On the move again

Hello peeps,

I'm sitting here watching my washing machine spin round and round, and thinking that my life is rather similar at the moment.

A month ago Steve went into hospital for a routine Angiogram and came out a week later after having had a stroke caused by the procedure.

He is in relatively good nick, all things considered, but his speech is slurry, and he gets tired very easily. Occasionally he gets dizzy and nauseous, and he doesn't travel well anymore. Not too bad when you think how severe it could have been.

So he's at home.

And our landlady is coming home soon, too, so we have to move out.

This will be my 27th house move and I can't say I'm looking forward to it much.

I have been trying to keep up with my Uni work whilst looking after Steve and all his visitors, and house-hunting at the same time. Feel close to tears most of the time but can't seem to break out and have a good howl.

Had to do a PowerPoint presentation on screen printing today, and to say it was a rush job is an understatement of epic proportions, as I was up till 1.30 last night fiddling with bits of graph paper, trying to see if our furniture would fit into the house we like.

My head is not in the game.

My head is a foggy, achy, snappy, wobbly place out of which good PowerPoint presentations, imaginative poems, or succinct and witty prose are not forthcoming.

My house is a tip, like my head, and I just don't give a shit.

Last night I had one of those rotten 'worry-dreams' so I woke up badly too. You know the sort - you're late for something, the car breaks down, you're stranded somewhere and nobody helps you. Last night's one featured my sister-in-law offering to drive me but then stopping off for a coffee that took forever. The more insistent I got that we didn't have enough time, the more upset and offended she got. (She's not like that, really).

In the end I had to travel back through time, in order to warn her that we would have a major falling out and she would just have to forgive me. Just for a bloody ten-minute Power point presentation!

I'm too tired to shop or cook most of the time so I'm living off bread and peanut butter.

Stomach has ballooned! Can't fit my sodding clothes.

And my guinea pig, Sandra, is ill.

So that's my week, folks, and now I have to write a monologue for my new script-writing tutor.

At any other time I would find that a stimulating and interesting challenge. Today I just want to unscrew my throbbing head and drop it in the dish-washer.

Ah well. Back to the writing board.

Onwards and upwards, friends

Monday 28th January 2013


BIG NEWS! I am a student!

I am 53 - and a student!

How did this come about? How is this suddenly my life?
To be fair, when I tell people I am doing Fine Art and Creative Writing, they all say "What a doddle".

And it sort of is.

But on the other hand, nothing that is new is a doddle at 53, and even perfectly normal things have changed in character.

Bending down to pick up a pencil (I drop a lot of things now - why is that? Does middle age make me slippery?), I emit a groan.

I am not in pain.

Have I become one of those toys that, when you tip them, moo like a cow with the escaping air?

Doing something new - especially if it involves technology - is a minefield. I am relatively comfortable with the PC at home (it fouls up what I am trying to do. I swear at it a lot. Steve comes home and it works perfectly. We carry on as normal), but they have Mac's at Uni, and I've never used one.

So how is it that I can thread or dismantle any sewing machine in the world without a manual, or drive any number of different cars within minutes, but I can't work out how to transfer what I do on my PC to a Mac?

Or have a clue how to use the screenwriting program I downloaded last night?

Or handle newer editions of Photoshop?

Was there a year that, if you were born earlier, you don't have the right pathways in your brain that allow you to adapt to this? Is it like being born knowing the Earth is flat, and never quite being able to get your head around the idea that it is spherical?

It seems I am a flat Earth thinker.

I could keep up with the 'yoof' on every level imaginable -- be botoxed back into my thirties, dance all night at Glasto and hog the social media, but my crapness with computers would always give my age away.

Similarly, just as I only use one tenth of my brain, I only utilise a quarter of my phone's capabilities.

So many things I don't wish to do, like play shoot-em-ups, and have my life orchestrated to the sound of screams, punches, kicks, or things expiring. These all betray me as part of the pre-PC generation.

When I ask for help, young people are kind (as they so generally are), but puzzled - how can I not know? They cannot even remember a time when they did not.

I have a very early memory. I am sitting at a desk in the lounge with a crayon and some paper. I am drawing long lines of loops, over and over, one below the other. I present it to my mother as a letter. I remember clearly thinking that that is what writing looks like - long rows of loops. I am stunned that she cannot read it.

Not being able to read or write is such a long time ago now, but that is what I feel like around tech - an illiterate.

Being around the young kids though, with all their marvellous energy and enthusiasms, is a doddle.

I wish everybody still lived in communities that encompassed all age groups, that we didn't separate off into our own peer groups. My life becomes glorious when I jump out of my box.

OK, so their concerns are often trivial and over-indulged in. So were ours at that age. I would not wish to deny them their chance at reckless, ridiculous, all-encompassing stupidity. We are never so free again.

Let them cry for a week over some idiot of a boy who kissed their mate and isn't worth even thinking about. Let them miss lessons, overspend on shoes and shots, eat curry and throw up.

I don't want to join in (ghastly thought), but being around their honesty and abundance and foolishness is better than vampire blood.

Bring it on.

A bit of mind over matter

Have recently had some rough days, and someone I love is having a rough day today, so it got me thinking about the mysterious workings of the human mind, and the beauty and simplicity of it's purpose.

When we are born our primary objective is survival, so our mind's job is to collect information to ensure that. Consequently, the first beliefs we programme into our brains are about how the world works on a very basic level - water is wet, food is good etc., before moving on to discover how more complex things like gravity work - when Daddy throws me in the air I come back down, and when I drop my toy out the buggy (a lot) he picks it up again.

Once we've figured out how the world operates in relation to us, we move on to seeing how we operate in relation to the world and the people in it - we like being held by granny who smells of biscuits, but not by mad Uncle Kevin who reeks of beer and tips us upside down just after feeding.

All the time we are building a road-map to guide us through life, and as all of this is just our assessment of what we experience, it is our belief-system that subsequently holds all this valuable information.

So far, so good.

But then things start to get a bit more complex as our ability to interact becomes more sophisticated and our understanding of language starts to develop. We get introduced to abstract concepts such as good, naughty, nice, nasty, love, rejection, loss and fear, and it is the job of our minds to catalogue this data into our belief-systems in a way that protects us, ensures our survival, and allows us to flourish in the situation we find ourselves in.

But our minds are very young. Big snag, that. We are still gathering data, and reasoning is still way ahead in the future.

So we do what we're programmed to do - we assimilate the information into our beliefs the best way we can, and hold it as true for the rest of our lives. Then, every time that we experience something of a similar nature, our minds rifle through the rule books, and come up with what they believe to be facts about how the world works, who we are in relation to it, and how we must behave in order to survive the situation in the best way possible.

Simples.

But let's just go back to that snag for a moment.

Very often our beliefs about these concepts are based on little or no adequate information, and a complete inability to process and reason out said data even if we had it - we are far too young and inexperienced. So we end up making sweeping judgements as that is all we are capable of.

That is great if you are in a wonderful, loving, nurturing situation for the majority of the time - your judgements are likely to be that the world is basically a safe place, that people are kind and have your best interests at heart, and that you are a fine individual, just as you are.

But none of us get that all the time. It just isn't possible.

