Ecouter et Ecrire

1 July is Bugged day. I'll be listening out for an overhead snippet of conversation that sets me on the way to a piece of writing.

This is how a lot of my writing starts anyway. Something discussed or overheard starts the wheels turning. Who knows? You might see yourself here in my pages, glimpses of your life preserved in the aspic of the interweb. I've already said I do this, so I feel I have carte blanche.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Writing imposes sense and structure on a random, disordered world. You know me: I like that. I loved this quote from Richard Ford's Independence Day. Frank Bascombe, ex-sportswriter and now a real-estate agent says:

Sometimes, though not that often, I wish I were still a writer, since so much goes through anybody’s mind and right out the window, whereas for a writer - even a shitty writer - so much less is lost. If you get divorced from your wife, for instance, and later think back to a time, say, twelve years before, when you almost broke up the first time, but didn’t because you decided you loved each other too much, or were too smart, or because you both had gumption and a shred of good character, then later after everything was finished, you decided you actually should’ve gotten divorced long before because you think now you missed something wonderful and irreplaceable and as a result are filled with a whistling longing you can’t seem to shake - if you were a writer, even a half-baked short-story writer, you’d have someplace to put that fact build-up so you wouldn’t have to think about it all the time. You’d just write it all down, put quotes around the most gruesome and rueful lines, stick them in somebody’s mouth who doesn’t exist (or better, a thinly-disguised enemy of yours), turn it into pathos and get it all off your ledger for the enjoyment of others.

I find that the good moments, the best feelings, are conjured and remembered all the more readily when they've been captured for my Postcards. And the bad, the sad, the hard, the horrible days can lose their power when they're pinned to a page like hornets in a Victorian entomology collection.

Endgame

I'm done. With everything, all of it.

S'il te plait - apprivoise-moi...

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

Even Google's got him up there today, Le Petit Prince, mon heros, in honour of the 110th anniversary of St-Exupery. I loved this book the moment I read it, and I've loved it ever since. If you want to learn French, it's a great place to start: simple language, complex ideas. Each summer, I read it with the girls on holiday, sometimes in English, sometimes in French.

The simply beauty of the illustrations is wonderful :I saw an exhibition of the original drawings and drafts at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. One of my favourite New York museums as I love the collection of literary manuscripts - although choosing a favourite New York museum is like a crueller version of Desert Island Discs. I plan to apply myself diligently to further research on this question when I retire.

I plan to do everything differently. I'm done with counting the stars, all done.

Family Fortunes

It is a time of echoes.

A weekend at my parents' house, my brother and sister there. So many days like that, waiting and waiting for lunch - not allowed to help - while Mum goes hysterical in the kitchen and the vegetables wilt to a uniform soft sludge after their hour-long languish in the hostess trolley. We sit in the garden and drink glass after glass of wine, listening to Dad shouting his familiar refrain: "you stupid bloody woman". It's a wonder we're not all alcoholics.

My sister is writing her dissertation for her Masters in psychotherapy. She's chosen the topic of family dynamics. Guess what she's chosen for the case study? God knows she's has enough therapy of various different kinds herself to be an expert connoisseur. Conversations with her about this kind of thing normally make me want to slit my wrists - but I realised as she interviewed me that this is because the discussions were always initiated by her, and she was always telling me how to interpret my childhood.

How irritating. My childhood is where it belongs. In a big black box nailed shut with a big Do Not Disturb label on it. Or maybe it should say Here Be Dragons or something more exciting. Not all the lovely happy memories of course, not the snowmen and sandcastles and car-washes and learning to waltz standing on Dad's feet and sitting very still with our canary perching for the first time ever on my finger, and being allowed to take things out of the twin-tub with the long pale wooden tongs. I think the box is probably post-puberty and contains embarrassing episodes of knicker inspections (was I still wearing any? were they inappropriately damp?), chopping the lock off my diary with bolt-cutters, screaming hormonal arguments and all interspersed with furious studying to make sure I got good enough grades to go to university. See? These things are best left in their box.

