I went for another little ramble amongst the neighbouring blogs - this time I was the only person who didn't have a photo of a child or puppy up. Or indeed anything to laugh at at all. I also think I may be the only person not to use the words "cute" or "adorable". Oh dear, I suppose the difference is most people use their blogs to celebrate stuff - so they celebrate their lovely families. I don't have much to celebrate except (well - reasons to be cheerful.... will follow). So I complain, and am a bit ironic about things. A lot of the blogs appear to be Christian - again, I haven't put one of my favourite Bible verses on the home page. Perhaps I should title each post with a verse. But I fear I am the wrong type of Christian.
Where are these blogs that turn into bestsellers - are filled with mordant humour? Are deeply moving? Well, there was one about fertility treatment that was very sad... And I did find an interesting variant on spaghetti carbonara (no cream!).
Has anyone noticed that this is a displacement activity? I had an Indian reader yesterday.
Reading while dead
Thursday 31 March 2011
Throwing hands up in despair!
Stagnation - due to the horrors of this morning's business. Day started badly, I slept badly, came down. F was late, and an argument started with Husb - argument prolonged by husb, who wanted to make a point repeatedly, despite the obvious futility. I left the table because I find these early morning arguments really hard to take and I find it hard to work after one.
Then the dreaded contractor rang up and spoke to Husb. who got the wrong end of the stick, accused client of wasting our time, client accused us of wasting his time, Husb put phone down on client. The client emailed me, promising everything we'd asked for, bar £300 - and Husb said he wasn't working for him, wasn't apologising to him etc. got furious, tearful and almost hysterical. I talked him around, wrote emollient but demanding email to client - saying if we got the deal including the £300 we would be ready to start at 9.00 am tomorrow.... am awaiting reply.
So, on the one hand, sod the job! But on the other hand, serious concern about Husb whose mental powers have always been very different from mine. He does find it difficult to remember things, he gets confused, doesn't understand business stuff. But he can do HBR and stone stuff and write a book - so he's not stupid. But, but, but.... is he getting worse? He says he's like his grandfather, and will be in the same amiable fog until he dies. Perhaps so, but he got up in a foul mood for some reason. And he's not able to detach emotionally from this kind of business stuff. I did feel the client was bullying us - but M (who was bullied a lot at school) finds this sort of thing very much more emotional than I do.
I am understanding, and I am not immune from the 'not working because of emotional upset' behaviour - in fact, any excuse really. But when this sort of thing happens it makes me wonder a lot of things. Could he manage without me? Is his brain going to carry on like this or get worse? The absent-minded professor excuse can be offered - but some people think he's a bit weird. And sometimes, it's frankly inadequate as an excuse, because his inability to 'get' certain things is a serious sign of aberration. I do hope none of the boys' children inherit these traits.
I am torn. He is so kind, and loving and humble and does so much that's helpful. And also, he's very thoughtless and self-obsessed and dense frankly. Finds it very difficult to learn new behaviours. I have lost about 2 hours work because of this this morning, and I lost the afternoon yesterday for the same issue. Maybe I should be worrying about how to coach myself out of this behaviour rather than worry about him.
The trouble is, the more dense and infuriating he is, the more I realise how vulnerable he is, and the more I feel unable to even contemplate leaving him.
I guess these teenage years with the boys are liable to be the worst years - I joke that we're waiting until they grow up before we divorce, but there's some truth in this. I couldn't cope with them on my own - neither could he. I mustn't start going around this circle again - life's too short. Do something else. It was helpful writing last night - and that is what I must do. Avanti!
Then the dreaded contractor rang up and spoke to Husb. who got the wrong end of the stick, accused client of wasting our time, client accused us of wasting his time, Husb put phone down on client. The client emailed me, promising everything we'd asked for, bar £300 - and Husb said he wasn't working for him, wasn't apologising to him etc. got furious, tearful and almost hysterical. I talked him around, wrote emollient but demanding email to client - saying if we got the deal including the £300 we would be ready to start at 9.00 am tomorrow.... am awaiting reply.
So, on the one hand, sod the job! But on the other hand, serious concern about Husb whose mental powers have always been very different from mine. He does find it difficult to remember things, he gets confused, doesn't understand business stuff. But he can do HBR and stone stuff and write a book - so he's not stupid. But, but, but.... is he getting worse? He says he's like his grandfather, and will be in the same amiable fog until he dies. Perhaps so, but he got up in a foul mood for some reason. And he's not able to detach emotionally from this kind of business stuff. I did feel the client was bullying us - but M (who was bullied a lot at school) finds this sort of thing very much more emotional than I do.
I am understanding, and I am not immune from the 'not working because of emotional upset' behaviour - in fact, any excuse really. But when this sort of thing happens it makes me wonder a lot of things. Could he manage without me? Is his brain going to carry on like this or get worse? The absent-minded professor excuse can be offered - but some people think he's a bit weird. And sometimes, it's frankly inadequate as an excuse, because his inability to 'get' certain things is a serious sign of aberration. I do hope none of the boys' children inherit these traits.
I am torn. He is so kind, and loving and humble and does so much that's helpful. And also, he's very thoughtless and self-obsessed and dense frankly. Finds it very difficult to learn new behaviours. I have lost about 2 hours work because of this this morning, and I lost the afternoon yesterday for the same issue. Maybe I should be worrying about how to coach myself out of this behaviour rather than worry about him.
The trouble is, the more dense and infuriating he is, the more I realise how vulnerable he is, and the more I feel unable to even contemplate leaving him.
I guess these teenage years with the boys are liable to be the worst years - I joke that we're waiting until they grow up before we divorce, but there's some truth in this. I couldn't cope with them on my own - neither could he. I mustn't start going around this circle again - life's too short. Do something else. It was helpful writing last night - and that is what I must do. Avanti!
Wednesday 30 March 2011
This Neighbourhood!
I noticed a tab that said "Next Blog" and thought, "but I don't want another blog, this one is more than enough." Then I clicked it - and lo, I found myself in the US. Blog after blog was US based, many of them seemed to be more visual than literary (photos, pictures, little flickering cartoons) and quite a number of them appeared to be for marketing purposes. Not one did I feel like following - I only saw about 15 but that was enough.
What I don't understand is whether they are a randomised selection - or whether they are actually in order of some kind, in which case I have some odd neighbours. Still a quick flick through now and again, and I may find some other lost soul.
What I don't understand is whether they are a randomised selection - or whether they are actually in order of some kind, in which case I have some odd neighbours. Still a quick flick through now and again, and I may find some other lost soul.
Fear of Success
Yesterday K and C and I were practising our coaching skills upon one another, it was rather extraordinary, C revealed all sorts of anxieties and inadequacies, and some loving and kindly traits, which were more surprising. K interrogated me, and I began with a problem about money and my lack of motivation on the HH front (sometimes). When I got to the bottom of it, I realised that one reason I was slightly dragging my feet about work was because I feared that if it was successful I would have no time for writing... hmm.
So to prevent this happening I had got myself into one of my strange stuck states, where paralysed by the conflicting demands of what I ought to do, what I ought to prioritise, what Must be done etc. I end up in escapist mode - doing effectively nothing. I suppose listening to R4 is vaguely something, but I am going to end up like my mother... Only I'm not.
At the end of a rather futile and difficult day with many interruptions and distractions, I finally managed 1001 words on Conscience and even did a bit of research in the process. I suppose the trouble with Wikipedia is that all novels by lazy people will be full of the same bits of research. Fortunately I discovered that the Wigmore (nee Bechstein) Hall was not open in 1915 - it had been impounded as German property! I have a horror of getting things wrong. I have no idea whether John McCormack ever sang at the Queen's Hall - is there any way of finding out? I am sure he did - but maybe not in Autumn 1915 - does this matter? In the nightmare world of specialists it matters tremendously: one imagines someone writing in consulting their whole collection of old Queen's Hall programmes. Such information must exist, but probably not on the internet. There may be a book somewhere about it - but not available on Amazon.
I have suddenly dropped into the scholarship zone. Sadly, such is my distance from a decent library I don't even know where to start. Actually, this is not true, I could go to the U of Kent library (I think). Perhaps I will do the research after I've finished the book. That might be best. An unconventional solution - but I know enough to write the book - just stuff it full of asterisks to return to later.
Writing is good, it does distract one from the bad feelings and anxieties, and I feel much better now.
So to prevent this happening I had got myself into one of my strange stuck states, where paralysed by the conflicting demands of what I ought to do, what I ought to prioritise, what Must be done etc. I end up in escapist mode - doing effectively nothing. I suppose listening to R4 is vaguely something, but I am going to end up like my mother... Only I'm not.
At the end of a rather futile and difficult day with many interruptions and distractions, I finally managed 1001 words on Conscience and even did a bit of research in the process. I suppose the trouble with Wikipedia is that all novels by lazy people will be full of the same bits of research. Fortunately I discovered that the Wigmore (nee Bechstein) Hall was not open in 1915 - it had been impounded as German property! I have a horror of getting things wrong. I have no idea whether John McCormack ever sang at the Queen's Hall - is there any way of finding out? I am sure he did - but maybe not in Autumn 1915 - does this matter? In the nightmare world of specialists it matters tremendously: one imagines someone writing in consulting their whole collection of old Queen's Hall programmes. Such information must exist, but probably not on the internet. There may be a book somewhere about it - but not available on Amazon.
I have suddenly dropped into the scholarship zone. Sadly, such is my distance from a decent library I don't even know where to start. Actually, this is not true, I could go to the U of Kent library (I think). Perhaps I will do the research after I've finished the book. That might be best. An unconventional solution - but I know enough to write the book - just stuff it full of asterisks to return to later.
Writing is good, it does distract one from the bad feelings and anxieties, and I feel much better now.
Not writing
Well, I am not doing Conscience - I should be, I have the time, but I am not. I have to say "Why?"
At the moment I am feeling very churned up as a result of an unpleasant client who is dictating what archaeology we should do and when and how much he is willing to pay us. We finally decided we had had enough, and said if he couldn't agree to our reasonable request then we would have to agree to not work together. I don't know if it's him or us - I think it is him, he seems to try and chip something away every time he emails us. So we now have another bit of no money coming in. Oh Lord, and the possible Turkish student didn't turn up yesterday - so that little bit of dosh isn't there. I am being driven mad by this, what on earth can we do? Better check the lottery tickets, but really.
Actually, I have a feeling if I wrote it would distract me from the sorrows of the world, and maybe I would feel better. But I cannot stand these false dawns, things change so rapidly - one minute there is a great prospect of money or success or new work, and the next minute it's whisked away. It's about time things got better. Things have been really grim since summer 2009 - money, health, relationships, I began to loose resilience last summer - just couldn't go on, so started the medication. Now I feel better and tougher, fairly resilient, but I need things to change properly, not just seeing a door open, making for it, and then having it slammed and locked before one gets there. It is beginning to have a nightmarish quality.
Well, I will go and do a bit of writing - if reading a good novel can distract one, how much more so writing one?
At the moment I am feeling very churned up as a result of an unpleasant client who is dictating what archaeology we should do and when and how much he is willing to pay us. We finally decided we had had enough, and said if he couldn't agree to our reasonable request then we would have to agree to not work together. I don't know if it's him or us - I think it is him, he seems to try and chip something away every time he emails us. So we now have another bit of no money coming in. Oh Lord, and the possible Turkish student didn't turn up yesterday - so that little bit of dosh isn't there. I am being driven mad by this, what on earth can we do? Better check the lottery tickets, but really.