As very young children we don't know that Dad is withdrawn because he's worried about losing his job or that Mum is grumpy because she has a migraine coming on and we are teething and screaming the house down. We just feel the loss of their love and attention, and attribute it to something arbitrary but relevant to our experience - I cried and mum put me down and left the room, ergo, crying is bad and I am less lovable when I show that emotion.

We carry these beliefs for the whole of our lives - it's what we're programmed to do. After all, what good is a road-map that you forget halfway through your journey.

So as adults, we end up in painful situations where these old beliefs come rushing to the fore and whisper 'helpful' advice at the back of our minds - ie; don't get too happy, you'll become complacent and remember what happened last time! Far better to be watchful for the difficulties that you know lie ahead, then you won't be disappointed and side-swiped by them. Stay safe, stay contained, don't let yourself go. Blah, blah blah.

You all know what I'm talking about. You've all heard that insidious little voice at one time or another.

For those who had less than adequate parenting the voice may shout 'You're worthless, unlovable, never amount to anything, a complete failure' etc. But it's all the same thing - a mind that is trying to find the best way to help you live your life as successfully as possible.

Maybe once upon a time, believing in your own wonderfulness was so discouraged or rejected that showing it - or even knowing it - became a painful place that your mind wanted to navigate you away from.

That is sad.

But what about now?

Have those beliefs become the things that are hampering you instead?

You have reasoning powers now that your young mind did not. You can choose some new beliefs that are verifiably true, wise, constructive and kind. You can root out those that crush your spirit and limit your life and tell yourself the truth about them.

I don't know why my mother chose to tell me I was a failure and a constant disappointment to her, but my adult brain knows that that says more about her than it does about me. I am none of those things though for a long time I let myself believe that I was.

I am actually a fine individual. I suspect you are too.

Don't let yourself follow a mis-leading road-map just because your mind is a perfect, extraordinary, amazing tool that once had the wrong information.

Making efforts

As the weather starts to improve and the first tentative shoots appear in my garden, so, too, are the first moments of energy I've experienced this year starting to arrive. At last, some small sense of momentum.

As always, after a period of insubstantial ability, my mind has turned towards the negative, albeit unconsciously. Insidious thoughts of incapability, and mistrust in my body have crept in, almost unnoticed.

When my world becomes small because of physical limitations, I have noticed that my mind does likewise - a coping strategy, I understand - lower ones expectations so that disappointment and dissatisfaction are kept in abeyance, and acceptance and tranquility see one through.

But then the thoughts, the lowered standards, remain, undercutting me at times that could be so much more productive.

And so this week, I have been making efforts.

Tried to start on the house cleaning that has been shelved while under the cosh of illness, and got as far as washing one window before retiring, defeated and exhausted. So called in a cleaner. Simples.

Lovely woman, she arrived confident, reassuring and remarkably like the energiser bunny. Four hours later she left, slightly desperate, deflated, and pathetically grateful when I said we could leave some bits for next week. I think I broke her.

Nonetheless, I turned the thought "I'll never get this house clean" into "I can find a way". As for my lovely cleaner - well I was just an opportunity-rich life experience for her. Ta-dah! See, don't even have to feel guilty.

Next on the agenda is to get painting again. Time to turn "I've lost all my inspiration and everything I do is twee, dead and commercial" thoughts into something that serves me better.

"I am limitless in my potential" might be a nice start.

"I can enjoy the exploration process, which will ultimately be rewarding and fruitful" wouldn't hurt either.

I know patience is a virtue, and I certainly get to be virtuous a lot, but so is perseverance. For me to pull myself out of the dreadful physical inertia that dogs me, perseverance is more my friend.

And after all, once something is a habit, it is no longer an effort, it is just what you do.

I know it won't be plain sailing - nothing with Chronic Fatigue ever is - but being scared of feeling worse doesn't get me very far.

So - off to paint bad paintings so that the good ones can start to emerge.

The past is not always another country

I have been avalanched.

The past has stormed all my barricades like some mighty tsunami, sweeping me off my feet and leaving me flailing and helpless seeming.

I have been pulled down by it's undertow, fingers peeled from their grasp on the present, and hurled back onto the shore of my childhood, breathless and choking.

After all the work I have done I had thought these things dealt with, believed myself able to sail above them now, secure in the present, and moving forward. Not a lie, but not the truth either, it would seem.

I have a friend - HAD a friend - someone I loved dearly , and felt secure in their regard, happy in their presence. But what I really had was an opportunity, a gift, another chance at redemption from the past, disguised as a warm and welcoming then cold and condemning woman.

Her regard for me vanished a year ago, it seems, but she disguised this for many months, trying to cool things off but not knowing how. Icy comments leaked out from her frustrated resentment, until finally things came to a head, and the whole list of my transgressions came pouring out.

The shock was immense, the sense of betrayal, shattering, and the feeling of loss, palpable.

But this was not the thing.

The past had roared up from its proper place and engulfed me. There I was, back home, six, seven, eight years old, listening to Mum rant at me. Her words as inaccurate a description of the truth of me as me ex friend's. In later years, her version of me so honed from repeated practice that I was all but invisible, the consequences to my imagined crimes now included physical violence on top of the daily sneering, belittling and blaming for every negative emotion she experienced.

After the deluge, I avoided my ex friend for as long as I could - why, after all, would I want to put myself back into that situation, willingly go through all that again? I had progressed far enough from my childhood self to know, finally, that I was worth more. And besides, she had clearly stated she wanted nothing more to do with me.

But avoidance is a fear-based fiend, however, and keeps you victim to the past. So, No. Not for me, not any more. I cannot exorcise past demons by ignoring them, and I cannot move on, unencumbered by unhealed experiences, without facing them head-on.

So I have seen her twice since then, encouraged and supported by real friends, and it has been excruciating both times. And this is OK, because I recognise that it will take time for me to learn how to deal with people like that without disintegrating inside. I am strong. This can be done.

And then - the second wave.

My husband Steve, surely my greatest teacher, produces another opportunity-rich experience, and more past turbulence seeps over and beneath me. My balance lost, I crumble.

The sorrow of unknown memory rips out from my heart and cascades down my cheeks. The pain still buried in my DNA, passed cell to cell with each renewal, surfaces, my body acting in unison with my heart, but my mind flounders.

I catch it, pull it up, expose it.

And there it is.

I am five and I still need my mother, but she is gone now. She no longer sees me. She no longer likes me. I am the 'bad girl'. I am not her Bev. I am allowed no mistakes, no chances to learn. Now everything I do has to be perfect first time. And even when it is, she doesn't see, finding instead something else to criticise me for, finding fault with me to explain the way she feels inside.

I never sit on her lap again. I am never held by her. When I fall and cry I encounter impatience at my clumsiness. There are no kind words. Waking in the night from a bad dream, I see her standing furious in the doorway, arms folded, ready to shout. I am five. I still need my mother but she is gone and she never comes back.

There was no reconciliation at her deathbed, no apology for the past. No explanation or chance of understanding and forgiveness. Her feelings towards me endured to the end.

And so I have no faith that love lost, diminished, diverted, or derailed will come back. Coldness and distance are self-propagating in the world of my past, and I have no belief in my ability to evoke anything else.

Poor Steve. What a burden to carry.

I let the tears fall, the pain be acknowledged, the un-met need at last given voice. I hug my five year old self. I am a mother myself now. I know how to love. I can love myself in her place.

My sorrow becomes compassion and finally the flood waters begin to retreat, my tears having strangely cancelled them out, and the present is almost back in line with clock and calender.

