Jimmy Savile - shuddering vindicated

Some time ago, when Jimmy Savile died, I wrote an entry about him called A repressed shudder http://schmoozyschlepp-quotidiana.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/jimmy-savile-and-repressed-shudder.html

In it I touched on the rumours of his paedophile tendencies and his (possibly associated) hatred of children.   Now a documentary is being made about him, which includes testimony from girls who were in some way abused by him.  So the rumours were true.  I felt a little guilty about writing about him in that way last year - de mortuis nil nisi bonum etc. but now I am glad something is coming out about it, not because it vindicates me personally, but because it is the truth.

His nephew is quoted on the radio as saying "it's disgusting" - but he refers not to the paedophilia (did he never notice anything odd about Uncle Jim?) but to people saying these things about him, when he's only been dead less than a year.   Apparently if they'd waited a bit longer it might have been less disgusting?   He (the nephew) says it may effect his legacy and his memory.  How will it affect his legacy?  Will no one touch his money because of this?  It will certainly effect his memory - but I've always thought de mortuis was a bit silly.  It's only when someone is dead that one can assess their life as whole - call no man happy until he's dead... one ought to know the full picture, not a sanitised mass card version of a life.  

Going on Retreat - Minster Abbey

I've never been on retreat before, but there was something so absolutely wonderful about it - that I want to try and explain it.

I hoped that I might sort out a few issues about how I feel about myself, how I feel about my mother, and get on with a lot of writing - I even thought there might be a God element in it (i.e. I might enjoy the religious services).

Some of these things were achieved in a way.  As soon as Sister Benedict showed me to the room - with its surprisingly comfortable bed (I want one!) and it's annoyingly small table (not room for a laptop and an open notebook) I settled down and started writing.  First I wrote a list of all the things that I'd like to resolve in my diary.   Then I opened one of the new A4 notebooks and wrote whatever came into my head.  By the end of the afternoon I had mysteriously created 2,500 words on a topic I had not yet thought about in Conscience - but which was going to fit exactly into my scheme for it.   It was really exciting.  I had expected to plod through the outline of the plot that I sketched out years ago and have been working to - more or less - ever since.  I really had not considered having a character who is buried alive in it.  Weird.

I went to have supper: the food again was surprising.  Not good in a foodie way, very unadorned, no unusual spices or herbs, terribly simple, but very good in itself.  Plainly cooked veg like spinach and leeks were just simply good.  The table conversations were a bit subdued at first, since none of us knew each other, and on the whole most of the visitors did not seem to be raging conversationalists.  Which was restful, however, conversation did flow more freely after a couple of days.

On the first evening I went to compline.  It's an enjoyable evening service, which prays for protection against the terrors of the night, but for whatever reason, I wasn't specially moved by it.  Some of the settings they sang the prayers to were a bit dull and unfamiliar - however, at the end, the nuns all gathered around a statue of the Virgin - and sang Salve Regina, which was fantastically beautiful.  I recognised it as the prayer my grandmother sometimes used to rattle through when she was angry (Catholic answer to counting to 10)* Hail holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.... http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/hailholy.htm if you want the full thing, you poor banished children of Eve!
*Actually, she didn't always do this - sometimes she just hit us without bothering.

I fully intended to go to other services (although I decided I wouldn't go to Mass because I'm technically an excommunicant and I dislike going to Mass if I can't take communion; yes, it's a bit chippy, sorry) but I decided I would go as and when I had a moment to take a break from writing and reading.  Curiously, I didn't. There never was a point when I looked up from writing, or took a break in my research and thought "ooh - Vespers/Tierce/Sext will be starting in a minute - I could go down to the chapel".  However,  I did some private praying (not enough probably - but more than usual) and I had one or two discussion about faith and issues that arose in living as an "out" Christian... but typically, most of the people there were more active in churches or had a strong Christian community behind them - so a freelance, self-employed Christian like me - most of whose friends were atheists - was something a little odd to them.  I always seem to be "the cat that walked by itself" but I'm used to it.  In addition I chose myself a "devotional book" to read - Why there almost certainly is a god by Keith Ward.  I didn't manage to finish it - but I liked the ideas about how new scientific ideas (my old friend cosmology etc.) have now rather overwhelmed the scientific materialist arguments for atheism.  Yay! for quantum mechanics - I will never be rude about Dark Energy again!