Actually, I have a feeling if I wrote it would distract me from the sorrows of the world, and maybe I would feel better. But I cannot stand these false dawns, things change so rapidly - one minute there is a great prospect of money or success or new work, and the next minute it's whisked away. It's about time things got better. Things have been really grim since summer 2009 - money, health, relationships, I began to loose resilience last summer - just couldn't go on, so started the medication. Now I feel better and tougher, fairly resilient, but I need things to change properly, not just seeing a door open, making for it, and then having it slammed and locked before one gets there. It is beginning to have a nightmarish quality.
Well, I will go and do a bit of writing - if reading a good novel can distract one, how much more so writing one?
Tuesday 29 March 2011
No hiding place
I am writing this before giving the kitchen floor a second wash. I can sense that this is not a great working day... but must do something useful.
Just had my brief catch-up session with S - a woman whose savvy about digital matters is far greater than mine. I was asking her how people found one's blog - while I did so I idly clicked a couple of times on Google - for some reason it says I have a Twitter account in the name of Schmoozy-schlepp (I don't know when or why I could have set that up - perhaps it was an early phase of marketing the business) from which one can easily reach the blog and everything you could possibly want to know about the inner workings of the not currently v. happy marriage. So the fond wish that I won't get funny looks at parties is unlikely to come true.
The whole thing appalls me. It makes me feel very disloyal, but hell, I have steam that needs releasing about the situation...but suppose M decided he'd like to look at the blog out of curiosity....he'd be so hurt and upset. And it wouldn't be fair on him, he doesn't deserve to be hurt like that. He is contrite about things and humble and I want him to be braver, but at the same time, when he does assert himself it is frequently, in my opinion, somewhat inappropriately: weird attacks on some perfectly normal habit of mine. Yesterday he got very grumpy because I suggested we had a student to stay. We need the effing money - we can't refuse money just now. We need to pay off debts at a faster rate than we are, this will help. Some sacrifices have to be made; he's probably cross because I brought the wrong (cheaper) brand of museli too.
It's a web and I'm struggling with its stickiness - I want to say what I want but clearly the blog isn't the place for that. I can't mention the blog to anyone in case they decide to go and have a look, and if they do.... Once it's up it's there for all eternity - of course, like M's diary it might provide a useful cultural artefact for 22nd C historians.... but so will everyone else's. Writers are meant to wish for future fame - for their works to be aere perennius, but this is it, this will be (pace the imminentish universal cataclysm). And so will Ned's and so will some mid-Western teenage ramblings about Britney Spears or the X-Factor or whatever. It is possible to know too much about the culture. The only mystery about the 21st C will be what were the lives of the illiterate like.... as for the literate bits of the West it will be OMG! TMI - way TMI. But of course, by then, when all the work is done by solar-powered robots and we have endless leisure we will all be cultural historians.... is that a Utopia or a distopia?
So I have a strange choice really, do I stop the blog now? Or continue more discreetly? Or fill it with soppy thoughts about M in case he reads it? As so often in life, although I am good at planning things, there are always unconsidered consequences. Or there are things I know but have temporarily forgotten. I did consider having a blog many years ago when it first became fashionable, but I dismissed it because of the "no hiding place" element. Then I started this - because of the fierce marketing demands of the literary world having forgotten....
My trouble is an over-fluidity with words. If I could confine myself to a few Marquis de Vauvanargues type aphorisms - one every day or so - then it might be all right. But that's not my style, sometimes I just want to talk and if there's no one around I'll talk to myself. After all there's nothing so intimate in this blog that I wouldn't say it to one of my close female friends. But my close female friends are not always there - and some of them are not positioned in a topographically opportune spot!
Am I saying anything? Does this make sense? Some sense. I like writing it, it's the ultimate displacement activity - better than washing the kitchen floor, better than anything except sitting in the garden staring into space, which is the preferred activity at this time of year. So having added another post to amuse my loyal readers in Belarus... I shall go and sit in the garden for a bit.
Just had my brief catch-up session with S - a woman whose savvy about digital matters is far greater than mine. I was asking her how people found one's blog - while I did so I idly clicked a couple of times on Google - for some reason it says I have a Twitter account in the name of Schmoozy-schlepp (I don't know when or why I could have set that up - perhaps it was an early phase of marketing the business) from which one can easily reach the blog and everything you could possibly want to know about the inner workings of the not currently v. happy marriage. So the fond wish that I won't get funny looks at parties is unlikely to come true.
The whole thing appalls me. It makes me feel very disloyal, but hell, I have steam that needs releasing about the situation...but suppose M decided he'd like to look at the blog out of curiosity....he'd be so hurt and upset. And it wouldn't be fair on him, he doesn't deserve to be hurt like that. He is contrite about things and humble and I want him to be braver, but at the same time, when he does assert himself it is frequently, in my opinion, somewhat inappropriately: weird attacks on some perfectly normal habit of mine. Yesterday he got very grumpy because I suggested we had a student to stay. We need the effing money - we can't refuse money just now. We need to pay off debts at a faster rate than we are, this will help. Some sacrifices have to be made; he's probably cross because I brought the wrong (cheaper) brand of museli too.
It's a web and I'm struggling with its stickiness - I want to say what I want but clearly the blog isn't the place for that. I can't mention the blog to anyone in case they decide to go and have a look, and if they do.... Once it's up it's there for all eternity - of course, like M's diary it might provide a useful cultural artefact for 22nd C historians.... but so will everyone else's. Writers are meant to wish for future fame - for their works to be aere perennius, but this is it, this will be (pace the imminentish universal cataclysm). And so will Ned's and so will some mid-Western teenage ramblings about Britney Spears or the X-Factor or whatever. It is possible to know too much about the culture. The only mystery about the 21st C will be what were the lives of the illiterate like.... as for the literate bits of the West it will be OMG! TMI - way TMI. But of course, by then, when all the work is done by solar-powered robots and we have endless leisure we will all be cultural historians.... is that a Utopia or a distopia?
So I have a strange choice really, do I stop the blog now? Or continue more discreetly? Or fill it with soppy thoughts about M in case he reads it? As so often in life, although I am good at planning things, there are always unconsidered consequences. Or there are things I know but have temporarily forgotten. I did consider having a blog many years ago when it first became fashionable, but I dismissed it because of the "no hiding place" element. Then I started this - because of the fierce marketing demands of the literary world having forgotten....
My trouble is an over-fluidity with words. If I could confine myself to a few Marquis de Vauvanargues type aphorisms - one every day or so - then it might be all right. But that's not my style, sometimes I just want to talk and if there's no one around I'll talk to myself. After all there's nothing so intimate in this blog that I wouldn't say it to one of my close female friends. But my close female friends are not always there - and some of them are not positioned in a topographically opportune spot!
Am I saying anything? Does this make sense? Some sense. I like writing it, it's the ultimate displacement activity - better than washing the kitchen floor, better than anything except sitting in the garden staring into space, which is the preferred activity at this time of year. So having added another post to amuse my loyal readers in Belarus... I shall go and sit in the garden for a bit.
Monday 28 March 2011
In vino,,,, veritas?
I dunno, been a useless, drifting really dreamy day - no doubt due to Venus trine Neptune - so not much work has been done, but I did try to root through my in-box and root out a lot of stuff. I found a mysterious message to myself. I had emailed my thoughts to myself because I wasn't sure else to put them. The message mentioned a document I had been unable to download at the time (early January) and had then promptly forgotten about. I downloaded it and read it. It set off a train of thoughts, or rather encouraged a train of thoughts that was steaming quietly, waiting to go... and now I am feeling discontented. For a fantasy, my historic relationship is rather persistent.
Anyway, I had two tiny glasses of wine at supper and now I feel boozily woozy and full of things I don't really want to allow myself to feel. Perhaps we shouldn't drink when there's a Neptune aspect. I drank loads over the weekend without even noticing. And now this. It isn't true, that is, I have these feelings, but the fantasy isn't/can't be true. Unfortunately reading a slightly detached account of someone's honeymoon that doesn't mention the partner in particularly tender terms and gives the impression that said partner had been a less than delightful companion...well, enough said.
Let's talk about the weekend, it was great, I gardened, planted and watered and put in seeds - really hope the eccremocarpus comes up. I was going to go out to a nyckelharpa gig at the workshop, but my back dissolved when I was in the bath...and I suddennly wondered whether I could stand talking and socialising - and I had a 'period'... which could set me off on the menopause strand... but blimey, I was convinced it was over about a year ago, and it's still going. Anovular I should think, so no chance of miracle baby - mind you we do the beast with two backs to each other (and our only sex toys are books).
So I let husb go out on Saturday night by himself, and I had a sudden wild thought "what if he meets someone?" First I thought "so be it!" then I thought "don't tempt fate!" And so I struggled to get dressed, because half of me thought I'd had some sort of prophetic insight... but by the time I got downstairs I was feeling feeble so I stumped back up again, rather annoying himself, so he then sniped at me for some time, and I felt anyone who was interested in him was welcome to him. After he went out his mother called, and I don't have to spend Mother's Day dancing attendance on her, because she isn't coming.... meanwhile he called N's phone to apologise. I had a lovely evening watching a rubbish film (10 Things I hate About You) and reading. Finished Kim and read Edward Said's Introduction, which made me feel a bit guilty... I really must read Orientalism - I understand the theory, I don't always spot it. When husb returned he had had a nice evening, spoke to a couple of people.... including our imagined cousin - the Parisian pupeteer who has the same surname as his great-great grandmother.
Sunday was great, althought the clocks went forward we got up reasonably early, I made lots of pancakes so boys were thrilled. Then we drifted about, boys stayed home as usual, and we went to a boot sale, then it was nearly lunch time and we went to the Griffin's Head. I think they've changed the chef, not so great now. But we only had whitebait and a sarni. Perhaps £7 for about 12 whitebait and some not very nice tartare sauce is rather steep for a pub around here... but I made matters worse by Thdrinking Macon Lugny by the glass... I thought I'd have one, but I had another...heigh-ho! Then we had a jolly time going to the dump and getting rid of the garden rubbish, and came home to read papers in the garden. I made red-cooked beef and noodles and then we went out for a drink with AT.
AT is a distinguished Singaporean - the first Singaporean to be a BBC bureau chief. Very self-obsessed, and I think he is really rather misogynistic.. Husb said "Have you ever heard him praise anyone - unless is was a woman's looks?" Interesting that he noticed that. He is so much better at spotting the negative than me - pity it isn't a marketable skill.
Anyway, I had two tiny glasses of wine at supper and now I feel boozily woozy and full of things I don't really want to allow myself to feel. Perhaps we shouldn't drink when there's a Neptune aspect. I drank loads over the weekend without even noticing. And now this. It isn't true, that is, I have these feelings, but the fantasy isn't/can't be true. Unfortunately reading a slightly detached account of someone's honeymoon that doesn't mention the partner in particularly tender terms and gives the impression that said partner had been a less than delightful companion...well, enough said.
Let's talk about the weekend, it was great, I gardened, planted and watered and put in seeds - really hope the eccremocarpus comes up. I was going to go out to a nyckelharpa gig at the workshop, but my back dissolved when I was in the bath...and I suddennly wondered whether I could stand talking and socialising - and I had a 'period'... which could set me off on the menopause strand... but blimey, I was convinced it was over about a year ago, and it's still going. Anovular I should think, so no chance of miracle baby - mind you we do the beast with two backs to each other (and our only sex toys are books).
