New Specs

I have been wearing the same pair of glasses for five years. Three years ago I had my eyes checked and the prescription altered slightly, but when I saw myself in the new frames, I immediately went back to my old ones.

I am very short-sighted, -6.75 in one eye and -4.50 in the other. I also have astigmatism. This racks up the cost of a pair of glasses to well over £300. As any myopic person knows, thick lenses distort the way your eyes look to others, making them look small and piggy. Wide frames accentuate this, making it look as if someone has seized the part of your head your eyes are set in, in a vice and squeezed, making that part of your head much narrower than the rest of your face. It is not a good look. On BBC1 News, they often use a political journalist who is extremely myopic and the effect is there for all to see.

A Chinese friend tipped me off about Tokyo Washin, a Japanese optician in Regent St who she really rated. I toddled along and am now the proud possessor of a wonderful pair of new lightweight specs, the lenses of which have been carefully crafted to lessen the milk bottle bottom effect.

I am very pleased with the look, but now I have to get used to them. They are varifocals, but the place where the reading and distance lenses meet seems to be set higher up than in my previous specs, so I feel I am having to move my head around all the time to see things clearly. Also, I opted not to have those lenses that go dark in the sun. My last specs had developed Reactolite fatigue so that they never went quite clear. Suddenly, I feel as if I have splashed iced water into my eyes 'cos everything is sparklingly clear.

I have put a pair of trendy black and lime green frames by, and am going to have them made up into distance only with Reactolite, or whetever version they use. It'll cost me another £300+, but then I shall be prepared for everything. I do miss the feel of my old specs, though. They had moulded perfectly to the shape of my nose and I hardly noticed I was wearing them, whereas these seem to pinch and irritate like a pair of new shoes, as opposed to comfy old slippers. Hmm. I've been wearing these new ones for all of twenty minutes now. Maybe I should get used to them gradually. Where did I put my old specs? Aaaaah, that's better!

A cold February birthday

My daughter Rowan at eight months old. Happy Birthday, darling.

Brrr. I am sneezing and freeing in Grumpy Grange. I woke around 4am with a splitting headache, took a pill and wasn't quite warm enough to fall back into slumber, so I put the electric blanket on for a while, then got up and slung my dressing gown on top of the bed. Next time I opened my eyes, it was 9.05, when a series of sneezes propelled me up and about.

The temperature in my office is only just above 50F. I am wearing thermals with two layers
on top and just can't get warm. I can't concentrate on work - I have another book to edit. My fingers are too cold to type of the notes from last night's excellent Soc of Authors talk on getting forensic detail right in crime novels. And I'm still sneezing. If I avoid catching a cold, it'll be a miracle.

My dear daughter, who I have known for a whole four years now since NORCAP helped me find her, is 40 today. Unbelievable. I only feel 40 myself; well, perhaps 45. She says she feels 28. Hard to believe that 40 years ago, in weather just like this, snow on the ground, I gave birth to her after a dresdful 36 hour labour. She was born with the cord wrapped round her neck, and was a horrible blue-grey colour and I thought she was dead. I lay there with a dull, leaden feeling in my heart. I can remember thinking, as a despised 'unmarried mother', that if she were dead, it would be problem solved, I wouldn't have to make the ghastly decision about adoption. They rushed her off to give her oxygen and then pronounced her very much alive. For which I am now incredibly grateful!

I remember ringing my mother from the ward. "I've had the baby," I said. "It's a - " The phone was slammed down the other end. My mother didn't want to know. My father didn't know I'd even been pregnant. When he did find out, I got a severe tongue-lashing and was ordered to marry the first decent man who asked me and never let this kind of disgrace befall the family again.

What a huge difference 40 years has made. If I had given birth to her now, married or not, nobody would have turned a hair and I would have had no difficulty finding somewhere to live. I'd even have got state help. Only two years after having Rowan, as I christened her, councils started offering flats to single mothers. I had just missed out.

