Errors of Judgement

The au pair had arranged for a romantic birthday dinner, just the two of us. Table booked, babysitting all arranged, everything.

She hasn't been with us long, not long enough to realise. Doesn't understand the lack of yelling and slamming doors is because we go to some effort these days (undiscussed of course) not to be around the place at the same time. I think it's working quite well, but the broken-hearted Sicilian thinks it's shame.

Even getting ready to go anywhere with him makes me feel sick with tension these days. I proposed a couple of outfits: No. Tried a couple more on: shake of the head. In the end, a dress, jacket, shoes and handbag were all deemed to be acceptable, although by now I didn't feel good in anything I tried on. At least I had the small satisfaction of realising that in my new red shoes, I reckon I was actually taller than him. Shame we would be sitting down.

Off we went. He didn't like the first table they showed us to, but fortunately the second passed muster. I tried to focus on being pleasant and having a good time, but every item I considered from the menu met with a frown. This was annoying as I had only consumed two SlimFast shakes during the day and therefore felt I could have had any of the light fishy things I'd fancied. No matter. I smiled and asked him to choose for me, since it clearly mattered more to him than it did to me.

During the meal, we had a number of conversations. I was encouraged to think about cosmetic surgery, again. I was told I was not as good at my job as I used to be. I was given some tips in how to fit my own activities more conveniently around his schedule. He told me about a painting course he was thinking of attending in Italy. I told him about the couple of days I planned to spend on my writing, but he was concerned I wouldn't fit it in to my family commitments.

I didn't fancy dessert, funnily enough, so we window-shopped for a few minutes then came home. It was warm, so we sat on the bench in the garden with a cup of tea. "You seem a bit quiet tonight", he said. "Have you had a nice time?"

"Just a bit tired", I said. Tired of all this, sick and tired.

Birthday Letters

I had a great birthday email from my mother. Short but pithy (unlike many of her communications so thank heaven for small mercies, I suppose). Only five lines long in total, it centred on the following:

I can’t believe that we have a child who is middle aged! This means a new era begins in looking after your health as you approach your next stage. At the same time you will be watching your children approaching adult hood.

I didn’t phone her straight away. She’s easily upset if you say the wrong thing - which is pretty astonishing given her own crashing tactlessness. And I thought I might very easily say the wrong thing. I was smarting badly from the dreaded “middle aged”, quite apart from the general sentiment.

She rang me, we chit-chatted a little. I tried, oh so hard, not to mention it. But in the end I decided to say that I thought these days we didn’t really think of ourselves as “middle-aged” at 44 (or indeed any age, I suspect) and that according to the latest socio-demographic classifications, I am what they call an adultescent. It was a little bit lost on her.

“Yes, I was thinking about that”, she rambled. “Your eldest daughter is just about to start her periods, and you’re about to have your menopause”.

I beg your pardon?!

Is it possible that I am suddenly much older than I think? Or that I’m completely kidding myself? Or that she’s lost track of time and jumped ahead a decade? Hold on, I’m trying to think of a rational explanation here, and it’s Mum. There isn’t one. Daughter No 1 put it quite well, in her teen-speak. “Granny is like, totally random”.

It’s Mum’s birthday tomorrow. I’ve forgotten to buy her a card (not too old to heark back to my swot-like reading in the original German of Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens and divine the possible significance of this, in the circumstances.....)

So tempting to drop her an email saying “I can’t believe my mum is a little old lady”. I know this wouldn’t fit with her jiving, and yoga, and bodypump and international travel but I may not be able to resist......

Great Expectations

Maybe a birthday is better than New Year's Day for thinking about the year that's gone and the year ahead. Thank heavens today for my friends, without whom my birthday would have passed unremarked. Throughout the day they were in touch: little messages, little gifts, texts, voicemails. And of course I'd had a lovely day yesterday, and bought myself some nice things too.

But I did spend some time thinking about what I am missing. Not in terms of gifts - I have plenty of stuff, and plenty of money to buy myself any more stuff that may suddenly be desired or needed. I am wondering - the audacity of hope - whether it is possible for me to love someone who would actually love me right back?

