An old zither our guinea pig used to sleep on

I count myself lucky that I inherited my father's sense of humour (although he is certainly not to blame for the inappropriateness of some of the things I find funny). I also inherited most of his books and quite a few of his favourite authors. His tastes would have been formed in the thirties and forties, so many of them are out of fashion nowadays. I keep Wodehouse by the bed (and, for a pinko-liberal Guardian reader, liking Wodehouse is pretty much as bad as liking Wagner) and while I may hate his sins I can't help liking the sinner.

In the days when I was having children, I never went into hospital without either Saki or Thurber, neither of them read or regarded by anyone I know although I would recommend them to everyone. They are of their time, admittedly, but so is Jane Austen and noone ever holds it against her. I have just returned once more to Thurber, in an ancient yellow paperback which was my father's, falling to bits and with that ripe smell that old paperbacks have. And I was laughing aloud on the train on Thursday morning (for which I apologise to my fellow travellers).

What's not to love about an author who manages to work into his story, "an old zither that our guinea pig used to sleep on"?

Not now, Prince Charming

A year ago, I wrote a post suggesting that Cinderella would have got bored with life at the palace and would have wanted to go back to a life where she had something to do, something to keep her busy.

I think I was wrong about that. Now I'm thinking that she would probably have refused to go back to the palace in the first place.

Imagine it. The night before, she had been whisked away from the kitchen, quite possibly before she had finished her evening chores (washing up after dinner, tidying the kitchen, putting the cat out) and had spent hours and hours at the ball. At the stroke of midnight, she has to go running back home and what do you think she finds?

Well, at a guess, and knowing what her sisters were like, she would have found teetering stacks of dirty dishes dumped on the kitchen table (and more spread like a fan round their chairs in front of the television), the leftovers from dinner spilt on the floor where the cat had been at them, her favourite saucepan blackened from a not very successful attempt to make hot chocolate, the bath left with a ring of grease and hair round it from cack-handed depilation, sodden towels on the floor and the toilet left unflushed.

And so, next morning, when the Prince comes a-knocking with the glass slipper, what would she have said? I haven't got time for any of this! Look at the state of the place! It's going to take me days to catch up and get it all straight again! I haven't even finished the washing-up yet and I'm never going to get lunch on the table in time. If you think I've got time to mess about with a silly slipper...

Rain

It was a wet day yesterday and the lovely English people were behaving in their usual lovely illogical way when faced with unseasonal weather, whether rain in summer or sun in winter. Half were over-reacting and half weren't reacting at all. So there were people all wrapped up in raincoats, with long boots and collars turned up and umbrellas, and there were people in summer dresses and flip-flops, and they were all on the street at the same time. There were even people who couldn't decide which way to behave, so they were half-and-half, people with great thick padded anoraks and sandals, people with flimsy tops and fur-lined boots.

Surely we are all used to inconsistent weather by now? It is always inconsistent weather in England.

The holiday ended with a bang (because there wasn't time for a whimper)

It was our last morning in Malaga and we were intending to go to the Museum of Modern Art, and then do a bit of shopping (a few presents, etc) before going to the airport. So we were in the hotel room doing the last of the packing, cleaning teeth and such like and Husband had just asked what time it was. It was between twenty and quarter to ten, and we were discussing whether the musem would open at 10 or before, and Husband was putting the travel documents into his case. And then he said, in an unusually small voice - "The flight's at 10.25".

I had had it fixed in my mind that we had a morning flight and would be home by lunchtime, but Husband had persuaded me that I'd got it wrong and we were leaving at lunchtime. I had suggested checking, but it had never been done. So there we were, with less than 45 minutes to get to the plane.

I decided, regretfully, that we didn't have time for a row.

We flung the last bits into the bags (thankfully we only had hand luggage and had checked-in online) and rushed down to reception and asked them to order a taxi. Which they did, but we had to wait for it, and I suppose it was only five minutes but it felt like an hour. And then the traffic was heavy and then there were roadworks - and we were just on the approach road to the airport at ten past ten.