Anyway, for once my sister was asking me what I thought. Novel. She's already interviewed my brother: this only took about three minutes as he's not the thinking type. She had some structured questions and it was interesting to reflect on them. The last one in particular. How would I like my children's experience of childhood to be? That's easy. I don't want those girls to grow up feeling the way I feel. I want them to feel that loving them is the easiest thing in the world, and that it's impossible, inevitable that they will be loved all the way through their lives.

There were other echoes too. None of us mentioned that we will hardly have days like this now, mooching about together, since she's moved to Australia. She thinks my parents might split up. I think they won't, why go through all that hell together, locked together in mortal combat all those years, then wait until you're 70 to take the big step? Hmmm food for thought there.

More to come, it's still working through. My outsize satin nightie from Mum was aced by her gifts to my sister of shampoo for dull and lifeless hair, skin brightening face scrub and the most hideous pair of openwork multicoloured crochet trousers with appliqued woollen roses (I kid you not) that mankind has ever known. I am going to dare her to wear them - this dare is worth serious money, probably £100 at least. They are truly appalling. I was glad to get the nightie and the book about broccoli, on reflection. My brother received Clearasil and a book called How To Clean Your House.

I felt weird when I saw this photo at the top. Released as one of a selection by Aug Sun Suu Kyi's family to celebrate her 65th birthday, it shows her tending a barbecue on the Norfolk Broads. Thus proving my theory that everyone's family photos from the Seventies are the same, whether on the beach at Margate, on a bike ride at Hornsea, or being a beautiful and iconic symbol of nationhood in an ancient Oriental kingdom.

Laid To Rest

My grandmother departed on her journey to the next life at Eltham Crematorium, a stone’s throw from where she had lived and raised her family, a stone’s throw from where she had died in the small council flat she never liked, with the balcony door that rattled in the wind, and the white alabaster horses on the window sill.

We had been on holiday, at a Pontins Camp in Norfolk: it was 1973. I was in the middle of a trampolining competition when my dad heard the news. Those were the days when strangers in bright blue jackets, the people who were supposed to be in the charge of the fun, walked over to your dad in the sunshine to tell him his mother was gone. No chance in those days of a brother holding on the phone to tell him with a family voice; no chance of phoning back, someone else would be using the call box. I could tell it was bad news by the way the blue-jacket people bustled over officiously and pulled him to one side with their eager-actor faces pulled into shapes of concern. I could tell it was bad news by the way my dad sagged: his face, his shoulders, his knees. I got off the trampoline in the middle of my jumping routine and picked up my cardigan. I didn’t think we would be back.

My grandmother had been born in Norfolk. I don’t know how or when she made the journey from her small coastal village to the dense, drear slums of south-east London. She raised her seven sons, my father the youngest, and they each in turn came home physically unscathed from the war to celebratory cricket matches with their littlest brother on the green at the end of the road. It left its scars in other ways but that is another story.

Granny raised her seven sons in Eltham, and she buried her three girls. One born prematurely at five months, lived for fifteen minutes. Two daughters carried to term, born still. She didn’t name them - they didn’t in those days, not in that situation. The small grey silent girls, already born ghosts, were taken away by nurses, with not a touch from their mother to send them on their way. Buried in a corner of the cemetery, they said, with all the other babies. There is no stone or plaque to mark this place, but you can be sure that these daughters, their nearly-names, their dates, were engraved on their mother’s heart.

It was a hot sunny day for Granny’s funeral, just like yesterday. Children like us wouldn’t normally attend, but it was directly on the way home from holiday so we went along. My mum was pregnant, felt queasy in the car, kept asking to stop. My dad spoke not a word, looked at his watch in the black thatch of hair on his wrist, over and over and over.

