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| Cherry blossoms |
The air was heavy with the dust
and smog for several days at the start of April although there was a brief respite
on the Tuesday afternoon with some rather pleasant spring sunshine. I had spent the morning refining and posting
my blog entry for March and also had a laugh at the latest healthy eating
advice which said we should eat 10 veg a day.
Some 12 year old scientist came on the telly preaching to us about it to
which our immediate response was ‘ eff off!’
And apparently fruit isn’t as good so my partner said we would be eating
broccoli and carrots for brekkie from now on – jeez! Quote of the day from
woman on Ashton market: ‘I like fruit, I like veg., but I don’t eat them every
day’. I was inspired to write a funny about it which I posted on blogger. I was a bit disappointed that the responses I
got earlier to my comment about this being the BBC’s April fool’s joke had been
misinterpreted – the irony was obviously lost on some people.
In the afternoon I went for a
walk up the canal and to the park, taking photos of cherry blossom. I would have lingered longer or possibly had
a turn on the outdoor gym but by that time the place was full of kids and of
course there was the inevitable lump of ne’er do wells, so I went back on the
other side of the canal and took some photos of geese and ducks (someone was on
the roof of the flats chucking bread out for them which was handy).
When I got back I cleaned up a
bit outside then I sat out with a coffee and chatted to some neighbours. The elderly couple down the road had
apparently been really ill (chest infections verging on pneumonia which sounded
very serious) and I said they should have asked me for help, to which they
responded that several people had said the same but they didn’t need help; they
just needed to sleep and managed to look after each other okay. I also
gave my next door neighbour the card I’d promised her from Barcelona and we had
a chat about that place and Vienna where her friend has a flat she rents
out. She also then went on about volunteering
and I know she was trying to be helpful, but it got on my nerves a bit as she
seemed to have made the assumption that I sat around doing sod all and that
volunteering would boost my confidence.
I tried to explain that it was nothing to do with confidence, that I did
lots of different things, had very structured days and didn’t want to go back
to anything like a ‘normal’ working environment.
The next morning I was doing
some exercises whilst watching the news which informed us that the pollution
levels would remain high all week and not to do any vigorous activity – now
they tell us, I thought! My partner overslept
and seemed slow and out of sorts which I posited was to do with the smog. I went to see my mate for a cuppa and we chatted
mainly about our respective Mothers – there are similarities between hers and
mine but at least hers does stuff.
I did some work on my new
writing project which has the working title ‘pervasive evil’. It was pretty stream of consciousness stuff,
which I had known for a while that I had to get down on paper at some point, so
it was therapeutic but a bit random. I
paused to reflect and came up with a structure for the ‘book’ although it is
more like a research report! It was hard
to know exactly how to play it as obviously I’m not a psychologist so could only
write about mine (and hopefully others’) experiences. Maybe at some point it will need some
supporting evidence and/or words of wisdom form the professionals to give it
some gravitas! I also read the beginning
of ‘Office Politics’ to try and glean some clues as to how what happened to me
at work had come about and why I didn’t see it coming.
I still found this type of
mental effort very tiring and it gave me brain ache so I stopped after a while
to snap some photos of my art which I planned to use for ‘illustrated memoirs’
and also posted up photos from my two
recent walks. In the evening, my partner
was not in a good mood – the jobs that were meant to be for internal candidates
only had been posted on the website so
anyone could see them. He rang the
relevant department to vent his spleen complete with foul language, only to
then discover that he was speaking to the Director! Well, at least they would be in no doubt as
to how he felt – it’s the stress innit?
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| Daffodils by the canal |
That night, I found it hard to
get to sleep and tried to calm my mind down and did some deep breaths then
realised that with the high pollution levels, this was a bad idea. The next day it was REALLY smoggy and I could
feel it in my nose and throat. There was no mention of it on the local news
but the national news said that the North West was one of the areas worst
affected so that must have meant us (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t,
depending on which way the wind is blowing).
