A little light moaning

I woke up this morning - lifted my head from the pillow and it cracked.   I now have a stiff neck that I can barely bear to move.  Where is the NHS osteopathy service when you need it?

I spent most of the day in bed, dozing in a post-medieval half sitting up position - watching or listening to all sorts of weird digital tv stations - a handheld camera trip across the Namibian desert, a snatch of the Nollywood Channel - something called Landscape - and finally back to the conventional channels.  The Nollywood chanel was hysterical - I watched a few minutes of what I assumed to be Nigeria's answer to Crossroads - and I was surprised at how appalling the acting was - Nigeria's a pretty sophisticated country in some ways but the acting was unbelieveable - I don't think the people involved were actually actors - just mates - or people brought in from the street.

Not much moaning - OK - some more - I am not enjoying my day off sick - I am feeling grotty and grumpy and uncomfortable - I have felt hungry all day.  Weird.   And now I have to cook supper - which I don't feel like, and make bread and just generally do stuff.  Grrr.  That anodyne phrase "a stiff neck" doesn't do justice to it.  I am getting no sympathy - under duress I got a sandwich which I had to send back - to have it cut in two, annointed with mayo and injected with lettuce:  I have made him delicious sandwiches for years - but when given the opportunity to make me one, he simply can't be arsed.

If we had any money I would get a takeaway, but we can't.

Blogged out

A day of endless phone calls, press releases, follow up from a man who saw my name in the Sunday Express, bank checks, garden crises, fiscal worries, and a complete failure to take any exercise of maintain a low-carb diet.  So I think I shall just retire to bed with a copy of Menander - and start researching my famous talk that I'm giving at the festival.   S - another local poet said "how high-brow!" - but I responded that my brow was where it was because of chance, taste and circumstance - and as a result I did not know who the Oyster Band were (apparently only the most famous folk band in the UK - and have been for 25 years...) which is appalling ignorance.

I do have tremendous lacunae - I love folk music and the Oyster Band sound great - but I haven't darkened the doors of a folk club since about 1978 and I seldom go to hear bands because they are so noisy - and well, I don't listen to music as much as I used to and often it's for comfort, or to cause discomfort - which is why I listened to Harry Nilsonn's Can't Live the other day when it was highlighted on FB, by one of N's chums - glad to know it still causes a frisson after 39 years.  I suppose it's like me liking Billy Holliday and Piaf when I was a teenager.

Why did I say I was blogged out?   Because I have just contributed yet another blog item about the Summer Squall to Stage Corner and am trying not to churn them out on PR auto-pilot.    Am I happy?  I am too busy to consider that question, a busy emotional ostrich.

Nil desperandum!

I was going to call this despondency - or perhaps "The drugs don't work".  I am still working hard, still doing things, but I feel creeping bits of paranoia and envy - which are sensations I really haven't felt for over a year.   Envy - about people having a jolly time - going out - doing fun things together - that we can't do because of money, and how we seem to have abnormal friends who never invite us to do anything... this isn't true - actually, we owe 4 households dinner - but why does no one, except A call us to invite us to the pub, or out to listen to music - or something. 

OK - that's enough despondency.  We did the Carnival today - we decked the MPV in banners and stuff and it looked impressive - especially with the big floating banners... and I drove v.v. slowly into town.  I think it was a really good bit of publicity for us - I could see people reading the banners on the car and it helped associate us with the mass of the people... so that the festival isn't seen as Down From London luvvie show, but part of the community.

Also had a jolly chat with Mayor and MP - I really like Laura as a person in her own right.  And gave Mayor a copy of the Sunday Express in which an article about the caves had been published (quoting me!) - my ma in law rang up to tell me this morning.

It is difficult to go out and have fun when one has kids and no money.  I've let M's social habits take me over to some extent.  Grrr.  But when we start pulling in a bit of money I will be going out and about more - with or without... and doing stuff.  We actually went out last night - to the BB after taking the boys out to the traditional beginning of holiday meal out.  For the first time in years there was no one there I knew - sigh!  Never mind we had a nice drink and sat and watched the seafront - which was seething.  It was overcast, but very warm - and yet half the bars had burners outside - they look lovely, but I hate to see the air being heated.

