Poem of the day

'How are you?' I asked a near-neighbour in the street. 'I've had a cold and I've gone deaf'

'I'm deaf too,' he replied. 'I had an infection and it went the other way. They offered me hearing aids, but I don't want 'em. Knowing my luck, I'd get into the bath with them on.'

He gave me a gappy smile. "And I've lost my teeth too. Three weeks I've been looking for them in that bungalow....'

I commiserated and went on towards town, feeling quite lucky that to be merely suffering from a temporary blockage of the ears, and a general feeling of having been three times through the spin cycle of the washing machine.

If I was looking for Victory Parades in town (we've got a new MP, who formerly represented us from 1997 to 2010), I didn't find any. I did, however, take a good look at the all the newspapers, which for once were united in their condem-May-tion, and bought the Guardian, because it had a unique poem by Carol Anne Duffy on the front page. I've reproduced it above.

After trawling a few charity shops for books and assorted media, I came home by bus. I'm finding it hard to speak and to hear, so I've gone back to bed to watch Louis Theroux and The Mitford sisters (not together) on Netflix.