--- not even hebdomadal just at present. I don't know why the blog has slacked off, probably spending too many hours dulling my senses with computer games. Sigh. Last week felt like a week of achievement, since I started by taking up the gauntlet with The Ash Grove/Conscience and worked very hard on beginning the edit/re-write of that. Mark went off to Cambridge on Tuesday and I did a lot of washing and cleaning and housework, and sorting things out during the rest of the week. I also continued to work on the book, but have only got as far as p.60. I had quite a social time too, the evening occasional book group, and then the day time book group both gathered here, so there has been a lot of literary chit-chat. We were reading Maugham's Cakes and Ale, which I enjoyed enormously. A new member of the group had heard (through Whitstable grapevine) that Maugham "hated women". I told them how he had visited Elfie and Arthur (M's grandparents) in Malaysia and had been pretty unpleasant. Someone commented that the Graham Sutherland portrait told you all you needed to know about him.
The other thing that happened, on Wednesday, was, having struggled to do something serious about weight loss since about April, I finally arrived in the "zone". I joined WW online and bought some new superior scales. I then set about dieting. I am trying to keep this reasonable, but weirdly, I must have clicked, since I am barely eating my allocation of food, let alone all the extras you are allowed. This was a struggle last time - but as I am drinking far less now, it's all become a lot easier. Finn and I ate simple meals and chatted a bit. Must sort out his driving lessons. I went shopping and bought food for the Salvation Army food bank. What else? Dunno - there was Labour Party stuff and Facebook stuff. It was not an especially exciting week, but it felt like I was "getting somewhere".
Spent the weekend catching up with Tara at the Vinyl Head cafe, where I saw they were selling one of my Miles Davis LPs for £35 - I suppose eventually I will have to sell these, perhaps should do this now while it's still fashionable. We had a good chat mostly about work, and what our plans were. We are both trying to work in a more structured way. Not quite 9-5, but I think to work solidly in the mornings, say 8.30 to 1.30 would get things going. The trouble is, I really ought to be working on a lot of different projects, rather than just one at a time. I will start a script version of TMOF. I have also been putting the finishing touches to the spare room, which now - repainted and re carpeted looks absolutely fab. Sod's law we won't have any visitors for 4 months! We have now, finally, begun to sort out the "lobby". This is effectively a doorless cupboard that occurs just before the kitchen. It was once a narrow passage that led to the "conservatory" and I suspect if I ever get housebound and have the money, it will become my loo/wetroom... but for the last 12 years it has been a sort of broom cupboard. It is tongue and grooved,but in varnished red pine, not original. The ceiling was crumbly plasterboard. I suggested we just brush it down and stick up lining paper. It looks wonderful already.
Mark did all this, I was in the garden struggling with this year's crop of perennial weeds. Jack by the hedge and nasty little geums are taking a hold, and the vinca alba is a nightmare. I moved around the cephalaria gigantea, which is getting a bit overwhelmed by the rose Mme Alfred Carriere. I was wearing a tight skirt, and had to take frequent breaks from bending. It was beautiful warm day, sunny, and very, very still. We were going to go for a walk at Reculver, but things took too long. I failed to defrost the supper in time (our microwave went phut a while back and we haven't been keen to replace it) so we had evil fish and chips, and watched telly where a "self-taught archaeologist" was searching for Cleopatra's tomb. Underwhelming evidence for it. Or rather, a lot of circumstantial evidence that would have been equally true of any Isidaeum in Egypt at that period. There may well be something there, but probably not Cleopatra.
I should have gone out to see some avant-garde films, but I didn't. Not in the mood.
There, that's a brief review of my everyday life - thrilling isn't it? Housewife dilettante just about sums it up.
The other thing that happened, on Wednesday, was, having struggled to do something serious about weight loss since about April, I finally arrived in the "zone". I joined WW online and bought some new superior scales. I then set about dieting. I am trying to keep this reasonable, but weirdly, I must have clicked, since I am barely eating my allocation of food, let alone all the extras you are allowed. This was a struggle last time - but as I am drinking far less now, it's all become a lot easier. Finn and I ate simple meals and chatted a bit. Must sort out his driving lessons. I went shopping and bought food for the Salvation Army food bank. What else? Dunno - there was Labour Party stuff and Facebook stuff. It was not an especially exciting week, but it felt like I was "getting somewhere".
Spent the weekend catching up with Tara at the Vinyl Head cafe, where I saw they were selling one of my Miles Davis LPs for £35 - I suppose eventually I will have to sell these, perhaps should do this now while it's still fashionable. We had a good chat mostly about work, and what our plans were. We are both trying to work in a more structured way. Not quite 9-5, but I think to work solidly in the mornings, say 8.30 to 1.30 would get things going. The trouble is, I really ought to be working on a lot of different projects, rather than just one at a time. I will start a script version of TMOF. I have also been putting the finishing touches to the spare room, which now - repainted and re carpeted looks absolutely fab. Sod's law we won't have any visitors for 4 months! We have now, finally, begun to sort out the "lobby". This is effectively a doorless cupboard that occurs just before the kitchen. It was once a narrow passage that led to the "conservatory" and I suspect if I ever get housebound and have the money, it will become my loo/wetroom... but for the last 12 years it has been a sort of broom cupboard. It is tongue and grooved,but in varnished red pine, not original. The ceiling was crumbly plasterboard. I suggested we just brush it down and stick up lining paper. It looks wonderful already.
Mark did all this, I was in the garden struggling with this year's crop of perennial weeds. Jack by the hedge and nasty little geums are taking a hold, and the vinca alba is a nightmare. I moved around the cephalaria gigantea, which is getting a bit overwhelmed by the rose Mme Alfred Carriere. I was wearing a tight skirt, and had to take frequent breaks from bending. It was beautiful warm day, sunny, and very, very still. We were going to go for a walk at Reculver, but things took too long. I failed to defrost the supper in time (our microwave went phut a while back and we haven't been keen to replace it) so we had evil fish and chips, and watched telly where a "self-taught archaeologist" was searching for Cleopatra's tomb. Underwhelming evidence for it. Or rather, a lot of circumstantial evidence that would have been equally true of any Isidaeum in Egypt at that period. There may well be something there, but probably not Cleopatra.
I should have gone out to see some avant-garde films, but I didn't. Not in the mood.
There, that's a brief review of my everyday life - thrilling isn't it? Housewife dilettante just about sums it up.
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