something to do with the company I am forced to keep. Now don’t get me wrong. Apart from Arraminta's sulky mood now that Love Island has been cancelled, I am fond of my family. Cook is an absolute brick, when it comes to meals while Stubbins is worth his weight in gold if only for keeping Crichton on the straight and narrow. No, It’s the tedium of the same faces and the same conversations day after day.  Deliveries from Amazon keep coming thick and fast and I was delighted to receive a robot vacuum cleaner sent by Jerome. He said he couldn’t bear to think of his mother hoover

Mute is definitely the word of the week. ‘Day  17. The housemates are in the diary room.’  If Crichton says that one more time, in his silly Newcastle accent, I shall have to socially distance myself from him, with a hatchet.  Of course, we are all perfectly well, have enormous amounts of loo roll, plenty of Jaffa Cakes, and are lucky to have more outdoor space than we need, so I shouldn’t complain. But sometimes it would be nice to take a stroll to the church or have lunch with the girls. I’ve never had a lot of time for Davina McCall but if she arrived now with a crowd of photographers and said we could all go off to the Pelican’s Nest for a gin and Dubonnet again, I would kiss the hem of her blessed garment. Jerome has stayed in Cambridge with Hilary, but Arraminta is home with us. She tends to appear in her PJ’s sometime around noon, cruising the cupboards for chocolate biscuits and Pot Noodles and I haven’t got the heart to be cross, even if she is piling in

Much Bickering Manor is in Lock Down There is no doubt that being socially isolated is character forming, not least because Alyona  decided to hole herself up in her little semi in the village and refuses point blank to come anywhere near The Manor. So inconsiderate. We could have found her a bed in the attic, but no. After all I’ve done for her, she’d prefer to be at home on 80% wages, doing nothing while I am left with the Harry hoover and a box of tatty dusters. It’s a good job we won’t be getting any visitors as I find it very dull work and Cook refuses to increase her hours until she has finished watching her box sets of Downton Abbey. There are six series and poor Lavinia hasn’t even caught the Spanish flu yet.  The carpets will be knee deep in dog hair before The Dowager Countess gets to speak her last lines. And talking of Dowagers, this morning Brexit and I took my one allotted period of exercise and walked over to Granny T’s with some essentials. Anyt

ANOTHER YEAR DONE AND DUSTED      This Christmas was the first we had spent sans enfants for twenty years. Jerome had opted to go to  Budapest with his illusive friend Hilary (we still haven’t met her), and Arraminta went off to stay with Candida Boxer. Mrs Boxer was quite adamant that she would be no trouble, but I felt it only fair to ask if they used real candles in the house during the festive season. She answered in the negative, so felt it only fair to let Arraminta go. We needn’t had worried that our day would be lacking in childish behaviour, however. Crichton and his mother fell out with a vengeance over a needle game of Yahtzee. He should never have accused her of cheating, even though she always does. Granny T claimed five sixes with her las t throw. Clearly one of the sixes was only a three but she denied it and swept the dice onto the hearth rug along with my favourite shortbreads, before it could be proved one way or another. Crichton, who had been denied victo

  SOME LIKE IT HOT IN MUCH BICKERING      JELLY BABIES AND A RABBIT Nanny’s niece phoned. She told me they have moved her into residential care near Newton Abbot. She’s been getting increasingly confused and has had a several falls, and the family can’t cope any more. I’m sure it’s for the best and about time she was looked after properly. I hope she got the Easter card I sent. She hasn’t replied to my last few letters.   Anyway, I thought  I would pop down to on the train and drop in some Christmas cheer in the shape of a lace hankie and bottle of 4711 and have a chin wag. Nanny is always pleased to see me and knows the right thing to say when I’m  feeling low, and let’s face it, who isn’t after the election? I’m terribly worried that Alyona will have to go back to Estonia after we leave the EU and we’ll never find someone to replace her…not at minimum wage anyway. Maybe Nanny would know  somebody suitable. The ‘home’ is quite near the station, so if 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING   A PERFORMANCE AND A PARTY Rehearsals for ‘War Horse, the Musical’ moved into the final furlong with Stubbins taking his part very seriously. I caught him cantering around the sunken garden, whinnying, and I knew we would get no sense from him until the wretched production was over. According to Cook he has been insisting on apples and oatmeal for breakfast instead of a fry up. If he really wants to sleep in the stables with Zim-Zam the pony I suppose it harms nobody, but in my opinion that is taking method acting a little too far. However, he returned from the dress rehearsal looking very pleased with himself and told us that every performance was a sell out. Luckily, I had bought tickets in advance  and  the Trehorlicks family filled the front row at the village Hall, and even Granny T came along wearing her pony club scarf.  The lights went down, and on to the stage trotted Stubbins and Mr Hobbs…not in that order, obviously.  All those rehearsals