From the Archive: 30 April

Sue F's toga party, sometime in 1986

Letts Schoolgirls Diary 1982

Boring day but had a laugh in chemistry learning about water molecules. Went to John's house after tea. Hooray, good he is not going to chuck me after all. What a relief. We are going to a disco on Thursday I will wear my silver sandals.

Boots Scribbling Diary 1985

I wrote to Neil again to tell him it's finished and I don't want to see him any more. I queued for ages at Lion Yard phone boxes to ring him, then when I got through his sister said he was round at our house having tea with mum and Wendy! Grrrr. I keep telling them we've split up. I went for a walk with Andy down by the river, then he came to formal hall with me at college and we went for a drink to the Bath. It wasn't really a 'date' I don't think, he's very shy and so was I and nothing happened. Also he is COOL and I am not so how would that work? However I had a post mortem with Nigel after and he said it was defo a date.

Boots Scribbling Diary 1986

Today I had a freak bout of fitness. Came back from Andy's flat and went on a run down Barton Road. Had to stop twice but it was still good exercise and such a lovely sunny day. Katy and I went to the poetry writing group at the church, really interesting bunch of older women. After lunch I played tennis with Nigel at the sports ground for a couple of hours. Well it was more him teaching me than playing but I think I improved. Had a bath then went for tea with Katy to Pizza Hut. After all that exercise I was a bit knacked. Met Andy in the bar to watch the news, there has been a nuclear reactor accident in Russia.

Boots Scribbling Diary 1989

We were going to Rye but we had a lie in and didn't end up leaving until 12. Unfortunately there was then a massive delay which held us up in the Blackwall Tunnel so we ended up having lunch in McD's in Maidstone which was not at all what we had planned. God I hate it when we don't follow the plan! Aargh. Walked down to Rye harbour and beach, it was very bright and bracing. Steve looked really ill and tired sometimes I worry he's got AIDS (watching too many adverts?) We went to Camber Sands and looked at the old Pontins camp where we went when I was a kid. It was freezing so we had a coffee and came home. We went out for a drink in Whitechapel. He said he was too tired to make love. Again.

.........(got married to a friend from college, then got divorced.....)...........

Boots Scribbling Diary 1996

On my own this evening : He has gone to John M's for the night. I have made a decision that I am not going to help him with his divorce any more, it's just too stressful. I tried to help this morning by developing a suitable financial offer for discussion but he got so tense he practically bit my head off. He always told me it was his wife who wouldn't discuss finances properly but I do begin to wonder about that. Anyway he's on his own with it now and if it doesnt' turn out the way he wants, at least he won't be able to blame me for it. He said he would call this evening but it's 12.15am so I guess I've got the message. He talked across me in a meeting today and made me look like an idiot. What am I even doing here?

Il Papiro, Firenze Diary 1998

Meeting in Leeds in am: they hate me and and my change programme. Too bad. Ante-natal appointment in pm, a new midwife asked me all the same questions as last time and I said I was fine, tired. My blood pressure is normal (hard to believe haha). I will have to work out when to tell people. I can't keep pretending this isn't happening now I have a date and everything. If I have a child with this man, will it be like Damien in The Omen? Not if. When. Oh god.

Oh Brother

Unlike much of the electorate, one of my friends is completely certain about the way he's going to vote. So certain, in fact, that he's a Tory councillor and chair of his county Conservative Association.

We've been having some good old ding-dongs lately, as you can imagine. However this week when I had lunch with him, he was looking pretty smug.

"I've got a secret weapon," he said.

He had received a request at the party office to pay a visit to someone in his ward. "The Brethren would like to help you". Very mysterious. He went to the address, where a tall quietly-spoken man told him he represented the Plymouth Brethren religious community in the area.

"We'd like to help with the election campaign", he offered, to my friend's surprise. "Could we deliver leaflets for you in the local area?"

Well yes, he said. But how does that work? I understand Exclusive Brethren don't vote in elections.

"That's right", he said. "We won't be voting. But we believe in the family values that the Conservatives are promoting. Every member of our community is praying very hard every day for David Cameron to win."

They have already delivered several thousand leaflets. Not to mention their direct line to divine intervention. God does indeed move in mysterious ways.

Taking Matters in Hand

He looks at porn a lot. Not that he's made a big announcement about it or anything like that, but he doesn't delete his browsing history, and I'm not sure he realises that the cable TV bill is itemised.

I think the less of him for this.

