not raving but drowning
I needed some air so I went for a walk today. Six hours at my desk reading the thesaurus from cover to cover hadn’t produced any poetic descriptions of spring flowers at all in which I could sneakily bitch about the locals, not very edifying, that second part, you may say but of course remember that when I do it, it's not gossip but art, don’t you know. I set off, Then all at once I came upon a host of golden daffodils. No, that’s no good, still no inspiration, so I walked a little further. Ah, this was more like it. I stood surrounded by a swathe of purple, the purple of my prose and of my broken liver, the purple of novels about oppressed women, the purple of royalty and the purple of pride (although that doesn’t apply to me of course, looks like another dodgy metaphor, sigh), the purple of reconciliation (ah, now that sounds more me don't you think). I stood alone, my southern belle’s blues in a northern bluebell sea, an ocean of deep purple. Oh, how I blanche when I think of someone who was destined for so much better but who has been reduced to this, when I see such cruelty around me, oh, how misunderstood I have been. I wrote poetry and they thought I had just left out all the articles and punctuation, I wrote about how awful were the locals who had forced me to move so far from my own home to live amongst them (when they told me I was moving north I thought they meant Hampstead!) but they told me I was just raving, I wrote about struggling for air but they said that people with hay fever should spend less time in the woods talking to flowers. I know, I'm an adult you say, an educated well-off middle-aged woman who should take responsibilty for her own life, well, you bully! Just you wait untill I write my next post, you're really going to get it with both barrels buster! I would tell on you to my mother but she's stopped talking to me. So, where was I, oh yes, alas, this is my fate, to have nobody understand me, yes, I was much further north than I thought, and not raving but drowning.
26 comments:
Thank goodness you're back, dearie, we were getting a little worried.
I fear Wifey needs some of your tlc and good, homely advice - there may be a crazed gunman on the loose in the manner of that film 'Witness'..
Rilly, would you like to hop on to the 'casting couch' for my next film?
It is about a stylish, trendy and fashionable southern woman who has to adapt to a life of drudgery and dullness up north.
Eventually she starts to adapt by bringing some colour and excitement into the dull world 'Oop North' by introducing them to the pleasures of 'swinging' London life which had previously been denied to them.
Cappuccinos, wine tastings, dinner parties, art galleries, and trips to the local spa. [Cue hilarious scene as one confused woman turns up at the local 'Spar' village shop in her swimsuit, towel and bath robe in a slightly perplexed mood and scares the young assistant by telling him to warm the oil before he puts his hands anywhere near her bum..].
The main protagonist proceeds to spice up the lives of the bitchy dullards at the school gate by killing them with kindness, courtesy of some of the local young farmers...
The working title of the film is 'Aromatherapy Shagfest', but please don't let the title put you off - there is some nudity, but it's very tastefully done,and we are well advanced with finding you a body double. That said, Kate Winslet can drive a hard bargain these days..
Rilly, your weekend absence (with anonymous??)can be forgiven when you return with prose as purple as this.
Come on Rilly, what are you going to say? Can we expect to see "Aromatherapy Shagfest" at a cinema near us anytime soon?
Personally, I think you should be played by Salma Hayek! Apparently Kate is far too moody and her figure is not all that since she had the children...
DM
Wonderful stuff, Rilly (as usual) but - are you really writing this in August? Bluebells, daffodils? In bloom oop North in...April?
Shurely shome mistake?
Ouch!
Wrong person got the book deal.
Quite brilliant Rilly.
I used to think you were a monster, being so horrid to wifey and all, but actually I am now converted. That was absolutely superb.
You need to do a piece on the absent husband. Where is he? Why does he not feature?
Well I still have one or two daffs in bloom. And the bluebells are out in the woods right now. So whilst it is a bit of a stretch, I think it is just about possible. Especially as I understand that they have taken to planting artificial daffodils in the Lake District!
Mariella Frostrup has just being doing a programme about married couples who live in separate houses on Radio 4 - I didn't hear Mariella talking to either you or Wifey..