The crematorium and its grounds are too regimented to feel rural, and are split now from our family’s part of town by the great roaring river of traffic that pours in its concrete banks towards the sea. We didn’t have a plaque. We weren’t going to forget that she was there, together again with her much-older, long-departed husband. The father my dad hardly knew, who had his last unexpected son when his was in his late fifties and his wife my age, already her neighbours were grandmothers. A big south-east London family guarantees a good send-off, in terms of sheer numbers at least. Her seven sons, and their six wives. Her fifteen grandchildren, most represented by their parents, but each had sent a pink rose and Aunty Malvy tied them together with a ribbon.

My father has since organised the Eltham funerals for five of his six older brothers, and one of their wives. He has paid for all these funerals himself, as it is hard to afford such things from a postman’s, a milkman’s, a bus-driver’s, a phone repair man’s, a caretaker’s wages. No doubt he’ll be paying for Uncle George’s too, as a jazz pianist’s income is likely to have left even less in the coffers than these others. Dad can afford to do the right thing by his brothers, as they did by him, each contributing from his wages a weekly amount to help the little lad through grammar school. They had all in turn passed the eleven plus, but had been unable to take up their places for want of money for the uniform, the daily bus fare to Tooley Street. Dad has done them proud, as they all so often said.

So Granny and Grandad, their drinking, laughing boys and their silent ghost girls all ended their journey at the Eltham Crematorium. On hot sunny days like yesterday, and on other days besides, thus are hopes and dreams laid to rest. Our lives today are not like theirs, our children’s lives different again, with easy chances and choices that can only be made thanks to the hard graft of people they never met, never knew. I have never taken my children to Eltham Crematorium, but I think we need to go and listen to the stories that whisper in the breeze.

Taxi Driver

So I'm crossing Drury Lane, right up at the top by the Travelodge where I've just checked in. It's narrow and one-way at that point, no traffic. I walk to the other side, cutting about five or six feet in front of a stationary black cab that is lettting passengers out, taking the money.

Suddenly the driver's foot slips off the clutch and the cab lurches forward, knocks me flying. My hands flail down to break my fall and hit the pavement first. My leg just below the knee smashes against the hard stone edge of the kerb and the side of my face is pressed into a drain.

I lie there, stunned. Am I badly hurt? I'm not sure yet. I didn't hit my head, that's good. My hands, my shoulder, my leg oh god my leg is hurting but I don't think it's broken or anything like that. I'm taking stock.

The cab reverses back, just far enough that he can swing around me as I lie sprawled between the road and the pavement, and accelerate away as the lights turn green. He didn't even get out, ask me if I was ok.

People run out from the electrical shop. They are shocked. Did I get the registration of the taxi? Do you know? I didn't, because I was lying with my face in the drain, actually. They help me to my feet. I feel a bit shaky but obviously not seriously injured. They want to call the police but I can't face an eternity of hanging around and witness statements and all that crap - I just want to sit on my own and calm down.

I'm even prepared to confess I had a little bit of a cry (stunning, I know) - although I'm putting that down to the shock.

Down, Under

When I was little we lived in Margate. It was a big sprawling family with countless relatives all over south east London, mostly older. But our favourite cousins, two sisters the same age as us, lived just up the road in Maidstone. Childhood I misremember as one long hot summer of sandcastles and crazy golf, chalked hopscotch, apple-scrumping, bikes, roller skates and Walls ice cream. Later we moved further away but holidays were still spent together, whispering in the dark about boys, smoking behind the shed and trying to work out how to stop mascara from clumping. A small brother and sister had arrived in our respective families by then, but we mostly ignored them, used them to run errands or tormented them for our casual entertainment, as is customary.

Fast forward 25 years and my sister and I each had a baby and a toddler. We got together as often as we could, probably every month or two. Birthday parties, Easter Egg hunts, paddling pools, Christmas, snowmen. Just like we did with our cousins, that’s how it was going to be. It would get easier, of course, when the children were a little older. We lived on the same train line, they would be able to travel to and fro. They were firm friends, the four little cousins, and once they were out of nappies and into school, the opportunities for fun stretched out before us. We both bought big houses, to fit them all in. Then my brother had his son, so even the little errand-boy and fetcher of Dairylea Triangles and squash was now in the picture, just as soon as he’d learned to walk.

