I'm on Fire!

I was persuaded to write a Press Release today. It had to be done on the spot, so armed with a certain amount of info about the product I resolved to get on with it and it was scary just how much time it took me. I realised how, since the internet really took off in my head, just how butterfly brained I have become. One minute I'd be sitting at the Research Station that masquerades as the kitchen table and my desk, the next I'd be in the laundry room, or outside talking to the chickens or pulling on my coat to walk the dog. Back in the day this just wouldn't have happened. I'd have sat down, written it, and then checked the list for the
Next Most Important Job.

It took hours and in the end even I was sick of all this goofing off and nailed my Tinkerbell arse to the chair and created what I hope will pass as a straightforward and interesting piece, of readable quality. The knock on was that I then reached for the list, and cruised through not just the next most important, but every last thing on the list. Fairly extraordinary behaviour that has left me feeling liberated, and able to move on. Inevitably as soon as I was through I had to start a new list, but at least it is full of new items. God I was sick of that last lot.

So the hens have clean sheets, and the old sheets flung into Green Waste the microwave was lobbed into Metals (by Mike)and best of all, the recyclers finally turned up and removed the 5 empty tins of Quality Street and many, many empty bottles. Mike is a chum who occasionally drives us (nuts with his talking) places. We were laughing about his 30 year old son who has a 19 year old girlfriend - the usual matey 'Ha ha lucky bloke, cor!' stuff. I thought about it and then said I didn't think I could handle a 19 year old. He has clearly given it a deal of thought and thinks it would be a Good Thing.

So that's why I'm on fire. Not because I have found myself a 19 year old in the form of rather dishy Adam, who works up at the tip, or lovely Josh with the rasta hair who helped me dig a trench last summer (another story) but because I did a tiny bit of proper work and then got through the to do list.

Perhaps I should start tomorrow's list 'Find suitable Old People's Home and book self in'.

Lefty loosie, tighty righty.

There is something very exhausting about being in trouble, I'd forgotten. But recently I've discovered that it's even more wearing and upsetting to be the Mother of Captain Cock-up. You can see the blunders lumbering over the hill, but somehow you are powerless to stop them. Poor Mum - no wonder she never really liked me.

I have done nothing but field calls, reassure, be shouted at, told white lies, rung people and discovered facts, repaid cash, sent parcels of clothes back to the lenders and apologised for the last 48 hours. I've dispatched bunches of flowers left right and centre, and all I suspect to precious little effect. I wasn't even the one having the fun.

Boy 16 on the other hand has gently strummed along, new strings installed.

This brings us to the lefty loosie, righty tighty thing. I'd never heard that one and thought he was muttering about pants. Tighty whities were what we used to call Jockey Y fronts when he was small, and needed serious, zero fall-out factor pants for junior rugby. Today, I couldn't understand what he was on about and thought he'd gone mental. When we finally sorted out the mutterings, I swapped the knowledge for bLue to Left, bRown to Right. Between us now we can re-string a guitar, switch off a valve and change a plug. What a team. (Just wait till I try and teach him about buoys and night time navigation... green to green, or maybe not, it sounds a bit dodge put like that).

Girl 12 is doing my nut in. Anyone would think I was leaving the building forever not just taking a trip. After 17 years of child labour a girl (45) should be able to wander off into the wilderness for a bit and restore her equilibrium. And now they are talking about what they think I will leave for them to eat in the freezer and who is in charge of the chickens and who the dog. Wait til they get to grips with laundry, logs and lunch. Talk about a guilt trip.

