http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/New day, new year, new life new me. I'm still here, just not in quite the same place as I was before. More of the same I guess - but at least I'm not living a lie any more. Story so far: http://husbandorcat.blog.co.uk/en-EUMokoFeed10http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/3e/3137c040eb61746704c53dc781bdb6_160x200.jpghttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/22/lazy-sunday-7434626/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-22:/2009/11/22/lazy-sunday-7434626/Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:35:44 +0100 <p>My sleep routine has gone to pot. I was first awake at five, put the washing on, read for a while, but I could feel myself getting sleepy, the way I never do at 4 o’clock, and knew that if I got back into bed I would fall back asleep, so I did… and didn’t wake up till ten past nine. I know I needed to sleep, but I need to work as well. I made porridge in the slow cooker for the first time this winter last night, I hope it’s all right, it looks as though it has congealed across the bottom. I’ve done it before, I thought I’d got the formula right, though it’s not so easy as when I used to stick it in the bottom of the Aga. Tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll be a good girl and get up on time.<br> Somehow, getting back into my own bed is so much more appealing than when I had to sneak onto one side next to Mr Grumpy. Of course, I shared a bed on Monday night, woke to find a warm body nestled against me, listened to his soft breathing, gently kissed his shoulder in the dark. Ah, but that, my dears, was a different kettle of fish entirely.<br> Hey ho.<br> Work.<br> The sun is shining this morning, not a single pigeon to be seen from my kitchen window, the chimney tops are vacated, where yesterday they were huddled with dozens of crouching birds in the rain. Today they are off about their business. As for me, La Piazza calls, but there is far too much to do and I’m late.<br> I laid out two pages yesterday, Marianne had sent me more copy than that, but I wasn’t clear where it was to go. She asked me on Friday when I would be in so she could call me to discuss things, but she didn’t. It took me a while to get going, as it always does when I have to start something new. But I’ve earned £100 for those two pages. No doubt my inbox is full with more stuff, and if not there is plenty more I should be doing, I have stuff to do to the businesswomens’ network website before the next meeting on Wednesday. I only get paid a token amount for that. But hopefully it will lead to something more.<br> I got the cheque book, paying in book and PIN for my new business account yesterday, which was quite exciting. But realistically, if it doesn’t take off soon I will have to think about looking for more part time work. There doesn’t seem much chance of more hours at work. I wondered about asking at the Council about school governors’ clerking work. I have the experience, and there always used to be a high turnover, but maybe not in the current climate.<br> I’ve also been wondering about finding somewhere cheaper to live, but I hope it won’t come to that. I love this funny little place. I’ve been very happy here, happier than I believed I knew how to be.<br> I don’t often look back and think about how far I’ve come. I read back through some old posts yesterday, ones from May when I’d just lost my job, and remembered how, despite that, I was still so buoyant and excited with my new life.<br> I remember having a dream about being three months pregnant, and then working out it was three months from when I moved in here and wondering what was going to happen six months later. Today is the 22nd November, nine months after I moved in. I’ve just been going back through posts to try to find the one referring to that dream, but it wasn’t on the 22nd May, so when was it? There I go, wasting time again.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/22/lazy-sunday-7434626/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>workmoneymagazinedtpdreamstimemoving-onsundayhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/22/lazy-sunday-7434626/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/21/end-of-another-week-7424452/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-21:/2009/11/21/end-of-another-week-7424452/Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:09:01 +0100 <p>I meditated this morning, and in the emptiness I heard a bird. I think it was a blackbird, at first it was just a warning screech, repeated over and over. Back at the house, that always used to be a sign that one of the cats was out and about, but round here there are no cats – there again, there aren’t usually any song birds either. I decided it was probably coming from the trees outside the church. Later, it developed into a song, faint but liquid against the silence, the absence of traffic.<br> I thought about the Crystal Space again, and felt it opening around me, the threads leading away into the future or futures, the neurones flashing and sparkling in the gaps between the here-and-now and the still-to-be. Wherever I am, I am at the centre, the glittering paths extending infinitely into the gloom around me. I thought about Himself on Monday night, his eyes and hands and lips on me, ‘I just want to make you happy’ for that small sliver of time, we talked about meeting again, as we always do, ‘better planning next time!’, yet who can say when that might be, the long spaces open out between us again, perhaps it’s better that way, but are we both too diffident, each waiting for the other? Or is it just that life is too complicated? Or perhaps if we saw each other more often, it would all burn out, perhaps there is an upper limit on the time we can spend together and we are making the most of it, stretching it out, extending it, as good love-making should be.<br> I lost my office keys yesterday. On the way to work I checked both my bags but couldn’t find them, I assumed I’d left them on my desk. I rang the bell and Sue let me in, but there were no keys, and my desk and filing cabinet were both locked. I looked everywhere where I might have put them down after locking up on Tuesday, and convinced myself they must be somewhere at home. There were plenty of jobs that needed doing that didn’t require access to them. But when I got home, I checked pockets, I checked places where I might have put them down, and convinced myself they must be somewhere at the office. I’ll email Sue and ask her to ask the lady I desk-share with to leave her key with Sue on Monday evening and then I’ll get a copy made on Tuesday. Practical solutions.<br> I have a lot of work to do this weekend, but that’s OK. It’s time for the magazine, and the copy is coming in thick and fast, so I have three days to work on it solidly, and if I run out there is plenty I need to do on the website as well.<br> I went to a meeting on climate change last night, interesting speakers (well, one interesting speaker), but nothing really new and I was so tired after two late nights this week and several broken ones, that I felt myself nodding off during the presentation. I didn’t see anyone I knew, I’d been hoping to meet some new and interesting people, but I didn’t feel up to networking and came home before the end of the discussion. I put my name and email address on a list for information about transition, maybe something will come from that. You never know where in the crystal space you will find yourself next, or which path will lead you there.<br> And in a fortnight, I’ll be on my way to Brussels. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/21/end-of-another-week-7424452/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>transitionhimselfthe-crystal-spacebirdsongmenmagazinekeysdtphttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/21/end-of-another-week-7424452/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/20/the-fifty-something-groupie-7418424/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-20:/2009/11/20/the-fifty-something-groupie-7418424/Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:27:16 +0100 <p>Life twists and turns, it circles and spirals, and maybe old Tom Elliot was right when he said that the point of the journey is to go back to where you came from and know the place for the first time.<br> The first song of the set was, as he described it, that one… ‘…which is probably the only song in the history of the universe to mention street names from Scunthorpe AND New Orleans!’ I first heard it in the summer, when Big Bro emailed me: ‘PS The BBC website has a big chunk on Cambridge Folk festival including video clips of Martin Simpson. You will recognise some of the people and places in the songs’.<br> I listened and smiled and remembered carrying my push bike up and down the concrete steps of the footbridge over the railway tracks, bowling on my bike down Cemetery Road, even my first erotic fumbles in the dark on a bench in a secluded part of the cemetery itself (not with him, though, I hasten to point out).<br> We were alternately mates and sparring partners throughout our childhood, until puberty pulled us apart into single-sex ghettoes, the barriers only to be crossed for a specific reason, and though he crossed the barrier with easy charm, shyness and awkwardness made it an insurmountable wall for me. Brother and sister I guess, cat and dog, for me a brother closer to my own age, and for him a little sister to add to the two older half brothers.<br> I listened, and wondered why I hadn’t been listening to that music all my life, why I got bored with it after university. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to match the sound of an acoustic guitar played so skilfully, his fingers flying up and down the fret, even the tuning riffs magical. I still remember sitting in my back garden and hearing him play in his back garden, if anyone had told us then where life would take him, if anyone had told me then where life would take me…<br> I knew exactly what I would say if I got the chance, but how would he react, I wondered? What would his recollections be of those times, of me?<br> We filed out of the auditorium, and I looked around to see where to find out whether my raffle tickets had won anything. Then there he was, behind a table of CDs, people milling around.<br> I pushed past the crowd, went straight up to him.<br> ‘I just wanted to say, the last time I was at one of your gigs was almost forty years ago.<br> He stared at me.<br> ‘Where was that, then?’<br> ‘At school, you were playing with Paul Empson. But we’ve known each other a lot longer than that’. I grinned inanely at his confusion, trying to pull me out from all the women of his memory, but inside I was thinking, shit, maybe he won’t actually remember me at all.