Favouritism

The ignominy! The rejection! I've favourited three men and not one has bothered to write to me! Claude said that was the way to do it. Let them know you're there and then let them make the first move. But they haven't!

Maybe they haven't checked their favourites. Maybe they've been away for the weekend. Will just write a brief, chirpy little message to Hamish.

Twats and tossers

I blame Lily. Well, honestly. If I had Photoshop, whatever Photoshop may be, I could no doubt apply a digital powder puff. But I don’t. So I’m stuck with a pink and yellow blotchy iPhone version of myself. Which is possibly the actual version of myself. However, Claude says don’t talk nonsense, Liza, you always look fabulous and it’s better than the hippy and the rich bitch, so I am, as of this morning, live, online and ready to date! Though, frankly, I'm not sure that I can live up to Claude’s hyperbolic endorsement. 

Just trawling through the men to see if there’s anyone worth actually dating before I pay my 20 quid to be able to send and receive messages. Gosh. Albert from London looks like a matinee idol! Click to see profile. Oh. Shame about the write-up. ‘Albert is a bit of an intellectual. He likes literature, like, novels, magazines, newspapers.’ Doesn’t bode well. Hmmm. Philip’s not bad. Click. Designer. ‘Loyal, terribly witty, with this rare quality of taking a genuine interest in whoever he’s chatting to instead of talking about himself.’ There, sounds nice. Oh, except he’s ‘ just looking for that elusive lady to share the journey with.’ Yuk. Let’s just see the rest of his pix. Oh there he goes, skiing down a mountain. Forget it. Ah, now Hamish looks quite sexy. Bulging biceps and the ubiquitous motorbike between his legs. Extremely good body for a 45 year old. Only slightly cougarish if I went for him. Click. ‘My friend Hamish doesn't do roughing it so if it's a life under canvas you're looking for then move on.’ Well, that’s to the point. Mustn’t let such details put me off. They’ve obviously just had a bad camping experience. Yes, you see he’s also a ‘great debater and conversationalist,’ and what’s more an architect who’s restored a villa in Tuscany! Right, I’m going to favourite him!

Dan calls. 'Morning.'

'Guess what!' 

'You’ve booked a balloon trip across the Andes?'

'Close. I’ve joined a dating site.’

'Ah. And is there anyone worth dating?'

'Well, Hamish looks rather nice and he’s just restored a villa in Tuscany. But do you think there's any point in going for him, if he’s 45, wanting to meet a woman aged 32 to 42?'

'No, because he’s obviously a total twat. What’s wrong with a woman your own age? You can listen to the same music.'

'That’s what I think! But none of the blokes on the site think that. They all want women ten years younger than them.'

'Well they’re all total twats.'  

'And they all have pictures of themselves skiing. And what's more annoying is I've checked out all the women, and they all ski too! And they pretend they love watching sport!'

‘It’s as though skiing is something people actually want to do. Everyone with a picture of themselves skiing you should send a message to, saying "you tosser".’  

Ha! On a solidarity high, I launch into an anecdote to illustrate just how bad my Alzheimer's has got. Half-way through, I interrupt myself. ‘And, just to illustrate how bad my Alzheimer's has got, I’ve just realised this wasn’t the anecdote I meant to tell you to illustrate just how bad my Alzheimer’s has got. I’ve just remembered the one I meant to tell you. And it really was terrible, because it wasn’t just forgetting what someone said, it was like my brain wasn’t processing information properly. I was having tea with Jemima, and her children are 8 and 6 and their birthdays are very close together, and I said to them in an enthusiastic kind of voice, ‘just think, when you’re older, you can share a 21^st birthday party!’ And Jemima looked at me in this perplexed, mildly aghast sort of way. I’m going to start seeing that look on people’s faces more and more, aren’t I? People are going to start talking about me behind my back…’

‘What do you mean, start?’ laughs Dan.

‘Oh God. What am I going to do about it?’

‘I shouldn’t worry. By the time they get to 21 they’ll have got over it.’

Ritz one day, fish and chips the next

OK. All set to write online profile.

Ummm… 

Will just get little bowl of granola as deskside snack.

Right.

And a cup of coffee.

Will just review my profile so far. Hmmm. I don’t feel those multiple choice lists have quite captured my true self, particularly since most of the options I ticked I don’t even do or like. Must make the effort to present the true Eliza Gray. 

