Amanda Larkman's Blog: Middle-Aged Warrior, page 6

A Poetry Lesson 2.5: Guest Post by Mr B, George Herbert’s ‘Vertue’

Following on from yesterday’s post, some more thoughts on one of my favourite poems.

More years ago than I care to remember I had an amazing teacher. You know how everyone has that teacher who changed their lives? The person who woke them up to learning, or gave them confidence?

Well mine was Mr B. He was everything you could want in a teacher: Bearded, kindly, funny, wise and excruciatingly clever. (His insight could make you wince). However, he always wore his academic prowess lightly and I liked his genuine curiosity and interest he had for everyone he met. He never, ever, made me feel stupid. This is remarkably rare in my experience. He was, and is, extremely rude (in the crude sense, not the impolite sense – he has excellent manners) something I always find endearing.

I’ll never forget his lessons and how he made poetry sing for me. He was very good at making you feel brilliant. I can honestly say I would not be doing the job I am doing now if it wasn’t for his inspiration.

Embarrassingly, when I interviewed for the teaching job I am in now and was asked the question, ‘why do you teach?’ I answered, ‘because I want to be remembered the way I remember Mr B. a teacher who opened up a world of literature to me in the most amazing way – he changed my life.’

The reason this was embarrassing – apart from the gushing sentimentality of the statement (I was was young and foolish, but meant every word) – was that the headmaster then introduced me to my new Head of Department: Mr B!

He told me afterwards that when I went for the job (in those days they made you HAND WRITE a letter of application.) he passed my letter and CV on to the Headmaster with this note:

[image error]

So I had the huge pleasure of working with him as a colleague for five years up until he retired; he is still sorely missed at my school.

So, anyway, why as I telling you about Mr B? Well, I sent him my blog post on George Herbert’s ‘Vertue‘ and he wrote me the most wonderful response taking my analysis still further. He writes so beautifully I asked if I could publish it as a guest post and he said yes.

So here it is.

Guest Post by Mr B – George Herbert’s ‘Vertue’



Vertue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season’d timber, never gives;

But, though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

Super stuff.  This is one of my favourite poems, and though I am an atheist it is one of the few poems that I know by heart.  You write about it in a fascinating and stimulating way, and you have illuminated it for me even more.  Here are some thoughts of my own:

Multiple meanings/ambiguities.

I

Bridal invokes the wedding ceremony but also the bridle of a horse or team invoking union in more ways than one, and there is a lovely assonantal link of bright and bridal*.

Fall was used in the time of George Herbert as it is used in America today, to mean Autumn (that sense crossed the Atlantic and was lost here, like the rolled ‘r’), so we get fall – dropping (the fall of an apple from a Tree in Eden…); fall in the sense of failing to reach an objective (to fall short); ‘Fall’ as in the autumnal death of the year; fall as in death.

The notes to my Norton Critical Edition say: In musical terms, the short final line of each stanza is ‘a dying fall’. 

II

There has been a lot of discussion of the second stanza for he may be invoking venereal disease as a consequence of love – roses are inextricably linked to love and to the vulva, and the adjective rash slides across illogically into the noun rash, like a resonant chord in music.  It more obviously describes what happens if you get pricked in the eye.

The grave here is the nourishment of decaying material: flowers grow well in graveyards, as Herbert would have observed in Bemerton churchyard.

III

Box suggests a musical box and a box of sweets, but also a coffin – and it is possible that the ‘sweets’ are materials anointing a corpse.  Closes suggests a musical term to me, the closing or coda of a composition, but links to its more general meanings to do with finishing and, eventually, death, not least because boxes close, like coffins and lives, and poems.

*

I love the rhetorical structure of the poem.  Herbert was appointed Public Orator and was a Reader in Rhetoric at Cambridge University so in those demanding days he must have had a seriously forensic mind.  T S Eliot, that discredited thinker and overrated critic (but that great poet), wittered on about a dissociation of sensibility at the end of the seventeenth century, which makes no sense at all on any level but which deceived several generations into looking for something that hadn’t happened.  However, Herbert’s peers were trained in argument in a way that later generations were not (which is not to say that modern poets are incapable of dialectics) so it may have been more natural for them to present thoughts in terms of a structure of argument rather than sensation or feeling: Bach rather than Delius.  I love both.

Herbert decided that his poetry must communicate to ordinary people, the people who came to his church.  Most of them would have been illiterate.  Thus, Herbert’s language is simple and his imagery is unpretentious.  There is nothing in this poem that would be unfamiliar to them: day, dew, roses, music, boxes, coal, timber.

The poem moves For, And, And, Then, in four dialectical steps: for (because) sets in motion the first and followed by the second and with then in the last stanza showing the inevitable conclusion that will come about because it is the will of God and that is how God has organised the world.

Days in the first stanza, and roses in the second, come together in days and roses in the third and, as you say, the trochaic Only releases the logical, not just the moral, conclusion of what has gone before.

I have been reading this poem for sixty years and, thanks to you, I have only just noticed that the movement of the poem, step by step, is downwards:

It begins in the daylight, with day and the Bridal of earth and sky. Dew falls from the sky to earth, downwards. ⇓Our attention is drawn from the rose down to the root and the grave and the soil. ⇓Box suggesting a coffin, is buried deeper. ⇓Coal is found deep beneath the earth as is the seasoned timber holding up the roofs of the mines.

I could go on, but poetry, as they say, doesn’t get any better than this….

*  The following comes from vocabulary.com.

Bridal comes from the Old English word brydealo for wedding feast. It’s formed from bryd, for bride, and ealo, or ale, which was often drunk at wedding feasts.

The word bridle also comes from an Old English word, meaning “to move quickly.”  Used as a noun, bridle is part of a horse’s harness. As a verb, it can be used to mean restrain, as you would a horse in its bridle. If you bridle at something, you’re angry or offended.

bridal as bride + -al, and all  that goes with a wedding, but bridle is the device used to restrain a horse, and what you might do if someone tried to put a leather harness on your head.

A Poetry Lesson 2: George Herbert’s ‘Vertue’

Poetry Lesson Day 2.

Poems like ‘Vertue’ are the reason I love literature and the reason I love teaching. This is such a beautiful poem and also one that is so well-crafted you have to re-read it a few times to see the complexity behind the simplicity.

Enjoy!

One of the things I particularly delight in is helping a class go through a poem to appreciate how beautifully it is constructed. It’s wonderful to see a group of young people starting to recognise how carefully words are chosen and, ultimately, recognise how poetry, like music, has its own rules and rhythms which, in the hands of an expert can make language sing.

I have a real passion for the metaphysical poets such as John Donne and Andrew Marvell, with a particular place in my heart for George Herbert.

They are a gift to teach, the metaphysical poets, because of their wit, complexity and passion. Their poems can be like crossword puzzles and pupils enjoy the challenge of working them out. They can also be very rude: John Donne talks about erections much more often than you would expect.

So why do I love George Herbert so much? Sure, he doesn’t have the vivacity and sexiness of Donne, but every time I teach Herbert I am struck afresh my his humility, his quiet passion and the simplicity of his faith.

I am not at all religious, so it would seem strange that I enjoy a poet whose subject matter is exclusively his relationship with God. Unlike the other metaphysicals, Herbert never uses his poetry to woo sexy ladies

Born in 1593, Herbert was bright enough to go to Cambridge at a very young age and impressed everyone so much he seemed all set for a successful and flourishing career in the King’s court. But he turned his back on all of this and was an ordained deacon by the age of 31. This was not without heartache, he was fiercely ambitious, but the calling of God was stronger than any social and political success.

Herbert became a pastor for the little village of Lower Bemerton, Salisbury. He was beloved by his parish who called him ‘Holy Mr Herbert.’ He spent the last three years of his life there before dying of the tuberculosis from which he had suffered for years. Wikipedia has a good biography of him if you want to find out more.

He is a very clever poet. ‘Vertue’ seems so simple and yet is beautifully controlled with masterful manipulation of rhythm. I use it to explain meter to pupils as Herbert does it so well.

Here is the poem in full…

[image error]



Vertue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season’d timber, never gives;

But, though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

The basic theme is pretty obvious: Earthy things are transient but your soul will live for ever if you follow God. The language is simple – certainly nothing like as complex as Donne’s poetry. So far so Anglican christian. But let’s look a little closer.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;

For thou must die.

Let’s look at this first verse. To begin with, the rhythm is simple and straightforward: it is written in iambic tetrameter with the last line changing to iambic dimeter.

It’s at this point my pupils look at me going, ‘Iambic what now?’

OK so let me explain – skip this if you already know… If a poem is regular then it is made up of a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Here the stress is falling on the second syllable ‘Sweet day‘. The best way to show this to a class is to make them clap along to it. So here they would clap on ‘day’ ‘cool’ ‘calm’ and ‘bright’.

Here is the line with syllables italicised to indicate stress or a beat.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The line is eight syllables altogether and there are four beats. (This is when I  say to my pupils – ‘with me so far?’). So we talk about this line as having four metrical feet each one containing two syllables, one of which is stressed. Here is the line with the feet indicated.

[Sweet day], [so cool], [so calm], [so bright],

So there are four feet in the line. We call that tetrameter. If it was one foot we’d say monometer, two would be dimeter, three would be trimeter. Five feet in a line would be called pentameter.

In these feet the stress falls on the second syllable ‘Sweet day‘. This is called an iamb or iambic foot. The rhythm is dah DUM, dah DUM, dah DUM, dah DUM. Hope that makes sense. It is one of the most common rhythms in English literature and I like to think it’s because it’s the first rhythm all humans know – the rhythm of a heart beat.

So we have established that first line is written in iambic tetrameter. Four iambs in a row. The regularity of these iambs gives the line an ordered, calm feel. The slow pace is reinforced by the use of caesuras (the break in the line indicated by a punctuation mark – here a comma).

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;

For thou must die.

What a stunning opening line. It’s the sort of line you say out loud to yourself on crisp Autumn mornings when the air is clear and the sky arches above you. The iambic rhythm continues in the second line with the beautiful image of the unbroken union or ‘bridal’ of the earth and sky.

The third line introduces a note of unease ‘The dew shall weep thy fall tonight’ and the steady forward movement of the iambs now sound rather remorseless and frightening as they pace out the inevitability of ‘thy fall’ concluding in the terrifying ‘For thou must die.’

This is when I ask my pupils – what’s changed? the last line… Can you see? Have a look.

Yes, a foot has dropped off. Instead of being eight syllables long the line is now four syllables long, only two feet. Herbert chops the line in half. When you read it aloud it makes you sound like you’ve missed a step.

This abrupt change is startling and reinforces the speaker’s stern warning not to get too chilled about the earth’s beauty because it isn’t going to last and you’re going to die. Truncating the line adds to the sense of the inevitability of death.

Now look at the second verse.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

It makes me think of images like this (I know they are tulips, not roses, but you get the idea!)

[image error]‘Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,’

The first two lines of this verse are really interesting rhythmically…

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

‘Sweet rose‘ is iambic. And so is this: ‘whose hue’. But then something happens. You can’t say ‘angry‘ with the stress on the second syllable – it doesn’t work. You have to stress the first half: ‘ANgry’.

??!! The line has been disrupted. Herbert suddenly chucks in a trochee. A foot with two syllables but this time the stress is on the first syllable. So the line goes Iamb, Iamb, Trochee and then back to an Iamb: ‘and brave.’

So if we write the line out with the changed stresses it looks like this..

Sweet rose, whose hueangry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

WOOAHHH! What’s happened there!?

That smooth dah DUM dah DUM has been altered. So instead we get dah DUM dah DUM DUM dah dah DUM. Followed by DUM dah dah DUM dah DUM dah DUM.

(I hope this makes sense, it is so much easier to explain this in class!)

So the words ‘Angry’ and ‘Bids the’ are trochees with the beat falling on the first half of the syllable pair (or foot).

The question is why? Well, let’s have a look. Here, Herbert describes a rose so vivid and powerful in its colour it has the strength to burst out of the poem at you. The colour pops. Think of a pink, pink rose against a bright blue sky. It grabs your attention.

