Thursday 5th January

The news is completely full of the Stephen Lawrence case, and in many ways quite rightly so.  And what a change that is, from the time when the murder was first committed, or even at the first and subsequent trials, when the media were luke-warm to say the least.  And even though the eventual evidence was microscopic and to be quite honest not all that convincing, after so many years one does wonder if there could have been some cross-contamination, the general consensus has always been that the police knew all along who the guilty gang were, but without a confession it was going to be nigh on impossible to find them guilty.  Let us just hope that they can somehow pin the others at some point soon in the future.

And, actually the sentences of about fifteen years each, was just about right.  I have severe doubts about sending anyone to prison in the first place, although what other punishment can possibly be imagined for such a crime I do not know.  The judge said if they had been adults at the time of the crime he would have sentenced them to serve far longer.  But what hope is there for us as a society if we just believe we should lock people up for longer and longer; are we saying that there is no hope at all for these people, and of course the longer you do lock them up for, the less hope they have and maybe any possibility of redemption is lost.  I know; and I cannot actually imagine this pair ever becoming decent people again, but we might as well go the whole hog and become like America, where locking people up so that they will die in prison is considered not only normal but some sort of deterrent.  Well, when you look at the crime rates in America that idea does not appear to be working either.

So, I just hope that given a little time, these two, still young men may begin to repent their crime and maybe assist in bringing the others to justice too. And maybe that will be the greatest deterrent for the future.  It isn’t the punishment that deters, it is getting caught.

Wednesday 4th January

After my post of yesterday about the wet and mild weather I was truly put in my place by the ferocious gales that followed almost immediately after I had sent it on its way.

But isn’t that just the way of life; just when you are snuggled up safe and sound and sure of yourself, along comes some great big slab of reality to blow away your pretensions.   I suppose you might think that I have it made, don’t you; with my very nice house all paid for, and a bit of money in the bank and quite adequate income, and my settled little life with puddy-tat.  But you couldn’t be further from the truth.  Maybe it is innate in us human beings to never be quite happy, to never know true satisfaction, to never really be content.  And content and happy I am not, not really.

I wrote at the end of one of the chapters of my book ‘Catherines Story’, the ending little refrain from dear Mr. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair – Oh Vanitas Vanitatum, which of us is truly happy in this life, or having happiness is truly satisfied.  It was of course meant ironically and as a warning bell to the Catherine in the story (maybe a totally different Catherine than I – it was a work of fiction, after all) that her moment of happiness was just that – a moment, and that having grasped it, would she truly be happy.  I am not so sure that life is that cruel however.  We can sometimes bask in reflected happiness, the sheen that comes back when we prop the mirror up against our memories, and yes we can see it now, just how happy we were back then.  It is just a bit harder to recognize when it is happening to you; that is all.  And then something changes your state and you realise you were quite happy actually, though you would be hard-pressed to have known it at the time. A bit like the sudden cold and windy weather of yesterday, calm dreary rain, pale grey skies and then out of nowhere a really gusty old day to blow the cobwebs and sureties away.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring now.

Tuesday 3rd January

I find the current warm but overcast and predominantly warm weather a bit wistful, don’t you?  It is almost as if we haven’t even begun to have a Winter yet; it feels far more like Autumn.  ‘And is that a good thing?’  I ask myself, and of course the answer must be no.  It is good for the old-age pensioners, my mother included, who after a lifetime of thrift, where saving money has always taken precedence over actually wanting to spend it, find that the usual winter quandary of ‘eat or heat’ no longer applies.  Not that my mother is particularly hard-up, she still has quite a really large sum in the bank, left over from when we sold the old house in Putney, and has her pension, and no mortgage or rent to pay, but I know that despite my protestations she is saving this up for me, who needs it even less than she does.  But generally with heating bills rocketing in the last year, we should be thankful that we haven’t had a cold snap this Winter.  Also for the poor beleaguered NHS, where the freeze brings with it multiple broken bones and flu-related illnesses, at least this year seems to be giving it some relief.