But things ARE looking up - it just takes time to turn the ship around.  Good response to Food Odyssey on Friday - and probably getting more dosh than we expected from the government this year.  Going to network on Tuesday - and think things will take off a bit.  If only an agent would like the novel... it wouldn't be the answer, but it would add a little frisson.

Talked to M about boredom - it was decreed that I didn't feel bored in the true sense - I merely felt understimulated.  Hmm. Perhaps I should stop wingeing about this and get on with some intellectual stimulation.  So off to watch a tv prog about French food - and just hope it's a bit more than mere coffee table tv.

La Toilette arabe

We have an Arab student staying with us.  He's quite nice - very quiet, eats a bit pickily, goes out a lot and is generally no bother.

However, there is a mystery about his toilette... he seldom bathes or showers (except after his weekly football session) and has only sent one load of items to the wash (in 4 weeks) - which included no socks or underwear.   He smothers himself in a strong perfume - which now scents the room - and airing it does not remove it.  It is not unpleasant, but not to everyone's taste.  Is this normal behaviour?  Whatever happened to all that pre-prayer washing that Muslims have to do?  Perhaps they only wash if they pray - and if they aren't religious?

Glasses half - what?

Finn asked me - "What's that thing about glasses half full and half empty?" I explained and said "Which one do you think you are?"
"A glass half empty."
"Do you think so?"
"Oh maybe half full."
Mark said "I'm glass half empty - whose round is it?"
Ned said "I'm glass half spilt."
Oh dear, I'm the only unequivocal glass half full - but it was oddly revealing - Ned's glass is spilt - by himself? or someone else?  Mark's is half empty and who is going to fix that for him?  It would be funny if it wasn't so sad, how similar Ned and Mark are.

We had quite a nice day - we meant to go for a walk at Perry Wood near Faversham - we went to the pub, the Rose & Crown first, and had a nice lunch in their really pretty garden (they have a marquee - which was just as well, because after the sun, there was tremendous persistent rain. We had a good conversation generally, and Finn wanted to know more about logic games, so I told him the one about Anthony & Cleopatra - and he laughed when they finally worked it out.  Around about this time, Ned began to sour.

It was raining too hard for the walk - so we suggested going to Belmont House to look at it, and the clock collection, and Ned seemed quite keen, but by the time we arrived there he had become grumpy.  When we had the guided tour of the house (it was just the four of us) he grumbled and complained and said "I want to go" and was generally not the mature 17 year old of one's aspirations.   When we finally emerged, to have tea he got cross and said how he had been suffering etc. He really made the afternoon unpleasant, and I wish we had left him behind.  It was meant to be a treat day - since we had the money from our B&B guest (nearly £160 - and we spent about £90) and an opportunity to do something nice as a family.  It started badly with Finn holding us up for about 20 minutes so there was a terrific in-car quarrel, but everyone cheered up at the pub and it was all sweetness and light.  

After tea we let the boys go back to the car, and since it had stopped raining went into the garden.   It was a lovely garden, lots of nice things, and a gorgeous kitchen garden full of fruit trees and so on.  We sat on a bench looking under a great arch of pears and felt happy and relaxed - nothing to do but stare.  But we talked about Ned - we were both very upset by him.  We couldn't decide what to do about him.   Mark said "he's so sour" and I think that is the perfect word for him, he seems ridiculously embittered for one so young.   When he is in this mood nothing is right, any kind, sympathetic comment is thrown back or derided.  It is very hurtful.  I don't want to feel that he's eternally grateful to me, but he has occasioned me so much anxiety about his education in the last 6 years (well, until he started at Chatham) and been so grumpy about everything.  We can't mention the Marlowe without him sneering about Ian Johnson etc. I just find it desperately upsetting.  I find it so hard to cope with this behaviour.   I fear it is a bit like Zak.  Ned is perfectly capable of empathy - he just doesn't seem to bother.  I don't know what to do about him, and I'm not even sure if there is anything to be done.

