Decrepitude

The signs of advanced middle-age (at 54) can no longer be ignored. I've started wearing my reading-glasses on a string, and DON'T CARE. And I've been rapturising all week about my latest clothing purchase - a Pair of Comfy Slippers. (Look - my Betty Boop feathery ones just weren't sensible, OK? - I kept tripping over them).

And I've started referring to anonymous people on the end of the phone as "bloody twelve-year-olds" - irrefutable evidence that I'm a grumpy old sod.

But is it always without reason?

We had a letter from our bank in London this week saying they'd tried to contact us without success and could we phone them as soon as possible. (Posted, however, with a second class inland stamp and therefore five days old).

Card theft? Identity theft? God! Would there be anything left? We phoned immediately to try and save the dregs, to be greeted by a chirpy adolescent from Eastenders saying "Oh, hello Dolores, just a review really - d'you think you could pop in, Dolores? Ooooh, yeees, the address is in France, isn't it? What's the weather like there, Dolores?..."

It gladdens the heart, doesn't it, to know that one's diminishing dosh is in the hands of such dynamic brains?

Luckily my brain is too addled to worry.