(Self-indulgently) thinking aloud...

My bloody head has had me up in the night again. I have pondered and mused and twisted and turned and am no closer to an answer, and I'm sure this is because there isn't one.

At what point in life do you learn to stand up for yourself? Is it something you do as a child and then learn not to do later on, out of misguided, or ill-judged, politeness? Does age bring with it a certain lily-liveredness? Or is it just me? Have I turned into a commandable chicken-heart, a hushed, dominated dotard nervously-but-deftly tiptoeing over a daily mound of other people's eggshells?

I've been thinking back to times when I have defended myself. There are not many. But there was once, in the first year at secondary school, during the time that everyone had to carve out their own particular idiosyncratic roles to carry them through; you know, ring-leader, beauty, freak, brainbox, slapper, (slightly mythomaniacal, of course, as we were, after all, only 12). There was a girl in 1B who, unhindered by any likelihood of academic prowess, had decided to craft herself as Hard and Scary Bully. "She's really hard" we would all whisper to each other in notes of awe, while giving her a wide berth in the corridors. "We mustn't mess with her", we reminded each other, as we crept cautiously and subserviently around, pretending we wanted to be friends, though she quite genuinely repelled us.

But then we had an inter-form lacrosse match and I accidentally smacked her on the fingers.

The message came back, hissed down lines of wide-eyed, horrified girls, and later scrawled onto a piece of paper and shoved into the inkwell of my desk: "YOU have had it affter school". I corrected the spelling of "after" and sent it back, inwardly quaking, but fired on by the bated-breath admiration of my slightly swotty, ne'er-do-wrong group of friends, (plaits, clean faces and girl guides on Friday) who gasped gratifyingly at my foolhardiness in taking on the hard gang of girls, (pink hairspray and Friday evenings looking sullen outside Pop-In).

After school, this particular girl was waiting. Like a scene out of Grange Hill, really, with her soon-to-be-tattoed-and-later-pregnant back up gang, grinning inanely behind her. I remember her walking towards me knocking her fist into the palm of her hand and saying "YOU are so going to get it now" (omit 't's, obviously).

I hit her first, with my clarinet case, and ran. And I was never, ever bothered by them afterwards. Yes, I got detention for "ruffian behaviour on public display" and a long, sad lecture from my Head of Year about my "disappointing behaviour which would not bring honour to the school or look good on my University application, in 7 years' time, bla bla" (but it turned out that this girl's brother had weed on our headmistresses car door handle, so I think, secretly, they were a little bit grateful). But I never ever had to deal with any attempted bullying ever again.

At least, not at school.

But now? Now is different. Over the past couple of years I have borne insults, accusations and rebarbative reproach, out of nowhere, and have merely flinched. I have had the most horrendous lies flung around about me and the furthest I've got is to tell people, who already know they aren't true, that they aren't true. I have watched situations develop which I know to be wrong-all-wrong and I have sat dumbly, not wanting to offend. In many cases, I have even become so unnerved that I have ended up, to all intents and purposes, supporting other people's horrible follies rather than risking their wrath by telling them what I really think, ever hiding behind pusillanimous protest that it is "NOT MY BUSINESS"... when I should be screeching "NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

When did I become so damn diluted?

And I mean this on a far wider scale than just within my tiny little life in Surrey. I've said it before, but it's just not right that Mengistu should be living on a ranch and popping to South Africa for treatment. Than Shwe is another one. In fact, one could go on for ages. But me sitting here at my kitchen table, bleating on about things in the world Not Being Fair makes no difference at all. What DO you do then? Switch off? Or choose one and become single-mindedly activist? Do you rectify your own little patch of green first, before branching out onto bigger issues? Or do you hide behind the big stuff and forget what's under your feet?

Suddenly, I feel a little bit like the Lion on the Yellow Brick Road. Somewhere and sometime, I would like someone to push upon me a whole dose of courage so, finally, I can begin to re-discover the guts to sod all the eggshells.

What horrible English I do use.



Afterthought

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” Thank you, Lincoln. Hitting the nail on the head from beyond the grave. Clever man.

If you can bear looking at him...

I don't think this will stay up very long, but I am quite glad someone took the time to do this...

Crusty Botches of Nature. Apologies to Shakespeare.

Nick Griffin must be rubbing his chubby belly with glee.

