Reasons why Fran's week could be going better

On Saturday, I took the bus into town and alighted at Leamington’s Jephson Gardens, which are expansive and many-pathed Victorian gardens worth a look if you’re ever this way and fancy visiting somewhere that won a Bees’ Needs Award in 2016 hashtag random fact.

I was on the way to the annual ‘Art in the Park’ event to help on a stall advertising the upcoming South Warwickshire Literary Festival.

I walked through the impressive cast-iron gates of the park and headed for the Mill Gardens where I’d been told our stall would be.

I use the word ‘headed’ loosely as that implies a purposeful walk in the right direction whereas within minutes I was wandering around the paths and gardens, as lost as a seal in a desert, and late. I asked a man passing by, ‘Do you know where the bridge is to the Mill Gardens?’

‘I think I remember,’ he said. ‘I was here last year. Are you new to the area? Follow me.’

‘No,’ I said, trailing after him. ‘I was born here, lived here until I was 18, then moved away for many years, and came back in 2008. And I visit these gardens quite often. But somehow …’

He glanced at me with a ‘How do I get this woman taken back to her care home?’ look in his eyes.

But then he said, ‘Here’s the bridge,’ and pointed. ‘I’m going that way too.’

‘That’s the one!’ I announced, and I’m sure he appreciated the confirmation.

‘After you,’ he said, in a gentlemanly fashion, or perhaps because he didn’t like the idea of having me behind him and about to attack him with a handbag.

The truth is, I do have a non-functioning sense of direction and my spatial awareness isn’t good, either, which probably explains why, the next day, I got stuck in a tree.

I was walking home from church with my guitar in its case on my back. What I always forget is that although only 5 foot 2, with the guitar on my back, which sticks up into the air, I am 5 foot 10.

I should have seen the low-hanging tree branches ahead of me and judged the potential danger but I was listening to The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 on my phone and wondering how people with four degrees and a PhD who own original artwork and probably the best air fryers can talk such a bunch of crap.

So, I wasn’t concentrating, and suddenly it was as though I’d put my brakes on. My guitar was stuck in the tree and I couldn’t move forward.

Worse, there were people on the opposite side of the road, pointing, and pretending they weren’t laughing.

I had to wriggle the guitar case off my back, tug it out of the branches, then put the case on my back again before carrying on my way. I tried to preserve some dignity but dignity had scarpered.

No, hang on. Dignity had scarpered even earlier that day, because I now remember that, in the Greggs bakery, when I bought my Sunday morning coffee on the way to church, I had torn the end from a sachet of sugar, then emptied the sugar straight into the bin and was a nano-second away from dropping the sachet in my coffee before I realised.

I don’t know if anyone was watching that time except for my past self, wondering how things had gone so terribly wrong.

The week continued in the same unsuccessful vein. Yesterday morning, I was shopping online for a present. ‘You have two items in your basket,’ said the website. ‘Would you like a discount code?’

‘Sure I would,’ I said. ‘Sign me up, baby.’

‘Put your phone number here,’ it said, ‘and we’ll send you a text immediately with a 15% discount code.’

‘Sure I will,’ I said, and input my phone number.

‘We’ve sent you the text,’ they said.

Five minutes later, no text.

I went through the process again. ‘We’ll send you a text immediately,’ they said.

Five minutes later, no text.

I thought. ‘I don’t have time for this. I have work to do and, more importantly, there’s bound to be Olympic high-skate-diving or pommel-horse-racing to watch,’ not that I watch the Olympics indiscriminately just to avoid work.

So I ordered the items anyway, foregoing the discount. Clearly, their system wasn’t working.

‘Thank you for your order,’ they said. ‘It is now complete.’

Then, PING! went my phone. Again, PING!

The ‘What am I up to?’ feature - ‘Inside Fran’s Diary’

On Saturday 21 September I’m compere for a couple of author discussions at the South Warwickshire Literary Festival to be held right here in Leamington Spa where I live. Come and join us!

On Saturday 5 October from 10.30-12, I’m taking part in Birmingham Literature Festival, appearing as a ‘writer in conversation’ at an event for local writers at any stage of their careers. Here’s the Festival programme and there are other events happening at the same time as mine if we’ve recently fought and you’re trying to avoid me.

In November, I’ll be at Alcester Library in Warwickshire talking about ‘Cuckoo in the Nest’. It’s a free event but book here if you can come!

On Saturday 14 December, I’ll be at this volunteer-run beautiful library called the Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library in Birmingham to talk about my writing. More details to come but expect bundles of my books wrapped cack-handedly in green and red ribbon.

Meanwhile, I’ll be attempting to live life more successfully.