Strife in the north

it was only a northern swan

2008-06-17T22:49:00.031+01:00

It was my neighbour who suggested we go for a nice calming stroll around the lake at the local National Trust place but his contemplative conviviality was somewhat tempered by his complaining all the way round about the Trust's removal of the stepping stones near the tearoom; health and safety you see. My neighbour explained how when the Trust took over the estate in the nineteen eighties the old abbey actually still had a roof and all of it's windows but they were both stripped away lest a visitor trip over a fallen shingle and plunge through the stained glass. This was, he explained, the same time that the monks were sent away because they were a silent order so they refused to give anyone directions to the gift shop. This made me feel warm inside because you see it's only when you gain people's confidence that they share this kind of local knowledge.

We came across these little fellows by the water and as I wondered whether there was a really clever and original baby waterfowl inspired metaphor here if I could only see it they recognised the man who makes the pies for the farmers market and inexplicably leapt straight back into the water in a flash, and so the train of thought steamed off into the distance with my homesick thoughts still in the luggage rack, in coach B, over seat 42a, the one with the bit of old chewing gum stuck on the fold down drinks tray and the crumpled old Northern Echo with the crossword half completed stuffed behind it. Well, if you miss one there's always another along in a minute, metaphors that is, not trains. 'Fancy a brew Rilly?' asked a voice. It was my neighbour. 'Aye', I said, 'that would be super '.

husbands in the south

2008-06-15T17:27:00.015+01:00

Yesterday I was coming back from having lunch with some Labour Party chums in the local market town. I was feeling rather down in the dumps, I must say. Nobody understands what a struggle it is to have a husband who spends some of the week in his office a few hours away down the motorway you know, leaving me alone to look after the children and the nanny, and on top of that champagne at lunchtime always makes me a little maudlin so I really needed cheering up. Then I noticed one of my neighbours across the street. She’s a bit of a local but we always seem to get on quite well nevertheless so I went over for a chat to try and raise my spirits. I struck up a conversation and asked what had brought her into town. ‘My husband has a tour in Kandahar coming up Rilly’, she said, ‘so he’s shopping for new boots’. 'A tour?’ I replied, ‘That sounds rather fun. Kandahar; that’s near Harrogate isn’t it?’ I asked. She looked rather concerned and not, and in my view I'm afraid, about my rather more serious worries. I supposed she must have been wondering whether her husband would finish tiling the bathroom before he went away or something, but really, it’s just just me-me-me with some people, sigh.

a year in the provinces

2008-06-08T09:56:00.011+01:00

It's been a year since my family downshifted to the North and I was just wondering whether Strife in the North would ever be as successful as the Mayles and the O'Reillys had been before me when Milly ran into the kitchen. ‘Mummy’ she cried, ‘The vicar just parachuted in to the back garden!’ This was no surprise of course. It’s a large parish here in The North and the last incumbent had made it quite clear he was taking his bicycle with him when he retired. I followed my daughter outside where a large familiar grin appeared from under a billowing pile of red silk. ‘Oh bloody hell!’ he said, ‘where the fuck am I?’ I had rather hoped that after falling ten thousand feet from a plane and my face being the first thing he saw then some witty comment about seeing angels might have been the least I could have expected. Obviously a protestant, I thought. I didn’t hear that kind of language from Cormac Murphy O'Connor when he dropped in, and he went right through the roof of the greenhouse after his reserve failed.

‘I was sure this was the airfield!’ He said, ‘I saw the runway!’. ‘That was my drive dear’, I explained. ‘But what about that great big fucking cross on the grass?!’ he added. Well, I make no apologies for my herbaceous borders being arranged to show The Almighty where to concentrate the little amount of sunshine he saves for The North. My Church of England suspicions were confirmed when I saw that he was jumping with an organisation called the Red Devils. It was all for charity, it was explained to me. I just hope this doesn’t make people think only Anglicans are concerned about others. The Archbishop of York may have joined up with the Paras to raise money for charity but our very own pope already joined the Hitler Youth for their humanitarian work years before.

'This is all very embarassing', confessed the bishop, 'You won't tell anyone about this will you?' he asked. I smiled reassuringly. I thought I might mention it on my blog but that was the next best thing to keeping it a secret. The parachtists began arguing amongst themselves (yes, definitely Church of England) so I decided to leave them to it and quietly returned to pondering how I could break with the legacy of the downshifting memoir and reassure readers I wasn't just making it all up, sigh...

let them eat crisps

2008-06-02T18:10:00.009+01:00

It can be so hard to find activities for the children during half term, so I gave up trying and left them at home with the au pair to go out for the evening. My husband and his ticket finding themselves at opposite ends of the M1 when the time came to go out a chance encounter with my neighbour meant that if I ran into any bears on the way I would have someone to push between them and myself. ‘But what does a northerner know about baroque composers?’ I asked after he'd offered to come with me. ‘Well’, began my neighbour by way of assuaging my doubts ‘I know what kind of washing powder they use’. ‘If you say Purcell automatic I’m going on my own’, I told him. We set off in silence after that.

It certainly was a trip down memory lane. The lady’s at the pub across the road from the venue was full of sixth formers from the school in the local market town adjusting large wigs and bustles. It was just like being back at my ladies College, sigh. ‘You must be Marie Intoilette’, I laughed as the cubicle door opened and a betrainered dauphine stepped out. I think she must have been focusing on her role too much to laugh. She wasn't very realistic anyway; When was Marie Antoinette ever seen with a Malborough Light? Its Gauloises dear; if you do this kind of thing again then do get some authenticity. To complete the whole Ancien Régime ambience there were even it seemed some sans culottes laid on to complement the courtiers from the local school. ‘They’re not very convincing peasants’, I told my neighbour. ‘They’ll be glad to hear it’, said my neighbour. ‘Evening lads’, he called across the street. There was something of an exchange across the street that could have been in 18th century french for all I understood of it although of the universal sign language of miming drinking a pint, tapping a watch and pointing back at the pub I think I got the gist.

It was a marvellous evening. For a couple of lovely hours the reality of everyday life was shut out as the spectacle unfolded. Of course we wouldn’t want to be ruled by a privileged elite with no experience of how ordinary people live and who just see the common folk as a source of taxes to fund their grand lifestyles and futile foreign adventures nowadays. Those days are long gone so thank goodness for Tony is all I can say. Evetually the music ended, the subisidy ran out and the bubble finally burst and my neighbour and I stepped out into the evening. ‘What’s that light pollution that’s stopping it getting completely dark?’ I asked. ‘That’s the sun Rilly’ he said, ‘it’s still only ten thirty’ he said, smiling. The twilight was rather kind to him, I thought, in fact the north as a whole seemed less scary when I couldn't see it quite so clearly. We wandered back to the pub to meet with my neighbour’s chums. Apparently it was my round. They do have long memories around here. ‘And five bags of porkies please’, I asked as the last pint was slopped onto the bar. ‘Sorry love, no scratchings’ said the landlord. ‘No scratchings!’ I exclaimed, ‘then let them eat crisps!’. ‘Eh?’ came the reply. ‘nothing’, I muttered dejectedly, ‘just the drinks then’, I sighed. Well, what can I say, I have been under rather a lot of pressure lately, sigh

peggy seeger (in colour)

2008-05-24T16:49:00.017+01:00

‘Darling’ I said, turning to my husband. ‘yes dear?’ he whispered. ‘You promised there wouldn’t be anyone playing the banjo in the North.' ‘Shush!’ came a voice from the row behind. ‘And what’s this woman doing playing in the village if she’s so famous anyway?’ My husband looked annoyed. ‘She and Ewan Mcoll used to come here and walk the fells in the sixties’, he explained. ‘She was just saying how little the village has changed’. Except that everything was in black and white back then of course, I thought. He went back to chewing his cuban cigar, sadly frustrated from completely authentically emulating Che Guevara by the smoking ban . It was a relief to hear the village was mostly full of southern downshifters even back then, but then I thought perhaps it was simply that she hadn’t been in town long enough this time around to listen to the village, only enough to see it.

It had been a difficult time lately and I suppose I should have just been grateful for some time with my husband. The Labour party had been having some terrible election results. I don’t know why people are so upset at raising taxes on the low paid. Don’t they know that if poor people are allowed to keep their own money they’ll only waste it on lager and satellite dishes. They should give more of it to people like me who’ll appreciate it and spend it on nice things instead. It's called redistribution of income. I wish people would pay attention, sigh. Then there was the Telegraph. Can you imagine? me? in the Torygraph? I couldn’t wear my Tony Blair for Pope t-shirt for a whole week out of shame.

I only found out about the suggestion that I was actually two men when the chap in the paper shop gave me a funny look when I went in for my Guardian. I think he fully believed I dropped my bag full of lady’s personal items just to prove some sort of point. It wasn't my fault, these feminine requisites are hard to come by up North and you have to buy up all you can when they're in the shops. The carrier bag broke under the strain, that's all. On reflection of course I can quite understand that rumour because if I really was a man than my recent output of three blog posts in two months meant there would have had to be two of me at the very least to maintain that kind of productivity.

The concert neared its end. At least Peggy Seeger had got through a whole gig without being deported, which was something I suppose. I wondered if I would still be writing Strife in the North when I was 73, and whether I would be so left wing as to make Joan Baez look like Margaret Thatcher. I sighed. As I gazed sadly at my George Bush count down keyring that I bought by way of blending in I thought about the singer's hope that Dubya would go soon and peace would come, but then unless he was going to be taking my children with him when he retired there’d be no peace for me this November, that was sure. sigh. 'Maybe we should bring some free love into the world ourselves later', I said to my husband, romantic and dangerous with his beret and cigar, but he reminded me we had a meeting with our interior designer about the colour scheme for the conservatory first thing so we should get an early night and put being spontaneous in our diaries for next weekend.

muse

2008-04-20T15:42:00.015+01:00

My darling daughter was so moved this week by the news about Joan Hunter Dunn that I detected a certain influence from all the articles in the papers in the poem she wrote at school about myself and her father. She obviously sees her father's relationship with her mother is equally passionate and inspiring as anything Betjeman wrote about. I can't write anymore, as my tears might short out my keyboard, it's not easy being a muse, sob.

The Downshifter's Love Song

Miss J Hunter Dunn, Miss J Hunter Dunn
Has seen the last setting of the Home Counties sun
Daddy is such a great fan of John Betjeman
When we heard the news we just had to fetch him in

When Daddy met Mummy she was engaged to Harold
But Daddy got her, lock, stock and double barrelled
a Camberley honeymoon, but the stay wasn’t lengthy
Mushrooms and pines spoiled the smell of the M3

Daddy misses Surrey, tells us often, doesn’t stop
Both the county and the one with the fringe on top

So his weekends home our sense of bearings do disturb
And this corner of a northern field stays a London suburb

He loved her at thirty, at forty too, the joy
Always willing to swallow and she looked like a boy
When against her warm body he’s found quietly nestling
We know she’s beaten him again at arm wrestling

Before we were born they gave up their games of tennis
For nearby windows her backhand did menace
Now often although no court or net has it seen
We wonder where the warm handle of her racket has been

With the power to inspire him Mummy was imbued,
His enthusiasm for his work not just spurred by her nude
Although their Sunday nights spent staring at the ceiling
Must make a week working in London rather appealing

She always follows him to the car, tears in her voice
Oh Darling when will you ever make a choice?
Mostly it’s whether to pay the builder cheque of cash
But sometimes their rows slow his London bound dash

And whatever the words that are left unsaid
We know there is something ominous ahead
When they sit in the car till twenty to one
Daddy and his own Joan Hunter Dunn

By Milly Super aged seven and three quarters

the teasmade of buttermere

2008-04-12T11:28:00.016+01:00

It was my husband’s idea to spend the Easter holidays in the lake district. I’m afraid being away is why I haven’t been terribly frequent in updating the blog; It's the damp you see, although on the plus side I can now grow watercress on my laptop. it's not been an easy holiday and the indignities faced in this expedition were only heightened by watching a Melvyn Bragg documentary on the little television in the room about great northern literature which didn't mention Strife in the North even once, although I suppose the time the presenter spent plugging his own book meant that broadcast minutes were at a premium.

The children soon found lots to do so there I found myself alone, one afternoon, just me and the teasmade. I gazed at my bedside companion and it was like looking back into the past to a simpler time, that smooth white procelein skin, that round innocently smiling face, those small delicate hands, that temprement at once compliant and willing to please yet also with a way of letting off steam that was most pleasing to behold . It was no wonder that people came from all over the land to gaze on such elegant and simple beauty whilst the rain beat ceaselessly on the panes, rain that, as Coleridge wrote in his journal on 12th February 1752, could dilute your laudenham just by opening the curtains and looking out of the window.

Suddenly Milly and Tilly burst into the room and the rural idyll vanished before the rudely re-emerging modern day. ‘How’s the sailing going girls?’ I asked. ‘Did the pirates make you walk the plank? You’re all wet!’ Milly shook her head. ‘Tilly dropped the health and safety risk assessment’ she explained, ‘it was heavy it went right through the bottom of the boat’. I smiled. ‘better drowned that duffers, eh girls!’ I laughed. ‘Mummy’, begain Milly, ‘We’re not actually in Swallows and Amazons you know’. ‘Oh’, I queried, ‘why ever not?’ Milly looked serious. 'It's too sad, all those children are going to reach adulthood at the end of the thirties and then be killed in the war’. She explained. ‘We might as well cut out the middle man and play Atonement!’. I sighed. ‘Well’ I said, ‘that’s spoiled the ending of that book for anyone that reads my blog!’ I growled. ‘Well anyway’, said Milly, ‘if we pretended our names were Roger and Titty and Nancy imagine the kind of childish innuendo you’d make out of that in your stupid blog’.