He came off rather well, I thought, on his interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 tonight - making points he wanted to make without much heed to the actual questions, calling James Bethel a "Tory Toff" and referring to Jon Snow as "Peter". A pretty slick performance, but what would anyone expect?

Being slick is what Griffin is all about, surely? And leaving this pointless little roly-poly racist aside, I'm finding I am less perturbed by the BNP itself than by people's reaction to them.

The BNP have, for example, nabbed the Battle of Britain and are promoting it as a nifty little advantageous association with their own political fundament. Naturally, and rightly so, veterans and representatives of British Armed Forces are Not Happy. So there is now a video from the protest group "Nothing British About The BNP" to make their well-justified point. But I don't know. The video is strangely soft-hitting. It reminds us how horrid it is to be at war. It has an atmosphere of sorrowful resignation, and a very odd choice of sober piano running throughout. Sad and sober is wrong, all wrong. Shouldn't we all be spitting chips?

As for whether it will work, I guess that depends who it is aimed at. But who is that then?
Who still needs to be told they are a party of oddly-shaped fascist yobbos, who have all simply upgraded their bova boots to laptops? The dull berks who might vote for them, come election time, I suppose? And if that is so, will a video like this, with its carefully thought out subtleties, really work? Wouldn't it better to have Ray Winston leaning into the TV screen and jabbing a squat finger, while growling "Don't vote for them, moron; they are right little s**ts"?

To clarify, and I really have to, just in case, I am NO fan of the BNP. Of course not. It is a nasty little example of segregational thuggery which will always attract a certain amount of support, from a certain section of society. Any society. "But, like, it's not fair that they come over 'ere and take our jobs like..." mumbled an Barnsley example today on TV, with a long vacant stare, suggestive of a true Non-Thinker. But there's nothing particularly British about that - the same happens all over the world. You will always get your fatuous fascist fringes, wherever you are. In the same way that you will always find someone who thinks eating carrots is homicide.

But now the papers are all jumping on board the big Countdown To Question Time. The Church is condemning it, and various ethnic groups echo. I understand why they have to, I really do, but it just all seems like such pretty publicity for an undeserving bunch of often vicious boneheads.

Engineered properly, and Question Time could prove to be a real thorn in their ruffian side. We all know that they have a legal right to say what they want to say, whether we like it or not. And if we want to discount anyone's views properly and honestly, it is always useful to hear what they are. Given enough carefully designed rope, I'm sure the BNP could quite easily hang themselves. It could be very interesting. But I bet, on Thursday, emotion takes over. I bet it turns out to be all about the demonstrators outside. And I bet there'll be so much noise of protest that people will forget to hear what a stinking lot of sewer-bile these people really preach.

I'm not trying to be political, incidentally. Am really just thinking aloud.


(Afterthought)
I do hope they bring up the David Duke video. I do hope someone asks him what the hell he meant by that. It's available on you tube, and worth seeing for true horror, but I'm not putting it up here as I don't want those botches of nature polluting my blog.

"All Idealism Is Falsehood In The Face Of Necessity"

So finally they have negated the Cripplecock. R received a cheery message from the previously off-on-a-jaunt consultant telling him he "didn't have to worry about the really nasty thing" and that they would "really put their thinking caps on" to see what it might be.

This is very good news indeed. It's not, of course, perfect news, because there still lies something beneath. But we feel better. Much more positive at least. And even my father, a pessimist in realist's clothing, heaved a sigh of relief with us, put his black suit back in the cupboard and went off happily to Australia.

3 of us had a coffee and congratulated R while it all sank in, and then I went off and celebrated personally by getting stuck in the toilet in Debenhams.

There is something quite unadmittable about being stuck in a toilet; I just loathe the idea of having to knock pleadingly on a cubicle door hoping someone will hear and help you. You know that, firstly, they will smirk and, secondly, they will bring people along with them. So, FAR more impressively, I climbed out. It was a beautifully seamless escape and it went like this: foot on toilet seat, other foot on cistern, hook arms over flimsy partition, apologise to surprised lady in that cubicle as I loom over from above, repeat same stance but on the other side, throw leg up, wriggle over, lower self down onto the other cistern and job done. Practically a Charlie's Angel in less glamorous clothing. I was really, really proud.

