I am in France.
Sometimes I am.
I am standing next to the swimming pool talking to Gaby.
Gaby is French.
Apparently Gaby talks like a farmer, but, because I learned French from Gaby, I hear like a farmer so all is well, or so I thought.
Gaby shows me the swimming pool cover.
He shows me the holes in the swimming pool cover.
He tells me that the wasps have eaten the swimming pool cover.
"C'etais or ete or etait les greles." He says.
The wasps, I think. Why would the wasps suddenly attack the pool cover, pour quoi? I look very concerned and I look at the pergola. The pergola is covered in bamboo matting and some lovely vine vierge. The wasps normally eat the bamboo, you can hear them munching away as you lounge under the viney shade reading French poetry but why in the name of all that's sane would they eat the pool cover? It's plastic.
"Oui." continues Gaby "C'etais un catastrophe." Certainly it is a catastrophe if all the wasps are eating the pool covers. Then I remember that the wasps have set up home in the car as well. What are things coming to?
"Peut etre, c'est le global warming." I tell Gaby."Ils habitant dans la voiture aussi. Puis je vous montrer?" Gaby follows me to the car. I open the boot and show him how the wood wasps have set up home. They have made a beautiful nest with hexagonal baby beds made from bamboo munching and they are very happy, if a little upset at being interrupted.
"Oui," says Gaby "Et aussi les grêles a fait celui-ci." hé shows me a big dent in the car roof. The wasps have been eating the car as well. It's like 'The Birds,' the wasps have gone mad because of the exhaust fumes and nuclear power.
"Et le toit est casse." says Gaby.
The wasps are eating the roof of the house too? I am very upset. I am aware that we bought a house in an area where termites might eat one's house but at no point has anyone mentioned car eating wasps. I kiss Gaby on both cheeks and say goodbye. I watch Gaby drive off in his 4x4 and I wonder if the emissions from it and Michel's tractor next door have turned the wasps from gentle bamboo eaters into car eating, plastic munching mutants.
Much later I look up "Greles" in my French dictionary. Greles means hailstones. Guepes are wasps.
Phew!
Saturday, 11 January 2014
Sunday, 15 December 2013
Aftermath
I sit on my bed and read the Guardian.
Maisie has gone shopping with Sylvie who has anorexia. Sylvie is very sad and going shopping with her makes Maisie feel sad too. It also makes her feel fat. Maisie is not fat, she is perfect but she has a genetic propensity for feeling very fat so I am worried.
Zac is being very quiet in the playroom. Bim has gone home. Bim said he was very sorry. I feel sorry for Bim.
I read the Guardian family section which normally makes me feel very inadequate. Today the Guardian family section is oddly reassuring. A woman has written about how her daughter died from taking MDMA. She says she is smothered. Her daughter is very beautiful and her daughter is dead. I am glad my children aren't dead, although I probably shouldn't have had them.
Then I read that Lucien Freud wasn't cut out to be a father. I read about what an extraordinarily bad father he was and how his son is very sad about this but has come to terms with it. I feel quite liberated. I am a very bad mother because of the wine and the rowing and the choice of father but actually it transpires that you don't need father much.
Phew.
I go downstairs with The Guardian and I read this to Zac who is sitting on the sofa next to some vomit staring at the floor.
"Young men often come with a narrative in which they feature as victim. By seeing myself as victim," recounts David McAdam Freud, "I felt powerless and blamed my weakness on strength I granted others. I can now own the responsibility for accepting or changing these things."
Zac looks quite interested. "So you see," I say. "You need to stop wanting something from someone who can't give it to you. John is not a bad man, he is just remarkably unsuited to being a father. Lots of very high achieving men are poor fathers," I add "because they are doing one thing at a time, which is what men do, and that is being successful rather than fatherly."
Zac looks sceptical.
"Anyway," I tell him. "You don't need and you can't have this fantasy father thing you're after. You can manage perfectly well without it just as millions of other young men must."
I don't say "Man up." but I nearly do.
Maisie has gone shopping with Sylvie who has anorexia. Sylvie is very sad and going shopping with her makes Maisie feel sad too. It also makes her feel fat. Maisie is not fat, she is perfect but she has a genetic propensity for feeling very fat so I am worried.
Zac is being very quiet in the playroom. Bim has gone home. Bim said he was very sorry. I feel sorry for Bim.
I read the Guardian family section which normally makes me feel very inadequate. Today the Guardian family section is oddly reassuring. A woman has written about how her daughter died from taking MDMA. She says she is smothered. Her daughter is very beautiful and her daughter is dead. I am glad my children aren't dead, although I probably shouldn't have had them.
Then I read that Lucien Freud wasn't cut out to be a father. I read about what an extraordinarily bad father he was and how his son is very sad about this but has come to terms with it. I feel quite liberated. I am a very bad mother because of the wine and the rowing and the choice of father but actually it transpires that you don't need father much.
Phew.
I go downstairs with The Guardian and I read this to Zac who is sitting on the sofa next to some vomit staring at the floor.
"Young men often come with a narrative in which they feature as victim. By seeing myself as victim," recounts David McAdam Freud, "I felt powerless and blamed my weakness on strength I granted others. I can now own the responsibility for accepting or changing these things."
Zac looks quite interested. "So you see," I say. "You need to stop wanting something from someone who can't give it to you. John is not a bad man, he is just remarkably unsuited to being a father. Lots of very high achieving men are poor fathers," I add "because they are doing one thing at a time, which is what men do, and that is being successful rather than fatherly."
Zac looks sceptical.
"Anyway," I tell him. "You don't need and you can't have this fantasy father thing you're after. You can manage perfectly well without it just as millions of other young men must."
I don't say "Man up." but I nearly do.
Very bad row
So, two weeks before Christmas.
Lots of things have happened.
Evil died in the summer.
We went to Mauritius, all of us. all five, to celebrate our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, it was nice. We have a house in France but we let it out this summer. We won't be doing that again.
We have a new car.
John has a new editor, which is good because the last one was a wanker.
Abigail lives with her boyfriend. Did I tell you that? At my age you get quite repetitive, sleepless, exhausted, wise, ill, lined, paranoid (no, that was there anyway) and distracted. I was much prettier at thirty but I could have walked down the High Street naked and no one would have noticed, but now I'm all the rage. O well.
John and Zac had a huge row. Actually Zac was soo badly behaved that not having a row would have been very impossible. He came home from university. He was monosyllabic. Obviously we didn't notice because we have lots to do. We have Christmas shopping and moaning. We have sleeping which is always just beyond us and we have cooking and decorating and we have no friends, so… quite busy, as you can imagine.
Anyway Zac is monosyllabic and a bit red in the face, so we ignore him and tell him to have a shower and go to bed and eat sensibly. He has been in the North where there is no food and it's very cold, so on balance, we are quite sympathetic.
Then it all goes tits up.
Zac decides to go out with Bim. Bim is a bad influence but really we don't mind because we are quite sure that Zac is a bad influence too and he hasn't seen Bim for ages.
We have decided to go to Long Melford and buy a chester draws. A chester draws is what Maisie calls a chest of drawers and the best place to get one is Long Melford. After that we are going to Henry's house to have dinner with someone who used to write for the Observer or similar, but I have a lot to do so I'm not very happy about that, but I'm going because we have no friends and I think I had better cultivate some. It's a long shot but I think maybe if I concentrate the Observer man might be our friend and as Henry is already our relative we will have one relative and one friend.
Anyway…. After that John is going to watch football with Henry and I am going to wonder around by myself observing a provincial cathedral city on a sunday afternoon by myself. I am not happy about this but I have no friends so I have very little choice.
But it all goes wrong.
Zac comes in at 4.30 am. He has hiccups, he slams the door, He has someone with him and he collides with something in the hall and hiccups some more. I try to go back to sleep.
