Saturday, July 06, 2019

Deterioration

I didn't realise how fond I was of my keys until I lost them. 




Before I continue, I need to explain that apart from an incident last August which is documented here, I am not known as a key-losing person: that has always been Dave's province.

However, when I got home from my recent holiday in Cornwall, I couldn't find my house keys.They had no identifying label on them so it wasn't a security worry. It was annoying and inconvenient, and it made me worry about the soundness of my mind. 

But I also felt sad. My writing is not sentimental, but I am a sentimental person. My mother died in 2008 and we sold her cottage in 2010, 



and yet I kept the cottage key on the keyring. 

Then there was the fob. It looks like chunky red plastic, but it's claim to fame is that Isaac made it for me in CDT at school when he was a teenager. 



He is now 46.



My friend Het, with whom I'd been staying in Cornwall, scoured her house and came up with nothing. She rang the local post office and Land's End to enquire if anyone had handed in the keys, which I thought I might possibly have lost while walking along the coastal path. I rang the lost property offices of the trains I'd been on. All came to nought.

Dave said he remembered my saying before I went away that I had put them in a drawer to keep them safe. I didn't recall saying that. Was his memory playing tricks on him too? Whether or no, I looked in every drawer in the house: nothing. I searched all the bags I had taken to Cornwall several times: nothing. I was resigned to not seeing the keys again. And then yesterday Dave borrowed my rucksack and emptied it out at the end of the day and there they were.

I am ridiculously happy to have them back. I feel hugely relieved that I am not the sort of person who loses house keys outside the house. But I am also faintly disturbed, because this kind of thing is just going to get worse, isn't it? I have just now realised that my blouse - which I wore to go to Bakewell this morning - is inside out. 

Dave says we need a checklist to work through before we leave the house, and I think he might be right.

Top and bottom covered in clothing

All clothes the right way out

Hair brushed

No smears of toothpaste round mouth

Facial hair plucked

Shopping list in pocket

Note left to absent partner as to intended destination and time of departure

Windows shut and locked

All doors locked

Keys safe

Hey ho. We were young once.


This is us with my younger sister, 50 years ago 



And now, because I can, I am going to put the latest review of my new book - EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW YOU - on here.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I’m refusing to see it as deterioration!
More a question of ... enjoying life’s innate chaos to the full!

I’m grateful to the inescapable mirrors in the lifts here.
Last minute corrections are regularly applied before reaching ground floor.

And what a wonderful review. Hopefully many more to come.

Thea
Xx

Sue Hepworth said...

What an irrepressible optimist you are!
I’ll try to reframe it as enjoying life’s innate chaos.
I managed to remember everything today and feel I should get a gold star for it.
Xxx