Last week I went to a party without Rosemary, because I'd told her about it a fortnight ago, but she forgot the date, because I forgot to remind her until the day before, which was too late, because by then Rosemary had arranged something else. She was furious.

Perhaps I have Alzheimer's. My Auntie had it and occasionally put her minced meat in the broom cupboard. And all these little features on telly are making me nervous. "I have Alzheimer's," say the people, "but I also have a life." They forget things sometimes, but how often? I forget things more than ever. I'm chatting to someone, I'm forming a little sentence about something, but where am I going with this sentence? The end bit has disappeared. I have to fish it out of the fog that is my brain. Sometimes I can dredge it up, sometimes I can't. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because the person I'm talking to knows what it is. They can guess from the context. They knew where I was going, even if I didn't, momentarily. We are communicating on another level. We know things but we can't say them.

Or find them. I know what I want. I want the pepper from the larder, but on my way there, I forget. But I know that somewhere in the direction I'm going, is the thing that I want. I like to be positive, so I carry on in that direction and stare ahead. Why am I here? I think. What am I doing? Then magically the fog clears, and there is the pepper. I recognise it. I knew all along.

On other days my little mind is clear as a bell. I stride purposefully from one room to the next, knowing what I'm there for: a biscuit, the scissors, the dog's eye-drops, the radio. What's really going on? Perhaps I have too much on my mind. Or I am over-tired. Or am I going down the pan, in Auntie's direction? How does one tell the difference? I had a snappy ending for this, honestly I did, just a moment ago . . .