<br> ‘It’s Linda’ I said at last, putting him out of his misery, to be greeted with a whoop and a hug.<br> ‘You’re kidding me!!!<br> ‘Now, why would I make up something like that?’ I laughed.<br> ‘I recognise your face!’<br> ‘Oh yeah, after forty years?’ I bet he says that to all the girls!<br> He carried on signing CDs, carrying on five conversations at once, pressing the flesh with adoring fans, and dealing with this stroppy cow who came straight out and said: ‘I can’t exactly say I’ve followed your career closely’ and being rude about his brother.<br> ‘There’s this bloke I know, every time I see him he goes on about your brother and what he’s up to’ he said.<br> ‘You mean, how filthy stinking rich he is?’ I asked.<br> ‘Something like that!’<br> ‘Well, he just has the farm in Kent where his wife stays, and the flat off Millbank that he uses when he’s in town’.<br> ‘As you do’ he grimaced.<br> ‘As you do’ I agreed.<br> ‘We’ve got another mutual friend, but he says you might not remember him’.<br> ‘Who’s that then?’<br> ‘Ed Woodroffe’.<br> ‘Wow, small world! Of course I remember Ed!’<br> ‘Look, I’d better get off and leave you to it. Take care’.<br> ‘Email me! Keep in touch!’<br> ‘I will’.<br> I drove home with a smile on my face. There have been a few times over the last couple of years when I’ve thought about sending him a ‘remember me?’ email, thought that one day I would go and see him perform, probably in Cambridge. It was sheer fluke that I even saw he was performing last night, bought the ticket.<br> I realised I never even said how much I’d enjoyed it, how much I loved his playing. Hey, there are enough people to tell him that.<br> And I never even checked my raffle tickets.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/20/the-fifty-something-groupie-7418424/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>guitarmusicfriendshipchildhoodlifehttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/20/the-fifty-something-groupie-7418424/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/19/wasted-journey-7411710/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-19:/2009/11/19/wasted-journey-7411710/Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:22:30 +0100 <p>Something strange happened with my phone. I set the alarm for 6.30 last night before I went to sleep. I woke up at 6 and came to for a few minutes, then decided to get up and meditate till the alarm went off. By the time I was settled it was about twenty past. After a while, I started to wonder why the alarm hadn’t gone off, as it felt as though it must be time. I switched the phone on to check whether I had in fact set the alarm, and the first thing it did was ask me to set the time and date. Which explains why the alarm hadn’t gone off. I have no idea why the time and date had been unset, but it’s lucky I wasn’t relying on it to wake me up.<br> Laura texted on Tuesday when I was at work:<br> ‘at Rushden recycling centre, I’ve bought a futon for £10 but it won’t fit in my car, can we bring yours tomorrow and pick it up?’<br> My first reaction was – what the hell does she want with a futon? They have a two bedroom flat, with their double bed in one room, and Flick’s cot and another double bed in the other. Ah well. It’s a bargain.<br> I’d picked up some mail from the house on Monday, including a note from a shop in Rushden where I used to hold a ‘loyalty’ card, saying that they were closing down, sale starting on the 18 November. I told Laura when I told her on Monday, it’s sad because it’s an old family firm, and a bit of an Aladdin’s cave, with different floors and rooms, selling anything you could wish for in the household line, the sort of shop it’s just a pleasure to visit. Still, I haven’t bought anything there in years, because it couldn’t compete on price with the likes of Wilkinson’s, and price has to be the most important criterion for me these days. So to be honest it was more of a surprise that it had kept going so long than that it was closing down now.<br> So, a trip to Rushden was planned. I picked Laura and Flick up from the flat. My back seat folds down in two sections, so we could put Flick’s car seat on the narrow part and fold down the wider part to squeeze the futon on. ‘It folds flat, it shouldn’t be a problem’ she said confidently.<br> ‘What are you going to do with the other bed in Flick’s room?’<br> ‘Dad’s going to have it’.<br> ‘Poor old Dad! The house is full of your discarded furniture!’<br> ‘But he hasn’t got a bed in the spare room’.<br> That’s true. I took it.<br> As we drove through Rushden, we passed the shop with the closing down sale.<br> ‘Oh god, look at the queues to get into the car park!’<br> Struggling in the cold wind at the recycling centre, we pulled the futon base and matress out of the container, only to find that the thing did not fold completely flat. The two of us tried it a various angles, the last with part of the wooden base over the top of Flick’s head. In the end we got base, mattress and push chair in and closed the hatch.<br> Or tried to.<br> Laura swore.<br> ‘I’ll go and ask him if I can have my money back’.<br> ‘We could go home and pick up your car as well, then you can have Flick. We could do it if she wasn’t in the back seat’.<br> ‘It’s not worth it!’<br> She asked the man in charge, who gave her back the £10, and we hefted it out again and back into the container, then drove off.<br> Remembering the queues, we found a car park a little way away from the shop and walked. Inside, it was bedlam. Not the easiest shop to negotiate with a pushchair at the best of times, though this was the first time we’d tried it. And the prices were still out of our bracket. A tiny one person casserole, reduced from £15 to £12? Admittedly it was le Creuset, but… I think not.<br> ‘Maybe they’ll reduce the prices a bit more as time goes by’ I said quietly.<br> We found the lift and got up to the café for some lunch and stared gloomily at one another. Flick started grizzling.<br> Laura pulled her hand out of her pocket, with the money the man from the recycling centre had given to her, and stared.<br> ‘He’s given me too much’. She dropped a fiver, three £2 coins and two £1 coins on the table. ‘Thirteen pounds! I only gave him ten!’<br> ‘Well, that’ll go some way towards making up for my petrol!’ I laughed.<br> Maybe we’ll go back again in another couple of weeks when the crowds have died and, with any luck, the prices will be more bearable.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/19/wasted-journey-7411710/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>non-bargainsmoneynon-shoppinghttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/19/wasted-journey-7411710/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/16/social-life-7383633/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-16:/2009/11/16/social-life-7383633/Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:51:07 +0100 <p>I went to La Piazza, though I didn’t get there till lunchtime, and it was scooters AND bikes this week. On the way I checked out the new Tesco Extra in the high Street, which just opened, but I was less than thrilled. There aren’t many things I get from Tesco, but they didn’t seem to have them there, apart from decaff coffee, which as I’ve said before is very hard to find in the town centre (and on that point, I have tried M&S and it was over priced and not very nice). That’s just reminded me that years and years ago, when I first lived here, there was a proper coffee merchant in one of the arcades, but that is sadly long gone. Other than that, everything the new Tesco has that I might want I can already get elsewhere, so for the ones I can’t I will still have to get the car out and go to the big one. In fact, I’m going to need to do that very soon, maybe tomorrow after pilates. I’ve managed to avoid it very well actually, it’s weeks since I went.<br> I went to La Piazza, and it wasn’t just sunny, it was amazingly mild, and I sat and read and sipped my mocha. I’ve decided to join a philosophy reading group that I found online. They meet in London, but as the next meeting is on a Sunday afternoon, that’s OK because I can go down and stay in the flat. The book for the next meeting is ‘For a New Liberty’, which I started reading yesterday in the sunshine over my mocha. First reaction is that it is very much of its place (US) and its time (the 1970s). I am cynical about most (OK, let’s say ‘all’) ideological projects, but I like to be able to hone my cynicism and extend my, and maybe other people’s, thoughts, rather than just throwing it down and saying: ‘it’s all bollocks!’ and stomping off. So I read and scribbled in the margins and drank coffee and pretended to be on the Left Bank of the Seine rather than the Ouse.</p> <p>I went into Poundland and Superdrug and picked up a few items that I needed then came home, determined to write a letter that I should have done months ago. To do that I needed to find the information for it, which meant sorting through my in basket, a wire tray that I keep in the living room and dump paperwork into until I can’t bear it any more. In the process I came across the programme for a music venue in Milton Keynes that I’ve never been to, but that I’ve always thought sounded intriguing. I found a concert in December that looked good, so I went onto the website and ordered a ticket. Then I saw that a guitarist I used to know in school is appearing there on Thursday, so on an impulse I bought a ticket to see him too!<br> And on Friday, I’m gong to a discussion on climate change by Tony Juniper (who used to be with Friends of the Earth) and the local MP.<br> And tonight, all being well and First Capital connect permitting, I’ll be seeing Himself.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/16/social-life-7383633/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>philosophymenfor-a-new-libertybooksmusicreadinglibertarianismsocial-lifehimselfhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/16/social-life-7383633/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/15/peace-and-reconciliation-7376435/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-15:/2009/11/15/peace-and-reconciliation-7376435/Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:53:10 +0100 <p>The street is wet, but there is brilliant sunshine bouncing off the building opposite. Whatever happened to the mega storm? Has it been and gone without me noticing, is it still on its way, or have we escaped? A combination of one and three, I suspect.