New Year.
Yes. It is a New Year and if I hadn't come to my senses and sat down here again I would have probably missed out January.

In December while I was buying everything to do with Christmas on-line I was here every day .. often for hours .. and it was so easy to spring across and write down each passing thought and so easy to imagine doing that for ever. But No. As I have said before .. under normal circumstances getting Blogger going is a vast chore. The computer is in a small upstairs room which actually doubles as a passage shaped wardrobe with cupboards down each side. It has a view over the old farmyard and a hillside with an ancient chestnut tree .. and all cars drive up to this side although it is the back of the house. All phones are an annoying sprint away (there is no mobile reception in the house .. except if you are standing on the wide windowsill of the children's bathroom at the far end - I can't be bothered to explain how I found that out).

So writing here is a decision. Every time I have an interesting passing thought I am so certain that I couldn't POSSIBLY forget THAT that I never note it down .. and then it is gone. However many times it goes I STILL think that this will definitely be the one .. it never is. So when I do finally sit down because for god's sake I haven't written anything for weeks .. I can't think what to say. It is also really, really cold in this room as it is a sort of passage and so does not qualify for a radiator .. so I write in a thick extra jersey and a hat - my son who often plays games here through the night also wears outdoor boots and fingerless gloves.

I LIKE writing here and I am so happy when anyone comments or if anything ties up with blogs of people that I have come to know well. But the practicalities are somehow a massive bore. I so often set off up the stairs and then ... just can't be bothered. This sounds very like my attitude to everything throughout my whole life. NOTHING has ever .. in the end .. been interesting or important enough for me to make a sustained effort to succeed. (Except being a good and decent mother where there was .. inside my own head .. no choice). I was really quite young .. about thirteen .. when a light flashed on in my brain when I was stressing about some difficult situation and a voice said 'Why don't you just walk away?'. This was revolutionary in my world and especially at my very academic school .. 'An 'A'? Surely Iris anyone who is capable of an 'A' is also capable of an 'A*'. So I think we must count this 'A' as a failure'.

Not only am I exceptionally non-competitive (although in no way wet) but because I live happily in my own head I can also put up with quite a high level of discomfort. So money or food running down slowly is not a vast problem for me. My parents and my husband and various lovers I had were all quite rich so huge chunks of my life were and are taken care of without me doing a thing. I have no problem at all with being kept as I feel that my levels of amusement and charm were and are easily equal to heating and groceries ( and clothes and .. whatever). The times when I was alone and working were punctuated with my suddenly feeling that I would go mad if I had to get up at 7.00 am one more time and 'just walking away' and living on less and less until it got ridiculous and it had been toast for every meal for days .. and then getting another job.

I can't understand how I can be so aware of what the 'finer things in life' are .. and go through phases of really bothering and saying 'Oh no .. these peacock's eggs are slightly the wrong shade of grey to tone with the napkins' and then the next minute eating slightly off fish I had bought for the cats because I just can't bring myself to leave the house for two weeks.It is as if I can fit in with anything and anyone. And sort of rise above anything. But this is probably why as I get older I care less and less about old friends and social things .. I'm not sure this is altogether good. Is it normal not to need 'closeness'?

And as I can rise above stuff. The rat-cooker .. . I just kept the cooker on .. day and night .. until finally the smell DID burn itself away. Just a couple of days before everyone arrived for Christmas .. AND .. I used every trick that you kindly told me and the cinnamon and the almond water were brilliant and made a huge difference. Which I have passed on to others so your ideas are now sweeping through Britain, helpfully.
- posted by Iris @ 1/19/2006 11:04:00 PM comment