Leggings@home60+com

I picked my tea resolutely, having decided it did no good to skip meals. I was just getting used to life alone, all my children grown up and moved away. I ate too much! I resolved to do extra things, swimming, cycle and gym. Phylis went off running, totally mad! That was out of the question. Too much!

All the same my tummy was growing: was I pregnant? About to make medical history? Well no really 60+s had already solved the baby dilemma. No time like the present. No time at all.

Sharon a rather lonely and gregarious soul wanted to come around and put me through some easy mental exercises. She inferred they were mysterious and would help. I could then show Phylis and she could pass it on. It was the way in which all the others spread their messages. I wondered if it was my mobile phone, I had an Iphone. No problem!

Outside the kitchen window the garden was in bloom, for early May I had a fine show of Iris in the pond. Further down the garden border the summer plants were half way up. The sun was up. It was a lovely afternoon. I could hear the old double parents next door spread their poisen over the fence to the young double parents at the bottom of the garden.

"She's only a single parent!"
"Och Aye the NOo, ought to be put away ya ken!"
"Never potty trained em!"
"They never turn out like our kids do. All sprinkly clean and in the top classes."

I could spit! One day I'm gonna walk down the garden and sneak up by the compost bin, and say sweetly, "There's a white paper that says over the country single parented children are better behaved and cause less trouble in the classroom, than the double parented children who fail on both counts."
The younger woman at the back would then yell back, "We say our kids are better than yours!"
"Who's 'we say'? Please," I'd beg. She had a habbit of saying we say, we say, as if it was a magic formula.
"I'm going," she'd then mutter at me, she always said that too. What it was to have a limited vocabulary.

Phylis said last time we'd tried to have a conversation that, "She'd been brain washed."
She'd shouted to her husband and the children, "Not to bother with the lesbians, they have to live somewhere, we say!"
So we held hands and sauntered back to the house for a drink.

.....................................................

I hardly heard the door bell ring, whilst thinking over the lesbian incident. Obviously lady at back, had some tendencies and needed to express herself.
Phylis said, "I can't oblige her, I'm busy!"
Paul had cracked up, and the next day had made a point of holding my hand too.

Lady at Back, "She's got another one! We say she ought to make up her mind! We say it's disgusting! We say she should have left one for a younger woman!" That cracked both of us, and she didn't know the WE SAYS!"

Sharon stood on the doorstep with a basket, "Hiya," she said cheerfully, "The Tripod sent me, she says it's time your friend helped out. She never did pay her dues."
I deliberately misunderstood. "I saw her pay."
"It's something we say," she explained happily. I wished her dead then, she was a WE SAY!
"Now, we are alone?" she looked around warily, even glared under the other sofa. Was I hiding Paul?

"This is how we do it, the early stages," she continued. "We have to be very rude to each other."
My face froze, "I'm not naturally rude."
"Try it," she advised, "It's really really helps, you flat chested man chaser!"
"Pardon me," I said nervously, feeling daft.
"Biatch!" she screamed, "That man you were with was with me later!"
I burst into laughter. "He does what he likes!" I gasped out, still giggling. "Do you imagine I chain him up."
"Well if you don't know how and you want too, I'll help." she said straight faced.
"I don't!" All this was getting to me. Not only the rudeness, there was the way she looked at me, as if she fancied me.

She laughed, and pulled her chair closer to mine. "How old are you? I'm 21."
I was shocked, she looked so much older. I looked out of the window to get back my composure. I heard a buzz as if an hornet had got inside. I couldn't understand it, I hadn't opened the windows since my walk down the garden.

"I've always looked older than my age," she confided, her eyes beady.
"I'm 36," I lied pokerfaced. I had to rememember the warnings I had from Phyliss.
"I thought you were about that," she said happily, "That makes us perfect because I look your age."
"it's your weight," I said with certainity, "It puts years on." She must have been a size 24.
"Ah well when I'm your age I'll lose the weight and look 18. Were you in the top classes at school? In a girls school? I learnt how to do this there, the single parent kids and the stupid kids don't learn though!
"Single parent kid!" I explained feeling sorry for my own children. "There's a hornet somewhere - I can hear it."

She looked pleased. "Well if we keep on day after day," she said in whisper, "You will start being able to use your mind differently. It'll be amazing what we can do together. Two is more effective than one! WE SAY"