My friend D and I had coffee today in a bookshop. The coffee shop is run by a well-known chain and we were served by a young man with a big name badge on his lapel. "Good morning," he said to me. "My name is Bradley. What's your name?"
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"Don't tell him!" said D, who's a strong-minded person. "It's this new thing that they ask your name so that you think they're your friend."
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Bradley looked nonplussed. "I want to write it on your cup," he said. D gave him a further little lecture about globalisation and marketing and so on.
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They've up till now managed to unite me and my coffee without knowing my name but it didn't seem to be Bradley's fault so I told him my name, which isn't Isabelle and which, in the shortened form I gave him, has only three letters. It's not uncommon.
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"How do you spell that?" asked Bradley. We sorted this out. I can imagine that coffee queues must be getting longer all over the world if people called Phoebe or Mairi or Aoife are trying to buy coffee.
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Then he looked helplessly at D. "Just put her down as [my name] 2," I suggested. So he did.
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D and I sat down on two of a group of four armchairs and started chatting. She decided that in future she would just claim that her name was the same as the server's, even if this were Bradley.
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Very shortly afterwards, someone asked if the other two chairs were taken and, when we said no, this person sat down in one of them. I'm saying "this person" because it was very obvious that (s)he had started life as a man, but (s)he was wearing a shortish skirt and blouse, tights, high heels, pearl earrings and quite a lot of eye shadow. (S)he sat there for most of the two hours that we did, presumably listening to our fascinating talk about our children and grandchildren, about work (D still works at the college), holidays and so on. Eventually s(he) got up, smiled very nicely at us, said goodbye and departed.
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It struck me that D and I were not really taking full advantage of our freedom to dress in a feminine way. We were both wearing black jeans and flat shoes. I was wearing a checked shirt in green and black and D had a tee-shirt, though admittedly that was pink.
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After this person went, we had a bit of a chat about it all.
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Including that the fact that the name written on our companion's coffee cup was - as we were surprised to notice - Alan.
Daughter 2 hasn't been home for three and a half weeks and isn't coming for another three and a half, for various reasons. We miss her so much. There's such a hole in our lives.
This is one of the many little problems we're going to have in emptying my mother's flat. It's one of two oil paintings by (I think) my father's grandfather - his father's father, so my great-grandfather. It's possible that the painter is even one generation further back. The other picture is a copy of "The Laughing Cavalier" - the slightly evil version. Now, both paintings are quite well done for an amateur. I myself would be rather pleased to paint as well as that. But I don't actually want either of the paintings. This one is of - I assume - the Scottish countryside and there are a couple of chaps fishing in the river, but it's not exactly an exciting picture.
It was a beautiful day today. Happy Mother's Day, British mothers. If you still have children at home, bringing you breakfast in bed, I hope you enjoyed it. Mine, alas, have gone, though they sent lovely presents.
However, Daughter 1, SIL 1 and Grandson came to lunch, which was nice. Grandson played and played.
And beamed.
And, eventually, snoozed.
My friend D and I had coffee today in a bookshop. The coffee shop is run by a well-known chain and we were served by a young man with a big name badge on his lapel. "Good morning," he said to me. "My name is Bradley. What's your name?"
I paid a visit to Daughter 1 and Grandson this afternoon. I shouldn't have worn beads. But look - a tooth! Well, the beginnings of a tooth.
There's that tooth again. He's still smiling even though the necklace has been whipped away from him. (He could be a girl in this picture, don't you think?)
This morning, when I left for Zumba, the cats were resting on the sofa. When I returned, they didn't appear to have moved.
We hadn't seen Grandson since Thursday - far too long - so he and Daughter 1 came round today. He played with his heritage rattles.
He smiled.
I love the way that he can look so serious and busy, examining each one thoroughly to remind himself of its particular properties. He's like a little scientist at his workbench.
Daughter 1, Brother, Mr Life and I took him for a walk. Brother ("Goodness, am I going to appear on your blog?") is interested in transport, so we went to look at the progress being made on Edinburgh's infamous new tram system.
Grandson wore his most colourful hat.
Diggers.
This looks as if it's going to be a station or platform or whatever trams have. I can't really imagine who's going to alight here on their way from the airport, but we shall see.
Then we walked along by the golf course. 