So I let husb go out on Saturday night by himself, and I had a sudden wild thought "what if he meets someone?" First I thought "so be it!" then I thought "don't tempt fate!" And so I struggled to get dressed, because half of me thought I'd had some sort of prophetic insight... but by the time I got downstairs I was feeling feeble so I stumped back up again, rather annoying himself, so he then sniped at me for some time, and I felt anyone who was interested in him was welcome to him. After he went out his mother called, and I don't have to spend Mother's Day dancing attendance on her, because she isn't coming.... meanwhile he called N's phone to apologise. I had a lovely evening watching a rubbish film (10 Things I hate About You) and reading. Finished Kim and read Edward Said's Introduction, which made me feel a bit guilty... I really must read Orientalism - I understand the theory, I don't always spot it. When husb returned he had had a nice evening, spoke to a couple of people.... including our imagined cousin - the Parisian pupeteer who has the same surname as his great-great grandmother.
Sunday was great, althought the clocks went forward we got up reasonably early, I made lots of pancakes so boys were thrilled. Then we drifted about, boys stayed home as usual, and we went to a boot sale, then it was nearly lunch time and we went to the Griffin's Head. I think they've changed the chef, not so great now. But we only had whitebait and a sarni. Perhaps £7 for about 12 whitebait and some not very nice tartare sauce is rather steep for a pub around here... but I made matters worse by Thdrinking Macon Lugny by the glass... I thought I'd have one, but I had another...heigh-ho! Then we had a jolly time going to the dump and getting rid of the garden rubbish, and came home to read papers in the garden. I made red-cooked beef and noodles and then we went out for a drink with AT.
AT is a distinguished Singaporean - the first Singaporean to be a BBC bureau chief. Very self-obsessed, and I think he is really rather misogynistic.. Husb said "Have you ever heard him praise anyone - unless is was a woman's looks?" Interesting that he noticed that. He is so much better at spotting the negative than me - pity it isn't a marketable skill.
Saturday 26 March 2011
Garden notes
Got up astonishingly early this morning (for a Saturday) and was in the garden by about 9.15. It was sunny and pleasant, and everything looks so pretty since there are so many things out at the moment. The mirabelle plum looks fabulous, the camellia is at perfection, the clematis armandii has recovered from its crash last year, although the pear tree hasn't. And there are lots of daffs, a few lingering crocus, hyacinths and a few early tulips, as well as muscari, the specially lovely m.latifolia are a great joy - some scillas, lots of celandines, which I love even though they are widely regarded as a weed. There are pulmonaria, the first of the orange epimediums, kingcups in the pond.
I began gardening in the usual way, sitting in a chair staring at things, then I sprang to life. I bought a Globe artichoke tuber the other day, and soaked it for a couple of days, the little dead looking thing at the end of it turned out to be this season's growth. It perked up remarkably in water. This morning I planted it in the front garden, where I have already installed a great many broad beans. They are flourishing but need water, since it hasn't rained for over a week. I then filled a vast outdoor flower pot with a mix of soil and homemade compost, and covered it with a selection of seeds:mixed leaves, wild rocket and chervil. After that I planted some seeds: two types of tomatoes Costoluto Genovese, and Vilma - a small type, and some basil. In a second propagator I planted some fancy digitalis, an unusal convolvulus and some very old eccremocarpus scaber seeds dating to 2004 - when I had them in the front garden. I really hope these will work, as I want to plant some more in the front garden.
The major problem in the garden at present is cat pooh. It lies everywhere, ground cover is no deterrent. Landmines have been suggested. Orange peel works, but only in a limited way.
Although there has been a little bit of rain this afternoon, I think I should water the garden, nothing like enough has fallen, and the peas could do with a wetting.
Nature notes: the red bees are out in force. I think I must have seen at least a dozen different varieties of bees in the garden so far, some honey bees, but the others presumably varieties of solitary bee. There are definitely far more of the red bees than ever before, we must be providing a good environment for them.
Also, a garden warbler. I have seen this bird before, but didn't see it clearly enough and thought it was a dunnock - but it doesn't have the tail and the colouring is different. It warbled.
Last night I saw the woodmouse in the kitchen. He is a strange chap. He stood still and looked at us for a bit then steadily made his way around the island, under the table, along the side of the Irish cupboard and into the tool lobby. I presume he hid there for a bit before proceeding to the sitting room to his nest in the sofa. We've never had a mouse nesting in the sofa before, last year the mouse (the same one? or his father?) lived under a corner of the Irish cupboard and ate the parrot's dropped seeds. Now, with Olly gone, there are fewer pickings for him, so he has to rove further to get grub. A few weeks ago I dropped a small potato on the floor and didn't notice, the following day it had been eaten away, so I left it there for a bit to give him a supply. I think in the summer the mice live in the vicinity of the shed - but I am worried about what will happen to them when we take the shed away and put up the new one. M fears we will find Aphra's corpse there....oh dear, talking of which I have discovered a frog corpse melting under one of the stones by the pond - but haven't the strength to move it. The frog spawn is hatching - small comma-like tadpoles are drifting aimlessly about the pond. No fish - they must all have bought it during the winter. Never mind, will cultivate nature instead.
I began gardening in the usual way, sitting in a chair staring at things, then I sprang to life. I bought a Globe artichoke tuber the other day, and soaked it for a couple of days, the little dead looking thing at the end of it turned out to be this season's growth. It perked up remarkably in water. This morning I planted it in the front garden, where I have already installed a great many broad beans. They are flourishing but need water, since it hasn't rained for over a week. I then filled a vast outdoor flower pot with a mix of soil and homemade compost, and covered it with a selection of seeds:mixed leaves, wild rocket and chervil. After that I planted some seeds: two types of tomatoes Costoluto Genovese, and Vilma - a small type, and some basil. In a second propagator I planted some fancy digitalis, an unusal convolvulus and some very old eccremocarpus scaber seeds dating to 2004 - when I had them in the front garden. I really hope these will work, as I want to plant some more in the front garden.
The major problem in the garden at present is cat pooh. It lies everywhere, ground cover is no deterrent. Landmines have been suggested. Orange peel works, but only in a limited way.
Although there has been a little bit of rain this afternoon, I think I should water the garden, nothing like enough has fallen, and the peas could do with a wetting.
Nature notes: the red bees are out in force. I think I must have seen at least a dozen different varieties of bees in the garden so far, some honey bees, but the others presumably varieties of solitary bee. There are definitely far more of the red bees than ever before, we must be providing a good environment for them.
Also, a garden warbler. I have seen this bird before, but didn't see it clearly enough and thought it was a dunnock - but it doesn't have the tail and the colouring is different. It warbled.
Last night I saw the woodmouse in the kitchen. He is a strange chap. He stood still and looked at us for a bit then steadily made his way around the island, under the table, along the side of the Irish cupboard and into the tool lobby. I presume he hid there for a bit before proceeding to the sitting room to his nest in the sofa. We've never had a mouse nesting in the sofa before, last year the mouse (the same one? or his father?) lived under a corner of the Irish cupboard and ate the parrot's dropped seeds. Now, with Olly gone, there are fewer pickings for him, so he has to rove further to get grub. A few weeks ago I dropped a small potato on the floor and didn't notice, the following day it had been eaten away, so I left it there for a bit to give him a supply. I think in the summer the mice live in the vicinity of the shed - but I am worried about what will happen to them when we take the shed away and put up the new one. M fears we will find Aphra's corpse there....oh dear, talking of which I have discovered a frog corpse melting under one of the stones by the pond - but haven't the strength to move it. The frog spawn is hatching - small comma-like tadpoles are drifting aimlessly about the pond. No fish - they must all have bought it during the winter. Never mind, will cultivate nature instead.
Friday 25 March 2011
Irritation
I did so well yesterday and today - I worked, not full on, but I did HH work, and some voluntary stuff I need to do, and I also managed to write 500 odd words of Conscience today. I attribute this to the enjoyable effect of having the house to myself. I can work when Husb is here, but it is so much freer when he is not.
I was going to go out to a writers' party this evening, but I looked carefully at the invitation again and it said it would be an opportunity for networking and performance - and I realised that that meant listening to other people's work, poetry in particular, and I didn't feel like it - and I didn't think there would be any agents to network with there, and it also said "for writers and people interested in writing" and I listened to my inner voice and it said "don't". So I didn't, I sat here thinking I would write some more, or finish my CV. Then Husb asked to join me, and he sat down to write his diary, which I find very irritating because (a) he asks me endless questions like "what did we have for supper last night?" and "where did you say you were going to go tonight?" which makes me wish I had gone - and then (b) he reads out anything he thinks particularly fine.... I know when we are dead this will be a marvellous evocation of our life together that will be much valued by our descendants, but having him sitting here snorting quietly to himself at his own jokes is beyond endurance.
Of course that is complete hyperbole, it is not beyond endurance, it is mildly irritating, which is making me hyperbolical... and it is the kind of thing that makes me want to start playing a nice game of "Fantasy Husbands" again. But it is such a waste of time and emotion.
Today I was having a few "Fantasy Husband" thoughts and I thought, "this would go into TFY - I shall interpolate it somewhere." I was then forced to skim through TFY - which was relatively painless, and then decided that the place I'd thought I could put it in was inappropriate, or that it would destroy the existing paragraph, and I thought, I could put the same observation in Conscience instead. After all, it requires insights too - of one kind or another, there's no reason for every interesting thing I consider to be stuffed into TFY. Which is already full of brilliant appercus already (what no sedilla!).
Anyway, the point I was coming too is that if I need to write something that needs thought I find it hard to do it with Husb in the room because he brings his own thought-fog in with him, and I am somehow distracted.
I really haven't done anything like 2,000 words a week - but since I had my great idea (about 2 weeks ago?) I have done 1500 - so it could be worse. And I am reading bits of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth which is helping me to get into the mindset. So - along with everything else there is movement.
Today we had some good news on the schmoozing and schlepping front: one person interested in talking to us - and a couple of possibles, one of which, the 250th anniversary of the Sandwich, I am extremely keen to get involved in. It's a local job but will require national exposure.... lots of good stuff. And events! However, I am not totally excited by the idea, since in the last few months every forward step or two has been matched by backward steps.... resulting in minimal progress. I suppose if I didn't have another source of income (Husb, erratic though it is) I might be putting my back into this business a bit more....contacting dozens of people a day - instead of sluggishly sending out things over a couple of weeks.
Other news: a date for the visit to the Tunnels has been fixed. I am in a group working on getting the tunnels opened up and turned into a tourist attraction to rival - oh, I don't know - The Chislehurst Caves perhaps?
I have to do something about the funding bid. But next week is looking nice and quiet, can do some steady stuff. So far, retrograde Mercury doesn't seem to be biting unduly.
I was going to go out to a writers' party this evening, but I looked carefully at the invitation again and it said it would be an opportunity for networking and performance - and I realised that that meant listening to other people's work, poetry in particular, and I didn't feel like it - and I didn't think there would be any agents to network with there, and it also said "for writers and people interested in writing" and I listened to my inner voice and it said "don't". So I didn't, I sat here thinking I would write some more, or finish my CV. Then Husb asked to join me, and he sat down to write his diary, which I find very irritating because (a) he asks me endless questions like "what did we have for supper last night?" and "where did you say you were going to go tonight?" which makes me wish I had gone - and then (b) he reads out anything he thinks particularly fine.... I know when we are dead this will be a marvellous evocation of our life together that will be much valued by our descendants, but having him sitting here snorting quietly to himself at his own jokes is beyond endurance.
