Day.
Today is P@ncak3 Day and I had forgotten until my son rang up from university to check the mixture ingredients as he was the main cook for a p@ncak3 evening. So now I feel really lonely.

I am never lonely .. so what is this? If I felt lonely I wouldn't be living here. I can go back to London whenever I want ... tomorrow morning in fact .. and my family regularly beg me to and 'can't understand' how I can live as I do and not go mad.

But I think this is because P@ncak3 Day has always been organised and cooked by me ... always. And if we weren't together on the right day then it would be ignored and we would have it the following weekend or whatever. It is not even a big thing ... just cooking and eating vast numbers of p@ncak3s ... that's it. Not with my husband because he was never around at teatime which is when we have it ... but the children and me. Starting when my first child was a baby. I can picture her still in her high-chair fiddling and mushing and throwing bits around. Right up until last year ... when it covered two days to include all three of them .. and the old familiar fighting over the 'unfairness' of the first person to the table getting the crappy stuck one from before the pan was 'proved'. And my middle daughter's vile new French habit .. picked up from her boyfriend's 'M@rdi Gras' .. of eating hers with chocolate spread.

That was probably the first sign of it all slipping away ... that jar of Nutt3ll@ placed on the table amongst the lemons and the sugar and the treacle. And now I am starting to think about it .. I have remembered that she will be abroad at Easter .. maybe they all will. Those carefully crafted family traditions that took so much creativity and thought and seemed quite draining and .. sometimes .. even as if they were going to be too much trouble this year. But I did them in the end anyway because .. they were family traditions for f.ck's sake.

And now they are replicating my traditions for themselves ... for their friends. My son is a brilliant p@ncake cook. When I reminded him of everything that he would need I said in a casual voice 'Maybe you'd better get some Nut3ll@'. He laughed scornfully 'I don't THINK so'. My boy.

There is no point feeling lonely now anyway. The moment has already passed .. it is 11.00 pm ... panc@k3 time has come and gone. Get over it. Think about something else .. and if I really, really mind then next year plan ahead and make sure that I'm not hanging around by myself on Shr0ve Tuesd@y .. moaning.
- posted by Iris @ 2/28/2006 10:46:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Idol.
Today there was an entire pheasant's wing on the doorstep .. that is the largest offering so far but it was also possibly the coldest night of the year. These gifts started appearing in mid-January and it can't be a coincidence that the weather deteriorated sharply around that time. I first noticed that I was always kicking little rubber balls away when I walked out first thing in the morning .. and then it escalated, sadly, to very cute but (I believe) inedible shrew corpses several times a week.

These became interspersed with real treasures like a lump of chewy builder's putty and the postman's discarded elastic band. Then there was a small tuft of what looked like rabbit fur .. each day after that there was another ..invariably larger .. until finally a HUGE piece. Luckily it all looked very, very old and dessicated and was obviously being plundered from some hedgeside grave. A couple of days ago there were the horrid and depressing remains of a gnawed Goldfinch ... and then .. this morning .. the massive wing.

I can't decide whether to feel proud or upset about these offerings. Has my outstanding superiority over all other humans (within a hundred yards) been recognised by the tribe of half-wild 'barn cats' and I am now being worshipped as a Goddess? Or ... with the coming of ice and darkness .. do they have so little faith in me as the daily food bringer that they have to placate me with these sacrifices to ensure that I will emerge through this door each day? The similarity with the behaviour of the Ancient Incas and their pointless fussing about the sunrise obviously springs instantly to mind. I can't bear it if they are all having to get up unnecessarily early and scour the fields for something 'worthy' of my attention .. or else they will all die. Oh Nooooo. As if. You have no idea of the amount and high quality of the food that is laid out for them on a totally regular basis (often smuggled if my husband is in residence) . Why would they be so insecure .. could it be a racial memory of the days 'Before' we arrived here? Or ... maybe I am just a natural Idol.
- posted by Iris @ 2/25/2006 09:23:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Doors.
My oldest friend rang up this week .. we talk roughly every two years but it doesn't matter as it is one of those 'Weird, I feel as if I saw you yesterday' type relationships. We were at school together and hated each other. She was in the year below but I was the youngest in my class so we are actually the same age. She was an outgoing rebel with peculiar hair and I thought that she was a silly show-off. I was a sneaky rebel .. anti-authority in an underhand sort of way and she thought I looked rather scary and 'spiteful'. We met again at a party the year after I left and instantly bonded into this friendship which has lasted for the rest of our lives. God knows where the f.ck everyone else from my school has gone.

