The only things I'll regret are those I don't do

I dreamt I was on holiday with the children – no Hubby, no Andy, no Flick, just the three of us. The were a little younger than they are now, but only a few years, teenagers. We went out on an excursion together, and as we got off the bus we were asked if we wanted to be extras – not for a film, but for a stage play. The bus came to pick us up from the hotel the next day and take us to the theatre. I hadn’t realised that we wouldn’t be given costumes and was just wearing ordinary clothes – not holiday clothes, just an ordinary skirt and top that I would wear any day. There was a crowd of us standing backstage waiting to go down a tunnel to get onto the stage, but the people in front of me weren’t going fast enough and when it got to my turn I thought it was too late and I didn’t go.

I made lime curd yesterday, with some of the bowlful of limes I bought on the market. I found a recipe to cook lemon curd in the slow cooker and adapted it. It called for four lemons, I did eight limes because I thought they were about half the size of a lemon. I was going to go for six, but when I looked at them and thought about how many I had to get rid of, I went for eight. It is very fiddly grating the peel off limes and squeezing them. It took ages. And it was supposed to cook for three and a half to four hours on low. It went on at five and then I got dinner and went to sit in the living room and didn’t come back into the kitchen till ten, when I saw the red light was still on and remembered about it. It had formed a spongy crust on top, but when I poked a knife through it it still didn’t seem to have set underneath. I left it until I went to bed, then switched it off but left the pot inside the cooker.
It seems to be about the right consistency now, and tastes OK, though it could do with being a bit more limey, and is a rather dodgy colour. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with it though. Eat it on toast and crumpets, I guess.

I’ve got some web work to do today. I need to rejig the site because there is a network meeting on Wednesday evening and I am supposed to be demonstrating it then. I hope this is leading somewhere. The lady I met last month who wanted the business cards has agreed to pay me £15 for them and I can use up those single sided cards that I bought in Staples. It’s a start. But £15 here or there is not exactly what I need.
I should have been working on it yesterday but I felt rough in the morning. I went into Marks once or twice in the week to think about how to spend my £20 vouchers. The first time I looked at the wine and thought, I have two £10 vouchers, I could buy three of their £2 off ‘wine of the month’ £3.99 jobs and then come back another time and spend the other one. Or biscuits. Walking out I saw a top that looked quite nice for £23. Then I had a bit more of a look (normally I just don’t bother), and saw one for £29.50, which was nicer, but it would mean I would have to spend £9.50 of my own money, and anyway, when would I wear it? It’s not as though I either don’t have plenty of clothes already, or have a thrilling social life with lots of opportunities to wear nice tops. I went back in a couple of more times on my way back from work and looked at it, trying to make up my mind.
Yesterday I had a letter to post and I needed some fruit and veg from the market so I went out about lunch time. As I walked down the High Street I saw an old neighbour from the village walking towards me, he put his sun glasses on, maybe he was hoping to get away without me noticing him, but I smiled and said hello and he said hello back. I’d taken my vouchers with me and went into Marks and tried on the top then bought it. I’ll take it to Brussels, it will go with a black skirt or trousers.
I walked down to the market. There was a stall selling three avocadoes for a pound and another with a bowlful of limes for a pound. I stopped for a coffee, then went for a walk by the river. It was a beautiful day, I thought of all the times I walked there in the summer, and I sat on a bench for a while and soaked up the sunshine. I could hear Indian music coming from the other side of the river but I couldn’t see exactly where. Later I heard fireworks as well and wondered if it was Diwali.
I walked back through the museum gardens and round by the art shop. I went in and looked at the calendars and bought one for Kate in Australia. I came home and wrote her a letter, in the card I bought for her in Brighton. I’m terrible when it comes to writing letters.
I was doing the washing up and listening to the radio when I heard the Indian music again coming from outside. I looked out of the window and saw that the road had been closed off, so I knew something must be going on. I grabbed my camera and went downstairs and out into the street. There was a procession going past, floats and young men waving swords. From the turbans they were evidently Sikhs. I walked alongside them as far as the market, stopping to buy a poppy from a soldier in uniform who was watching too. A young man was preaching over the PA system from the first van. ‘Sikhs believe in one god for all, love for all, equality for all, freedom for all’. Fraternité, egalité, liberté. Who could disagree with that? Funny how many religions in their basic teaching come back to those same ideals, and yet how they get twisted in practice.
On the side of the van it said: ‘Primarily God created light and all the mortals emanated from His divinity. The whole world originated from that light. Who then can be called good or bad? We should live for others and not only for ourselves. Don’t speak ill of others and don’t hear it of others’.
Well, it beats burning Catholics in effigy.

As I was back at the market, I bought avocados and limes then came home and looked online to see what I could do with them, and found an avocado and lime soup, but I needed celery, red pepper and coriander so went out again. The market was packing up by this time, and I got two huge bunches of celery, which I didn’t really want, but no one had coriander, so I had to go to the greengrocer’s on the bus station.
The smell and taste of fresh coriander reminded me of my last hangover, two years ago on Cyprus, going out to dinner the following night when I couldn’t really eat anything but wanted to be there because I was with the Crazy Frog and we talked about coriander and how we both love it and I nibbled on it and had a piece of bread, then we all got up and danced. The only photo of him in my collage was taken that night.

The ladies were going to the pub after work yesterday, ostensibly as a leaving do for Geoffrey, although Geoffrey wasn’t there. I was leaving at two, (though I got talking to Sue again and it was half past), but I said I might meet them there. They were meeting at half past four.
I was also planning to go and see the fireworks at the rugby club, and then to get fish and chips afterwards. It’s what we used to do years ago, Hubby and I, when we had our first house, just down from the rugby club. Later, with the children, we used to go to the village fireworks, but we went again to the rugby club four years ago, after the cat incident, when we were patching things up. I thought I’d go this year as I’m in walking distance again, maybe just to watch from the street if I didn’t feel like going inside.
Thinking about that has reminded me of one year when we were living there and didn’t go. I think it was about 1979 or 1980. I remember being curled up in the chair waiting for him to come home listening to 'I hear you now' by Jon and Vangelis and wondering what I wanted from my life, and then he got back from work late and we had a row and missed the fireworks. It was the time of the first real crisis in our relationship, the time when I was trying to decide whether I really wanted to stay with this man or whether I wanted to be free and face the risks of a future alone. I stayed, of course, and later we resolved things and moved house and after that we got married. In fact looking back it seems that whenever I seriously contemplated leaving him, we ended it by moving to somewhere else, as though the dissatisfaction I felt was to do with where I was physically and not emotionally.

Anyway, I digress. I walked down to the pub at half past four, and the girls were there, Tina, Sue, Lorraine and Victoria. There was a bottle of zinfandel on the table. ‘Get yourself a glass’ they said, so I did, though I don’t usually drink rosé. Actually, it was very nice. A bit too nice. Sue bought another bottle. I went to the loo and checked my watch. Still only six, another couple of hours till the fireworks. Victoria’s husband arrived, he ordered something to eat and bought another bottle. Lorraine left. Victoria and Gerry are emigrating to Australia. I hadn’t really met her before, but we had a good chat. Her leaving do is going to be on Thursday, at an Italian place round the corner that I’ve wanted to try for ages. I wasn’t on the invitation list because I didn’t really know her, but I might go now.
Sue and Tina left. Gerry went to the bar and came back with another bottle of zinfandel and a Guinness for himself. There were only the three of us still there. Victoria said: ‘You’ve got to stay and help me drink it!’ When I checked my watch, it was gone eight already. A bit late for the fireworks. We left about nine. I walked home and rolled into bed.

When I got into the office yesterday, Tina the office manager walked in with a set of steps.
‘I’m going to take down the net curtains’ she said.
That was the start of what developed into a full scale office tidy up. ‘I’ve got other things I should be doing’ she said. I know how she feels, I thought, but it was impossible not to get drawn in. And it does look much better now we’ve finished.
There was a big office chair in the corner. ‘That can go, nobody wants it’. ‘What, you mean, “go” go? Get rid of it?’ ‘Yes’. ‘Is there anything actually wrong with it?’ ‘It’s not actually broken’. ‘I’ll take it’. I could find room for another office chair, and I hate seeing anything wasted.
Later Tina said:
‘Do you want that chair? Only say now, because Michele’s going to take it to the tip if not’.
‘Yes please’.
I then had to think about the practicalities of getting it home. I could bring the car round after six when the parking restrictions finish and I can park outside the building. I’d have to get it down the stairs, and then… have to get it up the two flights of stairs to the flat. Oh well. It can always stay in the boot for a while.
I was planning to leave at four, having been there till half five on Tuesday. But at half four when I was just about to go, Sue started showing me her photos of her partner, and his step granddaughter, and then of their holidays in Dorset and in Scotland. I told her I approve of her taste. He reminds me of someone. Time passed. I got away at five and walked home, stopping at Poundland for milk on the way.
I decided to skip pilates for once and go back and pick up the chair. At £4.50 a session, it’s one of those things I’ve been thinking I should economise on anyway, maybe just go once a week instead of twice. These things add up after all.
I took my rubbish down to the skip. Because I rarely use the car these days I don’t often go out the back door, so when I do I empty the bins and take the rubbish down with me. Then I drove round and parked in front of the office. The evening receptionist was on duty in the other room. I got the chair and wheeled it through the door and to the top of the stairs. There is a short flight of stairs, maybe half a dozen, and I carried it down there and along the landing, but the second flight, which is long and straight, was more difficult. I bumped it down some of the way, step by step. It made quite a noise, but no one came to see what I was doing. At the door, I got it out and wheeled it along the pavement to the car. I was beginning to have serious doubts about how I was going to get it to the flat.
I tried unlocking the hatchback door, but it wouldn’t open. I tried unlocking the central locking. Still couldn’t open the hatch. My office chair was blocking the pavement, and I couldn’t get the bloody thing into the car. I tried relocking and unlocking everything. No luck. This is what happened to my last car when it got old, I remember, the hatch stopped opening. This one will be ten years next year, I bought it out of the money I inherited from my parents. The last one was eleven when I replaced it. There’s no way I can afford to buy another one. I’ve been wondering how exactly I’m going to tax, insure and MOT this one next year.
I opened the door to the back seat, put the back seat down and managed to heave the chair inside. So now I have a chair on the back seat of my car. I have no idea how I’m going to get it upstairs, I don’t think I can do it on my own. I thought about asking Andy, but he has twisted his ankle. It might have to stay there till Simon comes home for Christmas.

I got an email from Irina: ‘We would like to invite you to the meeting. Only some of the citizens will be there: Afroditi, Eduardo, Hanne and Anthony. We can pay travel costs and only one night in a hotel. We have got the Bedford Hotel’.
I stared at it. What meeting? Was I supposed to know about this? Had they been sending emails to my old address again? And where was it being held? She didn’t say. The ‘Bedford Hotel’? Was she saying they were going to come to Bedford and meet me in a hotel? Or was it going to be London? The area of Bloomsbury around the British Museum and Russell Square used to belong (possibly still does) to the Dukes of Bedford, and there are lots of street names with Bedford connections. Maybe it’s there. That would be cool.
I email back.
‘I’d love to come, thank you for inviting me, but I know nothing about it. Where will it be, exactly?’
The reply doesn’t contain any more information than the original email, just: ‘We will be staying at the Bedford Hotel’. But: ‘I’ve attached the agenda’.
I open the attachment. It’s in the European Economic and Social Committee building, where we met last time, at the Commission. In Brussels. The Bedford Hotel? Coincidence.
I email back. Of course I’ll come.
I think. The meeting’s on Monday. Go on Friday after work and come back on Tuesday? Four nights in a hotel? They’ll only pay for one. I check the hotel website. For four nights, it would be 300 euros, I can’t justify spending that amount of money. And that’s without the cost of meals. Go on Saturday, then? Get an early morning train and have as much of the day there as I can? I don’t know when the others will be going, but that’s OK, I can be on my own. Not the first time. Come back Tuesday, I would normally be working, but presumably I can take it as holiday.
‘You don’t have to work on Wednesday’ Laura says. ‘So you could make a day of it on Tuesday and get a late train back, it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to get up for work’.
I agree, but then later I remember that’s the Wednesday I’ve booked to go on some more Business Link courses.
I slept in and went round to see her. The morning disappeared into the black hole that swallows time. She brought her baby album back from the house on Sunday. She told me on Monday: ‘There are some expressions that are just like Flick. And I had so much hair, much more than she has, and it was proper black!’ I know, I remember. We go through it together. I keep referring to the baby in the pictures as ‘her’. ‘It’s me, Mum!’ she says, laughing.
‘I look at these pictures completely differently now I’ve got Flick’ she adds.
There are some of Hubby, of course, looking unbelievably young, very intense, rather geeky on some of them. One of him with both the children, Simon holding Laura, him with his arm round them both, staring out of the picture, very serious, very paternal, very sexy, with the deepest, bluest eyes I ever saw. Yes, I remember. Laura’s eyes are blue, but not like that, they are light, verging on grey. I look at Flick.
‘Are you going to have your Granddad’s eyes?’ I say.

At home today, and the sun is shining. And I’ve had a lie in – well, I was awake from four till six then went back to sleep again instead of getting up.
There’s a man standing in the sunshine on the fire escape of the office building opposite, having a smoke and looking at his mobile. Must be because I’m a bit late having breakfast. I’ve noticed him (or someone) once before. Makes a change from the pigeons.
Laura came round on Monday morning. She’d been to her Dad’s for dinner on Sunday as usual and I asked her to pick up my post, because I knew there would be a credit card bill. I still use a credit card account in Hubby’s name, it has a good rate of cashback, and I’m not sure whether I’d be able to get one in my own right at the moment. Well, maybe I could now I have a regular job, the rate of interest doesn’t bother me as I only ever spend as much as I can pay off at the end of the month anyway. Laura said something about the cats. ‘I haven’t been over there in ages’ I said. ‘Dad said that’ she said.
With the mail she gave me a gift card with twenty pounds’ worth of M&S vouchers in. ‘Dad says do you know anything about these’ she said.
‘Where did he find them? I lost them years ago!’
‘I don’t know, but he did say he’d been having a sort out We both checked, there’s no expiry date on them’.
When I was still working at the university – it would have been 2003 at the latest – I took part in a market research exercise for one of the companies on the technology park, and got these vouchers as a reward. I didn’t get round to spending them, and then I lost them, I looked for them all over the house but never found them.
‘God knows what I’ll spend them on!’ I said. I always hold on to things like that for ages, I can never make up my mind. Maybe some wine, or nice biscuits for Christmas. Or some new knickers (boring!)
‘I could always get four sandwiches, two bunches of grapes and a big jar of coffee!’ I said.
In amongst the other letters was one about a savings bond which is maturing this month, for £500 plus interest. So that’s this month’s rent.
And yesterday the cheque for the work on the last issue of the magazine arrived at last. I’ll pay that into my new bank account, and it can go into the business account when that is up and running.

Last night someone told me to ‘aim for what I want’, not to always settle for what I can get. How do you aim for something you can’t see? What is the point of wanting what you know you can’t have, or don't know how to get?
I have spent too many years always wanting, wanting, wanting. What is so wrong with settling for what you can get? What you can get is what there is, what you want may never happen. Is it possible to make the things that you want happen? If so, how? By asking the universe and then expecting it to just provide? Maybe that works for Noel Edmonds, but it sure as hell don’t work for me.
‘What you want’ may be a chimera, an illusion, a dream that ends in dust and leads you only to regret. Isn’t it better to turn away from that? Why is there this belief that striving and yearning after a dream is somehow better than accepting the world the way it is? It’s a question of language. ‘Striving for a dream’ is good, ‘chasing after an illusion’ is bad. ‘Accepting the way things are’ good, ‘settling for what you can get’ bad.
I’ve tested this out. When I used the phrase ‘settling for what I can get’ in a post, the reaction I got was: ‘that is so sad’. When I post about ‘accepting things the way they are’, I find that the same people who thought settling was ‘sad’ are in agreement with acceptance. Where is the difference? Can you explain that to me?
Words are just words. There are phrases to suit every occasion, wise advice to argue for this way or that way. Have you ever noticed how many proverbs contradict one another? ‘Many hands make light work’, but ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’. There are plenty of others, but I can’t be bothered to think of them right now. The point I’m trying to make is that it is possible to argue convincingly, reassuringly, in whatever way in whatever context you choose.
But in the end the universe is too complex to be explained in simple terms without losing all the subtleties, the intricacies of this or that particular contingency. Complex problems do not have simple answers.
All we do with our words and thoughts is to impose an order on it all that doesn’t really exist. The order is in our heads, not in the world, but it comforts us to think that we have understood and explained. The tangled mess of cause and effect and feedback loops expands by orders of magnitude far beyond our thought, so we scratch around for patterns and present them as solutions, ignoring everything that doesn’t fit into our model. I studied economics for five years, I know all about assuming away the things that are too complex to explain.
My friend means well. But his words apply to himself and his situation, not to me and mine. I expect he has always aimed for what he wanted and been able to achieve it. That’s the sort of person he is. That’s the sort of person I would be if I could, but I don’t know how.
So maybe that’s what I want. I want to be like him. I want to be able to charm people into seeing things my way and doing what I want them to do. But I don’t even know how to start.

I had a reply from another of the contributors to the book yesterday. Her house in Manila was flooded a few weeks ago, the water was waist deep and they had to leave it for four days and stay with a neighbour who had a two storey house, she has spent weeks cleaning up and trying to reconstruct her life, and hadn’t been in to work at all. I hadn’t even registered that there had been floods in Manila, or that they might have affected Carol, just one more third world disaster that pops up on the news then sinks below the level of consciousness again. All I could do was email her back and say I’m glad she and her family are OK and I’m thinking of her and to let me have her chapter when she can.
The sun came out about lunchtime and I went to the launderette with my bag of damp washing and an old New Statesman. I try to read the news sections as they come but then I leave the arts and culture bit at the back and I have a backlog that I’m slowly working my way through. I read something which struck me as really important and relevant and something I should quote on here, but this morning when I sat down I couldn’t remember what it was or what it was about or even which article it was in. After a scan through – starting by looking in the wrong place - I’ve found it. Referring to blogs: ‘…we find ourselves becoming archivists of our own lives: we never experience live events, because we are too busy recording them’.
Now I’ve re-read it, I remember. Yes, I often feel as though I’m doing that, even before the days when I started blogging, this running commentary in my head that translates everything into words, the one that interferes with my ability to meditate. Everything becomes an event to be described, rather than experienced. As an analogy, I think of times, holidays, days out, when I’ve had my camera with me and spent all the time trying to capture it in pictures. Sometimes you see more, notice more, when you leave the camera at home.
What else? I did some of my cleaning yesterday, but not as much as I’d intended to. I started sorting out the study, but got distracted into listening to something on the radio. I finished the bit of the magazine I was working on and sent it off, and had a go at the business cards I’m making for the lady I met a couple of weeks back. Mopped the floor. Changed the bedlinen. Stuff like that.
In the evening, it occurred to me that the only other human being I’d actually spoken to all day was the lady in the launderette who told me that I needed to hold the button down for longer to get it to start.

The day starts drizzly again – though it did that yesterday and brightened up later. I need to go to the launderette. I was awake for so long in the night that I washed the towels as well as doing my normal wash, but now I have to get them all dry. And then I slept in stupidly late, which always puts me in a bad mood.
When I was with Christine the other day, driving to the meeting, she said: ‘I love the autumn, it’s so beautiful, and this year, because we’ve had such a dry summer, the colours are as good as any you’ll find in New England. It’s my favourite time of year. How about you?’
‘I agree it’s beautiful, but I can’t say I really like it. When Simon was younger he said once: “I don’t know why people say autumn is beautiful when it’s only like that because of things dying”’.
‘I don’t think of it as things dying’ she said. ‘It’s a culmination, it’s got more to do with everything slowing down, calming down, clearing the decks for a new beginning’.
‘It’s not that side of it really that bothers me, not the metaphysical side’ I said. ‘It’s the practical side, the thought that we’ve got six months of cold and dark to get through before we get back to the warmth and light again’.
Of course, it’s not really that bad. We get some glorious winter days of brilliant sunshine. It’s the adjustment to the cold that I find a pain, having to change habits of what to wear that I’ve slipped into, boots and layers of clothing, having the heating on. I topped up my electricity with £50 yesterday, I bet that won’t last the month this time. Letting the cold air in when you pull back the duvet, one less reason for wanting to get up. And cold sheets when you get into them at night. I’ve already started using my hot water bottle.
But I remember writing over the last few years about glorious November days, walking in autumn woods and working in the garden, driving through the countryside on sunny winter days when the bare trees are etched on the skyline like ink sketches on the watercolour of the sky and the fields.
I could get in the car and drive somewhere today if I wanted to, anywhere, somewhere where the sun might be shining. But I don’t suppose I will. The bedroom and study are so dusty and messy, I haven’t cleaned them properly in weeks. And I have to go to the launderette.

I sent off my chapter yesterday afternoon to the Publications Manager (Nancy), along with the one other that I’ve received. Yesterday was the deadline for them to get to me. There should be seven, and I’ve heard from the lady who is still waiting for data and may have to withdraw, and another girl who has had lots of stress lately, including a funeral, and whom we gave an extra week. I emailed the other three contributors and reminded them again. According to Nancy, the minimum number of chapters for the book to go ahead is six. Now I’m just dependent on the others coming through. But my chapter’s done and gone.
It’s wet and grey today. The pigeons are huddling on the chimneys. The moon on Thursday looked as though it would just about be full by today. Full moon for Halloween. I’m not anticipating any trick or treaters, not here in the flats. There aren’t many kids around. But maybe I should get some sweets in just in case.
The interviews for the new finance officer were held at work yesterday. Michele asked me on Thursday to get some sandwiches and grapes from Marks for lunch for the interview panel. I walk past it on my way, but it didn’t open till 9 so I had to wait. I saw Lorraine from the next office in Marks. I picked up two sandwiches, a box of grapes and a small jar of instant decaff coffee (we ran out in the office on Thursday). I handed over a tenner without looking at the total, and the lady said: ‘and eighteen pence please’. For four items. That’s why I don’t shop in Marks.
Later, standing in the main office making coffee (that’s where the kettle is), I told Lorraine the story, with the punchline: ‘That’s why I don’t shop at Marks’.
‘I love Marks’ she said. ‘I don’t care about the cost’.
‘I’m watching the pennies’ I said.
‘Oh, you can’t take it with you’ she said. ‘That’s what I keep telling my husband’.
‘I hope I can last that long’ I said. ‘At the moment I’m just hoping I can keep paying my rent’.
The extension to my hours has been decided. My basic stays at 18, but I can be paid any I work over up to 24 a week, except that I will be paid for all the 29 hours I did last week because of having to go in on Wednesday for the AGM. But it’s only a temporary arrangement till they get a replacement for Geoffrey and things settle down again.
I’ve got work to do on the next issue of the magazine, I will get on with that this weekend now that the book chapter is out of the way. And yesterday afternoon I went back to the bank and asked to set up a business account. I’m planning to keep any money I make from the business separate from the money I get from my job. Hopefully the job money will pay for the rent and utilities and maybe something towards food, but I don’t really know yet how it will work out. I can anticipate about £2000 a year profit from the magazine. I just have to hope I manage to find something else as well.