The next day my friend with the
interesting ailments came round. She was
thankfully a bit better and had a new nasal spray which had worked wonders on
her sinusitis and she wasn’t even bothered by the smog. I mentioned that I started to tentatively
contemplate the prospect of a part-time job and she mentioned a couple of
‘vacancy’ notices she had seen; the local pub which I knew would not be
suitable as it was always very busy, and a small shop which I would consider,
but I found out later it was full time and would mean working weekends which was
not ideal as that is when I get to spend meaningful time with my partner. Later on, I wrote another funny blog: ‘dirty
foreign bastards blamed for filthy weather and zombie plague’ about the smog
epidemic. I was finding it very hard to
breathe properly with the lingering heavy air and at night I really struggled
to sleep and when I tried to relax with some breathing exercises, it made it
worse.
On the Friday, I had to get up early,
after hardly any sleep, for a doctor’s appointment. I told her about my psych appointment and
also remembered to ask her about another problem I had been meaning to tackle
for a while that always got put to the bottom of the list with all the other
stuff going on. I also asked her the
question that had been bugging me for ages about options for dealing with
mental illness and she agreed that the system was rubbish, but also added that I had ‘refused’ the two options open to
me – anti-depressants (which was true and did not regret) and ‘talking
therapies’ (which was not true).
Later on, I got the bus into
the big town and did a bit of shopping then went to my psych assessment. Of course they used the same stupid
questionnaire as always but it felt okay.
I revealed my scepticism about CBT and they tried to reassure me that it
was individual-based so I said I would give it a go. I was knackered when I got home of
course. And although the air had become a
lot cleaner in the afternoon, my nose and throat were still feeling it so I
took it easy the rest of the day.
As usual, my partner was very
late home, fell asleep on the sofa and on Saturday morning he felt
terrible. He said it was a combination
of stress and tiredness (no shit Sherlock) but then said he didn’t know why he
was stressed! I said it was all very
well him saying the situation at work didn’t stress him out and he thought it
was funny, but it was still a stressful environment which he agreed with. He had found a job at Leeds Met which
together with three new jobs at his existing workplace, meant four to apply for
within a week! We talked about it and I
offered to help as I had not lost my skills in this area.
I did a few errands and bumped
into a couple of people I knew and got asked for the third time that week about
getting a job. Then I baked a cake before my art friend came round with a
belated Birthday gift for my partner. We chatted about the art course and she had
a theory that our art tutor had too much control over the courses and didn’t put
anything else on in the evenings to protect his own class. Before she went
home, I gave her some car stuff that I don’t need any more.
In the evening we went to meet
another friend in the old coaching inn.
It was packed due to it being a special drinking day (I kept forgetting
it was the Grand National as I don’t follow these things) and we sat out back
for a while. Some local characters
arrived which was a bit weird and there was some story about a girlfriend being
busted and later on said woman arrived with a CSO so we guessed that there had
been some drunken fight and they came in this particular pub to hide from the
cops. We then moved inside and ordered
food. We caught up with what had been
going on in our respective lives and for the fourth time that week I was asked
if I had a job yet. This was getting a
bit irksome by this time but I didn’t want to spoil an enjoyable Saturday night
in the pub and tried to change the subject.
We went onto our old local and
our friend entertained us with some curiosities she had in her bag including a
charm bracelet with a broken clasp which I said I would mend for her. Then we went onto the pub nearer home for a
couple and stayed until closing. We walked
home together and she came in for coffee and cake.
I had a crap sleep for the
third night in a row, made worse no doubt by the late caffeine drinking and of course
the birds were tweeting. I gave up after
six hours and hoped that a bath and a big breakfast might make me feel better. We went to the Sunday market and got some
plants and we found a mini easel in a charity shop. I put some photos on Flickr but it was very
slow and all the jargon around ‘sets’ and ‘collections’ and ‘batches’ was very annoying
– why can’t there just be photos and albums like everything else? When I went to bed that night I avoided using
any screen entertainment and read instead and had a better sleep, despite
waking a few times.
On Monday morning I had a very
stiff shoulder and I could barely move.
It had been bugging me for a couple of days which I attributed to
carrying too much heavy shopping in rucksacks so I vowed to stop doing
that. I did some stretching exercises,
put some heat rub on and my partner helped me to massage it, but it still hurt
a lot.