Life was good. We booked - many months ahead, for the summer of 2007 - a small chateau in France for weeks and weeks. It had a swimming pool, it was next to a vineyard, there was even a little theatre inside it for the children to do their shows. We were all going, mum and dad, the three of us and the offspring. It would be the first of the unending summers just as we remembered them.

Except we never went.

My sister and her family snapped up a chance to emigrate to Australia and were gone by the spring. It probably saved their marriage. My brother’s two year old son developed a neurological degenerative disorder and in six months became completely disabled. He can’t speak, or eat, or control his movement - or travel far. My parents were devastated. So was my little branch of the family.

Today my sister arrived back in the UK with my niece and nephew for a visit. We will see them a couple of times in their hectic schedule as they race around trying to see all the people that want a corner of their company. I’m not in touch with her life in the same way as before, nor she with mine. We knew one another’s friends, each child’s trip to the doctor, lost tooth, new bed, difficult teacher. We had endless drivelling chats on the phone and sent each other books and bits of make-up and odd unexpected things like toast. We had covert boozy lunches in London and knew all one another’s secrets. Skyping on the family PC isn’t the same.

Sure we have been snorkelling together at the Barrier Reef and watched the New Year’s Eve fireworks over Sydney Opera House. But there’s no time anymore to just hang out for days at a time with nothing to do, and the girls are worrying that they will be shy of their cousins, aren’t sure they want to sleep all together in the big room like we planned.

With parents who are not getting any younger, and a nephew with a life-limiting condition, every time the family gets together now is tinged bittersweet. Will this be the last time? Will the next time we are all sitting like this be for an emergency rather than just for fun? Or worse, will one of us face a crisis without the others there?

I am trying to work out how to enjoy the weekend without wishing for more.

Surprised By Joy

Sometimes life is so complicated and exhausting. Everyone clamouring for more time, unending piles of ironing and invoicing stretching into the distance.

Joy can take you by surprise with its simplicity. The sunshine on your face. A child’s hand slipped into yours. The crunch of pebbles underfoot. A flower. Words you wanted to hear. The safe arrival of a long-awaited traveller. Life is good.

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds

Time is elastic. Draws itself out interminably, stretching to an almost-breaking eternity - and yet you know it will spring back and be all-too-short when the day finally arrives.

Waiting should not become an activity in its own right, but when the distractions do not have the power of the anticipated event, then they fail to fulfil their purpose and the clock ticks and tocks in slow motion.

Minutes and eventually hours crawl by. Everything feels pointless, the sky itself is holding its breath. Not long, not long now, a mantra of reassurance.

Soon, soon.

Green Day

Billie Joe Armstrong ought to be a laughing stock, for a number of reasons.

1. Punk is English, and he and his band come from California.
2. Punk is dead, anyway.
3. He married in his early twenties and had a family and still happily wed, which is not very rock'n'roll.
4. He has a girl's name.
5. He has been in a band with his best friend from school for 23 years, which is not very punk.
6. He wears masses of eyeliner, in his forties.
7. He does cover versions of cheesy songs in the middle of his show (Highway To Hell, anyone?)
8. He brings kids up on stage to sing his songs.

Yet this does not stop him and his music being really cool. He has enough charisma to rock Wembley Stadium (which U2 failed to do last year). He has more energy and zest and passion than any performer I've ever seen. And it somehow makes him really sexy.

I shouldn't, but I would.

Postscript, Monday.

"I bet you like him, mummy, don't you. He looks like he comes from your olden times".

Simple

All smiles. It's so easy to make me happy, when you know how.

Why Have Only Five Stars Above Your Bed?

Aedh Wishes for The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I Feel Fine

"Who knows what you need. You're a nightmare. Get some therapy".

I shouted at the children when I found 11 socks, 3 pairs of (too obviously worn) knickers and a spilled glass of milk in the family room I have newly created for them in the former dining room. This makes me Crazy-Britney, of course. I am broken and must be fixed.

