The Blind Truth

In a late night dash for home, it occurred to me that there was no milk in the fridge and so a short detour was called for. A pint of milk for the necessity of morning tea would surely be possible, and it was.

At the till, while I waited for someone to take my money, I thought I’d use the time productively and started fumbling in my bag for the trusty monocular. I was just putting it round my neck when the cashier pitched up.

“Are you going bird watching?” he asked, pointing at the monocular.

“Oh, no, buses,” I mumbled.

“Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s dark outside. You wont’ see any birds at this time of night.”

“I’m not a twitcher.” I thought that would knock this conversation on the head.

“A bird watcher then. There are no birds now. It’s dark outside. That’s what I’m saying.”

“No. I’m definitely not a bird watcher. If I was looking for birds I’d probably have binoculars. That’s like this only two stuck together, one for each eye. This is what I use to see if there is a bus coming down the road because I can’t see very well.”

“Nah,” he said incredulously. “buses are huge. You don’t need binoculars to see a bus.”

I ploughed on in the spirit of my chum the Septic Tank. I would adopt her approach and see this as an opportunity to explain sight loss to the world, one cashier at a time. ” I can’t see very much, at all,” I said. “In fact I can’t even see a bus coming up the road, so I use this to spot buses coming and when they get close enough I can use it to read the bus numbers.”

The cashier puffed out his cheeks and exhaled through pursed lips. “Cash or card?”

I slapped my card down on the reader and waited for the bleep.

“it’s dark outside. You aren’t gonna see any birds in the dark.”

“I’m not a bird watcher.” I might have been a bit strident at this point. “I’m looking for a bus.”

“Well, you’re not gonna see too many of them round here at this time of night.”

“I travel hopefully,” I said.

After a short pause he lent forward and asked, “have you got a problem with your eyes then if you can’t see a bus coming down the road?”

“Yes. I have a problem with my eyes.”

“Because you look like a bird watcher…..”

“it’s definitely an eye thing not a bird thing.” I might have exceeded strident at this point.

“…In that hat,” he finished.

Taking a moment out from putting my purse back in my bag, I patted myself on the head for a reason I can’t explain.

A silence hung between the cashier and me, which he felt obliged to fill. “Yep. I would say you look exactly like the kind of person that would be a bird watcher. You’ve got a bird watching face.” he said opening his arms wide and smiling.

Was he being funny? Had I just revealed myself as an old bird without humour? Or was it that he just blurted out the first thing that came into his head?  Either way, telling someone that they have a bird watching face is not much of a get out clause. I was prepared to let it go, and left.

On the street I checked Google to see when my bus was due. He was right about something. You don’t see too many buses about at this time of night. I put my monocular away, pulled my hat down low and plodded off home.

I love a party. I love an elegant pair of shoes, but not enough to wear them for longer than I have to. Having a back up pair of trainers under a table is a good idea. It’s not the end of the world if it’s a good party and someone starts to clear the room before you are ready to leave and they shout out, “Anyone want to claim these trainers?”

I’m unbashful. “They’re mine.”

I love a really good party dress too, but not enough to wear it for longer than I absolutely have to. That’s because a really good party dress is invariably backed up by supportive underwear that you can’t just chuck under a table if it starts to get a little uncomfortable. Imagine that. “Anyone want to claim a pair of #Bridget Jones?”  Not me.

With my trainers safely hidden under a table and my impossibly large pants safely hidden under my dress I sallied forth to party. It’s part of the life of a #Chair of Trustees; sturdy attire and enquiring conversation, never forgetting to seize the moment to make a pitch for your cause.

Launching a new brand and a new strategy is an exciting moment in anyone’s life. This was our exciting moment. #Greater London Fund for the Blind was having a rebirth for the twenty-first century. Our big reveal. We are #Vision Foundation. No more talking about the blind, the tables the chairs. Not a sight loss charity for blind people without any vision itself, but one that is forward looking.

