Affair?
I have just realised that this is almost three years to the day since I discovered blogs for the first time. Three years ... about the same length as the classic affair. One year of fascination and awe at your good luck; one year of happiness and self-confidence ... and one year trying to get away. Yes ... that about sums it up.

I loved that first year so much. I even still have the link to that MaCleans article about the cool blogging community ... I was so proud that it was MY community. Not that they actually KNEW that of course .. I was a shy lurker ... but they were the ones who I read and just occasionally made a tiny comment and then ran away. I thought that they were all just GREAT .. and, in fact, they WERE.

Layne, Dainty, Joshua, Badger, Ryan .... with all your scarily witty friends and commenters .... and your wild lives and wilder memories ... it was the most fun I'd had for years.

And then I settled into it .. and got my own blog .. and some of the scariest people turned into really good friends and I knew better what to say in comments so that there wasn't a deafening silence. And so I got used to it.

And then ... turned into now.
- posted by Iris @ 4/06/2006 03:55:00 PM (1) comments comment

 
I wonder if this whole thing is coming to the end of its natural life. This blog. I never really want to write anything here and yet I write e-mails all the time. The main reason is that I am so determined that no one who knows me should ever find it and that means that there is so little that I can put safely.The e-mails flow on for pages with no trouble at all as I can say what ever I like. And not have to hold back or try to be someone more generally acceptable.

I know that I just said that I am happy to hear commenters truthful views on what I write ... however much they disagree. But I'm now thinking that I have probably been very watered down in the past .. in American terms .. and that is one reason that I have got bored here. I remember writing something like this ages ago .. and Squid telling me that it didn't matter what I put .. I think her exact words were 'Shred away'. Hmm ... I REALLY don't think that is actually the case.

I'm just rambling aloud here .. don't bother to answer. As I said before many times I have made the most massive effort to avoid having any but the tiniest number of readers so that people who would make me scream in real life don't make me scream here. But even so .. if I am STILL not writing what really happens most of the time .. and not being totally 'myself' in case it hurts someone's feelings .. then it is rather pointless. And looking back over it all I think 'So what?
- posted by Iris @ 4/05/2006 10:00:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Surprise.
This has all been a surprise. I suppose each person drifts along thinking that people who read and comment are mostly rather like they are themselves. Like hearing their voices in your head speaking with your own accent.

Is it just an English thing? Not only do everyone around me and especially my own family speak 'bluntly' most of the time .. but they also use sarcasm constantly. If ANYONE used the kind of over-the-top 'wet' syrupy tones that I have been seeing in comments elsewhere lately then we would assume that they were joking. I don't go around being 'bracing' or 'blunt' as some kind of lifestyle choice or to be different. It is totally NORMAL here.

Also .. fuck it .. I am stunned that it is apparently beyond the pale to make ONE irritable, sarcastic comment ONCE in three years to someone you have felt quite close to. And that it is preferable to be a sugar-coated weirdo who talks like a cheap greetings card. (Nothing about Bunny was particularly sparked off by anything here BTW .. it has been simmering around the place for weeks).

You may be amazed to hear that I couldn't care less what people say in their comments here if it is what they really think. People who I already know and respect, obviously, which is everyone who HAS been a regularish commenter in fact. What is the point of always being kind and caring (or silent) if that isn't what you feel about something I said. I'm sure it may not be mutual but I actually like you both so much more for being upfront about the Jo thing. It makes me feel at home. And it is useful and .. well all right .. just useful .. to know how things come across to readers in far off lands.
- posted by Iris @ 4/03/2006 06:55:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Truth
This may be a mistake .. but then again I live here and can theoretically write whatever I like.

I have read Jo's writing since her first ever post and because we also 'know' some of the same people I have felt part of a little group of on-line friends for about three years. I am so sorry that she is going through such a horrible time and am in many ways totally sympathetic and think about her in a well -wishing way .. every day.

BUT .. her blog seems to have been taken over by new commenters who write all the time. And not only am I not in tune with them but I actually disagree with the majority of their advice and also find them beyond annoying. To the point that every time they speak I would like to answer briskly and .. oh no ... even rudely. I didn't realise that people who said such ludicrously sentimental and cliched things .. and in such a sanctimonious and smug manner .. actually existed in 'our' world.

So .. I have had to back away. And was moved to be hostile lately .. really because 'they' made me so angry. It is late at night here and that often makes you loosen up and say what you really mean. What I really mean is that I am sorry and upset that these strange and dreary people have taken over someone that I once liked a lot. While mush and gush might be comforting in the short term .. maybe not so good a few months in the future. But then again I am not American .. so what do I know.
- posted by Iris @ 4/02/2006 12:57:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Mental
I think this shows how assumptions are so often wrong .. and how difficult it really is to assess people accurately from their writing. A commenter somewhere else dismissed something I wrote about mental illness by saying that I obviously wouldn't know what I was talking about as I was English. And that the understanding of psychiatry etc. here and the willingness to use it are many, many years behind America ... especially if you are some random person like myself.

Funnily enough ... my father was a major figure in the mental health world and my childhood was populated by many famous and distinguished doctors and medical writers. I constantly heard the latest ideas discussed and talked to all sorts of people .. of various ages .. who had been treated in different ways. Even now the famous 'Television Psychiatrists' and 'A doctor writes' people are usually acquaintances of mine.

So I am really tempted to say something aggressive back .. but instead I will just write this here.
- posted by Iris @ 3/30/2006 03:18:00 PM (4) comments comment

 
New Worlds.
When I was about twelve I was on holiday with my parents and we had a slightly unusual evening. The next day my mother said 'That would make quite an amusing little story ... like the ones they read on W0men's H0ur'. (Then probably the most famous and popular daytime radio programme in Britain). She sat down .. wrote it .. posted it .. and some weeks later it was broadcast to hundreds of thousands of listeners. She had never written anything before and never did again. I remember to this day that it was called 'Saus@g3s for the Church' and was an account of our being taken by motorboat from our island hotel to a massive charity barbecue held on a remote mainland beach.

We had a totally ordinary evening and then waded out in the dark to the boat ... which wouldn't start. While the seaman repeatedly turned the engine over in an embarrassed, sweaty way .. every single person on the beach slowly walked off up the cliffs until when he finally said that we were f.cked ..we were all alone. We sat there, freezing, as the moon rose attractively and hadn't the faintest idea what to do. After an hour, literally, of pointless arguing about whether to try to walk several miles in the dark along the cliff top or to sit icily in the boat until dawn .. a little fishing boat drew near. And did something to the engine and it started instantly and we were back at the hotel in a trice.

So nothing really happened .. and why would she be inspired to write about it and especially have the mad confidence to think that this serious, important programme would even look at it? Perhaps it is the 'Beginners' Luck' thing .. because you don't understand the complexities you aren't so afraid. I won a recipe competition years ago when I could hardly cook at all. It was quite high level and had a decent prize of a fitted kitchen and your recipe printed on sliced bread wrappers for a whole month. (The recipe had to be bread based). My repertoire at that time only included about four dishes .. luckily one was made out of bread and apples .. with some secret ingredients which I will only reveal to my daughter on her wedding day. I typed it out in a moment of boredom and .. it won. I think I still have an old bread wrapper in a drawer somewhere .. it was one of the high points of my life .. and a grinning photograph of me featured in a glossy magazine. When we went to look at the fitted kitchen it was so hideous that we just left it in the shop. Still ....

Perhaps that is the answer .. to something or other .. Every so often to make an effort to succeed in a world that you know absolutely nothing about. Your lack of nerve and fascinatingly fresh approach might lead to fame and prizes beyond your wildest dreams. And if they don't .. no one cares .. because they won't know who you are.
- posted by Iris @ 3/12/2006 08:13:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Doomed.
So ......... all my comments have disappeared. When I try to look at them the box says that Internet Explorer can't find them. Maybe I will be alone HERE for ever now .. as well as in real life.