Was this just an accidental oversight?
Oh, gosh, Rilly, I fear my eyes are glazing over with emotion as I read your waving ravings; I too am beginning to see life through a purple haze of rolling mist on a blue day of undone tomorrows and white but yet to be painted yesterdays. My own dear mother has stopped talking to me, too.....
She was buried without a headstone in Vermont.
Sisters in trials and tribulations I'd like to think, dear.
The Further Lamentations of Natalia (same dustbin, same place):
"...Some bad days have been for me but the nice English nanny say she will correct my spelling though she cant do much with my grammar or my punctuation and sometimes she give up altogether but here goes anyway with that party we went to Rilly and Tilly and the baby and me and Rilly she take off the pink bows and the dress when the policeman stop me after the first red light and put on the black hoodie and the shorts from the oxfam bag and the first thing that happens at the party is this Mummy says what bratz is thoes meaning Rilly and Tilly and the baby and another Mummy says thoes is the Soupabratz and then frayazmum she say enough said have you seen the mother well don’t bother dear shes lethal and its best you avoid all Starbux except the ones east or south of the river and don’t whatever you do go down the Fulham Rd at school hour or yule get mown down by that 4be4 and never mind how much bodily fluid you exude you wont get no help except a ermeez scarf that’s no good unless you want to throttle yourself with the dam thing – and then we must play party games because the party mummy say that’s the latist concept and she woent let the music stop when its rilly or tilly and the baby raws and wants the whole parcel for himself – and when we get home Mrs Soupa says what party bags is these where are the ones with the bendicks mints and the swarzosski watch and I say rilly and tilly they said whattotalcrapisthis and stuff theres through the catflap and then the cat cant get in and the dog atack it and the party Mummy says go without then bratz and go home so Tilly she steal this other kidsz bag and thatz all is left in it ........ and then Mrs Soupa she want to know whatsz wrong with my english that i shame her in public like that and what do they teach me at all those english classes she have to pay for and I say what english classes I never go to no english classes and the only peoples I can talk to are the kidsz and the filapeena so what can she expect – and its pretty much woe all round everywhere for me and it was never like this in Gdansk I can tell you.........?
anonymous, thanks for missing me dear.I do feel a bit like I live in that film sometimes, only I am still waiting for Harrison Ford to turn up, sigh
anonymous, I think you may possibly be on to the concept that could save the british film industry there. Not sure on your working title but I'm sure you're on to something.
M&M, thankyou, you are lovely as ever
dulwichmum, people often say about me 'well, she's not salma hayek is she' which i take to mean there is some doubt in their minds, so perhaps you have hit upon the perfect casting there dear
sarnia, I think they must grow them in a greenhouse somewhere and then plant them out.
@mill, you don't need a tourniquet on that do you dear?
anonymous, one day my time will come dear, sigh
anonymous, you are very kind. You are right and my husband hasn't appeared much lately, in this blog or up north either. I fear the children will forget what he looks like sometimes. I am sure he will feature again soon, sigh
anonymous, articial daffoldils? I just can't stand anything that isn't entirely genuine myself!
anonymous, I think mariella must be saving me for that book programme she presents.
beatrice, I do believe your comment is longer than the original post. I will print it out to read on my next train journey to london dear so I can save the price of a magazine, or war and peace
Rilly Rocks !!!!!!!!!
Rilly,
Robert Carlyle [yes, that one] was on Radio 4 this morning bemoaning the lack of truly, authentic, proper old fashioned BRITISH films. Suggest you could propose to him [!] that you do the screenplay, and he could be the producer, and rustle up the finances and find a director.
You're a true British star Rilly, and what the cinema has been crying out for..
p.s. I think it would be great if Hugh Grant could play your hubby - it wouldn't be a huge role, but it would keep him from throwing beans onto photographers. Then again, he could throw beans onto the camera, suitably protected; and 'Action!'.
