Boredom

I don't often get bored, but now I am.  I completed my dramatisation of The Tuggses of Ramsgate this morning and now I feel as if I have nothing to do.   Apart from getting on with something else, check the paperwork, sort out my desk etc.  Oh dear.

Actually, I am just verging on miserable.  Perhaps I should go into the garden - or start painting in the hall?  Maybe tomorrow will get some caulking and fill all the gaps between anaglypta and the skirting board.    Or maybe I could read - there's a thought!  Remember when I used to read?

Actually, what I really want to do is go on writing the novel, but as it is, generally speaking finished, that doesn't seem sensible, until I have some feedback.

Panic over

I woke up this morning feeling a bit stiff, but basically fine.   We agreed to work in the morning and then go for a late picnic at Sandwich Bay...we got there about 3 with a bag of snacks seized from the fridge (left over cake, tomatoes, smoked sprats and olives) and more things acquired from Asda: red wine, lemon and lime, crisps, taramasalata, houmous, nuts, apples.  It was a very nice picnic - apart from the wind... which seems to be a feature of Sandwich Bay picnics.   There was no swimming.  We came home and sat in the garden and the sun came out again.

The garden is looking lovely - although I am still annoyed about all the flowers that have been eaten by slugs and snails.  More snail killer has been purchased.  The red crab apple is flowering, as are the apple and the quince.  There are some black tulips, and some mini yellow ones, I am looking forward to the small white alliums coming out and mixing with the purple and  puce geraniums.  I hope this year there will be more late summer/autumn flowering plants.

Sick wife night

After a good deal of washing up, watching a film (Sister Mary Explains it All - hilarious and dark), then some gardening.   I suddenly felt overwhelmed by exhaustion and got into bed in my clothes, despite 2 jumpers, jeans etc. I was freezing - I got into a doze, still shivering, although my head was very hot.  I ache all over and have a chest pain and a back ache, a headache and my labyrinthitis is bad.  Moan.  M is being sweet - he worries that something serious is wrong, I am assuming it's just a virus. Have spent time since about 5.00pm lying in bed feeling cold and achey or hot and uncomfortable - brain not working.  Wonder if this state is what brought on the earlier conversation  - or vice versa.   Sorry for myself now, but will get better and try to see more clearly tomorrow.

Sad husband day

We had the conversation.  We both know we can't actually do anything - he said he'd leave if I wanted him to, but the fact is that I don't want him on his own, feeling miserable... I am still happy to look after him a while longer, but he says I have a tendency to look after waifs and strays and a lot of my male friends have been in that category - he's simply the most successful one.  I said that I felt he was in a better place now than when I met him - and I think that's true, not just me being complacent.

It is possible that if my life begins to take off a bit with the book, then I will not be quite so stuck here, there will be more money for things, and maybe our relationship will improve.  In a sense there's no impetus to change our life - it would take a third party to do that, and there is no 3rd party currently in view... so I suppose we will just continue.   Has anything changed?  I don't know - I don't feel I want to celebrate things like our wedding anniversary (imminent).  I actually feel rather sad.  Not depressed, just a bit low.  Unsurprising, and yet nothing will change.  I am more desperate to make money and get out from under the situation.  Nothing really to say now, but there is a definite change in things.

Bad husband day

Actually, he behaved like a lamb until asked to do something that wasn't on his agenda.  He has been decorating the hall. My decision to have "surprise guests"  was agreeable to him in the morning, but at about 6.00pm when we were having tea he got all snarky and difficult.  When I said I was worried about the time, he had a go at me.  Then he did something stupid, roared because he'd hurt himself, blamed me for it and I said "Good!" instead of "Darling! Are you all right?"

I was asking him to simply hoover sitting room, dining room and hall, he had 90 minutes to complete the task, I hoped he might set the table as well.  Instead, he got very technical and wanted to do other things.  In the end he went to get dressed, I didn't have a chance to change and had to tear off my apron to answer the door.  When he came down I asked him to get some drinks - he did that, but didn't bother to bring me one.  This made me cross, I think it was deliberate.  Then I had to set the table, sort out the candles etc. etc.  We had quite a fun evening, Kyle wasn't especially talkative, but maybe we were on the wrong topics... hope he wasn't too bored.  I always know when I'm bored, because I don't participate in the conversation...