I was reading the April issue of V0gue and turned eagerly to the H0roscopes .. which said (roughly) .. 'By now you will understand why all your soul-searching of the past month was necessary. Mercury's two eclipses caused much disturbance and re-evaluation but the positive aspects of this should soon be in evidence'. How spooky is that? Hurry up April .. I am bored with being depressed.

Speaking of which .. I planted even more primroses yesterday. These are a combination of wild ones which I have moved from my own further away fields (there are millions but practically no one ever sees them) and bought (but very cheap) ones of a slightly different pale yellow. They are cheap because everybody else wants their primroses in weird garish shades of magenta or orange. I am recreating the wild look that would be there anyway if the previous farmer hadn't overstocked his fields so that every blade and leaf was eaten down to the hilt.

It is funny in a way that I have gone to so much trouble over these years to make this once anally neat place look romantically 'old fashioned'. Even buying wild plants and seeds to put back into the hedges and banks of the drives and planting ivy everywhere so that the barns and parts of the house now look like an agent's photograph with 'Suitable for Renovation' written underneath. On the rare occasions that I manage to foil my husband and get a builder near the house I have to hover about him saying 'Please, please don't touch the ivy ... Aaarrghh ... No ... could you lean your ladder over there instead .. Eeek ... that creeper is MEANT to be growing through the downpipe ... ' etc. They think I am a loony.

It means that gardening for me is an endless disappointment. I seem to be the only person in the world who revels in things trailing and winding and falling over the paths. Every gardener I have ever had has consistently ruined the 'look' that I fight to achieve. So that now I can't bring myself to employ anyone and the whole thing is really falling apart and in a messy rather than charming way. I gave up on 'help' when an actual friend who was desperate for money asked if he could work in the garden for a bit. Not only did I feel that we were close enough for me to be brutally frank about his NEVER using his own initiative but he also had perfect taste in clothes and interior decoration .. so I was safe.

There were a few slightly worrying moments when I would appear unexpectedly in the vegetable garden and find that he was pruning the raspberries without asking or had started a new compost heap but it WAS all useful. Until I went away for the weekend .. which did not include his working days ... and came back to find the entire vegetable garden 'tidied' with the attractive wild hedges clipped back and .. how COULD he? .. all the potted box bushes I had been nurturing before making into an insanely carefully arranged edging had been planted rather carelessly and not in quite the right place. And he was PROUD of how much he had achieved in such a short time. But every speck of it was stuff that I had firmly and even sternly told him that I didn't want done.

He was sad and low generally .. and this had made him happy for the first time in ages .. so I felt I couldn't say anything. But now having him there made ME totally miserable. Luckily he finally got a job and didn't have time to 'help' anymore .. but a whole Summer had been spoilt for me and the wrong edging is still an irritation after all these years. So I don't want a gardener ever again .. which drives my husband mad and that is fair enough in a way but he is another 'man' who never leaves the house without a pair of secateurs and snips casually at overhanging rose branches as he walks along. What is it with these f.ckers?

And it isn't just humans. Now the sh0oting season has ended the pheasants are free to wander confidently wherever they like and .. (why?) .. as they pass they pick off the heads of any emerging flower and just throw it on the ground. I hate them. Okay it is cold and pretty much everything you might eat is dead and you are stomping around in knee-high wet grass so you try to snack on something attractively coloured. And you don't like the taste. So why walk along and bite off every single one you pass and toss it aside? As I watched one doing this morning .. to the primroses I planted yesterday. Screaming and banging on the window fell on deaf ears and he pottered slowly away.

It is all so f.cking dispiriting. So bring on the 1 April .. as fast as you can.
- posted by Iris @ 3/12/2006 11:17:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Helpful.
I was walking across to the computer and thinking about this blog .. and there was Serena's comment which was almost exactly the same. My thought had been that I am actually quite good at cheering people up (I hear a faint gasp) and had once imagined that that would be my destiny .. with a newspaper column or something similar. And thinking that maybe I should start another blog which was more like the better moments of this one with amusing chatting and recipes and cute moments remembered of children and cats .. and people would look there specially when they were bored or low. It would be like work .. and possibly a useful exercise and not weirdo therapy as this one is turning out to be. Quite tiring to do though .. and I have this almost irresistible urge to be nasty suddenly when overwhelmed by sweetness.

Two things ... as well. The new one would obviously be different .. but with this one I don't really want very many readers. The number I have is plenty and I would be driven insane if I had commenters who said drippy things. From my site meter I can see that the same old (and very welcome) people pass by here regularly even if the more recent posts have been beyond feeble.

The other thing is that I may have been living this exact bit of life too long and the other night when Loneliness happened for the first time in .. possibly .. a couple of years ..was such a surprise that I quite wanted to see what I wrote in case a subconcious solution appeared. None of these last posts were what I had thought I was going to put when I sat down.

There is an old film from the forties which I was really struck by when I was a teenager and felt that I too might have been put here to help mankind in a similar way. Unfortunately I wasn't struck hard enough to actually remember the name of it still. I t was about a famous film director who .. I think .. dresses up as a hobo and goes down to the railroad tracks to do some in depth research for his new film. There is some kind of fight with real hobos and he is knocked out and comes to on a train in difficult circumstances where it looks as if he has killed someone .. and is arrested. And ..cliche .. no one in the middle of nowhere believes that he is the director and they refuse to check or let him ring anyone .. cliche .. and he is sentenced to years on a chain gang. AND .. it is all hell .. BUT .. the only thing that makes the men happy, ever, is the weekly movie which seems to be invariably M1ckey M0use or similar. And the director has this massive epiphany where he realises that all his gritty, depressing films were a pointless load of crap and if he ever gets out of there he will devote his life to making comedies so that people will feel good about themselves. Very soon after this he is finally tracked down and released instantly (one law for the rich) and becomes the new W@lt D1sney.

And I decided that this would also be me .. but from a writing point of view. Because I have a naturally optimistic, jokey personality . Sadly and strangely .. practically never seen on these pages.

So I was thinking this just now ..Get that personality down off the shelf and put this dreary one back in the drawer. Or at least .. as Serena says .. let each personality have their own blog so that readers will know what to expect .. including myself.
- posted by Iris @ 3/09/2006 12:12:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Barn.
I am going to write about gardening in a dull way .. but it sums up what happens to me ALL THE TIME.

When we bought this house it was a working farm with no real garden but several small paddocks close around .. which we made into lawns and flower beds and a large vegetable enclosure. In this was a once pretty small stone barn which had been patched up cheaply and hideously with breeze blocks and iron sheeting. After many years of discussing and reminding and finally screaming (on my part) .. my husband eventually agreed to ask the local builder to replace the roof sheeting with clear plastic stuff and the block sides with windows ... so that it would turn into a charming greenhouse and we could actually use it for tomatoes etc. The vegetable garden is done in an ornamental way with large flower beds and a pond in front of this barn and so it would all suddenly look attractive and even 'normal'.

The only problem was that every Spring birds appeared and nested in various parts of the building and obviously had done back through the generations. Jackdaws in a collapsed chimney and swallows swooping through the holes in the walls to build inside. So I efficiently got this plan moving in January so that the incredibly simple work would be totally over before the birds turned up in late March. The chimney would be left alone and part of the window glass empty so we would all use the barn together.