Of course that is complete hyperbole, it is not beyond endurance, it is mildly irritating, which is making me hyperbolical... and it is the kind of thing that makes me want to start playing a nice game of "Fantasy Husbands" again. But it is such a waste of time and emotion.
Today I was having a few "Fantasy Husband" thoughts and I thought, "this would go into TFY - I shall interpolate it somewhere." I was then forced to skim through TFY - which was relatively painless, and then decided that the place I'd thought I could put it in was inappropriate, or that it would destroy the existing paragraph, and I thought, I could put the same observation in Conscience instead. After all, it requires insights too - of one kind or another, there's no reason for every interesting thing I consider to be stuffed into TFY. Which is already full of brilliant appercus already (what no sedilla!).
Anyway, the point I was coming too is that if I need to write something that needs thought I find it hard to do it with Husb in the room because he brings his own thought-fog in with him, and I am somehow distracted.
I really haven't done anything like 2,000 words a week - but since I had my great idea (about 2 weeks ago?) I have done 1500 - so it could be worse. And I am reading bits of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth which is helping me to get into the mindset. So - along with everything else there is movement.
Today we had some good news on the schmoozing and schlepping front: one person interested in talking to us - and a couple of possibles, one of which, the 250th anniversary of the Sandwich, I am extremely keen to get involved in. It's a local job but will require national exposure.... lots of good stuff. And events! However, I am not totally excited by the idea, since in the last few months every forward step or two has been matched by backward steps.... resulting in minimal progress. I suppose if I didn't have another source of income (Husb, erratic though it is) I might be putting my back into this business a bit more....contacting dozens of people a day - instead of sluggishly sending out things over a couple of weeks.
Other news: a date for the visit to the Tunnels has been fixed. I am in a group working on getting the tunnels opened up and turned into a tourist attraction to rival - oh, I don't know - The Chislehurst Caves perhaps?
I have to do something about the funding bid. But next week is looking nice and quiet, can do some steady stuff. So far, retrograde Mercury doesn't seem to be biting unduly.
Thursday 24 March 2011
Another publication for the CV
Yesterday was the culmination of some vague thoughts that I'd finally managed to re-connect. I saw something about Harriet Gilbert in a newspaper a few weeks ago and I remembered that about 20 years ago I'd written a number of articles for a book she was editing. At the time I'd never been notified that the book had been published, and after a couple of years I'd written to the publisher to see if anything had happened about it. This was just before email and internet, so effort was required. I didn't get an answer so, since I was busy generating children, I didn't pursue it. I assumed for some reason that the book hadn't been published as I'd never seen it anywhere. However, when I heard HG's name mentioned I rushed to Wikipedia and found that she'd written a book called "The Sexual Imagination" - I looked for it on Amazon, found it available for 63p or something ridiculous - and yesterday it arrived.
It's rather a good book, and it opened at one of my entries, on Anais Nin. It was coherent and vaguely disapproving... I flipped through it, trying to discover which articles I'd written. Eventually I located eight, all of which were delightful to me, as they were both familiar and unfamiliar, as though they had been written by another person (rather like my university essays). What was also rather exciting was looking at the list of other contributors, many of whom were rather distinguished feminists like Dale Spender and Angela Carter - I was pleased to find myself in this company.
It looked to me, as if, just before I met M I was about to take off, get a bit more involved in my writing etc. It reminded me of when J ordered me to get a job when I was researching my unfinished book on Women and Catholicism - even though I had had a spontaneous letter from a publisher... can you imagine? which I'd never replied to. Oh gawd. It doesn't do to repine, but there is a bit of a pattern, but now I can't see what can interfere with my writing except my own lassitude (or someone in the family requiring a carer of course! God forbid!).
Anyway, I now have another publication to add to my thin little CV, so perhaps I will finally get the application off.
Tomorrow night I am going to a party for writers in the Isle of Thanet - wonder who'll be there? Tara Moore? David Lee Stone? Others unheard of (Jane Wenham-Jones presumably). Oh god, I hope it's all right or will it just be wannabees (like us?). But I'm beyond the wannabee stage - I know this, because I meet wannabees who are amazingly impressed that I've been published.
I can see why people must cringe when one says one's a writer and thens says one hasn't published (much) because one could be a useless fantasist.
I am pleased to report that my lassitude has diminished, I am fairly energetic, although horribly unfit. Wonder if I dare go swimming tomorrow?
It's rather a good book, and it opened at one of my entries, on Anais Nin. It was coherent and vaguely disapproving... I flipped through it, trying to discover which articles I'd written. Eventually I located eight, all of which were delightful to me, as they were both familiar and unfamiliar, as though they had been written by another person (rather like my university essays). What was also rather exciting was looking at the list of other contributors, many of whom were rather distinguished feminists like Dale Spender and Angela Carter - I was pleased to find myself in this company.
It looked to me, as if, just before I met M I was about to take off, get a bit more involved in my writing etc. It reminded me of when J ordered me to get a job when I was researching my unfinished book on Women and Catholicism - even though I had had a spontaneous letter from a publisher... can you imagine? which I'd never replied to. Oh gawd. It doesn't do to repine, but there is a bit of a pattern, but now I can't see what can interfere with my writing except my own lassitude (or someone in the family requiring a carer of course! God forbid!).
Anyway, I now have another publication to add to my thin little CV, so perhaps I will finally get the application off.
Tomorrow night I am going to a party for writers in the Isle of Thanet - wonder who'll be there? Tara Moore? David Lee Stone? Others unheard of (Jane Wenham-Jones presumably). Oh god, I hope it's all right or will it just be wannabees (like us?). But I'm beyond the wannabee stage - I know this, because I meet wannabees who are amazingly impressed that I've been published.
I can see why people must cringe when one says one's a writer and thens says one hasn't published (much) because one could be a useless fantasist.
I am pleased to report that my lassitude has diminished, I am fairly energetic, although horribly unfit. Wonder if I dare go swimming tomorrow?
Tuesday 15 March 2011
A bit of intellectual excitement
The last two days have been quite incredible. I went to MC's community training course with a heavy heart and reluctance - feeling I should be doing something more useful - say 2,000 words on Conscience, or actually posting the TFY submission... and... it was not like that at all.
I felt intensely sceptical, as I usually do, about anything that involves any kind of specialised jargon, and the preliminary handout was riven with it, leading to feelings of disgust, abhorrence and generalised despair.
I felt distinctly spikey from the moment I got into the car with S and we began tentatively to discuss what we were expecting.
The first day was incredibly hard work, it's a form of coaching which involves something called Clean Language. It was so hard to drop one's normal prejudices in favour of subjective, 'helpful' response. I got ticked off, even when I was performing at my best for being too warm! Mind you, MC says she doesn't do 'feeling' so anything might be a bit too warm.... yet she is a very warm charming person when she wants to be. Perhaps - and I say this in the nicest possible way - she is really a psychopath.
The process involves learning a pattern of questions, and taking the 'client' through them to help them arrive at a plan of action. Unfortunately this will have to wait until next week - at the moment we are dealing with the fantasy element of the process.... you begin with the words.
"What would you like to have happen?"
And you then continue to respond with "and then what happens?" - unless things take a turn for the worse, when you change to "what would you like to happen instead?" - then there are questions which seem almost surreal, but which are important to helping the client to understand where they are going/coming from. One had to fight the urge to help on the first day, but by today I realised it was a very painless activity compared with any kind of therapy or even a conversation with a friend. There is no emotional engagement with the client, and thus no emotional expenditure. I described it as 'lazy'.
The group is interesting - we are meeting in B at N & C's offices - a former Red Cross centre. I knew a number of the group before we started - the two S's, I knew SB slightly, and K I met at dinner with MC and C who I met at another dinner with his partner HC, a good combination. I have got to know some of the others, one a slightly cynical man who is expert in all this sort of thing, a nice gay man called A, a lady called M who I had met before who has confidence and anxiety problems... and two other women who I don't warm to as much, because they are problematic in different ways. There's also K, a business assoc. of MC's and her partner B - a nurse. Interesting dynamics. I'm glad S gave me the gig - I was a bit annoyed about it first., She has used her time pricelessly to schmooze all the players at the Destination History thing on Monday, so we have lots of promised meetings.
I would like to write more, but I am too knackered - a side effect of the hard intellectual work done in the last couple of days.
When I came home I found my dear old Pa had sent me a cheque. This enable us to have fish and chips with a light heart. God, I love fish and chips, what on earth G was thinking of, being too posh for it! Silly cow.
I am now looking forward to things more. I was horrendously anxious last night and kept waking up with misery, but today I have been feeling so much happier. Mark has had a good work promo idea, and I am having a bit more faith about happier outcomes to our current situation. Sometimes we just have to wait for things to happen, to prepare the ground, then wait for rain as the I Ching says (somewhere).
I felt intensely sceptical, as I usually do, about anything that involves any kind of specialised jargon, and the preliminary handout was riven with it, leading to feelings of disgust, abhorrence and generalised despair.
I felt distinctly spikey from the moment I got into the car with S and we began tentatively to discuss what we were expecting.
The first day was incredibly hard work, it's a form of coaching which involves something called Clean Language. It was so hard to drop one's normal prejudices in favour of subjective, 'helpful' response. I got ticked off, even when I was performing at my best for being too warm! Mind you, MC says she doesn't do 'feeling' so anything might be a bit too warm.... yet she is a very warm charming person when she wants to be. Perhaps - and I say this in the nicest possible way - she is really a psychopath.
The process involves learning a pattern of questions, and taking the 'client' through them to help them arrive at a plan of action. Unfortunately this will have to wait until next week - at the moment we are dealing with the fantasy element of the process.... you begin with the words.
"What would you like to have happen?"
And you then continue to respond with "and then what happens?" - unless things take a turn for the worse, when you change to "what would you like to happen instead?" - then there are questions which seem almost surreal, but which are important to helping the client to understand where they are going/coming from. One had to fight the urge to help on the first day, but by today I realised it was a very painless activity compared with any kind of therapy or even a conversation with a friend. There is no emotional engagement with the client, and thus no emotional expenditure. I described it as 'lazy'.
The group is interesting - we are meeting in B at N & C's offices - a former Red Cross centre. I knew a number of the group before we started - the two S's, I knew SB slightly, and K I met at dinner with MC and C who I met at another dinner with his partner HC, a good combination. I have got to know some of the others, one a slightly cynical man who is expert in all this sort of thing, a nice gay man called A, a lady called M who I had met before who has confidence and anxiety problems... and two other women who I don't warm to as much, because they are problematic in different ways. There's also K, a business assoc. of MC's and her partner B - a nurse. Interesting dynamics. I'm glad S gave me the gig - I was a bit annoyed about it first., She has used her time pricelessly to schmooze all the players at the Destination History thing on Monday, so we have lots of promised meetings.
I would like to write more, but I am too knackered - a side effect of the hard intellectual work done in the last couple of days.
When I came home I found my dear old Pa had sent me a cheque. This enable us to have fish and chips with a light heart. God, I love fish and chips, what on earth G was thinking of, being too posh for it! Silly cow.
