This must be about the time of year the BBC invites next year’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing ‘celebrities. Based on the fact that for the last few years unknowns who have paraded their inanities on blogs or You Tube have been declared ‘social media stars’, I am expecting a call. Nor will I agree to be the Ann Widdicombe stooge of the new series. Because of social distancing I should be able to dance on my own, do my own choreography and rehearse on the other side of the studio floor from Dave Arch and his orchestra without some leggy woman deserting last year’s husband for me.
I’ve been learning some new songs and writing some new poems but have no audience to suffer them. Performing on Zoom to several screens of empty chairs because their occupants have nipped out to the loo, is not the same. As a result I’ve decided to organise a concert which will feature just me, in my study, while Deirdre is watching something griping (sorry I mean gripping) on TV. That way the show can be as long as I like and I can be assured of a standing ovation.
A similar situation arose outside in the garden this morning when we were both weeding the path. This a horrible job necessitating sore knees, aching backs and broken finger nails. At some point one of us remarked: who were we doing this for? No one is going to be joining us for lunch on the sunken patio or sipping an early evening gin and tonic. There will be no Open Gardens this year to admire the lupines and foxgloves that are crowding together so promisingly, exactly as they should in a cottage garden. Should we just leave it to return to nature and next year’s visitors can be presented with a machete and hack their way through the undergrowth and the strangler vines of what we’ll advertise as a nature reserve?
This is becoming a rather worrying contemplation about how much of my life do I construct for the benefit of an audience. Is there sufficient reward in surveying a garden path or increasing my repertoire just for my own satisfaction? Psychologists will have some rather unpleasant names for this condition like narcissism or exhibitionism. Whatever it is I started early. Yesterday I wrote about discovering some old family photos. One was of Aunt Lily at whose house I used to be deposited when my mother was working. Someone had died and in 1952 funeral teas would have been held in the ‘front room ‘which was reserved for such occasions. For some reason I was there, presumably because 5 year olds could be expected to be neither seen nor heard on solemn occasions. It appears this was not a child care philosophy to which I subscribed. Looking around and noting a crowd and, assuming that whenever two or three were gathered together I was expected to perform, I stood behind an armchair, clapped my hands for attention and proceeded to sing. I have spent the next 68 years exploiting opportunities to complete the performance that was so decisively curtailed by Aunt Lily. I like to think I was lured into the kitchen with the promise of jam sandwiches and Victoria Sponge.
Perhaps using all this time we have to muse alone on distant memories and the purpose of life is not such a good idea. Tonight the BBC has invited us to judge the best of the EuroVision Song Contest and of course ABBA came out top. Deirdre (the one on our left) well remembers waiting in the wings to replace Agnetha if her voice should fail her.