The children left leaving a damp patch, well, at least somebody has messed up the hotel room this holiday I thought, and I looked out at the lake and wondered if my daughter was talking things far to seriously, Imagine Arthur Ransome conjuring up the dark clouds of the thirties I thought. I mean, where is the worldwide financial crisis, the Olympic Games being used as propaganda and the comfortable and fortunate desperately trying to pretend it won’t happen to them? I closed the curtains to shut out the periscope that I was sure had just surfaced near the ice cream van on the jetty, put the kettle on and went back to watching Look North through my Claude glass.

north riding lessons

2008-03-30T08:45:00.012+01:00

Yes, well, where was I; Saturday morning. So, there I was, stood with the stable girl as the children had their riding lesson. ‘When do you think they’ll get real horses?’ I asked. ‘Rupert prefers to start with the simulator’, she explained, ‘it keeps the insurance premiums down’. I nodded in understanding. ‘So how’s business?’ I asked. ‘OK’, she said, ‘but Rupert has booked me to give some lessons for that southern downshifter’s children, you know, the one with the blog, life in the north or something I think it's called’. ‘But that’s great isn’t it?’ I suggested, nervously. My stable girl friend wasn’t so sure. ‘I’ve read her blog’, she said. ‘She regards us working folk as little more than dancing bears to entertain the folks back home and sell more copies of her book’, she said. ‘You know, if she was here now I bet she’d even report this whole conversation in her blog’. ‘Well’, I said, ‘that’s journalism my dear’. She shook her head. ‘Living my life and doing my job in my own home town wasn't a news story before she turned up here and it isn't now’, she said. ‘What she does is just happy slapping in tweeds’.

I looked down and shuffled my feet and we both turned back to the girls. There had been a bit of a mishap and Tilly was holding her horse’s head under her arm, and the rest of the horse under the other arm. She started to cry. ‘You wouldn’t leave me crying when there’s room on your horse for two would you Milly?’ she pleaded to her sister. ‘Yes', said Milly, 'F**k off Tilly!’ Suddenly the sound of galloping hooves could be heard approaching along the beach. The next moment a great white horse came into view, its rider’s fair hair flowing in the wind, a cloud of spray from the sea whipping up around it. The horse came to a halt in the yard. ‘Ayup girls!’ said the rider, ‘jump on!’. My daughters dropped their hobby horses and leapt aboard. ‘Back in a while Mrs Super’, called the rider, as she pulled on the reins, turned the horse and galloped off towards the horizon. ‘But Milly’ I cried out after my vanishing beloved children, ‘you’ve got the car keys!’. I turned back towards the stable girl. ‘Who was that masked metaphor?’ I asked, but she was reaching into her bag for lunch. Her arm emerged and she turned towards me holding something up. ‘Fancy an apple?’ she said.

the schlong good friday

2008-03-22T17:24:00.009Z

It was lovely to see so many people from far and wide at the stables open day. Soon after we arrived I saw a couple of Londoners who were exchanging the traditional southern greeting: ‘What are you looking at?!’ said the first. ‘Are you talking to me you slag?!' replied the other. It’s so good to be reminded of home, I thought, as they beat each other to a pulp behind the manure pile. The warm memories that welled up inside me made me quite forget the cold north wind that whistled around my breeches. My daughter Tilly interupted my homesick reverie however. ‘Crikey, that’s enormous!’ she exclaimed, running over to a big horse in the corner of the yard, and she wasn’t pointing at his tail. ‘Like Fabio’, giggled Milly. ‘What kind of horse horse is he?’ Tilly asked the stable lass. ‘he’s a stud, my dear’, said the girl helpfully. My daughters giggled. ‘Like Fabio!’ ‘Does he run in races?’ asked Milly. ‘No’ said the girl, ‘his job is to be special friends with the ladies when they get a bit frisky’. My daughters looked at each other in feigned solemnity. ‘Not like Fabio then…’ they both said together, and started giggling again. I sighed.

‘Where is your father and his secretary anyway?’ I asked the children. ‘Fabio is over at that stall and Daddy has gone to look for some lunch’, said Milly. Suddenly I saw a familiar figure in the distance, Rupert? Could it really be him, taming that new young filly, breaking her spirit and making her bend to his will? No, It couldn’t be and he didn’t seem to notice me. I wandered over to see what Fabio was buying at the riding gear stall. ‘Have you got this in his size?’ he said, holding something up and pointing to my husband. The lady behind the stall looked slightly annoyed. ‘We don’t have that in men’s sizes dear’, she explained. ‘Ha!’ said Fabio, so you won’t sell this to me, Well!’, exclaimed Fabio with huff, ‘you are only refusing to sell me this because he is a not a woman!’ ‘No dear’, replied the lady, ‘because he is not a horse dear’. I was just going to ask Fabio if he should perhaps try Soho or the internet but then my husband appeared. ‘OK chaps, lunch is here!’ he cried. ‘You’d never have thought that new macrobiotic organic place in Islington would have opened a northern franchise, but look at this; carrots and straw; cutting edge cuisine guys! Rilly must really be having an influence around here!’

Finally, after a long day, I was at last lying in bed sharing that longed for peaceful moment with my much missed husband. ‘You couldn’t get me a glass of water could you dear?’ I asked him softly. ‘Oh’, he moaned, ‘it’s cold, Fabio, get Rilly a glass of water’. Fabio groaned. ‘You won’t even get your wife a glass of water? What a terrible husband you are sometimes!’ he said. ‘Shhhhush!’ I told them both, 'you’ll wake the baby’. ‘Mummy’, said Milly, ‘can Fabio fetch a hot water bottle if he’s going downstairs?’ ‘And for me too!’ said Tilly, ‘Milly’s feet are like ice! Why do we all have to sleep in the same bed anyway mummy?’ ‘Because it will sell more copies of my book in America dear’, I explained, exasperated at my daughters evident naivety in the US rural downshifting memoir market. Just then the baby began to cry, some doubtless unspeakable polish phrases began to emmanate from the au pair, and the peaceful bank holiday I’d hoped for seemed to disappear in a crash before my eyes. I just grabbed my Catherine Cooksons (and no, actually that isn’t cockney slang) and fled downstairs to my laptop, and my book, and…but what was this, a message on my voicemail. ‘Air Hellair Rilly, Rupert here, don’t think I didn’t see you earlier, what! I just thought…’ I put the phone down, No, I couldn’t. ‘Mummy the baby’s been sick!’ cried Tilly down the stairs. I looked at the clock; 2 AM, I shouted back up the stairs: ‘Milly, Tilly, get dressed darlings, riding lessons this morning!’

up the ash tree climbs the ivy

2008-03-21T17:45:00.006Z

Up the ivy climbs the sun. There have been racing yards in Middleham, whose castle served as the childhood home of Richard III, since the 18th century and the annual Good Friday open day is a good opportunity to meet some northern celebrities and blend seamlessy in with the locals, so off we set into the bright, but forecast to be shortlived, early spring sunshine to…’Mummy’, said Milly, looking over my shoulder. ‘Yes dear’, I muttered, stopping typing. ‘I find your use of Betjemen to invoke some kind of nineteen fifties rural idyll that probably never actually existed unconvincing and furthermore your attempt to dignify your inane witterings about your daily life by feigning an interest in the history and heritage of The North are, to be perfectly frank, rather laboured’. There was a moment of silence. ‘Gosh Milly, what do you suggest dear?’ Milly looked at me with exasperated expression. ‘Just stick to doing knob gags Mummy’, she offered by way of counsel. I turned to look at the snow now falling past the window and sighed. Returning to my so thoroughly scorned attempt to embellish the story I know that Milly really meant that perhaps I needed to get back to basics, just stick to the facts. I hit delete, typed the schlong good friday into the title box and began to write...

north and south

2008-03-13T20:06:00.006Z

I knocked on the door. Footsteps were heard in the hallway and my neighbour opened the door. ‘Hello Rilly’ said my neighbour, ‘what’s the matter love?’ ‘I think I’ve run over a cow’, I told him. ‘Not a sacred one I hope’, he smiled. I lowered my gaze. I didn’t need to say more. ‘Fancy a brew?’ he asked, standing aside from the door. I went in. ‘Come on through’, he said. ‘I’ll put kettle on’. Just then the phone rang. My neighbour picked up the receiver. ‘What’s that?’ he asked the caller, ‘trouble at mill you say!?’ he repeated, grinning at me. I smiled embarrassedly. With a few more words he ended the call. ‘You mustn’t worry about those Londoners pet’, he assured me. ‘They’ve never heard of Galileo down there, still think the universe revolves around them’. 'Galileo?' I queried. 'Aye, Galileo' he said. 'Hmm, Galileo' I pondered. 'Rilly, let me go', he said, 'kettle's boiling', and I unhanded him so he could make the tea. I moved a little closer to the fire as my neighbour clanked mugs in the kitchen and with my damp feet starting to warm by the hearth I was sure I was feeling a tingly sensation I hadn’t felt for a long time; static, it must be, I thought to myself, bloody northerners and their synthetic carpets, and I wondered if my neighbour had any brandy in, sigh..

boyz n the sisterhood

2008-03-12T18:25:00.016Z

Last week of course it was international women's day and as an ardent feminist I was naturally keen to participate by giving a talk as an ‘inspirational woman’ but alas the invitation I received asked me to do a speech encouraging bright young gels to give up their careers and write blogs and my publishers banned me from doing it as they didn’t want to crowd the market. What's more the charity nude lady bloggers calender I posed for had all it's copies seized by the obscene publications squad following a terrible rumour about Girl with a one track mind's picture for February.

It looked then like I was sadly just going to spend another morning playing Woman's Hour Bingo with Freya’s mother but she had Mary Wollstonecraft, men, and something else beginning with M that I can't even mention on her card so I never stood a chance. The game lasted all of thirty seconds and then we just listened in silence to a novelist tearfully recounting her emotional journey of recovery and self discovery after not quite remembering where she'd left her car keys. My husband saved the day however because knowing how much it meant to me he and his ever loyal secretary Fabio attended the Million Woman March down in London on my behalf.

Unfortunately only a couple of thousand turned up. My neighbour said that a million women did originally set off to go to London for the march but, what with no men to read the map, well, that's just the kind of attitude we're protesting about, sigh. My husband told me all about the keynote speaker. Apparently she stood on the podium for two hours just looking really annoyed and everyone had to guess why she was upset. I don’t know why my husband commented on this, he’s been married ten years, sigh. He's obviously spent longer away from me than I thought. Sadly they were asked to leave when their sincere attempt to blend in was tragically misinterpreted and anyway they would have had to leave the march for sexual equality early regardless because there were three hundred ladies loos but no gents, so that's one in the eye for the patriarchy I suppose, sigh

desperate house of commons wives

2008-03-10T11:21:00.008Z

I bumped into Ffion just the other day. She and I have so much in common, Two women, both married to a William who’s very important and spends a lot of time in London, Both far from home. The politics might come between us, her husband is more interested in matters of high diplomacy but we Labour chaps like to deal with the grass roots, because, after all, the roots are all that's left of the grass after the napalm has finally burned itself out but if she wasn’t a Tory and I wasn’t so jolly well working class I’m sure we’d get on very well. Actually, I’m not quite sure what class Ffion is from as she’s welsh and they probably have their own devolved class system in Wales now so perhaps we can be chums after all.

Anyway, the reason I mention it of course is that as the jetlag finally starts to get to David Attenborough who sadly reportedly now so is identified with that gorilla scene that he starts crouching down and whispering whenever anyone so much as opens a packet of peanuts in his earshot the BBC has done a series on the rare and exotic within our own shores and in their search for working class people their researchers even visited my own village although they didn’t find anyone to be in the show as the whole population had just been moved out to make way for filming a gritty but heart warming northern drama for ITV. Milly rather reduced my chances of being interviewed on TV though as when she answered the door to the BBC she told them her mother neither worked, nor had any class, sigh.

This isn’t the first time the girl has hurt my feelings like this. Just the other day she came home from school very pleased with herself. ‘I got an A in science mummy!’ she proclaimed proudly. ‘And the teacher said I could be an engineer at Wilton or Corus when I’m older’ . My heart sank. My own daughter, going into trade, in the North! I fought back the tears. This had been a Labour Party family as far back as I could remember. We’d always stood up for the poor and powerless like Lord Sainsbury, Rupert Murdoch, Roman Abramovich (even my neighbour says poor old Roman must be feeling hard done by at the moment: I'll make a socialist out of him yet) Our family had always done proper jobs that made you proud to go to conference, jobs that were tough and dirty but had to be done; public relations civil servants, left wing playwrights, Sunday Times columnists. My daughter's announcement of an interest in commerce felt like my fountain pen being pushed through my heart.