I have gone through most of my adult life in love with a succession of men who didn't or couldn't or wouldn't let themselves reciprocate. And you know what? I accepted that was the natural situation, because I knew I was hard to love. Always been told that.

Now you wouldn't think that wanting someone to love you was too much to ask, would you? I accept the reality of the situation that I'm in. I don't mean that kind of let's-turn-everything-upside-down-and-run-away-together love: after all, we're all lying dutifully in the beds we made, that's the sort of people that we are. I mean love within the limits of where we are in life. Simply, in the moment, feeling it, and looking into my eyes and saying so.

God, it's been a long time.

Birthday Treats

Sean *sigh*

I treated myself: it's my birthday. Not merely to a picture of Sean, but to a spendid luxurious Mulberry handbag, and other treats. And it's still five minutes to midnight, so that's all part of the warm up. I'm indulging myself right now in rolling back the years.

Letts Schoolgirl Diary, 1982

Well, I am 16 today! I got a lovely watch and a cardie and other little presents from my friends. Went to extra French at dinner and did a dictation in German. After school, Helen came round and bought me some perfume. Went to the VIth form leavers party. Had birthday kisses (well, snogs more like) from Meakin, Elmo and Peter Isle. Had a slow dance with Mark Corden but he was a really sloppy kisser. Went to bed at 1am as it is our last day of school before O levels start in two weeks! Happy birthday to me!

Boots Scribbling Diary, 1985

It is my birthday and Whit Sunday yet I am revising for an exam which is tomorrow, even though it's bank holiday Monday! I hope there is a question on Zola, since I have over-read in that area (all that racy sex, murders etc: excellent) and other stuff maybe less well prepared. Turns out Katy and I have come bottom in the housing draw and cannot live in college accommodation at all next year. May well be time to play the "first year of women" card..... Attempted to make soup in the new pressure cooker but we didn't set the top properly so now it has sprayed vegetables at very high pressure onto the very high ceiling. Laughed so much my stomach is still hurting, then went to Fitzbillies and got Chelsea buns. With candles in. Happy birthday me.

Boots Scribbling Diary, 1986

Whit Monday. Set my clock at the crazy time of 7.30am to make sure I didn't miss the exam, but woke up every hour or so anyway (not that I was worried!) In the morning I had C20th French Lit paper. I did a section A essay on the nouveau roman which was quite good (if unstructured), chose essays on Ionesco and Proust, they were ok too. After lunch I had C20th German Lit exam: an essay on Buddenbrooks which had only the most tenuous link to the title, then wrote a Brecht essay on a quote I couldn't quite get the nuance of. Hauptmann and Freud questions were better, but I must do some more reading. I was left with no choice of questions at all. The evening was the best part of my birthday by miles, went to the Eraina with Andy, Alan & Nigel, Katy has more exams tmw. I have no more till Thurs. French prose. Bonne anniversaire.

Boots Scribbling Diary, 1987

(scribbled) am: German Prose, 3 hours, Sidgwick Site. pm: German Translation, Sidgwick. Fuckin' RUBBISH way to spend my 21st birthday 6 hours of VERY HARD Finals papers. Did not go out out or anything as headache and two more 3 hour exams tomorrow.

Wow, I must have been quite intelligent, once! I've decided not to post the other entries I've got as they are showing me that I have made a series of bad relationship choices (tell me something I don't know!) and that I am a slow learner (tell me something else I don't know).

I'm in a really awesomely good mood and I intend to stay that way. Happy birthday to me!

Bitter Endings

Oh god. Yet another couple in our group of friends has announced they are splitting up. The house goes on the market this week, they've told the children, they've told the schools, told their parents even.

And as usual, it's the wife who's driving the split. Because she's quite simply had enough. And as usual, all the women were thinking this is the inevitable sad end to a situation that has been deteriorating before our observant, empathetic eyes for a number of years. And as usual, the men are completed stunned and astounded, it's unbelievable they say, what is she thinking? She has a lovely life. She must be mad. In fact she must need counselling. She's broken, maybe therapy can fix her.