Apart from the unusual bit of writing on the first day, nothing spectacular happened to me on retreat - but there was a most enormous flood of insight into things, solutions to problems, new perceptions, intuitions about situations and new literary ideas.  The first of these ideas was that I was listening to too much Radio 4 and I should try a bit more silence. (Rises and turns off radio)  I realised I lived a ridiculously noisy life - with "interference" coming from all directions.   While I was at the Abbey I felt more intensely myself - as though "this is who I really am".  So much of my life is involved with utter trivia - in pursuit of what?  I'm not suggesting that the "real Me" is intensely high-minded and spent in pursuit of ultimate truth and superb creativity - just that one's attempts to do good work, and spend more time considering how to make things better are endlessly being interrupted and sabotaged by this trivia.

I also didn't worry about anything when I was there - I usually worry a bit about money, or the kids, or having to cook supper again or something, but I just didn't, nor did I miss my normal life, or the internet even (shock!).  It was as if by telling myself I would remain within the Abbey grounds for 4 days and not go out (you can of course, there's no restriction) I really did cut myself off from the world quite successfully - and liked it. It is just so calm there.   How long would I have liked it for is the question?  I would happily still be there - if I could.  Sadly the retreat season ends tomorrow and I won't be able to go again until next Easter.  I think I will be thinking about going quite early in the season, or perhaps seeing if it would be possible to go and live there (as a paying guest) permanently  [since this would mean abandoning husband and children, perhaps they wouldn't allow that].  Or maybe check out a few other likely retreat spots... I now understand why wealthy women who were widowed went to live in convents - choose the right nuns, and it's a great thing  (there were men at Minster too I should say, so it wasn't the absence of men that caused the tranquillity... ).

Curiously, I haven't wanted to blog since I came back - is blogging part of my trivial mental clutter? Is it a sign I should give it up - or change direction? I started the blog to have conversations - but it's a monologue - which I can have quite satisfactorily in my head.

Not with us, but against us.

To continue a thought from the last post...

Today I discovered that if you are a claimant, on benefits, and you wish to call the appropriate government office to query something, to ask for help, to understand a ruling, to understand what you are entitled to, you have to use a phone line that costs £1.34p a minute.   After about 10 minutes you would have used a substantial percentage of your weekly benefit, and one of those calls can easily take 20 minutes as you get passed around.

Why is the government doing this?  Presumably to cut costs - that money the hapless claimants are spending on this premium line is presumably going back to them.  Learning this today - at the optician's - made me, and the optician and her assistant so appalled that we just gabbled furiously at each other in shock for a few minutes.  The optician, I would wager, is not a socialist - but she was very displeased, to say the least, about this particular scam.

Calling the Department of Work and Pensions, or whatever it's called nowadays, is frustrating and upsetting enough (endless menus with irrelevant choices) so that the optician's assistant gave up in despair, and she wasn't have to personally pay for the call - but having to pay so much would make one feel even more desperate and miserable and panicky... "Will I ever get through? How much will it cost?"

How much longer will it take for people to see through the Mr Nicey-nicey rhetoric of Cameron to the ripping talons and fangs of his policies in operation?

Andrew Mitchell and I -

- we've got form, we go way back to when he was a somewhat loutish junior executive and I was a secretary who clawed her way up to analyst in a merchant bank - Lazards, aka Lazard Brothers.   In those days I was known by my colleagues to be rather left-wing - I worked there during the Miners' Strike in 1985, so the Support the Miners badge was a bit of a giveaway.

I just didn't like him - it was as if he exuded some sort of vibe that repelled me. I had very little contact with him, just passing in the office, going through doors, occasionally sharing a lift perhaps.  There were plenty of people there with political views like his, and I never had a problem with them.  It really wasn't about his politics, although people presumed it was.  If there is such a thing as a natural antipathy, I seemed to have it.  Perhaps it was mutual, he always behaved in a supercilious, patronising way to me and other women there.  Nowadays I would see that as youthful insecurity, feelings of inadequacy etc.  I was probably suffering some of the same things, neither of us was particularly suave or urbane in those days.