‘But darling’ I said, choking, ‘don’t you want to write a blog like mummy when you grow up?’. Milly just didn’t understand. ‘I can still write a blog even if I have a job can't I?’, she said, quizzically. Oh, her youthful innocence! What would she write about, I wanted to ask her, Today I went to work and came home watched a bit of telly before going to bed? Tears welled up in my eyes. Didn’t she know that a really successful blog was one about other people doing stuff. My God, providing your own material for your blog? Whatever next? ‘But Milly, think of your family!’ I cried. ‘Think of your Grandfather who fought in the war!’ Milly raised her eyebrows. ‘Grandfather was born in 1947’, she said. ‘But think of your Great Grandmother who threw herself in front of the king’s horse!’ Milly sighed. ‘But it was beating the favourite Mummy, which Great Granny had bet the house on without telling Great Grandaddy’, she retorted. ‘Anyway’ continued my heart breaking daughter, ‘If I got a job I could get dooced and then my blog would be even bigger than your’s!’ I sighed a big sigh. That’s my girl...I think….and I wondered if Ffion had the kettle on...

america

2008-03-06T19:24:00.015Z

The Kansas Bar and Grill next to the cinema here in the north seems to have closed. Naturally I don’t normally frequent such places but I had grown rather fond of it. With it’s Brokeback Mountain midwest shop fronts, sawn off wall mounted red convertible with surfboard on the back seat and ceiling suspended crop duster plane it just seemed to conjure up all those things that aren’t quite one side of the ocean or the other, Bill Bryson, Henry and Shea's Mildenhall rendition of Drift Away, The inside of Miss Baroque's flat. Sometimes of course you can have too much American influence with your after-film martini so to get away from it all I can always go straight home and watch the government announce their foreign policy on the news. Of course I usually disapprove of anything that pretends to be something else, and as you know, with this blog it’s facts alone that are wanted, and what's more I really don't know why anyone who works in an office or a factory feels the need to seek out such escapism; if they think their life is hard they should try downshifting! I shall miss the old place though and now when the Greyhound turns off the A19 at Stockton it just won't be the same. My neighbour says I'm only sad because it’s the nearest bar to the cinema but he’s got no heart, and now I'm empty and aching and I don't know why...

naked

2008-03-04T19:27:00.016Z

You know sometimes this blog leaves me feeling like one of those shop window mannequins, naked and on show to all the world, although without nipples that you can scrape the ice off your car with, sigh. The only time before I started Strife in the North that so many people saw so much of the inner me was when I went into labour in the foyer of that obstetricians' conference. I still rue the Super family tradition of children taking their middle name from the doctor who delivered them: Milly’s full name runs to three sides of A4. I fear when she gets married the priest may need a reserve to takeover when he looks like contravening shift hours regulations. Anyway, this is just a short post to say thank you for reading and thank you to those very nice people at a certain newspaper who found room amongst the full colour pull-out supplements on Prince Harry's dry cleaning issues to mention my own ordeal. Unfortunately, although my presence in the North has also now been leaked by the Guardian weekend listings magazine the RAF have said they won’t be flying me to Oxfordshire so I shall just have to muddle on, relying only on my au pair to tell me whether the people I’m talking to are speaking polish or are just local. In the world of naked people saying thank you of course, we all look to one person, who also proves Canada obviously isn’t nearly as cold as it’s made out to be, oops, sorry, wrong link, I'm still just getting the hang of this, try this one, and thank you for reading.

cleaning up

2008-03-01T13:50:00.014Z

My agent rang me last week. I hadn’t heard from him for ages. He told me he’s been too busy promoting my daughter's book about growing up neglected by a mother writing a book about how much she cares about her children . ‘I’m worried Rilly’, he told me. ‘People think you’re too posh. You need to do something common’. I wish I hadn't asked him what he had in mind. ‘Why don’t you write about cleaning toilets? The readers will love it, think you’re one of them’. I’m not sure my agent even reads my blog sometimes. ‘I support the Labour Party’, I told him, ‘what do you think I am, bloody working class or something? Do you think Harriet Harman cleans toilets?’ I put to him. ‘Look Rilly, Wife in The North did it when her agent told her to. Why do I just get the stroppy clients, huh?’ I asked him if I couldn't just make something up. He said readers would be able to tell it wasn’t true because they were so used to my gritty social realism. ‘But this house has got four toilets!’ I said. My agent had bigger plans. ‘The village hall!?’ I cried, but then remembered the village hall only had two, so I quit while I was ahead.

‘Have you been caught speeding again Rilly love?’ asked the lady who has the village hall keys. ‘I haven't been sent by a judge this time, I just want to help the community’. I said. ‘Are you unwell pet?’ she asked. ‘Just let me in at four, and can you lend me some of those rubber gloves that poor people wear please’, I told her. Well, I got to the village hall and just had to keep remembering that my agent had assured me of royalties on five thousand extra sales if there was a good toilet cleaning story in the book as I went into the gents. Oh God. Nobody has suffered for literature this much since Seigfried Sassoon’s agent sent him to the Somme. Phone for sex said the graffiti. Oh well, I thought, I suppose this is all for research. I took out my phone and dialled. ‘Hello’ said the voice. ‘Fabio?’ I replied. ‘Mrs Super?!’ said Fabio. ‘Is, erm, my husband there?’ There was a pause. ‘He is tied up at the moment’, came the reply. My husband works so hard when he’s down in London, the poor darling, sigh. I hung up, finished buffing up the durex machine and then my mop and I headed for more familiar and friendly territory in the ladies.

Elizabeth's relationship with Darcy indicates Austen's rejection of the patriarchy of the Regency period someone had written on the wall. I disagree, rather although romantic love and long term commitment are quite distinct Darcy leads us to believe that the one leads to the other thus leaving women trapped in relationships that can never be fulfilled someone else had scrawled below. I sighed. If only men know what women talked about in the ladies. As I began dusting off the chicklit vending machine I paused. I reached in my pocket and found a pound coin. Pushing it into the slot I pushed a random button on the machine and a book fell into the tray at the bottom. ‘Hmmm’, I thought, bending over my bucket to pick it up, Pride and Prejudice. I sighed, as I leaned on my mop, but with a ribbed chocolate flavoured cover. Now why didn’t I think of that? I peeked out of the door to see if there was anyone around, leaned my mop against the wall, slipped the lock on the cubicle, put the seat down on the loo, and settled down to my book. My agent (men, huh) would have to wait, sigh.

the french rejection

2008-02-27T18:27:00.014Z

‘Bonjour’, said the rough looking man as I stepped into the shed hidden deep in the woods. ‘You must be the new gamekeeper’, I said tentatively. He shrugged, not taking his eyes away from hanging the freshly caught ferrero rochers from a game hook. I felt a little frisson as his big rough hands worked amongst all his big rough gamekeeper stuff in his big rough shed. ‘Oui’, he said. ‘I 'ave downshifted from France’ . Crikey, I thought, that must be the first time anyone retired from the Dordogne to buy a cottage in Barnsley. ‘So how did you come to get this job?’ I asked. ‘I played ze garde-chasse in ze French version of Lady Chatterley,' he answered, ‘and I discovered I liked being an English gamekeeper’. I nodded in understanding. ‘It was very brave, a French actor playing a northern working class englishman’, I said. ‘Well’, he thought for a moment, ‘I thought if Juliette Binoche can get away wiz playing Catherine Earnshaw, 'ow bad can I be compared to her?' ‘

'I suppose it was the fresh air, being in the country, living with nature that made you become a gamekeeper’, I proffered. He shook his head. ‘Non’, he said, correcting me (translation: no), ‘it was shagging the landowners wife of course’. Well, I reflected, he was French after all. ‘All upper class English women are desperate for it, n’est pas?’ ‘Well, I’m sure I couldn’t possibly comment!’ I said, trying to sound convincing. I really didn't want to shed my inhibitions innan actual shed. He shrugged again. ‘so err’, I began, ‘has their been anyone special?’ He looked up. ‘Zer was a woman’, he said, ‘but she broke my urt’. I looked down, embarrassed. ‘Did she tell you she loved you then go back to her husband, is that how she broke your heart?’ He looked at me strangely. ‘No, she broke my urt, she put her foot right through ze floor of my urt over zer’, and he pointed across the room. ‘Mon dieu!’ he sighed, 'I mean, who goes in an urt wearing high heels?’ I kicked off my shoes quietly.

‘So, what can I do for you Madame Super?’ he asked. ‘Have you got any eggs, say half a dozen?’ He shrugged, again, and I thought he really should improve his repertoire of stereotypical French gestures if he wanted to be in my blog again. ‘I ‘ave only got one egg left’, he told me. ‘Oh well, I shall try somewhere else then’, I replied. ‘Oh, so one egg is not un ouef then, eh?’ he snapped with a huff. ‘Look’, I said, annoyed, ‘Just tell me where I can get some eggs’. he raised his eyebrows. ‘You could try Sean Bean next door’, he said. ‘Sean never has any trouble getting ze birds to lay for him...hello?...Rilly?...oh...where did she go..?’

Briefs and Counters Chapter Two

2008-02-24T11:27:00.005Z

‘Hello’ said the stranger as he approached the counter. Celia smiled nervously. ‘Are you being served?’ she asked. ‘I just dropped in to pick up my order’, said the stranger. ‘Oh’ replied Celia, trying not to look flustered. ‘What name please?’ The stranger told her his name. Winchester, Ted, Squadron Leader, DFC, KPMG, RSPCA. Celia crouched down to the draw marked ‘W’ and opened it reverentially. She peered in and lifted out the customer’s order: Boxers in RAF blue, with squadron leaders stripes and gold braid. She held them up to the light, the gold braid glinting in the sun.

‘You know’, began the stranger, 'I spend my whole life above the clouds but I don’t believe I’ve ever been as close to heaven as I am seeing you’. Celia blushed. ‘You’re mocking me’, she smiled nervously. ‘Well’, said the stranger, ‘judging by the number of stripes on those pants a small compliment is the least I can do because it seems you just gave me a promotion, those are Air Vice Marshall’s underpants. Celia’s embarassment was now unbearable. She replaced the object of her uncharacteristic faux pas in the draw and took out the right ones this time. ‘So have you just finished work?’ she asked, trying to change the the subject. Ted nodded. ‘Just finished Red Arrows practice’,he explained. 'Just fell out of my seat you know, did a loop the loop, saw the blue in your eyes down below and thought I must still be looking up at the sky. Actually, I'm just on my way to the puppy rescue centre and orphanage where I help out in my spare time’. Celia sighed. ‘Hmmm, those look like mine’, he said.

Celia was relieved. The shop got a lot of custom from Ted’s squadron. Those Red Arrows pilots seemed to need new pants after every airshow , but she had never had Ted in her department before. He was different. ‘They go very well with your helmet’, she said. Ted lifted his visor ‘Thanks err..’ he said leaning forward ‘...Thanks Jane’. ‘It’s Celia’, said Celia. ‘Sorry celia, must be going blind or something’, he laughed. Celia gazed into his eyes and hoped he didn’t notice the little heart shaped jet vapour trails streaking across them. ‘Best be going, those orphans need me’, and with that he saluted her, tucked his pants under his arm and left Celia’s briefs counter. Would she ever see him again, she thought. ‘Will I ever see you again?’ she asked. Ted looked downcast. '’Fraid I have to go to a new posting in the north soon’, he explained, ‘so I’ll be moving back to my family’s ancestral gothic mansion up there’. She realised she mustn’t have such thoughts about a customer, who she might never see again. Who knew what might happen to him all alone up in the hostile wilderness of The North, so she set about tidying the athletic supports draw and tried to put the tall, handsome, brave, caring, thoughtful Ted Winchester out of her lonely, single, unhappy, manless mind, but she soon found she had to sit down, just a little breathlessness, she thought, nothing more…

angels of the north

2008-02-14T19:07:00.010Z

Milly came home from school slightly perturbed by her school craft project. ‘Mummy’, she asked, ‘how do you make a Northumbrian cross?’ I had to confess I didn’t know so I asked my neighbour. He told me you make a Northumbrian cross by telling him Middlesbrough are a point above Newcastle in the league and just laughed, and he usually is so very helpful, sigh. I decided we should have to go to Northumberland to find a cross in situ so the girls and I jumped in the car and headed North. Soon a large figure loomed high above the road. ‘what’s that big statue of Mummy?’ asked Tilly. I looked up at the imposing sculpture which had stood on a hill and wistfully looked south down the A1 for ten years now. ‘I think she’s a London downshifter dear’, I explained, and drove some more.

Soon the A1 turned muddy as the tarmac ran out and the car got stuck in a tractor rut so we pulled off and found ourselves by the sea. This was the very coast where Christianity first arrived in this country of course, and without Aiden braving the Vikings, the scots and the tourists all those years ago we wouldn’t have anyone to chain themselves to railings outside Jerry Springer the Opera today. Pilgrims still come to this spiritual stretch of coast to this day to drive out onto the Holy Island Causeway as the tide is coming in to be baptised by the North Sea in the comfort of their own car.

There, amongst the dunes we came across the object of our quest, the ancient cross of Saint Cuthbert, leaning over with the very weight of it's antiquity but still reaching towards the heavens after all these centuries. I thought of all the weary travellers who had stood at this sacred spot and thought their holy thoughts, thought ‘I wish it wasn’t the eighth century and blogs haven’t been invented yet so I could share these profound insights I’m having right now because if I write it them a book they'll only end up in a vault in London where nobody can see them’, perhaps listened to the eerie voices of wind and the waves, then looked at their watch and wondered if they were going to miss the rush hour, then thought it’s a pity that great big castle spoils the view, damn developers, then turned their tired and sandaled toes south and bid farewell to the angels.

Soon that time came for me too. I turned to the children and smiled. I had my own angels, I thought, I didn’t need any one else’s. ‘Mummy’, said Tilly. ‘I love you too’, I said, knowing instinctively what she was going to say. ‘I need a poo’, she said. ‘Come on then’, I told them, sawing off the cross and putting it in the boot. We got in the car and shut out the wind, I typed ‘the north’, into the Satnav, and in the back of the car an angel passed.

2008-02-13T19:02:00.001Z

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the long and windy road

2008-02-03T19:10:00.000Z

I do love the children but they've really been getting under my feet lately. I wouldn't mind but they haven’t done anything entertaining for the blog for ages either. The final straw came when Tilly asked to be paid twenty thousand pounds a year as a researcher on Strife in the North. Although this blog’s meticulous politician-like pursuit of factual accuracy could certainly justify that amount I was a little nervous of putting her on the payroll and declaring my commercial reliance on the children to the authorities. ‘Can’t you take them out somewhere dear?’ I asked my husband, exasperated, by way of encouraging him to spend a little quality time with his daughters. My husband looked a little blank. ‘How about taking them sledging?’ I suggested. My husband doesn’t spend much time in our village. I could see he needed a prompt. ‘You’re wandering where there’s a good tobogganing hill.’ I offered. My husband nodded. I pointed to the news about the A66 being closed then went back to my typing. That big hill up at Bowes would make a lovely sledging run and my husband would bring my children back safely because he was an expert in outdoor survival, having watched amost all of Touching the Void on DVD at our friends house before feinting, from the thin air he claimed, because our friend's living room is upstairs.