I had stood in front of the barn with my husband pointing out that the iron sheeting could be ripped off and identical .. but clear plastic .. sheeting nailed back on .. in a couple of mini-seconds. But it was now March and NOTHING had changed .. and the birds were due shortly. 'Where the f.ck are they?' I said. My husband rang and 'spoke' to the leader of the builders. 'Hmm .. yes ... well it all turns out to be far more complicated than we thought and they will have to rebuild the roof entirely. The special plastic covering comes in completely different sizes to the present iron and needs more support or it will collapse under heavy snow. They haven't got time to fit all this extra work in .. so we will have to leave it till the Autumn'.

'What 'special' plastic .. every other shed in the county has corrugated stuff on the roof?'. 'Oh .. didn't I say? We chose a new kind which comes in larger thinner sections but it has a cutting edge 'coating' which evens out the temperature inside ... slightly'. 'OMG ... I am living in MAN WORLD.' (The one where every simple journey from A to B somehow has to include a detour round M and N). 'LISTEN .. I have a revolutionary plan here ... CANCEL this stupid f.cking stuff instantly. Instead ... order the original roofing, whose pieces are identical in size to the old so that NO new supports are necessary .. and it will take five minutes to replace. So they HAVE got time to do it now'. 'But .. won't it get really hot inside?' 'NO .. because we will also buy conservatory blinds which are everywhere and cost nothing and ... just DO it'. He did .. I am stunned to say.

That afternoon the builder rang and told me that he had ordered my kind of roofing .. it would arrive the next day and they would start and finish work within the week. Leaving a good fortnight or so before bird nesting is due to begin.

My entire life is an endless repetition of scenes like this. I don't have any money of my own so my husband has the final decision on any work on the house or large purchases of furniture etc. We have lived here for more than ten years but vast amounts still need to be done .. and he puts off EVERYTHING .. always because of some bizarre complication that he has discovered or the need to find some antique component which never turns up. He only occasionally gives in after I am reduced to hysterical screaming in frustration. People who work for him constantly go through the same kind of nightmarishness so it isn't our 'relationship'. His manageress rang me in tears of fury only a few weeks ago after the ceiling had fallen down in one of their main rooms .. a YEAR after she had started pointing out the loose plaster to him.

At Christmas I had a long discussion with my daughters about the ridiculous level of unnecessary crapness of here and the flat in London AND the workplace because he will NEVER make any decisions or agree to anything and yet always has the final say. At various points in this 'little talk' all three of us began to cry .. like his manageress .. out of fury and hopelessness. That is another of the reasons why I am here .. at least here I can make many small decisions that slip past him unnoticed. In London he sees all and notes all ...

Every conversation any of us have about this and 'him' leads inevitably to someone saying .. 'It's no good .. we just HAVE to win the L0ttery'. And somehow .. pathetically and insanely .. that seems to be the only answer.
- posted by Iris @ 3/07/2006 11:46:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Spring.
This desire for renewal has taken place on the first day of Spring .. a coincidence ... who knows? And my daughter rang this morning and said that she had been brooding about my 'situation' ever since Panc@k3 Day. As .. for the first time ever .. my husband had come home early to the flat and found my daughters and a couple of their friends having a panc@ke evening. And had sat down with them .. and as she looked round the table she had felt .. this is all wrong .. why are you here cosily eating panc@kes and laughing and Mummy is away in the middle of nowhere .. alone.

I am NOT moaning about this. I am remarking on the fact that something seems to have changed in my perception and now in hers.

The obvious answer is just to go to London more but when I am there I have nothing particular to do. I can always go out in the evenings to somewhere that we own which provides social life on tap but that means invariably drinking some vast amount and usually not having a wildly interesting time anyway. Spending hours in my flat is pretty boring and also .. as I once wrote .. the area has become filled with incredibly selfish, loud richer people who drive me mad with blasting music and endless parties and general 'noise nuisance'. I am not insane here .. I have recently been called in as a witness in a court case between two of my neighbours over noise. So reading or writing at home is interspersed with constant inner rantings about how I want to kill. As well as often lying awake into the early hours waiting for some f.ckers party to end.

I don't enjoy the theatre here that much. It seems to be rehashing of things that I saw years ago and don't want to see again or rather stupid musicals or worthy plays with some guilt-inducing simplistic message that I don't care about. Except ... a dot of pleasure on the horizon ... after a horrible experience of queuing in freezing wind ... my daughter managed to get tickets for us all for 'Sp@mal0t' AND at the time when Tim yrruC* will be in it. This isn't until next October so I have plenty of time to savour it. I will just repeat here that I love him and it is sad that his career never really took off in America. I first saw him a billion years ago when a friend of ours had a small part in a new play called 'The R0cky rorroH Sh0w' and begged us to come and see it as the (tiny) theatre was half empty. So I saw it in its first week .. and was struck by the huge talent and brilliant singing voice of T1m. Later he had the P1rate K1ng role in the 'P1r@tes of P3nzanc3' musical .. done in America by K3vin Kl1ne .. and was perfect again. Then it was all downhill .. in terms of ordinaryness.

The art world is a bit close to home and combines .. in my view .. very dreary collectors and (mostly) maddeningly mediocre artists who I often long to punch in the face. As I am meant to be revealing more of myself I will say here that if I could press a button so that Tr@cy Em1n would be wiped off the face of the earth .. then I would do it this minute.

Almost all my old friends have moved out of London now or spend huge amounts of time travelling abroad. Many of them are a bit irritating to me now anyway as our lives have diverged. Lunch once a year is plenty to keep a friendly vestige ticking over. My one constant pleasure is being with my children but when we are all in the flat .. they are not in the flat .. as they seem to be out all day working and then out all the evening socially. So they have to give up their own things to spend time with me and that is okay occasionally .. but not as a way of life.

Also .. London has changed horribly in the last ten years and it makes me really upset. 'My' part of it particularly which I have known since I was a teenager .. and is filled with a thousand memories .. has also filled with a thousand foreigners. I can't believe that anyone .. however liberal and 'inclusive' .. can actually welcome the fact that a place that they loved has been taken over by strangers and its old charming character totally ruined. I don't want to get on a full bus and be the only person speaking English .. to turn the corner out of my street and be surrounded by women in flowing robes and face masks .. to sit in the historic local park and then have to leave because of harrassment from endless slimy assh0les with impenetrable accents. .... So there you are.
- posted by Iris @ 3/02/2006 09:57:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Portrait.
I have just had a huge insight .. I couldn't understand why it is so difficult to write here when I pour out pages of e-mails every day without a thought. And why .. when I read back .. does it all seem so unlike me and really quite strange and alien and ... sort of annoying?

It is because .. not only is this the Ros3ncrantz and Gu1ldenstern of blogs .. it is also the equivalent of the Portrait in the Attic.

This is not me. This is just the side that I normally keep hidden and don't spend much time with even inside my own head. It is the self-pitying, pathetic part of my personality .. and it hardly ever even makes any jokes. How could I not notice this before? I am really, really not like this in true life ... I can make a stupid aside about ANYTHING however tasteless and unpromising .. and feel it is my duty to do so. Is the garbage receptacle aspect of this blog the reason for my appearing so much happier to the outside world? But that means all those dreary, weedy, mean little thoughts which once lurked in the sub-structure of my brain are now frolicking through cyber-space .. for ever .. While the cheerful, resilient (fairly), e-mail REAL ME has been deleted along with a pile of 'enlargement' spam.

Aaarrgghh! There is three years worth of writing here .. and about twenty percent of it isn't moaning. Think of the miles of e-mails and hours of phone conversations which I would rather have transcribed. All sparkling with amusing quips and filled with riveting gossip or little moments of my children's lives caught in amber. F.CK! It has been the terror of discovery which has ruined it all .. and the feeling that it was disloyal to write about my children in case I slanted it in a way that would hurt them if they ever arrived here. And the same goes for my friends. I was so angry with my husband at the beginning that I felt that nothing I could say would convey the hatefulness of his past behaviour so he wasn't off limits. But now even he is making an effort and a trickle of guilt has begun even there.

