Chatterbox

Ellie had stayed with us overnight. She was awake at 06:30 but didn't disturb us until she heard me in the bathroom. We had the usual pre-school schedule with the addition of preparing her change of clothes for dance class, after school. We dropped her off and returned home.

Diane has been struggling with her knee and didn't feel up to Pilates this week. I left her in the warm, at home, and set off for football. The temperature was hovering around 0C, so it was going to be chilly! Like last week, we played without any goalkeepers, again we were only allowed to score from within the goal area. I rather like this format. The problem we had was that Jack (who is the arbiter of the rules) dynamically changed the rules during the game. He claimed, of course, that he didn't, but it was really quite blatant. Anyway, I managed to score the opening goal and my team ended up with a 7-4 win.

Back home, Diane was working on a sewing pattern and sat down to edit some more of the 2023 journal. I have now completed this through to Diane's birthday in late November. I also managed to get some reading time before collecting Ellie from the dance class. Once we were home I started on dinner. We needed to be finished and clear so that Zoe could collect Ellie and we could go out for the evening.

We drove into town and parked near the Chichester Festival Theatre. Kim had got us tickets to see "Gyles Brandreth Can't Stop Talking".

We had deliberately arrived early and stood in the foyer with a drink while watching the thrum and enjoying the buzz of the place as it filled up. Gyles Brandreth was there in the foyer signing copies of his books and chatting with the customers.

Time ticked by and the auditorium was opened. We took our seats on a side balcony. Our tickets warned of possible restrictions to our view, but in reality, there was no problem.

Gyles took the stage and started to regale us with stories from his childhood, from his forthcoming TV appearances, from his recent TV appearances, from his time in politics as an MP, from his friendships with the Royal Family, and from the theatre. He mercilessly name-dropped throughout.

It was a wonderful evening there was hardly a spare seat in the house and the audience was completely entranced and amused. He opened up the floor for some random questions and went back into full flow - whatever the subject.

We left the theatre at about 22:00 and were home by twenty-past.