Some time later the door opened loudly and I heard children’s voices in the hall downstairs then thudding footsteps on the stairs. Tilly burst in. ‘Hello dear’, I said, ‘did you have a good day?’ Tilly explained disappointedly that when they got there nearly all the snow had been cleared ready to open the road. ‘You should have come earlier’, a man in a high vis jacket had told them , seeing the toboggan as he had brushed the snow from the windows of abandoned vehicles to peer inside for anyone they might have missed the day before. ‘That’s the first time anyone must have said that to your daddy’, I muttered. ‘Mummy’, began Tilly, ‘Yes dear?’ I smiled ‘Milly said that last night in the blizzard the survivors ate the people who died of hypothermia’. I sighed. ‘Well dear’, I explained, ‘northerners are used to frozen food’. Tilly looked uncertainly reassured. She hadn't really trusted my judgement on culinary matters after the incident in the cafe when I'd told the waitress I only wanted fried bread with my breakfast if it was focaccia. ‘They couldn’t afford organic even if they could grow anything up here darling’. Tilly nodded. ‘And anyway’, I continued , ‘I’m certain there are no cannibals this side of the welcome to Cumbria’ sign’. I remembered my neighbour telling me about the ingredients of Cumberland sausage and although I couldn't recite it line by line it definitely included lost ramblers. Apparently reading all those Beatrix Potter books has put them completely off eating animals over there. My neighbour even told of how Renée Zellweger had a close shave on her first day of shooting Miss Potter , so close that she was left with a false left leg. Although physically she ended up only being wooden below the knee doctors were tragically unable to save her acting.

‘Mummy’, said Tilly. ‘Yes, what is it dear?’ Tilly looked a little pale. ‘You know you usually only see one crow tugging at an animal corpse on the road.’ ‘Yes dear’, listened I, sympathetically. ‘Well today we saw a whole crowd of them because the road was closed’ I smiled lovingly. My daughter continued; ‘And you know you hardly ever see more than one journalist around here’ . I nodded. ‘Well today we saw two TV trucks and daddy nearly ran over a cameraman who was dashing over the road to film a smashed up car from the night before before it was towed away’ I sighed. ‘Mummy’, said Tilly, sheepishly, ‘I don’t want to be journalist like you anymore, I want to write made up stories instead’. I gave my daughter a big hug. Although it looked as if, with nobody to hand on to, when I retired it could be the end of the road for Strife in the North, at least I’d saved twenty grand. I poured a glass of wine and switched on the radio.

the wind

2008-01-26T18:27:00.000Z

Well, considering the only view I’d had of the North before I was so involuntarily transplanted here was from films about people taking all their clothes off, at the drop of a hat, as it were, the weather in these distant latitudes has been most un-cinematically inclement lately. last week it was floods and then on Friday the wind, and, as my neighbour claims Letty can be seen saying through the cowboys, dust and wurlitzer, it’s been right proper drafty. even my husband has been affected by the weather and has spent most of the day clinging to the sofa repeating there's no place like home, there's no place like home. Actually, my neighbour told me recently I reminded him of Lillian Gish. I asked him if it was because we shared that rare quality of fragile resilience but he said it was because I was a rather melodramatic, wore silent film make up and seemed to think it was still the nineteen twenties. I ask you, do I come across as some monstrous caricature to you, Sigh...

where's trai?

2008-01-22T20:15:00.000Z

I’m afraid the Super household's satellite dish is pointed south most of the time, sigh. I don’t watch the northern TV news, it just makes me cry, although sometimes I have to turn it around because I'm the only one in the village with a television so the locals rely on me for contact with the rest of their region. However a conversation with my neighbour, who doesn’t watch Look North every night either because they only show North East tonight at his local pub (yes, ITV, so that gives you an idea of the tone of that establishment, sigh) found us wondering upon the same mystery; What has happened to lovely weathergirl Trai Anfield . At first Trai would be in the studio each night, exchanging light banter with ace sportscaster Jeff Brown about whether it would be dry enough on Saturday so as not to cause Michael Owen to fall over and twist something, then she began to appear in more and more remote locations, standing in waders in the middle of the Tees in a flood one day, Tynemouth breakwater in a hurricane the next, but now she has vanished completely. I had just assumed she had been sent so far away from the studio she had fallen into someone else’s local TV region and now was to be found introducing tomorrow’s Outer Hebrides sunburn risk in smiling Gaelic. My neighbour has another theory however, which involves poor Trai being forcibly abandoned on the Farne Islands with nothing but a piece of string, a cheery sweater and box set of Distant Shores DVDs. His already doubtful theory really begins to unravel when he brings in his view on the resemblance of the admittedly tall, dark and rather mysterious Carol Malia to Diana Prince. He speculates that Trai had to be exiled to the middle of the North Sea after she was struck by the star presenter’s handbag as she walked in on her turning onto Wonder Woman in her dressing room and threatened to go public. Of course a moment’s thought brings to mind any number of flaws to this idea: Even super powers wouldn’t prevent poor Carol from turning as blue as her pants in the weather we’ve been having around here lately, her invincibility still wouldn't allow her to risk rescuing anyone in Newcastle whilst wearing a red top, and of course you have to remember what Carol Malia’s cover job is and then ask where was the lasso of truth when some of our North East politicians have been on the show, sigh..

色，戒 (short story, long film)

2008-01-20T17:27:00.000Z

The secret police chief wore a grave and serious expression. It was the troubled look of a man who could have still been doing kung fu movies if he hadn’t fallen out of a bamboo tree whilst defeating the forces of evil in his last film. It was clear there had been words with the director about having a flying part in this film, the insurers insisting on giving his character a chauffeur instead, and making him a baddy. Milly leaned over her popcorn. 'Mummy', she whispered. It had seemed a good idea to take the children to the cinema, less so when we got there and found we couldn’t get into Enchanted but the children were interested in the far east after their cousin had told them she was going to China this summer to spend a couple of weeks lounging by a pool over there, and very proud we all were too that she had got into the british Olympic swimming team, so getting tickets for Lust, Caution instead had seemed a good idea at the time.

'Mummy!' whispered Milly (woman moaning), ‘what is that man doing to that lady?’ I sighed. (sigh). ‘Look darling’, I explained, ‘You really must try and get used to reading subtitles for when you grow up and become an intellectual so please try and follow the plot dear’. Milly raised her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t mean the man on the screen mummy, I meant the man in the front row’. Well, I suppose I should have anticipated some awkward questions. (man sitting in next row behind going Shuush!) ‘I think his girlfriend lapsed into a coma during the last mahjong scene and he’s reviving her dear’, I ventured. Milly looked uncertain. ‘Mummy’, she continued, ‘yes dear?’ I replied. 'Why is this film so long?' Ah, the poor innocent child. She has so much to learn. 'It's character building dear', I explained, 'maintaining the same position for hours on end is part of kung fu training'. My daughter had the expression that told me her curiosity was not satisfied. ‘How can Tilly and I get in to see an 18 film when we’re only 7 anyway?’ she asked. ‘Because’, I began, trying not to sound like it the answer was really obvious to me as a grown up, ‘This is an Ang Lee film so you’ll probably turn 18 before the end, so it’s OK darling’. ‘Oh’ said Milly, clearly still not satisfied. ‘So Mummy..’I tried to remain patient. ‘Is that what men and ladies really do to each other?’ ‘Look’ I said, wishing to draw this conversation to a close, ‘It’s nearly eight years since you were conceived', (hotdog going limp), 'How am I supposed to remember?’

My daughter opened her fizzy drink (pop) and went back to eating her popcorn (crackle). 'Milly!' I snapped (snap), a little irritated, 'use your chopsticks or you'll show us all up!' Now I began to think that perhaps I had been mistaken to bring the children to the cinema at all. It’s not that I don’t encourage the girls to ask questions; Is crouching tiger a sexual position? Is Lust, Caution hailed for it’s realism because it actually lasts as long as the Japanese occupation of China? Is it true that the resistance leader did actually say listen very carefully I shall say ziz only once but this was edited out of the subtitles? Why was it necessary to subtitle the sound effects and English dialogue? But sometimes I just want to watch the film. My attention returned to the screen. I didn't think the heroine could keep her secret much longer. I just hoped my daughters would hold out a bit longer when questioned by my London friends as to whether foreign films were shown in the North. I had my reputation to think of and I hadn't even confessed to my chums back home that there was television north of Watford yet. Returning my attention to the film the sinister secret police chief was clearly planning to have his wicked way with the heroine again. He took off his shirt and undid his belt ( things looking up). I looked across to Milly and Tilly to check they were not too shocked by a naked man in the bedroom but they were both sleeping soundly. They grow up so fast nowadays, sigh

evident malaise

2008-01-15T20:16:00.000Z

My dear friend Emma's musings on prison toilet bowls being the main actor which deters her from a life of crime have inevitably turned my own thoughts to the art world. Not as you might think because of Marcel Duchamp , but because of my own husband’s occasionally intimated wish to be a master criminal à la Steve McQueen in the Thomas Crown affair. I think I can be reasonably sure he's not going to act on this desire, mainly because he really only wants to be chased by Faye Dunaway (he does like strong women, sigh) but also because if he broke into the Tate Gallery (The proper one, not the TonyBankside or whatever it's called) he would do much more to impress our friends by stealing the coffee shop’s expresso machine for our kitchen wall rather than a pictue of some old castle. Anyway, what’s the point of going to an art gallery in the middle of the night wearing a balaclava? Who’s going to see you there? Surely better to give the old masters a miss and pinch a ‘I’m so rich and cultured I do my clothes shopping in an art gallery’ t-shirt or two from the gallery shop, which is I'm fairly sure more expensive than an original Turner anyway

Actually we did go down on the big blue train recently because my husband’s aforementioned fascination with slighty dangerous redheds led him to drag us both down to Millbank to catch the last weekend of a show of pictures of Lizzie Siddal demonstrating the various stages of consumption. It was lovely to forget The North for a day, although this relief didn’t last long as my husband insisted on dropping into the Morpeth Arms on the way from the tube. Is there no escape, sigh? It was a very interesting exhibition, the painter chap in question having been a bit of an enfant terrible, the Damien Hurst of his day perhaps, well, Damien Hurst with sideburns, artistic talent but a perhaps overly predictable tendency never to be found very far from a wet corset. It was all the more exciting because many of the paintings had travelled from as far as two or three rooms away, obviously not worth going to see when they’re free lest people should think one is a care in the community case or even, god forbid, a student or just plain poor but well worth ten of anyone’s husband’s pounds to go and stand shoulder to shoulder with talking guidebooks squeaking away in a dozen languages. Some of the models did have a look which was rather less pre-raphael than pre-menstrual but it was all a jolly nice day out. The only disappointment was when we found the gallery café had run out of sugar. No sugar? In the Tate? It’s not the same London I left behind. I miss London so much and it was very clear that day that they're not coping very well without me either...

Massachusetts

2008-01-13T15:23:00.000Z

I fumbled amongst all the assorted drawings and stories my daughter had brought home at the end of term from the Ted Hughes School for Girls that she and her sister attend. I was looking for the DVD of the nativity play; my daughter was a crow, I was so proud of her, when I came across a poem she had written. I always worried she might have heard her father and I discussing moving house again. Now I could see that my fears had been realised.

She has done it again
One year in every otto, neun or zehn she manages it
To pack up the lampshade and paperweight
Cancel the german class
Dream of book launches
Downshifting is an art
She does it exceptionally well
Whenever her agent makes the call
She says it makes her feel real
But to me it feels like hell
She is always the same identical woman
I don’t know why she doesn’t stay put
But that lacks the theatrical
And doesn’t explore the feminist dialectic
Thank goodness the aga’s not gas, just electric
Unwrapping herself hand and foot
For the peanut munching crowd
These are her thoughts, her soul, and my childhood
Muttered into her dictafone head set
buried in The North and she’s not even dead yet
But further north still might she go for inspirational air?
Up to where everybody has red hair
The locals had better beware, beware

Tilly super, aged seven and three quarters

I looked at the teacher's comments in red pen underneath. 'A little derivative Tilly', said the note, 'see me after school' . That seemed a little harsh for a seven year old, I thought. I put down the crumpled paper. I could see my daughter was starting to think about the important things in life but at her young impressionable age there was still something she hadn’t grasped: There’s no money in poetry you silly girl; tales of downshifting woe are where the cash is at. I looked up and as down in the valley the rain swollen waters washed over the bared roots of river bank trees under the dark northern sky I thought of home and turned on the radio

new year's lay

2008-01-06T16:15:00.000Z

It was New Year's Day . My husband appeared in the doorway of the lounge. ‘I say’, he said, ‘awfully quiet around here’. ‘The children have gone to Basil and Coriander’s house’, I explained. My husband thought for a moment. ‘Well’, he began, ‘this year I’m going to pay more attention to some important things I’ve been neglecting rather terribly in the past’. I looked up. He stretched out his arms. ‘Yes, I need to give some parts of this old body a bit more exercise than they've been getting of late’. I raised my eyebrows and moved to get up. ‘You stay there darling’, he told me, ever so authoritatively. ‘I just need to pop upstairs, get out of these things, you know…’ and he disappeared. Of course I knew what was coming. I quickly undressed, arranged myself in a seductive pose across the chaise longue, and awaited my man...

