AUGUST 2004
Sat 14th August, late at night
Hmm, we appear to be still in Manchester. A fortnight on your own in the middle of nowhere is ace, but it doesn't half require preparation. It's taken us until now to even be packed, let alone on our way. We're setting off first thing, honest...
It's funny though. I love my house most of the year round, but just now it doesn't compare well to where we could be. Oh well, all I have to do is go to sleep and then I can get to where I'm supposed to be.
I think I have a skill for objectivity and subjectivity. Oh all right then, a skill for objectivity and a weakness for subjectivity. I can both dispassionately observe and analysye my life and actions, and be so close to it all that I'm absolutely incapable of seeing anything except my own perspective. But I do know that our bathroom needs cleaning.
Hopefully this is the last post on this blog for at least a fortnight. Nighty night.
Fri 13th August, even later at night - Stop Press
If you really pay attention to the post below, you'll notice that I casually fail to mention where the second erotica story is being published. That was because it was a secret. But I've just checked, and apparently it's not a secret any more. The very lovely Emily Dubberley has been instrumental in the setting up of a new sex magazine for women called Scarlet, and my story will be in it! Read all about it here.
Fri 13th August, late at night - A bientot
Well, it’s been quite a summer. Isn’t it funny how it always goes by in such a whirl, and before you know it, it’s over? OK, I suppose it’s not actually over just yet, but I’ve very much got my eye on the end of it. Because after weeks of madness, I’ve finally reached the pot of gold at the end, and am about to set off for a wonderful summer retreat – a full two weeks of it. But when I get back I will consider summer officially over. Which is not a bad thing in my book – I am very fond of Autumn. Actually I like all seasons, and each one is a welcome change when I’m sick of the one before. Which is why I like living in Britain, and can’t understand why people who live in relentlessly sunny places don’t just get hopelessly bored. Anyway I’m winding up my affairs before going away, so in that sense it feels as though summer is over.
I always feel guilty about the fact that I don’t enjoy hot weather. There’s this feeling that we’re supposed to be terribly grateful when the sun shines, and rush out with our hankies knotted over our heads, to get sunburnt and drink inadvisable quantities of beer. Whereas I tend to spend the summer just kind of getting on with my life, and am then surprised when it’s over and I am lilywhite (having, as usual, spent most of the time indoors, on the internet). I’ve been out and about more than usual this summer, but not out and about – just in, as usual, but in more about-type locations.
So what’s been going on in my life this summer? I’m a list-maker, and I have a file on my computer where I note things I’d like to wibble about in this blog. Every time I mention something here, it gets deleted from the file. The file has grown slowly larger and larger, as I’ve failed to keep pace with its growth.
As a consequence I have this list, which I can probably separate into two categories: (a) Inconsequential Chuntering (observations on random occurrences, or non-occurrences), and (b) Events Wot Have Happened To Me. The most significant of these, in recent weeks, have been My Publicity Weekend (Llangollen, London and, er, well that’s it) and The Big Chill Festival. I’m aware that I’ve promised to talk about these events, and others. I made notes! Honest I did. But yet again their write-up is going on a back burner. I’m thinking that, come September, I may have to do a kind of What I Did In The Summer thing. By instalment.
Now then, pigs might fly, I hear you say. But it’s not quite as unrealistic as it sounds. Because I have some good news. I finally got my 3-day week! Well, actually it’s 3 1/3 days per week, for various complicated reasons. But that’s still 2 2/3 days per month more spare time than I had before. Of course I have approximately six squillion things I want to do with the extra time. I certainly won’t be sitting around watching Countdown. Well, not much. Not very much. No, I will squeeze Novel II, gardening, short story writing, DIY, blog writing, knitting and poetry into those precious 2 2/3 days. I might even learn how to write fractions on this site so that they actually look like fractions (that’s two and two thirds days per month).
OK, so it probably won’t feel like as much spare time as I think it is, but although I have loved being Someone (oh, all right then, not Someone, just someone, but still, someone people want to read bits of book to them) this summer, I’m looking forward to staying put a little more, which will also mean more spare time. And I am really looking forward to getting my teeth into Novel II. It’s going to feel so different this time. Well, this is what I tell myself. And I am always right. So that’s all right then.
