LIFE ACCORDING TO LILY

I seriously think I am over the worst. Yes, dear Reader (as writers of yore would say), I think I am a Changed woman. I am down to less than two hot flushes a day where I used to get four or five an hour. In fact I don't think I had a single one yeterday and I somehow feel different; better in myself than I have for ages and full of the joys of ... something. Of course none of this detracts from the fact that I am still forgetful, easily confused and left standing at the door of the fridge wondering what I'd gone there for. But that will all settle down in time, I am sure of it. Or almost sure.

Last night at eight o'clock, I went to visit my neighbour. Lily is 91 years old and getting smaller by the day. I doubt if she is more than five feet tall and weighs much more than six stone and she is almost totally deaf but I absolutely love her. I am still not sure how the weekly visit thing came about. I only know that since we moved in next door to her, I have gone in every Monday night for a visit. Long long ago, I'd go in at quarter to nine and stay for an hour. But she was hospitalised for months last year and in the process, became quite institutionalised as well; putting herself to bed at seven in the evening because that is what time the nurses tuck their senior patients up for the night. It has only really been the last six weeks or so that the Monday night visit has started up again but now they are from 8pm until 8.45pm - then I go home and she goes to bed.

Lily is an amazing woman! She has two daughters and a lot of support from them, friends and family members, and although she can't actually do a lot for herself these days, she has always got plenty to say. About everything. And that forty-five minutes is soon taken up with her tales. "Once," she told me. "I gave Ken (husband) bubble and squeak for dinner on Monday. 'What's this?' he wants to know. I say 'It's bubble and squeak.' 'I'm not eating that!' he says." For dessert that same day, she did bread and butter pudding and custard. "I gave it to him," she told me. "And he says 'What's this?' 'It's bread and butter pudding!' I told him. He says ' I'm not eating that!' " So she threw the custard over his head. A whole jugful of it. Every last drop of it. Needless to say he never complained about his food again.

Lily is full of anecdotes like this. There was the time her (then) eleven year old daughter took the milk float for a joy ride around the green. And the time she had a midnight picnic on Mitcham Common with her boyfriend of the time. And, when she worked at Paynes Poppets, there was the time that she and a colleague filled dozens of packs of lemon jelly with orange jelly by mistake. She once even offered to share her pack of night-time incontinence pads with me. But I politely declined. Even I haven't quite got to that stage yet!

In fact there isn't a lot I don't know about The Life and Times of Lily now but the strange thing is that I never tire of listening to her. She's a terrible flirt! She is. She would have the boys queuing up for miles if she wasn't so loyal to her late husband. A particular favourite of hers is Jeremy Paxman. Don't ask me why. And when I leave on a Monday evening she says to me "Kisses for Steve!" "How many this week?" I ask her. If she's in a good mood, she says "Two!" And I duly pass them on to Hubby when he gets home. "Be good!" I say to her as I wave cheerio. "No fun in being good !" she tells me, with a twinkle in her eyes that defies her age.

And that's my Lily. I hope I have got half her spirit and zest for living when I get to her age. Ah well - I have forty one years in which to practice!