I am now looking forward to things more. I was horrendously anxious last night and kept waking up with misery, but today I have been feeling so much happier. Mark has had a good work promo idea, and I am having a bit more faith about happier outcomes to our current situation. Sometimes we just have to wait for things to happen, to prepare the ground, then wait for rain as the I Ching says (somewhere).
Sunday 13 March 2011
Submissions
I've finally got around to doing it. Why are submissions such a painful business? Of course it's disappointing when an agent doesn't want one's book, but one recognises perfectly that just as not every man wants to marry you, not every agent wants to marry your novel. So one doesn't feel rejected (well, I don't nowadays), but it's the faffing about involved in each submission. I seem to be drawn towards some sort of magical thinking, that if I could somehow sense the agent's taste and structure the submission accordingly... no. There's also the feeling "What happens when I've got through all the agents in the UK?" And then you have to remind yourself that actually, I've only been rejected by 5 - and two of them, especially Simon Trewin, were really complimentary about the book and writing, and one of them was a totally inappropriate agent who wouldn't have been in my top 30 - had I not met her at a party and been advised to ask her by a retired publisher who really should have known better!
So the next submission should go off tomorrow, and for once I am including a cv which will need the link for this blog. I suppose this represents some progress.
For the first time I've had to include a CV of my writing, and realise looking at it, what a very peculiar literary non-career I've had. I totally failed to become literary editor of the New Statesman, I didn't even do any reviewing for the quality papers, I've never had any connection with the London Review of Books or the TLS (although I know someone who writes for it occasionally, and M is distantly related to Stephen Spender). My screenwriting experience has been absymal despite meeting Victoria Glendinning at a party (there is a connection). What I chiefly noticed was a of history of discouragement and interruption. I always knew I'd get around to it eventually, and now, finally, I have. I have written more in the past two years I guess than I have in the previous 30. I have stopped being discouraged by rejection, I feel absolutely confident now that I can write, can invent, can do dialogue and character.... and that I will get published.
Somehow writing The Formative Year has done something. I finally completed a novel without it getting boring for the first time since I was 22. There was something so great about finishing it - even though I knew it needed a massive restructuring. And it didn't get its current opening paragraphs until version 7 or 8... I could re-write it every time I submit - that's the trouble with it. Dear A says she fears it will lose spontaneity - yes, but I think it is better written than the first version.
Oh, I just had a look at the first version. It seems better - maybe because it's single spaced. I notice I have changed Leo's wife's description from "quiet, pretty, Irish perhaps?" to "quite pretty, Irish perhaps?". Was that just a typo? Or a deliberate comment. Perhaps I shouldn't go back and look again. Actually the first draft wasn't, because it was - wait for it - hand written in a series of tiny note books....who says that craft is dead?
So the next submission should go off tomorrow, and for once I am including a cv which will need the link for this blog. I suppose this represents some progress.
For the first time I've had to include a CV of my writing, and realise looking at it, what a very peculiar literary non-career I've had. I totally failed to become literary editor of the New Statesman, I didn't even do any reviewing for the quality papers, I've never had any connection with the London Review of Books or the TLS (although I know someone who writes for it occasionally, and M is distantly related to Stephen Spender). My screenwriting experience has been absymal despite meeting Victoria Glendinning at a party (there is a connection). What I chiefly noticed was a of history of discouragement and interruption. I always knew I'd get around to it eventually, and now, finally, I have. I have written more in the past two years I guess than I have in the previous 30. I have stopped being discouraged by rejection, I feel absolutely confident now that I can write, can invent, can do dialogue and character.... and that I will get published.
Somehow writing The Formative Year has done something. I finally completed a novel without it getting boring for the first time since I was 22. There was something so great about finishing it - even though I knew it needed a massive restructuring. And it didn't get its current opening paragraphs until version 7 or 8... I could re-write it every time I submit - that's the trouble with it. Dear A says she fears it will lose spontaneity - yes, but I think it is better written than the first version.
Oh, I just had a look at the first version. It seems better - maybe because it's single spaced. I notice I have changed Leo's wife's description from "quiet, pretty, Irish perhaps?" to "quite pretty, Irish perhaps?". Was that just a typo? Or a deliberate comment. Perhaps I shouldn't go back and look again. Actually the first draft wasn't, because it was - wait for it - hand written in a series of tiny note books....who says that craft is dead?
Gloomy Sunday
Two days of sunshine were too much to human flesh to stand, the garden leapt forward, the mirabelle blossom, then more daffs, almost a tulip and finally the camellia.
Saturday was a fairly good day, light gardening, lots of washing, then went to M for "Party on the Pier" - another damp squib I fear - too much is happening for things to get properly done, but we enjoyed seeing "Merry Margate" again - it is a funny piece, the thought of Elgar conducting the Margate Municipal Orchestra is almost surreal... and Paul Robeson and Laurel and Hardy and the Beatles performing here. Well, I suppose they had the Specials at the Winter Gardens a couple of years ago.
We went for a drink at the bar on the end of the pier and it was nice and I wished we could just sit there and chat and nibble antipasti. But their italian cabernet was rather strange, with a liquoricey taste that I didn't really appreciate.
Rob came home with me while M rode his bike home. We drank and snacked and had supper and talked. We came up with an idea about doing some sort of schools event about the Romans, Rob has a production, we could ask the Archaeologists to bring artefacts and give a talk, I could do toga draping - and readings from Catligula - or possibly some Latin words....
But this Sunday is a sort of minor key repeat of last Sunday - we get up late, I feel ineffectual, and become slightly weepy about things. This Sunday M is feeling a lot better and so more consoling to me. I can't help feeling I'm being selfish and self-obsessed. I am also feeling a bit glum about the business, and the book(s) and family and the house and.....
So probably the best thing would be to go into the garden, try and dig up and destroy the saponaria so that I can plant some broad beans in the front garden. That will cheer me up and I will have achieved something. Of course it seems utterly selfish and silly in the light of what's happening in Japan.
Saturday was a fairly good day, light gardening, lots of washing, then went to M for "Party on the Pier" - another damp squib I fear - too much is happening for things to get properly done, but we enjoyed seeing "Merry Margate" again - it is a funny piece, the thought of Elgar conducting the Margate Municipal Orchestra is almost surreal... and Paul Robeson and Laurel and Hardy and the Beatles performing here. Well, I suppose they had the Specials at the Winter Gardens a couple of years ago.
We went for a drink at the bar on the end of the pier and it was nice and I wished we could just sit there and chat and nibble antipasti. But their italian cabernet was rather strange, with a liquoricey taste that I didn't really appreciate.
Rob came home with me while M rode his bike home. We drank and snacked and had supper and talked. We came up with an idea about doing some sort of schools event about the Romans, Rob has a production, we could ask the Archaeologists to bring artefacts and give a talk, I could do toga draping - and readings from Catligula - or possibly some Latin words....
But this Sunday is a sort of minor key repeat of last Sunday - we get up late, I feel ineffectual, and become slightly weepy about things. This Sunday M is feeling a lot better and so more consoling to me. I can't help feeling I'm being selfish and self-obsessed. I am also feeling a bit glum about the business, and the book(s) and family and the house and.....
So probably the best thing would be to go into the garden, try and dig up and destroy the saponaria so that I can plant some broad beans in the front garden. That will cheer me up and I will have achieved something. Of course it seems utterly selfish and silly in the light of what's happening in Japan.
Friday 11 March 2011
A good day
So nice to see M&C. I got an email this morning from M telling me that C had wheat intolerance, was recovering from a virus and would not each much - also that he hadn't told her of the visit - to give her a surprise.
I was driving to the airport as their plane flew low over the roundabout... it's all very smooth there - only the second time I've been to the airport, the last time was for a protest meeting against night flights last autumn.
Catherine was so surprised to see me that she didn't realise who I was at first, but it had been about 20 years. She was very quiet, and I thought she might be in pain. She thinks she may have developed coeliac disease. Shame, as I'd made really nice foccaccia. We ate and drank and talked a great deal about university cuts. M's a prof. at a Scottish university which is about to cut all its language department and classics and archaeology. His speciality is education/regeneration etc. and I could have got a good deal out of him if I'd been in the mood - but I was on laid back, mellow mode...so didn't interrogate him much. We gossipped a bit about various friends and just chatted generally. I don't know what it is about M - but it could have been two days since I saw him last, not 18 years, maybe Facebook does somehow enhance intimacy...or maybe because we're quite similar in some ways.
For various reasons their lift to Folkestone didn't happen, so I drove them there - a 2.hour round trip, but it was fine. When we got to Dover low cloud, more like fog or smoke was whirling around the town and the cliffs above. I dropped them at the Grand and turned for home.
Now I am finding the evening rather unsatisfactory. Why? Loss of that agreeable feeling of being with one's friends. Husband being a bit irritating, asks me to look for something on Google and then gets antsy with me...because, guess what, there is nothing on the battle of Vindalium which cites the authorities... actually there is, but he is being a bit dense, and refusing to see it.
The rice and bean soup we had for lunch today was absolutely delicious - I will make it again, could even get the boys to eat it perhaps. The boys came home and were duly paraded before M&C left, Finn was on Groke mode, and while I was out went on a skateboarding adventure with his chums.
During lunch we had interesting gossip about open relationships: there was something, a laugh or a frisson, between them that I wanted to pursue but we talked about K's interesting love life instead...Husb made some comment about my "boyfriend" didn't realise what he meant - then understood. Oh, ha-bloody ha! I said "I would like him as my boyfriend". One of the awful realisations about my new post-oestrogen life is that I would simply much rather have a boyfriend to go out and have fun with - rather than someone to take responsibility for. I really envied my ex-husb when we saw him a year or so ago, saying how when he got bored he got on a plane and went to Malaga or Turin so that he could go somewhere nice and eat something interesting. He does this at the weekends when his wife's away. I wouldn't mind going with him if he wanted company, but I don't suppose his wife could really cope with it and I wouldn't want to do anything disruptive. I just want some fun dammnit.
I had fun last night, 10 of us around the table drinking wine and snacking - and throwing out ideas for the festival. Met a guy who plays the Theramin/Ondes Martineaux or whatever it's called. Plus the usual suspects, including the friend I now think of as M's "intended" - she asked me how he was with great solicitude - and he was asking about her newly single status with great solicitude..oh-oh! This was a bit of a joke, but how would I really feel if anything happened? It would serve me right. I am just tired of being the support of genius, want to do my own genius thing.
So, needless to say, all this pleasure and pastime has left me with no time to write today. And the weekends are hopeless for writing - no, not because they are relaxing, but because of the incessant demands of all 3 of them simultaneously present.
I was driving to the airport as their plane flew low over the roundabout... it's all very smooth there - only the second time I've been to the airport, the last time was for a protest meeting against night flights last autumn.
Catherine was so surprised to see me that she didn't realise who I was at first, but it had been about 20 years. She was very quiet, and I thought she might be in pain. She thinks she may have developed coeliac disease. Shame, as I'd made really nice foccaccia. We ate and drank and talked a great deal about university cuts. M's a prof. at a Scottish university which is about to cut all its language department and classics and archaeology. His speciality is education/regeneration etc. and I could have got a good deal out of him if I'd been in the mood - but I was on laid back, mellow mode...so didn't interrogate him much. We gossipped a bit about various friends and just chatted generally. I don't know what it is about M - but it could have been two days since I saw him last, not 18 years, maybe Facebook does somehow enhance intimacy...or maybe because we're quite similar in some ways.
