The Pianist

Today I took a step back from the edge. I took a Mental Health Day and watched Polanski's The Pianist, swaddled in eiderdowns, drinking endless cups of tea and weeping. The film tells a true story based on the autobiography of a Polish holocaust survivor. Clever Boy 16 saw the need for perspective and delivered it, along with all the tea.

It is hard sometimes to appreciate the impact of middle age. I was driving around Clifton, near Bristol recently on a Saturday morning (shortly after a meltdown in PC World which also involved tears and snot and fury) and I saw a couple in their twenties on a motorbike. She was wearing what I would guess was the previous nights micro skirt, thin tights and killer heels and a very large leather jacket. He was doing without his leather jacket. I smiled and guessed that they had met the night before and that the party was carrying on into the weekend. With all my heart I wished them well. How wonderful to be young.

And it snowed again today. Huge, wet flakes of snow, like white mice falling from the sky.

So, onwards. This may not be funny but at least it is calm and logical and not laced with madness and sprinkled with fairy dust. And sometimes, not funny is better.