What I am really saying is that aspects of his personality (and there are plenty of good ones as well) are very unlikeable/unacceptable.  It is difficult to deal with this: these are not new characteristics - they have been there in some form since he was quite young.   A great deal of the time he is helpful, practical and cheerful; he jokes, he applies himself to what he is interested in.  On the other hand, he is shockingly incurious about anythging that he isn't interested in... in fact, rather like Ahmed, our Arab student.   The only time he is ever actually nice to me is when he praises something I've cooked.  He is not really interested in anything I can share with him - although he did like doing Latin with me when he was younger, he used to lean against me affectionately, but no more.

It is not for me to say that someone's personality is unacceptable, but it is hard to accept that my own child isw very unlikeable sometimes.  The sad thing is, that the unlikeable bits of his personality are similar to the unlikeable bits of M's personality.   M is much sweeter natured, and perhaps N will become sweeter natured once he's left home and doesn't need to treat me like "the enemy" any more.   I live in hope!  Meanwhile I just feel sad, and think the Citalopram is definitely wearing off.   I took refuge in thoughts of  a.n.other (promoted by interesting dream last night) as we drove home.

Boredom (including 1 amusing anecdote)

I am increasingly suffering from boredom.  It is probably my own fault: I am too intellectually lazy to read hard new interesting books - but also, because I don't have anyone to talk about them with when I do. 

I have begun to hate conversations in some way, because I know what I think about things, and no one else ever seems to put up an interesting alternative.  Small talk is one of the things I dread, of course I can do it, and I listen to people and respond and try to dig a little deeper into their thoughts, then they take fright.  Yesterday I went to the lovely funeral of a lovely man and I did have a very pleasant conversation with someone - and she told me a nice little story.

Her 95 year old father is a retired builder.  She rang him to see how he was while she was in Edinburgh last week.  Her brother replied.
"Hello.  How's Dad?  Is he there?  Can I speak to him?"
"Well, he's out fixing the roof at the moment."
Stubborness in the elderly is a topic that produces many such anecdotes.


So what is not boring?  Speculations - reading good novels - writing - even reading the papers occasionally.
However, I am finding a great deal of my daily life really tedious.  I see the same people, have the same conversations, deal with the same issues and cook the same food.  Yesterday I came back from Jozef's funeral having had nothing except 4 glasses of water, and bought some crab and prawns at Waitrose - consumed these with a bottle of Verdicchio in the sun in the garden - that was fun, Mark and I had a proper talk. 

I find the prospect of small talk with strangers boring, I even find bits of Radio 4 boring now.   The Summer Squall and the associated PR is a bit boring - the Risk Assessments are boring.  I am becoming boring, I don't want to talk lest I become boring to other people.

Something interesting this morning: the latest edition of Cantiana the journal of the Kent Historical Socy - it had two or three interesting articles in it.   One of which was about marriages in Thanet in the late 16th C - apparently Thanet was rather more cosmopolitan than one might think - there were Italians and Portuguese living here - and people married out of Thanet more than you would expect, more than elsewhere in E. Kent in fact.  So much for insularity.   There was a 15thC bridge at Sarre - wonder what happened to its stones?  There was a list of the origins of the monks at Canterbury, most of them had toponymics, but one who didn't was called Aurifaber - perhaps a goldsmith - perhaps a converso?  All this stuff is interesting, because it relates to what I already know - expands the things a bit, but none of it is earthshattering - although it is a little mind-altering (the article about Thanet marriages).


Why am I so bored?  Have I recognised my own limits to growth? Is this how it is going to be for the rest of my life?  Yesterday I was driving home - and it was another perfect summer day - sun, tall cumulus, yellow fields, poppies, green woodlands near Canterbury, the river, the orchards, all just so.  And what thought came into my head?  "I wish I had a lover?"   By which I didn't mean what people really mean - but someone to call up and say "it's a lovely day, let's go and sit in a garden in a pub, eat nice food, get mildly drunk and flirt and exchange ideas."  I don't even think I mean a lover, I think I might just mean a friend - but perhaps a male one for a change.  Oh hell, now I'm feeling sorry for myself.  Of course I have lots of friends, but no one who really satisfies these things.  Damn now I feel like crying: the Citalopram has clearly worn off - I haven't felt like crying for ages.