For various reasons their lift to Folkestone didn't happen, so I drove them there - a 2.hour round trip, but it was fine. When we got to Dover low cloud, more like fog or smoke was whirling around the town and the cliffs above. I dropped them at the Grand and turned for home.
Now I am finding the evening rather unsatisfactory. Why? Loss of that agreeable feeling of being with one's friends. Husband being a bit irritating, asks me to look for something on Google and then gets antsy with me...because, guess what, there is nothing on the battle of Vindalium which cites the authorities... actually there is, but he is being a bit dense, and refusing to see it.
The rice and bean soup we had for lunch today was absolutely delicious - I will make it again, could even get the boys to eat it perhaps. The boys came home and were duly paraded before M&C left, Finn was on Groke mode, and while I was out went on a skateboarding adventure with his chums.
During lunch we had interesting gossip about open relationships: there was something, a laugh or a frisson, between them that I wanted to pursue but we talked about K's interesting love life instead...Husb made some comment about my "boyfriend" didn't realise what he meant - then understood. Oh, ha-bloody ha! I said "I would like him as my boyfriend". One of the awful realisations about my new post-oestrogen life is that I would simply much rather have a boyfriend to go out and have fun with - rather than someone to take responsibility for. I really envied my ex-husb when we saw him a year or so ago, saying how when he got bored he got on a plane and went to Malaga or Turin so that he could go somewhere nice and eat something interesting. He does this at the weekends when his wife's away. I wouldn't mind going with him if he wanted company, but I don't suppose his wife could really cope with it and I wouldn't want to do anything disruptive. I just want some fun dammnit.
I had fun last night, 10 of us around the table drinking wine and snacking - and throwing out ideas for the festival. Met a guy who plays the Theramin/Ondes Martineaux or whatever it's called. Plus the usual suspects, including the friend I now think of as M's "intended" - she asked me how he was with great solicitude - and he was asking about her newly single status with great solicitude..oh-oh! This was a bit of a joke, but how would I really feel if anything happened? It would serve me right. I am just tired of being the support of genius, want to do my own genius thing.
So, needless to say, all this pleasure and pastime has left me with no time to write today. And the weekends are hopeless for writing - no, not because they are relaxing, but because of the incessant demands of all 3 of them simultaneously present.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Lent
Actually, that's just a title. Why I am not writing today would be a better title. I managed to write 530 words of Conscience yesterday - and maybe I'll do something tonight, but today has been: shopping, take N for blood test, go to bank, post office and building society and paying bills. Followed by unpacking shopping, dealing with random work and Tunnel related emails (explanation of the latter will no doubt appear in due course). Then suddennly it was time to cook supper, tidy dining room for festival meeting in a couple of hours, and a long call from Rob P - about doing a performance here in a few weeks... and remembering I ought to do other things that I haven't done. But I did post everything (except the MS to next agent on list).
Why does every single agent want something slightly different? This one wants a short letter and a CV... fine, just if there was a National Standard: letter, synopsis and 3 chapters then it would be a lot easier - sort out the agents who want 50 pages ( my 3 chapters are 49 pages...) or 10 pages, and so on. The CV is a new one, a great opportunity for creativity! Actually my career is so interesting that no creativity is required to do it justice. Who else has sold theatre tickets to James Mason, taught Pavarotti's daughter English, argued with Sir John Nott, been sacked from a merchant bank and .... ?
Even my retirement during the full-on motherhood period has not been without interest: flying to Ireland to meet Jeremy Irons, having a book launch and dealing with accompanying meeja storm. And some of the archaeological adventures with Mark have been fun. So why does it seem a bit dull at the moment? I've got friends, I go out, I meet interesting people (sometimes), I network - just that feeling that there's a me somewhere who is getting ignored. I know exactly what it is - and it's partly my own fault that it's being ignored, and I am not writing about it here. I could of course turn to Cathexis... the great epic of my inner life. But I am frightened of reading Cathexis again - it's too confusing and disturbing. I suppose there are a lot of novels about people who believe they are perfectly sane when everyone else recognises they are in the grip of a delusion, just haven't read any of them. But it's an idea - turn Cathexis into something... there's some good writing, a bit of the old cut and paste....
Time to put on the spuds for supper.
Why does every single agent want something slightly different? This one wants a short letter and a CV... fine, just if there was a National Standard: letter, synopsis and 3 chapters then it would be a lot easier - sort out the agents who want 50 pages ( my 3 chapters are 49 pages...) or 10 pages, and so on. The CV is a new one, a great opportunity for creativity! Actually my career is so interesting that no creativity is required to do it justice. Who else has sold theatre tickets to James Mason, taught Pavarotti's daughter English, argued with Sir John Nott, been sacked from a merchant bank and .... ?
Even my retirement during the full-on motherhood period has not been without interest: flying to Ireland to meet Jeremy Irons, having a book launch and dealing with accompanying meeja storm. And some of the archaeological adventures with Mark have been fun. So why does it seem a bit dull at the moment? I've got friends, I go out, I meet interesting people (sometimes), I network - just that feeling that there's a me somewhere who is getting ignored. I know exactly what it is - and it's partly my own fault that it's being ignored, and I am not writing about it here. I could of course turn to Cathexis... the great epic of my inner life. But I am frightened of reading Cathexis again - it's too confusing and disturbing. I suppose there are a lot of novels about people who believe they are perfectly sane when everyone else recognises they are in the grip of a delusion, just haven't read any of them. But it's an idea - turn Cathexis into something... there's some good writing, a bit of the old cut and paste....
Time to put on the spuds for supper.
Wednesday 9 March 2011
Lacklustre
...would be a good description of today. I got up and had a bath - my back is better. I didn't write last night because I was so incredibly busy and very tired by the end of the day. So tired, and with incredible back pain, that I could not make pancakes. This caused a massive outbreak of discontent. M showed a remarkable lack of sympathy - he is on the nth day of a cold and perhaps he feels he should be the one getting sympathy. The discontent flowed over onto Facebook where N and F posted rude comments about me. I posted back with unaccustomed vigour. Order was restored with a takeaway.... there was moderate cheerfulness.
This morning for some reason there was another argument. It is now widely recognised that most of our problems could be solved by money - but this would also give us the option of running away from each other too. I was feeling undervalued because of widespread lack of sympathy and M wasn't in the mood to make any compensatory gesture.
I have decided that what he needs is a partner who is not as bright as him, but more organised and admiring - she can treat him as the scholar/artist that he is... and I have even thought of someone. What I need is - well, there is only one candidate, but failing him I would make do with someone affluent who travelled a lot so I could have some time on my own, or have the option of accompanying him. He would of course be incredibly kind, sympathetic and - oh well, that will do. This game of Fantasy Husbands must stop! It always escalates around the time of arguments. I don't hate arguing any more, but what I hate is the masque of penitential behaviour M presents for about 24 hours afterwards (that's if I've managed to make a point). He does lots of pointedly thoughtful and affectionate things which make me feel uncomfortable.
I am fascinated by the idea that when your oestrogen goes so does your urge to nurture... I have definitely lost mine. But just for fun I did clean the stove today, to see how domestic duty felt. I cook, I wash, I occasionally iron and clean the bathroom, I dust and wipe as necessary - in an emergency I instruct the family in the hoovering role...
Anyway, I don't know if it was the argument or what, but I didn't feel in work mode today. I spent most of the day in a blur of bits of email, bits of finding potential clients, and then had a meeting about the Arts Festival with a nice man who operates LMHR around here. A genuine Thanetian...he also runs a printing co-op... but doesn't seem to be very upfront about it.
I was going to go the bank and the post office - but I ran out of time. I made pancakes - which I regard as heroic as it is a thoroughly tedious business. The boys were ecstatic with the bacon, chicken and chorizo ones they got, and I had leek and spinach ones. The boys then had 3 sweet ones each (it was getting a little bit like the last scene of Sambo, Le Petit Noir - except the pancakes didn't have stripes) and I had a really delicious one with lemon curd and mascarpone.
It occurs to me that pancakes actually require very little fat - so why did Sambo's mother decide pancakes would be the perfect way to use the unexpected bonus of tiger grease? Dripping toast would have been more appropriate.
Today was of course the first day of Lent, and I have decided to attempt (I don't know why I've never done this before) to largely adopt the diet recommended to Daniel and his chums when they went to live in Belshazzar's household: vegetables and water. When I have managed to lose enormous amounts of weight on this by Easter I shall write a devotional diet book called "The Bible Diet|" which will make me phenomenally rich - and will also result in a massive weight loss in the US which will be called "The Tightening of the Bible Belt". Needless to say that lemon curd and mascarpone pancakes will not be a really big part of this diet, but one has to have some fun. Actually, I am sure there is something in Isaiah about curds and honey... I could go through the whole Bible and see what dietary advice is there - but Orthodox Jews have been following that dietary advice for generations and I don't think kosher food makes you thin. Actually, the Lord's advice to Daniel et al. resulted in them looking rather sleek and glossy and better than the other chaps who were eating the Babylonian food.
I haven't written anything proper today, and I now feel I am 'entitled' to a break. But I might just have a look to see what David is up to...he really does need to talk to his father, otherwise he can't make a marriage proposal.
Oh look - another half hour up.
This morning for some reason there was another argument. It is now widely recognised that most of our problems could be solved by money - but this would also give us the option of running away from each other too. I was feeling undervalued because of widespread lack of sympathy and M wasn't in the mood to make any compensatory gesture.
I have decided that what he needs is a partner who is not as bright as him, but more organised and admiring - she can treat him as the scholar/artist that he is... and I have even thought of someone. What I need is - well, there is only one candidate, but failing him I would make do with someone affluent who travelled a lot so I could have some time on my own, or have the option of accompanying him. He would of course be incredibly kind, sympathetic and - oh well, that will do. This game of Fantasy Husbands must stop! It always escalates around the time of arguments. I don't hate arguing any more, but what I hate is the masque of penitential behaviour M presents for about 24 hours afterwards (that's if I've managed to make a point). He does lots of pointedly thoughtful and affectionate things which make me feel uncomfortable.
I am fascinated by the idea that when your oestrogen goes so does your urge to nurture... I have definitely lost mine. But just for fun I did clean the stove today, to see how domestic duty felt. I cook, I wash, I occasionally iron and clean the bathroom, I dust and wipe as necessary - in an emergency I instruct the family in the hoovering role...
Anyway, I don't know if it was the argument or what, but I didn't feel in work mode today. I spent most of the day in a blur of bits of email, bits of finding potential clients, and then had a meeting about the Arts Festival with a nice man who operates LMHR around here. A genuine Thanetian...he also runs a printing co-op... but doesn't seem to be very upfront about it.
I was going to go the bank and the post office - but I ran out of time. I made pancakes - which I regard as heroic as it is a thoroughly tedious business. The boys were ecstatic with the bacon, chicken and chorizo ones they got, and I had leek and spinach ones. The boys then had 3 sweet ones each (it was getting a little bit like the last scene of Sambo, Le Petit Noir - except the pancakes didn't have stripes) and I had a really delicious one with lemon curd and mascarpone.
It occurs to me that pancakes actually require very little fat - so why did Sambo's mother decide pancakes would be the perfect way to use the unexpected bonus of tiger grease? Dripping toast would have been more appropriate.