But for me, despite being no impediment to my daily walks, the lack of snow makes me wistful and I almost yearn for the kind of Winter I love.  You know, those cold frosty mornings where every twig and each blade of grass has its own delicate crystallized pattern etched all over it, and your breath condenses into tiny cloudlets as you breath out, and you come in with damp nose and eyebrows and red red cheeks, and have to sit with your overcoat and scarf still on as you fumblingly make a cup of coffee and sit by the fire,( well the electric coal effect mock wood burning stove that passes for a fire these days) until you feel warm enough to get undressed.  And you look out in the morning across the few square feet of lawn which is now covered by a fine layer of eider feathers, with just a few tracks of hopping robins to show there is any life out there at all.  I miss these signs of a real Winter, in fact I almost yearn for it.  I look out now in the mornings at another drizzly overcast day, with the sun barely visible at all  behind those thick whitey grey massing clouds and the temperature of twelve or even fifteen degrees is absurdly warm, and I get wistful.  Wistful for the real winters I remember from my childhood, and even the one we had last year, but also wistful for the Spring days which followed.  It still feels like Autumn to me, and I have an awful feeling that we may have to wait until late February or even March for snow this year, and so even longer to wait for Spring.

So, yes, while in some ways a mild Winter is welcome, I feel sad for the winter we haven’t had yet.  Maybe it has got lost somewhere mid-Atlantic.

Monday 2nd January

Eventually, well almost, the long Christmas break is over.  A quiet day to look forward to at last, I seem to have been inundated with visitors and invites to parties I simply couldn’t refuse.  Not that I do not enjoy them when I get there, it is the anticipation that I do not like, the day seems not my own if I know that I will have to be expected to be bright and breezy at seven for drinks and nibbles at Jennifer’s or a small dinner at Marjorie and Martin’s, and so I find I cannot settle to anything with the knowledge that I will have to get showered and dressed and ready to go out later in the day.  Please don’t think I am ungrateful, but everyone seems to want their own parties these days, myself included, that there really aren’t enough days to fit them all in. Today I have nothing planned and the whole day ahead.  So, a start is to be made on the new book, mapping out a few ideas, and a start to the writing itself; I hope it goes well.

I may also begin to take down some of the decorations, they are beginning to look a bit jaded.  Also an inventory of the fridge is needed; I am out of a few basics and have at long last finished up all the cheese and cold meats.  Maybe a slight diet regime may be needed too; I seem to have put on a few pounds again this Christmas, so more veggies and salads on the way for Catherine I think.   And I will start again my walking regime, which with so many parties to attend and my mother being here I have sadly neglected for the last two weeks.

In many ways the whole rigmarole of Christmas is a bit of a nuisance, upsetting even the best laid plans; if only it came around just every two years, we might appreciate it more.   Missing out each alternate year might actually whet our appetites a bit. But no more excuses, the holidays are over and it is back to some sort of normality.  Thank goodness.

Sunday 1^st January

How many times, how many years have I gone through the rigmarole of making New Years Resolutions, even writing them down in neat little copperplate letters in my diary.  And how many times have I given in; the answer, unsurprisingly, is almost the same.  I did write my book “Catherines Story” but that was hardly a serious New Year’s Resolution, more an afterthought – it had been on my mind for years really, but in a funny sort of way it seemed almost disloyal while Edward was alive to be writing of such a passionate phase of my life, when my loyalties and in fact my whole idea of myself were challenged to the full.  The book had been an idea which was germinating for maybe a few years before I put pen to paper at all; probably when I first knew that Edward wouldn’t be around forever.  I had always written and have started two books before this, both incidentally started on January the first, one when I was thirteen, and a more serious attempt when I was in my late twenties.  The latter was, of course, autobiographical, but told in the third person and about a girl called Amanda, who like me had a sad and lonely little upbringing, but it was far too soon after the events I wanted to delve into, and it petered out quite soon, I haven’t re-read it.

