Saturday

Well as you may or may not know, sometime ago Perlilly and I had booked a holiday to Spain and Morocco, leaving this Sunday for a week with our chums in Alicante, and then a spot of freeform touring pinned only to a return flight from Marrakech on November 6th. It was sort of a spontaneous booking, not at all thought out or planned, which I’d somehow come to wonder about over the weeks – especially when the command to write came through! Suddenly the plans were thrown into jeopardy and Perlilly was not a happy girl at having her holiday messed up. I said I’d probably have to come home after the Spain week – or not even do that – and she said she really, really wanted to go to Morocco and that she’d go alone then.

            I was a bit worried about that: I’ve been to Morocco and I know it’s a getting hassled sort of place, even if you’re a guy. I told her and she thought I just didn’t want her to go and have a good time without me. I said, no, I’m just worried, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or you to be unhappy there, I just want you to know what you’re getting into. In the meantime, despite needing to focus my energies elsewhere, I tried to do what I could to rescue the holiday. I said we could go but I’d have to spend eight hours each day in the hotel room, at least until the end of the month. Or I said maybe we could stay in Spain. None of this was agreeable. And I must say, I didn’t feel very supported given that I’m working on my life’s dream.

            In the end, though, I thought a solution had come: a Spanish friend of mine has offered a beach house where I can be alone and just write and write and write. I got so thoroughly excited at the prospect I can barely tell you. And I don’t know why, but it felt like there was some magic in the air, possibly a Mother Meera connection. Suddenly it all seemed possible: I could write my book, and when done I could go to Morocco and meet Perlilly and we could still have something of her holiday. She’d have to amuse herself for ten days but – well, that’s what she wanted to do anyway, right? Wrong. She wasn’t pleased at all.

            Seems like in the meantime she’s been reading up about Morocco and now doesn’t want to go on her own. Also, she couldn’t stand the thought of me having “a good time” in this “amazing place” all on my own while she’s out there being miserable. Jesus, I thought, how selfish can you get! Oh, for a woman that would say, Christ, Rory, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, you just get to work and don’t you worry about the cooking or the shopping or any of it, I’ll do whatever I can to support you. Is that too much to ask? But instead I get hassled because her holiday’s gone down the pan and even interrupted right there in the middle of a sentence to be told things like, “you’ve left the glass door open again.” I know she’s upset about the holiday but…Jesus.

            Now what? She keeps telling me this and that and I keep doing my best to fix it. I know, theoretically, that I’m not supposed to fix it, that I’m just supposed to listen and acknowledge, but I just can’t help it. It’s almost impossible for me to not start working on a solution when a woman starts telling me her problems. Self-help books would say that’s for me to work on, to just listen and not offer fixes – and I’ve tried that lots, and seen that it works, but I still don’t seem to be able to get it into my head that that’s what I should do. And, in a way, should I? By doing that I’m denying my inherent nature. And what the hell’s wrong with solutions anyway?! lol No, I’m not sure about this but I think there’s a better way: a way where men can be men and women can be women, and we don’t have to always be second guessing and suppressing and trying to be something we’re not. So how about this?

            Woman, you’ve got something on your mind, some feelings you want to express: go tell another woman. Get together with your circle of friends and yack and yack and yack until you can come home and feel better. Get it off your chest. Have a laugh. Do it in a place where you know you’ll get all the empathy and sympathy and validation you need. But know that if you try this with a guy, you’ll get solutions. And if that’s what you want then fine. But if not, go to your woman’s group. That’s probably how it was done traditionally and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work. Except this girlfriend of mine doesn’t have a woman’s group, so I get it all instead.

            And man…? Well, man, I don’t even know. That’s probably horribly chauvinistic, isn’t it? Oh well. S’just my solution to what I see as a problem – and I don’t give a flying monkey’s arse what that wet blanket of a lettuce, Dr John Gray says. Be a man, for fuck’s sake! Provide solutions! Hit things and chase balls and build muscles and be a strong and comforting shoulder for your woman in the time of need – but don’t be a woman.

            I do have a feminine side: it’s just that my masculine one is winning the battle right now.

            So who knows what’s gonna happen? Probably, ironically, she’ll be the one coming home early and I’ll be out there on my own, needing to make a bee-line for Marrakech on November the sixth. A big part of me thinks that she should do a spot of solo travel, whether in Spain or Morocco – especially now that I’m actually writing about my own solo adventures, and remembering and loving it. There’s a magic out there when you do it on your own: things come to you, that wouldn’t otherwise in any other way. But will she, won’t she? That’s up to her to decide; I think I’ve done all I can. It’s just a shame that the excitement I was feeling for this time of solitude of mine in Spain has been soured by her jealousy and selfishness. And probably that’s a bit harsh – but that’s what I feel.

            I get the feeling I’m going to have to do some serious thinking about this relationship once this book thing is over and out there. My life, after all, will not be the same – the thing that has been in my head for six or seven years to do, and which has tied me to one thing or another, will be gone. I will be, almost literally, a new man. And I have no idea how it will effect me. I may even want to go back to the road, back to travelling, in pastures and adventures new. I may want some more material. I may, God willing, even make a career out of this. We just don’t know. We just don’t know.

Thursday

Okay, that’s Parts Two and Three been through and edited, to a fairly satisfactory standard, and felt like a good productive day yesterday. Not sure how I’m doing on the timescale though: 22 days to go, and three parts and maybe sixty thousand words still to write and polish; s’gonna be tight. But on I go in any case.

            Do feel, though, that I need to write a little something about Charlottesville, to sort of clear it and my thoughts about it from my head, since that’s what I’ve been immersed in this last four or five days. Man, it made me miss it, all that remembering and memory-jogging. And reading The Musings of The Gus; that boy sure could write – and funny with it too. In fact, I sort of feel in the shade a little by him, having soaked up so much of his bygone words, wishing I could capture the moments the way he did. But what can you do? On and on, and what will be, will be, etcetera.

            I’ve reconnected with some old Charlottesville friends and acquaintances in the past week, via facebook and myspace. Such lovely people! And that makes me pine so for that American life, that openness and spirit of adventure, the wildness and the community, the socialisation. I don’t know whether I’m just older or whether it’s England – I tend towards the latter – but I don’t find that here. I knew so many people back then. And even though it was a fucked up and mental and severely inebriated life, and I was a bad, bad boy who acted atrociously to so many good people, it makes me want it again. In these moments of reliving, I miss them: Leah, Matthew, Gus, the driving, the freedom, the madness. I didn’t make even a small percentage of it that I should have done: in so many ways, I blew it. Imagine, a small boy like me from some arse-end of the world place like South Elmsall being granted the opportunity to live a good life in what has regularly been voted “America’s best place to live” and making such a cock-up of it that I was basically chased from town. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

            Needless to say, for about the first time in years America is featuring most prominently and most favourably in my thoughts. I would love to go back there. I would love to see Charlottesville again. And I would love to have a chance just once more to find old friends and shoot the shit, and maybe recreate a few of those good times in a more sober and adult and less damaging way. I must go see about getting me a visa one of these days…

            And closer to home, Perlilly and I played a gig last night in Oxford – getting on well again – down at The Cape of Good Hope. It was nice to see these new friends I’m making down there – one of whom has offered to fund a drivin’ ‘cross America trip next year, after having read of my exploits – but the set was a bit wank, to be honest. Not that we didn’t play well, but the people didn’t listen. And I generally can’t be arsed when people don’t listen – when they just talk amongst themselves and you have to fight to be heard. I’d rather be at home doing something useful. Or anywhere else, for that matter, doing anything else. Perlilly’s too good for that crap. We must be more selective in the places we play. Last weekend, at the gig in Thame, was too rocking and too amazing to go back to crap like last night.

            Cheers!

            Rory

Wednesday

Went to London yesterday for my monthly check-up following the laser eye surgery, and all is well. Have been a bit worried, since my vision’s been somewhat blurred at times but they say all is normal and I’m healing well. It’s apparently blurred ‘cos there’s still some astigmatism in my left eye (at 0.75, from 3.00) and they say it might require further treatment if it hasn’t settled in three or four months. That’s okay by me; I’d be quite happy to give it another go. Next time, though, I want a video. Everybody got to see what was going on except me!

            Then I came home and worked – and made some half-decent progress on Part Two (while becoming at the same time aware of how much better I could make things if I just had more time) – and after that Perlilly and I went out for dinner. I said, “where do you want to go?” and she said, “wherever you want.” I said, “okay, then, let’s walk up into Headington” – and with that she threw a strop. She didn’t want to walk; she’d already cycled ten miles and had a game of squash. Not that she couldn’t, though (I ascertained), just that she didn’t want to. And she got in a bad mood and off we went then not really talking.

            That was about the final straw for me.

            Fifty metres or so out the door I stopped and asked her if she was going to cheer up.

            She said something about not wanting to walk, and made it clear that she wasn’t (going to cheer up).

            “Fine,” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration, “but I don’t want to spend my time and money on sitting there with you like this. I’ve had enough. You’re behaving like a child.” And I made to go back home – and then I thought better of it, remembering that storming off isn’t really a very sensible thing to do. And then it all came out.

            I told her I thought she was being selfish, and I was tired of her being so cross with me. I told her I thought she was narcissistic – and not that I knew what that meant, I’d have to read up more – but that’s what I thought. I told her all this not expressing her feelings, and being so cold and mean all the time wasn’t working for me. I told her all – and when I say, “all,” I mean, a condensed, boiled down version – of the things that I’ve written about in this journal of late. And then, when I’d got it all out there, I felt better, and clearer, and actually quite fond of her. She was visibly upset, and all quiet and internal, and I put my arm on her back and tried to be consoling. But, at the same time, unbending in my assertions.

            We ate dinner. The food was good. And we talked.

            She cried a bit. She talked about how hard it was for her to express herself. She told me things that I’d done wrong too (nothing wrong with a bit of attack being the strongest form of defence in this kind of situation). And we sort of got closer. She surprised me with how well she took things. And I felt nothing but affection and sympathy for her.

            I listened. She cried. We ate. And we even made some jokes.

            Later, I said maybe I could help her, thinking back to Shane and his Mexico, “how do you feel?” technique that had done so much for me, and I wondered if I could pull it off, never having been that keen on it in the years since. She wants to, though; she knows it’s real. Even her singing teacher has said something about it. And she wonders if that’s where all the lyrics she’s unable to write are hiding. The heart of the onion. It may be time, soon, to have a go at peeling back the layers…

            Is life always this continuous process of expressing and getting out? Or is there a better way, given how momentarily messy and uncomfortable it can be? Or perhaps this is just normal. I do know, though, that her parents don’t express either – and I see where that led, her dad leaving without ever saying why, except in a letter afterwards detailing all the things he perceived her mum had done wrong over the years – like ironing too much – so it’s no surprise she’s like this. At the same time though, I do believe that one of our jobs in life is to take what our parents have given us and to improve on it. And to then pass it on to our children so that they may improve on it further still. So it’ll be good if she can crack this. And if I can somehow help her, that’ll be good for me too.

            We were in good spirits then; the best for some time. We went home and watched an episode of Max and Paddy, and laughed. We fell asleep, and then woke up an hour or so later, and had some good hot lovin’. I felt wonderfully fond of her. She’s a great girl. And all thoughts of “narcissism” and “selfishness” are, for now, put to one side and forgotten. The world is anew and who’s to say what the future brings. She sleeps now and I don’t know who she’ll be when she wakes up. A person can change in a moment. And so I’ll see what comes later.

            Tschus!

Tuesday

I’m not sure what’s going on with my girlfriend; she seems to have been so unhappy with me, for so long, nothing I do or say is right. She doesn’t want to break up with me – but maybe I do with her. She just seems depressed – but says she isn’t, and expresses it more in getting at me, rather than talking about being unhappy – staying in bed all day and watching youtube, not really getting out and doing anything (and then claiming to others that she’s been so busy), moaning about her singing career but then making no efforts to practise or write songs, or tick things off on the repeated lists of things to do we keep making, such as record a CD, get some gigs. I’ve helped her loads in this, at the expense of my own stuff at times, and it grates that she then lazes around and does nothing herself. And does less than nothing, if I’m honest, because she’s so selfish.

She knows I have to write this book – but what has she done to help me? Does she desist in coming in my room and interrupting me, to say something about music? Has she ever made or offered to make me anything to eat? Has she relieved any of the burdens on me? Been extra-nice? Supportive? Encouraging? The answer to all those questions is, “no.” Right at the beginning of our relationship I perceived that she was the sort of person who only thinks of themselves. Now, it seems, I’m being proved right.

I’m wondering if she’s something of a narcissist. She is incredibly demanding when it comes to her singing and looks, and has told me off many times because I do not flatter her or encourage her in the right way. I am, apparently, supposed to tell her that she looks great every day, and that this is obvious, common knowledge, something even the stupidest of men should now. And I am also supposed to tell her that her every performance is amazing, and that she’s the best singer in Oxford, and that she’s much better than anyone that might be appearing on the same bill. She says it’s important that the people who love her feel this way, that it’s obvious that they would think that she’s the best. But it’s hard for me to see it this way.

What if she gives a bad performance? What if we see someone – as happened on Sunday night, much to her obvious distress – that is a better singer, who writes better songs? What do I say then? I’m a man who has been steeped in honesty, who loves that and finds it difficult to be anything but (although I’m learning to temper that and refine it all the time). So what I can honestly say is that she is great, and very, very good, and that I think she has the potential to be one of the best, if she works at at it – which she doesn’t – but that’s about as far as I can go. She gets mad at me and then deflated and sad. She has such a fragile ego. And so much talent, but so little effort to go with it, which is really the main ingredient in becoming a success. I don’t see how trying to bolster this fragile ego with untrue platitudes is going to help her to see that she has a lot of work to be done. My own belief is that, yes, you give encouragement and praise, but it is by pointing to ways to improve, and making it clear that there is much space to improve in, that people work themselves to greatness. If you think you’re already great, why would you work any harder?

She’s been emotionally spoiled, I think. Her mum thinks the sun shines out of her arse, that everything she does is amazing, will give up whatever she’s doing to listen to her at the drop of a hat, and never, ever says anything that approaches criticism, even as she’s later confessed to me that she didn’t think something was very good. This is the emotional response that she’s used to, and she has come now to demand it of everybody: she tells me that one of the things she liked most about her ex-boyfriend was that he always told her she was the best. She has also told me that he was a philandering dickhead who probably the said the same things to everybody, knowing that they worked. But this she prefers to anything of honesty that I have to offer. I just don’t work like that.

I must read up more on narcissism. But this idea of her as a selfish and self-centred narcissist is starting to dominate my impression of her – and the problem is, it’s not the kind of thing (I imagine) you can share with a person. Why do I think this? Well, there’s the aforementioned desire and demand for all a person’s attention and adoration; there’s the way she swans about the house leaving a mess everywhere but never tidying up, being cooked for and cleaned up for afterwards, and not even noticing; demanding chores of me, when I’m in the midst of my busiest and most crucial time of my life, after all the weeks and months that I’ve picked up after her, not thinking, “oh, I could just do this, that would be nice”; thinking, in short, only of herself. She knows that I have to write, and that this has thrown a spanner in the works as far as our upcoming holiday to Morocco and Spain is concerned, but what has been her response? To encourage, to put me and my life-long dream first? Or to complain about how much she wants to go to Morocco? I don’t think I need to tell you what the answer is.

The question then, for me, is what to do about this. On the whole, she’s a lovely girl, with so much to offer: smart, funny, emotionally intelligent, sexy, gorgeous, talented and creative and, possibly, loving. She’s fun to be around, she digs me a lot, doesn’t nag me too much, doesn’t get drunk, and we get on really well. I’d like to get out more, do more things, more fun things, but that seems hard at times, and I’m probably as much to blame in that as it seems hard for me to know what fun things there are to do in this modern-day England, most of my ideas for fun being wrapped up in mad adventures and sport. It does seem, though, a challenge to get her out of the house – or even out of bed at the moment. Which is not something that’s going to endear a person to me (thinking my mum and Eve). But what’s the answer? What’s the explanation? Well, I’m wont to understand in the following ways:

1. She’s young. She’s twenty-three, and maybe there’s still a lot of the teenager left in her, and maybe – I don’t know – teenagers are selfish and only think of themselves, and expect to be/are used to having others fawn over them, clean up after them, not having to give anything in return.
2. She’s fresh from university. She’s finished her degree without any real plan, other than to get into singing, and suddenly she’s found herself in the gulf, the void of post-child, pre-adult life. It’s so long since I’ve lived like that – since I was seventeen, fifteen years ago – that I don’t really know how to relate to it. But on several occasions she’s said that she feels like she’s on summer holidays, which makes sense, and the fact of the matter is, she’s never had to live a ‘real life’, going from high school to gap year to university to this. And all the while supported by a loving, non-pressurising, and fairly well-off family, so that she’s never had to deal with the issues of money or jobs that us normal people have to take into account. Once again, spoiled (in comparison to my own upbringing, at least). And just typing that makes me embarrassingly feel that I’ve gotten myself into a relationship with a child! lol
3. She’s been spoiled. She’s a self-centred narcissist who thinks only of number one, who demands of others and gives nothing back, and who will throw her rattle at you if you don’t satisfy those demands. She’s unreasonable, and needs to realise that she’s acting horribly. She needs someone to tell her that she’s behaving like a baby – or, perhaps more fittingly, a diva – and that unless she wants this particular boyfriend to walk, she’d better do something to change her ways. Like grow up. And make him the occasional meal. And give something in return.
4. It could all be my fault. I could be missing something very obvious about how you treat a woman, and maybe you’re supposed to flatter them everyday, and tell them they look great – even when you think they look stupid, smeared and plastered in excessive make-up and fake lashes, etcetera – and pander to their whims. Maybe you’re supposed to pick up after them, and never mutter anything that could be construed as a criticism, and remain happy and cheerful in the face of their endless dissatisfactions and telling-offs and sexual withholdings. It could be all me. Other men do all that stuff, I suppose. And it’s not like I have a great track record. And she does seem a lot more stable and normal than I ever was at that age. Maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I don’t even know what it means to love someone, because perhaps when you love someone you do see them as the best at everything – even when they’re lazy and horrible and inferior – and maybe love is something that, when it exists, makes objectively necessarily disappear. Or maybe I do know how to love but I just don’t love her. But what is love anyway? That’s always the question I end up asking.
5. She’s going through a bad patch. She’s waking up to the realities of life. She’s struggling to come to terms with that, the way the caterpillar struggles to work its way out of the cocoon. Reality and other people – other real people, as opposed to the excessive adoration of her mother – are providing a painful and shocking awakening, the shedding of her childish clothes – her ego – not exactly to her liking. She’ll struggle and moan and complain – and then one day she’ll say, “boy, have I been selfish, I really ought to stop that,” and she does. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe she’s just a genuine, star-quality diva, and that’s what she was born with and that’s what she’ll be, a la all those other stars who demand and require and who people laugh at in newspapers and pity (yet envy) because of the way they fly in their hair stylists at enormous expense and explode into fits of rage because it’s the wrong type of mineral water or the carpet’s the wrong colour. Maybe that’s what she is – and good luck to her. But it’s not the sort of thing that I want to be around.

And now I have to go catch a bus to London to go get my less-than-perfect though recently-lasered eyes checked out again.

Adios!

Monday

Yass yass! Oops, I forgot to update. Oh well. Been writing lots; got through Part One Friday and Saturday, started on Part Two yesterday but only a quarter of the way through, so already a day behind schedule. Also, so much computing is making my heart sick. And I’m beginning to doubt my ability to make something good in such a short span of time; I keep suddenly seeing how I can make it so much better. Oh well again: I’ll persevere, and there’ll always be another opportunity to edit.

            In other news, Perlilly and I played the most awesome gig ever on Saturday night, over at the Old Nag’s Head in Thame, totally rocked the place. And then, last night – well, until about 4.30 this morning – she finally got around to expressing some of the things that have been bothering her, and that was good. I hope. It’s a challenge being with a woman who finds it difficult to get her feelings out – and most blokes would complain about the opposite! But, yet again, ah well.

            Now ought to get stuck back in; this could be getting daunting soon. And I’ve only got to go to London tomorrow, and play a gig on Wednesday, and go to Spain and/or Morocco next week, and juggle a million billion other things – which are in reality, only three. But, you know how it feels…

            Cheers!

Friday

Well I went to work again yesterday, faced the music, and they were pretty nice about it, just said I’d have to pay the excess – not sure about that – and asked me if I thought I could actually drive it, that big beast of a van. Despite overnight reconciling with myself that it was okay to just admit that I was a shit driver – especially knowing that I needed to extricate myself from the position, what with all this writing I need to do – something in my testosterone wouldn’t let me do it and I said, “sure.” So off I was then to Brighton, Portsmouth and Southampton – after a little driving test from the boss, which I passed with fairly flying colours – and once more into sleep- and headache- inducing motorwayness, and wanting it to end right there. Didn’t crash, though – and only had maybe two moments where it might have been a possibility, which isn’t bad for me. I am shit, though, I’ve got to admit it. And it’s silly for me to even think about continuing, given next week’s holiday, and the book I now have twenty-eight days to write…

            So this morning I sent him an email saying sorry, I’ve reflected, no, I don’t think I’m good enough. I hope he’s not too put out.

            After work I went to see Perlilly sing some jazz at a restaurant in Oxford; she was pretty good. We don’t seem to be getting on very well at the minute though, so that always makes it a strain. She always seems to be cross with me, not interested. And only interested in herself. It makes me mad, this apparent narcissism and selfishness, and how she’s always wanting things from me, and I’m always thinking about saying something to her. But if I’ve learned anything recently it’s that criticising the very make-up of others is rarely helpful. Also, if it makes me mad, why don’t I just detach myself from it? It makes me mad ‘cos it interferes with my own desires, of needing to write, and I get waywarded with it. But, rather than telling her she’s got to change, why don’t I just change myself, and not get waywarded, and just do what I think she’s preventing me from doing anyway? So that’s the plan.

            The other plan is to write. Twenty-eight days. Four weeks. Five parts. Maybe a hundred thousand words. Written and edited. Formatted. Proofread. Submitted. Plus a cover. Yikes!

            But I have the faith. I believe I can do it.

            I can do it – the only question is, will I?

            Effort. Resolve. Determination. Perseverance. Check.

            Okay, let’s get it on…

00.26

Day done, almost made it through the whole of Part One, which is cool; hope to get that finished off and get through Part Two by the end of the weekend and then get cracking on new material, which’ll be the hard bit. Good to get stuck in and knuckle down and achieve – and wasn’t actually too hard to do (turning off the wireless button on my laptop seemed to be a tonic for focus). Also had a dream about Dave, who has offered to do the cover for me; he’d done some really cool pics. Hope he can come up with something.

            After that Perlilly and I had a bit of a practice for our gig tomorrow night, learned Lady Marmalade and one or two others, and then I went off to my first game of football in over three weeks, down at Brookes. Was worried that I’d be out of shape but ran and hussled as much as ever, scored one and laid on the other in a disappointing 4-2 defeat, a couple of sloppy late goals putting paid to some good efforts. Oh well, I never seem to be on the winning team with these guys.

            I was thinking about Perlilly on the way home, thinking about how it’s been weeks and weeks since she’s been nice to me for any length of time. That’s a bit disappointing, and my first instinct is to want to know why, to want her to express herself to me, or to think about leaving, think she’s not right for me. Shamefully, that’s probably the direction I go in most of the time – but tonight I contemplated a bit deeper and got myself to realise that she probably wasn’t happy – she’s in limbo, after finishing university – and also that if I wanted her to be nice to me punishing her wasn’t really the right way to go about it, that I ought to do something nice for her. So I stopped in at the super and bought her not one but two bunches of flowers – and they weren’t on special either – and three little bars of chocolate. She was so happy when she saw them she gave me my first proper kisses in ages.

            We learned some more songs after that: Cat Stevens’ Wild World; Push The Button by The Sugababes; Don’t Stop The Music by Rihanna. Sounding pretty good.

            Here’s to another productive day tomorrow! Cheers!

Wednesday

I’m up at 8 and off to get a ride to work, and after much deliberation I’ve decided to tell them that when I got home yesterday I’d suddenly got an email asking me to write a book by the end of the month and, gee, I just don’t know what to do. I think I can work one day; or two weeks; or possibly the whole time and do both of them – but then what about the holiday? – but the guy (my hirer) is cool, and he says just work till the end of the week and then see what you think, I’m sure we’ll find someone else.

            So I’m happy with that.

            I get there and me and this other chap spend a few hours piling old computer monitors onto pallets; they’ve got this new business recycling computers, and they’ve got this warehouse there that is chockerblock full of computers and monitors and projectors and photocopiers and printers, some of them not that old but all of them just tossed aside and discarded, by businesses, by schools, by universities. There’s some awesome kit, and if I was into awesome kit I’d be sick to my stomach with desire. But I’m not, so that’s okay.

            Then it comes time to drive, and off I go to Croydon/Bromley, and it’s all rather nice, and I get some thinking time about my writing, and I’m feeling good about getting stuck in when I get home. I pick up a load of equipment from a special school, and get a decent sweat on carting it up stairs and loading it in, and then it’s back to Abingdon and done.

            Except…

            Except I think, I don’t like the route the satnav brought me on, I think I’ll see if there’s a better one. And there is – it’s only five minutes longer, but ten miles shorter, and avoids those narrow country roads that scare me so, and make me think I’m going to crash, which I am almost always am. And off I go.

            Except…

            Except that the traffic is horrid and what the hell have I done taking a route through Putney and Hammersmith and Richmond at this time of day when the schools are emptying and people are leaving work and isn’t London always like this anyway? Why didn’t I just take the country roads and get on the M25 and back. Slowly, my ETA creeps up from 5 o’clock, to 5.30, to 6, and it’s taking me half an hour to go five miles, and it’s all getting rather frustrating. Two hours to make the motorway. Two hours to go thirty miles when it should be less than two hours all the way. And now I’m getting a headache, and that just won’t do for later, not when I’ve got thirty-one days to write a book, and not when I’ve just decided to start the whole thing from scratch, mad as I am, but I’m sure I can do it. And at least I’ve made the motorway now…

            Except…

            Except I then clip a van and lose a bit of my wing mirror with a bang. Except I then drive into a pole in the parking lot of the service station where I’ve stopped to pee and lose the bumper and severely dent the side. Except I then do the same to the other side of the van, and all I can do is laugh and laugh because it’s just so ridiculous that I’ve only been in it four hours, and how he said, “look after it, it’s his baby,” and look what I’ve done. And sure I want to cry too. But mostly it’s just ridiculous.

            And back on the road again, wondering what I’ll say, and wondering if I’ll tell Perlilly, who’s waiting for me at home, after five days up in Leeds, and thinking how much it’ll cost me. Luckily, I don’t have to face the music until tomorrow, seeing as I was so late getting back. But what will I say? Sorry, I guess. I’m such a schmuck. And such a bad driver. I can barely believe how bad I am. And I’m sure you can’t too.

            And now I’m home and frazzled and headachey and nothing’s been done and that’s one less day I have to write a hundred thousand word book. And go on holiday. And sort out my life. I feel like I have too much going on, but really I don’t at all, I just lack the ability to focus. Ah well, it’s only your lifelong dream, eh?

            On a brighter note, Mrs H is recovered from her illness. She was sick in the stomach and had a migraine coming but I gave her a spot of ‘reiki’ this morning and she said she fell asleep for a couple of hours immediately after and then woke up feeling right as rain. Smashing! Although it could have just been a coincidence.