Glimpsesofcolour

This surely can’t go on, but I have been having some more good times over the last few days. Yesterday it was down to King’s Cross again to meet an old friend and fellow-writer, in a restaurant which I had passed and noted on my way to the Dental Hospital and the Sleep Clinic (what an exciting life I lead), and which I thought would be vegetarian and/or organic. It turned out to be neither, just ridiculously expensive, but we had a very nice meal and then repaired to Costa in St Pancras station for decaf coffee and more nattering.

On the bus on the way to King’s Cross, I had rung my mum and invited her to go to what sounded like a Nice Italian Film (a category she and I both like) this afternoon at our local art house. Then this morning The Lady Who Shares My First Name, from my singing group, rang and asked if I was free for lunch as she was (like a double glazing salesman) ‘in my area’. So I became an even Badder Mother and deserted Genius Brat from just before lunch to just before dinner. He doesn’t seem to have minded.

I walked 15 mins to the lunch place, had a good natter with The Lady With My Name, and then walked another 20 mins to the cinema, passing the gym on the way, which makes it an extra virtuous walk (doesn’t it?). My mum was late arriving at the cinema so I took the opportunity to be the first person to ring her on her new mobile, to which she has finally capitulated at the age of 94. Sadly, she had switched it off… Anyway, she arrived just in time, and the film (Mid-August Lunch) was delightful – I recommend it if you like Italy, gentle comedy and feisty old ladies, of which there are four in the film.

So all in all, another satisfying, if not productive, day. I am now going to be very righteous by doing ironing and sewing on buttons, while hubby defrosts the freezer. Oh, the joys of domestic life.

Something with which I disagree has been eating me in the night. Why is it that when you have insect bites, one or two of them always itch far more than the others, even when you keep re-applying bite ointment?

And another thing: why are men incapable of standing still when talking on a mobile or cordless phone? I watched a man on the platform at Edgware Road yesterday, talking animatedly into his mobile, and the whole time he was pacing to and fro, round and round. He must have made half a dozen circuits of the place where I was standing (never, of course, noticing me standing there). The Grouch does this too: if he talks, he has to pace. It doesn’t occur in normal conversation, just when he’s on the phone. Is there some mysterious gene that makes men do this? I’ve never seen it done by a woman.

Yesterday was a good day. I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but it really is extraordinary how when I am depressed I honestly believe that I will never feel better and never have done, and once I am better I begin to believe that I will now be better for ever, and even that the depressed time wasn’t really that bad. How we deceive ourselves…

The good things about yesterday were a) a morning reading a crime novel set in Vienna before the First World War, in which the amateur detective is a young Jewish psychiatrist who does psychological profiling before its time; b) a really lovely service in the afternoon in which my son was interviewed, along with his best friend, about their experience of school and what they would like us to pray about as they start a new school year (and I also got to speak German to some visitors); c) an impromptu party in the lovely huge garden of the Mennonite Centre, with margaritas, nibbles and old friends visiting from Canada.

Today was good too: I had to go to Bristol for the day to be part of a group brainstorming about a possible book on gender issues. The train journey was very relaxed (I’d booked a seat) and I managed to read the whole of the Guardian Weekly for a change, as well as enjoying the scenery outside; and then the discussion was very stimulating and encouraging.

In my travels I saw a notice in a rail siding that said, among other things, ‘Nose End Wash’. I found myself speculating on what kind of village or town Nose End Wash might be, and who would live there. It would be somewhere in the Fens, I think…

I have managed to do two useful things today. And only slept for half of the afternoon. This is an improvement on previous days when I did nothing useful at all and slept half the morning as well as half the afternoon. And the back pain is better every day, though I still think I should probably visit the osteopath. Oh well, sufficient unto the day….