From reading this you know NOTHING about my life. Just some anecdotes from the distant past and odd musings about the weather .. and then pages and pages of self-examination. That is just weird. Do you see that I don't even talk about what I read .. when it isn't as much as a book a day but is roughly four books a week at least. Or what I listen to .. when I regularly buy CDs in huge manic bursts. Or what films I see or what TV I watch. You don't know any of my friends even by the most farcical of nicknames. Or what I do in London or my social life down here ... or even very much about the house .. or the garden .. I never say anything about politics or even the News.

Why? Is this peculiar or not? I am amazed now that there is anything to write down at all. Are my children or friends really ever likely to find this? Could I put in more about them in a way that they wouldn't mind .. or does that take away the whole point? I feel that something here has got to change .. enough with the introspection ... its time is over.
- posted by Iris @ 3/01/2006 09:45:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Bore.
Writing yesterday about a moment of loneliness ... well, a good night's sleep and that nonsense is in the past.

Today is the first day of Spring, apparently, and it is snowing with alarmist local weather reports about keeping a shovel in your car at all times. When it was warmer a couple of weeks ago I replanted a lot of primroses artistically on the banks of the two 'drives' down to the house. They are all flowering and budding and seem totally oblivious to the fact that they are straining to keep their heads above inches of ice. They aren't even meant to come out for another month .. how brave and cheerful they are .. what a lesson for us all. Or ... a lesson in how making a superhuman effort to do something not only beyond the call of duty but also completely unnecessary may well lead to your death. This is not unlike my own life philosophy.

After the evening of loneliness I spent a little time reflecting on what the f.ck I AM doing here. The thing is that I can't actually think of anything that I really want to do. I don't have to work for money .. and if I did would that be a salvation? How many people really enjoy their work? How many would stay on if they won the l0ttery? I don't want to be famous because I have finally realised that the only good thing about it would be the money and the rest ... chat shows, fans, mean newspaper articles etc.. would be torture. And I don't want to help animals in a hands-on way because I find that sort of sadness completely unbearable .. it has to be the long-distance cheque option.

And I don't want to help people because ... I don't care enough. Placed in a one-to-one 'I am so unhappy and desperate' scenario .. I am actually renowned for kindness and hours of listening and .. indeed .. offers of money. But there is always 'another me' standing in the room thinking 'For f.ck's sake. Stop being so self-indulgent and feeble. Where is your sense of humour ... get a grip'. I don't include coping with the deaths of family members or close friends here, obviously. Or cats. Once it moves outwards to hordes of unattractive strangers then that is it for me.

I have lived quite a varied life with many ups and downs of money and jobs and types of friends. This has taught me that most people are quite crappy ... and not 'nice' or heroic or even .. horrors .. totally honest. I am surprised that I can still be surprised at the depths to which humans can sink. I think that everyone is born selfish and has to be taught to be 'decent' .. and that seems to be happening less and less. In no way do I believe that there is 'good' in everyone.

Not only that but huge numbers of people are massively boring .. filled with unoriginal opinions and chunks of regurgitated media rubbish and excruciating sentimentality. Why is it so odd to prefer to read books and watch the better TV programmes than sit around enduring conversations that make you want to scream or you find you have tuned out? It was when I found that I needed a large number of strong drinks to get through all the social events that I was attending and the first thing I ever said to a visiting 'friend' was 'How about some whisky?' that the lateral thought of 'Not seeing them anymore' rose into my brain. You may be thinking 'Why doesn't she move into another circle .. find some cleverer and more amusing friends'. Err ... these WERE supposedly some of the most intelligent and amusing people in London. Journalists, writers, artists, actors ... I don't want to sound like an assh0le (too late, probably) but I was once considered an ornament to any dinner party and not the dreary, whiny old frump who appears on these pages.

Okay .. this may not be a life that suits many people but I can manage it .. for now. I DO often wonder if there is 'more' out there ... well there must be .. but I have such a strong core of cynicism (to me this is a virtue) that I really have no idea how to find the way forward.
- posted by Iris @ 3/01/2006 11:17:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
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

 
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 (0) comments comment

 
Phew!
OMG ... the relief ... to find that it is Typepad and not my own computer that had hidden most of my favourite blogs. This morning I sat frozen as I realised I was reading posts from last week .. and then they stopped. My brain obviously refused to take in anything so awful as I managed to convince myself that not only was it actually last Monday but the posts looked familiar as I had read them late last night and no one had written anything since. Then I turned to Squid and everything was dated five days later. Okay .. it is not actually the week before after all .. I accept that now. So my computer must be faulty .. perhaps it is caching the latest posts (as it does with the ones I write) and if I look later it will all be fine. ... It was not.

I am stunned that I was so upset. Get a grip. You can live without reading about these people's lives surely? Ring up your local friends ... write a few letters ... or even Chr1stmas cards. No ... Noooo ... I want my cyber-world ... please give it back and I will never be mean or lazy again.

Well, that was quick. One e-mail and Badger has sent me the name of their temporary multi-blog. That is so handy and perfect .. it is almost like reading a magazine.

Of course I now face an endless future without meanness or laziness ... but it is so, so worth it.
- posted by Iris @ 12/17/2005 12:24:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Post.
I was struck by Badger (and her friend) writing about trying to re-find lost fun. Exactly. My first resolution is to write here more but shorter. I have been using the computer every day to find presents and it is a totally different thing from dragging across the house and warming it up and saying half a sentence and then the phone rings. At the moment I skip around reading blogs and bits of news and e-mails all through the day and could easily jot down fascinating SHORT posts endlessly. Otherwise it is like sitting down to write an essay and the natural 'putting it off' mode is therefore activated.

In passing .. I made every effort to buy a new 'stove' as that was obviously the sensible option but now they all have a 28 day delivery so I am f.cked. So I have returned to baking the smell away with only minor success and the house does not smell 'Chr1stmassy' in the normal sense but does have an authentic whiff of the stable.

I had an idea for a film which would be silent and therefore sell easily all over the world. It would be called 'The Address Book' and would be an old woman writing her Chr1stmas cards and as she turns each page she is reminded of the person with a short scene or flash of a moment they spent together and then she crosses the name through as they are now dead. Until she gets to 'Z'. I thought that would be cool ... or incredibly depressing ...
- posted by Iris @ 12/15/2005 07:38:00 AM (90) comments comment

 
Unusual.
I have an unusual problem ... related to Chr1stmas ... and I think that the chances of anyone being able to advise on it are pretty small. It also has a disgusting quality which makes me realise how totally ... and probably beyond ... un-anal I must be. I seem able to get used to ANYTHING.

It is that a rat must have been living IN my electic cooker. I was surprised myself, obviously, I am not THAT relaxed and slutty. My house looks fairly normal in a bohemian sort of way and has flowers around and washing-up done etc.

When I was making the pumpk1n pie for Hall0ween I used this cooker for the first time for weeks. It is next to the agA* as a back-up and normally only useful for pastry things. After a short while the kitchen filled with a smell so terrible that the others actually started gagging and had to go outside. It had a peculiar undertone which we somehow 'just knew' was baking urine. 'A rat must have been going around behind it .. waiting to come out and eat the cat food', said my daughter. True .. when pulled out there were 'droppings' and a horrific slidy brown mark where it .. or (eeuww) 'they' ... had been squeezing past. So I hoovered and washed the floor and everywhere with undiluted disinfectant ... and turned the oven back on. And the smell was exactly the same. The others went out into town and I cooked the pie anyway as I had no choice .. with all windows and doors open. You could see that the rat had no way of getting into the INSIDE of the oven .. I'm not totally unhygenic and mad.