Grrrr...

I had nearly completed a blog on the subject of why I often remember people and they don't remember me - when the computer went off because Mark had turned it off at the plug and I hadn't realised.  He made some sarcastic and unhelpful remark about it - so I am punishing him by not going to tidy Finn's room with him.   He spent about an hour writing his diary this morning, but my blog is apparently not as important.  Well, it obviously isn't - to him.  Also because he's not allowed to read my blog he is rather suspicous of it.   Rightly so I daresay - but it is inciddents like this that make me feel momentarily mad with him, and feel how impossible it is to carry on with him.

There was an interesting article the other day about the e-harmony company; their perception is that people who marry people of similar temperaments are much less likely to get divorced.  Mark and I have similar interests, but our temperaments are so drastically different that I wonder what possessed me sometimes.  I suppose we were very compatible in some ways and I just hadn't known him long enough to get ground down by the pessimism and suspicioun; there wasn't any time to know him for longer if we were going to have children.   He has many good qualities, but at present he is reeling off all the things that are wrong with him - he says he has a personality disorder (don't we all?) and that his short term memory is getting worse all the time (this is why he is so devoted to the diary).  I just don't know what to say when he says this.   I do know that his family think him very odd - but they are a heartless lot really - and I think Stella was definitely glad when I appeared on the scene, I did sense she was glad that someone else was taking on the responsibility for him.  She was very unfair to him - I am trying not to be. 

Other blogs

I now have 2 other blogs: Architectural Archaeology - which I write for M's business, and the latest one, Food Odyssey - which I have set up to support my nascent catering business.  My styles on these are subtly different - but the FO one could prove popular - with the foodie community.   I think I will have to publicise it to my friends.  Does this mean they might work their way over here?   That could be embarassing...

What is happening to Conscience?   Nothing sadly.  Too much Summer Squall admin, hospitality (B&B coming soon) and attempts at doing HH stuff.  How can I write as well?   I spent Saturday in the terrible catatonic state of having too much to do and doing none of it.  I blame carbohydrates.  I am going back to Atkins - and try to walk more (we'll see - library today I think).  I need boredom for writing.

Is this true?

When my mother died, I felt really unhappy - not because she was dead, I was glad about that as she was having a very disagreeable time before she died.  And she wasn't suffering in silence either.  What made me unhappy was the very negative feelings I had about her death.  Every recollection would be of something unpleasant she had done or said to me.   I couldn't find anything positive, I found things she had said about me to other people especially hurtful (idiotic of them to tell me - but old people have funny ideas about which of their reminiscences will be appropriate - or perhaps they think any reminiscence is better than none.)

For a long time I struggled with these thoughts.  I found a friend had had a similar experience, which made it bearable - I had mourned her from the time she became ill - but once she died I didn't feel good about it at all.   However what occurred to me is that, perhaps that response to someone's death is actually a sort of defence mechanism, that this anger and dislike prevents one from being overwhelmed by other, more depressive feelings, feelings that might make one unable to carry on, to go into a decline, temporarily at least.  Anger as a method of psychic self-protection?  An idea to try out on Simon I think.  Or is it an evolutionary biology query that I could put to someone else?

A Perfect Summer Day

In other words, one with blue sky, white cumulus clouds, warmth, a light breeze and the opportunity to admire cornfields that are nearly ready for harvest and later summer flowers, mallows, fennel, poppies, vetch and marguerites.  And then the chance of going out to lunch - not quite a platonic lunch - but some of the elements: sitting outside, proximity to water (the River Stour), some pergola effect, and fantastically enjoyable conversation (no proper fish though - only whitebait - no good at all).  Then driving back across the countryside and feeling absolutely hollow with longing/nostalgia/velleity - feelings that reached such a pitch that I actually uttered a sound to release them, express them.  These feelings - which are not sexual (though they could tend that way given the right encouragement) always seem to focus on one particular person - but I don't think they were caused by lack of him in any way.  They were caused by the lack of something - what? 

