One evening my grown-up child said in passing I don’t know why you get all the cool friends. You don’t even try and they flock to you!
I facetiously asserted that it might be my charm and social graces but she knows that I have only vestigial skills and just rolled her eyes. I asked her to expound on the subject.
You just want me to say more inflammatory things so you can write it down. It isn’t hard to get in that notebook if I’m being rude!
True. But I coaxed her for an explanation of how I manage to know so many people. She continued:
You are a good planner – a pillar of hope. You are a hot mama and lots of people want to sleep with you. You are very self-confident and people are drawn to that. You are loud and talkative with people you know, and quiet and mysterious with everyone else. You are the kind of person people want to get close to.
I argued that I am in fact prickly and difficult and she replied If you were a teacher at my school all the kids would love you. Even if you were mean!
She is the only person who was honest enough to admit that the most recent cancer scar aged my face by five years. I suppose that her points might be valid – even though they do not reflect the version of myself playing in my own head. I’ll have to ponder her comments.
Then we were bored and wandered into the city centre to take photographs of British food we find puzzling:
