Where is my pewter-type drinking flask engraved with bats that I drink from only once a year on Halloween? It is in London and I am here and that is unbearably annoying. I also have a bottle of 'Chateau du Diable' bought weeks ago for the same ritual, now losing its significance. In fact I am obviously not even going to open it. One of my favourite nights of the year and I have managed to miscalculate so horribly that I am in this creepy old house all alone.

There are several reasons why this is not good. Firstly, this is an unbelievably isolated and spooky place to be at night; you can't see a single light from the windows and you can see a really long way. Secondly, the view down the valley is exactly like the start of a horror film with black branches rising out of strands of mist, lit by, tonight, a moon shaped identically to one on a witch's hat. And... ludicrously .... TWO kinds of owl are screeching around just outside. I suppose that's reassuring as any prowling zombies would have scared them off. Speaking of which - apparently the farmer who sold us the house was a werewolf. Of course, the first time we were told that we laughed, nervously, but then it came up several times and the Master of the local hunt said arranging the calendar was difficult, what with having to avoid meeting here round the full moon. I think some people do have 'moon sensitivity' to do with pressure on the brain from gravitational pull or something. The farmer probably just had major mood swings and got aggressive and forgetful (I hope) although I often imagine him making his way back here and 'roaming' at that time of the month. Or even tonight!!

Thirdly, some time ago my son and I got deeply into witchy stuff. I had been keenly interested in my youth and had piles of dusty magic textbooks, some quite rare, in a forgotten bookcase. For a year or so we celebrated the witch festivals with great attention to detail, especially food - but without the nude dancing. One Halloween, after a feast of pumpkin soup, ravioli, pie etc., several of us went out to the strange abandoned stone quarry on our land, where the deer sleep, and lit a votive fire, drank Chateau du Diable and I read from my most authentic source the incantation to invoke the Devil. Obviously I am not totally insane and also spend much time here on my own - ideally Devil-free - so I cunningly left out one line of the, rather long, spell. And it worked. Oh no, the Devil did not appear. What a let down. But afterwards I couldn't help wondering if that one line was enough. Perhaps he did appear - BUT IN ANOTHER FORM. And perhaps - HE IS STILL HERE. Especially tonight!!

Fourthly, this house is a combination of several buildings of different ages joined together. There is a low cottage where the herdsman lived, then a solid middle house for the farmer and a high-ceilinged Georgian wing, where the local grand family had dumped a rather disappointing, unmarried younger son. So hopeless and disappointing that he finally hanged himself. I have thought about this a lot and the two obvious places are the bannisters, (Oh please), or my bedroom, where there was a large solid beam and a large solid hook. Right above what is now my bed. After he died that end of the house was sealed off and allowed to rot, it was used as a grain store until we bought the farm a hundred years later. Not a cheerful thought - tonight!!

Fifthly, and lastly. As most of the house was a ruin we had to do massive building work and the site manager turned out to know the place well as his parents were friends of the werewolf farmer. In fact, when he was small he had spent many Sundays having tea here and while his mother chatted he had often played in the abandoned wing. 'Funny that I should be back here', he said, 'As I have always had a horror of this place'. 'WTF do you mean', we said. Apparently his childhood was blighted by a recurring, screaming nightmare that he was playing in the farmyard and a huge white bull had leapt from the dark upstairs window of - Yes, my now bedroom - and had trampled him to death. Right. One afternoon, as dusk was falling, he was the last man on site. The ruined wing had been stripped out and had nothing left but huge beams crossing at each floor level, joined by ladders. He was at attic height. 70 ft. above the ground and took one step out onto a beam to reach a rope. A bat flew out, right into his face and his balance wavered. Okay, he didn't fall off, but he said it was the nearest to death he had ever been and that, in a way he almost relaxed into it, because he had always thought that this is where he would die.

A year later the children had a big 'rave' party and some of the boys used what would become my bedroom as a sort of dormitory. The first people to sleep there for a hundred years. In the morning I asked if they had slept all right and they said, 'Yes'. except for one boy, who said, ' Not really, as I had this horrible nightmare. I was suffocating because I was being trampled to death by a huge white bull.'