So, to this year’s resolutions; and the first is maybe a bit of a surprise.  I am going to carry on with the blogs, though heaven knows who the 15 or so people who read it each day are, but I may write slightly shorter pieces – the trouble is, once I get started it is quite difficult to know when to stop.  The second is as I said yesterday, to see my reluctant parents a bit more often.  I call them reluctant because neither of them really made enough effort to be a real parent to me.  My father could and should have made more of an effort to get past Grandma’s obstructions, maybe it suited him to let go of me in this careless manner; and my mother who though she has always been around had never really been here at all, except just once or twice when the crisis was breaking between Grandma and I, only then and sporadically did she even begin to get involved in my life.  But now it is time to forgive them both, because for better or worse, they are all I have.  The third is to start a new book, and I already have a title of sorts.  No, I will keep that to myself for a bit if you don’t mind.  So, three resolutions; and not so hard to keep, I think.  In any case I am resolved to maintain them this time, and I think I will.

Saturday 31st December

I heard this line on Radio 2, and my clever DAB radio told me it was by The Finn Brothers – who ever they are, and a song called Edible Flowers, so thank you Radio 2 (and the brothers Finn) for another title for my blog.  And how true that line is, so obvious we do not even think about it, but underlying all our petty hopes and fears, ambitions and daydreams, the stark reality is that we simply want to be around for another year.  And it has set me thinking about my parents, and how old they both are getting; not that they are poorly, quite the opposite I would say, a sprightly couple, though of course, a couple they never really were, or are likely to be again.  But the grim reaper can come calling at any time; and I am resolving (at this time of resolutions) to see a bit more of them both.  My father lives in Brighton, and it is only an hour on the train, so there really is no excuse.  I am planning a monthly visit, and to see my mother at least once a week from now on.  I have the time, so I just have to get on with it.  Really I truly don’t know what I do with my time anyway, waste it mostly like everybody else.  Having my mother over at Christmas reminded me that she had me when she was only eighteen herself, “Far too young” as Grandma used to say, as if this would explain everything, my mother’s moods, and almost desperate state she got herself in over the slightest mishap.  I look at her now, and realise that in eighteen years, which is no time at all, I will be her age myself, and it isn’t a very heartening prospect, is it?

So what will I do with my time left,  I think I might try to learn a new language at evening classes, Italian maybe, and I know a smattering from the years we used to spend there, so it shouldn’t be that hard really.  Barbara tried to get me along to Salsa classes, but I never was any good at dancing, no natural rhythm I think, I was always listening to the melody and the harmonies, using my head rather than let the music move my body I suppose.  And anyway I think that maybe I need a few new friends, all of my friends were really Edward’s friends who by association became mine, and I am not that sort of bubbly instantaneous person who can start a conversation with a perfect stranger; I need to almost size them up first, get to know a little bit about them before I take the plunge.  Rather like my only two relationships, I need to feel safe before I can let go of the handrail and skate along with them.  And you never know I might meet a man there, though hopefully not an Italian Stallion. Hahaha

Friday 30th December

Thank goodness the headache – a bad one – has gone, and another bout of (self-inflicted?) perjury is over.  And it wasn’t as if I over-indulged this Christmas; my Mother doesn’t drink at all now, yet I can remember her enjoying both wine and brandies with Grandma in years gone by.  Even when I opened a rather nice bottle of Mumm’s for us on Christmas Day itself, she politely refused, having an apple juice instead, I had to finish it myself. (over two days I must admit, but it was delicious)  The bottle of Vintage Port I bought has hardly been touched either, but that I don’t mind, as I will enjoy this myself over the chilly winter evenings.  I took my mother home yesterday, it was quite pleasant, but not quite as I had hoped. She is so reticent and undemanding, she didn’t even have any preferences for the television, I almost felt that politeness was going to kill us at times.  We did chat a bit about Grandma and Putney and the old times we had together, but it was all rehashed stuff we seem to talk about every Christmas.  In a way I suppose I was hoping that she would open up a bit and tell me some more about Cyprus, although for me, that book is already written; I was just curious I suppose.  But no, my mother and I have settled into a pleasant and unchallenging pattern which neither of us is really prepared to disturb, and as Grandma herself would declare “But my dears, it is all such a long time ago now, we don’t want to go over all that again, now do we?”