I spent most of the morning
drafting my blog and waiting for the Meter man to come and tell me where I was
going wrong reading the electric meter.
When he arrived, he showed me how to read the thing – the main point of
note was that the 100,000 dial doesn’t go to the next number until the 10,000
dial has gone to zero, and so on. The
process is complicated by the fact that not all the dials work in a clockwise
direction. He agreed that the old meters
were stupid and archaic and I asked about the possibility of a new one but
apparently BG’s philosophy is if it works, leave it – tight gits.
I then dyed some clothes in the
machine including an old hippie top that had a bleach stain on it, which came
out lovely and black. I also worked on some
ideas for my ‘food collage’ and added the thing about eating 10 veg a day and imported
some clip art for ideas as I hadn’t yet decided whether to use pictures cut out
of magazines or to draw or paint some or use actual food like rice, pasta etc. Later on
newsnight a weirdo was going on about water and apparently we now only need to
drink a tiny bit with sugar and salt in
it) not ten gallons a day.
That night I couldn’t switch my
mind off at first and then when I did eventually sleep, every time I turned
over, my shoulder felt very painful. When
the alarm went in the morning I lay there listening to the natural sounds for
several minutes. Eventually, I forced myself up.
We had a good laugh at a letter
that came from the council about the long-running parking saga. It transpired that they cannot enforce people
without permits parking on our street and therefore cannot charge for resident
parking permits. However, it is an
offence to drive down the street without a permit but only the police can
enforce this as it is a driving offence not a parking offence – you couldn’t
make it up!
I did some work on ‘pervasive
evil’ and made a separate document for ‘the book’ and started to write the
introduction and background sections. I ended
up going on about when I first started working at SMUG (as I was now calling
it) and wondered if I was going off on a bit of a tangent and if it was
helpful. I had come up with a new plan
for the week which entailed trying to do the hard stuff earlier in the week, as
although I still felt like I needed to carry on with this project, it did make
me very tired and made my head ache so I could really only do an hour or two
before I needed a change of activity.
Mind you, I did write 2,500 words within about two days!
On the Wednesday morning, after
quite a good sleep for a change, my shoulder was still quite stiff and painful
but it was improving. I spent some time working on ‘pervasive evil’
and read some of ‘Office Politics’. I
had a bit of chat with my partner about it and, not for the first time, we
remarked that we could have written it ourselves. He said there were lots of ‘Uriah Heaps’ at
his place.
In the afternoon I had a break
from writing and as it was nice and sunny, I went for a stroll down the canal and
took some photos of plants and crows.
When I got back, I planted the flowers we had bought on Sunday in the
garden. I noticed that the washing line
hook had been ripped out of the wall - again - it is one thing for people to
drive their vehicles down our road and rip the line down (which happens untold
times) but is it really necessary to rip the fastening out of the wall in the
process?
In the evening I decided to
embellish the top I had dyed black and selected some beads and made new tassels
and was quite pleased with the result. My Mum rang and was on for about half an
hour, talking about all sorts of crap as usual, including asking me three times
if I had any plans for Easter (was this a hint?)
On Thursday, I finished reading
the ‘The shock of the Fall’ and decided it was an excellent book. Although very funny in places (I especially
like the bit about tea cups in mental hospital all being from drugs companies:
‘like forcing prisoners to look at pictures of fucking locks’), it also made me
cry several times. At bedtime, I
started reading ‘Sarum’ which triggered a train of thought and then bled into a
dream about how strange it is that we are descended from people who go back
thousands of years and are obviously the ones who survived plague, famine, war
etc., and yet there are so many useless people in the world! I had a mediocre sleep with several wakings
and the next morning I dozed a while after the alarm went off. My partner popped his head round the door in
a very comical fashion which and made me laugh despite my weariness.
We watched telly news and had a
laugh about Jennifer Saunders writing a book – I said she had timed it wrong as
there would be a million more celebrity biogs by Christmas and he said yes, by
10 year olds who had ‘done a singing’.