One Christmas, after I'd become a "financial analyst" some of my secretary chums had invited me to have a glass of wine in one of the offices with them.  Needless to say, it was against the rules to drink at work, but no one had ever bothered much about that. We were sitting chatting when Andrew Mitchell sauntered in - he said something patronising, he probably called us "girls" which I find annoying (unless it's a woman talking about her equals, and even then, I'd rather they didn't).  But mostly, he seemed to be there just to annoy, he had come in to interrupt our leisure time, to get our attention.  I was holding a party popper - I shot it straight at him, hit him square in the chest, he half-staggered back - he was genuinely shocked.
"Now you know what a pheasant feels like" I said - a bit of a non sequitur, but I guess I was having a dig at his class interests.  There was a lot of weekend shooting amongst the directors and executives in the autumn and winter.

I left, I followed his career in a desultory way - I met his constituency agent at a drinks party in Ireland once - he told me a couple of stories.  Later my sister and her husband became very friendly with Andrew and his wife, a GP, and when he became Development Minister he seemed mysteriously to now be on the side of the poor and I even agreed with him about certain things.  I wondered if he had improved and whether perhaps I had misjudged him, but I never met him again.

Today's incident, calling a policeman a pleb rings entirely true - of course he talks like that, a lot of people do in private. He was feeling irritable, he let rip.  There but for the grace of God go I.  It's all very well David Cameron giving us the nice paternal lecture "be nice to the police, they do a difficult job".  We can all nod and say "yes Daddy" - but the individual's relationship with the police of is a highly class-based issue.   It's no secret that many of the upper class despise the police, resent the fact that people from lower middle or working class backgrounds have any authority over them.  The police know this, they aren't complete idiots. Andrew Mitchell and others think they are better than the police, than their secretaries, than the rest of us.  Presumably the people who voted for the Tories agree.

The most famous evidence of Tory toffery is the Bullingdon Club photo - which was suppressed, could not legally be used, since the image it showed of youthful elitism didn't help the Tory claim to be "down with the masses" - I'm not sure if elitism is the best word - it's more an image of superiority and confidence.  They are 20 year olds - they are dressed in something close to a military mess uniform. They are not with us - they could well be against us.  Mitchell's swearing at a policeman is Bullingdon on a bike, a dynamic version of the picture.  We masses can half sympathise, we would all like to shout at policemen sometimes - only we don't dare, we might find strange boot-shaped marks on our faces when we woke up.  Mitchell, because of his social class, is largely protected from that, so he has the confidence to shout at the police, he doesn't see why they have authority over him. He is the Government, the ruling class, he is the superiority and confidence of the Bullingdon Club 30 years on - in action.


(Yes, I do know that AM was at Cambridge and not a member of the Bullingdon Club but I'm sure he would have wanted to join if he'd been at Oxford)

Life and death again...

A few months ago I wrote a "short life but a happy one" about the death of my old friend MM.  Now I've heard of another sudden death from cancer, not of a close friend, but a man I only met once in adult life, although I knew him briefly as a teenager, since he was the then LO's best friend.

Like MM, R died suddenly of an undiagnosed cancer - or rather a cancer that had only been recently diagnosed.  He had had an extremely worthwhile life - after university he became a teacher for a few years, and then got into the aid world - he set up a thing called "The Living Earth Foundation" which works with local communities to solve their problems in ways which are appropriate to the community.  I found it all rather wonderful when he told me about it at the party where I met him again.  He was also a rather charismatic character - he seemed to have a very affectionate nature.   When I introduced myself to him at the party (in August 2010) rather shyly, as I wasn't sure he'd remember me, he immediately seized me, hugged me and kissed me as though he'd been waiting for me, I felt incredibly welcome.  We had a long chat - I met his sister and niece and got the impression of a happy family and a life well-lived.  We exchanged cards - and I hoped we'd be in touch again at some point, although I couldn't quite see how, but perhaps there might be some future professional synergy, or I might become a more accepted friend of the LO (dream on!).