Herbert descibes the rose as ‘brave’ – it is so powerful it ‘BIDS’ you  – or orders you to look at it and wipe a tear away so moved are you by its power and beauty. That’s a hell of a bold flower. See how that trochee ‘BIDS the’ reinforces the sense of the command, the imperative of the word ‘bid.’

The rose has such a strong presence it can tug at and disrupt the steady iambic rhytm Herbert has established so far. It sounds like the rose is winning. It’s triumphant in its vivid portrayal of life and beauty here on earth. It seems invincible.

But then we have the last half of the verse.

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sorry, Rose. You’re screwed. See the iambs have come back. The voice reminds us that the beauty of the flower of the rose has its roots in its grave. And we are back to the truncated line form: ‘And thou must die.’ Shiver. Relentless… Those powerful marching iambs allow for no discussion, pleading or debate.

[image error]Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,

Having dismissed the beauties of a clear, bright day and a stunning rose, Herbert turns to the joys of spring in his penultimate verse. Spring has a lot going on, and look closely at these first two lines to see how Herbert conveys the joy, energy and vibrancy of this season.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,

I love how Herbert uses the image of a delicious box with sweets ‘compacted’ together, the use of this word conveying the box is stuffed full of wonderful little sweet things. I always get my kids to shout out everything they can think of to associate with spring: ‘lambs!’ ‘Easter!’ ‘Daffodils!’ they would shout out and I would show how those are the sweets Herbert is describing.

Look at the line again – doesn’t it feel like its bursting at the seams a little? As if the energy of spring is pushing at the lines of the poem in the same way the rose did. If you look closely you can see for the first time Herbert deviates from the 8 syllable line structure. The first line of this verse has 9 syllables. Also the iambic rhythm is disrupted again. In fact it’s really difficult to work out what is happening rhythmically.

‘Spring’ is definitely stressed so the line begins with the iamb. But then I can’t make it work saying ‘Full of sweet days and roses.’ the pause generated by the comma after ‘spring’ forces you to stress ‘full’ and then not stressing ‘of’ and ‘sweet’ until the stress falls on ‘days’ and then ‘roses’. Thus:

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

Can you see how this gives a tripping, bursting quality to the line? Spring is exploding all over the place: days and roses firing out at the viewer.The rhythm is rocked – it pirouettes the line into a spin.

A box where sweets compacted lie,

The next line settles the firework show as the elements of spring settle snugly into their box, the dah DUM is in force – here offering solidity and reassurance. But, as we have come to expect, the last two lines offset the joy of the previous two.

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Herbert refers to his poem ‘my music’ which shows even spring has its ‘closes’ and the final line of this verse is the darkest of all: ‘And all  must die.’ No pirouetting rhythms here.

Also there is another little trick in this verse. The ‘My music’ line has nine syllables but the rhythm is steadily iambic. As we have come to expect from the bummer second half of these verses.

The effect of this is that the last syllable of ‘closes’ in unstressed. It’s called a feminine ending because it doesn’t end on a beat (eyeroll at the sexism found even in poetry criticism).

The effect of this is to untether the end of the line so it floats and adds a pause making the next line all the more deadening. Thus:

My music shows ye have your closes…

And all must die.

Can you see how the last word being ‘Closes’ makes you pause? Unlike ‘must die‘ ending with a big masculine BOOM of a beat, or stress.

After rejecting the ephemeral beauties offered by earth, Herbert ends the poem reminding his reader that the one eternal true beauty is the one found in heaven.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season’d timber, never gives;

But, though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

The lines are powerfully conveyed. The trochee of ‘Only’ draws our attention to the speaker’s utter certitude that he is correct. Forget pretty days, spring and roses, the true beauty to be found in this world is in having a ‘sweet and virtuous soul.’

The use of the trochees ‘Only’, ‘But’ and ‘Then’ show complete confidence. Note the logical progression of these words. The use of this kind of argument and logic is typical of the metaphysical poet, and brooks no room for debate. The last line is difficult to read without stressing every syllable, making it strong and powerful.

I also like the use of the virtuous soul being like ‘seasoned timber’. The idea of the soul being weathered and rendered solid and immutable by being ‘seasoned’ is a powerful one. Herbert means that when the roses and sweets of spring die or are turned into coal by the conflagration of judgement day, the soul will survive to live in joyous eternity.

I hope you enjoyed reading this! I would love to hear the names of some of your favourite poems.

UPDATE: I sent this to my old teacher, Mr B. who was the teacher who inspired me to become an English teacher. He was amazing, and opened worlds to me I never knew existed. I just discovered he loves this poem, and he wrote a response to my piece which you can read here.

A Poetry Lesson 1: Robert Frost’s ‘Birches’

I love this beautiful poem by Robert Frost. There is a great entry on him at the Poetry Foundation, worth a look if you don’t know much about him.

He was a very canny self-publicist and, unlike many of his contemporaries, achieved huge fame during his lifetime, hobnobbing with presidents  (he wrote and read the inauguration poem for JFK) and is generally considered one of America’s most popular poets.

These two photographs of Frost are very good examples of the persona he liked to present to the world. ‘Old Time Farmer’ and ‘Contemplative Pipe Smoker’, at one with nature, getting his hands dirty – poems like ‘Mending Wall‘, and ‘After Apple Picking‘  seem to reinforce this. But don’t be fooled…

One of his most famous poems, ‘The Road Not Taken‘ is a confidence trick. With it’s familiar lines:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

it has been accepted by many as praise for being different, going your own way, striking out away from the herd. But if you look at it closely, you’ll see he spends a great deal of time establishing that both paths are EXACTLY THE SAME

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

and

And both that morning equally lay

 Katherine Kearns famously said about the poem ‘The best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ and Frost himself said, ‘You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem – very tricky’.

The persona of folksy, apple-picking farmer with a shock of white hair is one he carefully cultivated, but in fact Frost was highly educated, cultured, and fond of leading people down blind alleyways with his poetry. Lionel Trilling called him a ‘terrifying poet’.

[image error]Frost as a young, handsome man.

This is so true. A poem you think is about picking apples, or mending walls, or going for a walk on the hills, very quickly reveals itself to be about death, or the fear of absence, or the terrors of a Godless world. We must never forget that Frost is a Modernist poet. Yes, he writes in a folksy way, usually in blank verse, but when you read and re-read his work you will see the darkness within it.

A particularly good example of this is ‘Desert Places‘ I defy anyone to read that poem without shivering with unease. It makes you want to turn the TV up loud and hide under your duvet.

Frost was highly cultured and educated. He spent some time at Harvard and in 1912 he travelled to England where he formed friendships with great poets such as Edward Thomas, T.E. Hulme and Ezra Pound. Not the usual compatriots of a simple farmer.

The main reason I am a little in love with Frost is his approach to metre. Unlike his peers who were experimenting with free verse, Frost chose to use a fairly formal and conventional structure: the iambic pentameter. Many of his poems are written in blank verse.

To learn more about the iambic foot, you can have a look at my post on George Herbert. Basically, iambic pentameter is five beats in a line where every other syllable is stressed. So: tee TUM tee TUM tee TUM tee TUM tee TUM.

It’s a very common metre and you can find this form in literature going back a thousand years.

Frost was always very scathing about the use of free verse. He is quoted as saying,  ‘I had as soon write free verse as to play tennis with the net down.’ Brilliant.

Even better, he wasn’t a slavish follower of the iambic rhythm. He liked the tension created by tugging at the iambic rhythm to create a sense of natural speech. He said:

My versification … is as simple as this, there are very regular pre-established accent and measure of blank verse; and there are the very irregular accent and measure of speaking intonation. I am never more pleased than when I can get these into strained relation.

 Look at this wonderful way he describes playing with the rhythms of a meter…

And gee what’s the good of the rhythm unless it is on something that trips it – that ruffles? You know, it’s got to ruffle the meter.

 ‘Ruffle the meter’ – love it. I love the tactile way he describes the rhythms of poetry – as if it is something he can feel in his hand. (But note his use of ‘gee’ – aw shucks, I’m just a simple hick chattin’ about poetry)

So let’s look at one of my favourite Frost poems. It’s called ‘Birches’ and has a delicate loveliness hiding an interesting complexity which makes me want to read it and read it again.

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

So far, so straightforward. Frost uses the first person; he does this often in his poems and it gives them an intimate, personal feel. The first two lines are neat iambic pentameter. Note how his choice of words ‘line’ and ‘darker’ convey a sense of an upright lines, reflecting the straighter trees. They contrast with the ‘birches bend’ ‘left and right’ which conveys a sense of trees swaying.

The ‘ruffle’ come in the third line. Look closely at it. Yes it’s iambic pentameter, but the linking of ‘boy’s been’ means you can’t help stressing both the words. I think it’s the repetition of the ‘b’ sound and the clash of the ‘o’ and ‘ee’ vowel sounds.

Why does Frost do this? Well, it tips the reader forward into a big stress on ‘SWINGing’ them. The shift in the stress forces that verb to the front conveying a strong sense of upward, joyful, movement. This reflects the young lad playing on the trees, swinging up and back on the bending trees.

This is a lovely interpretation of why the birches bend – because some boy has been bouncing away on them. But the next lines challenge that reading.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

These are some of the most beautiful lines in poetry, I think. The voice of the poem recognises that the birches have been bent permanently, and a boy simply swinging on them would not have had this effect.

Note how the tone changes with the break in the line following ‘as ice storms do’.

The flowing iambs are stopped short with that Caesura and a feeling of unease is created. It feels like a step has been missed as you suddenly have to halt at the full stop. This reflects the devastating effects of the ice storm – not just on the trees, but on the poem itself.

He then involved his reader, ‘you must have seen them,’ he says, his conversational tone engaging us further. Frost flips the tee TUM of the iambs in the next line by using a trochee stressed ‘LOADed’. The stress is clearly on the first syllable conveying a s sense of the groaning weight of snow on the delicate branches of the birch.

Listen to the glorious onomatopoeic quality of the words ‘click’, ‘cracks’ and ‘crazes’ – the present tense adding to the immediate effect.

Frost’s precise eye for detail is revealed in the description of the white of the frost and snow turning ‘many-colored’ as the ‘enamel’ of the frozen snow cracks when the trees move, revealing the colours of the bark beneath. Gorgeous.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

These lines are full of sound. Look at all those ‘S’s! This is called sibilance and it works brilliantly to give the reader the sense of the shushing and slushing of the ice and snow as it melts and crashes to the ground. You even hear the ‘clinking’ of the ice when Frost compares it to broken glass.

Just look at this line again…

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

You have to say it out loud to really appreciate the beauty of the sounds in this line. Its almost like a tongue twister. I also love the idea of describing the snow encased around the branching falling to the ground like ‘crystal shells’

And the that beautiful, but chilling line, there is so much snow and ice piled up you would think, ‘the inner dome of heaven had fallen’. It’s a beautiful image, but also slightly chilling. Why has heaven fallen?

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

Suddenly the tone darkens again after the pretty images of crystals and ice. Words like ‘dragged’ and ‘withered’ introduce echoes of death, of victims being pulled into decaying undergrowth.

The effect of the snow on these birches is permanent. They pull the trees down so far eventually they are bowed forever. Initially these lines are eerie, with the line break before ‘years afterward’ emphasising the long stretch of time these birches will be disfigured and twisted.

But the last image is more positive. The broken and bent birches are compared to careless young girls, tossing their wet hair over their heads, to dry in the sun. A charming image summoning a sense of grace and arched beauty. It seems discordant so close the previous lines where the trees are ‘dragged’ into the ‘withered bracken’.

Frost does this in many of his poems. There is often a sense of tension, ambivalence and ambiguity about his approach. It’s the most Modernist aspect about his work, this tendency to leave things unresolved and uncertain. He will place two contradictory ideas, themes, or images together without comment – leaving the reader to decide what he truly believes or thinks.

In the next lines Frost briskly moves on, dipping a note of cold unease and then talking fast to distract you. Back to his story, he says, before ‘truth’ so rudely interrupted his light-hearted musings.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

The voice makes it very clear he knows the reason the birches bend is because they are weighted down with ice and snow that can permanently disfigure them. But, he ‘prefers’ not to believe it. He wants them to be bent by a joyful young boy’s energetic antics.

The boy is a farm boy -fetching the cows and stuck in the countryside. The only play he has is from the adventures he invents on his own.

These lines have a naturalistic, conversational tone. Look at the humour of ‘but I was going to say when Truth broke in with all her matter of fact about the ice-storm’, like a bloke in a pub rolling his eyes when his wife interrupts his tale telling.

It’s an idyllic pastoral scene, the boy with the cows eyeing up trees he can slide down, but there’s also a definite sense of loneliness and isolation.

One by one he subdued his father’s trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

I always find the first lines of this section sexualised. Basically, the boy is climbing the trees then using their flexibility to slide down, bending them to the ground before jumping off.

But look at the language Frost uses! The boy ‘subdued his father’s trees’ by ‘riding them’ ‘over and over again’, taking the ‘stiffness out of them’

Hmmm

Freudian, much?

Maybe just me and my dirty mind? The word ‘conquer’ makes me think of father and son locking horns, with the son eventually overcoming the father, the familiar ‘boy becoming a man’ theme. This fits with the erotic vocabulary of ‘riding’ and ‘stiffness’ and ‘limp’. Is the boy discovering his sexuality as he grows into a man? There is certainly as strong sense of power and domination in the first part of this section.

Frost uses a strikingly effective image when describing the boy making his way up they tree with  absolute caution and care.

…He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

The image of a cup of water filled so much the water brims over the top, held only with the surface tension, is a great way to give the reader a sense of the boy slowly and meticulously making his way up to the tree.

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Read the line again. See how Frost slows the pace right down. The long sentence is broken over four lines and the enjambment slows it down still further. I like the alliteration of ‘climbing carefully’, you can almost hear those steady steps upward.

The next section has a huge contrast in feel and movement.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

This is SUCH a fantastic pair of lines. A wonderful sense of joy in the movement with words like ‘FLUNG’ and ‘SWISH’. This starkly contrasts with the painstaking, slow pace of the previous two lines.

The rhythm emphasises this. ‘Then’ is stressed and so is ‘flung’ and ‘out’. This challenges the previously established iambic rhythm. I can’t help reading ‘flung’ and ‘out’ as stressed so it’s a kind of spondee. (A metrical foot when both syllables are stressed). ‘Feet first’ is also a double stress then the wonderful stylish and exuberant ‘with a SWISH’ which could be an anapaestic foot. (Two unstressed syllables followed by a stress).

The repetition of the ‘f’s reinforces the rushing sound of the boy’s movement and I like the ‘sh’ sound of the ‘swish’ which continues that effect. And then this:

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

A wonderful tumble of words. There are 11 syllables here. ‘Kick’ is stressed so the line starts with a trochee. ‘KICKing’. Because of the extra syllable you have to say this line incredibly quickly. The stresses are interesting.

KICKing his way DOWN through the AIR to the GROUND.

A very good example of ‘ruffling’ the meter.  I think (and I may be wrong, this is just my opinion here) that Frost has constructed his line using a trochee followed by three anapaests.

So:

/u uu/ uu/ uu/

(u= unsressed /=stressed)

It’s a stunning example of how structure can convery and reinforce the meaning or sense of the poem.

Read it again:

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

See how fast you have to read it? Can’t you just see that boy plummeting to the ground with a joyful whoop?

Lovely.

Anapaests are interesting – you find them in classical literature and they are often used to convey a sense of victory or accomplishment with its driving, uplifting rhythm. (Plath uses anapaests to good effect in her poem ‘Daddy‘ but although it sounds victorious, it’s not particularly jolly

There’s a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

Can you hear them? ‘There’s a STAKE’, ‘And the VILL’ and ‘They are DANC’)

Anyway, back to Frost.

In the next part, Frost brings himself into the poem and writes of how he envies the innocent and carefree joy of the boy, riding on birches.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

Oh My God this is so me at my age. How often do you feel you are in a ‘pathless wood’? How hilarious is the description of the weeping eye which has been lashed with a twig? I love that bit. It’s so familiar; life seems to kick you in the gut sometimes, and, like stubbing your toe, unfair and painful events happen over which you have no control, leaving you limping and squinting with pain and weariness.

It reminds me of my post I wrote about a bad day which coincided with a nasty case of conjunctivitis and I was screaming at the children to get their bags packed, blind in one eye and sight obliterated by ointment in the other.

Frost goes on, dreamily…

I’d like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

‘I’d like to get away’, he says (you and me both, love)  and start again. Then that smiling, folksy raised finger ‘may not fate willfully misunderstand me’. He means, ‘Now, Fate… don’t you go thinking I want to die’. (I like the way he sees Fate as ‘wilful’ here.)

As he says, ‘Earth’s the right place for love’. And Frost can’t think of anywhere else that is ‘likely to go better’. There’s something charming about the folksiness of these lines. They are simple, but heartfelt, which prevents the voice from sounding mawkish.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

How does he want to have his break from Earth and the troubles of life? By ‘climbing a birch tree’, up ‘toward heaven’ not to heaven, notice! Until the tree can’t take his weight any more and brings him safely back down.

The poem closes with a lovely, memorable pair of lines.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I like the ‘that would be good’. He sounds like the boy – that’s the way children speak. No need for ornate elaboration. But the joy of that experience is clearly expressed: ‘That would be good’ indeed.

And that final line – in pretty much perfect iambic pentameter – ‘One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.’

What does he mean here? On the surface it seems obvious – being a kid swinging on birches sounds like a pretty good life. You could do worse, Frost says. But I know Frost can be canny. I can’t help thinking this is a sly reference to poetry itself, and to his technique. Isn’t this what Frost does in his poems? Swings the birches? In the way he tugs and stretches the iambic rhythm?

What do you think? Do you like the poem? I hope you do! Here is is in full. By the way, if I have inspired you to have a look at some of his other poems, this link will take you to a good collection of his work, published by Vintage Classics. (I do get a little commission if you buy it)

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father’s trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I’d like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

 

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‘She Does Something Magical with her Characters’: Why I heart Lisa Jewell

There’s been a lot of love for Lisa Jewel during #Lockdown and although I am, of course, her greatest fan, I am prepared to be magnanimous and share her with others. I am very excited to read her next book ‘Invisible Girl’ but it doesn’t come out until August.

In the meantime I am re-posting this for everyone who hasn’t yet discovered Lisa Jewell. They are very lucky as there are a whole host of books in her back catalogue. Not just thrillers but some wonderful, heartfelt stories of relationships and families.

Enjoy!

Lisa Jewell’s characters can be riddled with self-doubt, plagued by insecurities and tremendously flawed. However, there is something magical about the way Jewell creates and shapes them. They can be unpleasant, unlikeable, frustrating in their poor decision making, but Jewell gifts them with a tangible life force. It’s more than just a sympathetic presentation, she invests them with such humanity you can’t help falling in love with them. You get the impression Jewell admires them, and although she can’t help disapproving of some of their actions and decisions, she celebrates their ability to find joy in adversity; they find happiness, eventually, often in the darkest places.

Lisa Jewell, along with Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, Sophie Hannah, Clare Mackintosh and Bonkbuster novelists from the 80’s, fulfils my Best Book Criteria.

We are roughly the same age and her first novel, Ralph’s Party, * which came out in 1999, reflected exactly what was happening in my life at the time. I have grown up with Lisa Jewell and I love that she wrote a follow on book to Ralph’s Party called After the Party. Here, we revisit the passionate young lovers – Jem and Ralph – who got together at the end of the first book. Now older, with children and all the weariness caused by a long relationship and middle-age, Jewell explores what happens after the happily ever after. I read it with a huge lump in my throat. Highly recommended.

Over the years Jewell has developed and grown as a writer well beyond the ‘chick lit’ genre. Not just because the plot lines have become perhaps a little darker in contrast to the more frothy early novels, but the writing itself has matured and become more careful, more thoughtful. The characters have greater complexity, yes, but also more shades and layers which rings true for me as I approach 50. In many ways I am more tolerant of weakness in people, more forgiving as I age – and I find this in Jewell’s later novels. She explores her characters’ flaws, but always with tenderness and understanding.

[image error]The greatest accolade, as far as I’m concerned, is Jewell is one of the few authors whose books I will always buy in paper form. I feel she is too good for Kindle!

Of course you can have the most brilliant characters ever, but if the story’s no good then I’m not going to read it, and it’s certainly not going to get onto my list. Luckily, Jewell is a born story teller, and I can’t think of a single novel I have read by her where I haven’t forced myself to slow down so I didn’t finish the book too soon – taking my time to savour every moment. This has been very difficult with recent novels such as Then She Was Gone. This novel haunted me for months and months afterwards – I kind of didn’t want to finish it as the story was so sad. It tells the story of a missing girl and the absence she leaves in the lives of the people around her. It has a wonderfully effective multi-layered narrative which pulls you into the story, almost against your will.

I Found You, also a recent novel, is brilliantly clever and , as usual, I couldn’t put it down. Thankfully not as sad as Then She Was Gone, and I still think about the characters now, particularly Alice. These last two novels are thrillers, a shift from previous books.

I could waffle on about Lisa Jewell’s books for hours, but I want to give you my absolute favourites. I am very excited to say her latest novel has just landed on my doormat and I can’t wait to get stuck in.

In the meantime, I thought I’d tell you about three of my absolute favourites. Before I Met You, The Truth about Melody Browne, and The House We Grew Up In.

This is very different to Jewell’s earlier books. That’s one of the reasons I like her as an author. Unlike other writers she doesn’t just stick to a tried and tested formula. You couldn’t blame her for doing so – her earlier books were phenomenally successful – but not Lisa Jewell! She seems to constantly challenge herself, and this novel is a good example of this. It’s kind of an Historical Romance, but I don’t like calling it that as it seems a very narrow generic definition for a book which is so multi-faceted and rich.

This book twists two narratives together, one in the 1920’s, the other in the 1990’s, following two women as they face similar challenges despite being almost a hundred years apart. Secrets – of course! – are slowly uncovered and it’s Betty’s detective work into Arlette’s life which keeps you turning the pages.

The story is meticulously researched and the settings of both the characters have a real verisimilitude – you feel like you are walking side by side with the women as they explore their world. The depictions of the jazz age in particular are powerfully evocative. A great read. Good one for the Beach!

Anyone who has read my blog will know why I am writing about this novel.** I don’t want to spoil the plot, so you will have to read it to find out the reason I am so in love with this book. It is SUCH a good read. Melody Browne lives in London with her teenage son; she can remember nothing before her ninth birthday. As the novel unfolds memories start to break free and float to the surface: Strange fragments which make no sense.

Melody is compelled to uncover what happened to her, but the more she looks, the more incomprehensible her past becomes. Following the pieces as they slowly slot into the final picture is absorbing to say the least. The Truth About Melody Browne is funny and uplifting, but there are moments when I found myself sobbing like an abandoned child. I felt a strong connection with this book. So much so, I was compelled to write to Lisa Jewell via her Facebook page and she was LOVELY, taking the time to write back and discuss the inspiration for this novel with me. This is yet another reason why I completely  Lisa Jewell.

Oh My God. This book. THIS. BOOK! My heart, my heart. It has become a classic in my library and I usually re-read this every year or so. It is heartbreaking, but in a good way – if that makes sense. I think (note I am very cleverly coming full circle here) its because of the central character: Lorelei. Oh! Lorelei! She is such a broken, flawed character, but with such capacity for joy, and complete and utter love for her family, it breaks your heart to read her story.

The story centres around Lorelei’s children who return to the house they grew up in. Here they are forced into an uncomfortable understanding of their mother’s psychological disintegration, and their role in the dislocation of their happy family. It is a sensitive, difficult subject. To be so convincing Jewell must have done a great deal of research and this, combined with her craftsmanship, sensitivity, and beautiful, beautiful writing makes this a phenomenal novel. I wish everyone in the world could read it.

You will find the Bird family, particularly Lorelei,  will stay with you after you finish this book. In fact I found I couldn’t read anything for a few days – this is unheard of – because I wanted to keep the memory of the story lingering for a bit before I replaced it with another.

I hope you found this useful – have you read anything by Lisa Jewell – do you love her as much as I do? Did I inspire you to read any of her books? It would be brilliant to hear what you think of her. Let me know!

*Just to say if you click the links and go on to buy anything I’ve recommended, I get a little bit of cash. Like, 3p

Better Than Cake – Proper Comfort Reads: Keyes and Kinsella

Another re-post. If you haven’t discovered these authors – now is the time to try!

Comfort comes in many forms. Hugging your loved ones, taking a bath, opening a bottle of wine, watching a good movie, or eating as much cake as you can get in your mouth.

All of those work for me, but the cake is not a good idea if I’m trying to stick to my low-carb diet. When I say comfort reading, I mean that the books are so absorbing, so gripping, they help you escape from the world for a few hours. If I’m having a hard day and there is no wine (or cake) available, these writers make is all better. Today this post is all about those funny, warm, and – above all – entertaining books  which tell a bloody good story. This is the second in my series on amazing books I recommended, have a look at my first one: Louis de Bernières and Liane Moriarty.

When I choose my books they have to tick five boxes – you can click here to see a reminder of the the rules If they don’t meet the criterion – they aren’t getting in.

NB I add links to Amazon for all the books mentioned – if you go on to buy that book I get a little commission.

Marian Keyes

Marian Keyes is my absolute go to number one author if I want a bit of escapism and comfort. She ticks the boxes for all of my rules with most of her books – mainly because l I don’t want them to end. Luckily, she writes lovely, long novels which keep me going for a good while. Not only do I have to slow down when I reach the end, I have read all of her books three or four times and I always pre-order the next one even if I don’t know what it’s about. I have everything written by her including collections of her articles and her cake recipes.

I have a particular soft spot for the Walsh family. Five of Keyes’ books centre on Mammy Walsh’s daughters. I read the first, Watermelon, many years ago and fell in love with them all straightaway. Set in Ireland, the family is led by the redoubtable Mammy Walsh with her long suffering husband Jack. They have five daughters, all of whom at some point have had their poor mother’s ‘heart scalded’ with worry. All of them are hilarious. There’s a lovely little interview with Marian Keyes talking about the Walsh Family on the Penguin Website.

In Watermelon , Claire Walsh, the eldest daughter, gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. On the same day her husband leaves for another woman – the skinny cow who lives in the flat below theirs. Claire flees back to the arms of her loving family in Ireland to recover her strength. But going back home after being independent for so long is harder than anticipated. This book made me SCREAM with laughter.
Rachel Walsh’s struggles as a drug addict in rehab is the story of Rachel’s Holiday. More on this one below.
In Angels , previously sensible and boring middle daughter Maggie runs away to Los Angeles to have an adventure. She gets off with a lesbian, and flirts with movie stars, much to the consternation of her family.
Anybody Out There

I’m putting the big link up for this one. It’s a beautiful book. Very sad at times, you’ll be gulping back tears, but oh my goodness is it funny. It is the story of Ana, previous ditsy hippie stoner, who is recovering back home following a dreadful accident in New York.

I don’t want to give away any of the story so I won’t tell you the plot. I do want to quote these lines which had me crying with laughter. Here, Mammy Walsh, driven to distraction by the selfishness of her girls, shouts:

‘One of you five bitches has stolen my Multiple Orgasm. It’s like the time you stole all my combs -‘ this was an often-repeated resentment – ‘and I was going to mass as it was a holy day of obligation and I had to comb my hair with a fork. Reduced to combing my hair with a fork!’

Imagine my delight when I went to see the lovely Marian Keyes being interviewed and I got a chance to ask her a question. I mentioned this quote and she confirmed this was, indeed, based on the experience of her own mother, (it was so real and so funny I was sure it was based on real life) who once had to comb her hair with a fork because her children had pinched all her combs.

The way this novel deals with grief is simple, engaging, and at all times moving; but counterbalancing that theme is a an exciting plot based on the marketing of an exclusive make-up line, as well as further insight into the family dynamic of the Walshes. It really is a lovely book and you will find yourself thinking about the characters long after you have finished.

The youngest daughter, Helen, stars in The Mystery of Mercy Close where she tries to make a success of being a PI. I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the others, probably because I live with someone who suffers chronic depression and this felt a little too close to home. But it was worth a read to get to meet Mammy Walsh again and to hear how the other sisters are getting on.

So which of this series am I going to put on my list? Well, it has to be Rachel’s Holiday. All of them are great, but this is the one I must have read five or six times. Like all of Keyes’ books there is great tragedy and despair to be found. You can’t call any of her books lightweight, despite the fluffiness of her covers. (They are less fluffy now)

I can’t quite explain how she does it. In her novels Keyes covers domestic abuse, addiction, rape, abortion, sudden paralysis, depression, anxiety, suicide, miscarriages, divorce, and terminal illness; and yes, these things are dealt with in an unflinching – never sentimental – way, but she STILL manages to make you laugh. And they always have happy endings. I agree with Keyes, life’s tough enough without sad endings.

Rachel’s Holiday is a really good example of this. Oh my gosh I love it so much. So it opens with Rachel in New York. She is a good time girl out for a laugh. She and a fellow Irish friend paint the town red, drink, and take drugs at parties and basically make the most of their youth.

It is so clever how Keyes slowly and delicately manipulates you into recognising that Rachel is a flawed and unreliable narrator. It’s written in the first person and Rachel’s voice is so lovely, so vibrant and outraged at all the ‘killjoys’ who surround her, it takes a while before you realise how screwed up she is.

She ends up in rehab. This is the point when everyone remembers Keyes was an alcoholic who was in rehab. I’m not sure how relevant this is, but the descriptions of what goes on in the centre certainly have an undeniably gritty realism. And oh! The characters Rachel meets there. Although I first read it – God it was published in 1997!! – years ago, I still vividly remember Jackie, and John Joe, and of course the delicious Luke in his tight denims.

I wish I could explain why I keep going back to this book. I think why I like this one the best (although Anybody Out There is almost as good) is the way initial judgments are peeled away and exposed as superficial and foolish. Characters constantly surprise you and firmly held initial impressions are shaken to their core. I remember weeping when one character is slowly guided to realise that his alcoholism has turned him into the father he hated. He now terrifies his children the way his father terrified him. Keyes’ sympathy and tenderness in that scene is so delicately expressed you won’t forget it.

Then, after being drained emotionally, having cried your eyes out over tragic scenes like this, full of despair and horrified realisation, while the tears have barely dried on your face, you will be chuckling at the next chapter. One springs to mind: Mammy Walsh apologises to Rachel because she thinks she ruined her pants when she put them in the wash. She holds up a G-String. Rachel explains that they are fine, it’s a G-String and it’s supposed to look like that. She responds:

‘You brazen HUSSY! That might be the kind of thing they wear in New York, but you’re not in New York now and while you’re under my roof, you’ll cover yourself like a Christian.’

I love this – it’s such a mum thing to say. But Keyes takes the humour of this scene and turns it into something dark and emotional. Rachel can’t bear her mother’s anger and runs out of the house, putting herself in danger. It’s a crisis point which forces her to realise she needs to grow up, and approach her relationship with her mother on adult terms. Until she does, she can’t address the issues that have led to her addictions. I’m simplify it majorly, as this is only a thread in the complexity of Rachel’s character – but it was an interesting lesson to me on perspective – and dealing with your mother!

Keyes has written other novels not about the Walshes and of those my favourites are: Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, It’s a book for the young at heart, I think, as ultimately it’s a romance. Lucy Sullivan, living with two other women in a flat hates her job and dreams of meeting the man a fortune teller told her she would marry soon. She adores her father and has a difficult relationship with her mother. The part I felt was particularly well done was the slow development in Lucy’s relationship with her father. Is he the man she thought he was? Is her mother really a hard-hearted killjoy? Why does Lucy think a man isn’t worth dating if he doesn’t mistreat her? It was questions like this which lifted the novel out of the run of the mill romance genre. Although the romantic bits are sweet and will leave you smiling goofily.

The second is  This Charming Man, which explores the impact one man – Paddy de Courcy – has on three different women. This book will make you shake in horror and fear but you can’t put it down. Also, little details like the girl in the newsagent/video shop (who cynically and hilariously mocks middle-class women who roam about the moors getting wet in the rain because they have been unlucky in love) pull you out of the horrors for a bit so they are not unbearable.

If you haven’t read Marian Keyes, please do, and start with Rachel’s Holiday. You can then go and explore all the others. If you have a long journey, are on your beach holiday – want to escape the kid/partners/work etc, they are ideal. I love opening them on my Kindle and it says ‘Typical time to read: 10 hours and 46 minutes’ ahhhhh bliss.

Sophie Kinsella

You may be familiar with Sophie Kinsella from the very famous ‘Shopaholic‘ novels, which were made into a pretty good film. The first in the series is called The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic. There are eight in the series and I enjoyed them all. They are light, fluffy and entertaining – perfect for holiday reading. You can buy the whole set here.

But I felt that series got enough publicity. I want to talk about Twenties Girl. This was brilliant and I have lost count of the times I have read it. Lara attends the funeral of her Great Aunt Sadie who has just died at the age of 105.

At the funeral, Lara meets the ghost of her Aunt Sadie, in the shape of a very demanding, Charleston dancing, girl from the 1920’s. She insists – as Lara is the only person who can see her – she must help her find her necklace. She won’t take no for an answer.

I’m not going to tell you this is filled with poetry and Shakespearean quality imagery, but it is fluently and charmingly written, with characters who leap off the page at you. The dialogue is natural and funny and the plot sweeps you along. I’m always a sucker for an ‘exposing corporate business men who are screwing over the little guy’, though I know it’s not Chaucer. But it’s not supposed to be!

This is why I don’t understand why people are so derogatory about women writers like Keyes and Kinsella. What people (men) don’t seem to appreciate is they are bloody good story tellers. And though the vocabulary may change, and the syntax might be more complex, all great writes – from Tolstoy to Chekhov, from Dickens to Woolf – have to tell a good story.

The other Kinsella I am going to recommend is The Undomestic Goddess. I remember gorging on this one blissful holiday in France when the children were obsessed with the swimming pool. I would set myself up on a lilo in the pool to keep an eye on them, and then read this for ages with the sun beating down. Lovely.

This has such a great story. Samantha is a super-high powered lawyer who is about to be nominated a partner of her firm. This is something she (and her family) has worked towards for years. She works ridiculously long hours and is vibrating with stress. Then something disastrous happens – she misses an important memo which has catastrophic consequences – on a level with Nick Leeson’s effect on Baring’s bank.

Stunned and in complete shock, Samantha walks out of her office in a daze and gets on the first train she sees. Long story short, she ends up working as a housekeeper and cleaner in Lower Ebury. As Samantha doesn’t know how to cook or clean she has to work hard to stay undercover.

Lovely story, pacy plot and a happy ending. A great comfort read!

I’d love to know what you think of these books, if you’ve read them, and if you go and have a look following my recommendations do let me know if you agreed with me!

Happy reading, Warriors!

Cooper, Krantz, Conran, and Collins: My Love of 80’s Novels

I am posting this again as I’ve just re-read ‘Hollywood Wives’ as I was finding it a struggle to read improving books over the Lockdown as planned.

I LOVED it. ‘Hollywood Husbands’ wasn’t quite as good but ‘Hollywood Wives’ was just what I needed.

Fast paced, glamorous, kick ass women, and not a virus in sight. Well apart from the AIDS mention of course.

I found it the perfect solution to the horrors of lockdown and it kept me happy and entertained for a good few days. I’ll re-post my comfort reads as well as there’s nothing like a bit of Kinsella and Keyes to get you through.

Reading has always been my number one favourite thing to do. When I was little I would watch my mother (also an avid reader) roaring with laughter over James Herriot novels and I couldn’t wait to learn to read properly so I could share that experience.

Once I could read, I read everything. As I was fat, freckly, frizzy and usually sporting a giant patch over my eye, I was never Miss Popular, and reading was a glorious escape. Joan Aiken (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, Nightbirds on Nantucket , Dido and Pa), Roald Dahl, Noel Streatfeild (I was OBSESSED with Ballet Shoes and read every single one of Streatfeild’s books, including her wonderful autobiographies), E. Nesbit, The Nancy Drew series, the list goes on and on. I even went through a stage of gulping down every book in the series Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrew (also known as the Dollanganger series). Have you read those? Remember how the poor little boy was poisoned by arsenic coated doughnuts?

My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell; It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, James Herriot; The Secret Garden and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnet; What Katy Did, What Katy Did Next, Clover and In the High Valley (I always committed fully to any series). Oh and not forgetting the wonderful books by Rumer Godden, my favourites were Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and its sequel Little Plum. 

I would read these books with a voracious appetite, staying up late into the night and emerging like a mole blinking in the light the next morning, my head filled with resourceful Victorian girls on amazing adventures.  I am so pleased to see great writing for children continues with writers such as J.K Rowling, David Walliams, Philip Pullman and the like.

And then the early 80’s happened and I discovered a whole new world of books. The key authors, as far as I was concerned, were Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, and Judith Krantz. God I loved those women writers.

I should add that I was also reading Grahame Greene, The Brontës, Virgina Woolf, Joseph Conrad, Shakespeare – all the worthies that I went on to study at university. But none of them allowed me to escape my miserable, early teenage life in quite the same was as those 80’s women writers.

Jilly Cooper



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I love everything Jilly Cooper has written with a particular fondness for the ‘Rutshire Chronicles’ which begin with the utterly wonderful Riders followed by an equally good Rivals. I think the person I am today was shaped quite a lot by these novels pictured.

In the late 70’s and early 80’s Cooper published a series of short novels, all titled with the heroine’s name. For me, these covers pictured above are the true covers; the ones with Cooper posing as the heroines. I love how she’s all glammed up with witchy eyeliner to play the party bitch Octavia ‘The moment I set eyes on Jeremy West I knew I had to have him.’ (What a great first line.) Whereas for innocent Imogen she’s all pale and serious with long soft curls.

I have read and re-read these books countless times. Octavia was passed around my year group at school so many times it fell apart at the seams. I have been thinking really hard about why I love these books so much. Firstly, Jilly Cooper is very funny. I challenge anyone to read her novels and not laugh at the extraordinary things her characters say.

They were also very rude, and as a teenager, desperate to find out everything I could about sex these books had lots of lovely details. (Cooper was my antidote to Jean-Paul Sartre whom I’d read having been told he talked about sex. It put me right off)

These short novels were pretty formulaic, girl falls in love with boy, boy not right for her, other boy turns out to be the one, they live happily ever after. But oh! they are so charmingly written, very much of their time, and the characters are drawn with such skill I think of them as real people. Even now.

I also love Jilly Cooper because of how she responded to my gushing fan letter. In the early 1990’s her husband, Leo, had an affair and it was spread across the tabloids. At that time I was dealing with the horrors of my first marriage to a man who had great difficulty keeping what should be in his pants, in his pants. I will write a post about this one day, I already have the title: ‘A Tale of Two Shits: My first Husband and my Best Friend’. There are few things worse than constantly finding evidence of your husband’s infidelity and I couldn’t imagine how awful it must be for Cooper to be dealing with that AND having it smeared so publicly across the red tops.

So I wrote to her. In a very similar vein to Sarah Ledger (A brilliant blogger I have just discovered) I sent a letter to Jilly Cooper. It was pretty gushing, but I wrote to say how much I loved her books, how happy they made me and how I coped better with my own husband’s infidelity because I could escape into her wonderfully funny novels. I ended by saying how awful I thought the tabloids were being, and if it was any comfort to her at all, her novels made lots of people very happy. This is what she replied.

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How lovely! I really must frame this one day.

I also went along with my lovely friend Jenny to see India Knight interviewing Jilly Cooper in London. She was funny, sweet and unfailingly cheerful. Although she was probed about sadder things, I respected her for keeping her private life private and sticking to her positive guns.

I know it’s all very trendy to be cynical and negative but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of positivity. Jilly Cooper is all that and more. Nothing cheers me up like a Cooper novel – particularly the early ones and the Rutshire ones . (Avoid the music ones – they’re OK, but they’re not her best)

Shirley Conran



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‘Which one of you bitches is my mother?’

!!!

Anyone around my age cannot fail to remember this fantastic line from the remarkable novel Lace. Lili, a beautiful and successful French Actress with a secret past, calls together Pagan, Maxine, Judy and Kate – friends since school. One of them is her mother, but which one?

What an amazing book. It was unlike anything I have read before. It had a real impact on me and I can still remember great chunks of it today. It is from this novel I learned to use man’s deodorant as you get older as it is stronger and lasts for longer. Maxine, the great French heroine has all sorts of advice on how to dress and I found out about how champagne is made.

Of course anyone who has read this cannot fail to remember the extraordinary sex scene where the Arab prince, Prince Abdullah of Sydon, uses GOLDFISH to sexually satisfy his willing partner.

I can’t believe I didn’t think more of it at the time. I was so naive and young I just thought, oh how exotic and sexy.

Shirley Conran was GREAT for sexy books, I would say quite a good proportion of women the same age as me learned a lot from books such as Lace, Savages and Crimson.

Again, like Cooper, Conran created real, believable and likeable characters. Her women were strong, independent and, most importantly, had lasting friendships with their female friends.

Judith Krantz



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I don’t think you get writers like Krantz any more. She was very much of her time and reflected the excess, drama and passion of America in the 1980’s. She wrote great big blockbusters that were thicker than the bible, perfect for good long gorges of escapism.

Princess Daisy was an absolute corker and one of my favourites. The plot is, frankly, ridiculous  – have a look at the Wikipedia summary – but it is stuffed full of beautiful, passionate, and very rich people wearing beautiful clothes and living in lovely houses. It basically ruined me for life. Nothing in the world is as good as the world you find in Judith Krantz novels. Sure there’s rape, suicide, murder and disabled children being abandoned by cruel parents. But there is always a happy ending, and everyone is always very pretty. And feisty.

Maxi Amberville is the feistiest of them all and is fizzing with ideas and energy and is never battered down by life. She also wears great clothes. You can find her in I’ll Take Manhattan. Other books include Scruples, which is very sexy, Mistral’s Daughter, and Dazzle. Now at the time they came out I couldn’t read them quick enough. I adored them and read them over and over again. Strangely, I now can’t bear them! I don’t know why. I think they simply haven’t stood the test of time; I just find the heroines annoying. Such a shame!

Jackie Collins



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Hollywood Wives. What a great book. Shed loads of sex, lots of glamour, bitchy women and feckless men. Of course the best thing about it was trying to work out which famous Hollywood actors Jackie Collins had based her characters upon. Sometimes it was pretty clear! I’m surprised she wasn’t sued to Kingdom come, but perhaps she was? It was pretty near the knuckle stuff. The follow up, Hollywood Husbands, was a great read too.

OK so it wasn’t particularly well written, but at the time it blew the top off the publishing industry. Strong, driven, glamorous women – epitomised by the elegant Miss Collins herself, it was unlike anything seen before. I was very fond of the novels Collins wrote featuring Lucky Santangelo and her sexy father Gino. They first appear in Chances which was followed by Lucky and Lady Boss. There are others, but I stopped reading them after Lady Boss. My tastes matured a bit and they started to feel a little samey.

Now, 30 years later (how did that happen!?) I will still buy and read anything Jilly Cooper publishes. She has moved and adapted her style and although she is unashamedly politically incorrect, there is something joyful about her writing which makes reading her books a huge pleasure.

One thing about Jilly Cooper is that I worry she has warped my attitude towards men. All her best heroes – Rupert Campbell-Black of course – are posh, rude, cruel at times, funny and great dog lovers. They treat their women appallingly and I have to consciously remind myself this is unhealthy and actually being married to someone like Rupert would be hell on earth.

But nobody tells a love story like Jilly Cooper, even though her women can be awfully submissive and drippy at times.

Nowadays I read wonderful authors such as Kate Atkinson, Sophie Hannah, Joanne Harris, Nicci French, Lisa Jewell, Liane Moriarty and really anything people I meet recommend.

But those authors of the 80’s will always hold a special place in my heart. They spoke to my romantic little soul when I was young and very inexperienced (and very unattractive) and they allowed me to dream and escape the sometimes very difficult times of my life.

So what about you? What books help you escape from it all? What did you love as a child?

Also I wonder if anyone can help. When I was about 9 I read a series of books about a wombat and they were so sweet and lovely. I would like to read them with my daughter but no matter how much I google, I can’t find them. I’m pretty sure they were by an Australian author. If you know, please tell me in the comments!

10 Ways to Cope With a Depressed Partner

If you want to skip my ramblings and jump straight to the list, click

Depression is a bastard. And so is Anxiety. I hate the very bones of the blood-sucking monster with all its Dementor powers.

JK Rowling famously suffered with depression and if anyone who knows anything about depression doubts this they only need to read this quote.

“Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can’t see them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself — soul-less and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.”

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This is the best description of Depression I have ever read. One of my favourite poets, Gerad Manley Hopkins wrote ‘I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark not Day’ describing the power of depression to seep into every cell of your being, leaving everything – present, past and future – tainted by its black, oily, sickness. ‘I am gall, I am heartburn’ cries the narrator; his blood ‘brims the curse’ of the darkness that ‘fells’ him.

Powerful stuff, and the agony of Depression has fuelled many a creative artist who struggles with doubt and despair. I have come across depression not only through being married to someone who suffers from it, but I have worked with a lot of young people who have had it too. My best description of knowing whether someone is depressed or just down is that if it feels like you are talking to someone at the bottom of a very deep hole, then they are probably depressed not just having a bad day.

Rob’s Depression first impacted our lives after we lost our son, James. But looking back to the early days of our relationship the tendency to darkness was always within him. But losing James allowed the crack to yawn wide open so the darkness flooded out and into our lives

I find it very difficult to deal with. My natural inclination is to optimism, cheerfulness, looking on the bright side. Losing James reinforced that part of my personality because my response was ‘the next baby will be fine’, ‘we’ll get through this’, and ‘it’ll be OK’, then ‘if we got through that, and survived, we can get through anything.’

It has also meant that the health of my loved ones became more important than anything – there’s not much more horrifying than losing a child and, for me, it’s a blessing. Losing a job? Losing a house? Co-worker being a pain? Nothing to holding a dead baby in your arms, or sitting by your father’s death bed.

One positive thing to come from James’ death is it has forced me to try and think every day – God, I’m so lucky my children are healthy, my parents are living, the people I love are well and happy. Lots of times I don’t or can’t do this, but I do try and it makes me feel better when things are shit. (I am aware I am writing this during a pandemic)

It breaks my heart that losing James brought the monster of depression into Rob’s world. He had the sense of a perspective that nothing else mattered but some days it led to hatred. The people at his work were uncaring, they lacked understanding. The whole attitude towards fathers sucked, as I have written elsewhere.

So, for nigh on 15 years Rob and I have fought the war against Depression. I’ve got to admit I have been crap. I have said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing, got caught up in my own self-pitying feelings and yelled ‘but what about me!?’ dramatically on more than one, shameful, occasion.

So these tips I am passing on are from experience, but you should take them as more of a ‘learn from me because this is what I should have done,’ it’s not necessarily what I did.

I hate Depression. My Rob is a handsome, tall, kind, clever, generous, honourable and thoughtful man. I fell in love with him because he came and rodded my drains two days after our first date and was the only person I knew who had read Ulysses all the way through. He went to a crap school with no support and got into university through being bright and determined

When he got there he met loads of people with brilliant educations who had read all sorts of things he had never heard of. So he got a list of the top 20 books everyone should read and read them all. From Dostoevsky to James Joyce he worked his was through those huge novels, despite being dyslexic, in an effort to improve himself.

He went to university despite his family not supporting him (except his Dad), his grandfather told his mother she should stop him from going because university was full of ‘drug dealers and prostitutes.’

Not only is he now an academic with a PhD, as well as an MSc in Maths (which he did for fun (!) with the Open University – took years) with many publications in learned journals, he has also made a kitchen, built patios, brick walls and fences. He has fixed windows, cleared gardens and designed extensions, and taken down walls. All skills he learned from his builder Dad who, sadly died a few years ago.

And BLOODY Depression makes him feel he is worthless! GOD it make me angry. I HATE the days when I see him, hood up, staring into space his shoulders hunched.

His speech becomes laden with negatives. Everything is wrong, everything is hopeless. He is useless. We’d be better off without him. He yells, he swears, he kicks things. Darkness comes into the house.

But this is the same guy who will run around the garden naked (as I discovered to my surprise when I was checking out my bird cam). Someone who will make the children hoot with laughter – which drives me mad as *I* am supposed to be the funny one – and dances to James Brown when he gets out of the shower.

But when Depression comes to fucking visit it’s like it takes my man away and replaces him with a stranger. Depression stops you being able to love. To be able to laugh. To be able to see any hope in the future.

And there’s no cure.

We have tried EVERYTHING. And this is why I wrote this list. Rob is good at the moment. The lockdown is a blessing for him as he can spend hours in the garden, where he is happiest. He is off the meds and the Down Days, as I call them, don’t last too long.

I hope you find this list of some use. I am not a Doctor, my only insight comes from personal, everyday experience. Do share in the comments what you have found helps.

MOST IMPORTANTLY nobody knows better than I do how shitty it is living with someone with depression. I get annoyed, frustrated, furious. Some days I can’t help it and I make him feel guilty, have a go at him, make him feel shit for not being able to feel better. (I hate myself writing this as I know it’s true and it makes me a shitty person) If you want to understand what Depression is read this book.

Rob said this was the one book that came closest to putting into words – or pictures – what Depression is like.

And that’s the thing. I KNOW it’s an illness. I KNOW he can’t help it. But that doesn’t stop me thinking ‘just get up and get on with it, for God’s sake,’ on occasion. And then I feel guilty. I wouldn’t say that to someone with cancer, would I? Or a broken leg? I’m a bad person.

But then I have to stop and remind myself, no I’m not a bad person. I’m just human, and this is a difficult situation. And sometimes Rob can just be an arse, and it’s OK to be cross with him.

So a BIG piece of advice to someone who is generally quite a happy person but whose partner is depressed is this – be kind to yourself. See friends. Drink wine. Go dancing. Look after yourself as well – as you will be more able to look after your partner when Depression next comes knocking.

10 Ways to Cope With a Depressed Partner



1. Leave them Alone

I cannot stress this enough. And it is something I struggle with. But remember this. YOU CAN’T MAKE IT GO AWAY. YOU CAN’T HELP.

Talking it though, reasoning with them. Pointing out the lack of logic in their thinking: WON’T HELP OR MAKE A DIFFERENCE

I have lost count of the times I have done this and it very rarely works. Sometimes it does, if they are just a bit blue and need some cheering up, or a robust stream of confidence building words.

But if they aren’t looking at you. Are unable to smile and either disappear into their hoodie, or march up and down in agitation then…

LEAVE THEM ALONE.

Not for long. Keep an eye on them. But sometimes they just need to process things through themselves. Saying things like ‘but that’s a stupid thing to say!’ or ‘why don’t you get up and do some exercise or go into the garden?’ just makes them think ‘I’m stupid’ and ‘I am so useless I can’t even do a bit of exercise.’

Sometimes letting them go and sleep can help, which brings me on to…

2. Let them Sleep

It’s taken me a long time to realise this, but sleep is a blessing. As Shakespeare says it ‘knits up the raveled sleeve of care’ and he’s absolutely on the money with this one. Persuading your partner to go and have a nap can stop the obsessive, negative, downward spiral of thinking that can trigger a major depressive episode.

I think it gives the brain a break, resets it, if you like, and that is a powerful weapon in the armory in your war against Depression. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does.

3. Medication

I know many people are against this, but in my experience sometimes you have to get them to look into medication. I think Rob’s Depression is triggered by events, bad weather, and anxiety. A responsive form of Depression is how I think of it.

I think events like loss, threats of redundancy – bad things happening in general – has an impact on his brain chemistry, and when something really bad has happened – losing James, losing his Dad – he has to use medication to keep his head above water. When really bad things happen all the exercise, therapy, vitamin pills and sunshine in the world isn’t going to help.

Depression is an illness, and sometimes you need medicine to treat it. Rob has tried every single medication there is.

Vortioxetine: Made him feel sick – all the time. For months and months every time he ate he’d feel sick. Otherwise they worked well. It’s what he’s been on up until now but the sickness never wore off so he stopped taking them. With the lockdown and spring he is coping well so far. Fingers crossed.

Venaflaxin: Great for REALLY bad days. This got him through losing his Dad to Aplastic Anaemia, a cruel and terrible disease. The good thing is it gives you a cloud to float on, but it turns you into a zombie. Coming off them is HORRENDOUS. I never want to go through Rob withdrawing from Venaflaxin ever again (and I’m sure he doesn’t either)

Sertraline: OK but made him sleepy all the time and affected his concentration.

Citalopram: helped with anxiety but not depression, another one that made him sleepy.

Prozac: Worked well but had a bad impact on life in the *ahem* bedroom.

Agomelatin: Fantastic as it made him sleep really well and gave him lots of energy (it is how he got the new kitchen built) but also sped up his negative thinking (leading to panic attacks every morning) and we had to buy it privately so it cost a bomb.

Overall, I think the worst was Venaflaxin as although it was exactly what he needed when things were really, really bad, it meant he didn’t feel like himself, and when he started to feel better he found its effect intolerable. The withdrawal was also appalling – the time when he was coming off them was the closest I came to leaving him!

A very good GP said to Rob (who really didn’t want to be on meds) to think of it as treating diabetes, or high blood pressure. ‘We need to sort your head out so you can go on being brilliant in your career so we get better WiFi’ he said. Ha!

Bear in mind that medication doesn’t need to be forever. Rob finds Vortioxetine to work well and he can take it during the dark, winter months and then in the summer when things are better he comes off them. They don’t seem to have withdrawal issues so it seems to be an effective approach.

My point is there are a huge range of anti-depressant meds out there, you just need to get your partner to find the right one. They take at least six weeks to take effect so you both need to be patient. We have learned that they all have side-effects, it’s just a case of finding what works with the least troubling side-effects.

Remember, sometimes they need the meds to be able to do all the other stuff. If they are really depressed they simply CAN’T go and exercise. They can’t pull themselves up out of the hole to even imagine doing anything productive like that – oh and telling them going on a walk will make them feel better will just make them feel even more useless, so don’t say it.

4. Therapy

The most annoying thing about when Rob sees his therapist is that he says EXACTLY the same thing I do to him but, for some reason, Rob listens to his therapist when he doesn’t listen to me.

So, send them off to a therapist as you may find they take on board advice better from someone outside the relationship.

Choose your therapist carefully, though. I know it sounds awful, but experienced and older therapist do tend to be more effective – that’s just a personal opinion but there is some evidence to back it up. I have been amazed at how many therapist we have come across are also medicating with anti-depressants.

The most brilliant thing a therapist can do is guide your partner in directing their thinking in a more positive way. They can give constructive help with scientifically proven methods. Also, they have probably trained for years so know what they are talking about, whereas you probably don’t.

Use the experts.

5. Eating and Drinking

Eating crap will not help their moods. Chuck them a vegetable as often as you can, or encourage them to shop for good food. Too much fat, sugar, salt etc will make them physically feel worse and that adds to a sense of a lack of well being – I know, I know, it’s obvious, but that’s because it’s also true.

Alcohol will make them feel better, temporarily. There have been many a night when Rob has cracked open a bottle of wine and I know he will feel worse in the morning. Sometimes I nag. Sometimes I don’t. I know it will make him feel better for a few hours that evening and that’s enough.

However, don’t be surprised when they are a nightmare the next day. If they are taking meds then the alcohol will rob them of their effectiveness. Also: Hangover.

6. Exercise and Fresh Air

This is only going to work if they are not at the worst point of their depression. It’s HOPELESS to force them up and out if they are very bad, in fact it will just make them feel worse.

However, if you feel they are not quite at the bottom force them out, preferably somewhere green. Walking through a wood, or across a field has been SCIENTIFICALLY PROVED to have a beneficial impact on well being.

It’s not that it will cure the Depression straight away, but I have found sometimes it can head it off at the pass. Watch out for the warning signs and try and get them out on a walk as quick as you can.

Ask them a few times, don’t listen to the first ‘no, I can’t be bothered.’ Keep nagging but not for too long. You’ll know when its hopeless, but if you see a weakening, ‘maybe later’ then take them up on it. Pass them their coat, boots and dog lead and get them out the front door.

If they are definite and say no more than, ooohhh, may four times? Then go back to tip number 1 – leave them alone.

7. Anger, Shouting, Nastiness, Aggression: It’s the Depression, It’s Not You.

People with depression can be HORRIBLE! Rude, nasty, unkind, mean. It is so easy to sit there and think why doesn’t he love me? Why is he picking on the kids?

What have I done? I think. Has he gone off with someone else?

No.

It’s that bastard Depression. Rob has told me time and time again that when he is bad he can’t feel anything other than despair. Of course he loves me and the kids, but Depression sucks all of that away.

When he is being mean and nasty and cutting I have to think to myself that’s the Depression talking. The Black Dog barking, it’s not Rob. This doesn’t always work and I get hurt and shouty and guilt inducing, but that is not the best way to respond. It just causes nasty arguments.

It’s like a scared dog snarling and snapping. In his head is a maelstrom of fear and darkness and lack of self-worth. Any reaction to the outside world is governed by that current mess in his head, it poisons everything.

Just walk away for a bit. Leave them alone.

If you can’t, or don’t want to, then don’t interject. Let them rant on, draw the poison out. Sometimes they just need to talk and in doing so can talk themselves round. The last time I interjected with what I thought was a positive and supportive comment I got: ‘You’re always interrupting me. You think my opinion is of so little value you won’t even let me finish a point.’

So do what I do, keep quiet, let them rant on and smugly think what a selfish twat they are being and you will get your revenge later. I know this doesn’t sound very moral, but needs must.

8. Don’t Guilt Trip Them

Oh God. This is hard. I find myself doing it all the time. Emotional blackmail will NOT make them feel better. It just makes things much worse.

‘Why can’t you help me?’ I whine. ‘It’s not fair I have to do everything.’ ‘I feel sad too’. All those awful things I say and the only effect is that it makes him feel like the worst little worm in the world.

It makes him feel shit when he can’t help me. That I can get on with things when he can’t, makes him feel useless. So saying things like ‘the kids need their Dad’ and ‘but you did it last time with no problems, why can’t you do it now?’ just reinforce his already deeply entrenched sense of self-loathing.

So when he then says scary things like ‘you’re better off without me’ why am I surprised? When he is depressed all the usual nagging that any partnership involves gets grotesquely transformed into ‘you’re useless, I can do without you, we’re much better without you bringing us down, what kind of example are you setting to our children? You’re worthless. There’s no point.’

I struggle with this whenever he is down. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I still do. I’m working on it, though.

9. It’s an Illness

Not the first or last time this will be said, but it’s worth repeating because it is true.

Depression means something is wrong with the brain or body. It is a trite thing to say, but if your partner had a broken leg or cancer, you wouldn’t get so frustrated with them. Well maybe not quite as much.

You can encourage them to get meds, see a therapist, go for a walk, but ultimately you can’t cure their illness. You can support them, but they are not your responsibility. (This does not apply if your child is depressed, I’m talking about adult partners)

YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR HAPPINESS

If they refuse to do anything to help themselves then you have to think carefully about whether you want to spend the rest of your life with someone with depression.

It’s not an easy thing to live with and I have only stayed with Rob because most of the time he is making fucking HEROIC efforts to fight off Depression. Trying all the meds, going to a therapist, coming to the gym. Sometimes he fails, it doesn’t work, but I know he’ll keep trying and I love him for it.

That makes it easier to cope with, but I can’t imagine the horror of living with someone who has it and does nothing to challenge it. It’s awful for them, but is can also destroy their relationship.

10. Treat Depression as Bad Weather – This Too Will Pass

I think it was a very wise man – Stephen Fry – who said this. I wish I could grab everyone by the collar and yell this in their face.