It's not for the watching per se, not at all. It's not as if I haven't been known to indulge on my own account. It's not even the fact that he's downstairs on the laptop when I'm upstairs in bed and he could be having real-life sex (long story here....................let's leave that for today).

It's the lack of discernment I object to. Juggworld, Page 3, Mature Red Hot Amateurs....... I am disappointed at the selection of chavvy scrubbers to be found in these low-rent locations. I can't see the appeal of spotty backs - and spotty arses for that matter - shagging on nylon duvets and plastic sofas in tower blocks. Call me a snob.

I secretly despise the poor resource-discovery skills being exhibited here. There is a much wider variety of free-view shows to be found than paying £7.50 a toss on the cable tv (RedTube or YouPorn, anyone?) And if he's prepared to pay then why not invest in something decent? Fellucia Blow has nice hair, too.

I saw a very funny Jack Dee sketch a couple of weeks ago. Recalling Tomorrow's World and the developments it heralded. "In the year 2010," he intoned seriously, "men will spend their evenings hunched over their keyboards wanking like safari park chimps". I laughed as loudly as I liked, for I was upstairs in bed on my own watching TV and he was......downstairs, 'working'.

Boy-porn doesn't always hit the spot for us girls, though. There isn't enough of a build up. One minute he's arrived to fix the washing machine, the next minute they're naked and getting it on. The films that attempt to add in a bit of a preamble are even worse, due to the appalling acting and clunky Eastern European or Dartford accents.

We like foreplay, remember? We like to be in a state of trembling, breathless anticipation before the money-shot. That's why we like Mr Darcy in his wet shirt walking out of the lake in Episode Five, whereas the boys like to see Naughty Nina being double-penetrated and taking a faceful all in the first five minutes otherwise it's too late.

I'm generalising wildly, of course. And because I'm shameless and curious, I've asked quite a lot of the guys I know to weblink me to their favourite porn. Some men are cool with this question, some dodge it, a small few have been outraged. Some will tell me happily, others absolutely won't. I wonder how much they edit their choices........ and inevitably I wonder even more about the boys that won't say.

Maybe it should be the second question on my next-life Suitability Questionnaire?

Shouldn't......But Would

There was an interesting snack-article on MSN today about men you shouldn't fancy but do. They've called it the Top Ten Most Unlikely Fanciable Men. It's an odd selection that includes:

• Simon Cowell (noooooo.......)


• James Corden (too blonde)


• Jeremy Clarkson (oh GOD no)


• Richard Hammond (short, but cute - I would)


• Gordon Ramsay (personally no, but I can kind of see why you might)


• Philip Schofield (too wholesome to bother)


• Barack Obama (yes, I'd give him a go)


• Ricky Gervais (would be a good laugh I expect)


• Alan Rickman (Unquestionably. I challenge his inclusion in the "Unlikely" category - Very Likely).


• Justin Bieber (Illegal. And needs a haircut).

It made me wonder whether I could come up with my own top ten of people I really shouldn't fancy but do. In no particular order:

• Robert Peston


• Eddie Izzard


• My doctor


• Daniel Radcliffe


• The boy who used to babysit for us


• A dad from the school


• One of my clients


• One of my friends


• Susan Sarandon


• Nick Clegg (a little bit)

D'you know? I didn't think I'd get to ten. I've surprised myself there. I don't know if that's a good thing or not!

Les Mots

So I’m back. Did you miss me?

I was unexpectedly detained on a small volcanic island, courtesy of another small volcanic island and its absurd is-it-April-Fools-Day ash cloud. And haven’t all our brains expanded with the new knowledge? Jet streams, vitrification, aircraft engines, sub-glacial faults, the geology and agriculture of Iceland, Atlantic weather systems, ferry timetables to Cadiz, coach timetables from Madrid, the absence of frills that a no-frills airline will provide, the number of possible combinations from a limited half-board menu..... one thing I did to pass the time was to learn how to correctly pronounce Ejafjollajokkull. I am a linguist, after all.

I used the time to test out a number of maxims:

- You can burn even when it’s cloudy
- No two Spaniards make paella in the same way
- L’enfer, c’est les autres
- No-one will miss you when you’re gone

I can confirm that these are all indeed true. Sometimes too much truth can be a bad thing, I reckon. For example, while I was passing the time reading, learning stuff, swimming, necking sangria and so forth, he was mainly taking the opportunity to point out how much weight I had gained over the winter, and how horrible I was looking.

I could not contest the truth of this, but I still didn’t like it.