Anyway, yesterday I heard of his death, he was probably 56. Why so short, when he could be still doing good?  Just the luck of the genetic lottery.  Then I went out to a school prize giving for my son Ned, his last official school event.  It was poignant, and a real rite of passage - Ned won two prizes (Politics and Government, and the Library prize for being a great reader), he was hanging around with his friends, and one just doesn't know now which of those friendships will really last.  But I was thinking of Rog and J and how they must have attended their last school prizegiving before going off into the big world, and how short a time seems to separate that from where we are now, and how one doesn't anticipate that one will one day be attending memorial services for the people one leaves school with.

I don't know what consoles one in these cases, but I found myself thinking of the Callimachos poem - about Heraclitus...

Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.

Someone told me of your death, Heraclitus, and it moved me to tears, when I remembered how often the sun set on our talking. And you, my Halicarnassian friend, lie somewhere, gone long long ago to dust; but they live, your Nightingales, on which Hades who siezes all shall not lay his hand.

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

(“Heraclitus”, by William Johnson Cory, 1823-92)

Of course the Victorian version is a bit soppy - suitable for its period, with the idealisation of male friendship, but it is redolent - I can always remember "tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky".  The "Nightingales" refers to Heraclitos's poems.  Mark comments that the poem is the literary equivalent of Lord Leighton's paintings - which is an excellent observation.  And Rog's "Nightingales" would be the foundation he set up.

You also begin to understand "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" better, because the death of one's contemporaries is a really potent reminder of one's own mortality. When my friend Sue died I was about 36 and she was 42 - and it was horrible, but it was an aberration, not a norm.  However, in the last year I know of three old friends (people I knew through James - Aymun, Dave and MM) who have died of cancers - and now Rog, and two others in the throes of it.    And even if the funeral bell is tolling for them, it tolls for me in the sense that a part of my life (or anyone's life) dies with them... a part of your hoped for future dies with them.  One wants to see people again - that song by James Taylor, Fire and Rain "but I always hoped that I'd see you baby, one more time again" - sums up this feeling.  I certainly hoped I'd see MM again and hear him laugh and see his mischievous looks.  It seems bizarre when one's lovers die, that something so real and vital that you shared is no longer shared.  I have vivid sexual memories of some people - it's not that I wish to repeat them at all, but the thought that all that remains is these and other memories is odd, knowing that the person who has the mirror memories to yours (if they remembered at all) has gone.  It reminds one that one day all you yourself will be in this world, is a few, one hopes vivid, memories.  

I hope that Roger and his family have some faith, and believe in a future life.  It's a little crazy to believe in a future life where we all "catch up with" each other in eternity, but it is a consolation.  I suspect any afterlife experience will be something more spiritual than endless conversations though....  

The best thing about hangovers...

is the day after (i.e. today) when your brain starts working properly again, and you feel energetic and happy and can re-join the human race.

I was feeling all these things until I noticed that my left wrist (I'm left handed) was extremely painful - I couldn't twist or grip or do anything much with it.  It was hard to use secateurs...our current BnB visitor, Desta, has had carpal tunnel syndrome - and she confirmed my fears.  Oh dear, better to preserve my typing for important things.  So not so much blogging!

Commercial education

I was predominantly educated in the state system - apart from a short spell at a convent for 2 years when I was 4... and so were my siblings.  One of my sister's two children are both at private schools.  I have always wondered why my apparently left-wing friends have sent their children to private schools - for all sorts of peculiar reasons.  The real reason is of course to give them an advantage, whether social, educational or something else - confidence of some sort, vague aspirational reasons that they may not be aware of, to ensure their children don't slither down into the social abyss from which their parents and grandparents so painfully climbed. I am just as aware of the social abyss... which I may be gently pushing my children into by sending them to state schools, but I suppose it has never bothered me so much,.  The mediaeval Wheel of Fortune comes to mind...,

Other friends and relations simply use private schools because they "always have" for generations and wouldn't think of doing anything else - we always like to use precedent as an excuse for doing something unimaginative.  However, I think most of the users of the commercial education system would agree that you get "the right sort of people" in private schools... I don't  quite know where this idea comes from - and why one is better off having one's children educated with the offspring of newsagents and computer consultants rather than the children of nurses and teachers and artists (which was certainly the case in London primary schools). I am a bit more shocked though when I hear of the unpleasant behaviour of children at really expensive, "smart" schools - because surely that is what you are taking your children out of the state system for - to avoid "rough children" - and there they are, with rich parents, paying the same fees as you and punching your kids black and blue into the bargain.   Really, to think children who may be going to Eton in a year or so, behaving just as unpleasantly as any marginalised child from a sink estate!

