Let’s do this together

“Don’t say I’m 79, it’s 78 and three quarters,” she revealed tetchily.

I was trying to find out mum’s real age to set her up on her new laptop, but even Bletchley Park would have trouble breaking that code.

“I have to put your date of birth in so the system knows you’re over 18,” I explained with my rapidly-dwindling patience.

“Just put the end of the war,” she told me, waving her hand at the laptop screen.

“Which war? I’m sorry but it doesn’t give me an option to round it up to sometime before the end of the 18th century,” I spluttered, but stopped the rotating date at 1945.

I’d bought my mum the most basic laptop I could find as I’m pretty sure the last time she used a typewriter it was made by Caxton.

“I just want to switch it on and go,” were her requirements when we discussed what she wanted. “Go where?” I asked, a little confused. “You’ve always refused to have wi-fi installed, so the laptop won’t connect to anything.”

“Well, I don’t want to be monitored by the powers-that-be,” she said mysteriously, as if Chinese spies would get hold of her weekly shopping list and photos of our new kitten, Ronnie, would be a threat to national security.

Mum and Aunty Dot had come for an early Easter lunch as they’ll be too busy this weekend when their blessing cup literally runneth over with special vigils and masses, or candle-lighting opportunities as I call them.

The big news from their home in North London was that the nearest supermarket is shutting for five weeks while they refurbish the store. “I expect they’ll ruin it and make it all modern,” sneered my mother, as if expecting an easier shopping experience is a sign of weakness.

They say the kids have a short attention span these days, but you put a couple of almost octogenarians in a room with a new kitten, and it’s extremely hard to get anyone to concentrate.

Also my mother’s eyesight is rubbish because she’s too vain to get tested for glasses.

I kept pointing at things for her to click on the screen, and she’d miss by a mile. “I don’t know what you’ve given up for Lent, mum, but I think it’s your eyeballs. Look – click on where it says ‘File’.” Running out of puff, I thought to myself, “Why keep a teenager and do techie stuff myself?”

I called TDL, and she came down from her bedroom grumbling: “Do I have to?”

“Yes you do,” I hissed. “Go and sort it out for Nana, or she’ll leave everything in her will to the local cat’s home.”

Half an hour later, a broken TDL came in the kitchen where I was carving the roast chicken.

“I can’t get Nana to switch her caps lock off,” cried TDL with frustration. “And I can’t set up her email because she left her password written down on a piece of paper at home.”

I laughed. “Yes probably next to her mobile which she never turns on.”

As Mum and Dot climbed into their taxi to leave after dinner, she called back: “Does this laptop come with a helpline?”

“Yes – don’t call us, we’ll call you,” I said and waved them off.

■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.

Please note, if you send us photos of your grandchildren, we’ll also need permission of one of their parents to print them... Thanks!

Yours, Siobhan