He also said Victoria Wood was the first woman ever to make a joke. I said he should do jokes as a job as he is
so good at it (I often tell him this).
The day started bright and
sunny and I decided to clean the bedroom window (long overdue). It was hard going as the ladders wouldn’t go
round far enough and I had to balance precariously on the window sill. My partner came in just as I was finishing
off and concentrating on not falling. I
didn’t hear him come in and when he said something it gave me a bit of a shock and
I lost my concentration. I managed to
cling onto the window frame but when I climbed down, I forgot how big the gap
was and half-fell onto the bed which gave me another jolt and made me feel very
emotional. I knew this was irrational
but I could feel my anxiety levels rising in a way which hadn’t happened for
ages and this took me unawares. I felt
wiped out and had to sit on the bed for several minutes sipping water. My partner realised I was a bit done in and
helped me take things downstairs before going to work.
In the afternoon I went to meet
my friend with the interesting ailments for coffee and we went round some charity
shops and had a bit of a laugh at the random items. I had half-planned to go out to a gig with a
friend that evening but I was really not up to it – I think I had overdone
things a bit and I felt really tired. Instead, I sorted some photos from my
walk earlier in the week as well as some older ones that I had forgotten about.
On Saturday, I helped my
partner to dye some old jeans and a t-shirt.
We contemplated the day which was rather dull and grey and not very warm
so I put music on to cheer us up. He
really needed a recoup after his stressful week of applying for jobs and worked
on some arty photos I mulled some ideas
around for my ‘food collage’ and did some cooking and baking. In the evening we ate, drank and watched
films.
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| Red lichen |
On Sunday we went for a short
walk through some woods and in order to stay on the lower part, we deviated
from the way marked path and had to rely on animal tracks which was a bit
tricky in places. However, we did see a
deer and caught it on camera for once!
We had hoped to be able to get to the next village but our route was
blocked by barbed wire so we turned back and laughed at how short a distance we
had covered in 2 hours! Later on, I posted
my deer pic which got 7 ‘likes’
overnight – not bad! We also looked at
the night sky in awe and wonder; as it was a very large bright moon with Mars
very close by. I tried to take photos over the next couple of nights but they
were pretty crap of course.
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| Ooh! a deer! |
On Monday morning, I got my summer
clothes out and started putting thick jumpers away which was a bit optimistic
so early in the year but I was inspired by the lovely sunny weather. I also got rid of some horrid old work
clothes (and wondered why I hadn’t done this the year before).
I spent the rest of the morning writing my
draft blog, and a large chunk of the afternoon cleaning up outside round our
tiny garden. My partner was home early
and he helped me to fix the washing lines back up and put them a bit higher to
try and prevent thoughtless van drivers ripping them down again. After all the activity of the day, I felt
like I should have a decent kip that night but couldn’t get my mind to stop
whirring round and wondered if I had been too active too late on.
My sleep pattern remained the
same most of the week, and I was waking three or four times a night on
average. Even when I took Temazepam I
had the same sleep pattern, although it felt of slightly better quality. Other than that, health wise I felt quite
good, but I developed some very flaky skin on my feet and the little toe on my
left foot was really swollen, red and painful so I thought it might be an
infection. I put some old athlete’s foot
cream on it to see if it would help and wore flip flops to let the air get to
it.
On the Tuesday I had a dentist appointment
and as it was such a lovely sunny day I walked back along the canal and spotted
a good friend in the park and had a chat.
In the afternoon I tried to carry on writing ‘pervasive ‘evil’ but
couldn’t get into it so I read a bit of ‘Office Politics’ and did a bit of
thinking – he is basically on about agendas but wraps it up in psychologies
which is fair enough I guess. In the evening
I did some work on ‘illustrated memoirs’ and posted part 1.1 so at least I had
done something productive on the writing front.
I also jotted some ideas down for ‘posh girl blog’ later in the week but
was still not convinced that it would come to anything.
On the Wednesday it was still
sunny so I decided to make the most of it and cleaned windows and washed some
winter jumpers and curtains and put them out to dry on the washing line. I
discovered some old picture frames in a corner during the process and took some
of them to the charity shop with a few other bits that had been lying around
for ages, and I used the other two to frame some of my art works - one of my
small collographic prints and my ‘twin trees’ painting.
