My chemist's shop

My transformation into the Aunty Vera of the old Giles cartoons (she of the perpetually dripping, pointy nose, thin, drooping body and tote bag full of pills, potions and boxes of tissues) is no recent thing. It was already fully developed 30 years ago when I left my first (and only) husband and after I had gone he complained that he had had to throw out a large cardboard box full of pills and potions that I had left behind. Being a man whose bathroom cabinet contained nothing more than some sticking plasters and a bottle of TCP, he couldn't understand my need for verucca plasters, Friars Balsam and ear drops. When he got things, he just put up with them till they either went or, like the grumbling appendix that flared up every time he ate peanuts (did he quit eating them? did he hell!), hospitalised him.

I now have a set of plastic drawers ('set', note; not 'pair'. Those will probably come in ten or so years' time), each of which is dedicated to a different set of ailments. Painkillers and antihistamines inhabit the top drawer, as those are the things I usually need in a hurry. The drawer beneath holds everything connected with stomachs, such as cures for diarrhoea, constipation and piles (yes, I know bottoms are not stomachs, but there seems to be a direct connection), and my ulcer tablets.

The third drawer is labelled Beauty (yes, I can hear those snickers, thank-you). In it are lipsticks, eye shadows and pencils, hand cream, lip salves and lots of those sample tubes of Clinique and Clarins moisturisers. I also keep sachets of Lincobeer combined shampoo and condtioner (so handy for holidays), plus hairslides and bands there, plus a tiny furry teddy bear. No, I don't know why, either.

The fourth drawer is where I keep large bottles of anything from cough linctus to vitamin pills, as it and the fifth are deeper than the others, so bottles and jars can stand upright in it. I must own up that there are some things in there, the purpose of which I cannot now remember. L-Theanine? WTF?) But as long as they are not past their sell-by, they can remain there rubbing shoulders with Vitamin D and Peppermint Oil capsules for as long as they like.

Now we get to the bottom drawer. This holds a large bag of Slippery Elm powder, only slighly past its sell-by (Jan 08), a digital thermometer which I tardily discovered was in degrees Centigrade (36? I must be dead!) and a collection of ankle supports, wrist supports and only slightly grubby crepe bandages. Oh, and a plastic bag containing those tiny tubes of Bazooka That Verucca and Blist-eze that always lose their caps and ooze stickily into sponge bags if not coralled in plastic, plus tiny vials of homoeopathic and Bach flower remedies.

You may think that's it, my chemist's shop is complete, but you'd be wrong. Beneath the bathroom basin is a cupboard. Well, it's Mr Grumpy's cupboard to be precise, but the only trace of his former ownership is a congealed and rusting can of Gillette shaving gel. I have filled the cupboard with products pertaining to hair, teeth and body. Fragrances, hairspray, BOGOFs of toothpaste, spare brushes, body lotions, hair mousse, all the tall cans and containers that one needs in the bathroom and that won't fit in my plastic drawers. (Oh, go on, you're allowed one snigger).

Someone suggested that way back in time, I must have been the village Wise-woman, dispensing cures and love potions to all and sundry plus their horse and dog. Well, oddly enough, I had an ancestor who was called Gaspard Wyse, rather than wise) and he was... an apothecary in Liverpool! Many a true word spoken in jest. (What was that, indigestion? Hold on, I have a pill for that somewhere.)