Zero gravity

I do sometimes have to wonder about my dear wife, generally known as the Old Bat.  This is a name she gave herself a good many years since.  She was preventing one of our dogs doing something - I no longer remember which dog or what it was wanting to do - when she (that is my wife, not the dog) remarked that the dog was thinking something along the lines of, "The old bat won't let me do it".  Naturally, the name stuck.

But to get back to the point.

I need to explain that when we had our kitchen extended some 30 or more years ago, there was a gap between the end of the cupboards under the working surface and the cooker.  This gap was ideal for telescopic towel rails to be fitted under the worktop, one of which supports a hand towel.  Now, whenever I wash my hands at the kitchen sink, I take the towel out to dry them, then pull out the telescopic rail and carefully fairly casually replace the towel with about half of it hanging down each side of the rail.  This seems eminently logical to me, but the Old Bat adopts a different approach when she wants to dry her hands.  She leaves the towel on the rail and reaches under the worktop to use it, pulling the towel down a little on one side as she does so.  The next time she dries her hands she pulls it down a little further.

I'm sure you won't need me to tell you what eventually transpires, but I will do so anyway.

Yes, that towel ends up with three inches hanging on one side of the rail - and three feet on the other.  Then it falls to the floor.

I'm not sure if the old darling was away from school sick on the day that gravity was explained or if she was too busy yakking to her friend - the one who later married my friend Chris and is now Mrs Chris - to pay attention.  I have tried to explain that zero gravity doesn't exist here in Brighton, but to no avail.  She still expects the towel to stay where it is even if it does hang on by a thread.  I suppose it just goes to show that you can't teach an Old Bat new tricks.

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If, instead of turning right to go past Stanmer church, one turns left, one passes the small country museum and ends up in the council nurseries.