Lucy Robinson's Blog, page 8

News: Lucy Robinson goes clothes-free for 2014

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Wot I loved today: someone fixing my bottom.

I wrote a couple of days ago about the love I feel for my bottom. Two ripe little peaches of incredibly pleasing proportions that I have never once subjected to crazy mirror abuse or cruel words.

Since writing, my bottom has staged something of a rebellion. My coccyx bone curled in on itself like a little calcified poo a few days ago And I stopped being able to sit down without lots of pain.

And so I called the totally magic body person, aka my osteopath. It is a source of absolute amazement to me that the whole world doesn’t see an osteopath. They solve almost everything, really quickly – without waiting lists and needless scans – and all for the cost of a night out. I don’t understand what’s not to love…?

Anyway – I love them. So very much! And today my osteopath fixed everything, made me laugh and sent me away with a glorious bottom once again – all in half an hour. Larkin once wrote that if he were to start a religion, he would make use of water. I would make use of osteopaths.

The photo is of me dressed up for a TOWIE -style hen night. I don’t know why I’ve used it really. Other than that I am still not showing you my bottom.

Wot I loved today: Rhubarb crumble

When I tell people that I couldn’t eat sugar for FOUR YEARS they sort of say ‘oh, that’s a bit shit,’ but on the whole they tend not to grasp how life-dampeningly sad it was. Seriously – imagine it now – you go to your friend’s house and she offers you a slice of home made Victoria sponge. Oh, no thanks.

It’s Christmas and everyone is giving you mulled wine and mince pies and yule logs and Christmas cakes and spiced ginger cake and . . no, I can’t. Sorry.

You go to Penguin, to celebrate the fact that they’ve just signed you up as an author – Penguin, the greatest publishers on earth – and when they take you into a room they’ve kitted out with champagne and cup cakes to celebrate, you have to ask for a cup of fucking water and you nibble on the apple you brought with you to help dull the agony of not being able to eat whatever yummy snacks they’ve laid on.

‘I’ve got this blood sugar thing,’ you mutter pathetically. Just like you do when your Argentinian friend in Buenos Aires has baked you his first ever birthday cake, or The Man’s mum, who you’re meeting for the first time, proudly presents a beautiful dessert she’s slaved over for the last few hours.

No! No no no! Never again! I am not eating cake every day, cos that would be mad and I’d be running to the bog with a Code Brown at least three times per day, but to be able to say ‘yes please!’ from time to time is the best thing ever.

And the joy I felt when The Man served up a rhubarb and ginger crumble yesterday, with creamy vanilla custard, all steaming and sweet and crunchy and BEAUTIFUL, was so intense that I had to fight very hard not to do a cry in front of my brother and sister in law.

Yum. Life is good. Tell me about your favourite puddings! I’ve only been able to eat sugar for a couple of months so I still have so many more to try. YESSSSSS!

Wot I loved today: my bottom

The Man and I were watching Pearl Harbour last night. It was shit, as we had fully expected. I got bored, so I stuck my hand down the back of my jeans and cupped a buttock.

The Man, liking this, stuck his hand down my jeans and cupped the other one.

‘Your bottom is wonderful,’ he said dreamily.

‘It bloody well is,’ I agreed.

I’ve given most parts of my body a fairly hard time over the years (no longer, though!) but on one thing I have remained consistent: my bum is great.

So there you have it: my peachy bottom made me happy yesterday. Anyone else like theirs?

(I shan’t be posting a topical picture with this one.)

More about all this positivity.

Alright kids.

How are you? Good? Bad? In between? However you are, I send you the very warmest of salutations.

It’s quite odd being back out there in the world after so many months of semi-entrapment in my house, but it’s been REAL NICE to say hi to you all again. I’ve been proper enjoying the tweets and messages, like, I really have! They make me go, ‘YESSSS!’ And ‘AWWWWW!’ ‘WOWZERS I AM SO LUCKY’ and so on.

I would never have dreamt of contacting a writer or blogger before I became one myself, but only now do I understand how utterly delightful it is to get a message from someone in Croatia saying that they bloody love your book. Or a teenager so addicted to your book that she’s getting mega-bollockings from her Mum every two hours cos she’s not putting out the light and going to sleep. (Her Mum would probably have a coronary if she realised how much swearing goes on in my books, but that’s another matter.)

So here I am, back out in the world. Even the online world, which I avoided like the plague when I was ill. I don’t entirely blame myself for that. The internet is so NOISY! I don’t enjoy being on it too often. It stops me being in the world, in my life, in my relationship, in my work, in my body. And other things that hippyish people who use the words ‘organic’ and ‘creative’ say.