In the evening, I went to the
opening of my art tutor’s exhibition. He
introduced me to a couple of his old friends and they asked me what sort of
painting I did. I informed them that I
was rubbish at painting which took them by surprise and they looked a bit
stunned (I suppose the place was crawling with ‘artists’) but when I said I
liked doing collage, they recovered and said ‘ooh! That’s good!’ I was considering leaving, when my art friend
arrived so I walked round again with her.
She was doing some serious art critiquing which was a bit beyond me.
On Good Friday my partner felt a
bit poorly but as usual, he bravely struggled on and we went to do a grocery
shop for the long weekend, including buying a leg of lamb. He was going really fast
round the supermarket and I felt a bit harassed and kept having to go back for things
we had passed. It took us a mere 20
minutes which is half the time it normally takes me. When we got home, I felt really shattered and
had to sit down to recover.
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| Pace eggers |
Later on, we got the bus up the
hill for the traditional local play. We were
just getting a beer when we saw the players going up the hill and they got
stuck behind a van for ages. In the
square, we managed to find a spot to stand in but it was so crowded we could
hardly see or hear anything. We took
some photos but my best ones were of the trees rather than the actors. After, we went for another drink and sat in the
pub beer garden but there were some rather uncouth lads out there so we went
over to the graveyard and laughed at posh kids and took some more photos and chatted
about art and stuff. Then we went to the
other pub and had a chat with a friend about blogging and then we sat out front
and got chatting to a Mountain rescue volunteer who had been collecting money
in buckets. We walked home and took more
photos of the valley in the evening sun.
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| Church ruins and crow |
The next day, the weather was a
bit more changeable and chilly in places and we did contemplate going up on the
moors but then decided to stay on lower ground and walked up through the woods
on the other side of the valley. We took photos of the first lambs we had seen
and also discovered a cute dell and stopped to eat the hot cross buns we had with
us. We hoped that we would be able to
follow the stream to the next village, but again we were thwarted as the path
veered through a field and came out on another lane which took us down to the
main river then onto the canal. We saw a
brood of tiny ducklings on the way back, which were very hard to photograph as
they moved so fast!
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| New lamb |
Easter Sunday was cold and
windy and I spent ages posting photos from our outings of the previous two days
and my partner spent ages making a macbook pro he had acquired, believe it was
his. It had a cracked screen which he needed
to remove and replace (much wailing and gnashing of teeth). He wanted to use my old car dent puller so I
rooted in the horrible cupboard to find it for him and ended up getting another
whole box of (now useless) car stuff out.
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| New ducklings |
On
the Bank Holiday Monday, we decided we might as well go to the the daft duck
race as our friend who has a little boy had texted to say she was heading down
to find a good spot by the river. When
we got there, she was alone, trying to save a bit of wall for her partner and
son and some other people, who arrived first and I gave up my bit of wall for
them and sat on the back wall with my partner.
Of course, we had to try the obligatory terrible photos amidst the
crowds. The stupid corporate race went
by without much comment, despite a shouty man trying to gee everyone up. Although the river was low and a new bend
seemed to have developed, quite a few ducks made it through and there was a
clear winner, streaks ahead of the rest.
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| Stuck duck |
After the main event, we sat on
the wall for a bit longer and waved to people across on the opposite river bank. There was a duck stuck on a rock and some kids
were chucking stones at it and eventually dislodged it which was quite amusing
except when they started throwing actual rubbish in the river. Our friends went
to take their small children on the bouncy castle so we parted ways and walked
round town to look at crap stalls and marvelled at the lack of actual food
left. Uninspired, we went instead to the
Italian cafe which was further upriver and therefore much quieter. We sat by the river and had pizza even though
I had planned on a small lunch seeing as we still had a pile of lamb in the
fridge. By the time we finished, we were
stuffed and I become really tired so we went home.
