In the file of mental video clips I call my memory, there is a ‘bad food moments’ folder.
I like trees as much as anyone. But, thanks to the graceful ash outside our kitchen window, I have now joined the merry band of tennis elbow sufferers who, at any one time, make up one third of the population.
I am speaking loudly into my phone at the station. ‘We had an earthquake last night,’ I shout. ‘Our chimney collapsed on to next door’s conservatory.’ Other passengers are looking at me strangely, but frustration makes me continue.
Kerry’s face lights up the minute I walk into the office. ‘I’ve been looking through your file,’ she says, ‘and it’s your birthday next week.’ Then she produces a gift catalogue. ‘So what’s it to be?’
Did you switch in 2015? Gas, electricity, phone, bank? Or did you decide that it was most likely swings and roundabouts and that the new lot would probably rip you off in the end, just like the old lot did?
When it comes to good deals, Mark is the master of one-upmanship. If you buy a litre of olive oil at half price, he will know a man virtually giving it away in ten litre drums. Sold out now, of course. If only you had mentioned it last week.
Today is shaping up nicely. It is cold and windy, and the sky looks so ghastly that we expect a plague of locusts by lunchtime.
Everyone loves my French beans with black mustard, garlic and chilli flakes. But I should warn you: some of those flakes are not chilli. They are flakes of non-stick coating.
It is just what you need on a Saturday night – an old friend telling your wife that she is lopsided.
When I grew up, I wanted to be an engine driver. Still do in fact. But my parents palmed me off with a train set, packed me off to grammar school, and that was that.
I am sitting at my desk counting the moles on my right arm (I swear they have all swapped places since I last looked) when I spy something yellow peeping out from behind my computer screen.
On Monday morning, I will wake up with a bad back, and as usual I will have forgotten why.
Roger announced the other day, completely out of the blue, that he was 2.7% Neanderthal. It was quite unnerving, I can tell you.
Every time I drive my car, it feels less like a journey and more like a guilt trip. It is my fault, of course. I allowed optimism to get the better of me.
Small portions are the next big thing. According to a report from Cambridge University, if the people who dished up our dinners put less food in front of us, Britain’s obesity crisis would start to slim down in less time than it takes to say, ‘no more thanks. I’m stuffed’.
Poor Dotty was listless. In fact, she had been so out of sorts that we were seriously worried. Barely one year old, she is the youngest and liveliest of our girls. But she had lost all her sparkle.
How old are you? Not the number of candles on your birthday cake; I’m talking about your actual, biological age.