So I then forgot all about it until now. As I have to use the electric one since the oil has run out (temporarily). Yesterday I placed a fish pie into the oven and OMG there was the smell .. fresher and possibly stronger than ever. Oh why and how? Under (?) the cooker were more droppings and as I was hoovering them up I noticed that they were mixed with fluffy stuff. That looked like ... wadding. And on inspection there was a gap on the back of the cooker that someone determined and squidgy could probably get through. A buried memory surfaced. Last time my daughter was here we were standing around chatting on her first morning when a rat zoomed out from behind the cooker and left the room by the hall door. 'Isn't that weird?', she said. 'A few weeks ago I would have jumped onto a chair, screaming, and now I couldn't give a f.ck'. 'Yes, I must have disturbed it eating the cat food when I came down and it hid under there'. We thought no more about it.

A quick explanation ... in September , round here, rats come in from the fields and try to find places to live for the winter. There are always a few weeks when they look for every possible entry point into the house and in ours there are endless little gaps round outside pipes and cracked floorboards etc. and we have to track them down and fill them with wire and concrete.

BUT .. now I see that it wasn't hanging about on whim, it was LIVING between the two walls of the cooker. And although that was obviously it leaving ... the wadding must still be completely 'soaked' and worse and I'm not sure if the smell will ever go. I left it on for hours yesterday and again today to see if it would dry out and bake the smell away ... but no ..not at all.

What I mean about the 'un-anal' is that left to and by myself, I would probably do nothing. Just always have the windowns open when I baked a pie. But Chr1stmas is the one time when this cooker is vital .. we use it constantly .. and it is in the middle of the kitchen in the middle of the house. And everyone sits there all day and it is the setting for Chr1stmas lunch and every other meal including those where we might have guests. And my husband has the exquisitely tuned sense of smell of a w1ne connoisseur. Even without that, however, the smell is UNBEARABLE. If you would like to experience my life for a moment .. leave a small saucepan of urine boiling on YOUR stove while you are having dinner. And then perhaps you could give me your thoughts on what could possibly be done.
- posted by Iris @ 12/11/2005 12:33:00 AM (1) comments comment

 
Genet1cs.
My husband and older daughter have gone to madretsmA* for the weekend to the opening of the @t1uqs3M* exh1bit1on. (That had better be really well concealed as he will snap up here briskly if Googled by them). Spookily they are BOTH experts on his work as he is relatively unknown and my daughter used my husband's c0llection as the base for her Un1vers1ty d1ssertat10n and then did research in H0lland. So mouldering in the un1versity l1brary is her essay ... probably called upon by the person who set up this sh0w. This type of expedition is unheard of as she is VERY impatient with her father being vague or drunk or anal. Luckily one of my oldest friends is hctuD* and my daughter can spend time with her to water it all down.

I sometimes feel as if I have a d0ppelgang3r as my daughter looks so similar to myself at her age that people spring on her from across rooms saying 'OMG ... you just HAVE to be Iris's child'. This means that many of my old friends, particularly ones who I haven't seen for years, treat her as if she was me. I have also over time ... and now she is grown-up ... told her so many stories and indiscreet anecdotes about all these people that she might as well BE me as far as they are concerned. The down side is that as I slid into depression and lurkiness I was able to send her out to parties and pr1vate views in my place. This was once useful and fun for her but now she has a full life of her own and I have lost the habit of social bothering.

But, as she is so amusing and sympathetic, all these old friends think of HER as their friend too now and are really just as happy to spend time with her as me. One man .. who I have known for decades and used to flirt with on a regular basis when younger ... actually gave her a lift home after a party; parked and poured out intimate details of his marriage problems and then leapt on her. After she had fought him off he apologised saying ' It's just that in this light you look exactly like your mother'. Though he never leapt on ME.

When she was living in NY for a few months some years ago she spent her entire time with one of my once closest girlfriends and the godm0ther of my son. This friend IS younger than me but even so. They bonded so intensely that all thought of me seems to have disappeared from this friend's head as she has practically never bothered to write to me since but sends the odd warm message to my daughter. And at a major l1terary party last week ...which I backed off from assuming it would be crappy and full of unknown assh0les and then it wasn't .. she had a really fun time talking to various people who started off disappointed not to see me and then saying everything to her instead. As I talk to her so much she always knows their references and even remembers ancient gossip ... what an unexpected gem for a middle-aged bohemian to find in the crowd.

So ... my beautiful hctuD* friend will probably be sorry that I didn't go as well but will soon be consoled by well informed chatting .. especially from someone whose looks remind her of our peak years and who won't drag the mood down with tales of fatness and despair.
- posted by Iris @ 12/09/2005 09:52:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Strangers?
A few months ago I stopped writing because I didn't feel I had anything to say anymore and I was about to go into a long period of being here with nothing happening. And I seemed to have come out of being depressed and sad ... always good for pages of rambling.

AND .... a surprising number (for me) of people wrote here and by e-mail saying .. 'Don't stop, we are happy for you to drone on about nothing. It doesn't matter if it isn't riveting'. I think the words 'Even just write your shopping list', were used. So I re-considered and have been recording the equivalent of my shopping list ever since.

With NO comments .. apart from the kindly badger and occasionally visiting Squid and Minnie. I have a site meter. I can SEE that many people ... and regularly the same people ... are reading this. I don't ask for much .. nodding and smiling or the word 'Really?' would be sufficient. I am only still here because YOU said it would be all right. And who I miss particularly is Jo who was once a mainstay of supportive remarks . I notice that she now has about forty blogs to get round every day ... but MONTHS of nothing at all ...
- posted by Iris @ 12/09/2005 09:34:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Warmth.
There have been some difficulties over the past two days. I am trying to keep track of many threads which will twist together into a final perfect plait-like thing on Chr1stmas morning but have been hampered by forgetfulness and random onrushes of 'not caring'. I had ignored the notice stuck by the breadboard saying 'OIL' for a week and then forced myself through the inertia to call. And they said they would 'Try to fit me in' before Chr1stmas. 'AAArghh! Do you mean that you might not?'. 'Well, we'll do our best .. I can't say more'. 'GULP'. F.ck.

Late that night I came down to heat up a small extra supper of leftovers and was idly reading an old colour suppl3ment ... for ages. A hideous suspicion arose .. and yes ... the agA* was OUT. What are the chances of that happening? I had thought we did actually have enough oil for another month and had only been panicking in an anal 'I want to feel safe with a full tank ' way. I actually cried and ran swiftly through a stream of visions of ... mainly ... my husband screaming throughout the festive season, ( fair enough, for once), and the coldness and horror of the kitchen without the stove. Our kitchen is massive and is 'the house' for most of the year as we don't really use any of the other downstairs rooms much and it has the stove at one end and an open fire at the other. Also the electric cooker beside it is too small to take the ham or... the turkey. I felt very, very afraid.

I rang the oil company at first light and told them of my desperate predicament in a trembling tone .. not put on ... although I did exaggerate (or 'lie') and said I was all alone with no cooking facilities or hot water. 'Right', said a brisk secretarial voice, ' Well, I'm afraid we can't get to you until next week'. 'What!'. 'No, sorry, we are snowed under here and there aren't any lorries going your way'. 'But ... but ... will you come before CHRISTMAS?' 'Oh, yes', light laugh, 'We'll be there by then'. Rings off. Bloody he11. To them I am alone with no way of cooking or heating water ... and they couldn't care less. If I was a truthful, frail old lady I might die in the next week. So .. lucky I was lying then as it turns out. Especially as they ARE now definitely coming in time. The silver lining scenario strikes again.