With my perspex-and-steel heart and my cold submarine impervious exterior I am cheery, I am efficient, I am fun, I am fine. Just dandy.

I know what I need, it's the same thing I've always needed. Finding it, that's been the challenge. I am doing ok I think, piecing it together in little bits, a part here, a part there. I have blossomed in the sunshine of kindness and care and that is a start.

Home Is So Sad

Today on the way to school we saw one of the Funny Twins. Just one. Walking, off centre, with his other half invisibly in step by his side.

Great consternation. Horrible imaginings. What has happened?

Possibly he is simply attending a course, running an errand, staying behind to help a neighbour pin back a troublesome rose.

Possibly not.

Hull On Earth

I have in the past been a vociferous supporter of Radio 4 in the face of criticism that it was dumbing down, but tonight’s feature on Philip Larkin really got my goat. Yes I admit, it was little snack of a programme, a short piece on Front Row which is in itself a lite bite. I know that’s not a full in-depth exploration of anything. And yet...

To mark the 25th anniversary of Larkin’s death, there is a major series of events, centred in Hull and also taking place around the country. The initiatives are interesting, imaginative, inspiring (find out more here, I can’t wait to go). But you wouldn’t know any of this from the radio. This focused principally on one small element of Larkin25, an exhibition of his personal effects.

They talked about his suits, and noted that he was a very tall man. He also had very big feet (as tall men do, to stop them falling over) and therefore very big shoes. You can see these too. They mentioned in passing a couple of poems (one they were certain was about M&S, the one about the Station Hotel), and that he never actually refers to Hull. They did not link this to the poetry, the fact that perhaps the places they were so desperate to identify stood for an English Smallville, any man, everyman. There is a box of Larkin’s hearing aids, and a lawnmower (perhaps the actual one!) with a hedgehog wedged in its blades. A toy hedgehog of course, as was pointed out carefully, to appease anyone concerned about animal rights and thus deter them from jamming the switchboard. His misogyny and interest in porn was discussed at more length than his 1000 record jazz collection.

A significant portion of the slot was devoted to a discussion of his and his family’s sympathy for the Nazis. Many families of course, and more prominent than his, had leanings in this direction in the Thirties. There was mention of a statue of Hitler that had originally belonged to Larkin’s father, and which he himself had kept. No, it was not in the exhibition. But let’s talk about it anyway, let’s put on gloves and take it out of its special box and have a look. Is it a life-like rendition of the head, complete with neat bristle moustache? Or an over-sized monster like a Red Square Lenin? No, it’s a tiny figurine, “Subutteo sized” apparently, with a moving arm. I reckon a lot of people would keep their father’s quirky, funny, Sieg-Heil-ing Bakelite Fuhrer, perhaps to entertain friends in a knowing, post-Modern ironic way. Who knows.

Who cares? But it sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with his poetry, or the rest of the fascinating Larkin25 programme. Neither did his clothes, his hearing aids. Ooh I wonder, did they have his little round glasses? Good heavens, what is happening here? Are we incapable now of having a sensible discussion of his work, which is surely a more meaningful legacy than his old shoes? I might like to see Sherpa Tensing’s shoes, or Captain Scott’s, perhaps. But a poet’s? Why?

I was drilled rigorously in practical criticism. Has this been discredited somehow without me noticing? Or was that only ever a rarefied Cambridge approach, with every other reader watching the biography channel and gobbling up lurid dramatisations, poking through hearing aids and lawnmowers as if that made a difference?

Or is Radio 4 treating me like a moron?

Fire

Sometimes there is no peace from longing and desire. A breeze tugs the edge of my skirt and I want a hand to stroke the inside of my thigh. Sunshine warms my shoulders and wish it were a kiss. My very pulse is an insistent throb. Everything is designed to prompt my yearning.

Restless, hot and turning, a night alone like this seems to last a week. The obvious solution can bring a respite and sleep, but the inner cinema runs and runs through the night, and I waken still in darkness in these short nights, my upper lip beaded with sweat, a furnace of frustration again.