The door opened. 'Oh gosh darling’ said my husband, observing my classical repose ‘you really have acclimatised while I've been away haven't you !’ I looked up at my husband. ‘Darling’ I said softly, ‘has anyone ever told you how sexy you are in those running shoes?’ He smiled. ‘Yes, actually, well, just Fabio’, he replied, ‘but then he’s my secretary so I suppose he doesn’t really count, sigh’. I gave a come hither shrug of my goosebumped shoulders. ‘Anyway, just off for a once around the village, blow the cobwebs away, you know!' ‘What about my bloody cobwebs?’ I thought, but said ‘you won’t get lost will you dear?’ He smiled nervously. 'Oh, err, what’s our house number again?' I told him.‘And the errr…’ I told him the name of our street. ‘And just in case I should stray outside the houses…’ I told him the name of the village. ‘Don’t worry’, I assured him, 'if you end up at the wrong house at least you’ll know when you don’t recognise the children!’. He laughed. ‘Oh yes’, he said, peering at a photo on the mantlepiece. ‘Of course, who could forget the children?’ . ‘That’s your nephew’, I corrected. ‘You have daughters’. He blushed. ‘Ha ha’ he said, ‘well, you can’t tell them apart at that age can you!’ ‘That’s his graduation photo darling’. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, turning to leave, ‘if I’m not back by dark call out those big strapping chaps from the fell rescue team for me!’ although of course he really didn’t need to tell me that. As the door slammed behind him I was already dialling their number.

in liltin' wifey territory

2007-12-30T14:24:00.000Z

‘Mummy’ began Tilly. 'Yes dear?' I replied, quietly so as not to disturb the couple in the front row of the cinema whose snogging I had been writing down in my notebook of astute observations of everyday life. ‘Is Eva Green from Newcastle?’ ‘Why do you ask that dear?’ I asked. ‘Because it's snowing and she's not wearing a coat', explained Tilly. ‘I thinks she just kept that dress from Casino Royale dear’, I replied, ‘along with her make-up, character and leading man. ‘Mummy?’ continued Tilly. ‘Yes darling?’ I smiled. ‘If everyone’s soul follows them around in animal form what do they do when they want to go somewhere that has a sign saying guide dogs only?’ I was just thinking about that one when I heard ‘and mummy...’ I sighed. ‘You know this film is all about a fierce animal that’s really a king in a mysterious snowy land?’ ‘Yes dear?’ ‘So I take it CS Lewis’s Narnia copyright has expired then?’ she speculated. 'No darling, you don't und...' I began, but suddenly my thoughts were awakened. Perhaps if I went North I could come back with a good story to tell of wild animals, strange locals, and comedy trousers. ‘I’m going to The North children!’ I announced. I would take the train, I thought but remembering the new year engineering works I added ‘I may be gone some time’. ‘Will there be ice bears?’ asked Milly. ‘Don’t be silly Milly’ I smiled. ‘ I think wife in the north shot them all at the weekend’

I arrived at the station just as the train pulled in. It was a sad sight. The GNER colours had been covered over with the horrible new National Express stickers which were also stuck on the roof so they could still be read when the train was lying on it's side like one of their buses and on the side of the locomotive the Highland Chieftain name plate had been replaced with The Alex Salmond Express. I took my seat and as the train rolled away from the platform and into the unknown I began to write. ‘Excuse me’, said another passenger, pointing to a sign on the window, ‘this is the quiet coach, no electronic equipment allowed’. ‘Don’t worry’, I reassured him, gesturing towards my typewriter, ‘even valves weren’t invented when they made this thing!’ and began to tap away as the coach slowly and rather mysteriously grew ever more empty of passengers the further north we travelled.

I knew we had really reached the North when we passed a group of workman erecting the new Welcome to Wife in The North Country sign by the tracks. The train rumbled on and I wondered what other influence my inspiration could have had on Northumberland. Suddenly the intercom burst into life. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’, began the announcement, ‘as the North Sea lies as cold, still , grey and unforgiving as the steel of a reiver’s sword and the river flows muddy brown past the silent stone walls guarding the mysterious secrets of the mist shrouded history of the ancient border we shall shortly be arriving in Berwick on Tweed’. I closed my eyes to steal myself for the arrival and breathed deeply as page after page of lilting possibilities scrolled past my eyes. ‘Please mind the gap’, concluded the announcement. I opened my eyes again and as the train coasted across the Royal Borders Bridge high above the dark Waterstones of the River Tweed I knew what I must do. I alighted from the carriage as soon as the train pulled in and called to the guard. ‘I say, what time is the next train?' I asked. ‘Where are you going to pet?’ he queried. ‘To my destiny', I answered confidently, 'as author of the great northern downshifting novel’. ‘That’ll be the 15.40 from Platform 2 pet’, he said. ‘Don’t be late though’, he added. ‘It’ll be standing room only on that service’.

fairy tale of old york

2007-12-24T12:13:00.001Z

Dear everyone, here's wishing Strife in the North's very patient and understanding readers a super christmas and superer new year. How grim can it get up north? Am awful lot grimmer if you folks didn't visit and share my sorrow and pain, so thank you, sob. I'm too upset to write anything now so here's a song by Kirsty MacColl's dad. I just hope it doesn't get me into trouble, as he was from Lancashire, sigh...

coming or going

2007-12-16T19:05:00.000Z

My sleepy eyes opened reluctantly to be greeted by the early morning sun glimmering dim crimson above the bare frosty treetops rising through the billowing mist that rolled down the cold lazy river. ‘Oh for crying out loud will you shut those fucking curtains Tilly!’ I shouted lovingly at my daughter. ‘But Mummy, you said we could go Christmas shopping today’, sighed my darling girl. ‘We can’t go out’, I told her, ‘Daddy isn’t here to scrape the ice off the windscreen.’ ‘Oooh Mummy!’ sighed Tilly, and stormed off. I sighed too. I knew that the time to decide whether we were going to stay up north or go back to London was approaching as fast as I was losing the feeling in my toes that Tilly has left poking out from the duvet.

I remembered my children’s little faces when I told them we were leaving London. I should remember, it had taken long enough to get them to show an expression that would sound suitably poignantly innocent yet charmingly humorous when I descibed it in my book. My father had been more encouraging. I think he thought that by taking civilisation to The North I was finally following in the footsteps of his career in the Colonial Service. I remembered telling my best friend. ‘There is no life outside the M25!’ she had sobbed. I remembered telling the other reporters at the Sunday Times I was going to the north. ‘Where?' they had asked, perplexed. I took them into the next office where there was a national map of Britain on the wall but it only went as far north as the village where princess Diana was buried. Well, I suppose it is called Northamptonshire, sigh. There had been some good memories of course. I fondly remembered the Aga dressing ceremony held to celebrate the last local moving out of my street, winning the injunction against the silver band practising during Location Location, and then there were the locals of course.

I had grown rather attached to the local northern people I had studied for my book, almost as attached as I had become to the Umba Lumbas of Upper Borneo with whom I stayed in my authentic barn conversion at the very heart of their community while I wrote my first travel book Strife in the Wilderness: three months without Radio 4. I had found that these quaint charming northerners with their curious ways had rather grown on me. They have told me how much they love Strife in the North too, well, at least I think that's what they were saying, it's hard to tell sometimes, sigh. I felt I had really lived alongside these people in their daily lives, shared their struggles, understood their worries, borne their burden, and so had my nanny, cleaner, personal trainer, feng shui consultant and life coach. I knew that Strife in the North could be an even bigger money spinner, I mean genuinely heartfelt account of northern life, than the Umba Lumbas book so although I am comforted that my sister blogger whose heartfelt sincerity so inspires me will soon have to make the same choice I know it won't make it any easier when the time comes to have to ask my husband, are we going back home, darling, please, you gotta let me know...

voyage of the fairly depressed

2007-12-09T11:15:00.000Z

Well, I'm pleased to report Natalia's safe return from her rendez vous with the local party treasurer. She said when she first arrived she did receive some rather morally disapproving glances from the doggers at the other end of the lay-by but fortunately others turned up quite soon, in fact the darling girl told me so many Labour supporters sent their nannies and au pairs in disguise to give donations the whole event began to resemble the stoning scene in The Life of Brian. I asked her where she saw that awfully disrespectful movie and she said it was shown to the students in her citizenship class so I feel a stern letter to The Times coming up.

I was talking to my neighbour this morning about the most interesting case of the chap in the canoe. My neighbour says this is the most notorious case of someone disappearing from Hartlepool to start a new life on his ill gotten gains since Peter Mandelson left to join the European Commision. Actually, between you and me I'm beginning to suspect my neighbour might be a bit of a tory you know. Our Peter was somewhat cleverer than this Darwin chap of course because he shaved off his moustache and so it was years before anyone in Brussels recognised him. The poor missing kayaking chap nearly got away with it as well apparently because when the police asked for the canoe as evidence they found out Able UK had already dismantled it while they were waiting for permission for the ghost ships but sadly it seems as if although he'd been told Panama was just like The North; lots of canals and everybody still wears a a hat it just somehow wasn't home. I know how he feels, and if I wasn't thirty miles from the sea and completely out of sea sickness tablets, well, who knows what I might do, sigh...

On the subject of ghost ships, I know this blog has had something of the Mary Celeste about it lately, well, the fairly depressed more like, so thanks awfully for being so very understanding. It's just that it's so grim up north, sometimes I can hardly bear to talk about it, sob...

from here to identity

2007-12-02T13:28:00.000Z

I’m most awfully sorry for being so terribly terribly tardy in keeping this blog up to date. I must confess that I’ve been really rather concerned about identity theft lately and now that these child benefit discs have gone missing the whole business has caused me some great deal of worry. Can you imagine if those discs fell into the wrong hands and all the intimate details of my family life and all that terribly personal information about my children suddenly appeared on the internet and I didn’t even get any blog traffic or book royalties out it?! My neighbour is even more worried. He claims child benefit for his six children so I can see why he might be a little concerned although as the youngest is twenty five I really don’t know what consequences could occur that alarm him quite so much. I just hope that it’s so grim up north that nobody would even pretend to be me. I struggle to write the truth about my life and not have people think it’s all made up so I’m sure that nobody who was really only pretending could bring in the aga, the au pair, the big house and rich husband but yet manage to convey how awfully grim it is up north at all convincingly. Anyway, must dash as I have to send Natalia with a suitcase full of used notes and a false moustache to a secluded layby off the A19 to meet the chap from the Labour Party who collects my husband's donations. It's just good to see those chaps from the party are taking some measures to avoid computers and therefore anything underhand occurring, sigh. Back soon I hope, and thanks for bearing with me. Tootleoo chaps..

if you've got the tea, I've got the sympathy

2007-10-23T09:19:00.000+01:00

Some times I think that blogging isn’t really the medium for me (did I mention I haven’t posted anything for ages?) and when I look at some of the struggling diary writers from whom I draw inspiration; Wife in the North, Ann Frank, I just don’t know how they keep it up. Anyway, let’s try and get this show back on the road. I’m afraid I have been unavoidably lying in a dark room recovering my composure lately (Did I mention I’ve been lying in a dark room recovering my composure?) after I came out of the butchers one day ( I always like to get some chicken for the girls and myself during the week as when I offer my husband a bit of breast or leg he just turns his nose up. Ffion gets her stuff there you know. She's lovely and her husband’s away lot too. I must ask her about what it is he does) when someone leaned out of a passing car's passenger window and asked me 'are you local?' She went on to ask which way it was to the northern heartlands and I told her I thought she probably needed to come off at the next junction on the motorway. After the car drove off I’m afraid that having someone even consider the possibility that I was a northerner caused a delayed shock and I came over all unnecessary.

It was just fortunate that my friend the nurse was nearby and she helped me back to her place. I came round in what I at first thought must be the scene of some kind of terrible accident in an MDF factory but then I realised it was her kitchen. ‘Would you like a cup of tea Rilly?’ said the nurse, reassuringly. ‘I wouldn't say no to a double decaf blue mountain skinny cinnamon latte’ I said. ‘Sorry, I seem to be right out of that’, she said, peering into her cupboard. ‘G&T?’ she proffered. ‘Make it a double’, I said, not wanting to be churlish and refuse her hospitality. ‘Nice kitchen’, I said, looking around. Perhaps I had been unconcious for so long that chipboard and formica were making a comeback now. My nurse friend smiled. ‘You know dear, you could get a kitchen twice as big as this one with an aga and an American fridge if you downshifted’. I told her. She smiled and handed me my drink. ‘You just give up work, buy a couple of houses, knock them through, call it a cottage and, err, that’s it’. I noticed some photographs on the window sill. ‘Is that your husband?' I asked. She nodded. ‘We’re divorced’, she said. ‘shift work, you know, takes it’s toll on a relationship’. I felt that now it was my turn to offer sympathy. ‘I know what it’s like’, I said, ‘being alone, I mean’. She nodded. ‘I miss my husband terribly’ I continued. She smiled weakly. ‘I only get to spend time with him at weekends, holidays, Christmas, the children’s birthdays, our anniversary, weddings, Valentines Day…’ I stopped as I could see my nurse friend was unaccustomed to receiving such moral support instead of providing it. ‘Thank you Rilly’ she said. ‘You’re a rock’ . I smiled. I just hoped she meant I was a southern rock, and not a northern one , and I downed my drink and smiled as we both soaked up the descending silence of mutual understanding.

2007-10-12T09:38:00.001+01:00

alonement

2007-09-16T20:33:00.000+01:00

As I stood on the steps by the fountain a feeling of utter loneliness washed over me like the Atlantic over Kate Winslett's life raft. It was September. The children had gone off to wherever it is they go off to at this time of year and soon my husband would leave me too. I lit a cigarette as a figure appeared at the French windows with a suitcase.