You’d think having my parents there might have helped, but they present their own challenges when at close quarters for an extended period. My mother likes to ask questions:

- Have the girls got suncream on?
- Have you put your passports in the safe?
- Have you locked your apartment?
- Have you got a drink of water for the car?
- Are you swimming?
- Are you having a jug of sangria?

Yes, mum. My father has a lively mind and is in full fettle with the upcoming election. He likes to preface his conversational gambits with openings such as:

- D’you know what your problem is? It’s.....
- The trouble with people like you is....

I have to put the little continuation dots there as I have no idea what comes after. I find that my ears automatically close over in a Pavlovian way at that sort of trigger.

So I’m back. Me voilà. And the world still turned without me. And the things and the people I missed were all just dandy in the absence of my presence. I didn’t expect anything else, but it still made me feel like an ant.

I took advantage of the enforced absence and fresh air to kick start a diet and exercise campaign. It’s going well, it’s already having a benefit. It's difficult to eat, actually, as I have lockjaw from gritting my teeth so hard the last fortnight.

But when I take the girls to school, I park round the corner and stay in the car. Just in case he was right.

Prince Charming

"I was thinking," he said. "If Russia wanted to annexe Poland, now would be the perfect time. Their control structure is weak after the plane crash, and there is no air cover. They could walk straight in with tanks and it would all be over in a day".

Fuck. I am married to a man who can conceive of worse wickedness than Putin. How about that.

I reckon I'll choose my next husband more carefully (hollow, ironic laughter). Third time lucky, heh? One of the questions on my extensive suitability quiz will be about favourite books. As some of the indicators I used both times before (music, films, cuisine for instance) have proved to be a poor basis for long term matching.

My first husband's favourite book was Hermann Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel. A great book, yes, but what kind of a person would take it as their seminal text? That's not a rhetorical question: I know the answer to that one. Hence my first divorce.

Oooh, Freudian slip there.....my only divorce. So far.

And now. My favourite book: Le Petit Prince. His: The Prince.

Shouldn't that have told me everything?

Cloud on the Horizon

Being stranded in a comfortable apartment by the pool in a sunny holiday resort really isn't that bad. Sunbathe. Swim. Drink sangria. Relax. What on earth could go wrong with this dream-come-true scenario?

I am facing the appalling, nightmarish prospect of running out of books.

I am down to the last one. It’s long, and not a rushed read with its small type and its rich content, but it won’t last me beyond mid morning tomorrow at the latest - I’m already a quarter of the way through.

After that I am left to rifle the “library” in Reception (Dick Francis, Dan Browne, Alan Titchmarsh). Or a several-days-old copy of the Daily Mail. I was once driven to read a Dick Francis, on a holiday with my ex and his parents. The book was shit, but listening to my father-in-law tell his racist, sexist, homophobic jokes would have been even worse I expect.

People laugh at me on holiday as I often read non-holiday-ish things - on the basis that this is my main reading time and I can tackle books for several hours at a stretch. At home if I manage any reading it’s before bed, and I can’t often stay awake for long. Besides, I’ve been doing a lot of needing-reading (insolvency, raising tweenagers, internet safety, so forth). Previous holiday reads have included a history of modern Britain, a biography of Albert Speer and novels in other languages, just for the practice. I feel that if we are stranded a moment longer I might be in danger of adding to my short but pithy GoodReads categories of Started-but-couldn’t-finish and Never-again.

These bloody Icelanders. Punching above their puny weight with their over-fishing of our cod and their pinching of our savings and their stuffing-up of our travel plans. Who the hell do they think they are? They may well have seventy-two words for snow but I wonder how many words they’ve got for unpopular?

I flirted for a moment or two with the heretical idea of buying an E-Reader. I even thought of looking on line to compare brands and styles and features. Then I thought about the voice of wisdom.

“It’s not the same,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like a book”.

He’s right. As he so often is. I already know I’m not the kind of person who buys music downloads. I like to browse my CDs, enjoy the cover art, savour the process of taking the disc from its case, putting it into the player. I confess I’m still playing, and indeed buying, vinyl, for those reasons. Ever hear a song on the radio and find you’re listening out for the jump, the scratch, the infinitesimal blip from your own well-worn, bought-when-it-came-out single?

I love to hold and handle a book. Beautiful crisp Folio Society hardbacks with their elegant fonts, old leather editions that gave the smell to those late-night essay writing stints in the college library, soft American paperbacks that fold right over. A book is the perfect gift, the ideal companion.

I just need to bring more with me, in case of emergencies. God forbid we should have to rely on conversation to pass the time.