Even my very dreams are of longing rather than fulfilment. I am tortured relentlessly by anticipatory scenarios that never reach the end of the journey, surreal interruptions to the flow of events that snatch away the climax, over and over again. I hunger for skin to skim mine, for hands tangled in my hair.........the rhythm that soothes the ache.

For a long time I felt comme-ci, comme-ça about the whole business. Ignore those feelings and maybe they will soon die down to few lonely embers. Fan the flames though, even be it briefly, rarely - and now we have a forest fire.

One kiss and we strike the match: light my touch-paper if you dare.

Rather Nice

We're English. So many things we think and don't say.

Emotion is there, of course it is. We keep it all under the surface and the Thames glides by calmly. We know there are fat trout speckled with contentment, and sharp-toothed eels, and dark swirling mysterious whirlpools and we see all those things too in our peaceful views. We're not supposed to go swirling it all up with a stick, making it muddy and messy. Let it be. Keep calm and carry on.

But look at me - see I have the Celt in me too. I have fire and passion and burning desires, needs and wants and hopes and dreams. Sometimes I am fit to burst with not-saying. Sometimes I am fit to cry my heart out with not-hearing. Is it just me?

I don't want to believe the Thames is six inches of clear water run from the tap, but maybe all the other things are only there in my imagination. Perhaps it's just a trick of the light.

Oasis

Runnymede

The world stops its crazy spinning and hovers, still as the vivid turquoise dragonflies in soft sunshine. Grass and water, trees and sky - all peaceful. The moon will shine blue tonight.

Days like this make it possible to survive the others. Days like this might have to last a lifetime.

Kittipedia

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Jelly

I am a nervous wreck these days. I have so little confidence, I can’t even dress myself properly any more. I want to look nice and I don’t think I do, and it’s hot and muggy and I don’t want to be perspiring and dishevelled, but I have a lot of things to carry and I’m away overnight and and and......

First I put on a blue flowery summer dress - but I thought I would have to take another whole outfit with me for tomorrow, and then I would have to take a different bag, and then it would be too much to carry. The girls said it looked pretty, a word which I which I found unnerving.

I tried the grey linen trousers and a grey and black linen tunic. I thought it looked nice but it got a thumbs down from Himself, so I lost the will to wear it after that, in case he was right.

I tried the black linen skirt but it looks best with the white linen jacket, which is waiting clean, pressed and pristine for me to wear on Monday when I deliver the ridiculously titled Look Good: Earn More presentation to another group of women in my profession - an exercise in irony if ever there was one.

Finally, frustrated almost to the point of tears, I put on cream linen trousers, a white vest, a loose white overshirt. It is a boring outfit and my knickers don’t match my bra now, which is niggling me. I am worried that I don’t look nice, and I really very much wanted to. I forgot to manicure my nails and I forgot to bring another top for tomorrow, so I will definitely be perspiring and dishevelled after all.

I never used to get stressed about what to wear, but now that I am told so often that I look like I’m not making an effort, look like I’ve let myself go, I find that I worry constantly. Maybe everyone thinks that. Maybe everyone notices. I went out to buy a new top yesterday, for a dinner in a couple of weeks, but I had no idea what to choose so I came home empty-handed. Maybe I should wear a dress for that? Or maybe my green skirt, but then which bag? Oh lord.

I’ve decided to give myself a little holiday from sneers and scorn - hurrah! I’m off to London and plan to remain incommunicado. I have the train journey to slather on enough make-up to look nearly human, lunch at a funky restaurant with an editor I like, and an evening of treats planned. I can almost feel a smile twitching at the edges of my lips....

Beat

Abiocor artificial heart

What is the human heart anyway? A gory glob of glistening gristle. Fat-streaked, fist-sized. Throbbing, jerking away like an alien crouched malevolently beneath the sternum, threatening to burst through through your chest wall and wreak havoc on your life at any moment.

As in so many things, a machine can do a superior job these hi-tech days. Flesh and blood is so last-century, don't you know? An artificial heart pumps steadily, constant and regular. Never tires, never races with excitement, never skips a beat. And if it broke, you could just get another one.

