Books and boxes

It's an exhausting time. I'm trying to clear out my storage unit and go through every box to see what I can do without, and at the same time I'm trying to write a 50,000 word novel in just four weeks. My days are falling into a pattern of walk to the shops in the morning, then sorting through, re-packing and labelling boxes till lunchtime, then writing in the afternoon.

Here is the heap of boxes I have been through in the last three days. I've had to carry everything right round the house, from garage, to kitchen and finally, to shed. My biceps are starting to feel like Popeye's.

Here is the stuff I've got ready to go to the charity shop, as soon as some kind person agrees to take me and it in their car, as we don't have one any more.

As for the book, I started NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) late, so between November 4th and today, the 10th, I have written 14,700 words. The website says I am on target to finish by Dec 5, which is five days past the deadline. Oh dear! We'll have to see about that. 

I shall bring you another progress report in a few days. Now for Grantchester and a glass of wine!

#just sayin'... and other annoying phrases.

There is something about the phrase,'just sayin', that has become such a popular Twitter hashtag, that really gets up my nose. For me, those two words used together conjure up a certain facial expression - slightly narrowed eyes, head a bit to one side, smug quirks to the corners of the lips - and are often spoken in a tone of voice that manages to be cocky, sarcastic, superior and challenging all at the same time: at least, that's how it seems to me. No current popular expression is more guaranteed to make me feel wound-up, put down and frustrated. I'm glad it wasn't around when my sister and I were teenagers because I bet it would have been coming my way every five minutes!

It is an expression that is not at all funny, but barbed, armed with a zillion spikes of unspoken criticisms, festering resentments and the unshakeable belief that the person who is doing the "sayin'"' is completely and utterly right. "Have you ever thought of changing your hairdresser? Just sayin'..." means they think your hair-do, which just cost you £75 plus tips, makes you look like a cross between Albert Einstein and Animal. "Ever thought of getting a cleaner? Just sayin'..." isn't a helpful suggestion but means your house-keeping techniques would be a disgrace to the average pig-sty.

As for, "People above a C cup shouldn't go bra-less. Just sayin'...", well, if it's spoken with a sly glance at some unfortunate passer-by, you can sigh with relief, but if there's a sly sweep of the eyes over your own embonpoint, then you know you're showing enough wobble and droop to make your interlocutor feel slightly nauseous.

There have been other expressions that have annoyed me for different reasons, from the nebulous 'many moons ago' - I mean, we've only got one, so which moons exactly? The moons of Pluto? - to the annoying and ungrammatical 'my bad'; is it short for 'am I bad', or what? It's always spoken coyly and has the effect of reducing the speaker to a five-year-old, even if they are a bearded fifty-year-old prof.

And then there's 'I'm not a happy bunny'. How does one tell if a bunny is happy or unhappy? They don't exactly smile, purr or whine. I suppose if they're busy doing what bunnies do a lot of, i.e. jumping on other bunnies, they might be very happy indeed. And which bunny? A wild field rabbit, or a tame white one munching a carrot? And why 'bunny'? What's wrong with 'I'm not a happy elephant/llama/axolotl'?

Back to 'just sayin': how should one respond? With a sheepish grin? By jumping to one's defence? By changing the subject rapidly? I know what my response to "just sayin'" is. An unprintable two word expression ending in "off!"

The low season

I always feel low in autumn. If ever I'm going to get a cold, it's at the change of the seasons, and this year is no exception. I have a real streamer, feel absolutely dreadful, haven't slept for two nights and don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight, either, as my nose is running like Niagara.

Over the last few days, my computer has been acting weird. It was OK until Mr Grumpy suggested I run a program that gets rid of all your temporary files and releases more space on your hard drive. What he didn't tell me before I clicked start was to un-tick certain boxes. The result was that all my passwords were wiped out, so I had to try and remember what the Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, eBay, Babble (and more) passwords were, and of course they all different.