Lets hope I made a mistake and sent myself all the flowers. Which reminds me, it was darling's birthday, and I forgot. Someone light the pyre now... I'll just leap on. Oh and the recyclers haven't been and if they don't damn well turn up tomorrow I'm loading the whole lot into the car and taking it around to the Council Offices and flytipping it under the inevitable car park cctv cameras. It's been a month now and those gd tourists are getting on my tits. Eighth wonder, my arse.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Leave away weekend kicked off with a big hug and a flit into Oxford to take back some of my more self indulgent purchases from earlier in the week. The florist gave me a strange look but I must have had my 'Don't eff with me Dude' face on and she just sighed when I said I'd changed my mind about them gave me a full refund. Then a dippy hippy lunch in a veggie shack and lots of laughter and then ages in the travel section of Blackwells. It seems I am not the only armchair traveller in the family and if he didn't have GCSE's around the corner and I was more organised, I think we'd both be stitching union flags onto Berghaus's right now.

The enormous pot holes in the road left over from last weeks snow made the trip home rather exciting. A-holes driving too fast to spot the hole before they were upon it, then not wishing to scuff their alloys or take out their exhaust systems, they swerved with near fatal effect. This happened three times but I was ready for them all. I'd taken the same route there as I did coming back and I knew where it was going to happen, because I'd done it on the outwards trip.

Night fell and we flopped down with a weepie and a glass of wine (me, not him). Kind Boy 15 (til tomorrow) provided the chick flicks. Another one of my guilty pleasures, a film to let me cry. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist pushed all my buttons and I was a snivelling wreck about 4 minutes into it. And then it was 1.30am and then the 'phone went and we had a Man Down. Girl 13 had opted to spend the first night of leave out in London with friends. I'd confirmed with the mother that she was expected and welcome but the call I took told another story. They'd been home alone paid a hobo to buy them a bottle of vodka. There was crying, talk of two hospital visits including a cat scan, police, everything. I couldn't get any sense out of her, so Boy 15 took over and calmed the whole thing down, sifted through the facts, established that they had found a responsible adult to rescue them, and most importantly shaken off the feds.

We took three more calls between then and 3am and then agreed that we were sure she was safe. She made it back on the 9.15 train and is a bit irritable but contrite. She wasn't the hospital victim either... so we can't blame her for the fact that this poor bankrupt country can't afford to fix its roads up. I wish I could honestly say, 'Well she'll never do that again' but experience tells me that this is unlikely.

I was fibbing about taking the flowers back. I just liked the idea of trying it.

Fool.

The true extent of the way in which my day could go wrong has only just revealed itself. Having upset just about everyone I know by being a thoughtless git, I decided that I needed to get out. To alter my frame of reference.

Last autumn I bought a small sailing dinghy. I love water, I love to be outside, I love being scared and I love being the Captain of anything. Master and Commander. In control (I wonder why). I am a fairly competent sailor with experience in dinghies and racing yachts, but this thing really frightened me. It is whippy and unstable and agressive and I need more time during milder weather in order to tame the beast. I had a few goes before it got really cold, but then I put it away and resigned myself to a winter of laundry, logs and lunches for the men. Or so I thought.

I woke up in the middle of the night recently, firstly bemused by a friend's claim that the only photograph of himself in existence is a passport photo (think about that one, we'll come back to it) and secondly, vaguely remembering leaving the boom and sail of the boat in the Clubhouse. I'm not generally a flake, so this bothered me. So, my plan to get out settled on going there, unlocking everything, looking for the bits and taking the small white terrier for a run around the lake. Found the sail. Forgot to look for the boom. Forgot to walk the dog. Forgot I even had a dog. Would appear that the jerkishness is going to run and run, so sorry everyone. And Mink Trumper,sorry, I totally messed up lunch.

So is he a spy, or a criminal, or a nark? Did a past life explode, or his house burn down. Or perhaps his ex got custody of all the photos including the ones of him as a baby, (unlikely surely, why would he/she want them?) I don't dare ask. Well, not while I'm putting my foot in my mouth every time I open it.

Groundhog

How weird. You spend months wondering what is wrong with you, and then one day you wake up and find that its nothing a couple of cashmere cardi's can't sort out.