There is still more work to do, more loss to be acknowledged and let go of, more understanding to be reached, but there is time for all of that.

They say the past is another country, somewhere we visit from time to time, but I am not so sure.

I once tripped on a stone and ripped out my big toenail. It took nine months to grow back. If I touch my toenail just there, at the tip, I am touching last July. My hair is two years old at the ends, and parts of my bone are now nearly seven years old.

The past is in every cell of my body. It is part of every part of me.

I cannot escape it, nor do I want to try. I can choose whether to carry it as a burden, weighing me down and limiting my present, or see it as the atoms of my life-blood, an integral part of my identity, a rich, pulsing experience that can carry me forward on its tide.

I choose freedom, I choose healing, I choose growth, I choose life.

There's no turning back now ...

Yesterday I posted, by hand, my application to University. I am fifty-two years old - clearly a late developer or a truly great procrastinator. Probably both.

I am quaking in my boots at the thought of what the next four to seven years will bring. Would I have felt the same making this step in my late teens? Of course not. I'm not sure I had the common sense or life experience to be as scared as I am today.

And I really am scared in case they don't want me. I don't know how I'd handle that - it seemed so unthinkable when I first hatched this plan. In my head the problem was about my readiness for them, not vice verse.

But honestly, until I have a piece of paper in my hand confirming my place in September, there is a small corner of my stomach that will never digest food properly again, its sole function now being to churn continually.

At eighteen I would have had that extraordinary brash confidence of youth, and assumed that nothing was as bad as living at home with my parents. I'm sure I thought that one day I would go to Uni, then another day I would leave, educated and ready to take on the world - I doubt I even considered what occurred in between. I think a hazy notion of freedom is the most that intruded on my consciousness.

Now, of course, I'm only too aware from doing my Foundation Course, how much it could take to get from fresher's forms to flinging a mortar board in the air.

So I'm really, really, REALLY scared in case they DO want me.

Because then I will have several years of total honesty, vulnerability, and putting myself completely on the line. If I am to have any integrity in my work it has to be a product of turning myself inside out. There is no room for cowardice or, frankly, what is the point of going?

I don't need a degree to set me on a career path. I need all those moments in the classroom, and the hours strung out over homework, all the input from tutors, and the examples of my classmates. I need the disasters even more than the breakthroughs, for one seldom comes without the other.

I'm aware it may not be fun.

I don't think it's supposed to be fun.

But I will feel more alive in every second of it than I have for most of the last fifty years. Even now, just typing this, I feel a vibration deep in my chest cavity, as if some long forgotten thing is suddenly singing.

In today's society, there is much talk of reaching one's full potential, while at the same time acknowledging that the brain is so underused that it is impossible to do so. But there is a space - between living a 'good enough' life and becoming that sci-fi super being - where one can genuinely find oneself.

It can be a place of peace and contentment and joy, but, as any athlete knows, it is also a place of stretching to the limit, pushing and reaching and achieving something previously unknown to you. A place of such focus, that it calls forth everything within you and brings it to bear, leaving you exhausted but complete.

That is where writing takes me.

That is where painting takes me.

I meet myself coming the other way and am strengthened and renewed by the process.

And, frequently, exhausted.

And so I am utterly scared of embarking on such a journey and, at the same time, terrified of being denied the opportunity to do so.

In four to seven years, I hope at least to make more sense.

It's have-a-go day

Right. Step one for applying to uni is to get my old tutor to review my work, my statement and my portfolio. Sorted - happening on Monday.
Then send in the application and cross my fingers.
What if they don't want me?
What if they don't even want to interview me?
Aaaaargh! Can't think like that.
Quick - divert, divert, do something pro-active.

Bought this book to aid my journey - The Creative Writing Coursebook. It is both terribly good and utterly terrifying. Have been doing the exercises and will try this one now.

Deconstructing Beds... by Alison Fell.

Write 100 words prose description of a bed you slept in as a child. It needn't be perfect Virginia Woolf-type prose, as it is only raw material, but write in sentences rather than note form, as the verbs will be important later.

Right, here goes then.

My bed was the bottom bunk in a room shared with my elder brother. I liked the enclosed space of being on the bottom - rather like I imagined a four-poster bed would feel, and besides, I was scared of falling out of the top as I had seen Adrian do. Next to my pillow hung a curtain that covered an alcove housing an old harmonium. The curtain had strange, abstract patterns on it, and each night I would stare at the blocks of bold colour and imagine myself and the bed shrinking down, down, down, until my bed was the size of one of the blocks. Then the air currents would carry my tiny bed drifting up towards the ceiling. I was always asleep before I reached the top, the weightless sensation lulling me unconscious, and the patterns seeming to pass below me like vast, multi-coloured elevators.

Right, that's more than 100 words but I reckon that's OK.
Next step.

Write another 100 words on the bed you currently occupy, what's in it, what surrounds it, what do you do in it, etc.

Well now, some of that is none of your business, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

My bed is a king size over soft yummy monster that takes up almost the whole room. This is fine because we have a dressing room elsewhere, so sleeping in and 'sleeping with' are really the only things that need to happen in this room. I made the headboard and covered it myself with a scrap of William Morris fabric bequeathed by Joe's granny. I have lots of extra pillows, feather of course. I know they don't hold their shape as well as sponge, but when did life become too short for plumping? My cat sleeps all day on my bed so there is always a warm patch waiting for me, which is a shame because I like it cold.

Ouch! Just went to bathroom to fill up my glass of water and got a static shock off the tap because I have been on the laptop. S'not fair.

Write a final 100 words on a fantasy bed, a bed where money is no object, a bed that can be made of anything you like.

I used to dream of a bed made of hot air when I was a child. Strong jets of warmth held you up about a foot above the surface, and massaged you like a jacuzzi while you slept. This is no longer my fantasy. I don't want warm air anywhere near my face. I want an open window and a soft breeze permanently billowing the gauze curtains that drape near the head of my extra-large bed. There is room for the cat and a dog at the bottom, miles from my feet. The view of the Mediterranean/Adriatic/Aegean/Pacific (I don't care which), shimmering violet in the dawn light and framed by the forest/mountains/bougainvillea etc., makes this my favourite place to be. The pillow cases stay air-conditioner chilled all night, and the patchwork quilt was made by Kaffe Fassett last time he dropped by, but most importantly, in this bed, no one ever, ever snores - least of all me.

Now print this out and cut it all up into small words and phrases. Make sure you separate cliches like 'book' and 'shelves' or 'chest' and 'drawers. Spread them all out and PLAY. See what short sentences you can assemble without worrying about meaning or narrative. Be intuitive. Keep normal syntax as your only guiding rule. Keep an open mind and allow themes to emerge. If you can, use all the words.

Ok, now I've spent about an hour (should take two) and used half the words (should use more) but this is what I've come up with so far.