Ummm… 

This must be how Lily feels when asked to write a composition. I know, I’ll sign in as a man looking for a woman and see what other women say about themselves. 

Oh God! This is depressing. All these desperate women out there, trying to sound perky and not desperate. They don’t fool me for one minute. And yet I’m taken in by the men, who are all busy skydiving across Australia and skiing down Everest and running their own successful businesses. Not that I want an action man. Honestly, the outfits! It’s practically obligatory to include a photo in ski kit on a mountain, accompanied by at least one of a) trapezing in full sailing gear, b)  paragliding over a smoking volcano or c) sitting astride a motorbike in leathers. What is wrong with reclining on a sofa in a pair of old jeans with, say, a margarita in your hand? Why are they pathologically unable to drink anything other than ‘a glass of red’?  And why does it always have to be by a log fire? And why are they all 47, looking for a female aged 28-38. What is wrong with them? More to the point, what is wrong with a female aged 50? Or 43?

A shrill warble. Lily grabs the phone before I can.

‘Yes! No! Yes!’ She responds chirpily, with lots of chummy laughter, pointing all the while at the phone and shaking her head to indicate that she has not a clue who she’s talking to. I take over.

‘Hello?’

‘Liza, sweetheart! It’s me! It’s me! I’m back!’

‘Cousin Claude!’ I cry. Honestly, Lily. It’s Cousin Claude! Back from her Late-Onset Gap Year in my old stomping ground, South-East Asia. Claude is short for Claudette, which isn’t actually her name at all. She used to be called Jane, but at drama school restyled herself after Claudette Colbert. (Her best friends are Marlene and Clark.) ‘How are you?’ I gush. ‘How was it?’

‘I loved it to pieces! Didn’t you get any of my emails, because I sent hundreds and loads and you told me to take my laptop and of course I didn’t, so I spent my whole time going in and out of internet cafes and it’s so pigging hot, especially in Cambodia, not so bad in Hanoi…’

I squeeze the phone between my shoulder and ear while I attempt to make myself another coffee. The phone promptly jumps out and does a double-flip onto the floor. 

‘…and you’d write these long enormous emails and you’d go ping and you’d lose them,’ it’s saying as I pick it up. ‘...So you’d just think well, I’ll have to go and have a swim. Now I want to hear all about you. How is Lilybell enjoying school?’

‘She’s loving it, to the extent that she never wants to come.’

‘Well, sweetheart, that’s sort of fabulous, it means you’re free and you can get on with your own thing.’

‘Yes, well, speaking of which,  I’m trying to write my profile for this horrible online dating thing.’

‘Thank God I’m back! The time is right!’

‘But I cannot work out what to say.’

‘May I say, all these multiple choice things are sort of hopeless. It’s like we all put on our CVs for Spotlight, I can skydive, I can fence, I can ride, when we’ve all got vertigo and never been near a horse in our lives.’  

‘Exactly – I’ve ticked motor-racing and all sorts of interests I’m not interested in. But it wants me to write an essay about myself for my profile…’

‘Which website are you using? Because the best one I found was Meetmymate.com. A very nice class of man on that site, if I may say. And what’s sort of fabulous about it is, you don’t have to do your own write-up – your mate does it. I’ll do yours, sweetheart! Then I can tell everybody how fabulous you are. So much better having somebody else blowing your trumpet, I always feel.’

While Claude is talking, I email her my shortlisted profile photos for her approval.

‘You can add your own bit at the bottom,’ she’s saying. ‘Marlene did mine, and then I’d look to see who I liked and I’d rewrite my bit at the bottom to suit them. I was changing it all the time. Oh and I said I like people who are spur of the moment. Ritz one day, fish and chips the next. Fun, entertainment. Otherwise I get too bored. And that’s the same for you too.’

Yes it is! No wonder I’m drifting around. I’m bored. No travel. No fun. No entertainment. Straitened on the cocktail front. ‘OK, Ritz, fish and chips,’ I’m scribbling furiously with a pencil stub on the back of a Saga envelope. ‘What about Lily? Should I confess to having her?’

‘Of course, and say you’re absolutely devoted to her.’

‘I thought men wanted you to be absolutely devoted to them.’  

‘Well that’s true, but you can say she’s happily ensconsed at school. The cardinal rule is don’t be needy. Read your bit with a fine toothcomb for any shred of neediness.  Right, sweetheart, I’m off to write you a fabulous recommendation. Thank God I’m back!’

