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.