<br> I’ll go down to La Piazza later and see if it’s the scooter boys or the bikers this week. I can’t believe how late it is. I slept through till seven, and since then I’ve been lying in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. No excuses, it just happened. I guess I needed it.<br> Had a lovely day out yesterday. Getting there was a bit fraught, because I don’t know Coventry at all and the museum is right in the centre. The only time I’ve been before was on a school trip, over forty years ago. I had printed off directions from Multimap, but things started to go haywire around the ring road, and if you don’t have a proper map as well, once you lose the thread it can be tough trying to find it again. I pulled over and checked the road atlas, which gave me enough of a hint to get me into the city centre, but then of course everything was even more confusing. I found a car park at about five to ten – we were supposed to be meeting at ten. I got out of the car and locked up, then realised I’d left the piece of paper with the organiser’s phone number in the car so got it out again.<br> Walked out of the horrible concrete car park into the horrible concrete shopping precinct. I’m not sure who was harder on poor old Coventry, Hitler in the 40s or the planners in the 60s. Found a traffic warden and asked her the way to the museum. Got there and hoped I would be able to find my way back again. Didn’t see anybody I recognised. Started to look for the loo – the plan was loo first, then a coffee, then ring Gill to find out what was happening– when I heard Gill’s voice.<br> ‘Hi Linda, thanks for coming!’<br> She was looking for the loo too. ‘I don’t think anyone else is actually here yet’ she said. The talk was due to start at 10.30. I hadn’t brought the agenda either. But it was OK, I’d got there in time.<br> The talk was fascinating, about a painting by someone called Roger Fry, who I’d never heard of, but apparently he was part of the Bloomsbury set and a very influential critic in at the start of post impressionism. I know next to nothing about art history, what bits I do know have been picked up here and there as tiny fragments from events like this. Mostly I’m the typical philistine: ‘oh, that’s pretty’ or ‘I don’t think much to that’. But I love that sensation of finding out that there is a whole world of knowledge behind something that I’ve never questioned, layers of explanation and understanding and enthusiasm and passion to be explored and tested and absorbed. Because finding out new things and watching the patterns falling into place is magical for me. I guess, if I think about it, really that is what makes life worthwhile.<br> And a talk about anything by someone with real passion and knowledge and enthusiasm can be fascinating. Apparently (from what I gathered), Fry's big insight was that he claimed that the form of a piece of art is more important than the content. Which I guess is what I just said about lectures. Ting! See what I mean about the patterns falling into place?<br> The next new experience was playing the harp. It was billed as a ‘hands on harp workshop’, which I wasn’t at all sure about, I guess I thought there would be a harp there and we would take it in turns to pluck aimlessly at it, which didn’t sound all that appealing. But there were eight of them. We sat in a circle, and he taught us a very simple, nine note tune, a medieval pilgrim’s song, which we played over and over, sometimes of course we drifted out of sync and it became a round, but that was even more beautiful, and if it went too far wrong he stopped us and started us again, though that only happened a couple of times. The sound was amazing, hypnotic, the experience meditative. Playing an instrument is another of those things like art history that has always been a mystery to me, though one which would be much harder to acquire because it requires an inherent practical talent, rather than just a talent for absorbing ideas (which I have in spades).<br> Afterwards, I wandered to the cathedral. Coincidentally, yesterday was the 69th anniversary of the Coventry blitz, when the old cathedral was destroyed. I lit a candle for peace and reconciliation. Well, who knows.<br> It was a good day.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/15/peace-and-reconciliation-7376435/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>harpingcoventryfriendshipideasarthttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/15/peace-and-reconciliation-7376435/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/14/sent-to-coventry-7370557/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-14:/2009/11/14/sent-to-coventry-7370557/Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:44:37 +0100 <p>I’m being sent to Coventry today – well, I’m going of my own accord, to a women graduates’ meeting. Nothing earth-shattering, just a museum visit, lecture, lunch, ‘hands on harp workshop’ and catch up with old acquaintances, maybe even friends. Anyway, it’s a day out, and I think it will do me good to have one. When I saw the forecasts of nasty weather yesterday, I was tempted to use that as an excuse not to go, but I don’t think a weekend stuck in the flat on my own is what I need at the moment. Anyway, it’s not raining here at the moment. And I can check online before I leave.<br> Went out for dinner on Thursday night, it was Victoria’s leaving do. We started the evening in one notorious gay pub – my local in fact, the one just over the car park fence – and ended in another one! The first was ‘the’ gay pub when I first lived in Bedford, though it seems to be more of a goth pub these days. I’ve only ever been in there once before, at lunchtime/afternoon on Christmas Eve 1984, when I was nursing a hangover from my own leaving do the night before and desperate for iced water (the ice bucket, I seem to remember, was empty). The office I worked in then was over the top of the TSB (now the China Palace), and I was leaving because we were going to live in the States.<br> I’ve told a lot of people recently about that part of my life – basically because I’ve met a lot of new people through this job (well, a few anyway). Their reaction is usually: ‘Weren’t you gutted to have to come back?’ Well, no, actually, it was my choice. The answer I normally give is: ‘I didn’t want to raise my kids over there’. Is that so hard to understand? That’s only part of it, of course, it was more to do with my feelings about the culture, and of being a fish out of water. Admittedly, that was Texas, there are lots of better places to be. And I do love the country in lots of ways, though I haven’t been for five years, prior to that I went to one part or another every year for about ten.<br> Life changes. Maybe I’ll go back again one day. Yes, I’m sure I will, though I don’t know when or how I’ll ever be able to afford it as things stand now. But that’s now.<br> The talk of living overseas is mostly because Victoria is emigrating to Australia. The other thing that keeps coming up in these conversations is about being a ‘kept woman’. Been there, done that. Something else I can’t seem to explain my antipathy to. Even now, even with all my current financial worries, and the loneliness that sometimes settles like a choking fog around me, I wouldn’t go back.<br> Life is open, life is free, I have no one to answer to but myself ‘No one tells the wind which way to blow’. And who knows what is around the corner?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/14/sent-to-coventry-7370557/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lifechoicespubsfriendshipmoving-onhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/14/sent-to-coventry-7370557/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/13/no-woman-no-cry-7364993/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-13:/2009/11/13/no-woman-no-cry-7364993/Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:13:03 +0100 <p>He stands on the corner outside Marks and Spencer’s, in the pedestrian area, with his acoustic guitar and a microphone on a stand. He must have a licence, because the police never move him on. He is dark eyed and beautiful, maybe a year or two either side of thirty, and he dresses all in black: black shirt, black jeans, and a long black coat around his slender body against the weather. His picking is average, a basic chord-strumming accompaniment, but his voice is divine, soulful, heart wrenching. His pièce de résistance is ‘Wish You Were Here’, but last Friday, when I was going in and out of Marks, dodging in one door and out the other, so that I could walk nonchalantly round the corner one more time, he sang ‘Forever Young’ – ‘May your heart always be joyful/May your wishes all come true…. May you build a ladder to the stars/And climb on every rung’, and when I came home I found the Dylan original and played it over and over, obsessively.<br> I walked out from the office at lunch time yesterday, planning to go to La Piazza and have a mocha in the sunshine, but by the time I got half way across the square, I could hear his voice, faint but recognisable, and I walked through the market towards his corner. When I got there, he started singing ‘No Woman No Cry’. I wanted to sit on the bench and listen, drink it in. I walked up the road a little way towards the gourmet coffee man’s pitch, but he wasn’t there and the music grew fainter. If I walked all the way to Costa and bought a coffee, the song would be finished by the time I got back, so I turned around.<br> I looked in the window of Clinton Cards on the opposite corner. There was a man leaning on the barrier around the Christmas tree, he looked as though he might have stopped to listen, although all the other people seemed oblivious. So I leant against the barrier too, round the other side, and watched the young man through the fir branches. I felt self conscious, standing there, lurking behind the tree, he must have noticed me. I caught his eye and looked away.<br> ‘Come on little darlin’/Don’t shed no tear’.<br> I leant against the barrier and stared past the shoppers, trying to look like a mysterious and intriguing woman, lost in a world of her own thoughts.<br> ‘In that bright future/We can forget the past/So wipe those tears away’.<br> The man standing on the other side of the tree was joined by his wife, they gathered their shopping and left. He was only waiting for her, after all.<br> ‘Everything’s gonna be all right/Everything’s gonna be all right…’<br> He reached the end of the song. No applause, no acknowledgement from the shoppers. Surely he must have noticed me standing there.<br> I made a decision. Aim for what you want. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. I walked over and dropped a coin into his guitar case, looked him in the face. He was smiling, and I was smiling. ‘Thank you’, we both said simultaneously.