That’s not to say I don’t think the internet’s a wonderful thing. Without it I would not be a writer, for starters. But it’s . . . Whoa. It’s noisy out there. And big. And addictive. And there are always ten billion people out there doing WAY BETTER THAN YOU. AND MAKING SURE YOU KNOW ABOUT IT.

Fortunately, I have the internet right-sized these days. (Most of the time.) I don’t look at them and think, wow, why aren’t I doing as well as you? Why aren’t I as skinny as you? Why aren’t I as funny as you? I just think, oh, ok. You’re doing your thing, I’m doing mine.

I’m also really enjoying using the old tinterweb to send out little daily blasts of positivity. My ‘Wot I loved today’ blogs are a lovely way of forcing myself to stay in positivity – to keep on looking for all the fantastic things I have, the brilliant people I know, the little details of the privileged life I lead here in Ingerland.

I think it’s very easy these days to focus on what we haven’t got. To get all caught up with how shit everything is, how unfair life is, what a wanker the guy next door is, how stupid this blog is, blah blah blah. Negativity, I’ve realised, is the enemy of all things. Worrying about things that haven’t happened. Worrying about things that HAVE happened. Worrying about a million things that I can’t change. Needing to be better than everyone. To know better than everyone. Needing to rake over every shit thing that’s happened to me. To rake over every shit thing that’s going to happen to me. In thirty years time or something.

Why? Does it actually serve me to worry about that stuff? Does it shit. That’s not life. That’s penury.

As I’ve mentioned before, I did a staggeringly wonderful thing called the Lightning Process to help me recover from Chronic Fatigue/ME recently. It did exactly what it said on the tin – in a mere three days I found myself back in a fully-functioning body- but, even better than that, it taught me that I will ALWAYS have a choice as to whether or not I get into bed with negativity. It helped me commit unswervingly to leading a life I love.

The life I love is not dependent on having loads of money or status or selling billions of books. Nor is is about having expensive clothes and make up and knowing Important People. The Life I love does not rely on me being in a relationship with an amazing man; it doesn’t even rely on me being in perfect health (although I’m extremely grateful to be well again!) No. The life I love is just a question of me being cheerful, relaxed and open to all things, whatever my circumstances.

The ability to live like this is even more wonderful than recovery from chronic fatigue, and that’s not something I say lightly. The chronic fatigue was fucking awful! AWFUL! But I mean it. Recovery from that feels almost secondary to the amazing power of choice I have these days.

Every day I notice something about my life that is nice. Be it sunshine on a leaf or The Man doing a naked disco or just an EPIC PLATTER OF CHEESE like the one above which I shared with a friend yesterday.

So I shall keep on recording these little moments, because even on really shit days there is so much to smile about.

You can guarantee that as I write each blog, I’ll be doing a smile. I hope you might sometimes do the same as you read . . .

Love, peace and light, and an om shantih.

(I’m only joking. I promise NEVER to sign off a blog with ‘love peace and light.’ Let alone om shantihs. They have their place; but that place is not in the foul-mouthed world of Lucy Robinson.

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Wot I loved today: (no sex) in the CITY

I walked from my meeting at Penguin – near Trafalgar Square – to a lunch in Spitalfields. It’s been an age since I hung out in the City of London. Most of my London life took place in Westminster and surrounding boroughs and to me the city remained a strange beast. I had a brief fling with a banker who worked there once and drove him bloody mad with my incessant requests for nights out in the square mile. I just wanted to stare at all those smart people wearing proper shoes. Maybe sniff their nice leather briefcases. Listen to them use words like ‘stocks’ and stuff.

My walk was glorious. There is a wonderful, undefinable energy that crackles around there – not from the incessant stream of people eating sushi and salads and shouting clever things into phones – although there’s plenty of that. No, it’s a more exciting historical energy. Something about that unseen faultline where old meets new.

It made me zing. YEAH.

Wot I loved today: PIG JUMPER

It makes me smile every time. That is all.

Wot I loved today: hairy afternoon tea

I had afternoon tea on Saturday with a bloody who’s who of women’s fiction. I was surrounded by greats! And cake. Scones. Pots of berryish stuff. It was actual heaven.

I loved it; every second of it, every shared author story, every scone crumb, every witch-like cackle.

But I felt naughty all the way through cos I had not shaved my armpits. Or my legs. I’d been in London three days and forgotten my razor.

I don’t know why – and my feminist side would deplore this statement – but it feels wrong to attend a fabulous afternoon tea while hirsuit. I just felt that none of the other authors there would have arrived thus.

And then Katy Regan – my dear, wonderful Katy Regan – said to me, quite casually, ‘I haven’t shaved my armpits.’ Without my even mentioning my concealed hairiness.

I laughed, made a reciprocal confession and had a piece of carrot cake.

A perfect afternoon. Thank you Regan. I love you.