My Windows 8 (should be called Windows Hate) tiles vanished and so did all my icons and I got a blank brown screen. Panic!!! With much grumping, he managed a semi-fix but it's still not quite the same as it was before I meddled. I've never had an easy relationship with technology and swear most colourfully at all my devices. I even managed to do something to my Kindle through pressing the wrong button when I was sleepy.

I think I'll go back to real books. The worst that can happen is that you fall asleep with a book on the bed and it falls off in the night with a crash and wakes you up with a horrible start, making you think there must be someone in the room, either corporeal or ghostly.

Then there's the autumnal weather; a return of grey, damp days, of the last of the flowers, of the trees de-leafing, which always makes me think of that wonderful, lump-in-the-throat poem, Spring and Fall: to a young child, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which conveys the same core message as all those syllable-dragging volumes of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, encapsulated in just fifteen lines. If only Proust could have been equally brief.

I've just taken a half dose of Night Nurse. If I took a whole one, I'd sleep till lunchtime. Hang on a minute... what a blissful idea!

Late tomatoes

Last year, the cherry tomato plant I bought at B&Q was so successful that I collected some seeds, put them in an envelope, then forgot about them till, well, March... (didn't get round to planting them)... April... (still didn't)... and they finally got planted in May, which was much too late. Still, five of them germinated and the most vigorous one now has a good crop of green tomatoes which, unless we get an Indian summer, are unlikely to turn red.

I was cross with Mr Grumpy's granddaughter. I know she's only three, but she really didn't need to pluck four of the biggest ones to throw at a spider's web. Grrr! I put them on the windowsill and one of them is now turning blush-pink. Perhaps that's the answer. Or else I'll just have to find a green tomato chutney recipe.

If you've grown tomatoes this year (Jacula, I know you have!), let me know how they are doing. You've probably been eating yours already! Oh well, there's always next year.

Old, familiar comforts

This morning, I felt an odd sensation and looking down, I noticed my white felt slippers that are covered in blue and pink spots had acquired a new scarlet spot - my red-lacquered toenail poking through a hole. My comfy old slippers had had it. There was no patching them up as the fabric had worn too thin. Anyway, slippers aren't exactly expensive so I could afford a new pair.

But, as most of you will know, new slippers are never the same as your old ones. They are too stiff. They take time to mould to the contours of your feet so that they coddle them in a cosy cuddle. It's the same with gloves, yet gloves aren't quite so intimate, somehow. I have never not been able to part with a pair of gloves, but throwing worn-out slippers into the bin gives me a wrench akin to shutting one's beloved pet or helpless granny out in the rain and telling them never to darken your doors again. You couldn't do it.

So my hand, holding the slippers, hovered over the black plastic maw of the bin-liner time and time again, until at last, steeling myself, I thrust them well down and hid them under some sheets of greasy baking parchment. If I couldn't see them, I could pretend I'd never owned them, and if I had the sudden urge to pull them out again, I'd find them covered in grease and grot.

Mr Grumpy is made of less stern stuff than I am. Amongst his shoes are at least five pairs of worn-out slippers, with holes in soles and toes and stains on the fabric. Many's the time I've offered to chuck them out for him, only to be told that he'll do it when the time feels right. Some of them have been sitting there collecting cobwebs for ten years!

The only other thing that I find almost impossible to throw out is a cuddly toy. No matter that the bear, dog or tiger is noseless, eyeless and has stuffing poking out and ears falling off, it is still one's beloved Spot or Wonky and surely the sheer tattiness shows how much it's been loved.

And so with slippers. They clothe one's feet so often and so intimately that, after a couple of years of wearing them every night and sometimes all day, too, if I'm not going anywhere, I swear we swap DNA. To get rid of old slippers is to chuck out part of oneself. So... surely I must be able to scrub those grease stains off with the help of Vanish and as for the hole, well, there must be a large sticking plaster somewhere...