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/13/no-woman-no-cry-7364993/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>eye-candyno-woman-no-cryguitar-playing-toy-boyguitarear-candyhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/13/no-woman-no-cry-7364993/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/12/car-and-chair-part-7355653/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-12:/2009/11/12/car-and-chair-part-7355653/Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:07:15 +0100 <p>I went to the business networking group in Huntingdon last night, didn’t get home till eleven, and then had a drink and wound down, so I’m not sure what time it was I got to sleep. Still, I then slept all the way through till six, which is good<br> I’m not sure about this group. There were only five of us there last night. I seem to be the kiss of death for groups, I join them and they fold. Ho hum. I was hoping to get some business out of it, but so far I’ve only made £15 for this lady’s business cards. I spent most of yesterday fiddling with the website, printing the cards for her, scouring the shops for a suitable container for them, and then making a little box for them.<br> Never mind.<br> I decided yesterday would be a good time to get the chair out of my car. I’ve said I’ll go to a women graduates’ meeting in Coventry on Saturday, but I’m thinking of pulling out, it’s a bit of a trek and I’ve still got loads to do. I didn’t do any housework last weekend. I need some time to get my head clear, which doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment.<br> Anyway, if I do go, I don’t want to drive all the way to Coventry and back with a chair in the back of the car. So I decided yesterday to get the caretaker to help me. I thought I’d start by opening up the car and getting it out by myself before I called on him.<br> I unlocked the car on the central locking, and tried the hatch door, but it still wouldn’t open. Then I put the key in the lock of the hatch and turned it, and lo and behold I managed to open it. So then I went down to the side door and manipulated the chair out onto the car park. It wasn’t nearly so bad as getting it in. I locked the car again and half carried, half wheeled the chair across the car park to the back door of the flats, and along the corridor to the bottom of the stairs. Then I picked it up, and carried it up the stairs myself, stopping and resting a few times, but it wasn’t that bad. For some reason it was so much easier carrying it up stairs rather than down, possibly helped by the fact that I was wearing trainers rather than heels.<br> So, I now have a new office chair, I can open my boot again, and I’m feeling rather pleased with myself!<br> <a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/dsc04350_2/4101095" title="DSC04350 (2)"><img src="http://data6.blog.de/media/095/4101095_103ee8f07f_m.jpeg" alt="DSC04350 (2)"></a><br> And on Tuesday, I got a text from Himself. I won’t give you the exact words, but the gist was: ‘Come and meet me in London on Monday’.<br> ‘Tuesday would be better’.<br> ‘I know, but I won’t be there on Tuesday’.<br> ‘Monday it is then. Same place as last time?’<br> ‘It’s a deal!’<br> So that’s put a smile on my face!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/12/car-and-chair-part-7355653/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>chairbusinesshimselfcarmoving-onmennetworkinghttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/12/car-and-chair-part-7355653/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/11/barbara-and-hope-7349978/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-11:/2009/11/11/barbara-and-hope-7349978/Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:19:35 +0100 <p>I met Barbara for lunch on Monday. We used to have lunch together when we were both doing the Monday morning creative writing course. I started a year before she did, but it was she who introduced me to the afternoon group, so when we were both doing both sessions, we would have lunch together in town in between. It was a semi-regular thing two years ago, but she missed the morning class last year, and I’m not going this year because it’s a repeat of the one I did four years ago. Time rolls and passes and life moves on. Doubly so, because I first knew her thirty years ago when I was in my first job. When we met up at writing three years ago, she recognised me, although I didn’t recognise her till she said her name.<br> She was something of a confidante for me two years ago, she was one of the first people in the real world who I spoke to about my dissatisfaction with my marriage – this time around, anyway. There are people I’ve spoken to in previous crises. I even pointed her to my blog once, though she found it rather disturbing and I don’t think she read it much.<br> Anyway, I met her for lunch on Monday, not really having seen much of her for two years, and I found myself being very happy and animated with her, which struck me as strange because that wasn’t really how I was feeling, or had been feeling. We had lunch and caught up and talked about days when we were young and I first knew Hubby, about how he and I got together, about other people we both used to know and about all the times in between. Then we went to the group, and afterwards walked up the road together to the junction where I needed to go to the left and she to the right.<br> ‘Would you like to come home with me and share a home-cooked Chinese?’ She asked. ‘You can walk with me now and we’ll give you a lift back later’.<br> It was kind, but I smiled and said no thank you, I had things to do, which I did. Maybe another time. But it was nice of her anyway. And in the evening I booked my train and hotel for Brussels, I’m going early on Saturday and coming home late on Tuesday, to maximise the time I have there.<br> I dreamt – I think it was a dream, because I can’t remember who I was talking to or what the context was – that I was telling someone, a woman, why it is that I can’t write any more. Or I can’t write at the moment. Maybe one day. When life isn’t the way it is now.<br> I heard a quote on the radio – I think it could have been Dickens, as both ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and ‘Our Mutual Friend’ are running at the moment –on the lines of: I don’t worry about the things I can’t change, because what’s the point of worrying if I can’t change them? And I don’t worry about the things I can change, because I can change them, so I don’t need to worry.<br> Well, that’s very neat, but it misses a whole universe of points. For a start, how do you know which ones you can change and which you can’t? And how to decide which actions will change them in which directions, and how to go about performing those actions? And the really big one, what will the outcomes be of your action or inaction? Which of those directions are better to go in, and what will happen when you get there? Life is never predictable, and the future is a mystery.<br> Every disappointment, every rejection, kills off a little bit of hope, a particular, specific hope. A future pathway. But maybe that wasn’t the right way to go, not a good way, maybe all sorts of pitfalls lay in that path. It’s impossible to know where that path was leading, but now you have to turn away from that one and find another. ‘But there’s no need for turning back/Cause all roads lead to where I stand/And I believe I’ll walk them all/No matter what I may have planned’. That’s from ‘Crossroads’ by Don McLean, and Barbara quoted it in a piece she read at the group a few weeks ago, about her Christian faith. But now I’ve written the words, it occurs to me that they don’t make logical sense – ‘we’ll walk them all’? But if they’ve led here, we’ve either already walked them or not, and anyway, we can’t walk them all. We may have a choice of the road we walk in the future, but it’s only one road, not all simultaneously.<br> Sorry, got a bit carried away there.</p> <p>What I wanted to say about hope is, you have to detach the little, disappointed hopes from a larger hope, that although the past is closed, the future is open, and none of us know truly where it’s leading. Standing in the Crystal Space, where all the nodes of Cause and Effect meet and lead out into the future, like Don McLean’s crossroads. And although you lose the little hopes, you can hang on to the big Hope that what comes next might be better or will at least lead you down some interesting paths. That is a completely unspecific, inchoate Hope, not a neatly defined future, but an indeterminate one, just to know that what will be will be and life is an adventure. The most exciting and interesting things that have ever happened to me have mostly come out of the blue, when I’ve least expected them. And every path that seems to have led to a dead end brings you somewhere, to a new starting place for the next journey.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/11/barbara-and-hope-7349978/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>uncertaintydisappointmentlifethe-crystal-spacefriendshipdon-mcleanhopehttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/11/barbara-and-hope-7349978/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/10/light-another-candle-7341798/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-10:/2009/11/10/light-another-candle-7341798/Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:34:35 +0100 <p>I got up. I could have stayed in bed, but I decided to get up. It took me half an hour to decide that that was what I would do, and another ten minutes to actually do it, but I did it. I am up and sitting at my computer, I have meditated and made myself a cup of coffee, and the six o’clock alarm still hasn’t gone off.<br> I haven’t meditated in the mornings for a while, mostly I have lain in bed and tried to grab as much sleep as possible, which normally means lying in bed awake and brooding for a couple of hours and then getting up late, or falling back to sleep and either sleeping in (if I don’t have to get up for work) and getting up late, or dozing off and struggling with the alarm and getting up late.<br> So today I got up.<br> Last night I was late getting off to sleep, which is unusual, mostly I have no trouble falling asleep when I go to bed, it’s when I wake up in the early hours that the problems start. But last night I was still awake around midnight, still looking at the clock at quarter to one, and then awake again at half past four. I know I swore I wouldn’t blog about insomnia any more, but I just thought I’d mention it this once.<br> I got up, and of course it was dark. I put the coffee on and set up the mat and blocks. I found the mp3 player last night, it’s been missing for about a week, but it was only down the side of the arm chair.