Even the lady from the next cubicle, who must have originally thought I was some terrible kind of Toilet Pervert was impressed. And another hand-washing lady also complimented me. An unexpectedly good day at that point: husband cleared of nasty fatal strain, and I got to receive praise on my agility.

"You must be very fit and supple - I bet you're excellent on those army assault courses", Hand-Washing Lady was saying in all admiration, as I assumed a modest expression while also trying to create a look to suggest, yes, actually I was an assault course demon.

You see, it is indeed pathetically rubbish of me, but I have found since having the children, compliments on my physical being are few and far between. Mostly because it has grown quite immeasurably. And it pays scant lip-service to both suppleness and agility. A horribly creaky pelvis which bears the scars of being mother to a boy with R's genes, and I have ricketed around for the last 5 years like a limping geriatric. I am currently in the middle of several sporting challenges against boys much fitter than me (yes, silly) and, so far, am failing pretty miserably. So, to have someone, even a hand-washing lady I didn't know, tell me I must be fit and supple (FIT AND SUPPLE!!) was such a rare thing, and momentarily very diverting. And comforting. And anyway, I'd had a stressful week.

Pride comes, as ever, before a crashing great fall, and the gremlins were obviously rubbing their hands with glee at being able to show me up for my falsehood. And this came in the realisation that I'd left my bag on the back of the locked door. Dammit, really. And I really did not like my chances of re-performing my once-lucky climb-over feat again in front of my admiring spectators.

"Oh dear" said the ladies. "Shall we go for help?"

"No, no," I replied with my best airiness, "I'll just stand on that bin and lean over."

"Ooh, are you sure?" The ladies were worried. "It doesn't look like a very strong bin for a big girl like you".

And there you had it. Five minutes of escapism into compliments of which I was not worthy, and I was brought bang down to earth in a flash, by a genuinely observed truth.

Seconds later, I was brought bang down to earth for a second, more painful time, by the bin giving way concertina-style and throwing me across the floor, where I hit my head on the sink and ended up strangely contorted in a little grey pool of old floor water.

The fleetingly brief and undeserved image I had allowed myself to entertain of Me, Fit and Supple, dissolved in an instant.

Hand-washing lady and her friend were very concerned. They pulled me to my feet, kindly; one of them, less kindly (though doubtlessly without cruel intention), puffing the words "HEAVE-HO!" as they did it, and they got me paper towels. "Oh, there's a brown stain down the back of your coat," one said with real concern. I said it didn't matter at all, and ran.

As I rushed towards the escalator, I was thinking that I shouldn't exaggerate what had just happened. It was no very big deal to fall off a bin in a toilet with only two people I didn't even know to witness it. But before I GOT to the escalator, there came a piercing call from the end of the store.

"COOOO-EEEEEEE! LADY-WHO-JUST-FELL-OFF-THE-BIN-IN-THE-TOILET?"

I turned round and watched them hurry up and identify me to everyone else.

"You forgot your bag, dear".

But at least R doesn't have cripplecock. That's something, for sure.

GRRRRR

Lots of people have been so kind in asking how R is and what is happening, that I thought it wouldn't hurt to post an update. IS this very arrogant? I have a sneaking suspicion it might be, but it also seems such an easy way of keeping people informed. And also I'm in a bit of a selfish strop, and a bit of blogging, along with a glass of red, might readdress the balance.

So. We waited all day yesterday for these results that the consultant had promised, having waited all bloody weekend with it lurking stinkishly round the backs of our minds. Did he phone? Of course not. So we tried to phone him.

And oh, how the NHS can shine.

"'Oo?" said the brash lady on the switchboard "We 'aven't got one of 'em." I said they must have because he had been dealing with R, in hospital, just last week. The lady, who was no doubt miffed at having an enquirer phone the enquiries part of the hospital and thereby interrupt her reading of Grazia, with an enquiry, finally found that there was a Dr W, and put me through. To cardiology.

"But it's not cardiology I want" I said to the kinder lady I spoke to there "I'm sure it should be neuroscience, or some such area". The Kind Cardiology Lady suggested I ring the ward direct.