My cat, my favourite coloured monster,
chilled, unconscious, sleeping in a scrap of patchwork, snores.
Strange - all day I like the sensation, while you, below me,
seeming made of shrinking forest feel always abstract.
Stay.
I was strong, rather like feather mountains,
my bed a warm fantasy,
drifting permanently on the hot, night air.
In this room I want a child,
bequeathed by an all night billowing, plumping, down, down, down,
in a bed of weightless sponge.
My want colours the whole room violet.
A soft harmonium gauze dressing the bed,
and the patterns that covered it - blocks of Bougainvillea - the only shared thing.
When I was sleeping with my pillow,
housing the cat, Adrian, and enclosed,
I imagined my tiny room become too lulling,
and jets of scared shame the size of space, of being, framed my view.
I held you, waiting so cold, like a king on my bed.
When did life, like vast Adriatic elevators
carry my feet towards the curtain, the open window, out of my self.
Always asleep, of course,
I made the bed before I reached the fine, four surface.
You, like me, had to pass the time on it.


Well that's my stab at it - why don't you have a go?

"Update, update, read all about it ...."

Hello?

Sorry, it's me here...

Yes I know it's been over two years but there are reasons. Maybe not good ones, but reasons nonetheless.

But I'm back, so where were we? Oh yes - trying to create a New Life!

So - how's that working for me?

Pretty good, as it turns out. To be fair, it still looks just like the old life - still ill (thank the peri-menopause for knocking me back five years in my recovery) but, oh, the light at the end of the tunnel is beaming down in all its radiant fullness and I am beaming back.

For instance, I sold four paintings in the summer - big, expensive ones at that - AND got a commission. All in the space of four weeks. Made well over a grand. Yay!

Now I'm not a simpleton - I know that £1200 for two or three months work is pretty pants by today's standards, BUT it is tangible proof that my paintings have value to total strangers - and these people are even willing to part with large sums of dosh to acquire them.

This is validating, edifying, and encouraging to me, and we can all do with a bit of that sometimes.

My lovely hubby Steve finally has a job, which also means that the financial dung heap we were living in is now merely a 'learning experience' fading into memory.

And please don't think me callous but my son has left home, and this has brought about the biggest positive change of all.

Allow me to explain - I ran away from home at 18 going on 12, to escape the life dictated by my parents with many threats and far too little bribery, and eloped to London with a boyfriend, a suitcase and two pounds in my pocket. Seven years later, I managed to get away from the surprisingly abusive and domineering boyfriend, but by then I was a single parent.

Fast-forward to last summer and I'm helping Sam to pack for Uni in Bournemouth. I'm tearful for me and excited for him - thrilled about the opportunities and challenges he is going to face, and wondering how much of a gap his beautiful, sunny energy is going to leave at home.

For the first time, it is just me and his father. Alone. Together. A couple. In the same house, but not as parents anymore.

We seem to have done it backwards because now we are finally having 'our time'.

I am a little scared.

Then Steve's new job takes him away for a few nights at a time, so I am truly alone for the first time in my whole life. I've been alone before, but only as an interlude, a small interruption of my wifely/motherly routine.


This is different.This life stretches out before me as a blank canvas beckoning. There are no calls upon me - I can fill the time entirely as I wish, so I use it to begin discovering myself anew.


It is heady and glorious. I revel in it. I am sickeningly lazy, followed by bursts of ridiculous activity at unaccountable hours of the day and night. I sing Karaoke until two in the morning. I lay in the bath until noon. I eat nothing but battered onion rings for lunch. I drink a whole bottle of Mojitos. I enjoy being me.

I notice that my life suddenly IS new - unprecedented, unexplainable, unexpected.

My husband and I find a new contentment and calm between us. We laugh a lot more. We have far fewer worries. It feels like none at all.

I am fifty-two. It took this long.

Louise Bourgeois said "I have been to hell and back , and let me tell you - it was wonderful"

I know what she means. My 'hell' has made this all the sweeter.

I am still ill. My feet twinge with pain at every step. But I dance on them anyway.

Kids v teachers - we know who wins!

Day 360

It was book group last week and we did The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. As an example of how childhood isn't that innocent, and children are not always sweetness and light, it was very successful. The main character had already killed three members of his own family before even becoming a snotty teenager, and describes it as a phase he was going through. Nice.

Got me thinking about my own adolescence though.

I suddenly remembered the thrill of power and pride that had spread though our class, when we heard our English teacher had suffered a nervous breakdown. We were convinced we had driven him to it and shamelessly gloried in it.

Steve said the same had happened at his school so we weren't unique in our callousness by any means. To have an effect on the outside world - on the adult world - was something we all aspired to and bragged about.

"We made Miss shout/throw the board rubber at Sid/storm out the room/cry" meant you weren't at the bottom of the food chain any more, and there is nothing more enticing to any child than having power over an adult.

I personally couldn't get away with it with my parents - they were just too terrifying - but teachers were fair game. And dinner ladies. And the driver of the school bus if it was Ken (but not if it was Herbie c'os he was nice).

So when Penny had a crush on the maths teacher and just leaned back in her chair, glowing at him lasciviously, and the poor man had to hide in the stationery cupboard until he'd got himself together, we thought that was wicked.

And there was one lad who had a set of skeleton keys he had made that opened every door in the school. He was our hero. A total God of cool.

And when a sneakily made audio tape circulated around the school, of Miss Threapleton (the strict and unpopular classics teacher and head of the girls boarding house) and the new sports master in bed together, our glee was unparalleled.

God, we were horrible.

In my defence, can I just say that I do still feel guilt and remorse over one incident.

On a school walking trip, me and Alison Neate (the class gorgeous girl), were hanging back and waiting for a chance to nip behind a tree for a wee. Up came Dr Skinner, IQ of gazillions and therefore, not very cool but really making an effort.

He kept talking to us, very pleasantly, as we meandered along, but showed absolutely no signs of leaving us and catching up with the others no matter how slowly we went.

Eventually, my walk had turned into a closed legged sort of waddle, and I whispered to Alison "this is getting worse and worse".

Not quietly enough.

Dr Skinner went bright red, muttered something about needing to join the others, and sped off leaving us in fits of embarrassed laughter, whereupon I pee'd myself anyway.

For six years - let me repeat that, six years! - I tried to pluck up the courage to apologise to the man. Never did. Still feel dreadful about it because it was accidental.

Had we intended to insult him, however, we would have been triumphant. Therein lies the difference.

So - childhood - not so innocent. Come to think of it, the only innocence I remember was a complete lack of comprehension about the consequences of my actions and the limitless ability to revel in the misfortunes of others.

Still, we can't get away with that as adults, so enjoy it while you can, kids.

Unless you want to be a sociopath and end up in a book by Iain Banks, of course.

Bye bye Roger, hello E.T.

Day 351

A word about guinea pigs.

Dearest Roger has died. I knew he was ill (just like Spike Milligan) but the vet said he wasn't.

But he was. Died in my arms on Thursday morning.

Farewell you sweet natured, soft furred, handsome fellow.

Sandra and Barry, the girls he has left behind, are coping - for which fact I am very grateful. We only got Roger in the first place because bitchy old Barry was constantly picking on poor little Sandra. Get a neutered male, we were told, so we did and they all turned into one great, big, peaceful, lovely family of oinks. So have been on the lookout for a return to the snotty behaviour from Baz but it seems ok for now.

Old friend Janine came for the weekend. She is funny and beautiful and interested in the same things as me, which is a treat when you live with all blokes for too long.

She brought with her my birthday present - a large, mummy-sized money box and a smaller set of salt and pepper pots ALL IN THE SHAPE OF GUINEA PIGS!!!!!!!!!!