<br> Oh, the alarm has gone off. Six o’clock. I left it to play. It will go off again in another ten minutes. ‘Still, you are free/No one tells the wind which way to go/Wake up in the morning to yourself open your eyes and start to be you/Listen, we think we can see you/Baby there’s no price upon your head/sing it, shout it/Now the angry words have all been said/Do it, don’t doubt it’.<br> I found the first track of the preparation for the metta bhavana. ‘This is an opportunity to explore your emotional life without judgment. Being receptive to however you are. Getting in touch with how you’re feeling. Identifying and acknowledging any feelings or absence of feelings in how you’re being right now.<br> Lonely and scared. That’s how I’m being right now.<br> I lit the incense and then the candle. The candle went out. Fished a new candle out of the box and lit that. Settled myself down on the blocks in front of the radiator. Opened my eyes briefly and realised that the second candle had gone out. Put the light on again and looked at it. The wick had burnt right down but the wax hadn’t even started, sometimes that happens with them, I don’t know why, but it’s not going to burn now.<br> So what do you do? Get another one out of the box and try again.<br> ‘In the first stage of the metta bhavana, cultivating an attitude of well wishing and friendliness towards yourself, using the method or methods you chose earlier, using phrases, memory, imagination or awareness of bodily sensations’. I always go for the phrases: ‘May I be happy, may I be well…’ etc, I’ve never really worked out how the others work. Imagine yourself to be happy? No, I can’t quite get there, it has to be the words, otherwise other words will push them out.<br> I sat through the whole thing, which is about half an hour, I think, if you add up all the stages. I opened my eyes half way through and saw L’Empire des Lumieres, and the shadow of the cheese plant leaf in the candle light. First the shadow on the wall next to the picture, then the leaf itself. The bottom half, the dark half of the picture was dark behind the leaf, the details obscured, the light caught the blue light sky, the tree standing in silhouette, and next to it on the wall, the shadow of the leaf.<br> The candle goes out. What do you do? Light another one.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/10/light-another-candle-7341798/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lifemagrittefearinsomniameditationdawning-is-the-daycheese-plantcandlesloving-kindnesslonelinesshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/10/light-another-candle-7341798/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/09/lime-curd-7335954/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-09:/2009/11/09/lime-curd-7335954/Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:08:46 +0100 <p>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.</p> <p>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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/09/lime-curd-7335954/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>cookinglime-curddreamshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/09/lime-curd-7335954/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/08/procession-7329699/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-08:/2009/11/08/procession-7329699/Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:02:52 +0100 <p>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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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’.<br> Well, it beats burning Catholics in effigy.<br> <a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/dsc04345/4087994" title="DSC04345"><img src="http://data6.blog.de/media/994/4087994_dbb1612733_m.jpeg" alt="DSC04345"></a><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/dsc04346/4087995" title="DSC04346"><img src="http://data6.blog.de/media/995/4087995_da353400a0_m.jpeg" alt="DSC04346"></a><br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/08/procession-7329699/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>processioncoriandermarketshoppingcrazy-frogreligionweb-designhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/08/procession-7329699/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/07/too-late-for-fireworks-7324732/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-07:/2009/11/07/too-late-for-fireworks-7324732/Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:30:08 +0100 <p>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.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p>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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/07/too-late-for-fireworks-7324732/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lifezinfandelfriendshipi-hear-you-nowmoving-onjon-and-vangeliswinefireworkshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/07/too-late-for-fireworks-7324732/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/06/chair-and-car-7317286/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-06:/2009/11/06/chair-and-car-7317286/Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:34:19 +0100 <p>When I got into the office yesterday, Tina the office manager walked in with a set of steps.<br> ‘I’m going to take down the net curtains’ she said.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> Later Tina said:<br> ‘Do you want that chair? Only say now, because Michele’s going to take it to the tip if not’.<br> ‘Yes please’.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/06/chair-and-car-7317286/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>chairmoneytidy-uplifecarhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/06/chair-and-car-7317286/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/05/out-of-the-blue-7310489/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-05:/2009/11/05/out-of-the-blue-7310489/Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:36:05 +0100 <p>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’.<br> 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.<br> I email back.<br> ‘I’d love to come, thank you for inviting me, but I know nothing about it. Where will it be, exactly?’<br> 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’.<br> 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.<br> I email back. Of course I’ll come.<br> 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.<br> ‘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’.<br> I agree, but then later I remember that’s the Wednesday I’ve booked to go on some more Business Link courses.<br> 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.<br> ‘I look at these pictures completely differently now I’ve got Flick’ she adds.<br> 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.<br> ‘Are you going to have your Granddad’s eyes?’ I say.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/05/out-of-the-blue-7310489/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>moving-onsurpriseserendipitybrusselsgrandmotherhoodhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/05/out-of-the-blue-7310489/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/04/quids-in-7304332/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-04:/2009/11/04/quids-in-7304332/Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:53:16 +0100 <p>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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> ‘Where did he find them? I lost them years ago!’<br> ‘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’.<br> 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.<br> ‘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!)<br> ‘I could always get four sandwiches, two bunches of grapes and a big jar of coffee!’ I said.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/04/quids-in-7304332/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>good-luckmoving-onmoneyserendipityhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/04/quids-in-7304332/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/03/what-do-i-want-7296994/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-03:/2009/11/03/what-do-i-want-7296994/Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:19:30 +0100 <p>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?<br> 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.<br> ‘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.<br> 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?<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/03/what-do-i-want-7296994/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>illusionpositive-thinkingdisappointmentdreamsliferealityhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/03/what-do-i-want-7296994/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/02/distant-floods-7289940/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-02:/2009/11/02/distant-floods-7289940/Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:22:42 +0100 <p>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.<br> 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’.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/02/distant-floods-7289940/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bloggingwordsnew-statesmanmanilahouseworkdtpfloodslaunderettehttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/02/distant-floods-7289940/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/01/all-saints-day-7284542/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-11-01:/2009/11/01/all-saints-day-7284542/Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:55:11 +0100 <p>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.<br> 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?’<br> ‘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”’.<br> ‘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’.<br> ‘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’.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/01/all-saints-day-7284542/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>novembersundayhouseworkautumnlaunderettehttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/11/01/all-saints-day-7284542/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/31/money-7279434/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-31:/2009/10/31/money-7279434/Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:55:09 +0100 <p>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.<br> 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.<br> 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.<br> 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’.