But there’s one thing I can’t postpone until the mythical time when I finally get around to a proper Big Chill write-up. I have to say hello to Sabina and Victoria. Sabina has a copy of my book so I’m really hoping she (and/or Victoria)’ll spot the web address, come long here, read this, and email me (see email address at bottom of page). They were two very funny women who came along to the NuPoetics poetry thing I performed at during the Big Chill. They made my night, and I’d love to hear from them.
What other news do I have? My friends’ personal lives all seem to be in flux… and two of our oldest and best friends have moved away from Manchester, to get involved with a very interesting communal living project. They had a party a week or so ago, and there was one beautiful moment when a live version of “Cowgirl” by Underworld came on the stereo, and we all danced madly like old times. Then we sat down again and continued sipping our tea. I’ll miss them.
Felix is developing so fast at the moment. His language abilities are moving especially quickly. He’s still at the level of making sentences that miss out all the little words, or only contain one or two words at all, so we were impressed when this week he said to his dad, “Tea?” then thought about it some more and said clearly, “Is tea ready yet, Daddy?”
The other good thing that’s happened is that I’ve had two short stories definitely accepted for publication. And the funny thing is that they’re both erotica, which I’ve never tried to do before. Fun, though. And I am now officially a writer of porn. One of them will be in an anthology from Red Hot Diva (they are the erotic sister to Diva, who published my novel). Also I’ve been asked to read at the Women’s Space at Manchester Pride (see Events page), and as part of a Queer Storytelling thing that’s on tour this Autumn. So I haven’t faded into obscurity just yet then.
Night night, and will type again on my return (from a heavenly cottage in the hills, with solid fuel cooking and heating, an electricity generator, great views, isolation from civilisation, and no TV, computer or mobile phones), in September.
Nice.
Fri 13th August, 10.30pm - Some thoughts about nurseries
There was a documentary about private nurseries this week. I didn’t see it, but heard enough about it in the media to have an idea what it was about. My son Felix is in nursery full time, so I might understandably be worried…
There are problems in all nurseries, most of them rooted in the fact that it's such an incredibly underpaid job, with bad working conditions. What do people expect?
As for Felix's nursery, we're mostly happy with it. Occasionally there are lapses, such as when Felix had a pooey bum the other day, which wasn’t seen to and resulted in sever nappy rash. I doubt very much there is any nursery anywhere that is 100% proof against such moments. Also, if Felix was being looked after at home then there would be more of those moments, not fewer. It's horribly easy to either not notice a pooey bum or be distracted with other things and think, "I'll sort it out in a bit."
Felix is genuinely very happy there, and there are very many things to argue in its favour. A strong emphasis on multiculturalism, a good caring but non-nonsense attitude to such things as potty training and tantrums, a surprisingly happy and smiley workforce who mostly clearly like kids and are not afraid to be silly and affectionate with them, management that are happy to discuss issues and concerns... I suspect they're better than most.
My only real worry is that all childcare professions are magnets for serious abusers. I’m always on the lookout for signs that anyone is pathologically mistreating him. So far his love of nursery makes it clear this isn't the case. And anyway the kind of abuse I fear is rare, and all parents are unnecessarily fearful about such things. I'm determined to not restrict Felix's ability to explore the world and meet its population with a general emphasis on trust, adventure and openness, rather than fear and paranoia.
Also we can't wrap him in bubble wrap, and at some point he is going to have to discover that the world is full of bad things and people behaving badly - most likely at the hands of his peers!
Mon 9th August, 3pm
It turns out Felix's little friend was called Kalila, not Tallilah. Her dad emailed me today with some wonderful photos of the whole love affair, which I've put up online here. Awwww.