So I did. Again, they were very kind, and remembered R from last week, and expressed surprise to hear that results had been promised, but not delivered. "But Dr W is not here for a while", she said. A while? Well, a week, they said. Perhaps. So when he said he would definitely ring and tell us on Monday? Hmmm, was the response. But they did have a doctor with an idea to help. Why, she said, don't you try to get yourself re-admitted via A&E this evening, then you can be waiting on a ward for when the consultant does his rounds tomorrow? I said that A&E was surely for emergency only? She ummed and erred. I suggested it to R, who looked quietly-daggers at the phone, said a very calm No, and that was that.

Now, I don't know whether it has been the recent, pretty much constant submersion into the Mega Mindy theme tune, but at some points in your life you just get so sick of being Polite, and English, and Not-Wanting-to-Make-a-Fuss. And you want to kick some NHS-butt. So. I emailed. I left messages with secretaries. I phoned back and left more. Meanwhile R felt rubbish.

Finally, today, our consultant phoned me back. He didn't know why things had happened as they had, he said. He said, consultant-ishly, that he hoped there wouldn't be undue cause for concern, and that he personally felt there might not. So why had other people felt so differently? If the risk was so very low, why drag him in late in the evening and pump drain-cleaner into his arm? Why tell us he might be there for a few weeks, and immediate treatment was vital? The consultant said that this was very interesting. And that perhaps we could wait till Friday. Ok, I said, then why have we been treated with such superficial urgency, if we could, after all, wait till Friday? Again, apparently, it was an "interesting" point. And he couldn't speak for what other people had done. Of course.

R is calmer and more pragmatic than me. R has shrugged and gone back to the sofa, saying there's not much else we can do. He also goes along with the lines of No-News-Is-Good-News. And where I would usually believe this, I am no longer sure, with the NHS, that this is true. It seems to me that No-News is rather more to do with Someone-Hasn't-Passed-On-A-Message. Or that Someone-Has-Gone-Home-And-Taken-The-Info-With-Them. And while I agree with him that we should just wait, there is a small spoilt brat inside me who wants to scream and stamp a princessy foot.

And I DO know that there are thousands of people in so very much worse situations, both here and around the world, and I should be grateful for all we have, I really do. I KNOW we are lucky to live in a country where we have any access to healthcare, and I know that the NHS is packed full of hard-working, well-trained expertise doing a jolly good job. But I can't help it, tonight. I want to know now. And I want to ask questions. And I would really, really like some answers, very soon. I am so so tired of feeling like I'm falling. And I hate seeing R like this.

Is it really so impossible?

Gosh, I really AM a selfish cow tonight.

Wow!

Wow wow wow!!! You can never have a bad experience at The Big Picture but these pictures have been the best 5 minute break I have had in a long time...

The Berlin Reunion

(and for all the very kind enquiries after R, still no conclusive news, but thank you, thank you anyhow)

MEGA MINDY STAAT PARAAT

I like Holland. R is always vexed by how much I like Holland, but I like its towns and its hagelslag and its greater proportion of tall men. And I like Mega Mindy. She is a Dutch Super-Heroine, who goes around in pink catsuits, being all against injustice and wrong-doing, and whacking Naughty People down. And her boss (male) is the Biggest Clot she's Ever Met, something that she sings out with impunity in the main title song. Ok, so she's still as improbably proportioned as any typical cartoon totty; she is also, of course, hopelessly in love with someone who doesn't know it, but even so. She isn't fawning around a absent-but-authoritarian male boss (yeah, Charlie) who is there simply to Put Her Right, and that works for me. A better role model for girls than, shall we say, Barbie? But more from that particular soap box another day...

Anyway, today I had my own Mega Mindy moment in Addlestone. I was pulling away from a friend's house, with the theme song from Mega Mindy playing (we have reached agreement, my 3 year old and I: ONCE a journey, and that is all. Unfortunately, if the journey involves driving five minutes to pop something through a letterbox and then back in the car, this is apparently, in the cause of Mega Mindy music, two journeys. And so on...anyway, it's on rather a lot.) And I was squinting into the sun to see what was coming, while rather joyfully singing along the main chorus with J "IK BEN MEGA MINDY, MEGA MINDY..". Before I realised it, a cross portly man with no hair had got out of his car in front of me in the road and was glaring.

"OI!" he puffed at me, all fat stomach and concerted aggression "Whatcha say to me?"

"When?" I asked, not winding down my window, because these parts of Surrey can be scary, you know. We're like the hood of Weybridge over here...