They are sitting on top of the cage and looking too life-like for comfort sometimes. I have named them Mandy, Dick and Phil, respectively. I don't normally name inanimate objects - I have never named my car, for instance - but they make the loss of Roger a little easier as it feels like I have just got three more (and they don't poo or eat, which makes life cheaper). Yay. (Thanks Janine, you always know the right thing.)

Except even she could not solve the 'mystery of the stained hand'. Sounds good that - the 'mystery of the stained hand' (pause for blood-curdling laugh and spooky noises).

Quite simply, I went to bed, slept, woke up and went to the loo, then went back to bed with a book (one of the shopaholic books, so I couldn't put it down). Then the phone rang so I answered it from the extension in Sam's room as it's closest (he wasn't home). Sat on the end of his bed chatting to Janine about what train she was arriving on and what we were going to do when she got here, and then I looked down at my hand.

It was covered in a rust coloured stain over half the palm and most of the fingers.

And it wouldn't wash off.

In fact it took two and a half days and a lot of scrubbing to clear it.

And I have absolutely no idea how it got there.

I don't smoke so it wasn't a weird, massive nicotine stain.

I'm not American so I don't use iodine when I cut myself (I'm British - I just run it under a tap or suck it or, if something's hanging off by a thread of sinew, I slap on a bit of Germolene).

I hadn't picked up some large, rusty object whilst fast asleep in bed, and even if I had, it ought to have washed off, which it didn't.

I don't think it was a stigmata, but if it was, then it was wasted on me.

And it wasn't blood or paint.

So that just leaves alien encounters in my sleep. Newsflash. Aliens now kidnap us in order to badly henna our fingers instead of conducting mad experiments involving drills and such.

Perhaps there is a new strain of young aliens who spend their gap years in India, before settling down to the proper task of abducting humans.

So if you wake up in the morning with a hankering for the remains of last night's curry for breakfast, it may well be less to do with your hangover and more to do with recently ashrammed aliens with no artistic ability.

You have been warned.

"Rosebud..." (said in the voice of Orson Wells)

Day 336

Squeezing out a blob of pink toothpaste and it forming a perfect, five-petalled rosebud on one's brush is a good start to the day, I find. It's a Zen thing, isn't it, to be able to find a moment of peace and beauty that grounds us in the here and now? Or is it only Zen if you can make it last longer than the time it takes to clean your teeth? Which I can't really. So possibly not that Zen.

Had a visit from our landlords this week. They are lovely people and it is always nice to see them, but so much nicer when you know you can afford the rent, which, temporarily, we can't, so Steve was quite anxious. I, however, live in an unreality bubble where showing them their newly laid patio, decorated bathroom, and beautifully made roman blind were all much more important to me, so I was quite excited.

My bubble won the day. They paid for the lino and the blind, and said to just keep them informed of what we can afford and when we can pay it, and left with a list of other things to get sorted for us on our behalf. How many landlords hear you tell them you don't know how much rent the social is going to pay while you're out of work, but it might not be all that is due, and they give YOU money !!!???!!!

(Brief interlude here for Kylie Minogue moment - "I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky...") Thank you Sian, thank you other Steve, we are unbelievably blessed to be your tenants.

I think of my Steve's worries before they came, and I wonder how many people miss the opportunity to feel excited like I did, because they are so busy trying to divert the bad thing that they predict is coming to them? If you have a choice, why not be a glass-half-full person as it surely makes the world look rosier?

Perhaps the pain of being 'unprepared' when something bad inevitably does happen (as it does to everybody sometime) outweighs all other considerations. The fear of being hurt again can leave us in the habit of looking over our shoulder, and missing the toothpaste rosebud right under our nose.

I do understand this, I honestly do. I found my own fears tripping me up this week, like dirty laundry dropped on a dark floor. I am visiting another doctor next week and all my past experiences with them hang on my back, pulling my focus away from reality, away from the positive, and away from the present. I am already envisioning not being listened to, being dismissed and disbelieved.

Have I gone completely bonkers? What possible good will that do me? That goes against everything I believe. And yet I am SO tired that, perhaps, I am not quite my usual self. I sense my brain malfunctioning and sending me down thought-tracks that are alien and uncomfortable for me, but have hardly the energy to resist.

How easy it would be to fall asleep on the job here, so to speak. To let the negative thoughts just run their course, determine my actions, and choose the words I speak to the doctor next week - to influence the attitude I walk in with and the way I listen (or not). How 'reasonable' to complain afterwards about the way I was treated, and divulge myself of all responsibility.

I've lived like that. We all have. We 'go with the flow' and think things are 'done to us'. Which we either like or don't, but always think we have no power over.

Bollocks.

I can't do that any more.

I will squeeze out a whole tube of toothpaste if necessary, until my brush is a bunch of roses. I will remember how much is possible. I will say "Thank you, thank you, thank you" to the universe for sending me that landlady, and I will go to the doctors with an open mind, heart, and ears. I will go expecting a gift, even if it is no more than the gift of someone's time.

I will see this as just one more step on my road to recovery.

I will believe in my recovery and give thanks in advance for it.

And I will do it with a fuzzy brain, no concentration, a tendancy to weep for no reason, an inability to get out of bed most days for long, and some significantly increased pain levels. Because, really, what is the alternative?

My glass is half full (of mouthwash) and my toothpaste is pink. Bring it on, guys, bring it on.

"A woman walked into a Doctor's surgery and said..."

Day 325

No news is so often good news, but not when it concerns one's health. I am so tired of feeling shitty as all hell, then giving in to pressure and going to the doc's, only to have tests that reveal absolutely nothing.

According to all the tests I have ever had, I am not only fine, but also possibly, in the very peak of health. Nothing EVER shows up as being wrong. The fact that I am also registered as disabled would seem to counter this notion, but there you are.

Now, normally this would not bother me. I lean towards an holistic point of view, and regard my healing as a personal matter. My body is communicating 'dis-ease' and I look for alternative ways to re-balance and heal.

Sometimes, however, I need a bit of traditional help. I'm not above taking Ibuprofen when I have period pains or having surgery when my appendix burst, to name two extremes.

Right now I know my hormone balance is so out of whack that my Thyroid is being beyond troublesome. That this is due to the menopause pushing me further out of kilter than usual is not unreasonable, but the chances of anything showing up on a blood test are zero - I know because I have tried many times before.

In the meantime, my weight has rocketed, I could sleep for England and win gold (even over teenagers!), and I'm so exhausted I can barely lift my arms to drink a cup of water half the time. Walking slowly up the stairs has me puffing and red in the face, shaky, dizzy, and needing to lie down.

But none of my symptoms count unless a blood test confirms them.

Which it never does, (even when I had a goitre that stuck out of my neck for a full inch).

I don't go to the Doc's for attention. I just want then to work with me to find a way for me to feel better.

Or even just to function adequately.

But they view patients with suspicion and condescension, in my book. I remember when my eldest son was crippled with constipation as a young, premature baby. He would scream with pain most of the time, eventually causing a hernia in his groin.

At the time, I had not heard of milk allergy - it was not common then. I only knew something was terribly wrong. The doctors treated me as if I couldn't possibly know my own baby better than them. I was sent away over and over.

Eventually I figured it out, with no help from them, but not until he had suffered nearly a year of pain and sleeplessness, and endured two operations.

What struck me most about it was not how long it took to find out what was wrong, but how I was continually dismissed as having no information worth considering, being 'only the parent'.