Thank goodness the queues were short at the security check and noone tried to stop us. We ran through the departure lounge, found the gate number (C36) and ran for that. Reached it, out of breath. And it was shut. No sign of passengers, no sign of staff. We stood at looked at it stupidly, then Husband put his bag down and started to trudge back, I suppose to look for someone to tell us what to do next. And I looked round behind me and saw - our flight still showing at gate C35. I must have mis-read it on the board. I had to shout at Husband, who was a way away by then, he gallopped back and we thrust our boarding cards at the staff there. "Es possible?" Thank goodness for the easy-going Mediterranean temperament. Yes, it was possible.

Our bottoms hit the seats at 10.23.

Espana - campeon del mundo

Now, I'm not a great footie fan - as any fule no - but half the point, if not more than half the point, of going to Malaga was to be in Spain for the World Cup Final, Husband having correctly predicted that Spain was likely to be in it. So it would have been daft not to go to watch it last Sunday evening.

We had been expecting to watch it in a bar, but asking at the tourist office we were told that there was going to be a giant screen erected in the bull ring. Not being Birmingham, the bull ring in Malaga is a proper bull ring. So there we were, in the blazing sun (knowing locals had filled the shaded half) - the five of us, four Dutch fans and 5,000 Spaniards.

The mood was jubilant and confident to start with; gradually things got more tense and, as we lurched into the second half of extra time with the score still 0-0, Spain having failed to put the ball away despite numerous good chances, it was positively quiet. You could almost hear 5,000 Spaniards chewing their nails.

You couldn't hear yourself think when they finally scored. Absolute bedlam. Shouting, stamping, cheering, hooters, horns, flares, firecrackers and scarlet smoke bombs. Absolutely amazing. And the party went on all night although we, lily-livered tourists that we were, crept into bed about 1 o'clock.

Marianne Faithfull

We have just had a few days holiday in Malaga. We arrived to find that Marianne Faithful, no less, was doing a concert in the main theatre on the Saturday night. And we are old enough to remember Marianne as THE rock chick of all rock chicks, the glamorous, elfin drifter through the sixties with the lifestyle that we all envied.

We couldn't believe that there would be seats still available, but there were. Seats at all prices. We bought the cheapest, of course. And arrived to find the place more than half-empty and were offered the chance to sit in one of the boxes, instead of right up in the gods. (I've never actually sat in a box before!)

That was the first sad thing, that she couldn't fill even a small theatre in a big Spanish town full of tourists and expats. There were only 400 in. They kept the house lights down so she couldn't see how few of us there were.

It is unfair to complain that she is old now. Of course she is. If she was young in the sixties - well, work it out for yourself. It is forty years on, and more. And it made me feel old too, just looking at her and realising that there in front of us was the undeniable reminder that we are all old now. Was she sober? I'm not sure. She was very wobbly and wavering and confused. It would be more charitable to think that perhaps she had been ill. But she had all her songs on a stand beside her, had to keep looking at them to remind herself what came next.

She wasn't well served by the technical staff. The sound was unbalanced, her accompanying guitarist very loud, her own voice often drowned.

It was almost the saddest thing I have ever seen in a theatre.

Platform

There was a major disaster at the station on Tuesday morning. I have been commuting for 20-odd years and for most of them, I have been standing exactly at the same place on the platform each morning, at a spot which coincides with the rear set of doors on the penultimate carriage. (This makes it easy for me to get my accustomed seat amongst the familiar faces. I can't take any excitement at that time in the morning).

It has been easy to find the right place, because it is exactly three cracks to the left of the chipped slab. The platform is edged with quite large slabs, one of which was easy to spot becasue a chunk of the corner was broken off. Count along to the left to the third crack between the slabs - and that was my place.

Except it isn't any more. As part of the building work which is leading to the extension of the platform to accommodate 12-coach trains, they have renewed the slabs. They are the same size and shape and style, but without a missing corner they all look exactly the identical.

Now how am I going to be able to find exactly the right place to stand?