She was talking about an episode from the past which I had completely forgotten and then by coincidence the film 'Sl1d1ng D00rs' appeared on the TV just after I put down the phone. I am quite fond of this film in a cosy sort of way (putting aside the farcical charmless hideousness of both leading men) and so let it run on while I pondered the choices I have made at the many crossroads of life. The episode that she disinterred concerned her sister .. also a friend. This sister is older and just part of that generation who believed that if you weren't married by twenty-five your life was over .. so she settled for her first and only boyfriend and they are still together after a million years. I think you could describe these million years as .. not unhappy .. but 'mundane'. But how very, very different they could have been if he had not paused on the steps and missed that particular underground train.

At the time the sister's choice of husband didn't seem feeble .. it seemed exciting and even glamorous ... because his 'night job' was as the singer and frontman of our town's coolest rock band. He was actually famous within a twenty mile radius of the city centre and people recognised him in the street. One day he was approached by a member of a rival band .. not only were they less well-known than him but they were YOUNGER than he was. They were leaving to try their luck in London but their lead singer had finally succumbed to his own personal drug h3ll and had had to be ditched at the last minute. They were desperate .. and .. Oh, please .. would he consider taking his place. I think the words 'You must be joking' were used in reply. So they asked someone else .. and went on to become one of the most famous bands in the world and millionaires many times over. His own band broke up a year later and he took a job as a rather badly paid teacher ... and has been ever since.
- posted by Iris @ 2/24/2006 09:57:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Real.
I was staring at my husband as he bustled about making a piece of toast. 'I bet you have absolutely no idea who you really are', I said conversationally. His eyes shifted sideways and he ran the water to fill the kettle .. loudly and at length ... until he felt that all danger had passed.

It was on my mind as it had only recently occurred to me that, possibly, it is not getting older that has made me feel more relaxed and 'centered' but my having this prolonged period where I have removed myself from society. One of my 'little tests' for how I much I REALLY wanted to wear something .. when I first realised that I had lost the 'core me' ... was 'Would you put that on if you lived alone on a desert island?'. The answer seemed to be, 'Only if I was keeping up some fantasy that I was about to be rescued by a launch filled with merchant bankers'.

Soon after that I decided to be based here and AM living on a desert island-ish. But through the miracles of internet shopping my old dress sense has been reborn .. and .. somehow typically .. whenever the odd launch does pull up the occupants often say 'That's nice. Where did you get that?'. Words that I never seemed to hear when I was dressing to impress .. or just fit in.

Whereas I am almost certain that my husband doesn't own a single article of clothing that projects his exclusive, original inner being. Everything was chosen for practicality or snobbishness or because he saw someone he admired wearing it or his children gave it to him to 'lighten up' his appearance. The only time I even glimpsed his inner R0binson Crus03 was when we were window shopping in Paris, years ago, and one designer had as a centerpiece ... a peach coloured, silk trenchcoat. Gay..hay! I can hear you thinking but the designer's skills had somehow produced a garment that was not only insanely glamorous but also totally 'rugged' in spite of the colour. My husband's eyes gleamed .. I could see him visualising himself walking confidently through some European city with the eyes of exotic women flicking after him. 'Just GET it', I said, 'And keep it for wearing when you are abroad'. 'It costs thousands of pounds, look...', he replied sadly. 'And anyway ... '. And anyway he never would have worn it because it was just too big a jump from the habitual suiting and tweed. Putting on that coat would have involved dragging up from the depths a whole buried side of his personality and that would mean 're-thinking' and even 're-assessing' and a change in comfy old habitual behaviour. F.ck it .. why buy an expensive raincoat when the old one has plenty of years left in it?