Since Sam was born and I became ill, I have faced the same attitude over and over again - my experiences, and the records I keep of my symptoms, are often considered irrelevant, or even unnecessarily intrusive. Certainly, they are rarely taken into account and mostly ignored.

So here I am again. Needing a bit of help with my Thyroid until the menopause is over.

I will go to the doc's again. I will take their tests again.

And then, I strongly suspect, absolutely nothing will happen.

But wouldn't it be nice if this time it did?

Fingers crossed, everybody, please.

Loving like Haddi

Day 318

Finally! I get to the computer! Life with a husband at home and a son out of college is not my normal life, let alone my new life. Fitting around others all the time, at the moment, and finding it a trifle draining. Oh well.

Now. Updates.

Have done lots of sewing for Denise, my clever, clever friend who makes stage costumes. These were for the Globe Theatre's production of Anne Boleyn. I did all the lace and beads and fiddly diddles for two frocks. Very proud of myself.

Have received another rejection for my colour book for kids, but they were ever so complimentary about it, which is nice. Reason for rejection was that they had two similar books on their list already but the quality of the illustrations had made them consider it nonetheless. Very sweet way to say 'No', I thought.

Have started doing some voluntary work at a local charity shop. Wanted something to do that wouldn't be too taxing (as health bloody awful right now), but was community minded. Wanted to give back something as feel rather 'taking' at the moment, and that doesn't sit well with me. Am bringing home all the things with buttons missing or hems down to repair for them.

Also, made a little girl cry.

The little girl is called Haddi, and she is four years old and adorable. She is the grand-daughter of the lady who runs the charity shop and is all big green eyes, fuzzy dreadlocks, and chatter, and she adopted me as her playmate on my first afternoon on the job.

This was great. We played with lots of toy animals and a cardboard box, with endless variety. Then it was time for me to leave and she crumbled like a souffle in the wind. She hurled herself onto her mother's lap and sobbed.

What a humbling and heartfelt reminder about the true nature of love. The heart of a child simply opens to encompass you fully, with no reserve. You do not have to prove yourself or meet any expectations, and yet they take you into their world so completely that they are devastated at your leaving.

I look at my husband and my sons. Do I open myself that fully to them? No I do not - I keep something in reserve. I do not fling myself into my hubby's arms when he steps through the door, nor feel an aching loss at his parting. 'Real life' is, apparently, not like that. (Most of the time I don't even remember to give him a kiss.)

But perhaps we take too much for granted, play it all a bit too cool. When I remember the joy of little Haddi, I realise I want to open up more than I do, to appreciate those I say I love more openly, emphatically and enthusiastically. Why not, after all - they deserve it!

My love for them is in there somewhere, a little buried under everyday chores and niggles and worries, perhaps, but real enough in it's own way. If I look a little foolish pulling it up to the surface and choosing to show it abundantly, then where's the harm? I have stayed safe and subdued far too long.

Life can be draining and others take far more of one's energy than is comfortable, but - and it's a big but - what if they weren't there at all? How would I feel then? And one day they won't be. My last child will leave home and start his new life. My husband won't live forever. Have I made the best use of this time that I have with them?

Have I loved them like Haddi?

I want to love them like Haddi.

I just forget sometimes.

Delaying tactics

Day 302

There is a space between the past and the future where one is not necessarily present. A waiting room of a place, a limbo, a holding area. This is where I am firmly ensconced. Part of me is happy with this state of affairs, part of me wants to scream. I imagine myself battering on the windows, fists flailing, a primal yell erupting. I also see a waiting chair, where I meditate quietly, allowing the old to become the new in it's own good time.

I have no paintings to produce, and no studio to experiment in. No funds to buy paint with either, come to that. My first book is waiting in a pile on a publisher's desk, (take your time, Emily, give it a chance to grow on you), and my second has progressed enough for me to see how many re-writes it is likely to need, (I'm hoping only about four).

Meanwhile, time pootles along and the sense of urgency I once had is swallowed up in a deep pool of exhaustion, boredom, housekeeping and family problems. I am hemmed in by other peoples lives, ergo, I see no space for my own. Small niggles are starting to overwhelm me. The mess has crowded out all other thoughts. I have no creativity, only a longing, a yearning, and a tiredness that is bone-deep.

Tears sit to attention, ready for 'the off' like good little soldiers. My feet and back have gone on strike. They have withdrawn their support until working conditions improve. My eyes are traitors. Everywhere I look I am reminded of something I want but can't have - a clean place to sit, a project finished, a dream realised, a space of a few hours where there is literally nothing that I am supposed to do.

There is a growing list waiting for me which, at time of going to press, includes buying sawdust and cleaning out the guinea pigs, giving them baths and cutting Sandra's hair, the laundry, this weeks ironing and last weeks, packing away my painting stuff and getting out my sewing stuff, cleaning the bathroom and hoovering the stairs, laying the lino in the bathroom and making and hanging the roman blind, tidying up everywhere, weeding the garden and dead-heading the flowers, taking garden rubbish to the tip and finishing off pruning the trees, buying something to stop the cherry re-sprouting where it is cut and applying it, putting weedkiller on the paths and patio, and slug pellets around the pots and hostas, writing thank-you letters for my birthday and other thank-you letters for recent hospitality from friends, writing to Arnol, our sponsored child in Honduras, packing up catalogue rejects and phoning the courier to come and collect them, feeding the cat and the family, working out menus to fit our very limited budget and doing the food shopping and the cooking, turning on lights and opening curtains because our house is too dark, making the bed and sorting out all the stuff that didn't get sorted out when I changed the room around so I could paint, putting the loo-roll on the holder because nobody else does, picking some flowers to put in the house so it feels more like a nurturing place, picking up a book from the library and taking others back, paying the fines, emptying the compost bin in the kitchen and cleaning out the fridge, cooker and microwave, cleaning all the insides of the windows, changing the cat litter, and washing the downstairs floors.

Steve has been doing all the washing up and a fair bit of the shopping and cooking. Although lovely, this is not taking a lot from my list, and all the time that both Sam and Steve are in the house, the mess grows ever larger.

I am helpless within it because the menopause has cranked up my PMS to unbelievable proportions, and the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has gone stratospheric. My Progesterone levels have been ridiculously low since I got ill after Sam was born. Progesterone is like Insulin, you see - part of a bio-feedback system that allows the brain to work out how much sugar is in the blood, and too little Progesterone gives a faulty reading. Consequently, the brain demands that you eat to correct the balance.

This is not hunger. I know hunger. This is a severe craving along the lines of cold turkey drug withdrawal. If I try to resist, the brain goes to it's emergency supply and produces Adrenalin to get the process going. This, the 'fight or flight' hormone, leaves me edgy, anxious, tearful, irritable, pacing the floor, unable to function or make decisions (even about what I want to eat), snappy, shaky, nauseous, and head-achey. If I persist in not eating, or am unable to get to food, it can lead to a complete system shut-down where I pretty much collapse and can't talk, or raise my arms, or even support my own head, for several hours. I've ended up in hospital like this a few times, but the doctors were baffled and unsympathetic.

