If you read my update post on Tuesday about my plans for the blog this year, you will recall my mentioning the new feature I am introducing called Desert Island Books.
The premise is fairly simple and not particularly cryptic, the title says it all. I will be revealing and reviewing the twelve books that I would take with me, should I be stranded alone forever on a desert island. One per month throughout the coming year. I’ll tell you what it is I particularly love about them; why they are books that I can read over and over again without getting bored and why they would be my ideal forever companions.
To be honest, the feature is really just an excuse for me to reread some of my favourite books of all time and share them with you, but it is also an interesting exercise. Could you narrow down…
My conscience is pacing the clothes-strewn floor of my bedroom in despair. ‘oh great – are you REALLY going to make this your first post of 2019?’
If I wake up after my one measly hour of sleep and these thoughts are racing around my brain, then why not write them down – I’m only being honest with myself remember? Just go away and leave me to it.
‘Look … get it all off your chest, then FFS delete it so THEY don’t start their year wishing they’d never opened this post. *stalks off and trips over half a pair of shoes worn on Christmas Day*
A monster with teeth and dull eyes, a billion arms with dimensions so big it could engulf me in one if it really wanted to. Poised, always, just under the surface of wherever I’m rowing my wobbly little boat. That’s how I see depression; like it’s a thing, a presence, separate from me but something I’m permanently attempting to travel further away from. Knowing what it looks like since facing it head-on after 18 months of counselling (which ended over a year ago) has been my saving Grace.
During those months I actually managed to stab it on a number of occasions, while the experts had it tethered. It was quite shocking at first when they encouraged me to pick up machetes and knives, chainsaws and rifles. They cheered when we heard it wince and moan. We’d celebrate when we watched it retreat with barely any of its multiple arms intact.
‘I bet that salt water stung!’
I thought you were downstairs making tea?
Sometimes I stop rowing. That might be because I’m tired or perhaps I’ve forgotten the direction in which I was going. It’s then that the ripples slapping at the sides of my boat become shadowed with the dark looming shape. The punctured surface, with droplets of white froth as a slimy limb emerges, a few feet away might indicate that the monster is back, amused by its own regeneration and hungry to feed. Mostly I pick up the paddles at this point and type, I mean row, and often it is enough. I find my boat’s painted sides reflected in shallower water, glittering fish darting every which way beneath the surface come to joyfully investigate.
I can always hear them sharing their happiness bubbles with me and I am left light in mood, strong in arm and off I row for miles and miles, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets there for the taking. Days and days worth of sea I cover past islands filled with travellers who invite me ashore, dance and sing with me and help fill my little boat with supplies. The world is so full of goodness, I find it enthralling and many times I think about those islands and wonder how life is upon them.
Occasionally, I lose the oars over the side. If this happens out in the dark depths, in the middle of the night when you can no longer see where the horizon meets the ocean, then it’s bad news. I become easy pray, lying dormant in the bottom of the boat amongst broken pieces of detris, maybe an odd shoe. I listen to the monster’s teeth rasp along the bottom for hours, vibrations travelling through my back. Suckered arms with taloned ends usually appear over the sides, dripping foul smelling sloshes of water onto my limbs. This happened in the early hours of this morning when about seventeen arms gripped the sides from beneath, and pulled the boat down into the depths, dark death-water gushing in over the sides of my oval world until I could no longer see the stars.
‘Here’s your tea, and you have to go and bloody well visit those islands if you want to know how they are, not bob about simply wondering!’
God, do you have to listen to EVERYTHING I’m thinking? Can’t I have just ONE moment’s private headspace?
‘Yes to the first. No to the second. And if it wasn’t for me, you’d have disappeared a long time ago. Now you’ve got ten more minutes before I’m bringing Martha and Antonio in.’
Oh, okay. I nearly forgot about them.
‘Yeah, well…. they want a … you know’ *gesticulates wildly with pursed lips and swaying hips*.
Now I’m giggling. I adore my conscience. It is my instinct and my friend all rolled into one. It sat and listened when I simply sobbed through some of those counselling sessions and thank The Lord it did.
This tea is good, and the first morning of 2019 is underway. I hear birds singing through the double-glazed windows. Cheap. (Hah!!! I should be a comedienne). Mother in law is cooking lunch, I’ve a manuscript not far from its finish line, I’ve my health – as far as I know – and two happy children. Our daughter stood on Primrose Hill last night with her BF to watch the London fireworks along with thousands of others, it seems, and had an amazing atmospheric time (and a free night’s sleep thereafter in her West Hampstead studio flat). Our son is on the other side of the globe in New Zealand having celebrated the New Year in 13 hours ahead of us. He is now spending some well-earned days off in Queenstown doing boys stuff and practising his language skills. I think jet-skiing was on the cards for yesterday and he’s much too busy to be sending his mother photographic evidence of his shenanigans (‘quite right too’).
I also have Man of the Woods, who has changed alongside me these last few years. We talk things through now when something doesn’t sit right. We just used to argue before and ultimately hurl competitively horrendous insults betwixt, which of course got us nowhere. In fact it gave him ammunition to use in future arguments that I was unbalanced and like my mother. That always hurt the most, that one.
I don’t believe I am like my mother (who rang at 6pm last night and almost whispered down the phone that ‘Your father is down to his final £6.90 and he’s incredibly stressed about it. Yes, we are probably seeing the start of the end. His shakes are worse and he’s obviously got Parkinsons but refuses to see a Doctor. It’s selfish really, when I’m dealing with my diabetes. Oh, and have I told you I’m going to drive to Scotland in the New Year to find a man who wrote a book about a diet which undoes the damage diabetes causes? I knew I was right and the hospital were wrong. I’ll prove it yet, you wait and see.’).
Her call content, and face to face conversation content come to think of it – is 97% inappropriate, it leaves me feeling very uncomfortable like I’m riddled with leeches and responsible somehow. What she doesn’t know is that I’ve wanted to gift my father some finance for some months but I know he’ll try and turn it down. I have to find a way, but I bet she thought I’d be offering it to her. No chance lady.
SHIT !
`Wondered how long it would take you!’ *stands by window staring out at the dew glistening in sunlight on the grass, arms folded, patient as always*
It was that call? Half way through ‘Spectre’ which has unsettled me?
*turns and nods* ‘I think so yes.’
I haven’t even bothered you all with her Christmas Day efforts where she left our dining table my daughter had spent hours preparing, to eat her roast goose meal on her knee in the living room with no explanation (and I’d love to admit I’d added this bit for dramatic effect, but it’s the cold hard truth of what happened). We three plus my father and MoW’s parents all carried on eating and chatting, although my heart was racing, as my father’s would have been I know. No-one went out to see if she was okay. Everyone knew she was attention-seeking and ignored it because they are all doing their utmost to help me disengage from her negativity. And in the daylight hours it works.
Well look at that will you, over 1400 words. Can I borrow them for my book?
‘They won’t fit, but you’re feeling better aren’t you?’
I so am, thank you! Shall I delete it now?
‘You’re welcome. Is it well-written and vaguely entertaining? Does it have a message others will ‘get’? I’ll never TELL you what to do as I’m only here to guide you. *leaves the room avoiding the shoe, before popping head back round the door* ‘By the way–‘
What?
‘You might need to speak to Sam Mendes.’
Eh?
‘While you were racing around getting crisps and drinks during the opening sequence of the film, I was watching and listening!’
It’s about a year ago that Man of the Woods and I became very lucky parents. Our daughter – then 19 – crashed her car and turned it over. We didn’t lose her. In fact she was the luckiest girl as she only lost a few of her long hairs when the shattered windscreen nipped the ends and pulled some from her scalp, presumably when the car landed. You can read about it here. At the time I asked her permission to put it on social media to illustrate the brilliance of seatbelts to other young drivers.
I’ve just driven home from a friend’s and although there was no frost, I thought about her and once again realised how lucky we were to have her here this Christmas and for me to be able to take this photo. Someone must have been looking after her.
I was inspired to write a quick poem before bed … goodnight folks
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
When life is but a breath away from being not so,
As delicate as a whisper beside your ear.
Take it not for granted, pause, watch and see,
Hear, feel and taste life while it is still here.
💫
Worry less about the things you cannot change,
Don’t yearn for the past because it is done.
Avoid waiting for a future full of uncertain promises.
Grab the lapels of today, breath in and feel it on your tongue.
Your comments yesterday helped me feel more positive; thank you!
Daughter has decorated the table beautifully and I’m enjoying lashings of butter on this crumpet with a milky cup of tea just before I make the trifle. I located the tablecloth in the barn amongst the dusty boxes of detris and washed it last night – phew! (I say tablecloth… it is merely a 3m length of cotton fabric from a haberdashery which I never got around to hemming, but we won’t worry about that – even if mother does 🤣).
Man of the Woods is excelling himself in the kitchen today – he’s made one of Jamie Oliver’s stuffing dishes and the house smelt divine as he was doing so. We both enjoy watching all the Christmas cooking programmes but whereas I forget the content the minute the credits have finished, he makes mental notes and re-creates some of the masterpieces.
Rather than worry he is taking over my space or role in the kitchen, I have found being his sous chef a most agreeable pastime 👏🏼
When he not on a tractor, he has cooked me many a meal this last year, with words like “No, it’s ok, I want to – you keep writing.” … I don’t think it gets any better than that for support does it?
I’ve enjoyed wrapping presents for the parents… and cleared the kitchen of clutter and discovered a whole windowsill underneath!
😂😂🙊
In the absence of sherry, I’ll use toffee vodka to soak into these blueberry muffins. I’ll cheat with tinned fruit and carton custard because my second of four dates with Daniel Craig is not far off and I wish to give him my full attention… one each of his four films on consecutive nights, starting last night with Casino Royale …
I’m an emotional soul and know that many of you have followed my ramblings for a year now and have not left my side and I feel grateful for that and have loved getting to know you. It is my ambition to present to you a fiction novel at some point and I make this pledge that alongside my writing buddy over at ALittleBookProblem I shall continue my efforts to finish the first draft and edit it to the best of my ability before submitting it throughout 2019. If I get no nibble with a traditional route, I will consider self-publishing but won’t be rushing into that as would want to get it right first time.
His stuffing is cooked and will simply be heated up tomorrow – it smells amazing 🎄👌🏼
I wanted to send you festive wishes from a more positive place and hence this extra post! Have a wonderful 25th December everyone and let’s not forget what we are celebrating 💫
(It’s ok, Joseph is round the back, cooking for his wife and son)
xxx
PS Bollocks. Don’t get side-tracked on social media when you’ve got pigs in blankets in the oven 😂😂
So I’m looking forward to 27th December. Is that bad? You don’t actually have to answer that; by which I mean, I would respect your view because you are entitled to one, but the question was hypothetical. It’s simply how I’m feeling this year.
Our son is away in New Zealand working for five months until March, about which I genuinely couldn’t be happier. He is well, becoming bored of the pizza he and his ‘flatmates’ heat up daily in their single story property which wouldn’t look out of place in a dated outback movie. He is loving the long hours and the farm machinery he has been entrusted to drive. The landowners have been singing his praises for the fieldwork he has carried out for the contractor he is employed by, an hour south of Queenstown (he’s only been stuck once in the biggest tractor on the farm, because he didn’t quite believe that thirty inches of rain can fall over two days and leaves some fields a little soggy. (When you live in England, thirty millimetres is considered a lot!).
But without him here, and with our daughter starting that tradition of splitting her time between us and her BF’s, there just doesn’t seem to be much Christmas spirit within me. We have a tree, and some decorations rescued from the barn and the dust and they sit around purporting to contribute to some ritual undertaken by most of Christianity at this time of year. I’m just not feeling it. That’s my problem, not anyone else’s and not even how Man of the Woods feels. He is one of four children and they had a ball growing up on the farm. Christmas was a special time to be spent with cousins and extended family and his home would have looked not unlike the set of Home Alone I suspect and all the fun which goes with that.
Now I’m not getting the violin out here, but having no siblings, nor cousins, (due to having only one uncle, who never married) Christmases for me were a somewhat subdued affair. Spent with alternate sets of grandparents each year, I grew up listening to my mother’s hatred for her mother in law – thankfully a feeling I do not share as mine is a saint – and from a very young age would be, what I now clearly see is a manipulation of the truth, coerced into agreeing with her about all aspects of ‘granny’s’ behaviour. I’m not going into the details. I recall playing Monopoly each year and I would always insist on being the dog. Sometimes dad and I would play Mastermind and I always enjoyed trying to work out what his body language might mean as he surreptitiously stroked his moustache and grinned when I placed a coloured peg in a hole.
Suffice to say that in two days time Man of the Woods and I are cooking the festive lunch for the first time in around fifteen years because we have always done the turns thing. With my own mother being really quite ill this year and mother in law simply deserves a treat, we decided back in October to suggest this and, like everyone knows, it is the only roast meal which needs discussion from October. They all said they’d love to.
But all I keep feeling up to is reading and watching Christmas movies and thinking about writing!! I’m about 68,000 words and am seriously contemplating not trying to produce any more, and instead reworking many of them and reducing it to a 50,000 word count aimed at Mills and Boon True Love line. Then two days ago I felt like studying what their Dare line had to offer and downloaded a Clare Connelly title Season to Sin. I read it in two sittings! I loved Clare’s writing style plus the heat I fancied was there aplenty alongside a great love story. If a bit of cheeky sometimes hits the spot, I recommend it.
This was the photo I uploaded to my instagram account, having announced I would not be partaking in Insta until I’d reached 70,000 words. I failed; what am I like? Confused I think it would be safe to say.
Have a great Christmas everyone; see you on the other side! xx