"Just then! I pulled up to let you out and you mouthed somefink at me, I saw you. Whatcha say?"

Actually, the sun was so bright, I hadn't seen him, so it was jolly good he had pulled up to let me out.

"I said," I mouthed back through the glass "I SAID 'Ik ben Mega Mindy'". Because I had.

And do you know what? He turned round, ran back to his car and drove off. Just like that.

Wow. These Dutch Super-heroines really rock.

I always said Holland was better.

PS I can't talk about cripplecock at the moment, and I don't mean to be unfeeling. I just can't think about it right now. I need five minutes of being silly and pointless.

Hmmmm...

We are all in uproar, as Mrs Bennett says.

Last night, I'd left R in a hospital bed surrounded by Concerned-Doctor Looks and hushed whispers of cryptococcal (hereafter known as cripplecock) meningitis. But today? Well, another day, another doctor.

R tells me he had not had a good night. And the thought of staying there for another 8-at-least was not particularly warming his cockles. He mentioned this to the consultant and the consultant suggested that perhaps he might like to go home instead.

Really? But what about the 8 days connected to a drip? But what about the cripplecock? "Ah yes, that" came the answer.

"You see, cryptococcal meningitis is very rare, especially in previously healthy cases such as yourself. Now there is certainly some presence, but had it actually taken hold, I think you'd be dead." said the consultant. "And you're not". R says he could only agree - he had already noticed this himself.

So, what about the fact that we'd been told he'd be there for Over A Week At Least? Hmmm, responded the consultant. What about the fact that they'd rushed him back in on a cripplecock likelihood and scared the living daylights out of us? What about the fact that someone didn't read the instructions on the cripplecock antibiotic fluid and unleashed a whole dose of something into his arm, which sent him into a full-body reaction, until he told them to stop? Hmmm, again, said the consultant, before adding as an afterthought that he would Say Something Stern about that last bit. So what is wrong? "I don't know", was the reply "Something is, but I don't know what. We're sending off for more tests and we'll let you know in - er - a couple of weeks?"

Right then.

So, R found himself blinking in the daylight on his surprise way back home for the second time in 24 hours. Still with the cracking headache of , ooh, 6 months now? And whereas yesterday they had discharged him on a Wait-and-See, and then called him back in on pain of death, today they have seemingly discharged him for Being Not Dead.

My friend K, who is of greater wit than I, very swiftly pointed out to R that Being Not Dead is a somewhat medieval diagnosis. But I feel inspired. Last night, I felt helplessly lost - shut out from the medical world by a gaping lack of knowledge and understanding. But today, I feel slightly more hopeful. Even though I haven't touched a science since O level, I too can make a medical diagnosis. And I could even have beaten our consultant to it. If Being Not Dead is all they had really needed to know, I could have told them myself.

Now, I don't mean to dig at our NHS because the staff, for us, have always been wonderful. I'm sure they'd forgive me though for saying the system is occasionally farcical. Two days before my Mum died in hospital, she was left on a wire frame bed with no mattress in a corridor for 7 hours because "there was nowhere else for her to go". And at the beginning of this week, they wouldn't let R leave his bed, which he didn't actually need, because then he'd lose his place in a queue for an MRI, which he didn't actually get.

You could go on for hours on this, but there is little point.

But just one little thing. Our experience most recently has not been very encouraging, it's true. But even LESS encouraging is the huge poster that you pass on the way to the Brain Injury Unit with the words " Putting MAX at the heart of everything we do" emblazoned beneath a picture of a grinningly smug Max Clifford. Horrors. I don't mean to be nasty, as I'm sure he made a big and needed donation to be on such a poster, but I'm not sure I am particularly warmed by the idea of any organisation putting Max Clifford at the heart of what they do. Especially one now entrusted with the well being of my husband and future. It makes me wonder if they might sew mouse ears to his back and then Mr Clifford would pop up on his rounds to persuade him to sell his story. Or something. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, some things within the Health Service you just can't help, but some things you can: and massive great photos of Max Clifford leering at people who are already in a heightened state of nerves, is one of those things.