‘What are you doing out here Rilly’ asked my husband
‘Oh, just imagining I was Keira Knightly’
‘Well, you certainly could be her in the right light darling, oh, no, hang on, you just slightly raised your right eyebrow, damn, that’s just too much like acting to be Keira’
‘Are you leaving me then darling? Must you go to London, Must you?
‘Yes darling, I must’
‘Yes, I suppose you must. At least we’ll always have our last night together watching Atonement’

'Yes, even if it was spoiled by all those Redcar people talking during the film about how much the film crew improved the sea front when they turned it into Dunkirk'

'Yes, sigh'
‘And to think they said it couldn’t be filmed’
‘Yes, who would have thought Allo Allo would work as a feature film’.
‘I say, isn’t it actually an Ian Mcewan novel darling?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. It’s about time someone did a send up of one of his books. He really does go on doesn't he?’
‘I don’t think it was meant to be a parody darling’
‘You mean all those daft misunderstandings and hammy accents were meant to be serious?’
‘Yes dear’
‘Gosh, well, that explains why the fallen madonna with the big boobies wasn't in it but if that’s how Hollywood treats highbrow literature these days then I really must be careful when I sell the film rights to Strife in the North.'
‘Strife in the what, darling?
‘Oh, nothing darling’
‘well, I must be going’
‘Yes, you must be going, goodbye darling'

'Goodbye darling'

With that he disappeared into the car and the sound of the tyres on the gravel drive faded into the distance. I didn’t know when I would see him again. How much older would I be when next I was with him? One thing I had learnt from Atonement, at least if I kept the same hair cut then no matter how much I had aged at least he'd still know it was me. The night grew cool. I should go in. I thought once more how terrible it was to pretend that something was true when it was all really just made up and went inside.

miracle on sauchiehall street

2007-09-09T17:41:00.000+01:00

I was still in standard class and rather hoping for one of the poor people to do something faintly amusing for the blog when the announcement came that the train was arriving in Glasgow so I rushed back to my husband in proper civilised people’s class. My husband was busy asking the guard where the train company got the doilies they put on the backs of the seats when I found him and we both peered reluctantly out of the window. I glanced down to the reviews on the back of my so called ‘classic’ guidebook to Scotland and compared my recollection of its descriptions to the view outside the window. As soon as I got back these Boswell and Johnson chaps were going to be hearing from my solicitor demanding my £7.99 back, that was for certain. My husband looked at his watch. ‘We’ll have to go straight to the concert darling’, he frowned, ‘Oh don’t be silly’ I said, ‘he’s bound to start late’. My husband looked up towards the sky. ‘Forgive her; she knows not what she says’ he said, to a suitcase. ‘Mere mortal men may be not always on time’ he explained. ‘But Van Morrison doesn't do late’.

The lights dimmed, the music began. The audience it seemed had apparently stayed on from some kind of white revivalist church meeting that preceded it. ‘I wish I was black’, sighed my husband, as that Belfast soul wafted across the auditorium. ‘I wish you were black too darling’, I said, by way of reassuring him and sharing the experience. The band eventually began on a song that seemed to involve spelling a woman's name. The religious fervour finally became overwhelming for some people in the audience. ‘I can walk! I am saved!’ cryed a man, leaping from his seat and throwing down his zimmer frame. ‘I can see!’ hallelujah!’, cried my husband, jumping to his feet and taking out his contacts. I felt a little uneasy but as I didn’t want to draw attention to myself I too leapt up. ‘I can hear!’ I called out, taking the cotton wool out of my ears. ‘It’s a miracle!’

Well, soon after that it came to the part of the evening when my husband and I found ourselves back out in the street, the warm evening air disappointingly providing no stereotypical Scottish weather to write about at all. ‘It was awfully nice of those two burly chaps in tuxedos to show us out by the fire exit’, I said. ‘Isn’t it great to miss the crowds’? My husband looked at me. ‘Yes dear’ he said. ‘And leaving half an hour before the end also helps with that of course’, he sighed. ‘I think I need a drink’, I said and we found an Irish theme pub so the evening wouldn’t be a complete wash out. We both looked sullenly into our guinness as the chap on the stool in the corner with the guitar playing covers launched into an oh so familiar number. ‘Sha la la la la la la’ said my husband by way of accompaniement. I gave him a long hard stare and we walked back to the hotel without speaking

Saturday morning arrived. It was my husband that suggested we took the metro back to the station. ‘The metro?’ I queried, ‘so you mean....?’ my husband looked puzzled. ‘Yes, like the tube’, He clarified. It would be like going home. Now I did believe in miracles. It was a little later when my husband tentatively said to me, ‘darling?’ I looked up at him innocently. ‘Do you think you might let go of the seat now, we really need to get off you know.’ ‘Why need to get off?’ I asked. ‘because we’ve been through the last station twelve times and one more might be unlucky’, he explained. I shook my head. ‘But it's like back home’, I said, clinging to the seat. ‘But darling’, said my husband, ‘you’re not in London!’ I shook my head. ‘Underground train’ I said pointing to carriage around me, ‘London!’. My husband sighed. ‘big muddy old river; London!’ I continued, and, indicating the other passengers, ‘loads of Scottish people; London!’. ‘But darling’, argued my husband, ‘we really do have to get off!’ ‘why get off?!’ I snapped. ‘because Rangers are at home today and you’re wearing your my friend went to Lourdes and all I got was this lousy t-shirt t-shirt dear’, he explained. ‘why get off?!’ I said. ‘Because we need to go back down south to the north darling’ explained my husband. I shook my head. ‘But its grim down south up north!’ I protested. ‘Won’t even a large G&T pursuade you dear?’ asked my husband. I stood up. ‘make that two'. My husband smiled, straightening his new Charles Rennie mackintosh cravat and we set off south for the north.

2007-08-22T13:11:00.001+01:00

grief encounter

2007-08-12T17:15:00.000+01:00

‘Well,’ said my husband as we emerged blinking from the dark cinema into the late afternoon sunshine. ‘It was lovely to get away from work for a couple of hours’. It had been a lovely surprise when my husband had unexpectedly announced an illicit weekday afternoon trip to the pictures, although sadly his secretary Fabio joining us did have the effect that we couldn’t entirely leave my beloved’s trade at the cinema door. It had been a nice way to spend a couple of hours, an old movie, some popcorn, my husband and his secretary sitting just a few rows in front of me. ‘Interesting choice of film’, My husband said to Fabio, ‘The CGI steam trains were terribly unrealistic but I liked the bit where they sneak off to the pictures to watch an overblown romantic flick when they’re in one themselves that we’ve all sneaked off to see’. Fabio smiled. ‘The director’s cut is better’, he told my husband, ‘Trevor Howard leaves the station tea rooms at the end and gets on a space ship instead of the train back to his wife’. ‘Oh, Men!’ I sighed.

Sometimes I've felt as if I were just a made up character as well, living my life in black and white. Although of course, that being the case, the ending must have already been written when in reality most of the time it seemed more as if someone was merely making all this up as they went along. I just hoped I was a character in some great literary work and not in some stupid blog that only seems to get updated once a week lately. ‘I think those were real steam trains darling’, I said, as the famous dramatic climax of Celia Johnson’s hair falling slightly over her eyes resonated in my imagination. ‘It was made in 1945 you know’, I explained. ‘Oh crikey’, said my husband, ‘and it’s still not out on DVD yet dear?’ he laughed. ‘Probably’ I said ‘Not quite the same though.’ I sighed. My husband shrugged. ‘Of course it’s allegorical you know', I said, ‘all this stuff about them not being free to be together because of the social conventions of the time.’ My husband looked puzzled. ‘ Noël Coward being gay and everything’, I elaborated. ‘Noël Coward was gay?’ he queried. ‘Are you quite sure dear?’ It was almost as if he was teasing me but I knew he would never do that. ‘I’m a woman dear’ I began. ‘We girls can tell gay man a mile off you know’, I said. My husband and Fabio exchanged glances so I could see they were keen to get back to work now.

As we walked across the multiplex car park a gust of wind blew up the dust from the ground. ‘Oh, darling!’ I cried. My husband turned round. ‘I think I have some grit in my eye!’ I said, winking vociferously. ‘Oh dear.’ he began, then hesitated ‘Oh, I get it’, he smiled knowingly, ‘Ok, you win dear, I’ll drive’, and he continued on towards the car with Fabio. After a moment I shrugged my shoulders and as I watched to two men walk away across the tarmac, I thought I really should have been writing SITN that afternoon but my agent had been very quiet lately and nobody reads blogs in august anyway. Anyway, I'd detected that some people had found me too critical of the North on occasion, which was unfair because it is grim up north, and what I really needed was for my friend to come up from London and then she could moan about northerners and I could report what she said and I wouldn’t get the blame. Suddenly, my phone rang. It couldn’t be! ‘Air, hellair!’ said the voice, ‘Rilly, is that you darling? Its your old chum from London who really hates it up north speaking’, the voice continued. ‘Coming up to visit you dear, put the kettle on and see you in a few days, what!’. My husband turned around and look back towards me. ‘We’re going to the pub!’ he shouted, so I took off my shoes and sped after after them. As I got into the car I sighed. My friend was on the motorway on her way, my husband was here with me in the car, and yet strangely I couldn't escape the feeling, and I couldn't escape the song in my head, that I was all by myself...

Frantic and Friedman

2007-08-05T11:33:00.000+01:00

I looked sceptically at my husband. ‘Surely you don’t mean the Dean Friedman is playing here in the village tonight?’ I said. My husband nodded smiling. ‘What are you crazy? How in the hell can you say what you just said?’ I asked. My husband showed me the poster. It was true, it was there in black and white, but why hadn’t he told me before? He knew I was a big fan. ‘You could have told me a little earlier!’ I snapped, looking at the time. ‘Is that why you’re angry?’ he asked. ‘No I’m not angry.’ ‘Maybe a little?’ ‘Not even maybe, but how am I supposed to feel with all the things you don’t reveal?’ My husband sighed apologetically. ‘What about the baby?’ I said. ‘We’ll take the children with us’, he shrugged. I glanced over to the baby engrossed in one of those things that au pairs give babies to play with. I sighed. ‘Baby stop playing!’ I told him. The baby looked at me briefly then carried on. ‘Baby now stop it’, I said, and turned to my husband. ‘You should know better’, I said. He shrugged and said ‘I know this is hard to do, but there’s no one to look after him but me and you’. I gave in and picked the baby up and we went down to the village Green.

The concert was absolutely packed so I gave Tilly some money and sent her to the bar whilst my husband and I turfed some locals off their seats. The baby started crying. ‘Baby I’m sorry’, I whispered. ‘I was wrong, I have no alibis, I was acting like a fool and I apologise’. I looked down into his sweet little face. 'Do you still love me?' I said, softly and the little baby look he returned to me said 'yes I still love you'. I should never have come, I thought, but when the man himself came on stage and all those bitter-sweet satirical songs about life and love and politics and relationships came flooding back into my memory the baby’s crying seemed to fade away. ‘You know’, began Dean, ‘sometimes it’s tough being an American in the UK lately’, he continued, ‘and I blame all you goddamn bleeding heart lilly livered limey liberals! George W Bush should come over here and kick your goddamn limey democrat ass!’ Crikey, I thought, Dean Friedman’s a neo-con? Now I really needed that drink. I turned towards the bar only to see Tilly subsumed in a crowd of rough young men in black t-shirts. I knew I had to get in there. I would have to rescue my daughter or I’d never get a bloody drink. My husband seemed to have disappeared but Dean Friedman had a free lap, sitting at his keyboard just nearby. I handed him the baby. ‘I’ll be back in a minute’, I assured him. ‘Just carry on dear’. The great man looked slightly concerned. ‘I can’t hold your baby Ma'am!’ he said. ‘What if he’s sick on my new shirt? I bought it especially for this gig you know, I wanted to look really smart’. I studied the loud American floral number in question. I was not exactly looking my best either so I was in no position to say anything. ‘Well’, I reassured him, ‘you can thank your lucky stars that we're not as smart as we'd like to think we are’ and I dived into the throng to save my G&T from being crushed by the crowd.

If the real Dean Friedman is reading this, we loved your set at RL last night, thanks for coming up our way, hope to see you again, and please please don't sue...

the flattering prizes

2007-08-02T21:12:00.000+01:00

I hadn’t planned on anything spontaneous happening in this family until at least the weekend however I was very surprised to receive a schmoozing award from Lady Macleod and I therefore interupt this interuption in service with an unscheduled entry. I think that Penny from And who cares also mentioned me in connection with this honour but like Tony Blair's congressional medal I neglected to collect it. Lady Macleod, for those not as adept at recognising the deeply hidden origins of surnames as I am (it's a gift, you know), is from that strange and mysterious land at the end of the M6 and by curious coincidence it was this week that my husband announced that he had booked a romantic weekend north of the Cumberland Gap for a few weeks time. ‘Glasgow is the city of love’, he assured me, ‘after all, where else has a kiss named after it?’ I have already been shopping for suitable outfits as I always like to blend in seamlessly, just like I do here in The North, and I think that going to Scotland to listen to an Ulsterman sing about the summertime in England will ensure we'll pass with flying colours any citizenship test that Gordon 'the brit' Brown may throw at us in future. Actually, I have a little bit of scottish in me, specifically my liver which will feel like it's going home in a few weeks. So, anyway, I think it’s the done thing to award some of these things myself so here goes. I should add, and I mean this most sincerly folks, that I appreciate everyone who reads and comments on this blog but for the purposes of this particular accolade, could the following please step forward and be terribly embarassed, thankyou;

JJ at life is all cobblers, keen member of the Northampton Town FC fan club branch of the lefty party and generally awfully decent sort of chap. This award is about people who have a community minded view of blogs and this is why she is in my list here, as well as having a nice blog too of course.