#Vision Foundation wasn’t a name picked out of thin air. It was arrived at after a good deal of consultation with blind and partially sighted people. The same can be said about our strategy. If you are that way inclined, you can read about what we’ve got planned here. https://www.visionfoundation.org.uk/about-us/our-strategy/

I’ve been to a lot of parties that have turned out to be dreary affairs and left my stomach rumbling from the effects of warm white wine and too much saturated fat on a cocktail stick. Not this time.

#The Devonshire Club was unphased by this many blind people gathered together to devour canapés, Prosecco and speeches. There were plenty of all three. But, who were all these blind and partially sighted people standing about chatting and guzzling? People who need their energy topped up. Just as well the service was good.

There was an historian and disability activist. Check out @BlondeHistorian. She’s made a film about how the public interact with the white cane. https://twitter.com/hashtag/WhiteCaneCam?src=hashtag_click There was a former financier who happens to be a national blind tennis champion.  There was a Fund Raiser, an Olympian, a Chief Executive, a Service Director, an ex-Trauma Doctor turned Trainer, a Solicitor, a Recruiter, and a Programs Officer who writes a blog https://thisblindhijabican.wordpress.com That’s a pretty rangy group of talent for people who can’t see. I could go on but I won’t. What they all have in common is that they can think, eat, drink and achieve.

Then there was me. I might have disgraced myself. My colleague said, “Cherie Blaire would like to meet you.” This might have been a bit of repositioning of the truth but I’m not one to pass up an opportunity.

“I love your dress,” she said.

“Spanx pants,” I said.

“What?”

“Spanx pants,” I repeated.

Considering what an excellent speech Cherie gave, I could have come up with something better to say. Luckily for me she has probably heard every type of social gaff and has learnt to be forgiving. What she wasn’t forgiving of is the shockingly poor life chances that blind and partially sighted face. This is what she had to say. https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/cherie-blair-finding-work-for-those-with-sight-loss-will-benefit-us-all-a4258481.html

The is what #Vision Foundation is here to change.

The mesh laundry bag is making a come back. It’s a much under valued item that will preserve my clothes from the ferocity of the spin cycle on my elderly washing machine. I hope never to hear again, ” Did you know there’s a hole in that?”

I will never hear myself say again, “Obviously not or I wouldn’t be wearing it.

My first line of defence is a series of raised dots stuck on the front of the washing machine, so I know which cycle is where. I have never worked out the number of revolutions in the various spin options though. The choices are shown on a tiny screen I can’t see so I chose to ignore. I think I might have got my 600s and my 900s muddled up. I suspect the holes in my T-shirts and trailing threads on my pants are a consequence of excess revolutions.

If I’d taken the kind of robust approach in asking for help with the sticky dots and the impenetrably small screen on the washing machine, as I did in #Robert Dyas, in asking for service, I might not have trashed my wardrobe.

Having long since lost my patience in trying to search out items in hardware stores, I hit upon a likely looking helper. She was standing at the till in black, wearing a lanyard and holding a clipboard in her hand. She was talking in hushed tones, to a youth also dressed in black and wearing a lanyard.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I wonder if you could tell me where I would find the kind of laundry bags that go in washing machines.”

“Haven’t got a bloody clue,” was not the answer I was expecting.

“Oh,” I murmured, trying to buy myself a bit of time while I considered my next move.

“I don’t bloody work here.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I got that wrong. The perils of having rubbish sight. My mistake. Sorry.”

Hands on hips she said,” ah ha.” She was probably a really a sweet person having an off day.

If you’re under fire, best not to return that fire.

“Well, you do look like you know what you’re doing.”

Quick as a flash she bit back. “Which is more than you obviously do. ” Then she turned her back.

“Are you able to tell me where they are?” I asked the youth.

“Over there,” he said.

“Bit of a problem. I can’t see that far. Could you show me please?”

He didn’t reply but carried on talking to “having an off day”.

As I started to meander about with my nose pressed to the shelves, getting ready for that well known shopping manoeuvre “the blinky bob”, best loved of anyone who can’t see much, I heard him shout out. “Next to the bath mats.”