How spooky is that? And absolutely true. I wish I hadn't remembered it, tonight!!
- posted by Iris @ 10/31/2003 10:41:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
When I was about 19 one of my best friends, a boy, started going out with a really attractive girl, who always seemed to have lots of spare cash and many nice clothes. I discovered that she was a waitress in an up-market gambling club in Mayfair and one day I said, 'I wish I could work somewhere like that'. She said, 'Why don't you come with me to-night then.' 'So I did.'

The club was on two floors of a huge house near Grosvenor Square. It was decorated in a grand, but cosy, style, using lots of dark red and blue velvet and with very thick, swagged curtains so that you wouldn't notice the dawn. It was owned and run by an imperious Irish woman in her forties called Pauline, who liked to think of it as part of a country house. It was meant to have a casually upper-class air, to attract the 'right sort' of punter. As far as possible she employed waitresses who had been debutantes and croupiers who had been to (ideally) Eton. So that the whole thing actually worked, she had a strangely ill-matched partener, Joe. He was in his 60's and was an East End gangster of the old school. Always dressed, when I saw him in the evenings, in an immaculate dinner jacket, he was as charming as could be and his weakness for the ladies meant that he said 'Yes' to any pretty girl who asked for a job. So I was in.

Pauline's sideline was greyhound racing. At the time this was very much a working-class sport and the kind of people who had boxes and champagne at the track were quite likely to have a scary side to them. She was one of those people. Her favourite greyhound, Johnny, had been forced to retire and now lived in the club. He was a total sweetheart and keen to avoid any form of trouble. Unfortunately, he was exactly the same height as the little side tables and regularly throughout the evening there would be a high-pitched shreik as some punter reached behind him to stub out his cigarette and accidentally used the dog. Pauline would leap up booming, 'Is someone hurting my Johnny?', while some red-faced man and Johnny both tried to pretend they weren't there.

The night that Paulene's dog won the Greyhound Derby, the biggest race of the year, she brought back the vast cup, about three feet across, filled it with champagne and made us all drink out of it.

There were the 'serious' punters, unbelievably rich dedicated gamblers who were the backbone of the club, mostly playing blackjack and backgammon and returning several nights a week right through the year. And to make a cheerful, busy atmosphere there were the young aristocratic boys that she loved so much who could buy a lower-priced membership without any privileges like free breakfast. That made a really nice atmosphere for us girls too.
- posted by Iris @ 10/07/2003 11:25:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
It is interesting that when you write things down they seem to matter less. A trouble shared etc., even if only shared with a piece of virtual paper. Also when I have written something whiny I immediately feel much tougher and not whiny any more and would delete it, but I said that I wouldnt.


I have spent the last two days writing my son's university application personal statement. Most people have the right grades so your statement really matters. He appears to be taking nil interest, just saying 'But you'll do it so much better'. This is true as I have done two already but he is more of a blank slate than the girls. I need some launch pad for the bending of the truth and particularly for the actual lies. Maddeningly, I have lost the copies of the earlier statements which were small gems of their kind. I only have a rough draft of the first one which is very girly. I read my new attempt to S.. who said 'For f@ck's sake, you can't put he sang in the school choir'. I said, 'But I put that for both of you'. 'I know, but we're girls, do you have any idea what kind of boy joins the choir?' 'Okay, I'll put that he played in one of the school rock bands. Shall we say that he can play the guitar and the piano?' 'Why not. We could put in a Music grade'. '5?'. 'That's quite advanced, better to say 4 for both, and that he still practises'. 'Whew. Moving on. Shall I say that he is having Japanese lessons on his own time......?'

M.... took the work-in-progress cv. in to his tutor this afternoon, who said, 'Could you make the first paragraph more 'punchy'. No, no, no, I couldn't. I agonised over the f@cking thing for an entire evening. There is no other way to put it. No other thing left to say. But if I don't get it right every admissions tutor will just throw it in the bin. Oh what 'punchy' sentence can I think of?

The only university that M... wants to go to has started a blatant policy of discrimination against children from fee-paying schools. There was a big row about it in the papers some months ago where the university admitted it but said it was a mistake and they were going to stop at once. So that is why his tutor told him that perhaps he shouldn't bother to apply there? His sister got in there perfectly easily. There is something about him which seems doomed to low-level bad luck. Or maybe God has some other purpose for him. Perhaps he is the man with one sandal.

I just bet he's going to be accepted by every university except the one he wants. I bet it now - £5.00. I will send it to Re-Blogger if I'm right, even if their Comments never work. (They still don't, even after several e-mails from charming people there and at this site. They think it is my computer. Is that likely? What would I know).