<br> ‘I love Marks’ she said. ‘I don’t care about the cost’.<br> ‘I’m watching the pennies’ I said.<br> ‘Oh, you can’t take it with you’ she said. ‘That’s what I keep telling my husband’.<br> ‘I hope I can last that long’ I said. ‘At the moment I’m just hoping I can keep paying my rent’.<br> 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.<br> 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.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/31/money-7279434/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>workbookmagazinemarks-spencerhalloweenmoneyhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/31/money-7279434/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/30/thinking-7272623/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-30:/2009/10/30/thinking-7272623/Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:24:24 +0100 <p>Hey ho, what to say? Here we go again. Thinking, thinking, thinking, never coming to any conclusions, never resolving anything, never getting anywhere at all, just here thinking.<br> When we were talking about what had happened to us in meditation last night, Luke, who hasn’t been coming for very long, started describing some weird internal journey he’d made looking at his organs and then ending up inside his skull and the spot on the middle of his forehead opening up, like the one on the forehead of the Buddha, and does it signify anything. Of course, it is the third eye but he didn’t seem to have heard of it, which is kind of weird because it implies there actually is something special about that part of the brain, when I always assumed it was just a metaphor.<br> I was amazed, because where does all this stuff come from? And why do I never feel any of it? I’ve been going to meditation every Thursday for almost five years now, and the most I can hope for is a split second or two of a feeling of peace and a general calming, none of these physical effects, though I’ve heard other people describe them too. I kind of thought the purpose of meditation is to act as though you can stop the thoughts and maybe grab a moment or two of quiet, that’s what I’ve come to believe from conversations with Chris. I used to worry that I wasn’t ‘doing it’ right, but he made me think that everybody has these distractions all the time and that learning to accept them and not engage with them is the practice.<br> Rachel was talking about the constant stream of thought, more or less the way I experience it, and Luke seemed to think this was strange and said: ‘So, is it like listening to a dialogue, or what?’ And I thought, no it’s more like a commentary. ‘What about before you knew language, what happened then?’ ‘That’s a very long time ago and I can’t remember it!’ Rachel said with a laugh. Exactly. I’ve wondered about that too, though I can remember as quite a young child experiencing the constant stream of words pretty much the way I do now.<br> Rachel said she thinks maybe it’s to do with studying intensively for a long time (she also has a PhD), that it pushes your brain beyond a certain point and you can’t stop it, but although that might have something to do with it, it’s not the cause because I know I’ve been like it since way before I started studying like that. In a way, I think it’s the other way round, that you’re drawn to studying if you have a brain that works like that. Maybe it’s a vicious (or virtuous?) circle. But I can’t really say, because it’s really quite a new idea for me to realise that not everybody’s brain does work like that, to me it is so normal, it’s all I’ve ever known, I don’t see how things can be any different.<br> Rosemary said: ‘I think I must be very stupid because I never feel like that, I just meditate and get a lovely feeling of peace’. I told her she’s not stupid but extremely fortunate. I wish I could have the feelings she describes, instead of these bloody words. I tried to explain to her, it’s not that I think of anything particularly intellectual or worthwhile or important, it’s all just pointless drivel.<br> Luke said – to Rachel, not to me – ‘maybe you should write a novel, and then you’d get writer’s block and that would make the words go away!’ But, I told him, it doesn’t work like that. Writer’s block doesn’t mean you don’t have any words, just that you don’t have the right words, so you spend all your time thinking: ‘shit, I can’t do this, this is such a mess!’ and stuff like that, but you never actually stop thinking.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/30/thinking-7272623/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>wordsmeditationwritingwriters-blockthinkinghttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/30/thinking-7272623/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/29/foggy-7266540/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-29:/2009/10/29/foggy-7266540/Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:14:21 +0100 <p>The kitchen window is misty with condensation. And it looks as though it might be foggy outside as well, though it’s a bit hard to tell whether the fog is inside or out. And my dongle is playing up - I suspect the fog might be interfering with the signal<br> I haven’t been thinking about death today. In fact, I haven’t been thinking about much at all. I’ve looked at the comments from yesterday, but I haven’t come up with any sensible replies yet, so apologies for that. And I’m running late, so I probably won’t write much. And I might be coming down with a cold – I’ve got a horribly runny nose, anyway.<br> Thrilling stuff.<br> I went to my business women’s network meeting at lunchtime yesterday. The organiser, Christine, rang and asked if I could give her a lift. I meant to leave here at twenty past eleven. I thought that would give me time to pick her up and still get there on time. I thought I was doing OK, at twenty past I was in the living room ready to go, I don’t know what happened in the next ten minutes but by the time I got in the car it was half past. I’d told her I would pick her up at twenty to and I got there about five to. I was so angry with myself. The same old pattern – always late – you’d think I’d have learnt by now, but no, I keep doing it. I’m either late or stupidly early.<br> Christine was OK about it. ‘Breathe, and start again from now’. That’s easy to say when it’s someone else. It’s easy to for give someone else. When it’s yourself, it’s impossible not to get angry and feel bad about it. It is for me, anyway. I hate it when I do things like that.<br> ‘You’re like me, you get absorbed in things and don’t realise the time’ she said. Sometimes I do, but that wasn’t it yesterday, I thought I was ready, but somehow getting the stuff together and going down to the car seems to take ages. Maybe I looked at the clock and thought ‘I’m OK for time’ and subconsciously relaxed, I don’t know.<br> There were only four of us there, I took my laptop and we talked some more about the website. I don’t agree with some of the things they said, but I’ll do it, they’re the clients. We talked about peer mentoring, about being paired up with someone. I said I didn’t think I could mentor anybody, I don’t think I’ve got anything to offer. Colette said: ‘I think what you need is confidence’. Oh, here we go again, everybody tells me I need confidence but how do you get confidence? Confidence comes from experience. I have confidence about doing things, but I don’t have confidence for dealing with people, just let me do something and I’ll do it but don’t ask me to talk to anybody or tell them how to do it or explain. But then if I have confidence about doing something, in my head it must be easy, so I can’t really deal with anybody who wouldn’t find it easy because I wouldn’t be able to get into their head. So I can’t see me being a mentor.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/29/foggy-7266540/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>punctualityconfidencefognetworkmentoringhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/29/foggy-7266540/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/28/liberation-7259265/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-28:/2009/10/28/liberation-7259265/Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:04:37 +0100 <p>I don’t believe there is anything beyond this life, this is all there is, this is all we have, and it can end at any time. But as I’ve said before, I don’t find that frightening, but comforting. Why be frightened of nothing? As the old boy on ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ says: ‘I’m not afraid of dying, why should I be? There’s no reason for it, we’ve all got to go some time’. Exactly. Once you’ve gone, you’ve gone, no memories, no regrets, no unhappiness, no loneliness, no pain, nothing. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying I’d welcome it, certainly not, well, not at the moment, anyway. I’m quite happy with life. But why be afraid of a state in which you won’t even know that you’re dead? Of course, I might be wrong, maybe there’s an eternity of misery and pain awaiting me, but I’m secure enough in my non-belief not to be particularly worried about that.<br> The process of dying I’m not so sure about, there are so many different ways, you might be lucky and get a nice easy one, but you might not and have to endure a lot of pain before you go. The one certain thing about it is that, like being born, we all have to go through it once in our lives, and there’s not a lot we can do about it.<br> I don’t know why I woke up thinking along these lines this morning, I just did. It’s not a new theme for me, and I always see it as quite a positive one, though admittedly I’m not facing any immediate threat of death, maybe I’d feel differently if I was.<br> I was talking to Tina, the office manager at work yesterday, not about death, but about life, and fate, and the future. Or rather, not about the future, about how you never know what’s in the future, so it’s best not to think too much about it, and about how you can’t change the past, so there’s no point in thinking about that either. Like the quote I took from ‘The Art of Possibility’ the other day.<br> So maybe that was where these thoughts came from. I could die today, any one of us could, though more than likely we won’t. But rather than being morbid and depressing, I find this a very positive and uplifting thought, because that’s the worst that could happen. The worst that could happen is nothingness. Isn’t that something to be glad about?<br> I was thinking about dreams as well, about giving up on dreams. Dreams are not always good things to have. I always think of Springsteen in ’The River’: ‘Those memories still haunt me/They haunt me like a curse/Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?