She calls back within minutes. ‘No, no, no, no! The first photo, you look like a hippy, far too ethnic. And the second! Rich bitch. Everyone can see that’s The Peak in the background. No, Liza, you want to have one done specially with a nice blank background. Get Lily to take it.’

Match

16:10

Right. I’ve removed myself from Otherhalf.com. Clearly casting my pearls before swine. OK, let’s give Meredith’s Match.com a go. Urgh. Start your love story. This doesn’t bode well. What kind of man is going to sign up to something with that tagline? Still. Small action steps. I am a woman seeking a man aged… OK, let’s be realistic about this. 43 to 53. That’s a good broad sweep, and I’m not dismissing the 50-plus-year-olds out of hand. I was born on … 03/03/1968.

Oh my God. We’ve now clicked through to a nine-page profile to be completed. I’m already losing the will.  No. Keep going.

You are: ready for a new relationship.

Your marital status: divorced.

You live: with kids. Kid! I live with kid, not kids. No option for that though.

Your personality. Sociable, adventurous, enthusiastic…  I’m busy clicking away, yes, yes, yes to everything, and it only lets me choose one! How ridiculous! Well, I’ll go for adventurous. Better than sensitive or stubborn.

Your eyes: grey

Your height: 5’7”

Your hair colour: hmmm. No ‘mouse’ option. What can I get away with? Dark blonde? Once I’ve done my home highlights, I might even be light blonde!

I’m ploughing on, but really, this is designed to show people like me up. Clearly I’m a well educated woman, as far as it goes. But I have to tick high school or the ignominious school of life. Or lie. Yes, lie: graduate degree.

For goodness’ sake. What languages do I speak? English! Which isn’t even an option. Plus ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in about 20 languages. That’s probably what it means.  I start clicking away, but they only allow two choices. Honestly. It’s so limiting. So prescriptive. You are allowed a masters, but only one personality trait and two languages. OK, tick French and … who wrote this thing? Indian? Chinese? Well, tick Chinese.

Your occupation: I’d rather not say. Good option. Sounds as if I’m something intriguing and mysterious like a spy. Or a bunny girl.

Your income: the options start on less than £25,000 and go up to £100,001 to £150,000. Blimey. Well I’ll click £35,001 to £50,000. Don’t want to seem like a hopeless case or a golddigger.

Your style: click bohemian, sophisticated, cool… Damn! Only one option again. I’ll stick with sophisticated, otherwise I’ll end up with a load of hippies.

Sports you enjoy: Argh! Just when I need the cover of one option only, I’m allowed multiple choices, thus showing up my deficiency in the sporting arena. Oh well, let’s tick some adventurous-sounding things. Things that require money and sunshine. As Auntie Pam used to say, don’t go after money, just mix where money is. Rock climbing, motor racing, surfing, windsurfing, sailing, horseback riding, swimming. Oh and I’ll tick cricket too. I can see myself doing cricket teas on the lawn. 

16:55

Just had to stop for a coffee. This is exhausting. Right: your interests. Hallelujah! We’re allowed multiple interests! Oh yes. I’m motoring. Dining out, travel/sightseeing, cooking, the outdoors, movies/videos (how old is this site?),theatre, museums/exhibits, music, singing/playing instrument, camping… hmmm, better tick cars if I’m going to pull a man with a Lamborghini. On the other hand, maybe I’ll pull a grubby old mechanic. No. Untick cars. Drawing, photography, the arts. The arts. Hmmm. It’s stopped ticking. Maybe I have too many interests. I’ve been outed! Not a porridge-brained stayathome but a woman bursting with interests! OK, untick drawing, camping, although I quite like a man who can put up a tent. Tick wine tasting.

Favourite local hot spots or travel destinations. Ooh! I can fill in my own! Here goes. 

17:15

Had to get the atlas out. Have done exhaustive list of places I’d like to be taken on holiday by my £100,001 to £150,000 earner. Now, favourite book. I’ve gone blank. Favourite book. Favourite book... Bridget Jones’s Diary? Hmmm. Should go for something more highbrow. I know, Don’t Tell Alfred. One of Nancy Mitford’s more obscure works.