Why haven't they taken their shoes off?
John stops snoring so I know he is awake.
"What's going on?" Asks John.
"Zac is drunk," I tell him.
"I thought you texted him and told him not to be drunk." says John.
"I did." I say. I am quite annoyed.
I hear talking downstairs. I hear laughing. I hear the tap running. I hear the tap clunking off.
I hear the tap clunking on again. I have to go to Long Melford tomorrow to buy a chester draws. I am way too tired for all this.
I go downstairs. Zac is standing in the playroom. The lights are on and he is swaying slightly.
"Will you shut the fuck up?" I ask, quite reasonably.
I am not irrational, I am differently rational, so asking some one to shut up, with a fuck, at four in the morning when I have to go to Long Melford and out to meet someone who used to work on the Observer seems quite rational to me.
"Zac is very red is the face. "What is wrong with you? He says, swaying. "I… am going, went out with my friends, it's the holidays, what's wrong. Fuck." He says.
I am beginning to reassess my casual swearing policy.
"Go the fuck to bed." I tell him calmly. Not reassessing it quite as much as I would have liked.
I go back to bed.
"What's going on?" says John.
I'm not talking to John. This is largely because he is never here, because he has executive breakfasts and dinners and needs his dinner jacket drycleaned and because he is very busy and clearly couldn't give a fuck about me or Christmas, and because I am very tired and differently rational.
"Huh." I say and I pretend to go to sleep.
I can't actually go to sleep because technically 4.30 AM is the morning so I stay awake and think about the Polish electrician instead. Thinking about the Polish electrician is not very soothing but it is quite interesting.
I get up at 9.00 AM.
I hang up the washing.
I go downstairs and I clear up the kitchen which is unaccountably full of washing up and grease splats.
I go into the playroom and shout at Zac. Bim is there too. They are huddled under sleeping bags and the room smells of beer and vomit.
"This is fucking unbelievable." I tell them. There is sick on the floor.
Zac closes his eyes very tightly.
"Go away." He says.
I don't know what I have done wrong. I have very smugly been a full time mother with botox and no grey hair. I have cooked lots of nice food and ironed the sheets and I have learned to use a Black and Decker power drill. Zac has been to a very posh school and has been to Australia. I am confused.
Next time I am not going to be a mother.
I am not going to Long Melford. I decide that I have to stay here and look after Maisie. I can't leave Maisie at the mercy of someone with no moral compass and a propensity for vomiting on the floor.
"I am not going to Long Melford." I tell John. "You go and watch football and hang out with people from the Observer who will hate you on sight and I will clean up vomit and go to Homebase to buy more paint for the Polish painter, who is not as distracting as the Polish electrician." I tell him.
"You have to come."Says John. "The whole dinner party is built around you."
This is patently untrue. I have no status. I have status anxiety and I am very very boring so nothing is built around me except the washing basket.
I am not going to Long Melford. i unpack my bag and John goes to Long Melford without me but not before he has a big row with Zac.
Zac comes into our bedroom.
Zac tells John that he hates him.
John tells Zac to get out of his bedroom.
Zac tells John he doesn't give a shit about him.
Zac says he's going to the North to kill himself.
They say all this very very loudly and the neighbours gather outside the house and stare up at our bedroom window. They text their friends and marvel. They wonder how we could be so dysfunctional and congratulate themselves on not being our friends.
I feel quite depressed. I tell Zac not to drink so much.
"Ho, he says and this coming from an alcoholic. Ha!" He scoffs.
I feel very depressed and John goes to watch football with Henry.
I lie in bed and wonder what to do.
I don't know what to do.
O well.
Lots of things have happened.
Evil died in the summer.
We went to Mauritius, all of us. all five, to celebrate our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, it was nice. We have a house in France but we let it out this summer. We won't be doing that again.
We have a new car.
John has a new editor, which is good because the last one was a wanker.