Sun 8th August, 11am
Well, things are finally going to start calming down a bit, I think. Yesterday was my last "official engagement" (haha) for a while, and although work will probably be mental again this week, and there’s lots of preparation to do for our holiday... the fact is I'm going away in a week! Hurrah! Two gorgeous weeks in a remote farmhouse in the Lake District, a long rough track and several miles away from civilisation, with water that comes straight off the fell and is then heated by a solid fuel Rayburn, electricity from a little generator out the back, and no television or computers! Bliss. It's also mine and Ally's tenth anniversary while we're there, so we're going to give ourselves a major contrast by booking into a posh (well, posh by our standards) hotel for one night.
Yesterday I went to Brighton Pride to do a book reading with Brighton & Hove's mobile library unit. The library people were absolutely lovely, as was the audience, but I'm afraid Pride is probably not for me. I guess I'm getting older, and the weather certainly didn't help (way too hot for comfort), but the whole event was very big, crowded, noisy, smelly (burger vans everywhere), full of fairground rides that made me feel sick just looking at them, terribly cheesy house music blasting out everywhere... oh God, there's really no way of dressing this up, is there? I have turned into a middle-aged moaning old fart. I guess I've been spoilt by events such as the Big Chill festival. There was such a marked contrast between my two weekends - Big Chill one week, Brighton Pride the next. One chilled and beautiful, one... well, not!
I wonder how many people, like me, completely fall apart in hot weather? I know the more fortunate get very annoyed when people like me whinge about heatwaves. They think we're just grumpy old curmudgeons who moan about everything. But it's hard to describe just how incredibly unpleasant I find really hot weather. My whole body shuts down. The sun is supposed to be a source of energy and life, but I find it saps all my energy with amazing speed and inefficiency. After less than an hour in hot sunshine, I become irritable, anxious, very very tired, slightly sick, dizzy... This is what happened to me yesterday at Pride, and I'm sure it's largely to blame for my lack of enthusiasm about the event. It also completely puddled my brains, so that I ended up getting on wrong trains on the way home; something that is very unlike me.
Still, I'm glad I went cos the people were dead nice. And apparently they have a book group who are reading my book this month! As far as I know it's the first time this has happened. How I would love to be a fly on the wall... anyway, it's very exciting.
Today I'm going to have a stab at cleaning / tidying the house, which is really bad even by my standards. It's been sorely neglected the last few weeks. I'm going to spend lots of time cuddling my son too, as he could also do with a bit of attention. In fact, he's calling me now!
Thurs 5th August, 10pm
Blimey I've been busy. And on top of that there's something wrong with the place my website normally lives, so I've had to relocate it over here. Actually everything's broken. The ceiling's still leaking, both videos have broken, the bathroom blind cord has snapped, the shower-head's still bust, the tap is still dripping... but you don't want to know about that.
On a much more positive note we've just come back from the Big Chill festival, where we had lots of lovely moments, including a real life love story, so I'll leave you with that:
We were sitting on the grass watching a band, early Sunday evening. We were encouraging Felix to go up to groups of strangers and say hello to them. There was a little girl sitting with some adults behind us, and I said to him, "Why don't you go and say hello to that little girl?"
So he did. And she was very interested in the newcomer. So I suggested he give her a cuddle. Which he did. The next thing, she was running away across the field in blatant "chase me!" fashion. So he did! It was hilarious - like Benny Hill or something. She disappeared in and out of the crowd, with Felix hot on her tail, and an adult in chase. You could see them weaving in and out of all the people, going really far afield. At one point he lost her, so she came back and started chasing him instead...
Eventually they stopped, and she grabbed hold of his hand. They danced together for a while, whirling each other round and round, and then they started walking together. She pulled him all the way down to the lake, where they found a plastic rocking chair, climbed on to it together and sat for a while, looking romantically out over the lake. Then they got up and wandered off again, taking a stroll all the way around the field before coming back to us.
They kept going off for these little adventures. They also told each other all about their respective nurseries ("Outside! Cars! Bikes!"), and Felix kindly explained his pushchair toy to Tallilah, pointing out all the different buttons and showing her the noises they made. They also shared some food.
Eventually it was time for bed, and Felix had to keep going back to give Tallilah yet another kiss goodnight.
Yesterday Ally showed Felix a photo of Tallilah, and he was spellbound. He stared at it for a while, and then said, "Hold hands!"
Awwwwwwwww.
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Clare Sudbery