That night, I couldn’t sleep despite
feeling exhausted – I wondered if it was because over the long Easter weekend
we had been going to bed late, and/or drinking. It was very bright outside
again and also looked like light was coming from downstairs but when I went to check,
there were no lights on. Anyway, after some
more relaxation I did eventually drop off but then woke loads. When the alarm went at 8, I turned it off
straight away and turned over and dozed til 8.30, called down to my partner
then dropped off again until 9. I felt
like I hadn’t slept at all and it took ages to come round.
After tea in bed and a bath I
managed to rally myself enough to get down the stairs and opened some mail. I had two letters from the dole; one saying I
had been assessed as being in the ‘support group’ and another saying what my
new benefit would be – backdated to October!
I found this hilarious as I hadn’t even attended an ATOS assessment (I reckoned
they had given up but my partner thought I just got lucky). He told me not to tell anyone as they would
be jealous, and I think he was also a bit concerned that I would become a
long-term benefit scrounger. I assured him
that this would not be the case. I admit
it took the pressure of somewhat in terms of needing to get an actual job, but
I had been working hard on my writing and taking the idea of making money out
of it seriously. The new benefit
assessment just gave me more time to put my plan into action.
Later on, I posted parts 3 and
4 of ‘illustrated blog’ (part 3 had no pictures as I just couldn’t find anything
suitable). I made up for this later in the week, posting parts 5 and 6, which
had lots more relevant images.
That night I took two Temazepam
and felt a lot better the next day. In
fact, the difference was so stark that I started to lament the fact that I
couldn’t take those magic pills every night (well, not without turning into a
junkie). Whilst watching Breakfast news,
my partner came up with some ideas for updating the Himalayan tourist experience
including getting a funicular railway on it and something to do when you get to
the top (there had been some controversy recently with 16 Sherpas dying in an
avalanche). I said that he should e-mail
the Nepalese government to offer his services as ‘the Himalayan development and
liaison officer’.
Later on, I went for an eye
test and there was no change again and the optician seemed surprised that my
sight had not deteriorated, but I wasn’t as I do eye exercises and could tell
they hadn’t got worse. Later on, I did some writing in ‘pervasive evil’ and by
mid-week I had 4,400 words which I was very pleased about.
On Thursday, I went to the
market hoping to get the last mussels of the season but they had apparently started
spawning early this year, the little blighters (so that’s that until September).
On the way back, some kids asked me if I
wanted to buy some paint made of ground up brick dust – I declined but was
impressed by their experimenting.
In the evening I went to the bead
shop for a workshop. As it turned out, I
was the only one who showed up so I got one-to-one tuition on making a necklace
with small beads and we chatted a lot. I
ended up telling her about why I wasn’t working and she told me what happened
to her – similar story again! I am
beginning to think I don’t know anyone that hasn’t been damaged by the vile bastards
– they’re everywhere! I made a necklace
and bought some other beads and bits to finish some other projects I had on the
go.
At the end of the week, my
friend with the interesting ailments came round. She felt tons better so we finally arranged
to go to swimming next month – hurray! I
leant her ‘The Shock of the Fall’ – although she isn’t a big reader, I defy
anyone not to love that book!
At the weekend, my partner was
excited about being top blogger on Tumblr (a plaudit which lasts for whole
hours on the internet I gathered). Later
on, he cut and dyed my hair then I made jewellery while he tried to get his
macbook pro set up how he wanted it. We
also went to a nearby town to peruse the market. I looked at the guitar stall and asked the
guy if he had any electro-acoustics but he was a twat so I don’t think I’ll be
buying one off him! My partner took loverly
photos of dilapidated buildings then we wandered around the town looking at old
medieval stuff and marvelled at how you don’t notice these things for years. We also went in a factory store and after some
deliberation, bought a steam cleaner (which was funny as we had been talking
about this recently, decided they were a bit expensive and then we end up
buying one on impulse). When we got
home, we unpacked the steam cleaner and got our head round what all the bits
did. Then my partner went to experiment
and cleaned a suit and two coats thereby almost recouping the investment. He then had a go steaming tiles in the
bathroom and made a clean bit over the sink, meaning we will have to the rest at
some point.