Efficient, businesslike, cold. A perspex and steel engine, dead ergonometry to keep you alive. A heart like that would never beat you up.

Deadly

I'm not, actually (menstruating), I don't. And NO it's not because I'm post-menopausal. It's because my Achilles heel is tucked away inside, what my granny called my lady-parts. But I'm not sure whether my hormones are up, or whether I'm just in a FUCKING bad mood.

Oooh, see, there's shouting, up there. Scary. Probably tears in a minute, if it's a hormonal thing.

My dear mother hasn't helped, by following through her heartfelt birthday sentiments with a couple of gifts that arrived while I was experiencing the delights of a UK mini-break en famille (say no more). I opened these with excitement, and without making bitter references to the fact that I didn't receive any birthday presents or cards from my husband or my children on my birthday. I did receive a decorated tissue box and a necklace that I already owned, wrapped in toilet paper as the girls had a last-minute panic at the dereliction of duty so great it was noticed even by them. And of course something chosen by a sales assistant at the airport. This is why I boughy myself a designer handbag, and shoes to match, in case you were wondering.

Anyway coming back to my bad mood today (as opposed to my birthday, and several other days in between...) The first parcel is a weighty tome called The Optimum Nutrition Bible. I haven't actually read much of it so I can't tell you whether the stories are better than the real Bible. However I noticed there is a whole chapter about broccoli so it's not promising. This will help me to take care of my health as I approach old age. The second parcel, much lighter, is something made of peachy-pink dip-dyed satin silk. Oooh, could be quite nice? Cream lace edges, what could it be? It's a satin nightie - size 22.

Fuck. Right. Off.

Dolled Up

A hot date, or any occasion for leaving the house, requires enormous amounts of preparation these days. Oh for the time when a quick brush of the hair and a slick of lipgloss was the only dolling-up required.

It starts the night before. Neatening up the eyebrows, and any other stray "brows" that have migrated elsewhere (how do they get to the chin, I wonder?!) Filing and painting the nails, but only after the careful application of nourishing eye, face and neck creams that promise to work their miracles while I'm asleep.

Early the next day, I'm jumping into the shower for the main extravaganza. Wash the hair and then leave a conditioning treatment to infuse its goodness while I use footscrub, body exfoliator with essential oils, facial scrub (I like to be smooth). De-fuzzing of the legs and armpits, bikini line trimming. Rinse off all the gritty bits from the scrubs and it's time to get dry and moisturise.

Moisturising is an activity all of its own. Special potions for the driest bits such as heels and elbows. Body lotion with aromatherapy oils - I like my skin to smell soft as well as feel soft. I have a neck and bust serum (fear of a crepey cleavage haunts me), facial serum is followed by both face cream and special eye cream.

While all that soaks in, I'm spraying my hair with body-building spray, drying it upside down to give a bit of lift, twisting in a few velcro rollers for extra body (my hair is naturally limp, lank and lifeless otherwise). The God Of Hairdressing told me to do it like this, so I just follow his instructions.

Make-up comes next. Foundation (lately Chantecaille at £55 a tube), eye primer, lip base. Two toning eye shadows, eyeliner and two coats of mascara. Blusher, lip tint (long-lasting and non transferable), glossy top coat. Concealer for any undereye bags or spots.

Clothes are selected and hung on the wardrobe door the evening before, along with selection of the appropriate handbag and shoes. Accessories are also planned, necklaces buffed with a soft cloth for shine. Hair can only be brushed out and sprayed after getting dressed. Grab my phone, a SlimFast shake, the handful of vitamins set ready on the counter last night and I'm ready to go.

On a London day, I do all this morning stuff within the half hour between 6am and 6.30 when I leave for the train, setting the table for the others as I dash through the kitchen. Obviously a part of this game is to arrive at meetings, lunches, dates even, with a casual insouciance.

However I do sometimes feel resentful when I'm told I should "make an effort". All that hard work and investment, and it seems I still look rubbish.