So now it is clear blue skies ahead.  That is my new motto, despite today being overcast and pale grey clouds as far as the eye can see.  Behind them I can assure you the sky was blue.  No more miseries, but a new me.  I have decided to stop writing the second book, it was like the  curates egg I am afraid, ‘good in places’, and I had written myself into a sort of denouement, a bit of a blind alley, and on re-reading I find it wasn’t that much different from “Catherines Story”.  Different female lead, but a bit too tragic and sad a heroine. (again!! Do I hear you mutter) No, I am going to start a new book.  I am not really sure what about yet, but I feel I need to write in a different genre completely, maybe a crime thriller.  We’ll see, and if this one doesn’t work out; why, I’ll just try something different again.  The important thing is to write, and not to worry about how good it is, or if it will ever be published, but just enjoy the writing of the thing.

Thursday 29th December

Although I never had a brother or a sister, or indeed many friends as a child I did have a companion who though uninvited and never-expected, was never far away.  I have been a lifelong sufferer from migraine headaches, of course as a child I didn’t recognize them as such and when I used to complain of a headache I would get short shrift, “Go upstairs and read a book” or “I really don’t know Catherine, you are always complaining about something or the other, now buck yourself up child.”  It was only as I got older and read up about them did I realise they had indeed been very bad headaches and not just something I had made up to get out of swimming at school or to avoid doing the washing up.

There is supposed to be, or often is, a trigger which starts the headache, but in my case I have never been able to identify this; all the favourite suspects such as cheese or chocolates do not seem to apply, and it can be summer or winter spring or autumn, the season makes no odds.  Sometimes sitting too long in the sun can start one off, but then again so can a walk in a stiff cold wind; but mostly neither of these extremes seem to be present.   One thing I have found is that I usually know I am due one the moment I wake up, it is a sort of fuzziness, almost a premonitory state, and befuddled it takes me a few moments to catch on, and then it is hope against hope fighting the inevitable as the pressures rise and the wave finally breaks.  They are usually accompanied by some sort of tummy upset too, with horrid tasting belches to boot, so I wonder if it might really be a bad tummy which triggers the migraine, I also find I am extremely tired, even after just waking up, and trying to go back to sleep doesn’t really help either as the headache will out no matter what I do.

I do take Neurofen, which sometimes manage to take the edge off, or dull the grinding pain somewhat, but nothing I have found will cure them.  They have to run their course, and I usually have to retire to my bed where in the dark and huddled up in a little ball, or stretched out with my wrist on my forehaead trying desperately to stop the throbbing pulse of pain, or with a wet flannel on the back of my neck, I go through the hours it always seems to take to die down, and become at least manageable again.

I used to wonder why me, why was I the one who got these rotten headaches, but apparently they are really quite common.  One wonders why headaches occur at all, and I have never heard a really good scientific explanation for them, there simply seems no point, except to make one suffer.  But I have learnt over the years to bear with them, because they do go eventually, only never quite fast enough.

Wednesday 28th December

What is this craziness that seems to infect a certain part of mankind at the thought, the mere mention of a sale?

I have been watching the news and reading the ‘i’ (the only paper left for some obscure reason) and am never less than amazed at peoples’ gullibility.  Or are they in their milling, queuing, pushing frenzy the ordinary ones, and I, cool Catherine, sublime in my observing of this throbbing gasping melee, the unusual, the odd one out, the woman with no desire for a bargain?  It isn’t that I enjoy paying ‘Top Dollar’ for everything I buy, or that I object to buying marked down goods; I often pick up something in the ‘reduced’ section, but it has to be the right thing.  I invariably know what I am looking for when I go shopping and that is what I invariably end up buying, discounted or full price – sounds obvious doesn’t it, but you would be amazed how many girlfriends I have been out with who wander around the stores with glazed eyes and an air of bewilderment, and when I ask what they are looking for, they say “I am not sure, but I will know it when I see it”, or some such nonsense.  And it isn’t as if they are referring to a particular style of coat, or a pair of trousers they haven’t spotted yet, their vagueness encompasses the whole gamut of female attire – they simply have no clue what they came out for in the first place, is it a skirt, or a blouse, or jodhpurs even, maybe a poncho  my dear, you know that they come back into fashion at least once every twenty years.