Beatrice, who does something on her blog which should really be extremely dull and which would, in many people's hands, be just that but she actually produces something really rather lovely and she pays attention to her commenters and she is also someone who says what she thinks, so she obviously has some Yorkshire in her, and I'd therefore better not fall out with her. I know she's already got one of these but that house she describes sounds enormous so I'm sure she can spread them around a bit

Linda at Got your hands full because she encourages the kind of thing that you're reading now by conducting and publishing in depth interviews with struggling young talented but unrecognised bloggers, and yet also people like me as well. I'm sure she's got about ten of these already but she's a journalist so I'll just tell her there's a free bar at the presentation ceremony.

James Higham, or whatever he's calling himself currently, because he seems to spend more time plugging other people's blogs than his own and he plugged this one recently as well. He's got one of these things too but I'm sure the black market where he is can turn this award into illicit vodka faster than you can say I wouldn't eat the sushi if I were you

Just about everyone else I can think off almost certainly has this already so I'm orf up the wooden hill to bedfordshire. I need my beauty sleep you know, oh god how I need it, sigh

the ghost of wedding present

2007-07-29T18:48:00.000+01:00

The sight of Tilly standing in front of the full length mirror in my bedroom wearing my wedding dress brought my own childhood memories flooding back. I remembered putting on my own mother’s bridal gown as a child, swirling around lost in taffeta and lace and netting and a child's dreams of bridesmaids and bells and of a handsome man who would sweep her off her feet. I remembered my mother telling me that her mother had also married in that very dress and when she had children she had promised her young daughter that she too would walk up the aisle in her old dress. ‘But I thought Granny was buried in her wedding dress mummy’, I had said, puzzled. ‘She was dear’, my mother had explained. ‘She just got a bit forgetful in her old age and forgot she'd promised it to me first. It all worked out for the best in the end', she smiled. 'Although I did have to switch dry cleaners after I was married’, she added. I imagined the same childish dreams in my own daughter’s head as she stumbled about innocently in the too large dress.

‘Mummy’ asked Tilly, seeing my reflection enter the room behind her. ‘Yes dear’ I smiled. ‘Why is your wedding dress all white?’ she asked. ‘Because white stands for purity and a fresh new start’, I explained. ‘Mummy’, continued Tilly, ‘what’s this veil for?’ ‘I smiled. ‘That’s so that on my wedding day no other men were allowed to see me except your daddy at the alter’. Tilly thought for a moment. ‘Mummy?’ she began, looking down the front of the dress. ‘Yes dear?’ ‘What’s this big icky stain?’ I was just thinking a little about that one when a laugh came from the doorway. ‘Another few minutes and that could have been your older brother Tilly!’ said Hilly, my eldest daughter. Well, I thought to myself quietly, half brother actually, but thought I’d better just award that point in the seemingly perpetual mother versus adolescent daughter battle to myself privately for the moment .'Who are you going to marry Tilly?’ Hilly asked. ‘I’m going to marry Daddy!’ said Tilly triumphantly. ‘And I’m going to be a princess!’ she announced. ‘You can’t marry Daddy, silly’ Hilly told Tilly, ‘Much as Mummy might tell you that it’s allowed in the country’, she said, ‘and anyway’, she continued, ‘you should never marry a man who looks better in a dress than you do, and anyway, the princess can’t marry the que...’

‘Hilly!!’ I snapped, very annoyed by now, 'I’m trying to do a poignant mother-daughter bonding scene for my blog here, so if you don’t mind…’ Hilly laughed. ‘Bloody hell’ she said, ‘Do people know how much you stage stuff just to get something to write on your stupid blog?’ I was rather annoyed at this suggestion, I must say. It did seem most awfully unfair. ‘Look Hilly, darling,’ I said, exasperated, ‘You said you didn’t want to be in the blog so just bugger orf and go up to your attic and read Harry Potter or something’. ‘Well!’ exclaimed Hilly, 'that has to be more realistic than your blog!’ ‘Oh, just go away will you Hilly, and be sure not to wake the baby!' Hilly’s jaw dropped. ‘You've had another baby?!’ she said. ‘Oh gawd, Hilly, how could you not know such a thing?’ I asked. ‘I don't read your f***g blog’, she said, ‘So how am I supposed to know what goes on in this family?’ she asked. I think she must have meant that more as a rhetorical question because she stormed off at that point and slammed the door. Down the hallway the baby started crying. I grabbed the wedding veil from Tilly and pulled it down over my face. If I couldn’t see anybody then they couldn’t see me either, I thought, so then somebody else would have to change him. Hidden behind my veil, I began to think that perhaps, after all, today was not a nice day for a white wedding, but tomorrow seemed like a nice day to start again...

homesick blues

2007-07-24T21:28:00.000+01:00

I was clearing out Tilly’s schoolbag this evening as they have finished school of course and I found a piece of paper. I asked Tilly what it was. I was rather brusque as I thought it was a school letter. She told me the teacher had asked all the children to write a poem about the thing they loved the most in the whole wide world. My daughter looked nervously at the piece of paper. She said the teacher told her that her poem was rubbish and old fashioned because it rhymed and then she ran upstairs crying, leaving me with the tear stained crumpled piece of paper. I unfolded it and began to read and it wasn't very long before I was sobbing too.

My Mummy, by Tilly Super aged seven

The baby he is burping
Her skinny latte she is slurping
With her laptop she is lurking
Watching other people working
Her brain she’s so exerting
We cannot get a word in
The world she is alerting
To the plight that she's been purt in

In London she’d be flirting
Down at the Fox and Firkin
Like Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

But now she’s just hair-shirting

And when she looks through the net curtain
One thing is for certain
Inside she is hurtin'
And she is dreaming of The Gherkin

I’m so sorry, I don't think I can write any more tonight, it's late and I’m just too emotional, sob...

it shouldn't happen to a downshifter

2007-07-20T12:20:00.000+01:00

‘Thank goodness you came doctor’, I said as I opened the door. Without further ado I led him to the patient. Tilly sat on the bed sobbing and her sister, who had been comforting her, looked up with an expression that suggested she feared we were too late. As we entered her room he conducted a quick intial examination and then climbed into waterproof waders and pulled a full length thick rubber glove onto his strong right arm and his big strong steady authoratative hand. ‘Is that really necessary for Harry here?' I asked the vet. ‘Sorry’ he said, ‘haven't had time to buy new kit, this is from my old job before I downshifted’. ‘Were you a farm vet before you moved to the North?’ I asked. He shook his head. ‘NHS obstetrician’ he explained. ‘It must be a bit of shock working on a Saturday’, I said, glancing out of the window, now slightly concerned at how closely he had parked his jeep to the front door. 'What! Saturday!?' he stammered with a fright. 'Oh, sorry' I said, 'still on french time, they're a bit ahead you know!'. 'Thank goodness for that!' he sighed, noticably flustered. He leant over to examine my hamster more closely. When he began to shake his head I knew the news wasn't good. 'If only you'd called me earlier,' he said, the look on his handsome features preparing me for the worst. 'I couldn't have' I said, 'You were playing golf and had your phone switched off'. 'Well,' he shrugged, 'I did move here for the quality of life you know, work life balance and all that...' I sighed. 'There's nothing you can do?' I pleaded. 'Perhaps you and the girls would like to leave me and Harry alone for a moment', he advised with forboding. 'Come on girls', I beckoned to Milly and Tilly, and led them tearfully out of the door. We waited in silence, except for the children's sobbing. A shot rang out. There were some aspects of country life I would never get used to, I thought, as I looked down at the floor to avoid my daughter's tearful stares and saw all the mud that the vet had walked in from the garden onto my new carpet. The door opened and the vet appeared, accompanied by that dreadfully familar hospital smell, that heady mix of antiseptic floor polish, stale aftershave and spent shotgun cartridges that had such resonances of so many dark moments in my past. It made me think about my mother; her house always smells like that too. 'Any chance of a whisky?' said the vet. A tear welled up in my eye. I hoped he wouldn't notice, I wasn't brought up to show my emotions in public, unless there was a good chance of them appearing on the Tragic Life Stories shelf in WH Smith of course. 'I think I have a small grit in my eye' I said. 'Here..' he smiled, reaching for his forceps, 'let me get that for you...'

king's head revisited

2007-07-17T10:45:00.000+01:00

The taxi from the airport dropped me off in the market place outside a familiar grand front door and almost immediately I recognised the old place. These were dark dark days that I had latterly endured. In moving to the north I had seen things that no southerner ever hoped to see. But standing here, under the hanging baskets, and looking at the prices on the menu, it was like being transported for a brief moment down south again. After all my travels of the last three weeks the place looked as if it hadn’t changed a bit. I went in to the bar. ‘What can I get you love?’ asked the lady who stood between me and the optics . It was as if I had never been away at all. ‘Gin and tonic, thanks’, I replied, with a nostalgic but slightly wistful remembrance of days long passed. I pulled up a stool. At the age of 39 the joints in my legs were now feeling stiff, and had been getting stiffer since I first turned 39 several years ago, as indeed had my gin and tonics. I looked around the bar. I had never been able to understand why I never saw any of the locals in here, but only well heeled tourists and retired civil servants from Guildford who came in after mass. ‘That’s £14.60’, said the lady behind the bar. No, I just couldn’t seem to fathom it out. I didn't mind though. ‘So you’ve just come back from holiday then love...’ she proffered. 'Only poor people go on holiday', I corrected her. 'I've been travelling. Am I really that tanned?’ I asked, admiring my complexion in the mirror behind the malt whiskys. ‘No, you just gave me a 100 euro note’, she pointed out. 'Sorry', I ventured, 'I've just got back from the airport, must be tiredness.' 'Oh, dear', she said, 'did you have trouble with the flights?'. 'Oh, very f****g funny', I snapped, and retired with my drink to the armchair around the corner which the hotel's teddy had been saving for me.

café au lit

2007-07-16T10:16:00.000+01:00

Sunday morning. ‘Do you mind if I…’ he says, doing something French with a cigarette. ‘Well’, I hesitate, ‘I’m not sure if that’s allowed’. ‘Because of the smoking ban you would stop me having a little post coital gauloise?’ he asks. ‘No, but because you haven’t actually done anything coital’, I say. ‘You French are all mouth and no trousers’, I add. ‘Well, you English women', He retorts, 'you do not understand the ways of lurve, and shaving your armpits is enough to put any french man off, so I don't even know why you helped me out of the water and back onto the boat last night Rilly'. ‘Because if you had drowned I would have had to have slept with your twin brother to keep this tenuous and already perilously stretched and basically uneventful story going, and that might have seemed contrived’, I explain. He shrugs his shoulders. ‘And anyway’, I continue, ‘It just doesn’t seem right to do it in black and white’. ‘Colour doesn’t really suit French women’, he explains. ‘but I think it was the subtitles that really put me off, trying to read them the wrong way round like that’, I sigh. ‘Yes, sorry about that’, he shrugs. ‘And another thing’, I continue, ‘please give the tutoiement a rest darling; we’ve only just been introduced’. ‘But we are speaking in English now’, he protests. Well, you jolly well look to me like you're being familiar, I think to myself, but don't say anything.

‘Well, anyway’, he says changing the subject, ‘I hope you have had a nice holiday’. I sigh. ‘Things were rather getting on top of me’, I explain. ‘Although not your husband, evidently’, he replies. 'What about your children, are they not on holiday now too?' he asks. 'They'll be fine' I assure him, 'at home they can walk to the beach on their own'. 'You live near the coast?' 'About thirty five miles', I inform him. ‘Now, why don’t you make yourself useful and put the kettle on?’ I suggest. He gets out of bed and goes to make the coffee. Soon I will be going back to The North. I sigh, again. I can’t remember if I mentioned it but it’s grim up north and I will have to leave behind my brief dream of becoming the next Petite Anglaise as well. I realise I just have to make the most of my last morning on the shores of the Mediterranean so I reach for the radio and begin fumbling on the dial for Desert Island Discs and hoping he's got some english tea in.

the hours

2007-07-12T08:58:00.000+01:00

A figure appeared from around the corner. It was the waiter from earlier. ‘I thought I heard voices’, he said, ‘but it is only you’. ‘That was my inner monologue’, I told him. ‘Don’t try and be intellectual, you are english’, he replied. ‘You were talking to yourself’. ‘Actually’, I began to explain, ‘I was writing my blog’. ‘Like I said’, he responded, ‘you were talking to yourself’. I sighed. ‘So, you are the famous woman who moved to the north to give up work, buy an enormous house, hand over her childcare to the au pair and then write a book about how crap her life is…’ ‘Well’, I began, ‘there are a few of us, we’re a kind of literary community, like Bloomsbury’. The waiter did that kind of French look that you can’t really describe in English. ‘Doomsbury more like’, he said. ‘No wonder Virginia Woolf drowned herself when she moved to the country if she had people like you for neighbours’. I looked out over the sea. Now that would really get the book sales going, I pondered. 'In France we describe rich people who act like they are poor as BoBo' he explained, 'so it looks like there are bears in the north after all', he laughed. 'Don't try and be funny, you are french', I reminded him. ‘I heard a rumour that wife in the north is really a man’, said the waiter. ‘I think that rumour is about me actually’, I sighed. He looked me up and down for a moment. ‘I can see why they might say that’, he nodded. I gave him a bit of a hard stare. ‘Sorry about that confusion yesterday with Brian’, I said. ‘That’s OK’ said the waiter. ‘He was not in the sea very long and the Mediterranean is nice and warm, not like the North sea which is, how did you put it in your blog, 'cold and dark and foggy and menacing and which lies before you bleakly and darkly featureless and never ending, reminding you of the endless hours and months and years of your life''. I was very impressed he was able to quote from my blog but my warm rosy feeling of satisfaction was interrupted. ‘Oh God, I'm depressed now’ said the waiter. 'I don’t think I can go on’, and he threw himself over the side. ‘Well’, I thought, ‘the French may be intellectual but at least an Englishman would have had the decency to commit suicide the other side of the boat so as not to splash my laptop! Suddenly I realised I had to put such thoughts aside of course as an overwhelming sense of the urgency of the situation grabbed me and I realised I had to write down this conversation for the blog before I forgot it, so I went back to my typing with a sigh.

all at sea

2007-07-11T19:48:00.000+01:00

The phone rang. ‘Rilly!’ said my agent, ‘It’s your agent', he continued. You haven’t posted anything for nearly a week. Your readers need to know you’re having a terrible time on holiday!’ I hesitated a moment. ‘I’m on Iain Dale's yacht in Monte Carlo'. I told my agent. 'He invited me for cocktails to make up for not linking to me even though he's linked to Wife in the North’. ‘But your readers need to feel sorry for you Rilly, surely you can pull those emotional strings, even from the south of France’. ‘Ouch!’ I said. ‘What’s wrong Rilly?' he asked. 'I didn't offend you I hope'. ‘It's OK’, I assured him, 'This gold plated phone just gets very hot in the sun'. My agent sounded concerned. ‘Look, just do what you can, there’s a love’, he said. ‘Oh, but of course, I almost forgot’, he continued, ‘will you be able to update the blog from a yacht?’ Don’t worry’, I assured him. ‘I wrote this conversation weeks ago and asked my daughter to post it for me while I was away’. ‘You’re a genius Rilly!’ said my agent, ‘But however did you know what I was going to say?’ I laughed. ‘Men are very predictable’, I told him, ‘au revoir’, and I passed the gold phone to Tom Watson who was growing impatient to phone the shore and order more pies.