IT WILL PASS

It may take a while, and chances are it will come back, but depression episodes don’t last forever. One day they will walk along on a sunny day and realise they feel happy.

Sometimes you both have to hunker down and weather the storm. Really. Think of it as those weeks when it rains every day. You know it’s awful but you also know, without any doubt, that you will see the sun again.

Of course you will! That’s the trouble with depression, those who are depressed can’t see that, they are incapable of thinking that.

But you know. You know the sun will come out again. So hang on tight, do whatever you need to do to keep sane, and remind them, and yourself, that the clouds do go, eventually. And the sun is always there, somewhere.

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you found it useful.

My experiences with stillbirth and Rob’s depression helped a lot to fuel my writing. Writing helped me get out all my complex and muddled feelings about Depression. It also helped me understand it to a certain extent as I wrote two characters who suffer different forms.

One, a boy, recovers because two women save him from a monster who is blackmailing him. The other, Angie, used medication and a bit of magic to climb out of her hole.

I wanted the book to offer hope. It does and will pass. And that’s the one thing Depression robs you of. Hope.

So really this post is to those girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives who live with someone with Depression. You are the ones who hold the secret that there is hope, and the sun will come out again. Hold onto that and as they get better, use it as a rope to pull them out of the darkness.

Here is the book if you fancy it! (Shameless plug. Sorry)

Trying To Do The Right Thing

This has not been a good week in the Warrior household. I’ve had one of those weeks where things fall apart big time, not helped by the fact that I can’t escape.

Being back at work doesn’t help as teaching online makes my head spin, and not in a good way. Looking back on it, what makes everything extra annoying is I was actually trying to do the right thing, but every time it back fired.

On top of the whole Corona horror, Rob’s job has become a worry as his place has to make a load of redundancies and he is in that worrying stage of should I jump or should I wait until I am pushed? As the the voluntary redundancy offer is a good one, but he would be unlikely to find a job as good as the one he has at the moment.

This doesn’t help his anxiety and depressions AT ALL, and I am sympathetic, of course I am, but whatever I say is the wrong thing and he has got extremely beady eyed about all of the (many) Amazon packages I am having delivered. Every time one arrives he will quiz me on what is in the box, why I needed it, and how much it has cost.

I am reduced to smuggling boxes in up my jumper because it drives me INSANE having to justify my purchase of face cream when a) I had run out b) it’s my own money I worked hard for and I’ve paid all of my proportionate share of the joint bills and c) not buying face cream is not going to save us if he does lose his job.

It’s all part of his illness, of course, and I know it is his way of controlling things, but it has caused a number of arguments.

The most recent was one of my first Trying to do the Right Thing.

Daughter is 12 this week and I wanted to make her birthday as special as possible in lockdown. I decided to HOME MAKE her a lovely birthday cake. Conscious that Son gets upset if I make cakes because they have egg in and he is allergic, I decided to make him some lovely strawberry tarts.

One of the ingredients I needed was custard (Bird’s Custard was invited by Mr Bird for his wife who was allergic to egg as well). Off I went to my lap top to Ocado to edit an order we’d booked a while ago. ‘I’ll get a few packets,’ I thought to myself. ‘They’ll last for ages and we all love custard.’

I thought they seemed a bit expensive but put it down to people stock piling. The delivery arrived and cue a number of irate texts from Rob. (This is how we communicate when we argue, always via text) He was LIVID! Why? I asked. CUSTARD! He replied.

It’s for Son! I protested, an alternative to birthday cake. I’m doing the right thing!

FIFTEEN PACKETS? He roared from downstairs.

[image error]Turns out there’s three in every pack

Ahem. Ah yes. It would seem I hadn’t ordered five sachets, I’d ordered FIVE PACKS OF THREE.

Stupid Ocado and their tiny writing.

I have been getting increasingly worried about the children spending so much time in their rooms. Son has grown up a bit and is happy to throw his old parents a bone by popping in to chat with us every now and then. (I am still finding it difficult to get my head around how big and hairy he is, I still think of him as being around 8 and Daughter 6. Will I ever accept them as adults I wonder?) But Daughter rarely leaves her room.

I read somewhere you have to just force teenagers to take part in family activities and (hopefully) they end up enjoying them. I’ve had some success with this in the past when dragging them on walks, so I thought I’d do the Right Thing and make them pay Trivial Pursuit after dinner – all of us one big, happy family.

It did not go well. They moaned the whole way through and Daughter made it clear she couldn’t find our company less interesting. I found myself getting increasingly manic so I ended up playing a mad cross between Blanche DuBois and a Red Coat at Butlins saying ‘Isn’t this FUN!?’ a lot.

In a particularly enthusiastic moment I leaned forward and bounced my head off Rob’s shoulder managing to snap my glasses AGAIN but this time with no super glue to repair them. As I had done before, I wedged the lens back in and hoped for the best.

The next day, again doing the Right Thing, I insisted we all went for a healthy walk in the LOVELY SUNSHINE because they were going to TURN INTO MUSHROOMS if they spent any longer ROTTING AWAY IN THEIR ROOMS IN THE DARK!

So off we jolly well went and it was a gorgeous day. I made everyone take big breaths of the fresh air and Dog bounded around happily. Then it happened, as I was gazing up in the air yelling ‘Look, everybody! Look, darling! Is that a kestrel?’ I walked into a lamp post and the lens fell from my broken glasses’ frame and shattered into a million pieces on the floor.

[image error]Snap and crash

As I can’t wear my contact lenses to work as I’d left my monocle at school, I had to make an appointment with the Optician which was bizarre as we were both in masks – him a proper medical one – me a dust mask Rob had unearthed from the garage. He insisted I wear it as being ‘Fifty, fat and asthmatic’ I was at high risk. Thanks, Rob. I thought.

Daughter is clearing sailing into the choppy waters of tweenage hell. When I have asked her about whether she is looking forward to turning 12 her response was a monologue on how birthdays were a human construct, and she was only 12 because society had decided a year was 365 days and really she had done nothing by being 12, if anyone should be celebrated it should be me for giving birth. When I asked if that meant I got the presents and cake, it apparently did not.

Despite her cynicism and lack of excitement I had enough for the both of us, and decided to embark on making a cake. Regular readers may remember I am not a good cook – at all – and past experiences with cake making have not been positive ones.

Undaunted, though, I decided to take on the challenge and used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Victorian Sponge recipe. This was a bold move for me but I was doing the Right Thing, I reassured myself.

I had the usual series of incidents which included a spoon breaking…

[image error]

The incompetent breaking of a number of eggs which didn’t seem to crack – they either exploded, sending fragments of shell across the entire kitchen, or collapsed inwards so an odd membrane slicked over the yolk and white which looked awful.

Eventually, everything was mixed, transferred to pre-greased cake tins, and put in the oven for 20 minutes or so. When I got them out of the oven I was delighted. They looked great! A little burned, but hey ho – at least they’d risen beautifully. Then I read Hugh’s advice to do the following…

[image error][image error]

Hmm that sounded a bit odd, never heard anyone say drop the cake tins to stop it sinking before. And they looked quite good already…

No! I should do the Right Thing! I thought. I will do as Hugh says. So as instructed I lifted the tins and dropped them (I hope you’re not doing that on the work surface! Rob yelled at me. No I’m bloody not! I’m not stupid! I replied).

And the result?

Both of them SUNK! Immediately! I was fuming! I will never trust Hugh again.

[image error]Sob! My poor sunken cakes!

Thanks to Hugh ruining my cakes I had to make it again and I am pleased to say it came out beautifully. (This time I did NOT ‘drop them on the floor from a ruler-length height’)

[image error]Isn’t it beautiful?

I filled it with a combination of whipped cream and strawberries and it worked really well.

Whipping cream proved to be an absolute nightmare. I was sitting with a whisk and a bowl full of cream for about seven years this morning and nothing was happening.

In despair, I wondered whether I was using the wrong cream. ‘Hey Siri,’ I called to my phone, ‘can you whip double cream?’

Siri sent me to this link which reassured me that you could use double cream. Great, I thought. A video telling me how to do this properly, because whatever I’m doing now is not working.

Have a look. I love the instructions here. I was expecting a long, detailed explanation but got this woman saying ‘just whip it’.

It worked though. But in the time it took to thicken I could have got pregnant, given birth and raised another teenager.

And Daughter’s response? ‘It’s a bit sweet,’ she said before she returned to her room, family time over.

A few months ago Daughter’s favourite thing was the MacDonald’s breakfast and we never seemed to get there in time as we had work or school. So for her birthday I got the MacDonald’s recipe for sausage and egg McMuffin and ordered all the ingredients.

I left her to sleep in as long as she liked in the morning and when I saw the first stirrings of life I leaped into her room, flung open the curtains and declared we were ‘going out! For a MacDonald’s breakfast!’

We got into the car and drove round the garden up to the kitchen window where Rob was waiting and served the most glorious home made sausage and egg McMuffin. The whole car smelled like MacDonald’s – it was glorious!

Daughter wasn’t quite as impressed as I was, but did eat the Muffin (taking out the egg first as she doesn’t like eggs any more) and said it was nice. Result! My brother thought it was a genius idea and I’ve sent him the MacDonald’s recipe. My only regret is I didn’t remind Rob we had hash browns in the freezer.

I just texted Daughter to ask was she ready to go out to dinner at Pizza Express (our usual birthday venue) and her response? ‘I don’t mind as long as we are not going in the car to to “drive there”‘ (!!) Cheeky mare.

The absolutely BRILLIANT news is my book is still – to my complete astonishment – selling. Only a copy every few days, but I’ve had some lovely reviews and the fact that people are exchanging money for the contents of my head is bloody marvellous.

You can buy it here if you fancy it!

Stay healthy and strong.

Warrior in Lockdown

Hello from the Warrior household, where things are going, if not going well. Of course, it goes without saying I hope you are all well and safe and not too badly affected by the horrors of this pandemic.

Writing has had to be put away for a bit as I return to work – albeit online – and my head is already all over the place planning how I am going to do all of this on the computer.

The past few weeks have been strange to say the least. I don’t know what I expected being locked in a house with my family 24/7 would be like, but I’m sure it wasn’t this.

Rob is spending his time chopping trees down in the garden. I don’t know why, it must be a man thing. I find myself keeping a sense of sanity by tidying things and cleaning them. This has helped my middle-aged rage in the past and it turns out it helps during a pandemic as well – though with fewer loo rolls.

As I mentioned in my last post Rob has been obsessing over a flower bed filled with coppice and over the last week has recreated the aftermath of the 1987 hurricane

[image error]It looked like this for rather longer than I would have liked

After getting through two chain saw blades and breaking his third axe, we now have a lovely clear space ready to turn into lawn.

[image error]

What I am REALLY pleased about is that after seven days of nagging and promising of favours, Rob finally agreed to make me a Game of Thrones throne. It is carved out of a ball of tree stumps. I have added a little drawing of me sitting on it so you can see how it works.

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When it’s finished I shall sit on it with a crown on my head and maybe a cape, so you can see what a good Khaleesi I make.

I am coping with the children pretty well, mostly because they seem to be on a different time zone to me. Son gets up at a fairly reasonable hour, but Daughter is having a little doze from 9pm, wakes up and wanders around the house like a little ghost until about 2am and then sleeps in until 1.

I’m not sure what to do about it. I know it’s really not healthy and I should be shoving her out into the sunshine, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Her virtual lessons start in a few days and then she will be tied to her computer for God knows how long, so I am tempted to let her sleep as long as she still can.

My brother phoned me to say he went to check on his son who was supposed to be doing school work. He found him lying on his back on the trampoline in the sun playing with three juggling balls like a cat. Sounds like he’s got the right idea.

Son entertains himself by working out, playing with Dog, and eating us out of house and home. It astonishes me how much food a 14 year old boy can put away and not add a single pound. I have forgotten what his mouth looks like without food in it.

He has been helpful, doing a few chores, but only after threats of physical and mental abuse (what he calls having his phone taken away) have been issued. I like his style, though. Due to endless hours of boredom he unearthed his hover board (bought at HUGE expense Christmas before last and barely used).