Both of us have had our difficult times, but the great thing is that we finally met, and bonded. Though nothing can make up for those lost years of child-rearing, the joys of cuddling and playing with my infant daughter, of opening her up creatively by introducing her to poetry and music and art, like my own mother did. But her adoptive mum - who incidentally was abandoned by her own husband and left to bring up two adoptive children on her own ("I ended up a single mum, too," she told me) - did a marvellous job, probably a better one than I could have done.
So now I have a gorgeous grown-up daughter called Rhiannon, but still a tiny blonde baby called Rowan forever nestles in my heart.

Rowan and I in the pub on the day we met for the very first time.

Snow!

The garden, taken from an upstairs window

Can you spot the snow bunny?

Is it skating, I wonder?

It's been decades since we had a decent snowfall, so let's enjoy it while it lasts! Here are some pics I took this morning.

Chilly!

Ooh, ooh, it's minus two
and snow hath froze
upon my nose
and feline pawprints
speck the deck.
I wrap a scarf
around my neck
and on my feet
tonight in bed
I'll wear thick socks
and on my head
a fleecy hat -
or p'raps a cat...
although the sharp claws
might descend
and my hot water bottle rend,
and I shall wake,
my slumber spent
and think I've had
an accident.
And on that note
I shall decease.
I meant desist -
and I'm not pissed!
(Oh, yes you are,
says Mr G.
How should he know?
He just drinks tea.)
I think the snow's
gone to my head.
I shink I'll shtagger
off to bed.

Weird dreams

I'm starting to worry about myself. Last night I dreamed I was snogging the cat! Those whiskers gave me quite a thrill. It reminds me that the first men I was ever attracted to had beards. My ex-hubby had a beard, too. Hmm. Am I a throwback to the Neanderthal era?

Bolshy bedclothes

The other night I did a very childish thing. I fell out of bed. Before you start laughing, let me explain the circumstances, because it wasn't that simple. It all began when I woke up with a blocked nose. This is a frequent occurrence and I keep a Vicks inhaler on the bedside table just in case. (What happened to good old Vick who Mum rubbed on our chests when we were little? When and why did he acquire that unmemorable 's?)

In pitch darkness, without glasses - without even having my eyes open, in fact, there being no point as it was pitch dark, etc. - I groped for the inhaler. Pat, pat went my hand on the wooden surface, like a blind man's stick. There's my glass of water, thought I; good job I didn't knock it over. That's the clock. The inhaler must be somewhere to the right of the lamp, but between the clock and the water glass. Here! Got it!

I grabbed the small cylinder, shoved it up my left nostril and promptly coated the inside of my nose with waxy slime. It was my lip salve, not the Vicks inhaler. Same length, same girth, wrong orifice. Damn!

I put it back on the table and started blindly patting again and, lo! My fingers encountered something that just had to be the Vicks, as there was nothing else vaguely cylindrical for yards, anything aimed at a different orifice being safely hidden away in a drawer. And larger, too, of course. Though perhaps Eskimos...? No, don't go there. Though nasal sex is one way not to get your bits dropping off through frostbite.

As my fumbling fingers were transferring the Vicks stick to my nose, they caught against the lamp and I dropped the Vicks. I heard it land on the floor. Now, tapping the bedside table is one thing. It's just about bed height and I hardly need to raise my arm. Tapping about on the floor is another matter entirely. First, I tried a tentative probe behind the table and quickly withdrew my fingers with a shudder, having encountered several years' worth of spiderwebs. Had it fallen in thee tissue box? No. Had it rolled amongst the untidy heap of books, magazines, eyeshade, slippers and cold hot water bottle that was on the rub beside the bed? Yea, though I scrabbled and scratted like a dog seeking its bone, the result was zero.

I could only draw one conclusion. The damn thing was under the bed. Down went the fingers, stretch went the arm, tangle, bundle, thud went the bedclothes and me. I landed in a sausage roll of duvet and heavy, furry throw and hit the carpet on my knees, laughing. Well, wouldn't you? Falling of bed was something I hadn't done since I was about three. Now I really, truly know that I have reached my second childhood.