Bath mats meant nothing to me. In my quest I took one of everything of the shelf to read the labels and then left them in a pile for someone else to put back. The laundry bag was the last thing I took down. Ooops!

It could have been worse. Imagine if you were in the family planning section at #Boots trying to work out what was what. Imagine a very loud passing stranger trying to “help”. Imagine them shouting out the type of prophylactics on the shelf. Imagine a wide choice to fit every taste. Just in case you still couldn’t make a decision, imagine being urged on with an explanation of the “best before date” and a heartfelt enquiry as to whether or not you expected to use them by then. I can only imagine. Nothing like that has ever happened to me.

The most I have ever grown is a single radish sometime in the seventies.  My Dad used to give me runner bean and the odd courgette plant. Sometimes they thrived and sometimes they died. More accurately, I killed them.

I’m feeling pretty smug as I’ve grown much of my lawn from seed this year, although the Right Hand neighbour gently pointed out that the lawn is full of all kinds of things that don’t appear to be grass. They’re green so it all the same to me. I can’t tell.

I planted a crab apple tree and bought a packet of courgette seeds and two packets of runner bean seeds.  Everything you ever wanted to know about growing veg is on YouTube. I know because I have spent an indecent amount of time watching it. I could have done with more close up shots because even after careful viewing I have no idea what they looked like. Also, a description of what plants feel like what to touch would be helpful.

It takes seconds to plant a seed and about two weeks for the first green shoots to appear. I thought I had it covered. Beans in the black plastic pots and courgettes in the brown, or was it the other way around? It mattered because of what went where when it came to potting on. I know this because You Tube said so. No doubt time would tell.

When time did not reveal what was a bean and what was a courgette, I potted them on anyway and hoped for the best. All things being equal I was reckoning on a fifty percent success rate. I was not prepared for the triumph of a hundred percent. I know because I can count, but what was a bean and what was a courgette?

Courgettes become scratchy to the touch and make you itch. That’s how I worked out what was what and went where. Time to plant out all six of my courgette plants, all eight dwarf runner beans and all nine runners. All things being equal I was reckoning on a fifty percent success rate. I was unprepared for the triumph of a hundred percent.

Six courgette plants produce a lot of courgettes. The Right Hand neighbour took some but having eaten them was silent on the subject. I’m worried they won’t answer the door if they know it’s me with more courgettes.

The Sister said, “I’ve never seen a courgette like that before.”

The Son said, ‘Why are you bringing us all this stuff you don’t want? We don’t want it either.”

I’ve been giving courgettes and runner beans away and eating them twice a day every day for nearly two months now. There are dozens still on the plants and as many again in the fridge.

The Cleaning Genie turned up on Monday and said,” Why are you not eating your beans?”

“What beans?” I asked.

“The ones hanging off that plant.” She marched over and picked a bunch of outsized beans.

“They’ve gone to seed,” she said. Despite copious finger combing through all bean plants I had missed them.

The cleaning Genie told me how to dry parsley in the microwave before she left. Luckily I remembered how to put out the ensuing fire from the last time it happened.

The Sister says the crab apple tree has fungus.  Only a few weeks of courgettes to go. I spend a lot of time running my fingers through my runner beans. Next year I’m positioning the canes further apart so I can get my head inside. I’m not risking them going to seed. I’m picking them young.

Gardening blind has been a constant surprise.

A.A. Milne might have sat down half way down the stairs, but he never did it because he couldn’t wait another second to see what had popped up on his mobile phone. I have noticed that the folk who have adopted this practice are neither in #London Underground or in the town. They are not at the bottom. They are not in the top. They are standing half way up the exit staircase. They are right in the way.

To the desperate, who cannot help but stop on their way out of a #tube station to check their phones, I can only assume that like the poem, “All sorts of funny thoughts” run round their heads. Considering the inconvenience, they cause to even the most vigilant commuter let alone those of us whose eyes are dim and cannot see, it had better be more than a message informing them it’s beans for tea.