Today was of course the first day of Lent, and I have decided to attempt (I don't know why I've never done this before) to largely adopt the diet recommended to Daniel and his chums when they went to live in Belshazzar's household: vegetables and water. When I have managed to lose enormous amounts of weight on this by Easter I shall write a devotional diet book called "The Bible Diet|" which will make me phenomenally rich - and will also result in a massive weight loss in the US which will be called "The Tightening of the Bible Belt". Needless to say that lemon curd and mascarpone pancakes will not be a really big part of this diet, but one has to have some fun. Actually, I am sure there is something in Isaiah about curds and honey... I could go through the whole Bible and see what dietary advice is there - but Orthodox Jews have been following that dietary advice for generations and I don't think kosher food makes you thin. Actually, the Lord's advice to Daniel et al. resulted in them looking rather sleek and glossy and better than the other chaps who were eating the Babylonian food.
I haven't written anything proper today, and I now feel I am 'entitled' to a break. But I might just have a look to see what David is up to...he really does need to talk to his father, otherwise he can't make a marriage proposal.
Oh look - another half hour up.
Tuesday 8 March 2011
Ho-hum.
Lovely sunny morning - I got up at 6.00 and actually wrote 780 perfectly satisfactory words of Conscience. Then I cooked breakfast for everyone, sausage, bacon, egg, tomato and black pudding... coffee in industrial quantities. Then N&F left for school and I went upstairs and back to bed with yesterday's Guardian. The sun floods through our bedroom windows at an oblique angle to the bed - so I could have a sunbath. I dozed off, then did a bit of "creative visualisation" - known to normal people as daydreaming.... I went into a fuge state and began having images of the Villa D'Este at Tivoli... think I had some sort of dream about statues last night. Then I felt incredibly guilty about lying in bed when I had so much to do so leaped up (oh no, I eased myself up) got the kit on, discovered it was only 9.30 so hadn't actually wasted the day! I went down stairs and put a wash on, visited the garden, admired the coronilla and the daffs, and the buds on the camellia...and came in to do my blog.
One of the SoA chapter whom I haven't met yet chided me for not having a blog/twitter/website... I told him that I was in the process of doing it. Since my cover has been blown on this blog already it will now become considerably less intimate and a bit more of a marketing tool. I am raging against the dying of the light, purposeless writing I had intended to fill this blog with and the fact that I must somehow subtly use this to entrance agents and publishers (Hello there?)
While I was writing that sentence I was trying to think of an adjective that meant 'done for the love of it' to put between purposeless and writing. There probably is a very good word, there was the word amateur - but no writer in their right mind would call themselves amateur, and anyway, apparently professional writers do not love writing, it is HARD WORK.
I have effectively been a professional writer i.e. writing for money in one way or another, intermittently, since 1990, when I became a financial journalist. I could put it on my passport (only they don't require one's profession any more) - but although there are days or weeks when I find it impossible to get down to it, when I actually do it, I love it. I love it even more when it's difficult and I have to stop and concentrate really hard on saying what I want to say, on getting the nuance I want. I love editing it and making it better and taking out the betises.
Despite my relative lack of success to date I feel really happy about my writing. I know I can't write about things that will expand my mind and astonish me - I need other writers to do that, so in some sense my writing will never satisfy me, but there is a great pleasure in looking at a paragraph one has composed and seeing - like God - "that it was good"! Of course, 3 months later when one re-edits one looks at the same paragraph and finds things that are frankly awkward, something else is going on. One feels exhilarated when one writes something goodish - and critical mode is only on standby... later, when critical mode is on one feels less exhilarated and any complacency disappears.
That's enough blog for now.
One of the SoA chapter whom I haven't met yet chided me for not having a blog/twitter/website... I told him that I was in the process of doing it. Since my cover has been blown on this blog already it will now become considerably less intimate and a bit more of a marketing tool. I am raging against the dying of the light, purposeless writing I had intended to fill this blog with and the fact that I must somehow subtly use this to entrance agents and publishers (Hello there?)
While I was writing that sentence I was trying to think of an adjective that meant 'done for the love of it' to put between purposeless and writing. There probably is a very good word, there was the word amateur - but no writer in their right mind would call themselves amateur, and anyway, apparently professional writers do not love writing, it is HARD WORK.
I have effectively been a professional writer i.e. writing for money in one way or another, intermittently, since 1990, when I became a financial journalist. I could put it on my passport (only they don't require one's profession any more) - but although there are days or weeks when I find it impossible to get down to it, when I actually do it, I love it. I love it even more when it's difficult and I have to stop and concentrate really hard on saying what I want to say, on getting the nuance I want. I love editing it and making it better and taking out the betises.
Despite my relative lack of success to date I feel really happy about my writing. I know I can't write about things that will expand my mind and astonish me - I need other writers to do that, so in some sense my writing will never satisfy me, but there is a great pleasure in looking at a paragraph one has composed and seeing - like God - "that it was good"! Of course, 3 months later when one re-edits one looks at the same paragraph and finds things that are frankly awkward, something else is going on. One feels exhilarated when one writes something goodish - and critical mode is only on standby... later, when critical mode is on one feels less exhilarated and any complacency disappears.
That's enough blog for now.
Monday 7 March 2011
Oops. I didn't think of that.
I created this blog at the behest of colleagues at the local chapter of the Society of Authors - well we were all asked to do it. It did not occur to me that I would be called upon to share the result.... so if they are reading this - Hello!
Today has been a dies sine linea (apart from this of course). I had the usual Monday morning meeting with S to discuss the business; she had been working v. hard, and has discovered that none of the people we wanted to get in touch with were available on Friday afternoon.... all skived off for the weekend. I'd never quite seen Thanet as the land of dolce far niente before - but I'm beginning to suspect.
Today was fabulously sunny. After S left I managed 3.5 minutes staring at the garden before L arrived. I can't quite think of her as a close friend, because I came across her in inauspicious circumstances and because she loathes one of my other friends, so I always slightly wonder about her. This unusual for me, I'm given to opinions + acceptance of person with their (and my) limitations. In this case my opinion has still not formed, hence lack of total acceptance... I think I'm uneasy because she does this sort of PR stuff too - and even though we are miles apart in our aims and objectives... I can't help feeling she's pumping me to see what we're up to.
Then I faffed about for a bit - looking at to do lists, opening unwelcome communications from the bank, and finally opened my emails to find that AA's Dover job is still on (eventually) - and that the manager is not quite the sociopathic timewaster we'd previously thought. Then I had lunch and M came down and we wandered into the garden and preened ourselves on the level of biodiversity we had achieved in such a small area. There were loads of bees today, mostly interesting themselves in the winter flowering clematis(es). I cut back some dead bits and avoided the ever increasing output from local cats.
After this I went to D for my last reflexology session. I would never have dreamt of doing this, but as she is training and needs people to practice on I agreed. I am really glad I did. Ever since it started I have felt much more energised and less lethargic... it hasn't been a panacaea - there have been days of listlessness when I could have posed for one of those medieval paintings of Accidia... but overall I feel better. More scientifically I could put this down to the lengthening days - which always cheer me up. The theory is that it is qi! but I've never really believed in qi - assuming it's just a pre-scientific way of explaining something physical, but maybe there is some sort of "life-force" - a scientist of my acquaintance thinks there is - which makes me wonder about his scientific credentials...
Anyway, D was really lovely and sweet. She's had such a tough time in the last few years, and although things are better they are not quite better enough. I still don't know how old she is. She still gets odd bits of work film making and keeps going with students etc. but if she can get reflexology work it might suit her better - since it's a nice sitting down sort of job and I think jumping around with a whole video kit might be less of an option for her now. She's also feeling cross because she just can't finish her novel... this has been going on for such a long time... she's been nearly there since before she went into hospital - autumn 2009 I think... that was when we were exchanging notes on our oeuvres... she just can't bring herself to do it I think. It's a shame because it seems a very good, popular sort of premise, loads of people would like it. I haven't read much of it - so I don't know how the characters develop, but assuming it's all pretty competent I would have thought she had a better chance of getting published than me.
I came home full of good intentions which I promptly squandered by listening Radio 4 - Rupert Murdoch - and the question of belief in everlasting life - and food security in Japan and fiddling around with FBook etc.
M is going to a tenor rehearsal for the choir so I made an early supper and now I am free to do all the things I should have done earlier, but it's only 6.35 so there is time to input dozens of names for the next emailshot for AA - and perhaps re-write the synopsis for TFY. And who knows, write 50 words of Conscience. One thing I am not going to do is write any more of this.
Today has been a dies sine linea (apart from this of course). I had the usual Monday morning meeting with S to discuss the business; she had been working v. hard, and has discovered that none of the people we wanted to get in touch with were available on Friday afternoon.... all skived off for the weekend. I'd never quite seen Thanet as the land of dolce far niente before - but I'm beginning to suspect.
Today was fabulously sunny. After S left I managed 3.5 minutes staring at the garden before L arrived. I can't quite think of her as a close friend, because I came across her in inauspicious circumstances and because she loathes one of my other friends, so I always slightly wonder about her. This unusual for me, I'm given to opinions + acceptance of person with their (and my) limitations. In this case my opinion has still not formed, hence lack of total acceptance... I think I'm uneasy because she does this sort of PR stuff too - and even though we are miles apart in our aims and objectives... I can't help feeling she's pumping me to see what we're up to.
Then I faffed about for a bit - looking at to do lists, opening unwelcome communications from the bank, and finally opened my emails to find that AA's Dover job is still on (eventually) - and that the manager is not quite the sociopathic timewaster we'd previously thought. Then I had lunch and M came down and we wandered into the garden and preened ourselves on the level of biodiversity we had achieved in such a small area. There were loads of bees today, mostly interesting themselves in the winter flowering clematis(es). I cut back some dead bits and avoided the ever increasing output from local cats.
After this I went to D for my last reflexology session. I would never have dreamt of doing this, but as she is training and needs people to practice on I agreed. I am really glad I did. Ever since it started I have felt much more energised and less lethargic... it hasn't been a panacaea - there have been days of listlessness when I could have posed for one of those medieval paintings of Accidia... but overall I feel better. More scientifically I could put this down to the lengthening days - which always cheer me up. The theory is that it is qi! but I've never really believed in qi - assuming it's just a pre-scientific way of explaining something physical, but maybe there is some sort of "life-force" - a scientist of my acquaintance thinks there is - which makes me wonder about his scientific credentials...
Anyway, D was really lovely and sweet. She's had such a tough time in the last few years, and although things are better they are not quite better enough. I still don't know how old she is. She still gets odd bits of work film making and keeps going with students etc. but if she can get reflexology work it might suit her better - since it's a nice sitting down sort of job and I think jumping around with a whole video kit might be less of an option for her now. She's also feeling cross because she just can't finish her novel... this has been going on for such a long time... she's been nearly there since before she went into hospital - autumn 2009 I think... that was when we were exchanging notes on our oeuvres... she just can't bring herself to do it I think. It's a shame because it seems a very good, popular sort of premise, loads of people would like it. I haven't read much of it - so I don't know how the characters develop, but assuming it's all pretty competent I would have thought she had a better chance of getting published than me.
I came home full of good intentions which I promptly squandered by listening Radio 4 - Rupert Murdoch - and the question of belief in everlasting life - and food security in Japan and fiddling around with FBook etc.
M is going to a tenor rehearsal for the choir so I made an early supper and now I am free to do all the things I should have done earlier, but it's only 6.35 so there is time to input dozens of names for the next emailshot for AA - and perhaps re-write the synopsis for TFY. And who knows, write 50 words of Conscience. One thing I am not going to do is write any more of this.