If .. like I did .. you left your old spontaneous self back in the past somewhere and coped with various life changes by adapting your behaviour .. and your clothes ... then taking a long, tough look at your wardrobe produces some keen and surprising insights into the depths of your psyche. I'll bet that half the clothes will be too young for you and the other half will be too dull. (Or if you are my husband they will all be too old). Where are the clothes for you as you are this actual morning? Mine are all piled in heaps around my bedroom on my desert island ... and when the bankers' boat appears over the horizon I expect they'll think I look a bit 'unsuitable' .. I'm finally glad to say.
- posted by Iris @ 2/22/2006 10:05:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Plot.
I read back over some recent posts after I wrote last night and kept feeling that a thought about this blog was just out of my grasp. Then today I realised. It reminded me of reading the parts of a book that are put in to pad out the plot. This is the 'R0sencrantz and Gu1ldenstern' of blogs. I am standing chatting in the passage while Real Life goes on behind a massive carved oak door.

And I don't care. I have had Real Life ... in its many forms .. and it was very, very exhausting and often upsetting and only occasionally full of wild rapture. When I first started writing this I felt sad that blogs hadn't existed when I was in my thirties because my life then was many-layered beyond belief. I could have had my commenters on the edge of their seats screaming 'Look behind you!' and 'Nooo ...can't you SEE that he is a complete bastard' or 'Don't cry. Hugs. Of course you aren't a bad mother it's just the hormones'. I even considered writing a parallel blog under another name retracing those years as if they were happening now .. but was too lazy, of course.

It is obviously because I used to love drama and 'stuff' swirling around me so much that no one can accept that I am so happy here where not only does NOTHING ever happen but I go for days on end without speaking to another person (in person). This may well not be good but the longer I am left alone .. even by my family .. the more cheerful I feel. If this is recovering from twenty years of the selflessness of being the heart of the family then that is quite extreme. Perhaps it is in proportion to how selfish a person you were at the start.

One of my daughters rang me today and said, suddenly, 'You are never going to go on holiday again, are you?' That was quite odd .. as this very morning I had found an e-mail from an old friend asking if I would like to go to V13nna with him for a few days. To which my mind had instantly supplied the answer, 'No'. Although this was partly to spite 'Life' .. who had arranged this invitation .. spitefully. About twenty years ago I had been so in love with this same person that I thought I would die of it. He had spent part of his childhood in V13nna and often talked about it in a nostalgic and romantic way .. and I would day dream constantly about the most perfect thing that could ever happen to me. That he would ask me to go to V13nna with him and we would sit in his favourite old cafes and wander through the wide streets in the snow in fur-lined hoods , holding hands. But he never did .. as he was actually in love with someone else .. who was in love with someone else .. And I eventually got over it and as we had masses in common and got on incredibly well ... we are still really close friends .. although he lives on the other side of the world now. Which is why he thought it would be fun for us to spend some time together on a little holiday .. as we only meet every couple of years.

And .. it all seems like such an effort .. to go abroad ... that I said 'No'. I wish I could have looked into a crystal ball for a second .. twenty or so years ago .. and seen this day. Perhaps I would have felt a teeny bit better about his not being in love with me. When, in its rainbow depths, I saw myself choosing to settle cosily in bed with a huge pile of new detective stories rather than skip through the V13nnese snowflakes with 'Him'.

AND ... he was really upset that I didn't want to go.

Ahh, the small and subtle pleasures of the anti-chamber.
- posted by Iris @ 2/16/2006 11:27:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Anything.
I want to write anything so that that last post isn't at the top. As it was written in the middle of the night and is really annoying.