Anyhow. We are now 4 months down the line from the initial hospitalisation, and whereas this time last night I was sitting contemplating all sorts of doom, tonight we are again contemplating all sorts of Don't Know. I almost feel ...well, cheated. R is a bit cross with me - he thinks this sounds as though I would prefer him to have cripplecock so that my pangs of anxiety throughout last night were more justified. Or because we had so many lovely messages and offers for help from so many friends who'd heard about the cripplecock and our panic, that I almost feel we'd be letting them down IF he hasn't got it after all.

And I made all those rash promises. Which, incidentally, I now need to keep. So not only has the NHS rather messed us around of late, it has now also got me promising to clean out that kitchen belch cupboard and to be more domestically competent, among other things, and that - that - is unforgivable.

Ah well, so ends this particular saga until the test results come through. But as ever, there are always occasions for a chuckle. Firstly, my 3 year old was delighted when she woke up to find a friend had very kindly stayed over last night for company etc.

"When my Daddy goes to hospital all night, B's Daddy comes to sleep here instead", she announced to a neighbour today, thus labelling me Morally Defunct Street Hussy.

And then my Dad. "My black suit," he complained today on the phone "I've got it out of the wardrobe, I've put it back in. Out again, and in again. DO I need to get it cleaned or not?"

Oh, you can't beat it.

PS
On a serious note, however, thank you, thank you everyone for all your support and offers of help. We were utterly moved and it helped a lot.
Just one more thing though - R suggested he might play rugby by next weekend. Please send insults, or punch him.

It is 1 am in the morning and I am up bargaining with God.

I am not sure that God will treat any of my offered bargains with much sincerity now though - I have offered them before, when the youngest was in various hospitalised states over her first two years, and I'm pretty sure that as she raced towards each full recovery, my side of whichever bargain I might have promised raced to the back of my mind just as quickly. Were I God, I would probably feel somewhat narked by all this too. My track record, in the eyes of Them Up There must be rather flawed.

But tonight. Tonight, it seems R has managed to develop cryptococcal meningitis. He got back from hospital at 6 and was called back in at 7. "Bollocks" he said to the doctor on the phone. "Bugger." came a bit later. And then "Really?". We are still at the "Really?" stage now. It seems that a rash case of viral meningitis was not enough for R, and he has spent the last 4 months of his own recovery sneakily building a secondary fungal infection which could, in essence, do for him. It seems that his consultant will now have to Eat His Hat after all. As for me, I am just stunned. I do not want to put tents up on my own. I have only just found out where the bonnet handle is. I cannot, CANNOT, contemplate any of the horrendous realities which might be in store and why the hell I am up now putting this all onto my blog I Do Not Know. Perhaps to ellicit some kind of comprehension out of my stupidly befuddled mind. And perhaps because this is the first properly honest thing I've ever put here. But probably most of all, is because it's only my friends who read this and it saves me having to explain out loud and risk the Unspeakable Humiliation of Tears in Public.


But where do you start? How helpless do you feel when your life as you know is handed over to a registrar you have only just met? Do they know what they are doing? DO they? Because I remember the medics at Uni and they were a hardcore party lot and I never saw them study much and I lived with five of them (ok, so they were vets but they used the same building). That has never bothered me until now. After all, I have given lectures in my own particular subject for years and there are still academic swathes of which I am still blissfully ignorant. (Oh, if any readers happen to be former students, please disregard this last bit). Do they really know their stuff? And how will I ever be able to check? When I read up on medical science online, my own complete lack of knowledge condemns me to read terminal illness in everything. Jerome K Jerome once said the only thing you can ever be sure of NOT having, once you peruse the medical journals, is Housemaids Knee and 130 years later it's still the same thing.

But I do know the worse thing you can do at one o clock in the morning is to ponder the what ifs. The best thing you can do is go to sleep and prepare yourself for tomorrow. But I am not sensible tonight and I am up pondering the what ifs. And bargaining with God.

How do these offers sound?

If everything can be ok, I will do my best to raise funds for a shelterbox to go t0 those poor, poor people in Indonesia.

If everything can be ok, I will get over my fear of flying and not leave R to sit with the kids while I grip onto someone else's shoulder having first relieved the departure lounge of all its Bloody Mary.

If everything can be ok, I will try really hard to Be Sweet to one particular person who does not at all deserve it.

If everything can be ok, I will organise a group of singers to visit the Old People's Home to sing carols, like I promise to every year and never get round to.