Synchro

So many of the great love stories are about the pursuit rather than the capture. They don’t often explain what happened after the Happily-Ever-After. I think this must mean that for many people the journey is more exciting than the destination. Fairy tales always end not start with the first kiss, have you noticed? Perhaps this is why they say that anticipation is nine-tenths of the pleasure.

I always thought that was ridiculous.

It’s not that I don’t like the hunt. There is a thrill in the meeting of an eye, the first words, the feeling of a lock tumbling into its combination as common ground, common views, common passions are discovered and shared. There’s the excitement of the first kiss, the first touch, the first orgasm even.

I’ve always felt that part is the pre-amble, the introduction. It’s like an overture to an opera, with tantalising tastes of all the moments to come, the themes that will weave together to create the main story. The complicated route to that first kiss should not be rushed, no. It should be savoured, lingered over, sostenuto.

For me that kiss is not an end in itself. That moment when you realise the answer is Yes, for me that’s opening the gate to the garden of wonders.

The worry is that for all the things you might have in common with someone, if you don’t share their view on the ratios of anticipation and pleasure, it isn’t going to come right. Thinking mathematically, I’m probably of the view that it’s about 1:9 and not the other way around. This might pose problems for me.

For instance, I’ve known a few people who have spent years holding their breath. A man who waited years and years until after marriage to have sex with his wife, but left her later for a mistress with whom he stayed with for a short while before becoming bored and moving on again. A man who relentlessly pursued someone else’s wife every hour of the day and night, using every charm in his not inconsiderable arsenal to get her to leave and move in with him; at which point he found her too easily won and withheld all aforementioned charms forthwith. A man who assiduously wined and dined for several years a woman he thought might one day sleep with him, whilst fantasising daily about a particular scenario. He met a different woman who willingly, thrillingly brought his fantasies to life in the flesh but soon decided that perhaps variety was the spice of life after all. The patience to engage in a lengthy preamble is it seems no reliable pre-indicator of an ability to see things through on a similar timescale.

Open your kimono too early, welcome them into your arms and that very instant is for those people the pinnacle, the zenith, the very most exciting moment. Sometimes after that, all you can do is drop suddenly from cloud nine as you realise that you’re completely of our synch. Wave and smile perhaps, as you pass them going downhill the other way.

I realise now, it would be useful to identify right at the start into which camp your object of desire falls. Will they approach you like the maze at Hampton Court – a puzzle to be solved, get to the middle then everyone can go home? Or do they want to take your hand and go exploring together?

A significant amount of heartache could perhaps in this way be avoided.

Family Album

Take anyone our age and their family photos look - familiar.

They start with the baby in the receiving blanket, and then out in the park in the shade of an imposing cedar (or perhaps for us, even an elm) sitting up in an enormous Silver Cross pram with mother in a dress that you’d be thrilled to find in a funky vintage clothing boutique.

Next comes the christening, with mother and grandmother in hats, dress and matching jacket or coat, possibly even gloves depending on the season. Absolutely everyone was christened in those days , and went to Sunday school too.

Before you know it, we’re on the pier, the colours faded to pastel, keeping warm in hideous handknitted cardigans. There’s a picnic beside the Morris Traveller, making a snowman (more handknitting: mittens and balaclavas), gap-toothed school photos with messy-haired siblings, andthe inevitable rainy camping trip.

Progressing on to seniors, there’s the new bike, orchestra or football or swimming festivals and more bracing British beaches. We’re becoming more self-conscious now, looking sidelong or even away, our arms and legs too long, our features growing before the rest of our faces and leaving us feeling ungainly and awkward.

If you notice carefully, if you made a year by year photo study of a person growing up from the Sixties until now, you’d see that they don’t regain their confidence in front of the lens until very much later in life. That uncomfortable feeling from those difficult teen years takes a long time to wear off - if it ever does.

Unless you happened to be the child of a photo-journalist, any amount of study of a chronology of your life from your photo album would be a false, weird, skewed, view. If a person in a thousand years’ time tried to learn about the twentieth century from family photos, he’d think that our lives consisted principally of constructing elaborate sandcastles, wearing fancy dress, opening gifts and going on the ferry to the Isle of Wight. Our religion must include ceremonies with cakes – lighting them and blowing them out, cutting them; and with clothes - white dresses, black gowns and strange hats, little ties in a bow at the neck.

