Is it me , or is life really getting more difficult

MY husband’s car is silver. Allegedly.
In fact, the people who draw up those Dulux paint charts would probably describe it more accurately as silver with a hint of brown – a large hint of brown, due to the mud it seems to amass everywhere we go.
Now I don’t object to silver – well you couldn’t really, could you? What’s not to like? Its inoffensiveness may be what makes it so popular. It’s certainly the predominant colour on the roads these days, but that does present a problem.
When I drove to the flea market at Shepton Mallet a couple of weeks ago the whole car park - and there were thousands of cars on that featureless field - was basically a sea of silver.
And trying to find one silver Skoda among row after row of same-coloured vehicles is not easy.
Now I know what some people will say, as if stating the bleeding obvious: Why don’t you locate a landmark? Well, the fact that we were by a bend in the track wasn’t entirely satisfactory because that still left dozens of silver cars to work through with a brain reeling from post-shopping-spree syndrome.
You can’t even think to yourself ‘I know, I’m near the third yellow car on the left’ – which is what I did, stupidly – because by the time I came back laden with purchases the yellow car had been driven off.
I think I’m just out of kilter with the world these days. And here’s another example.
I prided myself on how cool I was, spotting the potential of the now massively trendy singer Hozier months ago and booking tickets to go and see him in Shepherd’s Bush. He was absolutely brilliant, too.
We were up in the gods in the cheap seats but they were so uncomfortable – just hard terraced steps really, covered with chewing gum and ominous, unidentifiable stains – that I’ve had backache for days.
(It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that the M3 and M4 were both closed on the way back and we had a marathon drive via Guildford.)
Plus, I couldn’t believe how many people simply sat and stared at their mobile phones the whole time the two support acts were on.
Close by me were two women who spent that couple of hours chattering loudly, or shrieking with laughter, and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the poor people trying to entertain them.
They only shut up when the star turn came on, and then they started waving their arms about in some weird dance that was embarrassing to be near.
I was quite cross with them for their lack of courtesy, but being British, sat and seethed quietly.
And I realised that modern manners ain’t the same as what I think of as good manners.
So I’m not, in fact, as cool and young-for-my-age as I thought. But at least I’m polite.