To avoid this I eat, and I am now thirteen and a half stone and getting fed up with the whole process. I lie exhausted on the sofa, and I eat. I do use a Progesterone supplement but, after nearly twenty years, this is how my body is used to operating and it doesn't want to change. So I am intending to fast today because I have read that this can help with food cravings - I wish them to be back to manageable levels, a place where I don't weep on the hour, every hour, if I can't get chocolate (which I don't like that much and leaves me feeling sick). Perhaps this will at least nudge my brain into a re-think - a complete re-boot would be a lot to ask, I suspect.

A time of limbo is perhaps not such a disaster when I am as knocked out as this as, although I rest a lot, my batteries fail to recharge. My space is not nurturing and my family demanding. Seeing friends and doing things that are fun seem to help, but the effect is short-lived without a structure to support it.

The mantra that pulled me out of depression was 'This too will pass', and it is just as apposite here. When it passes, as all things must, I hope I will have learnt something other than how to blind myself to chaos, clutter and mess. That would be a sad thing.

I may have no will within me that I can harness to complete any of the chores, but I do have a cup of hot lemon. And I do have hope. It is just as well that no-one is battering down my door with commissions or contracts, and although I'm sure that would galvanise me for a while, the problem would still persist. I prefer solutions when I can, I'm not much of a one for a hamster-wheel sort of life.

I am in limbo. I am waiting. I am stuck between the past and the future. I take another sip from my cup, I look out of the window, and I hope.

Get your dates right, boys

Day 294

Fancied a bit of a change - what do we think of the new look? There are several others I'm intending to try out but this felt good to start with.

The boys came up trumps on Father's Day this year. They are both rubbish at giving people gifts and cards on time (or at all), and I was still waiting for my birthday cards from the beginning of the month. I put the fear of God and a few other deities into them about Father's Day though, and they turned up with a card each for Steve - ON THE DAY!

AND they had a card and pressie for me. Well, swipe me sideways and call me Susan.

Joe bought me a candle (the last of the big spenders, that one) which was quite nice, actually, as I'd just been to a car boot sale and bought a big wooden candlestick.

Sam bought me a bathroom gift set, which on first glance appeared to be quite nice too. On closer inspection, however, it proved to be fantastic. It was clearly cheap and foreign and, better still, badly translated. Lush!

I am now the proud owner of bath salts for 'decompression', should I ever want to bathe at a depth of 1000 metres. My 'fancy soap' - (which, in my head, is soap given to you by your fancy man) - is supposed to 'cleanlily take good care of ones health maintain skin'. But my favourite is the shower gel which promises to 'clean skin, no-irritated, moisten,and fresher'. Fab-u-lous!

So - I get a birthday present on Father's Day. Steve should expect a Father's Day pressie on his birthday, at the end of July. Then he can have his birthday presents on Sam's birthday in August, who will have to wait until Joe's birthday in December for his. Joe can have his birthday present at Christmas, and they can both wait for their Christmas presents until Easter.

Sorted. Much less expense and we can shop in the sales. If they complain, I can always point out that "you started it", like the mature person that I am. (I am a reed, I bend, I adapt, I go with the flow, this is all perfectly zen...)

You do your best as a parent but it just never turns out the way you expect, does it. They are both much shabbier at things I have always considered important, and wiser than I ever would have expected. They are both funnier, which is always a bonus.

Sam is far kinder than he seemed likely to become as a boisterous little toddler. Joe is more stubborn than I anticipated. And handsomer. But the older they get, they seem to move further and further away from the way I brought them up and into a space of their own.

This is exactly how it should be, I know, but it is also a bit weird.

I have invested twenty-eight years into being a parent, which is well over half my life, and I find I still want to see evidence of all that input in their current lives. I am not quite ready to have my influence so speedily repelled, the lessons I tried to instill so conveniently forgotten, or to have the values I exampled discarded with such happy nonchalance.

This letting go stuff really is for grown-ups, isn't it.

Perhaps I need to have a 'decompression' bath, and get myself 'moisten and fresher', which sounds just about as rude as it possibly could. Ergo, I'm in.

Care to join me?

Down unknown roads

Day 289

Life changes course all the time. There are little swerves, dips in the road, hills and bumps, and most of the time, we don't notice. But it changes, nonetheless, and suddenly, we look back and say "how did that happen - and when did this become my life?"

Life is swerving mightily for us right now. We cannot help but notice. We are nearly swept off the road by it's force. Such change, such disruption, yet on the outside it would all look just the same to you.

Steve is discontinuing his pshycotherapy course. Not because it isn't the right one or he has gone off it, or changed his mind, or any of that rubbish. No. The body blows he has been dealt in the last month have left him unable to even consider it as a career path anymore. The whole vision he had of himself, his history, his family, his sense of identity - it has all come crashing down, and he is searching through the resultant rubble, trying to recognise his voice.

When I was at the worst point of my illness, I had a similar experience, and my heart goes out to him now. I know that he was never who he thought he was - the real Steve was always stronger, wiser, kinder, clearer, and even more beautiful. But in life we tend to believe less of ourselves, especially if our early life trained us in accepting unworthiness. It takes others, who love us, to remind us of our true hearts.

There he stands now, at the brink of all the horrible awareness that he is not who he once thought, and it is painful for him. There is shock to be recovered from. There is exploration to be endured. If he could see through my eyes, feel with my heart, he would know how extraordinary and fine and lovely a soul sits in him. I have glimpsed this many times. Our true natures cannot hide forever, not when we act out of love.

And Steve has loved. And shown his true self. And it has always been so enchanting that I have hungered for more every time, and felt profound loss when it was hidden away again.

I want to tell him that like that other Steve, we can rebuild him, better than ever before, but without it costing six million dollars. I want him to see that this is a transformative time, and that these are Phoenix ashes he now stands in.

He knows that I have recently lost my sense of self too - that I am journeying towards my own unknown and unguessed at future. I know he does not want to add to the difficulties that I carry, but I want him to take the hand I hold out to him, and feel the adventure waiting in the shadows. I am happy to take all of the first steps - let him follow close behind. There is nothing unfair about that - for when I am tired I can lean back and there will be someone to rest on.

Life changes all the time. We cannot prevent this, and why would we want to? We can choose how we ride the crest of those roller coaster times. Screaming, certainly, but with hands high above our heads, facing forward, letting the new ground rush towards us.

To follow ones heart is the bravest endeavour I know. Sometimes it feels the hardest, but I never doubt it, never. Hold my hand sweetheart, the future beckons us, the present pushes us, the past has abandoned us, we'll walk together in brand new shoes.

A Dancing Queen at Pimms o,clock

Day 280

Right everybody, sing along now -
"It's such a perfect day,
You'll wish you spent it with me..."
Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but I've just had the best day ever.

I woke up and had a nice chat with Steve whilst playing solitaire on my Iphone, in bed, with a hot lemon (don't drink tea). Good start.

Then had a nice bath and when I got out Steve had made bacon and eggs. Getting better.

Then Asda delivered our groceries. I had signed up for online shopping yesterday and placed an order, only to have the lovely surprise of getting a bonus that took £75 off the total. Seventy five quid! I had to order more food just to make up the total. Even with the cost of delivery we ended up spending less than two quid and the fridge is full! Brilliant!

Then we pootled down the road and things picked up even more.

At the bottom of our hill is a small street of shops that - despite the busy road that runs through it - considers itself a separate community, almost a village in Bath, if you like. It's called Widcombe, and every two years they shut off the street, pull out all the stops, and have a massive street party called Widcombe Rising.