The photos don’t show many of the real turning points because we don’t photograph those. Even when we recognise them we don’t take a photo. You might have your wedding photos in there, but not the day you agreed to get engaged when you already knew it was a mistake. You won’t have your grandad’s funeral, or the day got turned down for the university you really wanted or the sports team you hoped to play for. You won’t have a picture sitting up in hospital the day you lost the baby, or throwing up on the hard shoulder of the M1 when you got so drunk after that big argument in Scarborough. And we don’t see the long, slow slide into frustration and boredom and maybe even despair – you just stop appearing in the pictures: you’re the photographer now. Observing life rather than living it.

Sometimes if you look at someone else’s photos, they’re so very similar that you start to compare notes. This was where? And when? And you were how old? Sometimes even, you work out you were in the same place at the same time. How funny! What a small world after all.

And then you have to wonder What If. Even when you never allow yourself to play that game. What if you had met that awkward-looking, self-conscious young adult, when you too were gawky and skinny and too shy to look straight on at the camera? How might things have been different? How many of those non-photographed bad parts could have been avoided? Or does the gift of making people smile and blossom and grow into themselves, to tread firmly and take the world head-on, does that only come later in life, because of all the other things?

Everything would have been different.

Well, of course it would have been. That’s obvious. But would it have been better? Or is the journey from centre-of-attention, to observer, to frustration at being a spectator, to stepping back onto the pitch and entering the game again, is that an inevitable trajectory?

I want the impossible. I want to turn back the clock. I want to meet that young man. I want to make him laugh in his photos.

Conundrum

There are things that I have that I never really wanted. And there are things I want that I know I can't have.

Of all the possible lives, I'm living this one.

But is it possible to weave in threads from some of those other lives into this life?

From the Archive: July 1985

Boots Scribbling Diary 1985. In pencil. I hd invnted abbrv. wrtg b4 txting ws evr concvd.

Saturday 13 July 1985

Slow start. After a false start involving some tequila-fuelled dry heaving. Lovely. (I had been dancing in a rock and roll championship in Streatham the night before and had a riotous journey back on a coach late at night with my dancing partner, and the rest of the team). Have been trying to get a decent Madonna poster for Nige's birthday. That boy has such predictable taste. Had yet another discussion about The Appropriateness Of Waitressing with Dr Hunter. A man who has probably never lived outside an ancient and renowned educational establishment of some kind. Ever. I need to get a job here there are no jobs at home - I am skint I have been living on toast and cupasoup since exams. He is going to sort something out at Newnham, so he reckons. Went to watch John B & Rick play cricket up at St John's ground. It's hot, my nose has a red stripe of sunburn. We are going to a party with them tonight, there is a big live concert on TV and it will be on at the party. Dunno if is a posh boy with a TV at St John's or maybe in the JCR. Am not drinking tequila. I am resolved to pull.

Seems the party was ok but I did not pull. Five years later I married one of the cricketers - which turned out to be a mistake. I guess if I'd really fancied him, I'd have got off with him at the party. Fifteen years later to the very day I gave birth to my second daughter.

Slow Learner

See?

This is what happens if you come out of the submarine, forget yourself, relax and start living in the moment.

Warbling away on my fencepost. Then maybe just noticing out the corner of an eye my possible fate.

I can outrun it for now, but I'm on borrowed time.

Like I said, I'm a slow learner.

From the Archive: May 2008

I was thinking again about choice and chance, and it made me remember a post I'd written in 2008.

One door closes, another door opens. That’s a nice idea.

Thing is, life doesn’t always work like that, does it? There are times when one door closes, and - it just closes. The opportunity has gone and it won’t be coming back. John Lennon was shot and now you’ll never see the Beatles play live.

You wouldn’t close one of these doors if you thought there was the tiniest prospect you might want to pass through it later. Maybe sometimes you don’t have a choice. Or what about those times when you didn’t even realise the door was there until you hear it clang shut ominously behind you? Or the sudden breeze and then there’s a slam - is that bad luck? Or random? Or part of the cosmic pattern? The beat of a butterfly’s wing on the other side of the world?

The path-in-the-wood analogy is one we love, so evocative. But even when we’ve chosen the road less travelled, and wandered down it quite happily for ages, it gives a feeling that perhaps we could re-trace our steps and choose the other path later if it didn’t turn out as we’d hoped.

Life just isn’t like that.

Maybe this realisation is the part where we finally grow up. The part where we start to understand that some doors are closed to us forever now. The part where we have to accept that and look onwards to the bright doors that are still ahead of us.

Does it get easier, in time, to do that? After a while, will I stop looking behind me to those tightly-closed doors tinged the soft dove-grey of regret?