And I am sure that these are the very same people who flock to the sales at this time of year, I say this time of year, but actually it used to be January, then slowly December was encroached upon and some stores have even started their annual post-Christmas sale before the twenty-fifth itself. And they even started queuing on Christmas day, which whether you are religious or not, it is surely sacrilegious to go out on the one guaranteed non-shopping day of the year and start queuing for a sale that will not start for twelve or so hours.  And one cannot blame the stores; anything to get those tills ringing I suppose.  I read once that in Retailing it is throughput of stock and continuing cash-flow through the checkout that are the keys to success, not maintaining ones margins, once breakeven point has been reached it is all about volume of sales.  In any case I am certain that though there must be a few lost leaders to entice people in to the sale, the majority of goods are not really that discounted at all, the selling price has been so inflated pre-Christmas that a 25% reduction will simply bring the item down to the price you should have paid all along.  But for me, it isn’t even the price of the thing, bargain or no bargain, but simply why buy something you wouldn’t have bought had it not been for the crossed out amount in small numerals and the big amount below, oh, and the six feet tall letters ’S A L E’ across the entire window of the shop.

A bargain is only a bargain if you were particularly in need of, or had been planning to buy anyway, the object you see in the Sale.  If it just happens to be something that catches your eye, and the words ‘but it’s only £…….. .99’ flash across your eyes and blanket out all reason, you will undoubtedly get home and unwrap something you hadn’t really bargained for.

Tuesday 27th December

Visiting my hapless friend Barbara, her Barrister husband Martin and their children Julia and Erica yesterday I was struck by this modern habit of getting your children to call you by your Christian names.  My generation would never have considered it, I knew that my mother and Grandma were called Margaret and Hilda but those were for other adults to use, not a child like me. It would have been seen as a sign of disrespect; the very denomination Mummy or Grandma conferred on the owner some position, some sense of achievement in the hierarchy that we, small children, would one day aspire to, and even if we became Mummy ourselves we would still refer to our own mothers as Mummy and they to us by our Christian names.  You may not think this is important, and possibly in the grand scheme of things it ranks quite low, but it is unfortunately another symptom of the state of things today.  I would never have dreamed of losing my temper with or raising my voice to Mummy or Grandma, but today’s children think nothing of shouting at and even swearing at their mothers.  But this is really my point you see, by conferring on your children the equal status of being on first name terms, there is no distinction between Barbara or Erica or Martin or Julia, they are all equals, and so when it comes to a disagreement no holds are barred and any respect the children had for their parents has long since gone with the granting of first name equality.  Poor, poor, Barbara has suffered terribly at the hands of those girls, they think nothing of telling her to F…k off, and even in front of guests.  Barbara just shrugs it off as teenage belligerence but I think there is something deeper going on; her children, because they call her by her Christian name all the time have literally forgotten that she is their mother, the person who not only gave birth to them, but raised them, has sacrificed and continues to sacrifice for them, cooks and cleans up for them, lends them money which will never be repaid and chauffeurs them around at all hours of the day (and is there to be sworn at, screamed at when they don’t get their own way, or when she occasionally says no to them).  To the girls she is just an older woman who lives with them, but is not in any way an equal like their girlfriends are, and so they treat her like a doormat; she might as well have Welcome or two footprints tattooed on her forehead.

And I find it so disconcerting when I am there, as did my mother yesterday when they shouted down the stairs “Barbara, have you ironed that new T-shirt of mine?” or “Barbara, have I got any clean knickers?” or “Martin, can you lend us a tenner, I’ll give it back to you next weekend, promise.”  Who are these ungrateful people.  And Barbara is my friend, not theirs; I can call her Barbara but you are her children, not her friends.  And yet Barbara will tell anyone, “Oh, I get on famously with my girls, we are just like sisters you know.”  Well, I never had a sister, and if I had, I am sure I wouldn’t be speaking to her in this way.  It might be considered at least democratic if Barbara spoke back to them in the same thoughtless and unkind way, but she is kindness personified, and just seems to lap it up in a way, the worse they treat her the happier she seems.  And so it will continue, until they have children of their own and wonder why their thirteen year-olds do not respect them at all and scream and hurl abuse at Julia or Erica, because you can be sure they will not revert to having themselves called by such an old-fashioned term as Mummy.