Even before this it was very, very cold here ... inside ... with many whistling draughts coming in all directions including from behind a picture. When I investigated I found that the picture had obviously been hung specifically to conceal a hole in the plaster .. leading directly outside. And I'm sure that it is only one of many. Into this inhospitable environment have arrived a stream of parcels and pre-chosen 'gifts'. Under already stressfull circumstances you wouldn't ask for more .. but I have, thoughtlessly. My middle daughter's present .. ordered by herself .. are two oib- serehps* which are sealed and contain living m1cro-f1sh things which survive for years in their tiny world ... apparently. The sender rang me four times to check the weather conditions as the b1os can only be in darkness for a few hours so the postage transit time has to be arranged with military precision. He put off sending for a week because of the snow and then rang again to remind me to 'keep them at a constant temperature' 'Or you'll just have a gl0be full of dead f1sh for Chri1stmas'. For f.ck's sake. Where in our house is ever at a constant temperature .. unless you count freezing. They are now in my bedroom on a shelf in 'filtered daylight' and above .. but not directly of course .. their OWN radiator. For f.ck's sake.

The next day a van arrived and handed over a massive yellow orch1d, nearly four feet high .. which I am giving to my neighbour for all her endless help. I saw her gazing at it in the flower shop window and I KNEW she would love it and would never afford it or be given it. It is insanely heavy and brittle and I managed to get it across the kitchen to the wall, out of the way. Forgot about it for a day and then picked up its 'care card' from the floor. 'It is very important to keep the orch1d lightly watered at all times and to ensure that it is always at a ... CONSTANT TEMPERATURE'. FOR F.CK'S SAKE.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2005 09:43:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Relief.
I wonder why I only write about domestic trivia. You might be surprised to know that other things actually happen to me and I go out and meet people or am told riveting things on the phone or go to London every so often. I think I have practically never written about my social life or my friends except as part of the distant past. Of course I DO spend huge amounts of time on my own here ... but not ALL the time. I think it started out like that because I was so paranoid about my blog being discovered ... because if it was I would have to give it up. 'Why would anyone care about your self-involved moaning over the weather or your husband's shortcomings?', you might ask .. puzzled. Well, because it was not always like this.

What do you do if most of your most interesting revelations and gripping retelling of parts of your history are now buried miles back in your archives? I am not going to write any of it again because either I can't be bothered or I don't feel that way any more. I notice that some people bring up old posts occasionally or have their 'best' ones listed but I feel peculiar about doing that. Maybe because the 'best' ones are probably the most ranty or emotional and it would be weird to have them in a row down the side of the page. I really can't imagine a passing stranger looking at my blog now and thinking 'Good god ... what a fascinating woman. I must read more ...'. (DON'T write any kindly comments about this .. I am not fishing here. I am being objective).

Though I suppose I could pick out a tiny selection which cover my life over the past twenty years to give a quick overall picture. But I rather like my minimalist blog with no information or links and do I actually WANT creepy passing strangers hovering here or ... commenting ... In fact, probably not.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2005 09:20:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
None.
I can't believe that I am saying this ... another of the children's friends has died. I am not even going to write about it but am just recording it as a phenomenon. This obviously has to end soon .. by all the laws of probability. Actually he was the husband of their friend and they hardly knew him as she is a work colleague but they are all very fond of her .. and so really mind. And he was only in his twenties.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2005 09:14:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Rubbish.
I am decorating the house .. in painting terms .. all day. It is really, really cold and there is still snow out in the old farm yard although it has melted everywhere else in the world. It's the Christmas artificial deadline going on again. I am totally decorating my middle daughter's new bedroom which is not only .. as I see now it is finally empty .. huge but my husband casually ripped off miles of wallpaper from a tiny hanging bit. 'Hmm .. I think there may be a blocked drainpipe just outside here'. 'You annoying, stupid f.ck', I screamed, coming into the room just too late. Chunks of plaster had been ripped off as well and the whole thing would now need an expert to make it look normal again. Especially for an anally neat daughter. Or maybe not ....

During my weekly lift to the supermarket we swooped in a loop formation to the massive Ra1nb0w Superst0re on the bypass. It is an endless aircraft h@ngar-type place selling everything that has ever existed .. so I was able to buy lin1ng paper and paste ... and many other wonders. Including some ludicrously cheap gold (probably not real) vases for Christmas arrangements and pointless balls covered in chips of black shell .. just to have.

And papered over the crumbling wall in an inefficient but adequate way and as the whole place is lumpy and wavy anyway you can't tell .. and painted over it and it is all fine. Who needs an expert plasterer at vast expense? I don't. And there aren't any at short notice. The only problem now is that much crap from the room is piled in all other adjacent rooms .. horribly. In spite of there being THIRTY black rubbish bags of rat ruined or otherwise really unwanted however sentimental you are stuff piled out in the garden. (From this one room).

Having gone on and ON about my ludicrous hoarding, my husband then began picking oddments out of the bags saying it was a shame to throw THIS (or this) away as 'someone' might want it. A mini Pooh book .. lightly stained .. from a set of ten and a hairline cracked well1ngton boot were a couple of the treasures he held up with a sad face at my wastefulness. Then drove off after instructing me to 'arrange' for the bags to be removed. 'HOW?', I replied in not-modulated tones. 'Well ring up our neighbour - she probably knows how to contact the rubbish truck driver and you could just give him ten pounds'. This is not London. Everything here is far away and down long treacherous drives and tracks. No one driving a massive truck and in their right mind would come down to our house for ten pounds. Or at all.

And there is no way to contact a random driver personally as we found during the four years we had no rubbish collection due to his oversight and had to DRIVE all our rubbish in a normal car to the recycling plant five miles away. Involving a row of varying proportions each week as they checked our 'mixed waste' for its recycling usefulness. 'We don't accept that here .. you'll have to take it back .. and are all those cans washed?' were familiar screaming triggers. I tried to always go with my neighbour .. also collectionless .. as she had a very scary, low, cold tone when questioned about her bags and the 'operatives' would ooze away at the sight of her. My husband, however, brought out their sadistic side .. 'Let's get the p0nce', I imagined them saying as they emerged from their caravan, en masse. They once made him unpack a whole vile kitchen bag saying that they had heard the chink of an unseparated tin somewhere inside.

My neighbour agreed that there was no chance of contacting the truck driver and he collected at wildly random times so I couldn't wait up by the road. Later .. on a whim .. I searched on-line for the name of the council cl3ans1ng dept. and there it was and on their site was a name to click on if you had rubbish collection queries. And then there was an e-mail address .. to which I sent one asking if they could pick up 30 extra bags next week .. and a couple of hours later was a reply .. saying 'Yes'. Errr ... well .. I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that I couldn't have done that four years ago and reminded them that they were missing out part of their round. CERTAIN. And I still have to get the bags up to the gate somehow. So it is NOT that easy.
- posted by Iris @ 11/30/2005 11:13:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Happy.
I was just watching a programme that looked incredibly boring and then wasn't. It was about trying to raise the overall level of happiness in one of the dullest towns in Br1tain - Sl0ugh - by sending out volunteers, giving talks and arranging various mass 'happenings'. They had found that the happiness level in parts of Br1tain was lower than in rural Ch1na.

One of the 'experts' studied the local secondary school and found that the children were mostly anxious and stressed and had insanely dreary plans for their own futures. With making money the top goal and any idea of fun or happiness in their careers never considered. He said that it had been proved that people in rich economies were not made any happier by having piles of stuff and rising to higher standards of living .. once your original was quite high anyway .. also had NO higher percentage points of happiness. I could have told him that.