Abigail lives with her boyfriend. Did I tell you that? At my age you get quite repetitive, sleepless, exhausted, wise, ill, lined, paranoid (no, that was there anyway) and distracted. I was much prettier at thirty but I could have walked down the High Street naked and no one would have noticed, but now I'm all the rage. O well.
John and Zac had a huge row. Actually Zac was soo badly behaved that not having a row would have been very impossible. He came home from university. He was monosyllabic. Obviously we didn't notice because we have lots to do. We have Christmas shopping and moaning. We have sleeping which is always just beyond us and we have cooking and decorating and we have no friends, so… quite busy, as you can imagine.
Anyway Zac is monosyllabic and a bit red in the face, so we ignore him and tell him to have a shower and go to bed and eat sensibly. He has been in the North where there is no food and it's very cold, so on balance, we are quite sympathetic.
Then it all goes tits up.
Zac decides to go out with Bim. Bim is a bad influence but really we don't mind because we are quite sure that Zac is a bad influence too and he hasn't seen Bim for ages.
We have decided to go to Long Melford and buy a chester draws. A chester draws is what Maisie calls a chest of drawers and the best place to get one is Long Melford. After that we are going to Henry's house to have dinner with someone who used to write for the Observer or similar, but I have a lot to do so I'm not very happy about that, but I'm going because we have no friends and I think I had better cultivate some. It's a long shot but I think maybe if I concentrate the Observer man might be our friend and as Henry is already our relative we will have one relative and one friend.
Anyway…. After that John is going to watch football with Henry and I am going to wonder around by myself observing a provincial cathedral city on a sunday afternoon by myself. I am not happy about this but I have no friends so I have very little choice.
But it all goes wrong.
Zac comes in at 4.30 am. He has hiccups, he slams the door, He has someone with him and he collides with something in the hall and hiccups some more. I try to go back to sleep.
Why haven't they taken their shoes off?
John stops snoring so I know he is awake.
"What's going on?" Asks John.
"Zac is drunk," I tell him.
"I thought you texted him and told him not to be drunk." says John.
"I did." I say. I am quite annoyed.
I hear talking downstairs. I hear laughing. I hear the tap running. I hear the tap clunking off.
I hear the tap clunking on again. I have to go to Long Melford tomorrow to buy a chester draws. I am way too tired for all this.
I go downstairs. Zac is standing in the playroom. The lights are on and he is swaying slightly.
"Will you shut the fuck up?" I ask, quite reasonably.
I am not irrational, I am differently rational, so asking some one to shut up, with a fuck, at four in the morning when I have to go to Long Melford and out to meet someone who used to work on the Observer seems quite rational to me.
"Zac is very red is the face. "What is wrong with you? He says, swaying. "I… am going, went out with my friends, it's the holidays, what's wrong. Fuck." He says.
I am beginning to reassess my casual swearing policy.
"Go the fuck to bed." I tell him calmly. Not reassessing it quite as much as I would have liked.
I go back to bed.
"What's going on?" says John.
I'm not talking to John. This is largely because he is never here, because he has executive breakfasts and dinners and needs his dinner jacket drycleaned and because he is very busy and clearly couldn't give a fuck about me or Christmas, and because I am very tired and differently rational.
"Huh." I say and I pretend to go to sleep.
I can't actually go to sleep because technically 4.30 AM is the morning so I stay awake and think about the Polish electrician instead. Thinking about the Polish electrician is not very soothing but it is quite interesting.
I get up at 9.00 AM.
I hang up the washing.
I go downstairs and I clear up the kitchen which is unaccountably full of washing up and grease splats.
I go into the playroom and shout at Zac. Bim is there too. They are huddled under sleeping bags and the room smells of beer and vomit.
"This is fucking unbelievable." I tell them. There is sick on the floor.
Zac closes his eyes very tightly.
"Go away." He says.