Heaven forfend that I should discourage anyone from using up the leftovers, but “there is a chicken curry in the fridge with your name on it,” is not a good enough reason to clog up #tube station exits during rush hour. If you are desperately checking your phone for a long awaited message from a love interest, beware of where you stop.  Standing half way up or down the stair to read “you’re dumped” may throw you sufficiently off balance to the point that this metaphor becomes a lived experience for the unsuspecting crowds coming up the stairs behind you.

There is a #tube station etiquette, including arriving and leaving. It does not involve stopping on the stairs for no good reason. Reading and sending text messages are not good reasons. They can wait until you are no longer in the #underground but in the town. That’s approximately ten seconds longer.

Anyone who can’t see depends on everyone sticking to the etiquette.  That means keep moving once you are on the stairs.

You will know you are at the stairs because at the top and bottom of every set of stairs, in every #tube station, are #tactile floor indicators.  They tend to be denoted by horizontal raised markings that you can feel under foot. So if you have your eyes firmly fixed on your telephone because news of chicken curry just won’t wait, this is the clue that you must keep moving up those stairs until you feel more tactile indicators under foot to tell you that you have reached the top. At this point you should not stop. You should not stop until you are on the street.

If you stop half way up the stairs, I might have to wait for you to finish ordering your pilau rice, because if its rush hour I probably can’t let go of the hand rail and move around you. No amount of huffing and tutting will change that.

If the person coming up behind you is completely without sight and carrying a cane in their hand you might get more of a surprise than supper. You might find your chips are delivered with sauce. One blind mans’ efforts to work out what was going on resulted in a nasty swipe, with a cane, between the thighs to someone absorbed, halfway up the stairs, on his phone. Accidents will happen.

Don’t be like Pooh and be a “grumpy old bear’ about this. Follow the advice of #TFL. Keep moving and don’t stop on the stairs. Even those of us who can’t see have urgent business and stomachs to fill.

If you think I’m being chippy, you are probably right. There will be no carbs for me. It’s a calorie controlled offering for tea tonight.

Coming out on to the street, the heat hit me.  A day of brainstorming had taken its toll. No matter how good the air conditioning and how sweet the cake, there is nothing like a good blast of hot air after a long day of trying not to disgrace yourself, to make you feel the strain.

Far fetched as it sounds, in thirty degrees of heat, I needed to be in Upper Street before 6.30, to beat the deadline for the winter jumper I had reserved.

#Bank Station had come to a standstill and as people piled in behind me, the temperature began to rise in more ways than one. I still had time to make it, but after a torturous wait, I gave up and shuffled my way through the crowds and back into the relative cool of a scorching evening. That jumper would wait for no woman. I needed a taxi. This was a job for the cane.

This was no ordinary jumper. It was just the right shade of green and it’s the quest for colour that lead me to spend the next twenty minutes, standing on the side of the road, cane in one hand, the other arm out to signal my need for a Taxi.

As taxi procuring goes, mine is a fairly rubbish technique. It’s consistently let me down over nearly forty years. It used to be that I’d see a taxi, any taxi, and stick my hand out. These days, I stand with my arm out and hope the taxi sees me. Whether they did or whether they didn’t, or whether they were stuffed with people on the quest to secure the green jumper before 6.30, I shall never know, but my nerves were starting to jangle. Hard to keep your cool in thirty degrees of heat when you feel the jumper of your desires slipping from your grasp.

“Can I help you?” asked a nice woman, then qualified her offer with, “I’m not sure there are any taxis.” I pressed on alone.

Just as I was about to give up Prince Charming was at my elbow. “That is a rubbish technique you’ve got.”

“I know. I’m on a deadline. I think I’ll give up and go home,” I said.

“Don’t do that.  I’m going to get you a taxi. Stay there. I’ll be back with a taxi, and  I always do what I say I will do.”