He’s got pretty good on it and the absolute best thing is that he positiviely relishes taking the bins out.

[image error]Son, Bin bags, and hoverboard

I continue to be obsessed with my bird table. Rob keeps moaning about it because he says it attracts squirrels. I took down the nut feeder bit and stuck to seeds and suet in the hope it would attract birds rather than the sodding furry evil long tailed bastards who keep chewing through wires, walls and roof tiles in order to make our lives a misery with no money or wifi.

It seemed to work, and I set up an old wifi camera I had so I could watch them without them seeing me. As I write this I realise I am sounding quite mad.

The camera is operated from my phone and during the day I can check in and watch my little feathered friends without scaring them. Here is a screen shot of what I see.

[image error]Lovely, isn’t it?

There is also the added benefit that at night, from my bed, I can turn the camera around to see what Dog is up to. Last night I did this and Dog must have been alerted by the sound of the camera whirring around like an electronic owl.

As I watched, Dog’s head lifted and I could see her eyes blinking at the camera. She didn’t move an inch and I thought the webcam had frozen. But as I kept watching, she started sliding across the floor in a commando move, ending up just under the camera where she fell asleep, smug in the knowledge I could no longer spy on her. Goddammit!

Today I enjoyed the birds on my phone as I toiled away at work, watching blue tits and sparrows and the occasional woodpecker. ‘Look!’ I said to Rob, ‘No squirrels!’

Unfortunately, at this point, as Rob turned to look at my phone I realised too late that the most enormous rat had climbed up the pole and was hanging UPSIDE down from the top bar sucking seeds out of the seed dispenser!

Argh!

I raced to the window where Dog was sitting on the lawn on the other side of the bird feeder to me.

‘Dog! Dog! Kill!’ I shouted.

Dog gazed back at me, her fur ruffling in the wind. She looked at me, looked at the rat, and then allowed her aloof gaze to travel on so she was looking across the garden, like a popular person ignoring me at the party.

Rob isn’t happy. I want to keep my bird feeder but I’m not sure how long that will be allowed.

Stupid rat.

Stupid Dog.

I am very pleased to say I have sold some copies of my book. Admittedly most of them to friends and family but I hope some real life people will check it out soon. You can have a look here if you haven’t already done so!

Only a couple of quid!

If you do buy a copy and you like the book please do give it a review on Amazon! This link take you to the UK version but I think it should be fairly easy to find the one for your region.

The first week it went live I checked about oooh every three minutes to see if anyone had bought it.

At first there were quite a few sold and I got over-excited. I started planning what I would do with all the millions of pounds I would get from my best seller.

I then didn’t sell a single copy for five days, so that showed me.

The good thing has been a few of my friends have texted me to say they loved it, and hearing them talk about scenes or characters they liked is mind-blowing. It’s surreal to me that the things I made up in my head are now living and breathing in someone else’s.

I wrote a comedy thriller under an assumed name and entered it into the Comedy Women in Print prize and was devastated to realise I hadn’t been long listed. Funny how something like that sends you into a tail spin of ‘who the hell do I think I am thinking I am good enough to enter a competition like that’, or ‘everyone else is a much better and more successful person/writer than you will ever be.’

That sort of thinking is such a challenge to being able to be creative. Should I just give up on the idea and stick to the day job? Then I think, well I love writing, does it really matter if nobody buys it? Not really.

By the way, I did a great big thing on Facebook – My book is live! My book is live! I announced to all my lovely family and friends. Do share! I said. And guess what? Lots of my friends did, my lovely aunt and cousin. But what about my mother? Nothing! Brother? Nothing!

To be fair to them both they didn’t know how to do it, so I sent them a step by step slide show with a voice over of instructions and they finally worked it out. Then my brother complained that the share of my post got more liked than anything he had posted himself. Ha!

The most annoying reaction was from my friend next door. Lovely Swedish lady next door read my witch book and was very supportive. Her partner, let’s call him the Hobbit, not so impressed and fond of taking the mick put this on his Facebook

[image error]

Cue MUCH hilarity from all his mates – including my bloody brother! – and, judging by the comments (most of them along the lines of ‘is this a training manual for the wife’ hurdy ha ha) they are NOT my target audience.

I did add a link to my book in the comments though, so you never know.

Now I have come out of anonymity, I have set up a new Instagram page which you can follow if you like!

I think if you click that little pink icon it will take you to it.

Stay well, all of you and I hope this picture of Dog publicising my book cheers you all up!

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My Book!

My Book!

I am so excited to write this post. Excited and a little bit sick, to be honest because this is it. This is me coming out of anonymity after two years of blogging.

I am starting to realise that I can’t publicise this and stay undercover so now my family and friends will be able to read all my posts about all sorts of embarrassing things.

Also, of course, everyone could hate my book and pour scorn and mockery upon my head. Argh! But, this is something I’ve wanted to do all my life and if not now, when etc.

It’s not great timing that I’ve got this coming out just as we are dealing with a horrifying, world-wide pandemic and I am conscious of the millions of people who are going through extraordinary suffering, not to mention those heroes who get up and go to work every day in hospitals, supermarkets, lorries and so on to keep us all going.

But then, I’ve found reading and re-reading old favourites has been really comforting so maybe this will help someone stuck indoors with irritating partners and/or annoying children who could do with something to take their mind off things.

It is a pretty escapist novel, it’s got mystery and magic and an awful old woman who is horrible to people and makes me laugh – she’s basically my Nan. I wanted the book to represent all the strong, funny, bawdy and clever women I have known who never let the world defeat them, even though they may wobble sometimes.

I was going to use the tag line; ‘Because you’re never too old, or too fat to save the world’ but Rob wouldn’t let me. What do you think?

This blog and the wonderful people – you, dear reader – who have commented, made me laugh and offered fantastic advice, led me to this day and I am hugely grateful to all of you who had a look at some early chapters and gave encouragement.

It would be AMAZING if you could buy a copy, it’s only a couple of quid, and thanks to the marvellous Amazon you can get it all over the world. It is also in paperback but that’s more expensive.

It would ALSO be amazing if you could give it a review – but as they say, if you like it, write a glowing review, if you don’t, contact me and I will send you a refund! Or buy you a drink, depends how close we are.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have followed my blog. I’m sorry I’ve been so crap about updates but I found I couldn’t do both, my brain just sort of split into fragments when I tried.

I’m working on a thriller now currently called ‘Green Eyes’ but that will probably change.

Lots of love to you all and let’s hope this horror passes soon.

Not About My Book But Random Ramblings

So what’s going on in the MAW household?

Well, to begin with, OCADO!

Jesus Christ, never has shopping been so stressful. As I mentioned in my last post we were doing pretty well with food, thanks to my ‘Walking Dead’ obsession shopping, but over the past few weeks supplies (of comfort food, mainly) were running dangerously low.

One tip, I got some delicious – I mean really delicious – bread from this online bakery. I didn’t know you could get bread delivered, but if you fancy some lovely, freshly baked loaves and rolls etc have a look here. Their fig and walnut bread is highly recommended (by me, who ate half of the loaf last night with butter).

For the past week I’ve been trying to get a delivery slot with Ocado. A combination of Rob’s paranoia, my asthma, hypochondria, and living in the middle of fricking nowhere, means we are quite reliant on home delivering our groceries.

The search for a slot was fruitless for days. My neighbour and I exchanged anxious texts, she was IN! No, she got bounced off. I kept getting bounced off until I was IN! Could book a delivery but couldn’t add any shopping to my basket. Neighbour could add to basket but couldn’t check out.

Then she was IN and BOOKED! I was sick with jealousy. She sent me a string of dancing emojis, saying she’d never been so excited about food shopping.

Three days later I was in, with a slot booked and I started adding stuff to the basket. I was very sensible and went for the meat, fruit, veg etc that we usually bought – my finger hovered over the ‘check out’ button. Here I was, moments away… my heart rate ticked up a notch then…

BLAM!

Bounced out.

This image has been burned on my retinas for the past week – I see it in my dreams.

[image error]Bounced

Nooooo! I cried in agony. I must have sounded pretty wretched because both Son AND Daughter looked up from their devices in mild consternation, before looking back down again. Dog, bless her, trotted over but she had – yet again – rolled in something disgusting so was sent back to her bean bag.

I found if I logged in again I had a few precious seconds before I got bounced so I started on a mission to get the trolley checked out. This took hours and hours and while I was doing this I kept seeing extra items and thought ooh! Yes! Better get that. Better get wine.

When I finally (last night at 1am) managed to check out and I received the email confirmation I realised that in my panicked state I’d managed to buy an awful lot of mint clubs, two different bottles of extra virgin olive oil (the one thing we didn’t need) and five different sets of multipack crisps.

It was all a bit of a blur, I don’t remember quite how it happened. The shopping is going to be much more expensive than normal and is basically full of high calorie carbs and chocolate.

Rob’s current project is clearing a huge flowerbed which is stuffed full of ugly coppice. He chops it down easy enough but is then left with a million branches and trunks so it looks like the aftermath of the 1987 hurricane out there.

That’s when the children are supposed to come in. I don’t know if any of you have, or have had, children around the age of 12 and 14, but they really don’t seem very keen on helping with the moving and chipping of said hurricane aftermath.

Emotional blackmail didn’t work, so I had to go through hours of tense negotiation. It took so long I might as well have gone out and done it myself. Eventually, I got Daughter to spend just over seven minutes in the garden and Son managed an entire hour.

They have been tricky to say the least. I find myself veering between impatience and frustration as they sleep in all day and live on their devices, and sympathy for them. Son is devastated his Yr 9 at school has been cut short and he is missing out on all that social stuff you do at that age. Daughter misses her friends and worries about her exams.

Daughter is going through that beady stage where she is critical of every bit of me. I remember going through it myself with my lovely mum but that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. ‘You’ve got a hole in those leggings,’ she’ll say. Or, ‘shouldn’t you brush your hair before you give that lesson, they can see you, you know.’ (I had, in fact, already brushed my hair.)

The way I pronounce ‘butter’, my ‘ridiculous’ insistence that towels don’t have to be washed after a single use, my borrowing back MY shoes that she’s pinched – all come under her critical scrutiny and I am found sadly lacking.

But then she will do something lovely. Last night she presented me with one of those paper ‘fortune teller’ things. Remember them? I didn’t know what they were called until I found this on Wikipedia.

I chose the colours and numbers as expected and when Daughter lifted the flap it said ‘Your Book Will Get You Millions’, and she then unfolded it all up and every flap said the same. Cue ugly crying and hugging from me, which she tolerated for about five seconds before pushing me off.

[image error][image error]My Daughter is lovely, really

I found the one thing I do that really, really annoys them. It fills them with mortification and horror. I don’t know whether you’ve seen it but it’s all over Tik Tok (An app to which I have become completely addicted, it is curiously uplifting – all those young people dancing at school and then getting expelled – joyous)

Anyway, there’s a guy on there with a thick southern accent who sings ‘Somebody come get her, she’s dancing like a stripper.’ Here is a woman who, like me, has got this song trapped in her head.

@vixmeldrew

Trying to get work done from home and this happens…

♬ original sound –

So what I do when the kids are annoying me is jump into their rooms and sing this, whilst dancing enthusiastically with lots of hip thrusting.

Talking of Tik Tok – here are some of my favourite videos.

This is my NUMBER ONE Favourite Tik Tok Video – it makes me laugh every time I watch it.

This could be my Mum

Look at these wonderful dancing hospital people!

@shuj___

#coronavirus #nhs #itu #uk #nurse

♬ WOAH – Krypto9095

Joyful and makes you cry at the same time

And finally this guy. This guy makes me feel funny in my tummy (you’re welcome *fans self*)

Phew! Don’t know what it is, but he sure has something – what do you think?

I hope you enjoyed them.

Please buy my book!

Please review my book!

Thank you for all your support over the years and let me know what you think of… THE WOMAN AND THE WITCH! – OUT NOW!

XXX

PS FINAL thought – I heard a few months ago a great quote and I am going to make it my motto – ‘Pain is what turns a woman into a WARRIOR!’