It was the usual story. Two clever graduates meet and pursue their careers. They want a family, so they have one. Wife has three children, has major domestic hassle to deal with, and attempts to continue her career. Husband carries on exactly as he did before, but now he has lovely children to cuddle when he's at home and not busy with his MBA, hockey, conferences abroad and so forth. Wife is running herself ragged doing all the mum-stuff, plus a full-on boy-job at work (top-flight automotive engineer no less), plus all the boy stuff at home. Husband manages the odd boy-job (when he's there) but then collects great glory from his friends by cooking a fantastic barbecue once a year (he never cooks the rest of the time). This, along with constructing a swing, enables him to join the ranks of the Superdads.

It's easy to be a Superdad. Push the pushchair once or twice through town, change a nappy when other people are around, have the kids for one weekend while your wife goes to the spa and job done. Fuck's sake.

Being a Superhusband would be much harder. It's like comparing a walk down the towpath with a trek to the Pole. The boys just aren't remotely up to it (and I use the term boys advisedly). Being a Superhusband would involve doing all the boy-jobs at home every weekend; taking it as read that the wife will wish to pursue the career she's been working so hard towards since before you even met her; acknowledging that both partners should have time to see friends and pursue a leisure activity or two; doing your half (it's more than a bit); and making time for long, considerate sex with tons of foreplay. This shouldn't be insurmountably difficult and yet it appears to be impossible, based on the evidence.

The children adjust really well to these changes. Bearing in mind three of my good friends have got divorced in the last 3 years, I can see this up close. The kids that are struggling are the ones whose parents are arguing. Damn damn damn: this is ruining my theory about sticking it out for the children.

Thing is, it reaches a point where we're left to our own devices so much, it makes no difference whether he's there or not, and the children only see him at weekends anyway. Boys, what are you thinking?? You're hopeless and lonely on your own, and it would take so little effort.....

Potty

I’m on a healthy eating kick at the moment (with the exception of my Whitstable fish’n’chips, for which I starved all day). I chose muesli for my Kent hotel breakfast, and dutifully mixed in a good spoonful of each attractively-presented addition: almonds, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, chopped dried apricots, linseeds, flaked almonds, flaked coconut, golden raisins, extra All-Bran. Forswearing the bacon, sausages, hash brown and even the scrambled eggs, I selected a low-fat organic yoghurt to go alongside, and tucked in.

After the first five minutes, I began to feel as though I was taking part in one of those Japanese television endurance events. I sipped another glass of pomegranate juice and read the paper for a while, to allow the oaty, wheaty, bran-y bits to soften up a bit. The waitress came over to refill the tea.

“Ooh”, she said. “That’ll keep you nice and regular”.

Set me thinking, as I chomped. Set me thinking about those days when the only moment you have to yourself is in the loo. When it’s the only chance to check your personal emails and texts, the only time to get away from your colleagues, or your family. Once I had a job where it was so boring, and I was so exhausted from the lack of interest and stimulation, that I would go and sit in the luxy carpeted Ladies cubicle in the executive suite and have a little snooze, soothed by the warm air from the hand-dryer.

One of my colleagues a few years ago gave me some interesting feedback. “The girls dread working on projects with you because you never go to the toilet, all day, ever. And when they ask if they can go, you say it’s not a good time and they should hang on”.

I thought about this. They’re not completely right. I don’t go between 9am and3.30pm. I don’t go from the first school bell until home time. Twenty-five years later and still worrying that Michelle and Renetta would be waiting in there to slam my head against the paper towel dispenser, and kick the lock off the door, and when they were feeling really evil to burn the back of my hands or the back of my neck with cigarettes. I realised how all that time later I was still organising my whole day to make sure I didn’t go to the loo. Half a cup of tea at breakfast, perhaps a few sips of water with lunch. I thought my dry lips and dry eyes were because I wore contact lenses, used the wrong moisturisers.