And if everything can be ok, I will never again bemoan the size of our house and garden. I will never shout swear words at the kitchen cupboard (the one which belches all its contents at you as soon as you open it), but I will keep it ordered and lovely. I will keep the dog bathed. I will iron as soon as it is needed and remember to hoover the stairs. I will even think about having decent nails and wearing gardening gloves. I will not roll my eyes at people who make grammar mistakes nor sniff when they spell "definitely" with an "a".

But most of all, I will be far more grateful for the mundanity that I am sometimes so rude about.

I wonder if such a public declaration of all this lends any gravitas to my promises?

PS
I realise much of this is flippant, but I have always found flippancy SUCH a comforting antidote.

But at least this had made me laugh...

Thank goodness for other people to make things seem less mad, purely by way of their own insanity. Today I popped into, shall we say, A Shop to pick up a few basic store cupboard items, the absence of which had been brought to light by a recent cooking session with a friend from Bangalore.

The lady cashier looked at me. "Ooh, lots of spices," she said with interest. "Er, yes" I responded in my best Polite Shopping Wife voice, there not being much one could have added to that. "Indian?" she asked. "Well, some of them, yes, "I replied "but I think lemon grass is more often linked to South East Asia."

The woman looked at me oddly. "Not your shopping," she said, as though I was on the simple side "YOU, I meant. Are YOU Indian?"

Now here's the thing. I don't think I could ever be described as Looking Indian. I have faded, slightly dishwater hair which used to be rudely ginger, and all the other non-super traits which go with that colouring, like pale skin and freckles, which have now maliciously ganged up in places to give me a more blotchy brown-patch look. Over the years, I have often been told I look "soooooo English" and I say this without ego, as I am sure it cannot be a compliment. Once, a black cab driver told me I looked "just like Fergie". Can you imagine? I was so cross that I got out early in protest, (before realising that having then to walk over Waterloo Bridge in the rain was a perfect exemplification of Cutting Off One's Nose to Spite One's Face, while also not bothering the cab driver one jot). But honestly. Fergie, indeed; that is just being beastly.

Anyway, back to the shop. "Er, no," I said "Er, I'm not Indian. Why would you think that?"

"Because," she said, all raised eyebrows and slightly amused looks "you're buying all this Indian stuff and so I thought you might be Indian."

I told her again I wasn't Indian. I said I was English. Very English.

She looked at me for a while and then put on a gentle-warning voice.
"There's nothing wrong with being Indian," she said, slowly. "Not everyone thinks that being English is the Be All. I bet there are lots of people who are really proud of being Indian. You should remember that really".

It was like I'd been teleported into an episode of Goodness Gracious Me. I stood there, completely at a loss. It seemed I was actually being reprimanded for not being proud of being Indian.

"I'm not saying I don't want to be Indian, " I tried "I'm only saying I'm not, in fact, Indian. And therefore I can't be proud of being it. Can I?"

She gave me a long look. "Well," she said "I'm just saying that there must be PLENTY who are actually very happy to be Indian and therefore don't deny it".

HOW is one supposed to react to such utter barminess? "I know that," I said "and I'm not denying being Indian and would have no problem with being Indian, only I am not and that's hardly my fault. Are YOU Indian?"

"No", she said "I'm from Norfolk".

Oh, well, then....

Rumi

Reading Rumi reminds me of how inefficiently I think. It reminds me that I am not a scholar, and that I don't truly understand Sufism, although occasionally, just very occasionally, I think I do. At any rate, I'd like to be a Whirling Dervish once, just to see.

But anyway, with a nod to dependence on translation, I did think this was rather super.

Lets hope so, Rumi, hey.



"One day you will look back and laugh at yourself.

You’ll say, “ I can’t believe I was so asleep!

How did I ever forget the truth?

How ridiculous to believe that sadness and sickness

Are anything other than bad dreams.”

Someone put some coffee on, please. It's time to wake up.

We are very dull, Eliza...

I feel utterly stifled - silenced even - by these past couple of days, and so I am deliberately Not Doing Any Proper Thinking for a while. Sometimes you have to be the one to nurture your own sanity, or at least be able to define its limits. Diversion is so much cheaper than psychiatry.

And with that in mind, here's a pointlessly random thought. What price the effort of learning Arabic if you could use it like this?




I'd forgotten about Souad Massi, until I found her while looking for Richard Bona. Tut.