I don't know what I have done wrong. I have very smugly been a full time mother with botox and no grey hair. I have cooked lots of nice food and ironed the sheets and I have learned to use a Black and Decker power drill. Zac has been to a very posh school and has been to Australia. I am confused.
Next time I am not going to be a mother.
I am not going to Long Melford. I decide that I have to stay here and look after Maisie. I can't leave Maisie at the mercy of someone with no moral compass and a propensity for vomiting on the floor.
"I am not going to Long Melford." I tell John. "You go and watch football and hang out with people from the Observer who will hate you on sight and I will clean up vomit and go to Homebase to buy more paint for the Polish painter, who is not as distracting as the Polish electrician." I tell him.
"You have to come."Says John. "The whole dinner party is built around you."
This is patently untrue. I have no status. I have status anxiety and I am very very boring so nothing is built around me except the washing basket.
I am not going to Long Melford. i unpack my bag and John goes to Long Melford without me but not before he has a big row with Zac.
Zac comes into our bedroom.
Zac tells John that he hates him.
John tells Zac to get out of his bedroom.
Zac tells John he doesn't give a shit about him.
Zac says he's going to the North to kill himself.
They say all this very very loudly and the neighbours gather outside the house and stare up at our bedroom window. They text their friends and marvel. They wonder how we could be so dysfunctional and congratulate themselves on not being our friends.
I feel quite depressed. I tell Zac not to drink so much.
"Ho, he says and this coming from an alcoholic. Ha!" He scoffs.
I feel very depressed and John goes to watch football with Henry.
I lie in bed and wonder what to do.
I don't know what to do.
O well.
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Ring the Bells
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
I still have back pain. my back pain does not respond to pain killers, it is very obtuse about pain killers. I have looked up back pain on the Internet and apparently everyone has it. My back pain, according to NHS Direct, is not Cirrhosis of the Liver or Kidney failure. It might be bone cancer or shoulder illness but I haven't looked those up yet just incase.
BUGGER IT!!
Friday, 1 February 2013
Back Pain
I have the very worst back pain. I can't move much and I am very hungry because the kitchen is downstairs. I think I might have lots of neurofen and a hot bath. I have back pain because in November I rode a big horse quite fast and I hurt my back, now I am saddled with back pain. O well.
Nice People
I take Evil to the vet.
I carry her to the car and I put an Ikea rug on the front seat in case she has any more accidents.
Evil smells very bad, I am a bit worried that the vet will put her down, I am also a bit looking forward to it.
I drive up Camden Road and I turn into Camden Square, I drive past all the dead flowers tied to a tree outside Amy Winehouse's old house.
I am going to pick up some stuff from Abigail's flat on the way to the vet so that I can take it too the dump on Holloway Road on the way back home. Abigail is moving out of her lovely Camden flat which is too expensive and has, as a result of the move, discovered some things that she and Ben don't need any more.
"That always happens when you move." I tell Ellie and I arrange to come to pick it up for them because they can't drive.
Ellie gives me an old laptop and some bits of Ikea desk and I load them into the car.
"See you on Saturday." We say, I drive off to the vet.
Outside the vet, I discover that I have no money for the parking metre. I will have to take Evil home again or I will have to get a parking ticket.
Evil coughs ominously on the front seat of the car.
I don't know what to do.
A man standing next to by the metre asks if I am taking my dog to the vet and how much I need.
I tell him I have no money and the man pays for my parking. He puts £4s into the metre. I can't believe it.
"Well," he says smiling, "if your little dog needs a vet, then she needs a vet."
He walks away whistling.
Later, two small children examine Evil.
"What a lovely little dog," exclaims Samantha, who is clearly 12, but has introduced herself as a veterinary student.
"What a poor little thing." says the vet who is no more that 15 and has sparkling dark eyes and swingy brown hair.
"Do you think this is the end?" I ask them . "Do you think this is related to her congestive heart failure?"
"No," says the vet. "She's lovely." She says chucking Evil under the chin. "She'll be fine. Been eating a few things she shouldn't have, I imagine. Been scavenging I'm guessing, haven't you you naughty little thing," she says to Evil.