I never connected any of this with my endless kidney and bladder problems, trips to hospital, investigations. Eventually one of the consultants asked me to keep a diary for a month of everything I ate and drank. “I’ve never seen anyone drink so little”, he said in amazement. “Your body can’t function properly with such a low amount of fluid. Your kidneys and bladder are being subjected to terrible strain.” He asked whether I had a dry mouth, headaches, sore eyes. Yes I did, constantly. “Your body has signals that tell you to drink. Listen to them”.

This session coincided with the sudden interest in hydration, the situation we now have where everyone has to go about their daily life with a bottle of water clutched alongside. I make sure I drink my six to eight glasses of water a day, often a lot more. I do feel better for it, and I don’t have all the problems I had before. And of course I pee endlessly. Drinking water and peeing still happen mainly after 3.30pm though, just in case.

Funny, isn’t it? You never forget the names of the bullies.

Pas de Deux

I spend a fair bit of time these days with people who are struggling in their relationships.

I try to be responsible and give good advice. "Spend time together. Go out on a date. Take a break away together. Do things as a couple, like you used to. Make an effort to re-connect".

Eventually I thought I'd take my own advice. So we've come away together for an evening to go to a function.

And I'd like to formally withdraw all the aforementioned advice.

Don't do it. Take it from me, it's not a good idea.

Whitstable

Sometimes I'm so caught up in work, I don't know what the weather's like. This evening it wasn't until I'd finished my meetings that I realised it was a lovely day. Perfect weather for a drive to the coast.

Surely everyone would have the same idea? But the traffic thinned as the motorway disappeared in the rear view mirror, and suddenly there it is: I can see the sea. The moment of recognition still exciting, even growing up round the corner from the beach.

The tide was in, lazily tumbling the pebbles in the lacy froth at its margin. Small stones rattling against the groynes, just beneath the surface. The grass beside the promenade was golf-course green, the shadows long across the beach. The sea - calm - was a soft milky turquoise with a shimmering strip of rose-gold beneath the deep orange of the setting sun, perfect disc in a darkening blue then disappearing slowly behind a curtain of cloud.

An empty landscape. Fish and chips. Face to the sun. Pebbles underfoot. The whisper of the sea.

Simple pleasures: perfect happiness.

Motes

I went swimming this evening. In a town I had not visited perhaps twice in my adult life, and could not remember. As I drove past the main entrance to the park, with its stone gate posts and tree lined avenue, I realised. "I've been here". Not to the town, I knew that. Right here in this spot.

I parked and had a walk around. To the bridge. We fished for sticklebacks here with Mairi and Cathy, before the little ones were even born. Nylon stocking on a hoop of coat-hanger at the end of a bamboo-cane rod. Those long summers that seemed to last forever. They had a house with a crazily steep drive. I couldn't remember the name of the road, several houses back from the ones I recalled more clearly.

I walked around in the evening sunlight. The shadows were long on the ground and I thought about their little dog, eating all the duck a l'orange, so carefully prepared, that we children didn't like but knew must be ooh-ed and aah-ed over. Exotic. I'd never at that age eaten avocado, or brie, or Parma ham, or frilly lettuce, or yoghurt. Never slept under a "continental quilt". Never met a vegetarian, or anyone who's skin was brown. Never been abroad. Probably would have had a nosebleed if I'd gone north of the Blackwall Tunnel.

In the pool as I swam up and down, I was still feeling a sense of deja vu. Wasn't sure why. I stopped thinking about it, and my mind drifted pleasantly around the edges of nothing in particular. They were putting a girl into a hoist to lower her into the water. I remembered this is how Diana Adams got into the pool too.

My goodness! I think I learned to swim here! Of course, growing up at the seaside we were constantly in the water and the combinations of shallows, confidence and the buoyancy of the salt meant that we all swam after a fashion by the age of three or four. However, our after-a-fashion swimming was not deemed good enough by the school, so for a year we were taken in buses to The Big Pool. Quite a long way away, as not many places had a pool at that time.

But could it really be here? Obviously not that big modern extension, but the original pool, and its diving pool alongside - that seemed very familiar. But then surely all pools looked a bit like that. I swam some more, tried to work out if the pool could be old enough. I even asked at the reception desk when I'd got dried and changed, but no-one could remember when it was built.