“I always do what I say I will do,” is the mantra of just about every man I know. It’s how you know that you won’t see them for dust. Then, just like that, he was gone. Ah well. It wasn’t meant to be.

As I took my first steps to leave, he was back. “I’ve got you a taxi. Hold my hand,” he commanded. At this point I might normally say, “I’ll just follow on,” but I willingly obeyed as we hot footed it across the road. “Take this woman to Upper Street. She’s against the clock.” We did it with five minutes to spare.

Five minutes before closing time is never the optimum moment to present yourself for a fitting.  I can’t say I won any favours. The jumper didn’t fit. They locked up and went on a hunt for one that did and hadn’t been reserved. There was one left.

I wonder if Cinderella felt like this? Possibly she did. Whatever the thrill of the chase, and I include Prince Charming in this, I wonder how much I really needed that jumper, now languishing in its wrapping. It will be a lovely surprise when I open it and think how beautiful the colour and fall in love again.

Highways England have written to me as part of a consultation about a proposed Motorway junction improvement scheme. That is to say, the letter began “Dear Resident”, so I don’t imagine they will be crying into their tea when they don’t hear back from me.

Not having a car seems a belief too far for some people. How can anyone live without one?

“I don’t believe you don’t have one,” said the woman sitting next to me.

“I’m a devotee of the bus,” I explained with the usual blah blah qualifier about not being about to blah blah.

Her objections were two fold: the inconvenience of public transport, the inconvenience of the public. I take her point on both counts but all life is on the bus and mine is the richer for it.

Twenty years ago I was sitting on the bus minding my own business when the woman sitting next to me leant over and asked, “are you Anna?” She was the Mother of a long lost school friend. I phoned her. We caught up.

“Actually, I won’t take your number as I’ve got enough friends,” she said as the call ended.

I learnt a valuable lesson. The future is generally best approached without carrying the past on your back.

When the son was young, he’d fall asleep in my arms, sitting on buses. You can’t do that while driving a car.

A couple of weeks ago I did eleven stops, sitting in the middle of a domestic row that was amongst the best I’ve ever witnessed.  “You never listen to me,” yelled the woman who was sitting behind me.

“That’s because you’re not worth listening to,” said the man standing at the front of the bus.

“Come and sit next to me. Have I got to tell the whole bus our business? “

“No. You don’t need to say anything.”

There was a long silence until the woman could bare it no more.

“What I really want,” she bellowed in a tone that informed her fellow passengers that something was being unreasonably withheld from her, ” is that colonic irrigation.”

“Be quiet,” said the man.

“You would even begrudge me that.”

One woman’s misery is twenty other people’s side splitting moment.

Recently I sat next to woman, at the bus stop, who was veiled and wearing gloves. Perfectly relaxed, she was knitting. I couldn’t restrain myself. How was it possible to do that? “Practice.”  Now we meet at the bus stop from time to time. She always says hello and we’ve started to chat. She’s not a letter box or a bomber but a nice woman I would never have met if it wasn’t for the bus.

I met my neighbour on the bus. We’d been passing each other in the street and never knew the other one was there because neither of us could see the other one blah blah.  He sat next to me and a good traffic jam got the conversation flowing. He told me how to get asbestos removed for free, and I told him about local swimming sessions if you can’t see.  That saved me nearly a thousand pounds. Who knows, it might have saved him from a kick in the teeth and dentures.

Sometimes I run into my friends on the bus and get a bonus catch up.  They have the advantage of never having to bother to speak to me if they don’t want to, because I will never know they are there.  If we were circling each other in our cars we’d hoot and wave, that’s all.

The car may be king but long live the emperor of transport, the bus.

The Best Friend and I have just made a pilgrimage to Edinburgh. Our idea of a good time is to spend three days sweating it out in a Scottish dungeon along with a hundred or so other people, all perspiring away in slightly damp pack-a-macs. We have the aroma or damp dogs in search of a good laugh.

