Hot.
I have made the horrible mistake of getting up at five thirty in the morning but it looks exactly like five thirty in the afternoon. It is already too hot to be outside and anyone who lives here on the moor would tell you that that is something that probably happens once in a lifetime. I don't know how to deal with this and have drunk a pint of strong coffee; made several lists and trawled through the book section of eBay. I have only recently realised that success comes from being a sniper or whatever it's called and that you only bid in the last hour or two.

I actually got up because I was woken by a fly and then lay there panickily anticipating the horrors of my husband's father's h.ndr3dth b1rthday party. It is the coward dying many deaths syndrome as I have already lived through every detail of many possible variations of dreariness and sadness. The 'gathering' is on Friday and I have to go to London tomorrow. To a flat which I haven't seen for two months and in which the children had a well-attended 'footb@ll barbeque' at the weekend to mark the start of 3ur0 2oo4. My children - even my son, unusually - actually hate footb@ll but most of their friends are fanatics and when it is international even I feel a flicker of patriotic interest. Unfortunately, because my older daughter went to the Fr3nch Lyc33 for a couple of years their 'group' has a hard core of non-England supp0rters which invariably leads to raised voices, sulking and coming across people who 'Just thought they'd be in the kitchen for a bit'.

I would like to care about sport because it would be a useful 'bridge' for difficult moments like the long journey to the station with an unknown taxi driver. For a few cheerful years I followed F0rmula 1 avidly - when everyone was longing and longing for F3rrar1 to win. And then they did .. and did .. and did. Although now, of course, you can bond about how you long and long for them to lose. As - except with my daughter's friends - you can bond with just about anyone about the footb@ll. Who gives a f@ck who wins as long as it isn't France ... W@nk3rs!.
- posted by Iris @ 6/15/2004 06:39:00 AM comment