A bit of literary, another funeral and why ' try not be nasty' is excellent advice

Went to London where I saw a play and accidentally got involved with the Bloomsbury arts/literary festival in the Persephone bookshop. It was very nice to talk about 'lost voices', eat scones with jam and cream and drink tea. Back home again, I have another funeral to attend - it's getting a bit scary: intimations of mortality is putting it mildly.

I think I've got the autumn glums. Or more likely it's my age. Descent into the menopause is a bit shit really. I have been feeling creaky since  I slipped and pulled a muscle in my leg.   Writing schemes of work doesn't help. Whoever thought up the idea of schemes of work was clearly a masochist. It has to be the most boring chore, even ironing becomes an attractive alternative.

Thank goodness for BBC radio I-Player. Yesterday I caught up with Sunday's Desert Island Discs with Mark Gatiss and what a lovely chap he seemed: funny, sensitive and thoughtful. After losing his mother and sister in quick succession, his advice was, given the nature of this existence and the suddenness of death/tragedy, we should avoid nasty, hurtful behaviour. Afterwards I rang my mother to whom I'd been superior and bitchy the evening before. Nowhere does my tendency to combine aspects of  a grumpy old woman and a nasty teenage surface more than it does when I'm with my mother. Next time I get frustrated over her desire to be loved and wanted and prattle on about the family, just as I've settled down to watch some nonsense on TV, and take sadistic pleasure in pointing out the holes in her thinking, I'll try and remember his advice.