- posted by Iris @ 10/07/2003 10:29:00 PM comment

 
The new monthly parish magazine just arrived. Now that the Church of England is in decline, each vicar has to take charge of more and more villages. Around here in the remote countryside we are arranged in groups of five. One man has to rush around taking services in five different churches; not all five on each Sunday but at 'special' times of year like this one - Harvest Festival - they have to be fitted in pretty close together. This means that the whole idea of a little community arranged around its church is very much watered down.

Lonely places like this don't attract the thrusting front runners of the priesthood anyway. We are between vicars at the moment, with no sign of any candidates. There is a brisk turnover as only the old or/and strange are unambitious enough to take the job. It is unusual too that this is very much a Roman Catholic stronghold with the majority of the upper-middle classes, usually in charge of all the church charity work, flowers etc., all ignoring the village churches and going off to Catholic services in the local towns.

We have lived here for ten years and seen three vicars with huge gaps of no vicar in between.
The first parish magazine we ever saw had a long letter at the front from the current minister thanking everyone for their kindness in keeping things going while he was in the drying-out clinic and sending apologies to anyone that he might have offended as he had no memory of the past few months. We thought that it was a weird joke but soon came to realise it was not unusual. He returned with a scarlet face and rather overfamiliar manner and finally had to 'retire' after being banned from all the local pubs, (mainly for consistently leaving his dog behind at closing time), and having a very public affair with the young daughter of the neighbouring parish priest.

The next vicar was a woman. This was quite soon after women priests had finally been allowed after years of vicious debate and they were generally pretty unpopular. Unfortunately, this one had been ordained very late in life after a nasty divorce and we were her first posting. It was revealed, when all five parish councils had a secret meeting to discuss how much they hated her, that she had been the only candidate after more than a year and it was her, or a merger with another five villages. She had quickly developed a 'hurty back' which meant that she slowly retreated from more and more of her duties until she spent most of her time 'resting'. She occasionally emerged to boss important things like changing the pew cushion covers. Finally the nicest and most persuasive man in the parish set off to sneak to the Bishop and she was forced to accept a face-saving move to do light clerical work (due to her back) on the other side of the county.

The last story is of bizarre tragedy. Finally, a totally normal, youngish, pleasant, hardworking vicar with a charming wife was appointed. No one could believe their luck. They spent weeks in advance of the move coming down and getting to know people and were universally popular. Just before they were due to arrive, the wife collapsed and died. The vicar decided to carry on anyway and was brave and wonderful and everyone was delighted when, after a year, he became engaged to his wife's best friend and clone. A few months later he was diagnosed with cancer, totally out of the blue, and died within a few weeks,on what would have been their wedding day. One of his friends is a radio producer and, as a tribute, he is writing him into Britain's longest-running radio soap 'The Archers. A Story of Country Folk', (going for 40 years), as the new vicar and the story will be his story. There is no way I will be listening to anything as sad as that.

Anyway - this magazine has nothing so riveting. It sounds patronising, and probably is, but you could have read this in 1950 and not noticed the difference. Once a month they play Bingo in the Village Hall for prizes of fresh meat. Highlights of the social section are a talk on weaving, (with slides), and an invitation to join the church bell ringing group. I suppose village life has always been this odd mixture of pottering dullness and weird drama. Last month's magazine had an open letter to the parish from 'Sandra', saying that she knew that there was a whispering campaign against her but she had not been out with her lover when her husband doused everything with petrol and burnt himself and their cottage to a crisp.
- posted by Iris @ 10/04/2003 08:05:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I once took part in a 'efiL pawS' experiment for a magazine. It was when the idea was completely new and was based on an American book of the same name by N@ncy someone. My great friend was a Features editor and needed just four women, including herself. She chose me because she thought of me as 'up for anything', (as I will be again). She advertised in various newspapers saying 'Would you like to live someone else's life for two weeks?' Then put my description.

It is so strange to see the endless variations on this theme that make up acres of TV programmes and think that I was the very first person to do it. Apart from N@ncy.

Obviously the whole point was to find two people as different from us as possible. We were quintessentially urban: she was an intellectual businesswoman and (hard to believe) I was a fashionable, young married, childless social butterfly; working in the smartest part of the fine art world. She ended up with a non-reading horse-breeder, who lived in a remote country cottage covered in dog hair and whose only mental stimulation was writing articles about racing, (horse).