As I came out and walked to my car under the tall dark trees, the last rays of sunshine touched the park on my right, and the grass shone a luminous green between the black trunks. I'm sure it was here.

My past is leaping out at me unexpectedly, unbidden, with alarming frequency these days. I am going to the sea tomorrow evening so I'm preparing myself for a possible memory-surge. Just in case.

Fix

I know myself well enough by now to understand that I have a tendency towards an addictive personality (see, I've been watching my Oprah).

The last week or two, I have been trying to harness this by attempting to get myself hooked on exercise. I have been walking, swimming, body-pumping, working out at home, doing my pelvic tilts during difficult meetings. I am still waiting to feel the mythical buzz - let alone develp a full-on addiction - but I feel it's worth a try, if only for the attendant health benefits.

Other habits I've had in the past include:

• cigarettes
• carbs
• painkillers
• caffeine

All present their challenges. I'd like to be addicted to sex - certainly I crave it with a hungry urgency that nothing can dull (apart from sex itself, of course) but it doesn't happen often enough to allow me to develop a full-on dependency. Which is a shame, as nothing can beat the feeling, not even Pepsi. I'm an every-day kinda girl, in an ideal world. Morning, afternoon and night quite possibly, or at least I'd welcome the chance to test my theory to destruction.

Addictions I have not yet developed include:

• alcohol
• sugar
• banned substances
• shoplifting
• shopping
• running

Thank heaven for small mercies, I guess?

A la Recherche du Temps Perdu

I am looking back so often now because there might be nothing to look forward to: it seems likely that my finest hour has been and gone.

I am searching for relevance and meaning, importance even.

It's not going very well.

Election Fever

I'm staying up to watch the election. It won't be as exciting as 1997, which notwithstanding the way things have turned out more recently for Labour still counts as a great milestone on the timeline of my life.

Having made my decision based on a reasoned assessment of the policies, and ignoring the personalities for now, I thought I would find out how my littlest little girl would vote. She's watched a bit of the debates, and her Golden Sunshine party at school won their election this morning. She thought carefully.

"Well. I wouldn't vote for Gordon Brown, because he's blind".

Aaargh! I'm raising a monster! Why couldn't we vote for someone who is blind?

"He won't be able to read any of the papers so he won't be able to make good decisions".

I reminded her that Gordy is only blind in one eye, and has already been prime minister for quite a while. We had a little try at reading with one eye covered up and found it was still possible. I also explained that he would have a team of people to support him.

"But he shouts at them and throws things. He's grumpy and mean. We wouldn't want a leader who is grumpy and mean because other leaders won't like him then we'll get left out of stuff".

We considered Nick Clegg. Not a viable proposition apparently. "He interrupted too much on the television. Interrupting is rude. And he looked a bit orange. Fake tan, fake man." That was the end of the Lib Dems then.

"David Cameron is the best. He went to a really expensive luxury school and university where kings and leaders go, to get trained up. And he is really posh. So he will be the best person to be in charge".

I was slightly taken aback at her rationale, but I fear it's no worse than many others within the electorate. According to a number of articles I've seen lately, as a woman I will apparently be making my voting decision based on the wives of the party leaders.

On that basis, how would I vote?

Gordon's marriage is as genuine and heartfelt as Prince Edward's (and both of them married to PR consultants - interesting...) I quite like Sarah but I do have a problem with the overall sham and duplicity of it. Come out the closet, both of you. No one cares nowadays.

Samantha seems unutterably horrible, in many ways. Her frocks. Her flimsy but ludicrously expensive stationery (blue, of course). Her "discovered" modelling photos (oh god....) and of course her immaculately-timed pregnancy. Bleargh. Retch. Heave.

I'm voting for Miriam. They're the only couple who married for love not for social expectation or show. And let's face it, he's comparison-shopped, as he said. She's brainy, cool, European and has good clothes. She's got small children and yet holds a down a hardcore highflying legal career. And she completely refused to engage in the whole pre-election spouse thing, saying it was demeaning. Respect.

Let's see what the morning brings.