If more people realised this, it might not be good for business in the commercial education sector!  Especially since in the last few years all the heads in the commercial system have been working hard to allay parental fears about bullying.  To hear them speak it hasn't happened since Tom Brown's Schooldays was written. Unfortunately, it seems likely that children from wealthy homes who have been indulged may well be worse bullies than the downtrodden masses on the council estates. So it is unlikely that the commercial schools - which pride themselves on encouraging individual "excellence" and tend to think co-operation only needs to occur in team sports out on the playing fields, are really fostering the right spirit in their clients - or if they are, they are offering a very mixed message indeed.  Of course there are nice children who come out of these schools - despite the horrors.  

To be quite honest, this little tirade is based on an extrapolation of things that happened to my nephew - but it could be happening everywhere - mean children are not restricted to the commercial sector, it just seems a shame that people have to pay for their children to be bullied by experts!

After some rain...

when I woke at 7.00 - the sky has cleared and it's beautifully sunny.  The national weather forecast has been going on about the arrival of autumn - but this doesn't seem to apply in the Thanetian microclimate.

Must do some writing and sensible work today.... still undecided whether to go to Imp. War Museum or not.  Or maybe today I could rearrange my desk and so on, so that I can work better. It's also weightwatchers day today - hope I will have lost most of the weight I put on during the "holiday" - however, have had a couple of portions of chips and a hell f a lot of wine since then.   When I say a hell of a lot of wine nowadays, I am not talking about the 70 units a week I used to put away when I worked in the City - I mean probably, about 12 units or so - in other words, the recommended weekly maximum for women, which I would formerly would have regarded as an unimaginably low target, which I could never possibly manage to survive on.   One's life and habits do change.

Changing habits I now see, is not impossible, but you can't change too many at once.  I have managed to change a few - whether I can keep them changed, I don't know.  I think it probably needs to be reinforced, to say to myself "I used to eat biscuits, I don't any more".  Or something like that.

Just listening to a programme about science, really wish I wasn't so lazy about making the effort to read more about it.  It's always clear as day when it's discussed on the radio - but somehow when it gets into print, it goes wonky.  Science of course, lies on a bed of background feelings and thoughts about "scientists I have known and loved" I realised I understood about rare earths because I typed J's thesis... I often want to ask him questions, but again, our discourse has lapsed... and also, I think he's now involved in such a specialised area, it wouldn't be useful - and also, he's a bit of a Luddite!

A great comment

Finn - my 14 year old son said today "YOLO [you only live once] is just carpe diem for stupid people".  

Better/worse than expected

What a tricksy day today was, all the minutiae fouled up, and things went wrong.    I got up - had breakfast, made a cake, had a bath, washed my hair, suddenly it was time for the book group, which was fine.  Then Come Dine With me called, and researched me - by this time I was late for Broadstairs meeting... I was 30 mins late - every possible obstacle on the way there - including cars loading on opposite sides of Vale Square, so that when I went around the other way to avoid the first one I met another one.  Mad.  I arrived, parked and found that the Chapel hadn't been open at 12.30 - went to Peens - my suggestion for a reserve meeting place - no one.  So I thought I'd (a) go home (b) go to the tapas bar across the road and have a really nice lunch to compensate for the aggro.  I was sitting in the tapas bar, drinking a nice glass of rose... when I saw D.  They hadn't managed to find the Chapel - (thus failing the basic intelligence test) - and had repaired to the terrace of the Albion Hotel. I couldn't get in touch, because I'd left my phone at home. I turned my wine into a take away - and cancelled my squid and roast veg.  Sigh!   I then trudged to the Albion (Middle England)... had my plastic cup of wine, participated in a few slightly lacklustre conversations, chiefly about holidays.  As I said to D later "the dynamic was different".  But I did learn something - that if you put a piece of silver in with mussels if there's ptomaine poisoning it will turn black (unfortunately it doesn't tell you which is the bad mussel).