/Or is it something worse?’ Dreams and memories both can drag you down. Letting go of either can be liberating. Not that liberation is easy. And most likely it’s only temporary. But that’s liberating too, in itself, because it means you don’t have to worry about letting them go. They’ll come back again when you need them.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/28/liberation-7259265/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>dreamspresentfuturememoriespastlifedeathhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/28/liberation-7259265/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/27/chipping-away-7251481/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-27:/2009/10/27/chipping-away-7251481/Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:29:46 +0100 <p>On Saturday, I emailed the other six contributors to the book and reminded them that the deadline is this Friday for me to get the papers, so I can send them to Nancy, the Head of Publications, and she can send them out to the referees. I’d already received one, which was a little on the short side. I got a reply to my email from another who said that due to other pressures she wouldn’t make the dead line. Nancy agreed an extension. Yesterday I had an email from another, saying that she is waiting for some additional data from an outside source, that she doesn’t know when that will come, she can’t submit the paper as it stands without it, and she doesn’t have time to rewrite it, so she wants to withdraw it.<br> There are only seven chapters altogether, of maybe twenty pages each. I don’t want to lose any of them, but now I’m wondering at what point it becomes so short that it’s not worth doing and we have to pull the plug. Then what happens? It might be possible to send my paper elsewhere, but not without a lot of additional effort. I’m not sufficiently involved to have much idea which journals would be good targets, but no journal would accept a twenty page paper, so there would have to be a lot of editing. I’ve got papers in my virtual drawer that have got to this stage and then never been published, even that have gone to peer review, have come back with changes requested, that have been changed, sent out again, and still been rejected. When you’ve been round that loop a few times – and you know that even if it finally gets published, it won’t actually bring you any tangible benefit, because these things only have value within academia, and you don’t work in academia and chances are you never will – then you have to seriously start to question whether there is any point in any of it.<br> And yet the ideas burn inside you and you want to get them out there and to be told that they’re good and to feel you’ve made a contribution to someone’s thought and that you have something to say and be heard. Because when it happens and it happens right, it is the best feeling in the world. But it is so hard to get there, such an effort. It shouldn’t be this much of an effort, well, obviously it shouldn’t be easy either, but if it’s the right thing to do why does it mess your head around so much? The world won’t thank you for hearing them, and if it did hear them it would probably misinterpret them.<br> I know the obvious answer: ‘Well, don’t bother, then. If it gives you this much grief, just forget it and have a normal life, with an ordinary job that pays the bills, and let go of it all’. The dreaming spires, the community of scholars. Leave it alone, stop knocking on its door. It’s not worth the candle. Go back to your hammer and chisel, chipping away at the stone, it’s more yielding.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/27/chipping-away-7251481/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bookwritingacademiafrustrationjude-the-obscureoxfordhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/27/chipping-away-7251481/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/wasting-time-7245256/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-26:/2009/10/26/wasting-time-7245256/Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:17:50 +0100 <p>The interval between the alarm and the repeat – and the next one… and the next… and the next… slips away too easily. Soon, half an hour has gone, and then an hour, and I’m still lying there. Still, no work today, and the panic about the chapter is over, I’ve got a respectable draft now, though it needs reading through and editing. When I checked the length requirements, I found it was a MAXIMUM of twenty pages excluding references, and a minimum of twenty including them, so as I have 17 and 21 respectively, that’s quite reasonable. I can even afford to prune it a bit.<br> Other than that, I badly need to do some housework. The flat is a tip, though at least the kitchen isn’t full of washing up this morning, as it has been the last two days, just my pudding bowl, wine glass and coffee cup which I forgot and left on the table last night. I can do those with the breakfast things. Then I need to do some things on the network website before the meeting on Wednesday, and lots of odd things like my tax return (still not done) and setting up a business bank account (next stage in that saga) and no doubt other things I’ll remember as the day wears on.<br> I’m glad to get the chapter out of the way. There’s that awful feeling when you know you have to do it and you don’t know whether you can, or whether you can do it well. That horrible time when you sit for hours and can’t produce anything worthwhile. It doesn’t matter how many times it’s worked in that past, there’s no guarantee that it will be OK this time. ‘Confidence’, or lack thereof, doesn’t come into it. It’s wonderful when it flows, and it’s awful when it doesn’t, and there’s very little you can do to force it. You can sit and write any old rubbish that comes into your head, as I am now, but then it’s very easy to get distracted and feel as though you’ve done something and got something to show for it when really you’ve just been wasting time. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/wasting-time-7245256/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>book-chapterwashing-uptimewritingtime-managementhouseworkhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/26/wasting-time-7245256/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/25/the-way-things-are-7239025/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-25:/2009/10/25/the-way-things-are-7239025/Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:14:37 +0100 <p>Late again this morning – but at least I’ve got an extra hour, so I might stand a chance of getting to my desk by ten.<br> It went quite well yesterday, I did get into the rhythm of it. But it’s supposed to be between twenty and thirty pages, a minimum of twenty without the references, and a maximum of thirty with them, and so far I’ve got sixteen without and twenty (just) with. Whether I can rustle up another four pages of worthwhile content is another matter. In two days. I put in quite a few diagrams yesterday, which bulked it out. Normally I have all sorts of trouble over doing diagrams, but I got into the rhythm of those as well, they don’t look too bad.<br> The sun is shining this morning. Hey ho. It was raining most of yesterday, so it wasn’t so bad that I was stuck in all day. Partly because I was so late starting, I didn’t notice the passage of time, and didn’t get any lunch till almost three, I just hadn’t realised it was so late. The rain stopped, and I thought I had better pop out to the market quickly, then when I looked it had started again. I looked out of the window, trying to decide which way the clouds were blowing, because there was a patch of blue sky over to the west. Sure enough, a few minutes later the sun had come out again. I walked through the wet streets, with water dripping off the awnings of the stalls. One of the fruit and veg stalls was selling figs, I bought some and some plums and bananas. The old boy on the flower stall was bundling together his bouquets and selling them for £2, so I bought one with big red dahlias and pink, yellow and blue chrysanths. While I put the flowers in water, I made a cup of tea in the mess from Friday night's dinner that I still hadn't washed up, and ate figs, damp from the rain water and some of them a bit soft. Then I worked some more till about seven, when I washed up and started to cook dinner.<br> Last week, at my brother’s, I read some of ‘The Art of Possibility’ by Benjamin Zander. I copied out the following excerpts from the chapter on ‘the way things are’:<br> ‘The practice of the way things are is a reality check on the runaway imagination… Radiating possibility begins with things as they are and highlights open spaces, the pathways leading out from here’.<br> ‘Then the obstacles are simply present conditions – they are merely what has happened or is happening…’<br> ‘The practice of being with the way things are can break the unseen grip of abstractions created as a hedge against danger in a world of survival and allow us to make conscious decisions that take us into the realm of possibility.’<br> ‘Being with the way things are calls for an expansion of ourselves. We start from what IS, not from what SHOULD BE; we encompass contradictions, painful feelings, fears and imaginings and – without fleeing, blaming or attempting correction – we learn to soar, like the far-seeing hawk, over the whole landscape. The practice of being with the way things are allows us to alight in a place of openness where “the truth” readies us for the next step, and the sky opens up’.<br> <em>The Art of Possibility, Benjamin Zander</em></p> <p class="right"> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/25/the-way-things-are-7239025/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>positive-thinkingthe-way-things-arebook-chapterrainwritingdiagramsthe-art-of-possibilitysunshinebenjamin-zanderfigshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/25/the-way-things-are-7239025/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/24/friday-afternoon-working-weekend-7234151/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-24:/2009/10/24/friday-afternoon-working-weekend-7234151/Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:03:11 +0200 <p>I’m tempted not to blog anything today as I’m so late up and I have this writing to do. I set the alarm but I was awake from four and only got back into bed at five to six, so when it went off at six thirty I just switched it off. I hope I can do this through breakfast and get started at work at ten if I skip the shower.