Catch-up

Gosh, I'm getting behind with my blogging. Since I last wrote, I have had another week in Patterdale, helping my sister set up and man the desk at her art group's exhibition in Glenridding. She sold two paintings and was dreading telling her husband because one of them was his favourite, which she has taken off their wall! As she later explained, she couldn't keep hold of everything she'd done and it was time to move on.

Unlike the blazing sunshine of my June visit, it rained a lot, apart from the last day, which was breezy and cloudy. I got soaked through and was thoroughly grumpy though, looking back, it was all good fun. We also had the thrill of a world-famous mountaineer coming to stay for a couple of days.

I got back late on Wednesday. On Sunday, it was Mr Grunpy's great-niece's wedding. Thank heavens the weather stayed dry for that, though it was overcast most of the day. I hadn't eaten since 8.30 am, never thinking I'd have to wait until 5.30 pm before any more food passed my lips. There were lots of small children there so I only hope their mums brought some food just in case. There was a bar, but you couldn't even get crisps or nuts there. Nothing. Just free Pimms and paid-for beer.

When the food arrived finally, everyone fell on it like ravenous wolves and every plate was cleared apart from Mr Grumpy's, who won't eat out as he doesn't trust anything he hasn't cooked himself. More fool him, I thought as I polished off his left-over pate. By then, the champagne and wine had flowed and by the time the evening disco started (we'd been there since just after midday), I was starting to flake a bit. Miraculously, the fascinator stayed firmly attached and the blue sandals that I'd had for years but never worn turned out to be the comfiest footwear in the world. I'm now trying to track down another pair in a different colour on eBay.

On Monday, I'm off to Camden Town to look after my friend's cat again. I've booked a ticket to see the Virginia Woolf exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, a talk on Richard 111 and a Ray Davies of the Kinks concert at the Festival Hall. On Thursday, I am off to Liverpool to stay the night with my oldest friend, then am lunching at my old grammar school, Blackburne House, on Friday with a group of my old classmates which includes one who moved to Oz so none of us have seen her since we were 18!

I shall be back from all this on the 11th. Whatever you are doing, hope you have a fabulous time.

Motive or imagination?

I didn't realise how long it was since I last blogged. Oh dear! I am about to go to my sister's in Patterdale again, in time for her annual art exhibition. I leave on Wednesday but am packing wet weather clothes this time. 

The other day, I got inspired and started a new book, but so far I have only written the first page. Well, at least it's a start. It's my first attempt at literary fiction, as opposed to romance. I don't know how, or even if, it will work out. 

I've been rather discombobulated by recent changes in Mr Grumpy's life. He has been estranged from his son for 16 years. Suddenly, his son got back in touch and came round with his partner and Alan's little granddaughter, who is just three. She is an absolute sweetie and they are doing a great job of bringing her up. However, when they come, they're not content to stay a couple of hours. They hang on and hang on until we are both dropping with exhaustion. Last time, they said it was a short visit and they stayed three and a half hours. The time before, it was six. 

It's an enormous disruption to my work and, much as I like the little girl, they are not my relatives and I find the son arrogant and overbearing and the girlfriend well-meaning but rather vacuous, and I would much rather retreat to my room and my computer than sit smiling stiffly and trying to make polite conversation hour after hour with people I have nothing in common with and don't even particularly like. I feel as if my space has been invaded, but in fact it's not my space as I am living in Mr G's house, so it's all very awkward, and I have no say as to whether I mind them visiting on a certain day or not. I'm not even consulted, just presented with a fait accompli. More than ever, I feel I need to move out and move on, if only to be able to set aside quiet, uninterrupted time for writing. It feels weird to be presented with this new situation after 16 years of just Mr G and me. I feel uncomfortable with it. Last time they came, Son cast his eyes around the house, commented on the size of the garden and was at pains to tell me that they couldn't invite us round as their rented cottage was far too small and cluttered. I suspect a motive... or is it just a writer's imagination at work?