Ever fallen in love with someone, ever fallen in love with someone, someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with - The Buzzcocks 1977 - on telly as I'm writing this, one of my favourite songs.

So to home... and then an hour or so before the next fuck-up.  I was meant to be having a drink in A's garden, then C messaged me about a private view tonight - then he called me to say he was invited - suggested we go - he suggested we met up there - or we drove him, then he rang - I said M wasn't back yet - then he was incommunicado.  We took Finn to train so he could go and see his girlfriend (shock!) and went to the private view - C ducked out - feeling under the weather.  It was good, but didn't take long to enjoy.  So we went to have a drink - found the Lighthouse Bar closed - so we had a sort of pop-up pizxa on the Harbour Arm and saw a spectacular sunset... lovely fig and parma ham pizza and then finally got in touch with A.  We picked him up from the Market Square and came here for a nice drink in the garden.  So it all came right...

Everyone thinks I'm mad about the Come Dine With Me thing - but if I win it's worth it. Anyway, Tara suggested the Time Short Story Comp. as a better way of earning money - but as I seldom write short stories so it's not likely, although it occurred to me maybe I could adapt a bit of Islanders - lots of good ideas... perhaps focus the story on Ned and his mother.  Still, the likelihood of winning is slight... but if I could think of a good story arc, not impossible.  Just at the moment I need to stop saying "No" and just going for stuff.  Nothing much to lose.

Fuck ups be blowed, the best thing I ought to say is that it is a long time since I've seriously considered the LO - which means I may be shortly demoted to MO - Mad Obsession - hurray (I think).

And down again...

Somehow yesterday couldn't be repeated.   I worked for about 3 hours this morning - and wrote about 1100 words - which is very good, and I was pleased, but I also found myself slowing down, uncertain about the way forward...

In the afternoon I sat in the garden for a while and read a book about conscientious objectors - v. interesting, and I learned a few things... useful that conscription came in in January 1916 and the tribunals got going a few weeks later.  So, that bit of research confirms things.

Then I went back to my desk and finished off the bits and pieces I had to do - talked to Minster Abbey - sorted out the Come Dine with Me application (I am only doing this for the money). I didn't feel deeply satisfied, but conscious that I'd done an OK day's work, with very little fiddling about.n  I went down to cook and found a mug of rather disgusting tea had been poured for me.  For some reason this set me off into irritability - I ate scraps of bread and butter and felt cross.  I didn't actually make a fuss - after all, my fault that I didn't come down sooner - but on the other hand, perhaps after 20 years one's husband might work out how one likes one's tea.  I am being unreasonable - if a husband said that to a wife... no, actually, it's normal to attempt to accommodate people's taste - you pour my tea first, and don't make it so strong.  It will get stronger in a minute or so and then you can have your tea the way you like it and everyone is content.

I compensated with the bread of bitterness and the butter of idleness... and then a glass of wine at dinner which I didn't really enjoy and now I feel a bit dopey and allergic.  This bloody weather - it's lovely, but I still seem to be getting hayfever.

Then I came upstairs and saw that friend T had invited two other people along to our tete-a-tete at The Chapel... which is OK, but I find one of them a little bit ... I don't know, I always feel uncomfortable with people who are rabid self-publishers. But he's very interested in India - so perhaps if we talk about that I can learn something.  I just fancied a "ladies who lunch" thing with a couple of chums.   Never mind, there's book group tomorrow - that should be fun, unless B is on bad form and wants to moan about things... not impossible.  Apparently she managed to close down a book group elsewhere... I think we must be stronger (or more pliable) characters.

Oh, I should scratch this entry - it's because my eye has been watering for the last 4 hours or so, very annoying.