It's like the Fruhlingsehnsucht feeling - just a desperate yearning.   Brought on by?  Beauty and pleasure in some way, perhaps a recognition of a lack of these qualities in my life.  Not an absence, but just rather meagre portions at present.  I have learned to enjoy what  I have on the whole, but every so often these feelings get under the barrier created by the Citalopram and I see briefly that I do not have enough... and now my mood has been spoilt by M coming and fussing reproachfully about the cat litter, so I asked him to notice that I was writing - and he gave me a look.  This morning he apologised for being grumpy last night when I came in after the book group - but it didn't sweeten his mood much.  I have to conclude that he just hates me going out.

Most of the time, since the great crisis last summer I have developed a modus vivendi, and he's had his ticking off/prayer from my father which seems to have helped.  But periodically he becomes hateful and I feel trapped.  At present I feel there is a project that needs to be completed with him (helping the children grow up and repaying all our debts) but I have a sense of a limited time on this relationship.  I blame that bloody astrologer in India - shouldn't have told me I'd marry 3 times....and yet at other times I think, well if we grow old and die together it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.   Sometimes I think, "when I'm 64"...

This blog wasn't meant to be a complaint about Mark - but a tribute to Simon, who is doing that annoying thing that people do from time to time, of buggering off just as one's getting to know them.  But we will still write, and he gave me a book of his poems appropriately entitled "Foreign Correspondence" which I really like.  I should have asked him to write in it.  His poems are romantic and funny, I have the sense of them being the sort of things I would like to write myself, and some of them, with their references to the classical world remind me of John Heath-Stubbs - my favourite modern poet - completely unknown to anyone else.  I wonder if Simon knows his stuff.

He encouraged me to get on with Proust and use the Scott Moncrief translation... perhaps I will.  On the way back from dropping Ned and his chums at Lounge I passed the hospital he told me he might be in shortly.  Good that I apparently helped keep him out - I hope returning to Alonissos will be the best asylum for him.

Summer blogging...

Well, for a start no one reads blogs in summer.  Not many people read mine under normal circs. and now they've all gone out into the sun and stopped - even the ones in Singapore. 

I would like to wind down my activities, but until the great financial crisis is under control, there is little prospect of that.   Also, my involvement with the Summer Squall (ramsgatearts.org) means that there is no prospect of a really relaxing time until September.

We have won a trip to Belgium, thanks to Mark's photography - this is exciting.  Don't know what to do about it, but we have 9 months to enjoy it - best bet is hoping for a couple of days there in October half term.  It's a 4 hour ferry trip.  The weather is likely to be better now than in October - or is it?  The fact is that we are finally getting back onto our feet again - but a trip to Belgium could easily eat £1,000 if we spend two nights in a hotel.  How?  Well, 2 nights in a hotel and 2 evening meals for 4 people - and then a lunch or two, some entry tickets, some coffees and drinks, and buying a few foodie items to bring home... true no travel costs, and not much petrol (just the drive down to the harbour - and Ghent is apparently about 30 mins from Ostende).  I believe the euro is a bit weaker now, but not back to the happy days of it being about 63p.  What to do?   I suppose it's a relatively pleasant dilemma - the first for a while.

Meanwhile, Simon has decided suddenly to go back to Greece; we were getting to the 8 emails a day stage and his were coming more frequently than mine.  I suggested we meet because emails are just more time-consuming than proper conversations - and they make discussion difficult.  I like him very much, not least because he writes rather similarly to me and is often considering similar issues, but I detect a certain bitterness in him.  Not really surprising perhaps given what he's hinted at about his upbringing, but I imagine that one might get bitten occasionally if one got too close.  What I expected would be our first occasional meeting is now likely to be our only one.  I hope he didn't misconstrue my interest in him, it was purely friendly - I am having a slight feeling of deja vue - I think I dreamed about a meeting with someone on the Sandwich by-pass in full summer and saying something about not meeting again. 