I do hope I haven't offended, Rilly.
gosh no lizzie, I love when you come by and leave a message, but I see now that I missed you out of my last comment, which was entirely an oversight from scrolling up and down whilst trying to write at the same time. sorry about that, I must seem very impolite. Of course you are right, I know I am lucky to still have my mother, and sometimes she does talk to me really but my agent keeps telling me to play up the family tensions, so what can I do. Hope you're not mad at me and that you come back again lizzie.
anonymous, I heard that interview. He could be just the man, as what other film actor has a sign on the M74 directing you to his birthplace, or is that another carlyle...
Rilly, Go on, let us into your little secret...
We know that you have plans for a TV crew to arrive in Northumberland in the next few days, and are trying desperately hard to keep it a secret from the locals. No doubt you have taken extensive pre-cautions to stop the news 'leaking' out.
But everyone will know once those cameras and the satellite trucks arrive. What programme is it ?
Wife Swap, where you and Wifey swap husbands for a week ? Possibly not, as I am not 'rilly' sure that they would notice, would they ?[sigh].
Or might it be the summer's come early and Big Brother have a card up their sleeve to boost the ratings and are going 'al fresco' in Northumberland ?
Or is it a 'Castaway/Love Island' theme, given that Northumberland is considered to be further away from London than Jamaica ? If this is the case, please can I be included?
If you invite Mutterings and Meanderings as well, the dilemma of whether to choose yourself or the lovely eminem could be spun out for a whole summer's worth of successful ratings / tabloid tales.
Obviously, if you considered it more ratings-friendly to try and cheer up the rather acerbic school gate mums by, ahem, whatever means necessary - well, 'it's a tough job but somebody's got to do it..'
Yours expectantly,
Bachelor in the South...
Ah Spring!
We're already into summer down here in the South West. Soon be winter again for us.
Hmm.. the Big Brother thing sounds more likely to be what Wifey has planned, given the extensive building renovation work going on. Perhaps the pantry will be the diary room, and all the other delays are caused by the fiddly wiring work required to get all the cameras and microphones in place in that old creaky building with the wooden floorboards...
After all, it would explain why they are knocking 3 houses into one - one would be to house all the technicians and producers, one would be for the family, and one would be where the 'guests' would be put unbeknowing that the whole world outside is watching their every move..
perhaps they're moving Big Brother to Bamburgh so the bloke that does the commentry doesn't have such a long commute anonymous.
Rilly! This is quite a comments box, very impressive!
Rilly, this blog is ace! Not safe for work? More like not safe for coffee!
Rilly,
When will you be selling tasteful and stylish t-shirts from your blog ??
If it is good enough for Hazel 'The Chipmunk' Blears and Guido Fawkes, then I'm sure it can only be a few weeks till we see you branching into this market. Perhaps it could show some of the lovely, if rather grim, castles, and a picture of our hero, Morrissey, as a reminder that life can be tough, yet still rather tender, north of the Humber. xxxx
anonymous, crikey, wife swap, this isn't a reality TV show you know, this is literature with a capital L! If I swapped husbands with wifey he would still be down in London just like my own dear and greatly missed husband, sob. I think you might be on to something with staging 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' in the north, although wifey would be soo good at that it wouldn't really be a contest, sigh
Betamum, ah, things are so different down there in the southern hemisphere, sigh. Water even goes the other way around down the plughole up here you know..
anonymous and anonymous, you don't mean to suggest broadcasting all the details of people's private daily lives to the public do you? the very idea of it!
PITK, thanks for dropping by again. I am very lucky in having some lovely visitors to this blog,which is what makes it worthwhile, well, that and the prospect of a massive advance from the publishers of course...
Mr Farty, thanks for visiting and you are most welcome sir, or, in view of your piece on insistance on gaelic should I say ceud mile failte
anonymous, I hope you don't think this blog is just a means of pushing product and making money dear! now, wait till I talk to my agent, he should have thought of the merchandiing opportunites, he's bloody useless!
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