Errr ... I am obviously embroiled in some kind of writer's block and have even stopped having long stream-of-conciousness thoughts which would be perfect to post if I got round to it. So ... I spent the afternoon betting on the horse racing on-line. Last year I had a phase of being interested in it as I found that if I read slowly down the list of runners I would get a 'feeling' about some of them and not others. And large numbers of the 'felt' ones would finish in the first three. This is obviously the kind of statement which makes people want to punch you in the face but .. what can I say ... they kept winning. I was determined not to be sucked in stupidly and end up losing vast amounts of money and so forced myself to promise (in my head) that I would never bet more than one pound on any one horse ... or two pounds ... or ABSOLUTELY definitely not more than five pounds. Naturally when I started putting on larger sums I immediately started losing and finally gave the whole thing up.

Last weekend the weather was horrible in some multi-faceted way like rain with ultra-low cloud and an icy wind and knee-deep mud all around the house. So I was reading in bed in the afternoon when the racing came on the tv .. and for old times' sake I quickly chose three horses from each list when they were shown a few minutes before each race. And in EVERY race my horses were .. mostly .. first and second .. with a couple of disappointing second and thirds. Weird .. and annoying .. as I could have won quite a lot even with my feebly conservative betting amounts.

What does it all mean? Where does this amazing knowledge of horse potential come from ... especially when based on nothing but the sight of a string of names on the screen? There is one possibility - although slight. Maybe I am being contacted from beyond the grave. My grandfather was obsessed with horse racing .. it was the passion of his life and his year was dominated by the need to attend all the big race meetings. This interest died with him as my father couldn't give a toss and had refused to go anywhere near a race course as soon as he was old enough to turn sulking into an art form. Was my grandfather .. possibly bored and still hankering for the 'turf' .. desperately attempting to channel his expertise through me?

I hunted down an old photograph of him .. the only one I had .. He looked about thirty and was posing stiffly in a smart suit .. sitting on what looked like a church pew, oddly. And with a restless look. He probably only had half an hour to get to the course and the photographer was still putting his glass plates in position .. or whatever they did then. I carried the photograph through to the computer and brought up my W1ll1am H1ll bett1ng ac0unt. Great! There was still a reasonable sum resting there since I correctly predicted the winner of Big Br0ther at such an early stage that the odds were brilliant.

I decided to spend the afternoon at one racecourse only to ensure better concentration ... from both of us. I read quickly down the list of runners for each race and then held him up facing the page .. a race at a time .. then I re-read slowly, waiting for his 'guidance'. To test him .. well, I don't have perfect confidence in anyone .. even a close relation .. I decided to choose only ONE horse .. and that just to win .. in some of the races. Otherwise three as the 'field' was pretty large, generally. Even though I am practised at using the site .. this time one of the horse's odds changed between two clicks of the mouse and the bet was apparently 'invalid' so I had to go back. And when I pressed 'confirm' all the bets came up twice. I had doubled my intended stake. My grandfather seemed to be avoiding my eye, casually.

In the first two races 'we' were second and third ... this is from a field of eleven or twelve horse. And THEN both the races where we had picked just one horse ... were both FIRST. And THEN ... we didn't win anything for the rest of the afternoon. So I came out of it up by a mild amount even considering the extravagant (in my terms) level of betting.

Is he helping me to make small sums of money from the Great Beyond? If so Why? Is this all a waste of time? (Actually I think I can answer that one). Would anyone picking horses from a list get a certain number of winners by the law of averages .. or am I 'special'? Maybe time will tell. Meanwhile it is rather nice to have his picture here in front of me. It is not one that I had ever looked at closely before and I am reminded of how charming he was and always ready for a good time. I feel sad now that he died before I realised that I would have really enjoyed some days out with him at Asc0t. Perhaps together we would have made our fortune.
- posted by Iris @ 2/15/2006 07:37:00 PM (0) comments comment