Car, Bank, Mirror

Maybe I’m working too hard on my second Alan Cadbury book, or maybe I’m just going a bit weird in my old age, but today I fully intended to write the second part of my last blog post. Either that, or an instructive, yet quietly informative, item on spring flowering shrubs. But no I’m offering my patient readers this strangely pointless non-story – and there aren’t even any pictures…

We’re in something of a tailspin in the Pryor household right now: Maisie has very soon to return to her excavation and make careful observations on prehistoric woodworking, whereas I still have a small farm to run and am about to get involved with the launch of The Lifers’ Club and the proof-reading of Home, my latest book for Penguin. So we both tend to make lots of Do Lists, which we promptly mislay – but the value of those lists lies in their writing more than their reading (or so I tell myself). Anyhow, early this morning, while making my first cup of tea, I caught sight of Maisie’s Do List for our planned trip this afternoon to Spalding. There were three items:

Car
Bank
Mirror

I won’t bore you with the details of each, but the car was about a new licence, the bank was about depositing a cheque and the mirror was a new shaving mirror I need, as I have soon got to apply some powerful cream to the sun-damage on my face – and being a beardie, I don’t possess one. Then, as I wandered my way from the kitchen back to my office to resume the chapter-by-chapter outline of AC2 (the second Alan Cadbury book), I found my mind was reciting Car, Bank, Mirror over and over again, shortly to be followed by Paper, Rock, Scissors. Suddenly I realised I had stumbled upon a new word game that families could use on those up-coming, interminable car journeys to the seaside. We all know the rules: paper beats stone because it can wrap it, stone beats scissors etc., etc. So this is how you play Car, Bank, Mirror. It’s so easy: