Got the blues...

I am feeling depressed. The fact that I have just watched one and a half episodes of Death Unexplained, the documentary set in my local coroner's court, can't have helped. I feel as though my life is totally stuck. Can't write, can't get my stuff out of storage as I can't move, estate agents aren't returning my calls so I can 't even get to view any properties (in London, there is such a shortage that they're getting snapped up before they even make it to the agents' websites), and at the same time Mr Grumpy is chip-chip-chipping away at me, sapping my confidence and making me wonder if I am in fact losing my marbles.

I'll give you some examples. I tried to open a file containing my latest editing job. My computer said it was Read Only. I downloaded it and pressed the button that was supposed to convert it to an ordinary Word document. Nothing happened. I waited and waited. I tried again. Then I emailed it to Mr G's computer and he of course did it in a trice. When I asked if he could tell me how he'd done it, he said, in a tone dripping with sarcasm, "You haven't got the patience." I tried to protest but he cut through my remark and repeated his words even louder, this time telling me I NEVER have any patience, for anything. This is so untrue. I have endless patience for him!

The other day he gave me some black pudding, which I like in small doses only. I didn't fancy it for lunch today in the slightest but he insisted I had to eat it now or it would have to be thrown away. So I picked up a knife and started slicing it, whereupon he got up, looked over my shoulder scoffed and said I was using the wrong knife (I'd chosen the sharpest of the small kitchen knives) and I wasn't cutting it, I was hacking at it and no wonder it wasn't slicing cleanly. At this point, I felt like slicing HIM cleanly! Back to that coroner's programme, I think.

We actually saw the local coroner in our street once. Across the road from us, a man had died in his deckchair in the garden and for three days his next door neighbours had been cheerily calling, "Good morning," or "Good afternoon," as he sat there with his newspaper in front of his face. They weren't unduly worried about not getting a reply as he was a notorious Mr Grumpy, too.

My tooth is niggling away beneath its temporary filling and I can still only chew on one side of my mouth. This has been the case for nearly three years now. The dentist said he was going to take it out. Now he says he's changed his mind and wants to do £600-worth of root canal treatment. I am going away to Liverpool this coming weekend, and am terrified of my tooth flaring up while I'm there. For three whole years my life has been dominated by toothache. And for seven whole years it's been dominated by Mr G. I can't go on like this. Something has got to change. I feel like doing something crazy, such as buying a flat I haven't even seen, just to get there first, before anyone else. One day I'll be able to unpack my boxes. One day I'll be able to get my deckchair out of the shed. Perhaps I'll even persuade Mr G to sit in it!

Oh, whilst on the subject of The Blues, I've just remembered one of my favourite cartoons, which I wish I'd kept. An old blues musician lay dead on his bed, his guitar by his side. Above him was a 'thinks' bubble containing the words, 'Well, apparently I didn't wake up this morning.'

Well, it made me smile...