The horse-breeder was actually a friend of a friend, so it was a bit of a cheat, but they had never met. The replies to the ads. were all really dull and we had to be very careful of weirdos as they were going to be living with my husband and alone in our house a lot. Finally we chose an engaged ballet dancer (American), whose fiance was, oddly, teaching at the university in the town where I grew up. It seemed Okay, as it would be very different for her and I had, in my mind, so totally left all that stuffy, provincial life behind. Quite apart from the challenge of daily ballet classes.

She came up to London so that we could get an idea of each other's lifestyle when we weren't with our 'partners'. She took me to some modern dance workshops of agonising embarrassment potential and I could tell that her friends found me rather cold and buttoned-up. It was a bit like the Fr1ends episode when the amazing girl steals Monica's credit card, (I was M0nica in this scenario, obviously).

The essence of our 'Sw@p', which I have not seen in any programme, was that we had to actually 'be' the other person. We had to be called by their name, wear their clothes and react as they would. Any stranger we encountered would think that we were them.

I was lying around in bed one Saturday morning, pre-swap, when the doorbell rang and it was the ballet dancer's fiance on a surprise visit. We had not yet met. He said that he would wait for me in the near-by park as he wanted to spend time with me alone. I arrived in a hostile mood as I looked like crap with greasy hair etc. and things got worse. In the book, which we had all had to read, N@ncy took everything very seriously and 'became' the other girl down to the last detail, which included sleeping with several of her boyfriends. We had very firmly decided that this was not happening in our version as it was being done for an up-market magazine. The fiance told me that the very core of his relationship with ballet dancer was their exhaustive and innovative sex life, which seemed to take up a large part of their days. He said that there was no way that they could take part unless I agreed to emulate her in every detail. The swap was only days away and had been trailed in the magazine. ' Look deep into my eyes, think that you are her and try to love me', he said, (I swear). I felt trapped and insane. I said, 'All right, we will do what you want but I am not going to mention any sex in the article'. Then rushed home and told my husband that I was not, under any circumstances, spending two weeks with some pervert.

Worried all night about what to do as there seemed no way to back out at last minute without massive nastiness happening all round. Then, as if by magic, there was a phone call from the features editor. The fiance had rung her saying that as he was divorced they had had major problems about their wedding. The sweet young ballet dancer was desperate to marry in church and they had finally found a minister who, after hours of discussion about their deep religious convictions, had agreed to marry them in the college chapel. The tiny drawback was that he had turned out to be my husband's cousin. Who had also officiated at my own wedding. The fiance felt that having me prancing about all over town pretending to be his girlfriend might cast some doubts on the seriousness of his commitment.

So we were back to the drawing-board.



- posted by Iris @ 10/04/2003 03:03:00 PM comment

 
I was going to delete the last post because it was self-pitying in a really boring way but that would defeat this whole purpose. My life has reached a 'crossroads' and I have no idea what to do next. I thought if I looked at the past a bit or saw some pattern in what I chose to write about each day it might be helpful.

Also, I've looked at other people's archives and they often take time to get into it - and go for months without anyone commenting.

My elder daughter left for India last week, for three months travelling around fairly randomly with her boyfriend. She is trying to think what to do with her life too. I think that I depend on my childrens' company too much, so the next three months seemed like a deadline to make some positive changes. She is meant to be back by Christmas but has an open ticket and a shifty look. She is called X... She was filling in forms at the bank and the cashier said, 'Initial?'. 'X'. 'Don't mess me about, I'm really busy'.

My next daughter is called S... and has everything totally under control. She is working in the fashion world and will probably end up incredibly famous, as she has no fear and seems to have fate completely whipped.

My youngest child is a boy, M... , and is clever, handsome and really amusing but can't see this himself and spends much time brooding about his inadequacies. He has just left school and is meant to be setting off on a Gap year filled with interest and broadening of mind but in fact is still hanging about the flat in London taking illegal drugs.

Unfortunately I am perfectly happy in their company and prefer them to all my friends. I am an only child and they are like the brother and sisters that I always wanted.