And yes, I finally found my Vicks. I got back to sleep okay, too. A miracle!

The house with the smelly husband

When you are house-hunting, the silliest things stick in your memory and, even when you've viewed hundreds of properties over the years, as I have, help you remember particular ones. For ever. My friend Jill can never forget a set of estate agent's details in which the only thing they could find to say about the bathroom was that it had an 'ornamental soap dish', whatever that might be.

Yesterday's viewings kicked off with a 1 pm date at a house with tenants who are leaving in a couple of weeks. The front door led straight into a lounge packed with tall, lively young people who were crammed onto two sofas watching a big flat screen TV. They were friendly and sociable but I neverthless felt as if I were intruding on their lives - especially so when an extended Asian family trooped in after me. We were jostling for space in the tiny 12ft x 10 ft rooms, the agent trying to squeeze through the throng to usher people up the steep staircase, or into the garden. The dining room was crammed with computers and a large fridge freezer. I soon saw why. There was no space for said fridge in the kitchen, which was poky beyond belief, space having been sacrificed for the addition of a downstairs cloakroom. But the garden was sweet. The bedrooms were just... bedrooms. Nothing in the house made one jump for joy. But it was chain free so I had to consider it.

Next was a house three doors down, on with another agent who I was meeting later. The very pleasant, friendly owner showed me round. I could see why she, with two teenage children, had outgrown it. The house had a friendly, hippy feel and, although the tiny front room had two feet nipped off it for a corridor, it seemed larger than the previous house. The garden was a bit ramshackle, but there were hens in a coop at the bottom. I wondered if she would be selling those with the house.

Upstairs, there were three bedrooms, accessed by a wiggly corridor. But no bathroom. That was downstairs, through the kitchen. Bad point. Next to it was another door. "Is that a storage cupboard?" I asked hopefully.

"No, it's another loo," I was told. "But why, when there's a bathroom with a loo next door?" I persisted. And that's when she told me that the previous owner was in the throes of divorce when the present owner bought the house seven years ago. When the present vendor had asked the same question, she was informed by the woman that her husband was so smelly that she couldn't bear sharing a toilet with him so she had built him his own separate loo.

Last on the list was a flat. The most glorious, wonderful flat, with a sun-filled lounge, a fabulous kitchen, a glass-walled sunroom off it which overlooked the stairs down to the garden and, my biggest dream, a second bedroom in the attic, spacious and peaceful. It was also very cheap. But... and it's a big but, the road itself was down at heel and dog-beshitten, and the houses adjoining it were tenanted and neglected, with jungles for gardens, full of rusting chairs and old mattresses. It was also quite a hike to the station. If only I could have picked it up and moved it a couple of roads away.

Having seen the light, airy, spacious flat, the houses seemed poky and claustrophobic by comparison. My friend and I then drove to Muswell Hill and I found my spirits lifting in the buzz and glitz of boutiques and restaurants. I had a lemon and honey pancake, quite divine, then we hit the charity shops and I bought a summer frock for £2.50 (fingers crossed we'll get a summer this year) and a cream hooded cardi.

My pal dropped me at Highgate Tube at 4.30. At 6.45 I was still not home. My bus from Uxbridge Tube broke down, the bus behind it had that infuriating, likme-green 'this bus is out of
service' sign on it, so, two miles from home, in a gentle drizzle, I started to plod, feeling my carrier bag and shoulderbag getting heavier by the second. I rang Mr Grumpy with my tale of woe and he saved me the last half mile by coming out to get me. I finally made it back through the door at 7.05, two and a half hours after leaving Highgate. Now you see why I want to move. I can get to Liverpool faster by train than I can from North London to Mr G's tubeless region of Hillingdon.

It wasn't a wasted day, though. I enjoyed myself immensely and my friend and I are still giggling over the house with the smelly husband. But I shan't be buying it.