Elvis really should leave the building

MOST people my age who go away for a night or a weekend, tend to go for a nice quiet meal and a glass of wine. Or even a little game of bridge or a recital of some sort.

Unfortunately, I don’t hang out with people like that and sometimes I wish I did. Because every time I go away with friends, no matter which gang of friends I travel with, it descends into mayhem. If only it were one glass of wine but it never is. It’s always the same.

Everyone thinks they are talented after multitudinous glasses of wine. We all become deluded. No one more than me. I think my talents range from Mary Black to Elvis to Dolly Parton. There’s video evidence of my appalling Elvis impersonation on this particular recent night. Me with a few chins trying to sing in a deep voice and my male backing group singing the chorus in a falsetto voice.

It’s not a pretty sight. There’s video evidence of people playing air guitars and people trying valiantly to play real guitars. There are no young people here. It’s like a day room. Daniel O’Donnell could walk in at any minute to provide the entertainment. There are regular cries for the nurse and meds to be distributed. At least we realise it’s like a day room. Except it never stops us being infantile.

And then we discovered Alexa in the house of our hosts. To the uninitiated it’s a voice in a box that plays music when you speak to her. Sometimes she understands you and sometimes she doesn’t. To say those of us who weren’t understood became incensed with rage would be an understatement. Every sort of abuse was shouted at the box. She does not respond to abuse. We struggled with that concept. From looking back at the various videos we struggle with everything.