But, this has to stop. I have to get out and spend time with people my own age. Large numbers of my old friends are dead. Far more than seems to be the average amongst my acquaintance.
Naturally the funniest and nicest and, frankly, the more famous all had to die, while everyone that I hate is still here. Actually just one person that I can't stand died last year, not all that young, and when I said 'Thank you, God ... finally', my husband was shocked. I am a big hater, so many people are so totally crap and when you have made an effort, as I have, to overcome elements of your own crapness you don't easily forgive it in others.

I tried to work out why my friends were all dying because I was worried that I might be part of the same pattern. And I am. They were all the same personality type, which is why I was drawn to them. They were all intelligent and cynical and horribly, pointlessly, self-critical. They all died of different things because they used different ways to dull their thin-skinned reaction to life. Though drink, drugs and cigarettes covers most of them.

The ones that I hate are pretty much the same type too. They are all unusually selfish and self-obsessed and that makes them careless and unkind and unrealistically pleased with themselves and their very ordinary achievements.

I suppose the trouble is that I feel that I have wasted all the 'gifts' that I was born with. I am really lazy. I can do nothing for days on end and I am never bored. I read all the time, usually a book a day, and think and potter about and start little projects. I can't bear to wake up in the morning and know that I have definite things to do at definite times. Of course, for most of my life I have had things to do but I used to quite regularly take days off from work and stay at home and do nothing, or I felt I would have gone mad. It feels so odd to be clever and articulate and artistic and practical and good-looking and sympathetic and amusing and to have such an unambitious, uncompetitive and unselfconfident personality. What was God thinking?
- posted by Iris @ 10/03/2003 11:53:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I have wasted three hours trying to make comments work. Perhaps it is better without.

Outside the window it is a joke idyllic Autumn day. Chestnut trees on the hillside in many attractive shades of russet, orange leaves and conkers all over the grass with dozens of pheasants picking through them and various sheep posed about charmingly. A pale blue sky with wispy clouds and a low sun.

How is it possible to have what appears to be such an enviable life and yet to be filled with a constant background feeling of sadness, lack of 'self esteem' and, (I hate to say it), 'what is it all for'?

Why is it that some people are born ugly, poor and not very clever and yet they have confidence and energy?

Years ago I did a course of 'Voice Dialogue'. It probably doesn't exist anymore, but it was a 'personal growth' thing run by a charismatic American, where you spent several days in a hotel with talks and mental exercises. I was writing about it for a magazine but did the whole thing seriously as part of the article. They told me that my 'Inner Critic' was the strongest and nastiest they had ever come across and that I should get professional help. Of course I never did. My critic told me that it was weak and pathetic to get help when I should be able to manage alone.

Until I was six I was bouncy and outgoing and really popular at school. Then suddenly I was paralysingly shy. Literally. Often I was unable to speak. Especially in front of strangers, or groups of people or if taken by surprise. I was so self-concious that if I dropped something in the street I would just leave it because I didn't want anyone noticing me picking it up.

Apparently this is a known medical condition. It appears classically at around six, like me, or in your late teens. Now it is treated with Prozac and tends to go away by itself after a couple of years. I have had it all my life, but luckily have been able to 'be myself' when I am with familiar people and also when drinking heavily. It has the effect of blocking alcohol, so I can drink a huge amount without seeming drunk, just a really fun, outgoing person. Who says some pretty weird things. People who've met me at a party have often not recognised me, sober, in the day time.

As this is objective writing I feel that I can say that I was unusually attractive when I was younger. I was also keen on fashion and bought French magazines and copied their ideas. It was part of the feeling of inadequacy that I needed to look as perfect as possible. Before I moved to London I was brought up in a provincial university town, not famous for sophisticated dress sense. This meant that while I was totally neurotic about being noticed, I seemed unable to stop myself from wearing clothes that made me stand out from everyone else. I was also invariably pursued by confident 'ladies men' types as I was incapable of signalling my interest to anyone I actually fancied. To the extent of refusing to even dance with a boy that I was secretly suicidally in love with because I couldn't stand anyone even suspecting how I felt. Then had to put up with him going out with my best friend for months.

I know this all sounds like typical adolescent agonising but I never met anyone who was as affected by shyness as I was at that age. Or who went on feeling the same for so many years.
A doctor I once consulted about it said, 'Well, if you won't consider the Prozac, then - this is probably the only time I will ever say this - I advise you to keep on drinking.'


- posted by Iris @ 10/03/2003 04:45:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Comments?
- posted by Iris @ 10/03/2003 01:12:00 PM (0) comments comment