Raindrops on kittens and whiskers on roses...

Day 157

I am struggling a little with the difference between how things are and how I would wish them to be. In truth, isn't that all we ever really struggle with - life either endowing us or restricting us in ways we don't like? My current bogeymen are insomnia and exhaustion, and an increasingly sneaky little devil called guilt. I have trouble with the reality of it being day 157, and I am no nearer my goals than when I started.

But -

I prefer not to dwell or wallow, even when I am as hormonal and off my stride as this week - negative thinking simply begets more. So, instead, I shall compile a positive things list, my 'raindrops on roses', if you will.

1. I love COLOUR. Love it. Favourites at the moment are duck-egg blue, and rich, coral pink. I love scarlet teemed with ice-blue the way they did in 50's diners. I like yellow but only if it comes as a rose or a baby chicken, not otherwise, but turquoise always makes me happy, and aubergine is wonderful.

Rosie has a teal velvet sofa - I swear it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. When I saw Mary Poppins as a five year old kid, I came away with a dazzled memory of Glynis Johns wearing lavender with buttercup frills. Wedgewood blue has coloured many of my dreams. When I read 'The thorn birds' I was captivated by the sound of Meggie's dress, the colour described as 'ashes of roses' - there is pure enchantment in a name like that.

I painted my last kitchen red with an olive green dining room leading into it. The inspiration was a funky seventies glass vase in olive that I found in a charity shop. The kitchen had black and white chequer board tiles which were wonderful with the deep red - it was all screamingly kitsch and fabulous. Made me smile every time I went in.

2. I love books. What else can you buy for under a tenner that has all the wisdom, knowledge and skill of a whole life? The great classics of literature are a feast for the soul. I love to be taken on a journey, far away from myself, to inhabit a different life or country or time, and then to come home again, enriched, moved, maybe even changed. No holiday does all that (at least mine don't).

3. I love the scent of newly bathed babies. People who believe in such things say you can tell when an angel has passed by from the lingering aroma of lilacs - I think babies smell like newness and wonder and softness and miracles. I love the clinging, unconscious grasp of their tiny hands, and the dough-ripe squish of their tummies.

I love watching toddlers having tantrums, fists balled up in fury, every ounce of them concentrating on having you HEAR THEM - NOW!!!!! They are so unafraid, so unaware of the odds stacked against them sizewise, not caring one jot for appropriateness of behaviour or niceness or any of that rubbish. They know their own worth, their indisputable place at the very centre of the universe. They will never be so free or brave or extraordinary again.

4. I love good food. I like having insatiable passions for things that I overindulge in for a while, then discover the next glorious thing. At the moment I could eat blueberries till I look like Verruca Salt. When I was pregnant with Joe all I wanted was brown bread and butter and radishes, and I still consider this a bit of a treat. There was also a time when my perfect lunch was cream crackers with philly cheese, a thin slice of pear and a mint leaf on top. Just great. I can chart my past with meals I have loved.

I like cooking with no set plan in mind, finding new ways to use up half a carrot, one onion, two mushrooms and a dollop of pesto. I like Mediterranean style food best, and am a sucker for anything fresh and juicy. I adore strawberries, mangoes, melons, cherries, and pineapple, as much for the smell as the taste.

Salads are my forte. I like a meal where everyone gathers and grazes, tearing off chunks of Pain Parisienne, and passing round bowls of gleaming olives, silk thin cured meats, jewel like cherry tomatoes, rich chutneys, and plenty of cheeses. Add a homemade quiche, a roasted pepper pasta salad, and a dipping bowl of glistening olive oil and ebony balsamic vinegar, and I'm in Heaven. (oooh making myself hungry now, time to move on).

5. Laughter. Best thing ever. Love doing it, love listening to it. Absolutely can't resist the SMA ad with the giggling babies on it. I get told off for laughing (very) out loud in shops when I'm choosing a greetings card and I've just got to the funny ones. I take no notice.

When we lived in a semi in Dorchester a few years ago, our lovely neighbour Mike told Steve that he really liked hearing my laugh through the wall - it was almost the only thing that penetated. At my birthday I was given a much treasured (but not attractive) picture of me laughing so hard coming back from bar in Berlin, that I was on my hands and knees on the pavement. Good times, baby, good times.

That will do for now - I am much cheered, and seeing my glass through it's proper perspective again. I feel maybe as Yeat did when he wrote with longing .....

I will arise and go now, and go to Innesfree
And a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made.
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone inthe bee-loud glade.

It is the small things that make our lives wonderful, that thread through our individual stories and tie us back to happiness. The very best things are free and juicy and fresh and loud and pink.

Finding my 'food story'

Day 93

It is now three months since I started blogging so it is time to take stock. Have just reviewed my first day blog, and while some things have changed, it is not as many as I had hoped, though probably more than I expected.

For one thing, I can now find more energy, focus and determination than I managed then, despite my illness. I did finish my book, I did send it off to lots of agents and - even if they have now all sent back rejections - it is only the first step. After Christmas I will start targeting publishers, and there are many, many more of them than agents, so that will keep me busy for a while.

As to my health, that isn't much better, but then I haven't been giving it much priority. I was expecting Steve to be back at work by now and I saw that as a time when I could focus just on myself more. There would be less distraction and more space to take things at my own pace, set my own agenda.

I am concerned that I may have been using that as an excuse to over-indulge in foods that disagree with me and hinder my healing. I keep telling myself I will do better at that once he is at work, but wonder if I'm just prolonging the condition by failing to knuckle down and do what is necessary.

I'm lucky in that my favourite foods are reasonably good for my body - I am not a chocoholic - but tiredness plays a big part in defining the meal choices that I make at the moment, and they are often less than good.

Unfortunately, changing those habits does feel like hard work - a punishment, almost - and I need to work through those issues as well, or I suspect my success will be limited. When I look back into my past, I see that my 'food story' is complicated and not very healthy.

As a child, I was emotionally abandoned by my mother very early on. With hindsight, it is probable that she had post-natal depression after my sister was born which developed into the same depressive and mood altering illness that I, in my turn, was struck down by. I was only four at the time, so all I knew was that I got shouted at constantly, and could do absolutely nothing right in her eyes from then on until her death, when I was 23.

My father stopped protecting me from her when I hit teenage, and even took her side against me, though he knew she lied. Worn down by her mood swings and vicious temper, he stopped standing up to her, probably suffering from depression himself.

As a family, we were constantly broke as well, which added extra pressure, and ensured that any scrap of something that was comforting was in short supply. A special treat was a Mars bar split between five, each of us hoping for the extra chocolaty piece from the end.

I used to steal food. I would find where biscuits or cashew nuts were hidden, (note, hidden, not available), and pinch as many as I thought I could get away with. This was the seventies, by the way, not some post war, ration book existence!

So now I find self denial really hard to do. When I have been on strict diets to help my body heal itself, I have felt emotionally distressed and often deeply sad. I think I still identify with that little girl looking for comfort any way she can, and denying myself a glass of wine or even a piece of toast and butter, takes me back to that time at an unconscious, cellular level.

I suspect I am accusing myself of taking up the mantel dropped by my mother, and continuing to treat that little girl badly by denying her what she wants and should be allowed to have. In order to resolve my health issues, I need to deal with these emotional ties - that bind food with love, and make it about comfort and safety, rather than nourishment and health.

This is not so straightforward.

No wonder I have been waiting for Steve to go back to work before tackling it!

And for Christmas to be over, obviously.