Oh God. I’m really losing the will. The kind of films you prefer. Musicals! Except no men like musicals. Except men born pre-war and queens. Not even Gitface liked musicals. Untick. Please don’t tell me I have to tick sci-fi and westerns, though? I settle for drama, comedy, and war. That’ll clinch it.

Three things you can’t live without: Cocktails. My eyes. My ears. Very existentialist. That’ll pull the intellectuals and sophisticates.

Oh God! Now I have to write an essay about myself. This is excruciating. Save and continue. I’ll come back to it.

Taking stock

Out with the old financial year, in with the new! Time to take stock. I can’t believe it. A whole month has gone by since my unfortunate change of circumstances and now the Easter hols are upon us, so I can’t spend all day job-hunting and inventing things. 

Blog posts written: 31 (yay!)

Blog followers: 4 (Meredith, Arthur, Phoebe, Lily)

Ads on blog: 3

Revenue from ads on blog: £0

Items sent for review: 0

Dogs sat: 1

Revenue from dogs sat: £0

Job ads responded to: 3

Job offers: 0

Ads offering services placed in local newspapers: 1

Services hired through local newspaper ad: 3

Revenue from rendering service: -£20

Expenses from rendering service: £300

Home-cooked dishes cooked for profit: 0

Money saved in supermarket swap: £6

TOTAL REVENUE: -£314

After all that effort! So much for Goal No 2. Have been neglecting Goal No 1. What was it again? Ah yes. I choose to be in a mutually loving relationship by 17^th September. Right. Bite the bullet. 

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Hmmm. Madagascar sounds nice. Just a quick click...

How green is my valley

The sun is streaming down with godlike rays, glinting on the lake, bringing out the velvetiest, cricket-pitchiest green slopes of Mistle Hill. Dusty, who has been dawdling with her nose to the ground, has just spotted me up ahead. Oh Lordy! She’s thundering down the hill towards me... I prepare to dive to left or right, but she misses me by inches and charges straight past me, down the steep slope. There’s no way I’d be thundering down the hill like that at 88. I’m already not doing it at 50.

Who’s that up ahead? In a cap, with a stick. Dusty bounds off to find out. She’s doing little leaps of joy around this person, who could be the vicar, or, if I squint a little more, could be Muriel, or…

‘Morning, Eliza. There’s a parcel for you in the box!’

Ah, it’s Prue. Honestly, I need prescription binoculars. A parcel, though! How exciting! I know – it must be products for review! A bumper pack of Touche Eclat! A lifetime supply of MAC lipsticks! Maybe a present from EMI? All my old albums digitally remastered on CD! Doggie chews?

I open the metal lid to find what looks disappointingly like a book from Amazon. I blog on such a diversity of subjects, it could be about anything. Writing the Perfect CV, perhaps? Finding the Perfect Man? I tear it open. Oh. Microsoft Office 2007 for Seniors for Dummies. It appears to be a gift from Meredith. Well it’s very kind of her. I shall look at it in due course. 

The phone is ringing as I open the front door. Ah, Candlebury Motors. It turns out I'm the luckiest woman in Britain! I am in the tiny minority of broken cam belt-befallees whose engine has survived unscathed. Only another £300 down, then. I am quite dizzy with ecstasy.

Anecdote atrophy

Sal calls to thank me for supper. I tell her about my atrophied cam belt putting paid to my first bit of gainful employment.

‘Are you allowed to do that?’ she asks.

‘What, ferry old ladies to Candlebury and back? I’ve got a clean licence. Well, apart from three points for going through Nether Mistle at 37 miles an hour.’

‘Oh I’m sorry. Giles is always getting caught there. They hide behind the telephone box and jump out at you with their guns. No, but I mean, does that make you an unlicensed taxi or something? Is that legal?’

‘Oh God. I didn’t even think of that. I thought as long as they were wearing their seatbelts and couldn’t sue me for treading on an atrophied banana skin I’d be all right. Anyway, it’s irrelevant now since I don’t have a car.’

‘Well, assuming you get the car back, I’d check with your insurance. You don’t want it invalidated, the way people drive on these country roads. I’m always taking to the hedge.’

I tell her about the old ladies and their memories. ‘The amazing thing is, they seem to take it for granted that they can’t find the right word or remember what they were going to say. Lavinia was funny. Muriel said to her... oh God!’ It’s gone. My anecdote. Wrested from my grasp! A horrible example of life imitating life.