<br> I’m not one for staying up and working through the night, I do sometimes work in the evenings but I try and avoid it if I can. The night before I handed in my PhD thesis I stayed at the university and kept going till about two in the morning, doing the diagrams and the formatting and the table of contents, but I still didn’t get it finished and had more to do in the morning. I know it’s possible to get into that place where you can just keep driving yourself, but I tend not to. I need my routines. That’s why having this weekend is important. I have to be able to get it finished over the next three days.<br> Maybe I can change and find other ways of working, who knows? Learn the ability to drive myself harder, rather than just plodding. It seems unlikely that I can change now, at my age. Some things are changeable but some aren’t, I’d say.<br> I left work at half past two yesterday and had a nice lazy afternoon, knowing that I had all this work to do over the weekend. I actually went to La Piazza on my way home and had a mocha and read. Then I went to Lidl’s and picked up some milk, yogurt, cheese and tinned tomatoes. Drove round to Laura’s for half an hour before my hairdresser’s appointment, for which I was late, but he was working on someone else when I got there, so I didn’t feel so bad. I sat and read again. When he put the other lady under the drier and came to shampoo me, he was very apologetic, but I didn’t mind. I realised yet again that when I thought I was the one at fault and causing inconvenience to someone else, I was agitated and angry, but when it’s someone else’s responsibility it doesn’t seem so bad and I can be calm about it. Later he said: ‘I should have done you first really’ and I said: ‘oh, so it WAS my fault all along’, and he said: ‘no, it’s helped me because I can do you while she’s under the drier and I’ll get away earlier’.<br> I bought an aubergine in the Italian deli/greengrocers, because they hadn’t had any in Lidl’s, drove round to Tesco and filled up with petrol (as I had the car out, which doesn’t happen very often these days), drove home, cooked a sausage and tomato (and aubergine) casserole, drank half a bottle of wine, downloaded BBC iPlayer (because for some reason the radio programmes don’t play on Real player any more) and listened to the last episode of ‘Frenchman’s Creek’.<br> So today, I have to work.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/24/friday-afternoon-working-weekend-7234151/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>workcookingwritingradiohairdresserrelaxinghttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/24/friday-afternoon-working-weekend-7234151/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/23/the-gourmet-coffee-man-lied-7227148/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-23:/2009/10/23/the-gourmet-coffee-man-lied-7227148/Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:36:59 +0200 <p>I made it to the bank yesterday, at lunch time. I went to the inquiries desk, it was someone I don’t remember seeing before. I explained the situation and showed my two cards. (‘That IS an old one!’ he said). I told him I wanted to close down the old account and transfer all the money to the new one.<br> ‘You need to take it to the counter’ he said. ‘They can do it for you there. Have you got your PIN?’<br> In all the fuss over setting up the on-line banking, with four different numbers, I couldn’t actually remember opening the one with the PIN and memorising it. I sighed.<br> ‘I’ve got it but I haven’t got it with me’ I said.<br> ‘Don’t worry, they can transfer the money without it.’ He smiled. ‘But you’ll need it to use your card in the machines’ he added kindly.<br> Of course I bloody will, I’m not an idiot. Just forgetful.<br> The gourmet coffee man lied. He wasn’t there. In the place where his stall was a fortnight ago, it was the Fair Trade man, who sells packets of coffee among other things, but not cups of flavoured coffee like the GCM has. I wondered if there was some kind of turf war going on, grinders at dawn.<br> Back at the office, I checked on line and made sure that the money is now in the new account. It is. Then I tried to set up an online savings account. It wanted to know details about my employer and my take home pay. I don’t know what my take home pay is, I haven’t been paid yet.<br> The fridge at work is still full of sausage rolls and quiche and chocolate cake that we brought back from the meeting on Wednesday. I need to do some proper cooking this weekend. I seem to have been eating on the run since the start of the show, which is almost three weeks now. It’s time for life to settle down again. I might do macaroni cheese or a sausage and tomato casserole this evening, and a curry tomorrow, probably lamb rogan josh with tarka dahl and potato pakoras.<br> I really have to get this book chapter sorted out over the weekend, I’ve got tomorrow, Sunday and Monday to do it in before I go back to work on Tuesday. Then it will go to be peer reviewed. I’m not happy with it, not at all. I haven’t had the space to think it through properly, the ideas keep running away from me every time I try. It’s my last gasp I suppose, my acknowledgement that I can’t do it any more, that all that is behind me, or never really was, a life that didn’t happen, that didn’t work, that might have been, or maybe never was going to, like being a writer, just a pointless fantasy.<br> Yesterday I thought about writing to Philip Pullman, sending him the link to yesterday’s post, just to say ‘thank you for your talk, this is what it made me think of’, but I won’t.<br> At meditation last night, Rachel was talking about plans she and her husband have for building their own house, they dream of an eco house, with hay bale walls and a green roof. They want children, but for now they have chickens and a cat. ‘When we were in Central America, I suddenly got struck by this terrible homesickness, I wanted to come back and find a place where I could put down roots’. I had that, I roots, I had it all but it was stifling me, and now I have no roots, no future, no partner, I am drifting in the borderland, in limbo, and I have no idea what comes next.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/23/the-gourmet-coffee-man-lied-7227148/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>gourmet-coffee-manbook-chapterdriftingfoodcookingbank-accounthttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/23/the-gourmet-coffee-man-lied-7227148/#commentshttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/22/borderland-7220854/tag:surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk,2009-10-22:/2009/10/22/borderland-7220854/Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:03:52 +0200 <p>I went to a lecture last night at the Open University in Milton Keynes, by Philip Pullman, the writer. He was ostensibly talking about book illustration, and I wasn’t sure how interested I would be, but really it was about the relationship between words and pictures, the writer and the reader, childhood and adulthood. He is a very good speaker and the slides were of illustrations from books he loved as a child, not picture books, but the days when all books for children included illustrations too. It was enthralling, and the rest of the audience, which must have been several hundred people, seemed to think so too, judging from the questions.<br> In the last question, a lady asked whether he thought it was a good idea to read to children (or for children to read for themselves) about things they aren’t old enough to understand – she referred particularly to reading Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’ to a five-year-old. ‘I’m not sure how much of it he actually understood’. Pullman’s reply was positive, and he said something like (I’m paraphrasing, because I didn’t take notes) ‘that’s the best way to learn about life, you start out not understanding and you have to deal with the uncertainty and mystery and fear and then you come through it and you’ve learnt more than you knew before’.<br> He didn’t speak much about his own books, and then mostly in answer to questions. A youngster asked whether he’d thought of putting maps in his books, and he mentioned that ‘Lyra’s Oxford’ started out as a map, and includes a fold out map ‘which you can use to find your way round our Oxford, but be careful if you do, because you might end up somewhere else!’ (If you’ve read his books, you’ll know what he meant).<br> Of course, there were book sales and signings afterwards. I’d got there late (as usual) and only glanced at the table of books. I didn’t really want to buy anything, but on my way out I picked up ‘Lyra’s Oxford’. A small book, but consequently only a fiver. It might be nice to have for the next time I go to Oxford - if I ever do. But while I was deciding, the queue for the signings was forming. Could I be bothered to wait? I put the book down and left the building. Then turned round and came back in again. Maybe I’d grab a coffee and a biscuit or two. The coffee bar was downstairs from where the books were. There were people milling around in groups, and others sitting alone. I didn’t know anybody. I thought again, if I saw a man I liked the look of, how could I ever go up and talk to him? And they never come and talk to me, I just don’t attract that sort of attention. So I sat and drank my coffee, went back for another biscuit, flicked through a leaflet on the history of the OU, just in case somebody DID come and talk to me.<br> When I’d finished my coffee, I went back upstairs. The queue had diminished to manageable proportions, maybe twenty five or thirty people. What to do? If I bought the book, got him to sign it, what would I say to him? Anyway, just marks on a page. I could buy that book anywhere, it didn’t have to be then, there, that night, what difference would his signature make? And I was thinking the other day that I probably won’t go back to Oxford any more.<br> I walked to the car. I could say to him how interested I was in his answer to the last question, about life and the uncertainty and mystery, how my life is so full of uncertainty and I’m tossed on the sea and I don’t know where I’m going. My life is in the strange liminal place he talked about, between words and pictures, a nowhere and an everywhere place.<br> I walked to the car. I could turn back again, and get in that queue. It seemed important, but was it? Would it make a difference? I could keep walking, get in the car, drive home, save myself a fiver. Which is what I did, of course. But all the way, I was thinking and wondering.<br> Anyway, I probably won’t go to Oxford again.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/22/borderland-7220854/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>readingoxfordbookspictureswritingphilip-pullmanhttp://surrealityisreality.blog.co.uk/2009/10/22/borderland-7220854/#comments