In the evening, my partner
finally finished reading my draft of the
‘All nighter’ zombie film plot (he had been so busy of late it had taken him
about a month but better late than never as they say) and we had a chat about
it. He said it was funny but didn’t know
if it needed expanded at this stage but we both wondered if it needed more
oomph. I said I would do some work on it
so we could discuss it on the train to London later in the week.
That night, I couldn’t get to
sleep for ages; my stupid mind was churning around like crazy, and I remembered
a weird horrid dream I had the night before.
I tried to think things through a bit then did some relaxation and
managed to get to sleep, but woke lots and had terrible hot sweats. The next morning I was lying listening to the
‘small waves’ from the alarm clock and when I finally thought I ought to make
an effort to get up, I realised I had been doing this for half an hour – a new
record!
I spent most of the morning
working on my draft blog for the previous week and got so stuck into writing
that I lost track of time, which I guess is good. I reflected again that the news about my
benefits last week had taken the pressure off and gave me more time to have a
proper go at the writing stuff.
I had a similarly restless
night and felt very tired the next day, but made an effort to do some exercises
and domestic chores. My partner had an
interview for one of the three internal vacancies, but it was the second least
worst job and he wasn’t sure if he wanted it, so I said I hoped it went how he
wanted.
I looked at the zombie film idea
and couldn’t really think of anything to add to the plot (I thought act 3 was really
funny if I say so myself) but I had a think about what was unique about it and
amended the covering letter and saved the drafts as ‘submission’. This was a confident move but I felt sort of
ready for it. I was also pleased with myself for doing this despite very
mediocre sleep two night’s running and feeling rather depressed, but of course
it made me feel a lot better doing something constructive.
In the afternoon, the weather had
brightened up so I went outside to potter about. Some builders working on a house up opposite ours
were being very loud with the radio blaring out but I tried to ignore their
awful singing to James Blunt (very macho – not!) and I re-potted some houseplants and tidied up
the garden a bit. Later on, I went for a
stroll along the canal, through the park, then into town. On the way home I saw my art neighbour and we
had a chat about art, my art tutor’s exhibition and going for a drink the
following week.
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| Lone tree |
In the evening I amended and
posted part 7 of ‘illustrated memoirs’. I
also engaged in some commenting on social media about the BNP election
broadcast which was truly awful – even for them! My art friend beat me to it
with her ‘outraged of HB comment’ but later on, she also made a nice comment
about my blog (which was nice). I also
made flapjacks, mainly to take down to my sister in London but of course we had
to sample them. We watched the first
episode of the locally-set BBC drama which I thought was funny for
location-spotting and my partner thought was funny for the dialogue (quite ‘League
of Gentlemen’ in places; if I’d known Steve Pemberton was in it I would have
done more hanging round film sets!)
That night I took Temazepam and
felt a lot more rested the next day. I
called down to my partner and could hear a radio, which was so loud it sounded
like it was coming from somewhere in the house, but he said the radio was
outside. It turned out to be them blasted
builders! It really was ridiculously
loud! We watched Breakfast and I was
flabbergasted that Nigel Farage got on the news by saying he wasn’t standing in
a by-election – the airspace that nutter gets is untrue! It gave me an idea for
a funny piece of writing which I blogged: ‘Nigel Farage won’t be emperor of
Japan’.
When I came downstairs, I
shouted at the builders to turn their radio down and they did which was a
relief. I went back to some writing and posted
‘illustrated memoirs part 8’ which meant ‘volume 1’ was all done, then looked
at the tagline for the film plot idea again to try and convey a greater sense
of the humorous content of the last act.
In the evening, I went out to
meet my art pal for tea. We talked about
all sorts including her new boyfriend and plans to move to Portugal, holiday
adventures and our illnesses which are very similar. We went to art class in a
thunderstorm and got absolutely soaked. There
were only five of us and we did some work on colour mixing. I arranged to go for a drink with my art pal
and art neighbour the following Thursday.
I was very tired when I got
home, but when I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep for ages with stuff churning round
my head again. So, I started May feeling
very unrested, but had a trip to London to get on with...