Soho Afternoons

Here's to long boozy lunches that carry on in the pub until 6pm.

Sometimes you just don't wanna go home.

Lying Awake, Thinking

Sometimes, though, I can identify specific points where the path forked. Sometimes I think I made a good choice, sometimes I wish I'd made a different one.

I say to myself that I live my life without If Onlys and What Ifs, but I don't think that's really true. I am trying to reassure myself that everything is ok. Nowadays I seize the moments that present themselves, but the path has less and less branches the more that time goes on.

I'd have liked to have tried some of the other routes. It is hard to consider other possibliities without feeling - wistful.

The Path

Every time I go to London on the train, I see the path.

I've been travelling this route for sixteen years now, give or take, and the path is haunting me. Summer and winter it cuts up across the hillside, on the diagonal and into the woods. Then just beyond at the end of the hill is a large open building looking out across the valley.

I've finally looked this structure up and it's called the Dashwood Mausoleum, reputed meeting-place of the Hellfire Club, so I kind of knew of it after all. It's not the building that interests me though, it's the path itself.

Sometimes there are walkers on the path, sometimes it just stretches upwards towards the tree line, beckoning. Every time I pass it, I feel that I'm passing by a different life, a life where I am walking up to the woods. I dream about this path, about treading its short green turf, about turning back at the edge of the shadows to see the train going past in the dip of the valley.

We talked about that today. About the forks in the road, the labyrinth of probability and its infinite possibilities. If he hadn't caught that bus, if I hadn't accepted that job.....we wouldn't be here now. But where would we be instead, and would it really be that different? He thought maybe yes, I thought maybe not.

So he misses the bus, and he doesn't meet the girl who became his wife. He meets a different girl on a different night, another clever girl, studying hard like him. He gets qualified, she gets qualified. They get married, have some children, he travels on the train into work at the bank, the minstry, the firm.

I don't take the job, I go for something different. Do I stay married to the kind, brotherly friend from university? Or do I still leave him for someone who seems like a bold and different choice but ultimately turns out to be - unsuitable? How many of the choices we make are predicted by our nature? And what is the balance between chance and choice? I think we might still end up where we are.

If two people were in the same place at the same time, let's say at the same parties at university, or working round the corner from one another for years, or travelling in from the same part of town - were they always meant to meet, or never supposed to? And if they do, is it fate or random meaningless chance?

I don't think any of the choices I've made would have led me to a life where I was walking up a grassy path on a work day, watching the train go by at the bottom of the hill. I wouldn't see an appeal in that life until I'd already lived this one. Maybe it's not my parallel existence, maybe it's my future?

One day soon I am going to take the 0649 not in my suit and heels but in my walking boots. I'm going to get off at High Wycombe, walk back down the line to the start of the path and stride up to the top of the hill, through the trees and out to the clear grass in front of the building. I'm going to have a cup of tea from my flask and watch the trains go by.

Life doesn't change until you make different choices, I guess.

The Price of Coal

The official death toll for the mining industry in China last year was 2,631. If that's the official figure, imagine what the actual figure must be.

It's hardly a wonder their coal is cheaper than ours.

You might as well stack dead bodies up like kindling outside the power stations.

Girls Night Out

I was getting ready to go dancing. I don't go out often and I was looking forward to it. Ten of us were going, all girls, good friends.

Getting ready is almost as much fun as going out itself. I never realised this until I had the children, and had a decade of getting ready (on those rare occasions we went out) in the few minutes between settling the kids down and leaving the house. So now I have time again I relish the process. Shower, body scrub, body lotions and potions, all manner of concoctions for soft and silky hair. Toenails, fingernails, curlers, make up, perfume and choosing the right outfit.

Tonight I'd chosen cool but casual. Fresh cotton tunic over a white vest, jeans, and my red dancing shoes. Lipstick to match and we were all set, the girlfriends arriving any second for cocktails before a giggly stroll to town around ten.

I was in a great, great mood. I love music, dancing, fun. "You should come with us next time!" I said to him. "Jim will be there, and Andy, and the music is great. It would be fun to go in a big group".

He looked at me and frowned. "You don't get it, do you?"

It would appear not.

"I won't be going anywhere with you. Not now, not in the future. You look terrible. You look fat. You look ridiculous. I'm ashamed to be seen with you. Why do you think I don't take you along to anything?"

I stopped in my tracks. Looked in the mirror.

"You're exposing the children to a serious risk of being bullied at school. People will be talking about you. It's not nice for the girls".

I didn't go dancing. No amount of getting ready was going to make any difference.