Getting somewhere

Well, some of my wish has come true - I am getting a bit more late summer - lovely day today and yesterday - might even go to the beach tomorrow.  And I am working on Conscience again and it's looking quite good.

Next week I think may be a bit dominated by working on Clive and Naomi's garden - well, it's all money.

I have been too dominated by negatives, about not having any money (we've got enough for the next 6 weeks I guess) and about the fact that "my agent" has not yet looked at the re-write.  Going ahead with something and persisting must be a good thing.  (Unless it's something very stupid of course).  What will happen to us in mid-October if Mark has not got work?  I don't know, we can borrow a little bit from Ned's funds... but I have prayed that we will not have to.

I have a persistent fantasy that if we could obtain £250,000 from somewhere (the lottery being the only likely source of such money) we could pay off the debts, carry out the repairs and re-decoration of the house (including the slightly improved conservatory) have a couple of short holidays and have a few thousand to tuck away for another rainy day.  We have agreed that we will never have credit cards again.  We have now learned to live within our means and not get overdrawn - although this has in some cases been a matter of providence.  If Mark's last payment hadn't come in early, we wouldn't have been able to afford to have the car serviced, and if we hadn't received an extra payment from the Tax Credits our tiny holiday would have had to be even less luxurious.  However, if we actually had some savings, we wouldn't need to get into debt. Since we lost our credit facilities, we have borrowed around £6,000 from Ned - but most of this was a large tax payment for the year to April 2010 - which was overdue, that was our last "good" year before the recession, some money to make Christmas sufficiently festive - and a couple of thousand to tide us over when there were long gaps between jobs (January to April in other words).  We have not been living extravagantly.  The only major source of real economies we could make would be take-aways - we have had a few - never more than one a week, but it's still £20-40 depending on what one gets.  If we put away £30 in savings every time we didn't have one - that would sort out Christmas I think.  Actually, that is a terrific amount of money - it's 15 weeks until Christmas so it would be £450 - and a year's worth would be £1500 - not enough for a holiday - but perhaps could get us to a gite in France without all the meals etc.

However, we don't have a takeaway or a meal out every week - we had quite a few at the end of the last month because of the festival etc. But now we are back to normal - that is, normal for winter, i.e. the onset of the comfort food season.  This makes me nervous - but I am happy with nourishing soups on the whole - and that should do me.  Anyway, on the WW diet you can eat baked potatoes and all sorts of things.  It's lucky I'm not a pudding fiend.  The diet was going well, but I had a setback due to the holiday.  A week without tracking what I ate - and lots of fish and chips and curry. Bound to be bad.  I put on 4.5lbs... unbelieveable - I don't think this is serious weight, perma-fat - because I didn't actually feel fatter, I was feeling thinner in fact, so I expect next week to have lost all that, plus a little bit more.  But this is for the diet bore blog.

Anyway, having spent several weeks in paralysed anxiety, I am now feeling energetic and happy again.  Hurray!

Autumn Term

I've always liked early September - it's the new year - back to work.  This year I am coming back to work without the benefit of a holiday to alter my perspective etc.  I have been so tired, that I felt I would never recover.  After 3 days at my father's I still felt tired, but yesterday, after a day in London, I began to feel a bit more normal.

I saw some good things - unfortunately I did not have my camera with me to record them, so no pictures of Titchfield Abbey, Netley Abbey, Hamble, Rousham, ChristChurch meadows Oxford, Lord Leighton's House, the British Museum and Lyric Square Hammersmith (where we had a prolonged coffee and waited for Finn).

The weather was pretty good - especially the days we went to Hampshire and Oxfordshire.  We are going back to Oxfordshire in a few days' time - to Emma and Peter's party - Emma is Mark's cousin.  We saw Strat in Oxford, which was really great, he was in good spirits.  I couldn't help noticing how intensely considerate he was of others - perhaps too much so?

We relaxed and spent money during this trip - not an enormous amount but just enough so that we didn't have to say "NO" all the time to the boys.  They are becoming more considerate... and not asking for things. It helped that my father gave them some dosh and Ned had some money that he had earned from the Squall.

They say the weather will improve and become lovely again next week - I hope so, I'd like some later summer.