Sunday 6 March 2011
The neurotic weekend: love, depression, religion
These seem to be popular themes in my life over the years, and I would have thought they might have gone into abeyance now. The depression is currently controlled by a drug called citalopram - which is a great menopausal drug. It's not HRT but it is meant to ward off the depression that apparentlycomes with losing one's oestrogen.
[Paragraph censored for reasons of privacy]
I am married of course, and though my husband is very nice, he is also very infuriating. He says that my mother probably died of frustration, unable to progress and do what she wanted because of my father. It's possible I will share her fate.
As a Christian I ought to go to church on Sunday, but I am no longer a church-going Christian really. My husband says I am like Simon Stylites.... I often feel a bit like one of the desert fathers, rather engaged with the struggle for my soul - visited occasionally by people for advice. One of my book group described me as a guru recently... but she's a hyperbolic nutcase... I am theologically protestant and culturally catholic, and, I recently discovered, part Jewish - yipee! Now I can tell Jewish jokes without mealy-mouthed PC nitwits telling me I shouldn't.
There was a great play on in the West End 30 + years ago called Mrs Klein, about the analyst Melanie Klein and her daughter.... Mrs Klein mentions, "The Neurotic Weekend" as the title of a paper by one of Freud's followers, Ferenczi I think; apparently one gets so engaged with work during the week that one goes quietly mad at the weekend (I paraphrase, and no doubt diminish, the concept).
Now I should go and fulfil my motherly duty and make a nice cake for supper to go with the roast pork and veggies (carrots, broccoli, peas? apple sauce, spuds). Whatever happened to Sunday lunch? I don't know. My mother would be disgusted that I don't do it every Sunday. But today M and I went to see if we could see the remains of the beached sperm whale in the bay - so we went out, and we couldn't see a thing because it was high tide, and "they" had cut it up and carted it off... then we got hungry and went and ate at a pub and then tried to locate a few WWII military sites - pill boxes etc. We found some Nissen huts and a very heavily overgrown pillbox. I suppose that's a slightly satisfactory use of time.
While I was leaning on a field gate, watching a cat racing mysteriously up a field, I thought that if I wrote 2,000 words of my novel a week it would be over by Christmas.... then I could have an orgy of editing and start showing it to people. Who knows by then I might even have an agent? Gosh, I thought I might get an agent by Christmas 2009. Was I nuts? Anyway, when I write I usually find I do a batch of about 1.000 words, which means simply opening Conscience twice a week.... and as the mornings are getting lighter and I tend to get up earlier there's a real chance of progress. If only I didn't have to do all this schlepping and schmoozing....
[Paragraph censored for reasons of privacy]
I am married of course, and though my husband is very nice, he is also very infuriating. He says that my mother probably died of frustration, unable to progress and do what she wanted because of my father. It's possible I will share her fate.
As a Christian I ought to go to church on Sunday, but I am no longer a church-going Christian really. My husband says I am like Simon Stylites.... I often feel a bit like one of the desert fathers, rather engaged with the struggle for my soul - visited occasionally by people for advice. One of my book group described me as a guru recently... but she's a hyperbolic nutcase... I am theologically protestant and culturally catholic, and, I recently discovered, part Jewish - yipee! Now I can tell Jewish jokes without mealy-mouthed PC nitwits telling me I shouldn't.
There was a great play on in the West End 30 + years ago called Mrs Klein, about the analyst Melanie Klein and her daughter.... Mrs Klein mentions, "The Neurotic Weekend" as the title of a paper by one of Freud's followers, Ferenczi I think; apparently one gets so engaged with work during the week that one goes quietly mad at the weekend (I paraphrase, and no doubt diminish, the concept).
Now I should go and fulfil my motherly duty and make a nice cake for supper to go with the roast pork and veggies (carrots, broccoli, peas? apple sauce, spuds). Whatever happened to Sunday lunch? I don't know. My mother would be disgusted that I don't do it every Sunday. But today M and I went to see if we could see the remains of the beached sperm whale in the bay - so we went out, and we couldn't see a thing because it was high tide, and "they" had cut it up and carted it off... then we got hungry and went and ate at a pub and then tried to locate a few WWII military sites - pill boxes etc. We found some Nissen huts and a very heavily overgrown pillbox. I suppose that's a slightly satisfactory use of time.
While I was leaning on a field gate, watching a cat racing mysteriously up a field, I thought that if I wrote 2,000 words of my novel a week it would be over by Christmas.... then I could have an orgy of editing and start showing it to people. Who knows by then I might even have an agent? Gosh, I thought I might get an agent by Christmas 2009. Was I nuts? Anyway, when I write I usually find I do a batch of about 1.000 words, which means simply opening Conscience twice a week.... and as the mornings are getting lighter and I tend to get up earlier there's a real chance of progress. If only I didn't have to do all this schlepping and schmoozing....
Day 1
6th March 2011
After I had written the inconsequential twitter below, it occurred to me that my opening paragraphs should be a bit more momentous: something in the way of a manifesto.
I wish to remain anonymous so that I can write about exactly what I like without anyone giving me odd looks at parties. I will be writing about the personal, the political, the literary, the dietary, food, teenagers, gardening, the menopause, the temporal and the spiritual, writing and reading, PR and marketing, archaeology and probably about the course of true love - an ancient one that still gets to me occasionally. And MORE - because I am a person of broad (and arguably shallow) interests who is struggling to connect knowledge into a giant understanding of life.... that sounds like Mr Casaubon... but I am tussling with my need to make sense of things - fortunately I have a grounding of faith to help, but quite honestly that raises far more questions than answers....NOW READ ON
I am not schmoozing or schlepping today... this is a relief. I like doing that, but at the moment the lack of income from it is distressing, and the grey skies are encouraging thoughts along the lines of "suppose no one ever employs us!" Of course this is nonsense on stilts. I should not be worrying about M's income stream - but concentrating on how I can add to it.
The usual thought comes that I must send off my novel again... and that I already have the letter and synopsis written - so what's stopping me?
Enough with the self-criticism already. Yesterday I finally packaged 2 Christmas presents and paid some bills.... I'm seriously beginning to get on top of things.
I slept badly last night - due to too much wine perhaps, not a great deal, but one has to have something to help get one through a quiz. I find these things very annoying - I have great lacunae of knowledge and obviously need other people to answer useful questions about football etc., but I am mad when we have to fight people for the right answer - and I usually give up and then later they have to admit we were right.
There was something funny about the scoring. I don't think our last round score was added... weird, we probably should have won, but I'm not complaining.
Went to the new charity book shop in M- yesterday... bought an Italian vegetarian book... M&C coming to lunch on Friday. It will be the first time I've seen him for ?18 years, and much longer since I've seen C. Still, we keep in touch thanks to the glories of Facebook.
I might perhaps wonder why I am closer to the men who lived in the commune? I am only in touch with one of the women, M. I don't suppose it's anything sinister. Women go off and start families and live in other parts of the country and don't keep in touch - no, surely that's not right. I think I will have to go for the theory that the men liked me more than the women did (M excepted). It is odd. I have lots of non-commune related women friends who go back a long way - even to university: Ruth, Jane, er... others....
Quite amazing where one's thoughts take one. Just saw a pic on FB of me sitting looking very jowelly at the computer in the dining room and typing... I cannot find a nice photo of me - largely because I don't actually look very nice these days... a diet and a facelift might help, but is it worth it? I am even trying to do the Paul McKenna thing - the idea is great but it demands powers of mindfulness I am not really capable of. How can you sit there enjoying every mouthful? When people are arguing, when you are listening to the radio? Of course the ideal situation in which one just enjoyed food must exist, but not in this domain.
Is it too soon to talk about love? I think so, I should be concentrating on sending my novel to another agent, not wittering away to the ether. So that's today's task... it's still the new moon (roughly) so a good time to do it.
(I forgot to mention the astrology).
I am not thinking my blog of genius will be published. Because the blogs that get published usually focus on one particular area, and mine will inevitably be a scattergun of idiosyncrasy and therefore no use as a cookbook, a childcare manual or diet book!
Now I have spent about half an hour on this, which is quite enough.
After I had written the inconsequential twitter below, it occurred to me that my opening paragraphs should be a bit more momentous: something in the way of a manifesto.
I wish to remain anonymous so that I can write about exactly what I like without anyone giving me odd looks at parties. I will be writing about the personal, the political, the literary, the dietary, food, teenagers, gardening, the menopause, the temporal and the spiritual, writing and reading, PR and marketing, archaeology and probably about the course of true love - an ancient one that still gets to me occasionally. And MORE - because I am a person of broad (and arguably shallow) interests who is struggling to connect knowledge into a giant understanding of life.... that sounds like Mr Casaubon... but I am tussling with my need to make sense of things - fortunately I have a grounding of faith to help, but quite honestly that raises far more questions than answers....NOW READ ON
I am not schmoozing or schlepping today... this is a relief. I like doing that, but at the moment the lack of income from it is distressing, and the grey skies are encouraging thoughts along the lines of "suppose no one ever employs us!" Of course this is nonsense on stilts. I should not be worrying about M's income stream - but concentrating on how I can add to it.
The usual thought comes that I must send off my novel again... and that I already have the letter and synopsis written - so what's stopping me?
Enough with the self-criticism already. Yesterday I finally packaged 2 Christmas presents and paid some bills.... I'm seriously beginning to get on top of things.
I slept badly last night - due to too much wine perhaps, not a great deal, but one has to have something to help get one through a quiz. I find these things very annoying - I have great lacunae of knowledge and obviously need other people to answer useful questions about football etc., but I am mad when we have to fight people for the right answer - and I usually give up and then later they have to admit we were right.
There was something funny about the scoring. I don't think our last round score was added... weird, we probably should have won, but I'm not complaining.
Went to the new charity book shop in M- yesterday... bought an Italian vegetarian book... M&C coming to lunch on Friday. It will be the first time I've seen him for ?18 years, and much longer since I've seen C. Still, we keep in touch thanks to the glories of Facebook.
I might perhaps wonder why I am closer to the men who lived in the commune? I am only in touch with one of the women, M. I don't suppose it's anything sinister. Women go off and start families and live in other parts of the country and don't keep in touch - no, surely that's not right. I think I will have to go for the theory that the men liked me more than the women did (M excepted). It is odd. I have lots of non-commune related women friends who go back a long way - even to university: Ruth, Jane, er... others....
Quite amazing where one's thoughts take one. Just saw a pic on FB of me sitting looking very jowelly at the computer in the dining room and typing... I cannot find a nice photo of me - largely because I don't actually look very nice these days... a diet and a facelift might help, but is it worth it? I am even trying to do the Paul McKenna thing - the idea is great but it demands powers of mindfulness I am not really capable of. How can you sit there enjoying every mouthful? When people are arguing, when you are listening to the radio? Of course the ideal situation in which one just enjoyed food must exist, but not in this domain.
Is it too soon to talk about love? I think so, I should be concentrating on sending my novel to another agent, not wittering away to the ether. So that's today's task... it's still the new moon (roughly) so a good time to do it.
(I forgot to mention the astrology).
I am not thinking my blog of genius will be published. Because the blogs that get published usually focus on one particular area, and mine will inevitably be a scattergun of idiosyncrasy and therefore no use as a cookbook, a childcare manual or diet book!
Now I have spent about half an hour on this, which is quite enough.
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