Hoist By His Own Petard

The former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage has been injured in a plane crash in Northamptonshire. The plane carrying two people crashed at Hinton-in-the-Hedges Airfield at Steane, near Brackley, at 0759 BST.

The aircraft came down an hour after polling stations opened for general election voting and it is thought it was caused by the trailing banner.

I was wrong.

God does exist after all. And has a great sense of playful irony.

Rolling Back The Years

Blackheath

Boots Scribbling Diary, 1 July 1989

Walked down from Lee into Blackheath to meet C. It's nice to be living near a mate now that everyone else has gone all couple-y. Actually he might come and temp at our place for a bit now he's back. He is trying to persuade his dad to buy an albino fox from the weird stuffed animal shop in the village, who knows why! Went to his parent's house to scrounge some lunch as his mum is cordon bleu cook. Lolled by the ponds smoking spliffs all afternoon. It was hot. Even though we are both skint we had a couple drinks at the pub (saw Heather) and a curry at the place with all the leaves stuck on the walls. He has a crush on an impossible girl. Also I wish I had a boyfriend.
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"How far back would you have to go", I wondered this evening, "not to end up right here?"

I wonder this a lot.

"Conception", said my friend G, with certainty. "Maybe even before".

Wow. That's a long way back. He didn't hold with the idea that there are several possible routes to here, only the actual routes that were taken and the specific choices that were made to bring us here. That's an interesting angle.

"No. You can't end up in the same place. It might seem similar but it's not the same".

I ran through my theory, that you don't make these particular choices, but you would still end up making other similar choices that would bring you to a place similar to here. Still marry a graduate, still have a family, still do the same kind of things, jobs, hang out with the same kind of people, go on the same kind of holidays, all that.

"Yes. But you might be having really hot sex with them all the time".

That would indeed be nice. However according to his theory it was already decreed that this would not happen - from birth or even before. How crap is that?! There's one good reason not to believe in God, regardless of the singing and the ecclesiastical architecture.
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14 months after that diary entry I married a friend. I knew we weren't 100% suited but I was lonely and it felt like everyone else was getting married except me. I was worried I wouldn't ever meet anyone else who would marry me. I was 24.

C's wonderful charismatic talented parents took a one way trip to the Dignitas clinic last summer. Fortunately it's recently decided he will not be prosecuted for booking their travel and going with them on the journey (well, not quite the whole way). My cousin Heather is dead too: cancer last year.

Sometimes loafing on the heath feels like a lifetime ago. Sometimes it seems like yesterday.

Importent

“Dear Mummy. When you come home please come upstairs I have something to show you and it is IMPORTENT”.

Oh what a great word! I went upstairs as instructed. I was shown a collection of cracks. Up by the ceiling, running across the two angles, cutting through the coving. Of course I had noticed this before. I had ignored the ever-spreading, ever-widening network of dark fissures. As you do. When they had become too widespread and open to zone out of my vision, I bought a painting and hung it over the worst area. A rather lovely French Colourist piece, as it happens.

“I’m worrying because it looks like the corner of your bedroom is falling off. Then it would be just sky and cold, and all the dirt coming in.” Hmmmm. That is indeed eerily importent.

I looked out the window at the trees, in case I could glimpse out the corner of my eye that Burnham Wood was moving to Dunsinane.

When I sold the brainchild, I bought myself a present. No, not to the value of an Aston Martin – although I would have been entitled. Instead I bought myself a ring. It is the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought for myself that has no practical use and is purely for my own selfish pleasure.

I chose the ring carefully. I wanted something crafted, handmade. I wanted something unique that had taken work and time and care. I wanted something unusual and quirky and unlike any other ring I’d seen. I wanted something I would see every day that would remind me of how hard I'd worked to build the business, and what I'd achieved. And I wanted a bloody massive diamond in it, with a few smaller ones to set it off. Because I'm worth it. Literally.

It's a beautiful ring. But suddenly a section has fallen out of it. Not a stone, or a piece of the working but a whole section, about 2mm at the back opposite the stone. It must have been inserted to resize it at some point. And now it's not a ring any more: the circle is broken.

This feels importent too.