Last updated 05:42, Friday, 26 September 2008

Rumours of matrimony are greatly exaggerated. No cake, no frock, no rings nor patter of slamming doors. I’m still the singleton – or to be more legally accurate the happy divorcee – in spite of some suspicions to the contrary.

It’s touching though – perhaps even a little flattering, if I’m honest – that the council should suddenly start wondering about my marital status, my love life or continuing lack of it. The Revenues and Benefits people say they need to check I’m still entitled to the single person’s council tax discount. In other words: have I moved anybody in yet?

It’s surprising they should think that I would – but somehow sweet they should think that I might.

Needless to say I haven’t. Hence the amused bemusement.

“Has a man been seen arriving and leaving at an inappropriate hour?” was the helpful suggestion one lady offered, in response to my startled puzzlement.

“Oh, I wish! But no – unless you count Gerald the plumber. And what’s classed as inappropriate in Carlisle, anyway?”

The answer to that is anybody’s guess – and probably everybody’s, come to think of it. There’s nothing we enjoy in these parts more than a bit of unsubstantiated gossip. I was warned about that only days after I’d arrived.

But why anybody would be tempted to make such a wide of the mark miscalculation about my deliberately dull domestic arrangements is mystifying.

It’s an unconventional assumption, to say the least, that a man approaching my front door carrying a new lavatory in his arms must be making a commitment to endow all his worldly goods. Perhaps his return with a door key and washbasin clutched to his chest may have given imagined scenarios of bathroom romance (with hot and cold running, no less) a kind of endorsement. But it wouldn’t have been a very clever one.

Though I’m not a native Cumbrian – and maybe have some way to go before I’m au fait with local courting rituals – monkey wrenches and grouting are really not my thing...in the sweeping off the feet department. We had different ways in Yorkshire. Miners lamps mainly.

And there perhaps is the glitch. Revenues and Benefits mistook me for a U-bend fetishist before I’d any chance to find out what one of those was. Still – never say never.

I’ve had to advise them they can rest assured at the civic centre that my single status is rumbling on quite contentedly thank you very much, though not without the odd grumble that befits age and status as one of those grumpy old women who pop up now and again on TV to complain that the five-a-day requirement gives them bellyache.

And grumpy old women tend not to be ideal candidates for whirlwind romance and unforeseen cohabitation. At least, not the ones clutching their tummies and groaning.

We’re happy in our own way though, doing our own thing – socially when we can be bothered, on the telephone when we can’t. Swapping plumbers’ numbers rather than dating tips, coaxing through crises and problem-solving whenever possible.

No matter from where we hail, our concerns tend to be commonly shared. Why do tights never fit comfortably once autumn arrives? Who on earth allowed Warwick Road in Carlisle to degenerate into such a shabby mess?

Couldn’t Brampton’s Market Place properties do with a lick of paint? Why are anti-wrinkle creams and gin not available on prescription?

Is no sex life better than a bad one? What does one wear for a Bollywood Ball? Don’t know but it doesn’t fit so well. Let’s start the diet next Monday... or the one after that.

It’s a cosy arrangement, not without its merits and advantages, when compared to the cohabitation alternative. And I’d insist on a house four times the size of mine before I’d try that again. Size matters, when living with a partner – a grumpy old girl needs her own set of rooms into which to escape with a good book, a tub of ice cream and a manicure set.

It’s an age thing, I guess. And possibly a gender thing too. But why would the boys and girls of Revenues and Benefits pause to think about that? Far too busy, I’m certain of it.

So, though it was kind of them to consider it possible that, since I’ve been living and working here for two years and a bit now, I must have met somebody suitable for endowment of worldly goods, hoodwinked him into turning me at last into a kept woman and moved him in, lock, stock and brand new washbasin for a happy ever after existence of DIY jobs on tap and fights over the TV remote – it never happened.

It was just Gerald bringing a new toilet. And yes – since you ask – very nice it is too.