Chig did something deeply, deeply shameful yesterday - Bank Holiday Monday, which kept feeling like it was Sunday anyway - and has to get it off his chest. No, not the immensely satisfying gaydar shag in the afternoon. (It can happen! It can happen! After all these years!) Oh, sorry, where was I? No, not that. Earlier in the day, I did something so boringly predictable that I am very worried about what is happening to me. I went...oh God, I can hardly bring myself to say it. Okay, deep breath. I went...to...a...garden centre! Aaaaaaaaaagh! Is there no hope? Has conformity finally come home to roost? I didn't want to do it, I really didn't. I know it's what people are supposed to do on Bank Holiday Mondays. I tried to resist, but I needed things, after clearing, digging and weeding my proposed vegetable patch in the front garden (which the local cats think is for them to shit in) over the last couple of weeks. Truth is, I got up too late on Sunday to make it then. The shame. So, I found myself queuing for the car park at Homebase, thinking 'what am I doing here?' before toddling off to buy slug pellets (loads of slugs and snails around here), cat and dog repellent (to ward off the shitters), some canes, seeds and begonias (£1 for a tray of six - bargain). I have become middle-aged.

All of this came on the third day of a top weekend, where I managed to do loads during the day, including cycling twice, once along the canals and once to Cannon Hill Park. I managed to go out, and consume alcohol, on all four nights. Hurrah! Radio 5 Live said this morning that it was the warmest May Day Bank holiday ever, or since the holiday was introduced, in 1978. This in itself was news, as I don't remember the holiday - which I've always seen as being in honour of my birthday (ahem!) - being introduced when I was twelve; I thought it had always been there.

All was well until last night, when my Mum rang to tell me that one of her cousins - someone I looked upon as an uncle, especially when I was younger - had died yesterday afternoon. It was so completely out of the blue. He was at home with his wife, children and grandchildren after a day out in Stratford-upon-Avon, and died quietly in his chair, with people all around. It reminded me, as I watch far too much TV, of the way that Ray Langton died in Coronation Street the other week. Peaceful, yet shocking. But my Mum's cousin hadn't been ill and had no history of heart problems (although they are in the genes on that side of my family). He was 66, just four years older than my Mum, and I could tell it has really shaken her. She went to school with him and his brothers and sisters. (Six of them in all - we are Catholics after all.) When my Mum rang, it was clear from the way she said, 'I've got something to tell you' that someone had died. I thought she was going to say that my Great Aunt had died. She's about 92 and the last surviving sister of my Grandad and their 11 other siblings. (Yes, thirteen of them! We're Catho... oh, I've mentioned that already.) But no, she's apparently fit and well (and adorable, incidentally). Instead, it's the first of the generation below her who has died. With my birthday approaching, that certainly makes me feel old. Even more than going to a garden centre on a Bank Holiday.


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