I went to Oxford today on the way to see girl 13. She is having a ne-naw ne-naw moment away at boarding school. Septic self- pierced ears, boys, hormones and the rest, so I felt blessed, loading up the car with fresh fruit and veg. I was glad to be needed. I met her on Big Side and we goofed about in the shadow of the chanting and drumming and watched Stowe beat Abingdon, but not easily. She has such interesting friends - pretty and witty and daft and constantly in trouble. All the third formers do is ogle the boys and choose who's next. The sixth formers have clearly decided and were all draped all over each other. Its heartbreaking. If only they knew.

And then the trip home was good too. The sun was setting in a peachy forgiving sky, the day has lengthened. Everything I looked at pleased me, except perhaps the coffin dodger in the lime green micra doing 50 in the lane I needed. Jeeeezus! Fifth gear felt good again, which was a relief because I was running late for girl 12's pick up so had to take the course at a gallop.

Oxford is my favourite city. Full of youthful life, foreign languages, beautiful architecture, energy. I should go there more often. So Friday is looking good too as one of the cardi's is crap and has to go back. I'd rather spend the money on flowers.

Press ups, with just one arm.

Today was one of those strangely optimistic Spring days. Plenty of light, plenty of birdsong, strange growing noises coming from the undergrowth. (Or a 'rustling in the hedgerow' if you are a Led Zep fan, which I think I once was. Back in the day when things like that defined your personality.)

I won the class spod prize at Jesus Jones's pilates class today. His iPod had collapsed, and I not only had mine, but a lapdog, dongle and mobile phone, all in the same neoprene wetsuit baggie thing. None of my fellow flakes had ever seen a girl so speckked up and they were impressed. So I won the nickname of 'Geek' and even Jesus admitted that he might have to buy the Thomas Newman album I shoved on. The class was hard work - one armed press ups are perhaps not the ideal way to start the week, but certainly focus the mind. And in my case, I had to concentrate so hard on getting it right I managed to ignore the getting it wrong I seem to have made in real life. I suppose that's why I go. To give the poor sore noggin an hour of peace a week. And to stretch and align.

And then lunch with the Mink Trumper. What a wonderful friend I have there. She asked what I wanted to eat ('Just veg') cooked me a feast, emotionally hugged me, stroked my ego, reassurred me that we would all be fine and generally left me feeling amazingly loved. And all this with bags of laughter. Thank you MT.

Thomas Newman- Dead Already

Years ago I had a nightmare I've never forgotten. It's been like chewing gum on the sole, and it went like this...

I walked into the laundry room, and looked right, out of the window. As I did so, the laser lights of 21 guns lit up, picked me out and shot me. The window glass shattered, I felt my mouth fill with blood and my knees weaken. I knew life was over and that these paratroopers would storm the building in moments, and that, in my crumpling state, I'd never be able to fulfill my motherly duties and get up the stairs and herd the children to safety. So, I died, on the laundry room floor and they would too, in their beds. I woke up choking. You can imagine the internal carnage.

Today I had another one. But strangely and horribly, I was awake. In short, Darling went out on a 40 minute max trip to collect Girl 12 and didn't come back for 3 hours. I imagined the worst, went outside, had a smoke, looked at the snowdrops, imagined the woman cop walking down the garden path, planned the funeral, chose the flowers and hymns. I looked at the roast chicken, bread sauce and stuffing and felt very sick and wondered why I'd cooked it, and what would happen to it next. I wondered what I'd do with the house I've never loved. I hoped Girl 12's black coat had survived the impact from the cracked out fucker that had crashed into them and taken their lives, and wondered what happened to him, and if her coat would be do for Girl 13 at the funeral, next Friday. And then I wondered if I'd missed the bit where darling had said 'I'll pick her up and take her out for lunch, see you later'. But then I remembered, he'd watched me prepare it all... so that didn't add up.

But then Darling rang and apologised. He'd had coffee with David and Natascha. And I did well not to rip his head off.

If that tells you something about how close to the edge I am, maybe it will explain a thing or two. It doesn't help me one bit.