The vet gives me a dazzlingly white smile and some medicine for Evil. The veterinary student gives Evil an injection.
As we leave Evil does a liquid pooh just outside the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. She does it just as a group of very young, clean, brightly intelligent students are walking down the steps.
I feel very embarrassed because it is a pooh which is actually impossible to pick up.
"Never mind," says one of the students stopping to examine the pool of dark liquid. "What is it E-Coli?' Parvovirus?"
Next I go to the dump. At the dump, a man who is emptying all the nail drying machines from his nail salon into a non- recyclable skip tells me that his nail salon has been attacked by a rival business. He says they came at the dead of night and broke all the nail machines and stole the nail polish.
I am very shocked. I unload Abigail's Ikea desk and the old laptop. I put the laptop into the small electrical items skip and I go back to the car to get the Ikea desk.
"I've done that for you," says the nail salon man. "I put it into the wood recycling skip, you look about done in. What a lovely little dog you've got there, dear little thing. Cavalier is it?"
Actually most people are very nice.
I carry her to the car and I put an Ikea rug on the front seat in case she has any more accidents.
Evil smells very bad, I am a bit worried that the vet will put her down, I am also a bit looking forward to it.
I drive up Camden Road and I turn into Camden Square, I drive past all the dead flowers tied to a tree outside Amy Winehouse's old house.
I am going to pick up some stuff from Abigail's flat on the way to the vet so that I can take it too the dump on Holloway Road on the way back home. Abigail is moving out of her lovely Camden flat which is too expensive and has, as a result of the move, discovered some things that she and Ben don't need any more.
"That always happens when you move." I tell Ellie and I arrange to come to pick it up for them because they can't drive.
Ellie gives me an old laptop and some bits of Ikea desk and I load them into the car.
"See you on Saturday." We say, I drive off to the vet.
Outside the vet, I discover that I have no money for the parking metre. I will have to take Evil home again or I will have to get a parking ticket.
Evil coughs ominously on the front seat of the car.
I don't know what to do.
A man standing next to by the metre asks if I am taking my dog to the vet and how much I need.
I tell him I have no money and the man pays for my parking. He puts £4s into the metre. I can't believe it.
"Well," he says smiling, "if your little dog needs a vet, then she needs a vet."
He walks away whistling.
Later, two small children examine Evil.
"What a lovely little dog," exclaims Samantha, who is clearly 12, but has introduced herself as a veterinary student.
"What a poor little thing." says the vet who is no more that 15 and has sparkling dark eyes and swingy brown hair.
"Do you think this is the end?" I ask them . "Do you think this is related to her congestive heart failure?"
"No," says the vet. "She's lovely." She says chucking Evil under the chin. "She'll be fine. Been eating a few things she shouldn't have, I imagine. Been scavenging I'm guessing, haven't you you naughty little thing," she says to Evil.
The vet gives me a dazzlingly white smile and some medicine for Evil. The veterinary student gives Evil an injection.
As we leave Evil does a liquid pooh just outside the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. She does it just as a group of very young, clean, brightly intelligent students are walking down the steps.
I feel very embarrassed because it is a pooh which is actually impossible to pick up.
"Never mind," says one of the students stopping to examine the pool of dark liquid. "What is it E-Coli?' Parvovirus?"
Next I go to the dump. At the dump, a man who is emptying all the nail drying machines from his nail salon into a non- recyclable skip tells me that his nail salon has been attacked by a rival business. He says they came at the dead of night and broke all the nail machines and stole the nail polish.
I am very shocked. I unload Abigail's Ikea desk and the old laptop. I put the laptop into the small electrical items skip and I go back to the car to get the Ikea desk.
"I've done that for you," says the nail salon man. "I put it into the wood recycling skip, you look about done in. What a lovely little dog you've got there, dear little thing. Cavalier is it?"
Actually most people are very nice.
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