They decided that the main thing was to have a loving relationship with your family and friends. Hmmm ... Possibly. I have an exceptionally close relationship with my children .. who are also my friends. But I don't especially care about any actual friends .. however old they are ... I can't think of one who I would mind about if I was told I would never see them again. Perhaps that means I am REALLY WEIRD? I love meeting new people and finding out everything about them as if I were reading a book. But sooner or later they start to seem a bit repetitive and samey and by then I am just as happy to talk to someone else. I think it is partly because - as I am shy - I can only say what is uppermost in my mind and so have 'deep' conversations with everyone and don't save all my secret thoughts for a tiny close group. I am just as likely to moan about my husband to the man rebuilding the roof as to bother to go and ring up some childhood friend to discuss the same thing.

I have found that happiness comes from having control over your own life and not having to be sycophantic to anyone. All the older women I know who are noticeably happy have their own money .. from whatever source .. and the most miserable are dependent on their husbands for everything.

Actually, I am boring myself here ...
- posted by Iris @ 11/29/2005 11:10:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Weather.
I woke up early this morning and was staring vaguely at the grey-looking window thinking, 'Ah .. foggy again .. thank god I don't have to go anywhere' when my eyes re-focussed. There is a f.cking BLIZZARD going on. WHAT? The last time it snowed in November was ... never.

When I looked out there was the most snow I have ever seen here fallen at one time .. more than six inches. The forecast last night having predicted snow in the north and down the OTHER side of the country. AND ... comme d'habitude .. my older daughter left 24 hours ago after three weeks of being here practically constantly. Now I expect the power will go off and I will be ALL ALONE in the cold and dark. No one can get down our drive in this .. or even along the 'top road' probably, which is very steep. Arse. I am not mentally prepared .. it should still be brisk windy weather with bright frosty mornings. Where you joke with the postman , 'Pretty nippy out today, har, har'. etc...

OMG! I just glanced down the valley and the sun has come out over the woods and it is unbelievably beautiful. All the trees are edged in silver and .. oh for a camera ... not only was there a magpie (black and white bird) perched on the barn roof but on the ground below were two black and white cats playing in the snow. Of course in an actual photograph it would look grey and fuzzy with black and white dots .. so it will rest forever only in my mind.

The weather does not affect my plans which are to drag on with dull 'home improvements' as it is that time of year. Invariably we do nothing right through until October when somehow the thought of Chri1stmas makes the crap state of the house more apparent. I can't imagine December without my romantic mincepie-making being accompanied by the sound of hammering and the merry shouts of builders. This time a huge painting blitz is meant to be supplemented by one end of the roof being waterproofed so that we can use a large bedroom again. It is my middle daughter's main present - that this room, once hers until water started pouring in .. err .. four years ago - should be restored to a palace-like state. A teeny drawback is that in that time all temporarily unwanted stuff from London has been driven down and dumped into its handy emptiness plus any crap that anyone couldn't bear to throw away and various bits of furniture and some mattresses. And many boxes of files and exercise books from many schools and universities. And bags and bags of clothes. The room is completely full.

But .. as each cloud has a silver lining .. also in these intervening years rats have found their way in through the wall. Which we discovered on moving some of the lower strata of bags. So vast amounts of the unthrowawayable stuff is chewed and worse and totally trashed. Phew! So my daughter has been staying here and we just threw many bags and boxes out of the window unopened (wearing plastic gloves) where they are now mercifully covered by an attractive blanket of snow. My only rule was that anything with a face .. even if slightly tainted by rat ur1ne .. was to be saved into another saga of bags. Could YOU throw a blue furry rabbit out of the window to be carted away? I don't think so ...

Anyway the painting blitz is actually being carried out by me - on my own - as the workmen are mysteriously not answering their phone and have not turned up at all. So I will be painting the staircase all day in the ice and snow. Having yesterday started on bits of the drawingroom with special 18thc.-type paints chosen with vast care from the chart to match what is already there. Da DAH! They all looked a totally different colour and ridiculous when on the wall etc. I can hear a faint screaming noise .. oh .. it is me. Well .. at least the staircase paint is white .. or its subtly different 18thc. form .. so f.ck it .. I am using it no matter what. The cats are hovering ready to spring onto the wet paint and than run hysterically all over the wooden floor of the hall but at least I KNOW that will happen. It is the unexpected possibilities of more bizarro weather and even more unauthentic paint colours that keep me on my toes today.
- posted by Iris @ 11/25/2005 08:26:00 AM (7) comments comment

 
Mean.
I am trying to find small stuff for the children's stock1ngs by going round all the sites I looked at last year ... but everything still seems to be exactly the same. Also - strangely - crapper and stupider (and not in a good way). I am feeling mean and low and it is now ludicrously cold, inside and out. It is ridiculous to have to wear a hat and scarf in your own bedroom for f.ck's sake. It is predicted to be the coldest winter for decades or some rubbish ... or so I thought. 'As they are incapable of telling you the right weather even five days ahead, how could they possibly know about two months' time?' I argued cleverly a week or so ago. And then it suddenly got unbelievably, farcically freezing. There is thick frost every night which never really melts and I have to take boiling water out to the barn cats' dishes twice a day. Although down in the town it is probably still 'uneasonably warm'.

Weirdly ... my older daughter and her boyfriend drove to the nearestish coast at the weekend on a sunny but still (here) frosty day and spent all afternoon SURF1NG. 'Are you insane?' I said when they came back but 'It is fine as long as you keep your vital organs warm' ... apparently. And the beach was packed.

My son has gone to segurB* on a un1versity trip. 'F.cking typical', he said, 'Last year they went to M@dr1d'. 'Well, it's not so bad', I said 'As it's not somewhere you would ever bother to go by yourself'. 'Oh. I don't know', said my husband, 'there are some wonderful mus3ums there and a marvellous Engl1sh t3ashop'. My son caught my eye, 'Fantastic!', he said bitterly. Practically all I know about Belg1um is that they drink l1ght beer and eat w@ffles all the time .. so he promised to sample these delights. Also the setting for one of my favourite films 'La Kerm3sse H3ro1que' a tiny gem made in about 1930, which has come out again on DVD. Really sweet and funny about the Span1sh army marching through Belg1um in the s1xteenth century. Sounds incredibly boring I know ... but it isn't. I made my son watch it and he really liked it ... so ..

Also .. two Belg1an heros of our time: J0hnny H@lliday and .. as mentioned a few days earlier oddly .. Plast1c Bertr@nd. And T1nt1n?

Belg1um is the joke country of Europe. Dull beyond belief. As W@les is in British terms.
- posted by Iris @ 11/23/2005 10:21:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Beyond.
This is beyond something. ANOTHER of my children's friends has died. Not only are they an old friend ofmy son's but also the only child of one of my own oldest friends. Who I first met when I was 17. He died in his sleep while on a univers1ty field trip on a Sc0ttish island and all they could think of was that he must have hit his head rock climbing during the day as he was quite normal all through the evening. I don't know what to say. WHAT? How CAN so many people I know die? Please feel free to tell me what you think?
- posted by Iris @ 11/18/2005 11:07:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Film.
I just realised that if you ever wanted to see what 'my' countryside is like ... the film 'L@ndgirls' was shot all round here. One of the scenes is set in the high street of the very town where I went shopping today. I think it is some kind of vict0ry parade and they are standing on the steps of the tiny town hall. It is unusual because it has two lots of steps meeting at a small, railed, first floor balcony. My son was going to have a day off school and be in the crowd but they wouldn't let him. So it must be about ten years old .. I'm sure the DVD still exists though.
- posted by Iris @ 11/16/2005 12:13:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Stuck.
This morning I was all dressed and normal looking ready for my lift to the shops to arrive when a large white van drew up. There are only three different parcel services around here and I do vast amounts of internet sh0pping so the drivers are all familiar to me. This was the older, nervous one. After a minute he knocked on the door again, 'Err ... I think I've got the van stuck. You've put your car in a new place and it threw me off .. turning'. For F.cks sake I said inside my head. He had driven past the stones of the yard into some distant quagmire and ... was stuck.