It was today and the sun shone on it with gusto. There was lots of street theatre, all the pubs were serving pints and Pimms, and the restaurants had hog roasts and currys and cakes etc., all out on stalls.

There was a ferris wheel, a helter skelter, a farmers market, morris dancers (obligatory), muscly young acrobats from Oz (nice), balloons and candy floss, and everything that makes up a good party including four different stages playing lots of different music, all day.

Our near neighbour is in a band called the Good Fridays, so we grabbed some Pimms and went to hear their set, and they were great. Plenty of updated eighties hits like 'Tainted love', and a guest appearance on the bongos of a nice chap Sam knew from way back.

Next we watched two hunky acrobats stand on their hands, and on huge piles of chairs, and take their shirts off, and do see-saw stunts, and did I mention, they took their shirts off? Really quite good..

Hungry now, so we wolfed down a hog roast bun each and headed up to the next stage to hear A Handbag of Harmonies, from that show on the telly - Last Choir Standing. Lots of pink, plenty of audience participation, terrific harmonies, great singalong songs, a totally camp conductor in a frilly shirt, and a marvellous Beatles medley to finish it all off. Love, love, loved it.

Needed a sit down now, so it was off to one of the churches for a cream tea, whilst stone masons chipped away outside, showcasing their work, (this is Bath - we have to have some 'posh').

Then, on our way down to the next stage, we bumped into old work colleagues of Steve, one of whom was playing in the band I had planned to see later. Nice touch down with them, arranged to meet up before the set, and mooched off to hear a jazzy funk band called The Bourbons, whilst queueing for the ferris wheel.

As it happens, Steve and I are both terrified of heights, but we tend to get brave every now and then and do battle with this fear by going up the Eiffel Tower or something like that. So today it was the Ferris wheel, which was always called a Big Wheel when I was a kid, but this one wasn't really that big. You could see over the houses at the top (if you looked, which we tried not to do too much ), but that was about all.

We both stayed very still, so as not to rock it, and I can honestly say that that is the tightest Steve has held my hand in a long time, so, result!

Then it was off to the stage for the Demolition Rhythm and Blues Band, and Steve's old mates, and a gin and tonic and chips. They turned out to be excellent. Steve's old mucker who was the lead singer, had a whole Jack Black, Tenacious D thing going, that worked fabulously well.

But it was the dancers who stole the show.

Earlier, the dance floor had been populated by small children and the kind of people who live in a home, not at home, which is all very sweet and I wish I was that brave about my dancing.

Now, however, they had mostly gone and a motley crew of individuals had assembled instead, in a line which moved gradually forward as they got more confident. They were headed up by a young man constructed mostly of tattoos, black shirt, Doc Martins, and a striking resemblance to Dennis Pennis. He danced like he had only minutes to live, but was on powerful drugs, and so didn't care. He busted some good moves too.

Alongside Mr enthusiastic there were two other celebrity lookalikes. There was an Ozzy Osbourne, (if Ozzy hadn't got famous, and actually lived in a caravan outside Chippenham), and a Gilly Goulden (who never let go of her pint the whole time, good on yer, girl).

More people got brave c'os the music was really good, the floor started to fill up, and we had front row seats, naturally.

A chap right in front of me clearly had a sense of rhythm in his head but the rest of his body danced to the beat of a different drum, or possible several. I was riveted. Every part of his body was moving, but no two parts were in time with each other. He was the King of all 'dads at a wedding' and my eyes were glued to him. I just couldn't work out how he (or anybody) could move that way. It was astonishing.

Then, just when we thought it couldn't get any better, SHE came along.

She was young, drunk, barefoot, and wearing a long blue dress. When she started to dance, she hitched up her dress to allow ease of movement, then it all got a bit suggestive, and her dress rode up a lot and she flashed her bum.

At this point, I thought it was accidental.

The more she danced, the more I realised how wrong I was. An old fella who had gamely tried to keep up with Dennis Pennis grabbed her hands for a dance, and, boy, did he get one! She flicked her dress up to boob height repeatedly now, showing all her tattoos and a rather small thong, and finished the dance by holding him close and crotch-humping him.

He was quite old, as I said, and we were all getting worried that she might give him a heart-attack. We never saw him again after that, but we reassurred ourselves that an organised event of this nature was sure to have a St Johns Ambulance on standby somewhere, and besides, she was now the floor show.

She really went for it and whirled around everywhere, flipping her dress up continually and frightening young children with her spotty bottom. I was craning my head to look but all the men were trying to pretend they weren't, and how the band kept focus I really don't know.

Dennis Pennis knew he had been totally upstaged, but frankly, I know pole dancers who would have been embarrassed to dance like that, so he was a worthy second place.

When it was all over we came home to comfy chairs, Top Gear on the telly for the guys, and the computer wating for me. Sam even said he'd got some homework done, so today is stratopherically good.

Sam is currently outside sitting on our steps, talking to the big, gnarly, toad that lives under our patio but has come up to take a little evening air, while I sip hot lemon and write this.

The last scents of honeysuckle drift on the breeze.

This has been a perfect day.

Bar none.

And now I'm off to watch Galaxy Quest - don't you wish you were me?

Keeping up with the Daltons

Day 276

Hello little blog, remember me? I have left you to your own devices for too long but I am back now.

Not been very well actually, and when I have been well, I've been busy. Had a birthday. Not an important one with a zero - that was last year - but still took up some time. Had a great meal out with friends, but am still waiting for a card or pressie from either of my sons, little sods.

Carole Burnett once said that if you want to know what childbirth is like, take your bottom lip and stretch it over your head. Feel like suggesting that to my boys. Then they may be a little more grateful and responsive on my birthday.

Rosie, one of my lovely step-daughters, sent me a cute little jacket that didn't fit her, but - sadly - didn't fit me either. Nice try though.

Been madly painting that commission I got. And when I say madly, I don't just mean my painting technique. The big problem was it took me days to remember how to achieve the effects that I was so effortlessly employing a year ago. I honestly couldn't seem to grasp how to do it anymore. Breakthrough came yesterday, at last, and painting almost complete now. Phew! Paint had to be sanded down half way through as had got so thick.

Oh - did I say? - the patio is finished! Just in time for all the rain. The bruises I sustained re-laying it have nearly all gone so I'd like some sunshine now to brown my legs please.

Steve's work life is all over the shop. The contract he was waiting for and had done months of work for has been put off until end of August. We can't last that long on the wages he earned for the six weeks in Belgium, so that's a no-no. Could be tricky. Oh well - life will send us what we need, as it always does.

Been in hormone hell as well. Hoping this sudden frenzied onslaught of mood swings, exhaustion and weeping heralds the final storm. As my hormones get more out of whack I am hoping it is a sign that the end is in sight. Prefer to think this way whatever the reality.

Haven't had a chance to write any more of my book - this is the first writing I have done for a week and a half. Missing it but the painting is the priority at the moment. Waiting on feedback from Diane and her daughter Ella about the first batch anyway.

I still have one copy of my manuscript outstanding at a publishers. I notice that I do not want to ring them up and prompt them about this in case it prompts them to say "oh forget it then". I will be brave and just do it. This week. Sometime. This is not the right energy to be putting out.

Well that's it for now. I will write properly next time - this was just a catch up to say I'm still here (even if my brain clearly isn't).