How not TO RELAX

A comfy sofa, a good book – and constant interruption

‘What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?’ wrote a chap called William H. Davies, the poet laureate of the duvet day.

He coined those words in 1911, which was clearly a more relaxed age. I’d like to see Mr Davies attempt to stand or stare or even put his feet up for 20 minutes in the modern world. I attempted it the other day, and it can’t be done.

It’s been a busy time at Dear Towers. Many hours have been spent counselling my daughter Rachel and assuring her that she won’t always be single.

I’ve also been supporting my sister Deb’s sudden enthusiasm for yoga, which means that I have aches where I didn’t think I had joints.

In other news, Mr Dear is organising a car boot sale to raise funds for the cricket club and has been having a clear-out. So our conversations over the past few days have been like this: ‘Do we still need this?’

‘Definitely – I gave you that on our 10th wedding anniversary.’

‘Oh. What about this?’

‘It’s a lemon zester – I’ve been looking for it.’ ‘What was it doing in the spare bedroom?’ ‘I don’t know. Tell you what, why don’t you throw out the cappuccino machine that your cousin gave us? We never use it and it’s just cluttering up the kitchen cupboard.’

‘The thing is, you never know when we might fancy a cappuccino. We’d be kicking ourselves if we had to buy a new machine.’

Anyway, the point is that I had the house to myself yesterday. There was nothing

‘Two calls on the landline within 10 minutes is unheard of’

urgent that needed doing, so I thought I’d treat myself to a bit of W. H. Davies time.

The plan was this: comfy chair, hot chocolate with whipped cream, and an adventure novel called The Lying Dutchman, about a 17th-century Dutch academic turned detective. Which is much more exciting than it sounds.

Master Mercurius – the Dutchman in question – has been sent to England by William of Orange to scupper the

Monmouth Rebellion by leaving false plans at the palace of…

Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! Brrring!

You’ll have spotted straight away that the phone is ringing, which is rarer than you’d think in our house. Most people these days leave WhatsApp messages, because we’re very modern like that.

‘Hello,’ says the caller. ‘My name is Sam. Your loft insulation is due for renewal, and our representatives are in your area.’

Click! I am far too busy with the 17th century to be talking about loft insulation, which we don’t need. Our loft is so well insulated that we probably have traces of snow on the roof from the bad winter of 1963.

Anyway, back to Holland. Charles II has died, and his brother James is on the throne. William, or rather his wife Mary, is next in line, but the Duke of Monmouth plans to seize the…

Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! Brrring!

Two calls on the landline within 10 minutes is almost unheard of.

‘Good afternoon,’ says a voice that is distinctly upper crust. ‘May I book a table for four for this evening? We’re celebrating our wedding anniversary, and our son and his wife are treating us.’

‘How nice,’ I say, ‘but I’m afraid you have the wrong number.’

‘We were hoping you could accommodate us at about 7.30pm. We don’t want to be too late, you see.’

The temptation to say ‘That’s fine, see you later’ is almost overwhelming. But I manage to convince her that I am unable to cater for her night out. Back to the book.

That’s when my mobile pings. You see what I mean about W. H. Davies? He wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds before he chucked in the poetry business and started selling nylons door to door, or something else that got him out of the house.

The ping was Mr Dear, wondering if he should get some milk. I issued him with a shopping list, but didn’t even have time to pick up the book before the phone pinged again. This time, it was an email from Harry, the new director of our amateur theatre company. He is modern, dynamic and fresh out of drama school. Frankly, he frightens the life out of us.

‘Dear Rosie,’ he said. ‘We’re doing Macbeth in September and wondered if you’d be interested in a role I have in mind for you.’

‘Is it one of the witches?’

I replied.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Actually,

I thought you might like to play Macbeth.’