…back pain, that is. I woke up late today to find I couldn’t turn my head without a sharp pain in the dorsal spine and round the shoulder blade. Made myself go swimming in the hope that it would help, but it didn’t. Now sitting here with an air-activated heat pad on my back, and hoping I will be fit to go to Harry Potter six with GB and a couple of his friends tomorrow.

Most likely cause of pain, apart from weird sleeping, is having sat on a square high wooden stool at a long refectory table last night to eat dinner with my sis-in-law and her hubby. It was worth it however, not only to see them, which we don’t do often, but also to see the extremely weird house they are house-sitting, which is what brings them to London this week.

Apart from the old square pillar box on the front wall and the wire ’screen door’ operated by a Heath Robinson sort of counterweight arrangement, it looked from outside like a normal Victorian/Edwardian London suburban house – until you got inside. Then you were confronted by a vast collection of hunting trophies in the form of stuffed animal heads, staring from the wall with their glassy eyes and crammed so close that in the living room alone, there must have been forty or fifty, including a vast rhino head and a water buffalo amongst large numbers of gazelles, eland, okapi or whatever they were, plus lionesses, leopards, zebra, and a giraffe. In other rooms there were many more, some just lying around and not mounted, including a camel with a hat on, and some heads of pike in the bathroom.

As well as all this livestock – maybe sixty or seventy heads in the whole house – there was plenteous other Victoriana, including church pews, a piano with candelabra, a collection of hassocks and collection pouches, a number of fire buckets full of rounders bats, and some school lockers in the hall. Oh, and an original, not repro, Victorian loo and cistern with Thomas Crapper imprinted on it, as well as a collection of old enamel kitchen equipment and different coloured enamel coffee pots (about ten) in the kitchen. And the lounge stank of mothballs which presumably came from the various taxidermy.

The whole thing was redolent of a scene from Dickens, and definitely worth driving down to Sarf London to see. Even if it gave me a backache. It was good to see the in-laws and the young cousins too.

..mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Yes, I know I haven’t blogged for nearly a month. My only excuse is that for half that time I was in Austria, where although I did have access to hubby’s laptop, I was more interested in swimming every day, going to the sauna, having a massage and a manicure (and you can’t write your blog while your nails are drying).

That was the second bit of the Austria trip, in a hotel we’d stayed in before, by a lake high up in the mountains, with luxury food and all sorts of indulgences. The first bit was in Vienna, where we definitely chose the wrong week as there was a heatwave including Austria’s hottest ever day at 39C. This curtailed our sightseeing considerably but we managed to do enough for Genius Brat to say he would like to see Vienna again when it’s cooler (it was the first time we had actually stayed there with him as opposed to rushing through on the way to somewhere else). We also managed to have a meal with my cousin, and spend a lot of time in cafés, which is after all what Vienna is really for.

It was a great holiday but since we’ve been back I have been more down than for a very long time, partly induced by the foul weather in London and the fact that I wasn’t on holiday any more. I have spent large amounts of each day in bed asleep and other large amounts playing Lexulous or messing about on Facebook. This is a bad thing, apart from the Lexulous which is great but my opponents keep getting brilliant scores and I don’t (and I thought I was good).

All of this has not been conducive to blogging. I think I’ve probably turned the corner now as I am only spending part of each day thinking my life stinks, as opposed to all of it. The irony is that my plan on returning from holiday was to talk to the doc about reducing my meds, as I had been well most of the time for a longish time. Methinks it is new therapist time (I am currently therapist-less but have some leads). Of course in order to do anything as constructive as finding a therapist, I have to be well enough to face making phone calls and sending emails…

Just to make life even better, The Grouch has just had another blood test for PSA, which is not a theological concept but the marker that indicates prostate cancer. He has gone from 3.9 which is borderline dodgy and necessitated a horrible biopsy, to 7.2 which is decidedly unwelcome and calls for an MRI scan and another biopsy, this time under general. Prayers very welcome from those who pray.

In the midst of all this we are about to celebrate GB’s 15th birthday. It may not be the best ever.