'So what do you normally do under these circumstances', I said. He looked vague. 'Do you ring your office and they send someone out to help you?' 'Oh no ... there would be no point in doing that. No one would ever find me out here'. '????? ... '. 'I was thinking that when it happened once before a tractor towed me out. But of course that was somewhere else ... '. 'Well, okay, by chance my neighbour is about to come round so I'll ring her'. She is the queen of the district in terms of knowing all and everyone and was soon at work .. and finally rang back saying my nearest farmer was revving up his tractor as we spoke. 'So .. when he comes .. as he is doing you a HUGE FAVOUR .. are you going to pay him?' A shocked look crossed his moronic features, 'No, no my dear. I never carry money when I am out'. 'WTF?'

It was so weird. He stood there as if his van full of parcels being bogged down to the axles immoveably was somehow nothing to do with him. And something magic would happen to make it all all right. And it did. As I found him a farmer; spoke to the farmer; helped the farmer .. and soon his van was standing safely on the cobbles of the yard facing towards freedom. So he drove off with a terse thank you .. having not paid the farmer in any way .. and probably instantly forgot all about it. ( On our way shopping quite some time later we came up behind him wending his way along an incredibly narrow lane which was the most circular possible route to the next town .. normally easily reached by turning left out of our drive onto the straight road.)

'I'm feeling really bad about the farmer', I said to my neighbour. 'I want to pay him but it seems somehow too embarrassing'. 'No, no, dear. You couldn't possibly PAY him.' 'Well, what about a bottle of whisky?' 'No dear. His mother doesn't allow him to have drink in the house'. 'What the f.ck .. he must be forty-five. And I thought they had the farmhouse divided into two separate bits'. 'Yes, but she still has the connecting door and he is not allowed to lock it'. 'So is there anything he IS allowed?' 'Well, he's a great one for liquorice allsorts AND the shops have just got in the huge boxes ready for Christmas. Don't worry yourself .. when we get there I'll pick some out for you'. 'Perfect .. and get as many as you think makes up for the whisky'.

She reappeared at the car with four massive boxes and then, having me trapped, drove straight to the farm and made me go in with her. There is a strict class hierarchy here and ... although knowing the farmer and his common law wife (the only time he stood up to his mother was when he moved her in) quite well from chatting in the fields ... I had never been inside their house. After evading his mother, who sprang casually out of her door as we passed and feigned surprise to find us on the path, we entered a real old fashioned kitchen. Boiling hot and filled with everything you could ever want to use as if the rest of the pretty large house didn't exist. Including more cats than I have ever seen in one room before. 'Well, she can't have children you see', my neighbour said afterwards, 'So she thought Sod it I'm going to have as many cats as I like'. The sweets were accepted graciously and I was turning to go as I felt a bit out of place and possibly intrusive as there was a strong smell of boiling cabbage and it was obviously lunch-time. But no ... the three of them had leapt into the most intensive gossip. Interrupting each other and screaming with laughter about various people in the village .. who I hate to say I had never heard of. A very long time passed with me smiling a lot and nodding. And after a bit the uncomfortable feeling passed and was replaced by intense cosiness. How restful to be there with no expectation that you should be amusing or say anything clever or show that you had done something upper class lately or that you were dressed 'suitably' for what ever was happening at that moment. The working class country people here are still a million miles removed from modern life. It could easily be fifty years ago. How would it be to spend more time with them?

They wouldn't know what I was talking about, mostly, as they live in their own world of farming and country things. And although they obviously have radios and tvs they seem to watch totally different programmes from me .. at least that's what I gather from my lift-giving neighbour. We had a peculiar moment once because she had never heard of the term 'personal trainer' and couldn't grasp the concept. They never read books or even seem to listen much to music. My neighbour relaxes by listening to cds of birdsong. So I suppose it would be hopeless and fake and I don't want to be with people specially anyway. But it was nice and odd to observe them .. so bonded and friendly and 'there for each other'.

Ah .. it is truly another world. And right on my own doorstep.
- posted by Iris @ 11/15/2005 11:11:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Post.
I did finish off the Hallow3en post but left it chronologically ... so it is at Nov. 5th. Well I am not forcing this stuff out .. however boring it may be ... and then no one even sees it.

I am going to tell you two cd singles which I have on repeat all the time at the moment .. and then you can see how different our musical tastes are. Neither of these people are specially famous here although have had T0p 20 hits.

bbuK*. 'W1cked S0ul'. Which is new.

Tyl3r J@m3s. 'F00lish'. A year or so old.

I usually like crashy sort of rock music or shouty stuff like 'Offspr1ng'. But it gets a bit tiring in the background all the time. Also a strange weakness for B3bel G1lberto. And Plast1c B3rtr@nd. And, especially, The D@rkness ... 'L0ve on the R0cks' ... perfect.

Maybe I will write more about this.
- posted by Iris @ 11/15/2005 09:26:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Curse.
Right .. a dull, not depressing, post out of the way .. and .. back to sad stuff. Not really sad, exactly, but seems as if it should be. I was talking by e-mail to an old friend who lives abroad and I never see .. and thinking about how we met and our lives then.

How things have changed. Changed so much that I suddenly wondered if I was the victim of a w1tch's curse. It would explain everything. Twenty years ago ... if I had angered a withered crone in flowing black robes and she had screamed at me that 'It will come to pass that .. etc. etc. ... 'describing my present life now, I would have first been really upset and then thought 'Crap .. as if'.

Twenty years ago . I was happy and confident. I was not only the dominant person in my marriage but a divorced friend of ours had moved in with us 'just while I sort myself out' and never left. I dominated him as well and the two of them treated me like some superior being .. I promise. I had attractive small children who weren't a bore at all because I had STAFF .. well .. living in nanny, daily cleaner, someone to drive them to and from school and TWO gardeners. So I had no particular domestic duties and spent my days reading and pottering and chatting and making myself look attractive. I had a huge group of friends who all liked me better than my husband and people often fell in love with me and hung about. Although my mother had just died I was very close, mentally, to my father, possibly more than anyone in the world. I also wrote articles and book reviews for magazines and was treated with a certain amount of respect because of this.

We entertained constantly and had people to stay all the time and had wild parties, for which we were famous. I also went to London whenever I liked and gave huge wild parties there and lived in a 'social whirl'. (My life hadn't always been like this, of course, I had had all sorts of loneliness and pennilessness and dreariness at various times but I am thinking of the years when I first met the friend.) Lots of people were jealous of me around then and, I think, felt that I 'had it all' and it's true that I was a bit arrogant and careless.

So I could easily have offended a witch ... without realising.

I can imagine her standing there, pointing at me and sneering. 'All that you now see will drift away like mist. By the twentieth year after this day you will be gone from this place never to return .. all the friendship which surrounds you will have changed to hatred and resentment. You will be totally alone. Your HUSBAND will now live in the literary world amongst constant companionship and laughter and he will despise you and no longer care for you. Your male companion who swore he would live in your house for ever will have married for the SECOND time since he left you and will no longer wish to speak to you. Your beloved father will have withered under the influence of HIS new wife and you will eventually have ceased all communication and he will be dead to you.

You will have lost all confidence and will be beautiful no more. You will have no desire to write and so will have also lost the respect engendered by that. You will live as a recluse and see no one ... until the end of time.'

Spooky. I would have laughed. Not for one millisecond would I have accepted that ANY of that was going to happen. And then it ALL DID.
- posted by Iris @ 11/14/2005 10:49:00 PM (0) comments comment