‘I have to write down funny things now,’ says Sal, ‘or they’re lost for ever.’

‘I didn’t write it down because it was so simple. It was something like, “the name has flown out of my head,” and the other one said, “Well, when it flies back in, let me know.” Or, “It’s in the back of my mind,” and, “well, when it comes to the front, let me know.” It was quite a common expression, but what struck me was the way neither of them missed a beat. But here am I doing exactly the same. I’ve completely lost the plot.’

‘Well, when you find it, let me know.’

‘That was it! That was it!’

‘There you see. I don’t worry about forgetting things, because it always comes back if it’s important.’

The trouble is it doesn’t always come back if it’s important. I don’t just forget trivia. I forget really important things like whether someone’s mother or father has died. I went to stay with a friend once, knowing her mother had died. On the second day, we drove past a pretty cottage and she said, ‘That’s my mother’s house,’ and I said, ‘Oh, who lives there now?’ and she said, ‘My mother.’

Cam belt catastrophe

Well. I am now down 20 quid instead of up 30. I had to call Candlebury Cabs to fetch the ladies while I waited for the AA. I must say, though, good old Muriel, pushing my car to the side of the road while I steered. So, I am now on the bus on the way home, penniless and carless. Darren from the AA ran a diagnostic on his Toughbook and asked if I’d had the cam belt changed at the last service and I said I had no idea and he said he had a pretty strong hunch it’d gone, and in 90% of cases that means it’s buggered the engine. Except he didn’t say buggered. He said something about pistons and valves. So it’ll either be 300 quid to fit a new cam belt or the engine’s a write-off. Marvellous. Or, to paraphrase, buggering hell!  

My first job!

No, this isn’t an April Fool! No sooner had the Mistlebourne Mag been popped through the letterboxes of the ancient denizens of the village than they were all on the phone to me! Could I take them into Candlebury Market and back on Friday mornings? And perhaps give them a hand getting their shopping to the car? I warned them if it’s a wait and return job, I’d have to charge parking on top, but they were undeterred. Ching ching! Three times £10 round trip equals £30. We’ll probably be there all morning but never mind. It’s galvanised me into a) washing the whole car and b) hoovering the inside. It really is remarkable how much banana skins shrink when they’ve been around for a while.

I am now on my rounds, picking up my three ladies. Muriel and Iris insist on getting in the back, in deference to Lavinia, a rather formidable woman in a camel coat, with thick foundation smeared in the wrong places.

‘Don’t you look smart?’ says Muriel to Lavinia. ‘Doesn’t she look smart?’ she murmurs to Iris.

‘Are we all strapped in?’ I ask cheerily.

Muriel taps Lavinia on the shoulder. ‘You look like you’re off to a Remembrance service.’

‘Well,’ says Lavinia, smoothing down her coat. ‘One’s got to keep making the effort, haven’t you, or you just a.. a... ‘ Her mouth continues to open and shut, but nothing comes out.

‘Atrophy?’ I offer, having so recently been there.

‘Yes atrophy, that’s it. It’s good to have the young around, isn’t it?’ she says to the others. ‘Good to have somebody who’s on the ball!’

I smile. This is going swimmingly. Better not go over 30 as we go through Nether Mistle.

‘You’ve been away, haven’t you?’ Muriel asks Lavinia. ‘Where did you go? Tell us all about it!’

‘Ind... Zm... Kenya. We went to Zimb – Zanz – Namib – Niag – Nairobi, that’s the place, Nairobi. We stayed in this marvellous place but it was a long way away. We got on this rickety old plane and we stayed in this place with – you know – what is it on the floor? You know... s- st- stone, that’s it, stone flooring. Stone everywhere. Stone basin. Stone sideboard. Everything natural, none of this plastic, plastic you have nowadays.'

Muriel and Iris are oohing and aahing in the back. ‘How did you get into the – what do you call it?’ asks Muriel. ‘The thing, you know. The jeep I suppose you would call it.’

‘Vehicle,’ says Lavinia.

‘Yes, vehicle. How did you get into the vehicle?’

‘You get used to it,’ says Lavinia with the air of a battle-worn hero back from the front. ‘You get used to it.’

Oh God! It’s a short step from here to there! Hang on, what’s happening? Am I out of petrol? No. The car’s losing power, just as I turn off the main road for the cut-through to Candlebury. I glide to a halt right in the middle of the side road. Oh God!