Tupperware

I’d like to say I woke up with a spring in my step this morning, but I literally had to haul my sorry arse up the hill into Highgate, cursing continually at the weather, which was inclement to say the least. Yet again, July is proving to be a rather rainy month. August, I predict, will be less rainy, but almost constantly overcast. That’s how it seems to work these days. Still, the spring was lovely.


The cafe was ridiculously noisy this morning. First, a coffee morning attended by a gaggle of screaming yummies, which made me wonder whether coffee mornings exist at people’s houses these days. My mother was forever going to coffee mornings – and Tupperware parties. I wonder if they have Tupperware parties at Costa as well?

After the coffee morning came two children, who literally ran up and down between the tables shouting at their Mummy to watch them for what seemed like an eternity. Kids are lovely, and these were very sweet, but on top of everything else, the constant noise they were generating just made me want to scream. One of the most irritating noises in the world has to be the sound of a mother shushing a child... “Mummy, mummy, look at this” “shh” “But Mummy” “Shhhhhhh” “Mummy mummy, I might have pood my pants” “shhhhhh” “and there’s something brown all over my fingers...” “shhhh...”

After the hyperactive children, came the trauma of the girl from the poshest school in the area, Channing, waving goodbye to her friends. She was obviously off abroad with the family for a year. No doubt Daddy had been offered some life-changing opportunity in the Middle East. There were tears and hugs. It was all rather ghastly. One girl was crying her little eyes out, whilst stuffing huge fistfuls of toastie into her mouth, which was like watching a dustcart in a rain storm.

And then there was the music... You know you’re a regular in a place when you know all the CDs they play almost backwards. You get the odd gem by Midlake, but most of the material they play is low-fi cover versions of classic pop tracks, scored for unplugged guitars and solo violins, and sung by women with breathy voices, who you just want to strangle until they sing with a bit more gusto.

Pepys wrote one single diary entry for the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th July, 1661. He remained in Huntingdonshire for the week, sorting out his uncle's papers, whilst his father dealt with the dead man’s clothes. Pepys became highly irritated by his aunt’s “base, ugly humours.” There were several issues with the will, and people had started to climb out of the woodwork with various claims. The most vocal claim came from one Tom Trice; a local lawyer, whose mother felt she was owed something. Pepys was uncomfortable in rural surroundings and longed to return to London. He couldn't find any decent wine, or meat, for that matter, and he was constantly bitten by gnats at night. He pretended to be okay, however, because he didn’t want to worry his father.