Gran forgets things sometimes

[She is sat neatly, politely - looking expectantly to the audience, as if ready to be interviewed.]

I am, I’m well - I am well, thank you.

[Shuffles slightly; pulls her skirt down, or re-arranges her sleeves.]

I mean, things are a bit different these days. I mean in a, in a - just in a general sort, sort of sense. I didn’t eat breakfast today, for example. I’d made it, I’d cooked it and plated it up and then just didn’t. Didn’t actually eat it. I, I found it an hour later, and obviously by that time, the toast was all soft and the eggs were definitely hard. And I can’t abide a hard egg. Needs to be runny, really - I do find the yolk is very important. Very important for the eating experience.

[Briefly trails off, looks into space. Then is reminded of another story.]

Or I, I saw my daughter yesterday afternoon - or it might have been the day before. Or Monday actually. But she drove up, she came up to visit and she brought this girl with her, this little [is visibly happy now, reliving this moment] - this really little girl, actually - with, she had the most blue, just the bluest eyes that you ever saw. And she was just looking up at me with her lovely little - well, baby blues I suppose you could call them - why yes, a very sweet, a darling little girl. 

And my daughter, she said to this little girl, ‘Say hello to your gran, then.’

And I just thought, well - the cheek! I am not a gran, and I haven’t been a gran, actually, and I still very much have my own, my own life to live, actually. I’m not, I’m not at that time of life yet.

And I said this to my daughter, actually - I said ‘Who are you calling gran? I am not this child’s gran.’

I mean, I literally hadn’t seen the child before - although of course she was still, obviously, very sweet - but I didn’t know her, you know. And my daughter says to me - she just looks at me, in this funny way - and says ‘Yes you are mum, you remember, this is my daughter, your granddaughter, this is Lily.’ 

I didn’t believe her, really. 

[There is a minor pause here; not too emphatic, but just as if she is considering her next words more carefully, almost preparing them.]

I mean I smiled and said ‘Oh of course it is, oh yes it is, yes, there’s Lily’. 

But I didn’t really - well, I mean, I knew - because I just had never, had never seen this girl before. And I would remember my granddaughter. If I had one. With eyes like hers as well.

[Another pause, more meaningful this time.]

But, I think, I think just these days, I think everything’s a bit funny. It is just a bit different. 

[Shuffles again - more agitated. Says this next section more quickly, as if to deflect from what she’s just admitted before.]

The buses, the buses don’t run how they used to, and Dairy Milk doesn’t, it’s just not the same as when I was a girl. Used to be such a treat, on a weekend. A highlight. 

And the weeks, the days themselves aren’t - they just aren’t like how the days used to be. Friday isn’t, it’s not what Friday was when I was young.

[Pauses again. Is now more reverent, dreamy.] 

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I’ll be thinking, and I realise that I don’t actually know what day it is. I’ll just be lying in bed in my pajamas, and I’ll be thinking for hours, actually, about what day it is. [The pauses between each sentence get longer here.]

And how things change, and what a funny world it is, the way things change. And the days.

[More brightly.]

But aside from that, I’m keeping, yes, I’m doing well. Not so bad. Can’t complain.