This leads to the ever-interesting topic of male-female friendships.  At present I am not really interested in anything more than that with anyone (and I am sure the feeling is mutual).  Given my past romantic propensities there has been a tendancy to fall in love with anyone who was a remotely kindred spirit.  If I had met Simon 20-30 years ago I certainly would have fallen in love with him, but not now.  Whether it would have been mutual then is another question of such a speculative nature that it need not detain us now.   But I do remember when I was about 30 going out to dinner for the first time with Nick B - and almost as soon as we sat down he rather awkwardly said he wanted to make it clear that he did not regard this as "going out" with me.  I remember being amazed by his presumption, as he was (to me) deeply unfanciable (although attractive to others I should say).   I generally assume that if you don't fancy someone they probably don't fancy you (the reverse is not invariably true) so Nick's helpful start was amusingly offensive - but he was conversationally gawky.  A bit aspergic? I now think.

Some great French writer said that there had to be a degree of physical antipathy between a man and a woman for a friendship to exist between them.  Could it have been dear old Stendahl?  I'm sure that's true.  But it is also true that all the male friends I saw frequently before my marriage had been objects of varying degrees of sexual interest before the relationship had settled down.  And some of them had shown no especial physical antipathy to me...

We were younger then though.  What happens now?  Past life re-emerges occasionally, like the return of Ian into my life around early 2009... he was writing frequently and sending me photos.  Why did he send me photos of himself looking so uninspiring?   I have only about 3 reasonable photos of myself and I wouldn't distribute them to my male friends promiscuously (or indeed at all).  Why do people do this (Ian isn't the only one).  Or rather, why do men do it?   Is it just the Facebook era we live in?  That we must make everyone aware of our every move and expression.   Keeping a blog hardly makes me a woman of mystery (although of course, no one really knows about it) but I feel a bit of privacy cannot go amiss.

Then why do I happily write my innermost thoughts where they can be seen by a casual passer by?   Of course I wouldn't want my nearest and dearest to see these things - well, no, most of it is OK, but there is stuff in here that was described as "near the knuckle".   It's the privacy of the crowd where one is anonymous, but secretly wants to shine.   I sometimes write because I am bored - and if it is true that only the boring are bored, then - well, oh dear!  Boredom is a good spur to creativity, and much as I love living here I am much more bored than I have ever been.  I really miss good conversation, of course, I may no longer be capable of giving it.   I was a junior member of the chattering classes once - I feel as if I failed to renew my membership when I came here, and now find it really impossible to get back into the swing of it.  Of course, I am a bit bored with myself, just as M's observations and so on are predictable, I daresay mine are.

This morning at breakfast he asked me how Britain had benefitted by not being in the Euro.   I was gobsmacked, I used to know what I thought about things like this, but this morning I was unable to think of one benefit, except that we didn't have to contribute quite so much to the Greek bailout (although we gave a lot to Ireland - despite not being in the euro, because of our economic links).  I doubt whether there has been much benefit in not being in the euro, but perhaps there wouldn't have been much advantage in being in either, apart from exchange rate stability for business, which is always longed for by UK managements.

Enough, I am boring myself again.

Sunday evening

Frantic Friday and working weekend (cooking and washing up and socialising with my family), felt grim after 3 bad nights sweaty, interrupted sleep, and hayfever as a result of going inland.   When we arrived at the end of the Thanet way this after noon I would down the windows in the car and began to feel revitalised (relatively).  Somehow doing a couple of loads of washing, some washing up and watering a bit in the garden didn't seem like work.  We also had a decadent treat: a box of mini magnum icelollies.  This is the kind of thing we never buy, but it had been such a hot journey that I felt we needed a reward.

Bernard was incredibly good - he started each journey with some minutes of plaintive mewing - but soon settled down to sleep.  He was very scampery at Cippenham - loved dashing about.  On Saturday he went up a very tall lawson's cypress and got stuck in a sort of cage of ivy - Mark had to shin up the tree and pull him out by his tail - the only bit he could reach.   He said if B had gone any further we would have had to call the fire brigade.   Glad we don't have any cypresses like that in our garden.   Bernard is a nit.  He was thrilled to be back and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing flies around the garden.

Mark has gone down to the beach.  I wish I had felt energetic enough to go with him, but I am really knackered.   Tomorrow I am going to do all my RA and financial tasks in the morning, then have a really proper rest/walk in the afternoon.   It is likely to be hot again.  Perhaps I'll go for a swim.