Anyway, it was nice, we sat there having cheese and coffee and chocolate and armagnac/amaretto/grappa.  I love grappa.  I am writing this now after 2.00 am and feel perfectly OK.  I was nasty to Mark, he apologised for getting grumpy and saying "I never wanted these people to come, I have nothing to say to them."  But once again I felt "we can't go on like this!".   The fact is though, we have no alternative at present.  The boys would be very upset if we split up, especially, I think, Finn... but maybe Ned would feel it more - Finn would see the reasons.

I think of my parents, how often my father must have done idiotic and annoying things - how often my mother must have felt frustrated and sarcastic and unpleasant.  But she never left, she stayed and had a stroke.  Also her home was so important to her.  I could move, I could go somewhere else.  Except that I have no money.  

Next week I am planning to do a major cleaning job on the house.  That will be something.  Finn has promised another hour's work tomorrow. I might even do some painting, and filling holes.

What would I take if I left?  Some clothes, my unread book collection, the OED, the Thesaurus and some papers, a few CDs, a radio and the laptop. I could get by with so little these days.  I look at all the "objects" I have valued and see them as nothing more than stuffing, to fill the gaps in my life.  I do love the boys, but I also long for a neater, cleaner, more streamlined life.  I remember how happy I was in my flat in Dulwich - it wasn't especially tidy, but there was a place for everything.   I might take some of the herbs and spices from the kitchen.  But this is all fantasy.   I wonder what would happen if I went to the Job Centre - what would they do?

I would be sad about the garden, the cultivation of living things is a joy. 

That's more like it...

The book is finished and despatched to the Agent - who is on holiday!   I went out to supper last night with no very high expectations, and had a really delightful evening.  I can report a rare event - Alexander left first!

Anna made a really nice meal - and invited Bruce and Jo who live up the road, Alex and me to meet her US friend Kyle Smith.  He's over here working briefly for the Sun on Sunday - but he's actually on the New York Post as a film critic - once described as "America's most cantankerous film critic".  He reminded me of Markovitch in appearance - but quite a different personality.  I liked him a lot - having wittered on about my novel I discovered that he'd written a couple himself (neither published here I think) and they had been rather well received. He is the absolute antithesis of the American stereotype - being modest, uneffusive, ironic.   I discovered from Googling him that he had also been in the US army during the first Gulf War, so he's lived too.   We hope to see him tonight.

Dear Anna was talking up my book and this house - which is very kind of her, it makes me nervous, because I don't know if any of it will live up to the marketing spiel!  I've sent her the pdf. of the book - I hope she enjoys it.

And now POLITICS.  We had local elections, Labour made sweeping gains - the usual song is being sung - the "Mid-term Blues" and each side saying exactly the same things they always say in these situations, which must have occurred nearly a dozen times during my life.  Sadly Bozzer got in in London again - he is clever and amusing, but it would have been good to have Ken back, even if he is a slightly slimy life-form.  French election tomorrow - also very exciting - a Socialist president would be a nice change.  Wonder what he'll do.

I am going back to bed now - it's 8.00 am, I've been up for an hour, but only had 5 hours sleep last night.

Hurray, hurray, the 1st of May....

....outdoor f*cking starts today!

I first heard that from a boyfriend in 1974... I've repeated it every year since, it usually gets a laugh, because May day in England is usually rather a grim, wet, overcast day, and today is living up to that.  There is no prospect of sunshine today - so must enjoy a few bits of thinner cloud and brightness.

The red crabapple tree is coming tentatively into flower - but I'm not enjoying it for some reason.  Still, it is the best thing I can see from my window, so I must try.

I want to write - but I have tasks today - perhaps I will write a bit first, then do tasks.