If Best Friend were a damp dog, she would definitely opt to be a yellow Labrador. It’s so crowded at the #Edinburgh festival this year. We schlep from venue to venue on our well planned mission for humour; she a pace in front of me, me with my hand on her shoulder, weaving our way through the throngs of other people who have also taken on the aroma of wet dogs just for laughs. “Good dog” I say as she stops to narrate the sights.

Before we are in The Royal Mile looking for Winalot, I hear a voice I recognise. “Is that The Tech?” I put out there.

“Who’s that?” comes the reply from the man next to me. Then he recognises the voice. “OH. Hello,” he says. We stop for a chat and a catch up.

The sights may be wonderful in Edinburgh, but the sounds of the city offer their own delights.

As we make our way up the road I hear a voice say,” God, I thought this was supposed to be edgy. It’s just heavy.”

“Wow! That’s the voice of youth in the midst of an existential crisis.”

“No. That’s the torture of dragging a very large suitcase up a hill.”

This is the reason we only pack what we can carry on our backs, and some of that we plan to throw away. We are the only people I know who save up old clothes, at the end of their wearable life, for our holidays. This was my idea. She says it was hers.

We sit down for a tea and consider our options. A very tall man brandishing leaflets approaches us. “Are you ladies interested in classical music?” he asks.

“I’m sorry. We’re spoken for,” I say.

“He’s not talking to you,” mutters Best Friend under her breath. Too late. I have muscled my way into a conversation I didn’t want to have in the first place.

As we perspire our way through #Ahir Shah’s existential crisis of class, race and culture clash, Best Friend is overcome. She produces a fan from her bag and is occupied with vigorous flapping in an effort to create her own micro climate. She flaps herself into a standstill as she wonders if his existential angst may have inadvertently become my existential angst. Has he bet on a laugh that will be funny to everyone in the room but me?

Is it really alright to make people laugh about the lunacy of racism by setting it against the not so funny anomaly of albinism? Best Friend can breathe easy again.  Context is everything. One is amused. Watch the show. I ‘m not going to explain it here.  

We make our progression through musical drama, ventriloquy,, #Fern Brady, #Olga Koch, #Mums Great Comfort Food and walk and talk ourselves into a stupor. We didn’t even have a row.

As we pack up to leave, doubt creeps in. We hover, underwear in hand, over the bin, wondering if we should abandon old clothes in a rented room in Edinburgh or take them home again.  What has come over us?

Three days hanging about in dunguns has undermine my reasoning. Why can’t I let go? What does it mean? I am having an existential crisis. It’s not about class or race or skin colour. It’s about my pants.

There’s been a great thread on #Twitter about pointless #Braille. Can there be such a thing? Yes, but should the question be; in the digital age is there any point to Braille? Put it another way, is there any point to literacy?

Studies show that if you are blind and a Braille reader, you are more likely to achieve academically and find and keep employment as compared to people who rely solely on voice synthesizers.

Imagine a world in which no one learnt to read and write. How would anyone be able to get from “A” to “B”, read the critical instruction on the back of a packet to “keep out of the reach of children” or text one’s beloved under the table during a “all phones off” meeting of the board?

It’s the same with Braille. Braille delivers literacy in a way which the synthetic voice can never do. It teaches grammar and syntax and all that other good stuff. It’s the note on the back of a packet that means you don’t mistake pain killers for laxatives. Just like learning to read and write, Braille opens a door to independence for anyone who can’t see enough to read the printed word.

These days you can invest in a #digital Braille display, which means you don’t have to lug all those trees around with you, and no one will know when you write a note to self to remind yourself that So and So “is a total moron” because you might have your Braille display discretely perched on the table in front of you, or on your lap. A synthesizer might blurt out your secret.

Braille has to be close at hand for the hands to do the reading, or no one will ever be able to read it, which brings me back to pointless Braille which is not the same thing at all as “the point of Braille”. I think I’ve proved my case on that score.

In an office I know there is a great big Braille sign on the wall. It’s painted on the wall. No one with sight who comes into the office knows what it says so the temptation is to ask a passing blind person. They don’t know either because the dots aren’t raised. I like to think that whoever put it there wrote “beans make you fart”.

If all of those beans get a bit too much, spare a thought for the desperate as they search for the door to the bathroom. Imagine the Braille on the door being too high to reach. Let’s hope the door doesn’t open towards you as you desperately seek a clue to what lurks behind it. Then there’s the Braille sign on a door that read, “do not stand in front of this door. It opens outwards”.

I love the Braille signs hanging off chains from the ceiling, too high to comfortably reach but just the right height to smash your head against. If you have any complaints pick up the laminated card that gives instructions on how to make a complaint. The laminator doesn’t do Braille so it’s BIG dots!

In the pointless Braille stories that turned out not to be pointless at all, my top one is the drive through ATM.

When the Son was a teenager his need for easy money was such that I could barter a trip to the supermarket for one to the cashpoint. He’d drive me to the ATM with Braille keypad fitted as standard and I’d nip out and withdraw the cash. Everyone has to find a way to pay for their children’s driving lesson after all, because even teenage have their uses.

Having spent the better part of my premenopausal life avoiding pregnancy, I have spent the entirety of post menopausal life “egging” the son on to embrace reproduction. My enquiry into his plans for parenthood have not always been met with a ready enthusiasm to discuss the subject with me, his Mother. We developed a ritual exchange on the subject.

“Don’t be selfish. Think of me.”

“Mother, you are the last person I am thinking about.”

News that the DiL was in labour came in a group whatsapp message. Regular updates followed. Then as day one drifted into day two and my nerves began to jangle, I went in search of distraction, and because deep down I am a shallow person, I went shoe shopping.

If you are living through the protracted childbirth of people you have invested a future in, and can’t find anyone who is prepared to be a captive audience to your anxiety and your excitement, and especially if you can’t see much, shopping provides the ideal alternative. It is not an undertaking to be done alone. You will require assistance. This means some lucky retail assistant can be held captive to my, or your, need to talk. The #John Lewis sale, coupled with their legendary customer service, was the perfect outlet. Help in this moment of emergency was at hand.

In the shoe department I bumbled about before spotting a likely candidate and asking, “Excuse me. Do you work here?” Jackpot. Help secured, I was fairly certain I could now drop the bomb. “Actually, my daughter-in-law is having a baby. I don’t know why I have come shoe shopping. What was I thinking? Do you mind if I tell you this?”  She could hardly say no.

“How exciting,” she said. Then, not to be thrown off task, “These are nice.”

“Not keen on heels,” I whooped. “She’s been in labour since yesterday.”

“Poor thing. How about blue?”

“Blue’s good. It’s taking a long time.”

She had every blue shoe in a size six in her arms. “Would you like to try these on?”

“I would but what else have you got?” Anything to keep her captive.

“How about pink?”

“Alright. I’m sure they’d phone…”

She led me to a seat and in a neat exchange I agreed to try on pink heels and gold trainers if she would just allow me a bit of commentary on the impending birth. She did and I garbled on about babies.

Those trainers looked terrible, but I wasn’t finished yet with my need to burble about impending Grannydom, so I said I’d need to walk about a bit if she could just come with me.  I think I might have started repeating myself, or at least somehow let the mask of serious shopping intent slip a bit.  She had reached her limit. Even #John Lewis has to draw the line somewhere.

It’s amazing what a good push can do. Not the kind that brings a baby into this world, but the type that takes you out of your normally sensible flat “blue” shoe comfort zone. Pink suede seemed to be a really good investment. She was quite persuasive.

 ‘Why not celebrate a new beginning with a new beginning?’

Under normal circumstances I would never have agreed to luminous pink, but I did. I was in no position to fight it.

The flatmate says those shoes are possibly pinker than I may have intended. That’s the price of distraction. I have not told her that there are another two pairs behind the sofa. On the up side, it’s #John Lewis. You can take them back.

The Grandson, henceforth to be known as “the Grand”, is a beautiful shade of baby pink.