Suddenly the waiter came over with my pina colada. But wait a minute, what was this, a little blue parasol? oh sigh, before marriage, before children, before the north, it had been nothing but pink parasols but now it seemed as if I didn’t have control over anything in my life anymore. I bet you get pink parasols on Tom’s yacht, I thought with a sigh. A wave of sadness (hmmm, nice subtle nautical metaphor there) washed over me and a single tear welled up in my eye, ran down my cheek and dripped into my drink, perhaps seeking to be close to the ice cubes and feel like it was back home in The frozen North. ‘Garçon!’ I called out. ‘Oui, Madame’, said the waiter. ‘There is something salty in my drink, I think it’s brine’. I didn't want to admit to crying into my cocktail. The waiter raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah. mon dieu! Zat Brian, ee is a filthy buggeur. I’ ave told ‘im about ‘zis un oeuf fois before already! I will ‘ave ‘im thrown overboard immediatement Madame!’. The next thing I knew was a man being dragged from the galley and thrown over the side. ‘Toss me a line!’ cried the man in the sea. ‘I zink zer has been quite un oeuf tossing on zis boat for today Brian!’ said the waiter and turned to me. ‘Now madame, ow about I get you anozer drink?’ ‘Men!’ I thought, with another sigh...

last of the summer whine

2007-07-08T20:50:00.000+01:00

I walked into the bar at the hotel earlier this evening. Three other women were speaking English in the corner so I got a drink and went to join them. It turned out they had all downshifted to Yorkshire like I had. ‘Well, I said, ‘I never thought I’d get away on holiday, but my husband said he’d look in on the children from time to time and here I am with a lovely glass of Chateau de Chassilier'. ‘Oh darling', said the woman to my left, ‘I quite understand. My husband is away so much I have to tell the au pair what to do all by myself!’ I sighed. ‘My husband works in London’, I said, ‘and I only see him occasionally.’ The woman opposite me entered the discussion: ‘That’s nothing!' she said, 'My husband commutes to New York every day and then spends twenty two hours a day at the office before he comes home to write his northern downshifting novel’. ‘You’re lucky!’ said the woman on my right. ‘My husband works in the international space station, and you try running your own private equity firm and doing stunts for Bruce Willis after a twenty thousand mile commute!' ‘How often do you see him?’ I asked. 'I would see him tonight’, she sighed, 'but it's cloudy.' I looked down at my glass. ‘You know when we moved to the north we couldn’t find any glasses so we had drink the Nuits Saint Georges out of coffee mugs for the first week’, I smiled. ‘You were lucky!’ said the lady to my right. ‘Our builders didn’t even leave enough of a gap in the pantry for the wine cooler so we had to put the Chablis in the normal fridge when we downshifted!' ‘You were lucky!’ came the reply from across the table. ‘We used to DREAM of having a pantry! But the wind turbine that powered the authentic eco friendly Georgian electric sliding doors got refused planning permission so we had to tie the wine to the bullbars on the front of the range rover and drive around the village at a hundred miles an hour every night whilst reading a bedtime story to the children in the back seat just to cool it down!' ‘Luxury!’ came the reply. ‘We couldn’t even move into our house when we downshifted as the two houses we bought hadn’t been knocked through yet! How can a family live in one house?!’ We all shook out heads. ‘But’, the first lady said, ‘I'll tell you something, it’s so grim up north that if you tell people about it on a blog they won’t believe ya!'

breakfast epiphanys

2007-07-06T09:34:00.000+01:00

‘Mummy’, began Tilly hesitantly at the other end of the line. ‘Yes dear’ I said. ‘You know those really tiny USB pen thingys?’ she continued. ‘You mean like the one that I wrote today’s blog post on before I went away and left with you children to put on the internet?’ I asked. ‘Erm, yes’, stammered Tilly. ‘What about them?’ I queried. ‘Do you think it would be a problem if the baby swallowed one mummy?’ she asked. I thought for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose if the lid was on then no files should be lost’ I reassured her. ‘I meant for the baby’, she said. ‘How would I know? Who do you think I am, Gina blaardy Ford!?’ I snapped, but then the full seriousness of the situation hit me. Oh Gawd, I thought, no blog for a whole week again. My agent was going to kill me. I thought quickly. ‘Tilly’ I said ‘There’s a list of emergency numbers by the phone’. There was a pause. ‘Oh yes, I see them’, said Tilly fearfully. She began reading down the list; ‘Interior designer…Fen shui consultant….Doctor….PC World…’ She was stopped by my interruption. ‘That’s the one dear. I have to go now because my pain au chocolate is getting cold. I’m counting on you girls to act responsibly now Tilly!’ and I hung up. I gazed out over the balcony and burdened with the demands of parenthood, shook the last drop of brandy into my coffee. My lyrical and insightful writings on the everyday life of an ordinary family may yet be recovered from this holiday, but I didn't know if I ever would be. Perhaps I needed to rethink my life, and at the very least start backing up on CD...

summer sunday

2007-07-02T08:31:00.000+01:00

‘I love the South of France, Mummy’, said Milly with a sigh as the warm sea lapped gently onto the soft sandy beach. I gazed out at the blue waters of the Mediterranean where a few yachts bobbed gently beyond the golden sands under the warm southern sun. ‘I know darling’ I smiled. ‘What’s it like back in the North?’ I asked. ‘It’s raining’ answered Milly, 'and Tilly has a cold and she’s been sneezing over everybody’. ‘Well’, I began, ‘Perhaps I’ll bring you on holiday next year after I’ve finished my book. In the meantime, this call is costing me a fortune and I'm not made of money you know’. 'Yes you are', said Milly, ''We've been reading your blog while you've been away'. I never could get the hang of parental controls. 'You should be doing your homework, not going on the internet!' I told her firmly. Milly sighed. ‘Sorry Mummy’, she said. ‘I’d better go now too, I have to make hot toddies for everyone and I can’t find any brandy, only empty bottles.’ We said our goodbyes. I was due to be away for another few days but, thinking about my poor children being so unwell, I soon began to worry. I immediately rang my travel agent to try and get another flight home He was ever so helpful and when I hung up I was mightily relieved that I’d managed to rearrage my return flight. Thank goodness, I thought, I'd managed to get another week out here.

a hopeless dawn

2007-06-14T10:26:00.000+01:00

Wife in The North poured out the last of the gin and wiped her eyes. She was even more upset than I was at not winning the most consistently entertaining Blogpower award. ‘Thanks ever so for coming round Rilly’, she sobbed. I smiled sympathetically, trying to hide my own pain at having lost to Bryan Appleyard. Outside, a tall ship sailed past on the ocean, it's rigging clearly visible to everyone for miles around. ‘You’ve been like a sister to me’, said Wifey. ‘I knew Bryan when I worked for the Sunday Times of course’, she began. ‘He was always ruthless, even back then. We always used to say don’t upset the Appleyard whenever there was a difficult job that needed giving to someone.’ We both took out our handkerchiefs and had a good blow, drowning out the North Sea fog horn just outside the kitchen window. ‘You mustn’t be too downhearted though, Rilly’, she reassured me. ‘Remember that Bryan gets paid to write his stuff. He doesn’t have to go to a proper job as well so he has all the time in the world to write his blog and promote himself’. I permitted myself a weak smile of agreement despite my own grief as my gaze wandered over to the black kettle and matching pot that sat atop the aga. ‘I suppose you have to be getting back’, she sighed, standing up. I nodded. ‘Perhaps you should take a holiday Rilly, darling, get away from it all for a bit’. she suggested. I thought that sounded like good advice. Suddenly she grabbed my arm. ‘Oh Rilly!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re not going to write about our chat on your blog are you?’ I smiled reassuringly. I walked down the garden path, and turned to wave goodbye. A cold wind blew in from the sea so I dug my hands deep into my pockets, and switched off the tape recorder. A holiday, I thought, was just what I needed. I got in the car, switched on the sat-nav navigation thingy, and typed in airport.

sharing and shearing

2007-06-12T12:08:00.000+01:00

‘G’day Sheila, I’m Bruce!’, said the man with corks in his hat and a kangaroo tattooed on his forehead, by way of introduction. ‘Hello’, I said, returning the greeting, 'and where are you from?’ Bruce put down his wobble board. ‘I’m from the Northern Territory, Sheila’, he explained. ‘Oh gosh!’ I said, ‘Do you live near wife in the north then?’. He shook his head. 'I think that’s Northumberland’, he corrected me. ‘Northern Territory is down in the southern hemisphere!’ I wondered why it was prefixed by Northern if that was the case but then summised that perhaps Northern was not simply a geographical term but rather a name given to the area of any country where the inhabitants preferred the company of sheep to that of people. ‘So, the farmer tells me you wanted to write about a sheep being shorn to appear as if you’re an agricultural worker doing seasonal and insecure work for long hours and earning minimum wage whilst living in a caravan in the farmyard because you can’t afford a house in your home village’. I nodded. ‘Rather!’ I replied. ‘Fair dinkum’, said Bruce, ‘First I need to calm the sheep down, this one’s a little bit cranky’, and with that he wrestled the sheep to the ground, where they both rolled over several times in a fierce struggle. ‘You might want to stand back love’, said Bruce, grabbing the ewe in an armlock, this could get ugly'. I backed away and bumped into the farmer who had come out from the farm house. ‘Fancy a cuppa pet?’ said the farmer. ‘He’ll be a couple of hours yet with that one’. I nodded and we both made our way back across the field. ‘We have to fleece them so they don’t fall over, because then they can’t get up again’, explained the farmer. We came to a halt. ‘Like this one’, He said, looking down on the ground. ‘Damn ramblers’, he said, prodding the figure lying on it’s back, unable to get up due to the weight of it’s rucksack, with his stick. ‘Is it male or female?’ I asked. ‘hard to tell’ said the farmer. ‘I think they’re a gender on their own, like a mule, that’s why they like carrying around all that stuff’. I thought for a moment ‘How do you think it ended up on it's back like that?’ I asked. ‘Probably met Bruce’, said the farmer. ‘When backpackers meet an Australian they play dead, it’s a kind of defence mechanism’, he explained. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘what will you do?’ The farmer pointed his shotgun at the rambler’s chest. ‘Best just to put ’em out of their misery, same as you would with a sheep’, he said. ‘Grab that mate’, he told the rambler, who took hold of the barrel as the farmer pulled him up. ‘Fancy a cuppa at the farmhouse’ he asked the rambler. ‘Oh super’, said the rambler’, newly stumbling on two feet. ‘Cream teas only £50’, the farmer told our new friend ‘Oh lovely!’, was the reply. I looked back at Bruce, who was trying to provoke the sheep into attacking him by dangling a steak just out of reach whilst poking it with a stick. The sheep was still in full possession of all it's wool but at least someone was going to get fleeced today, I thought, following the rambler into the farmhouse kitchen, and looking forward to a piece of Crocodile Dundee cake.

Update: Don't forget you still have two votes in the Blogpower awards, one today and one tomorrow. Thanks!

smells like teen sheepdip

2007-06-09T08:32:00.000+01:00

A sleepy little head emerged from beneath the covers and sleepy little eyes opened to greet me. ‘Mummy’ said their sleepy owner, my daughter Milly, sleepily, ‘Yes dear?’ I smiled. ‘Is it Saturday?’ she whispered. ‘yes dear’, I nodded, smiling. ‘Well just f**k off then will you mummy’ she said and disappeared back under the duvet. I pulled the covers back and she glared at me ‘You need to get up dear, you’ve got your first riding lesson today, remember’. Milly sighed. ‘But why do we need to learn to ride Mummy?’ she asked. ‘Because you two haven’t done anything entertaining for this blog for ages and if you don’t start performing for the readers then I’ll give you both to Madonna for adoption. We live in the north now remember and she’s on the look out for third world children like you’. There was another groan. ‘But Mummy, we have to go to school all week, can’t we have a lie in at the weekend?’ she asked. ‘Well!’ I snapped, ‘and what do you think I do all week then?!’ I was quite annoyed now. She looked perplexed and thought about the question for some time. ‘Actually, mummy’, she began, ‘what do you do all week?’ I was quite indignant now. ‘Well, for a start I, erm, and then I have to, err, you know, umm, and then there’s all the, ahhh, errr, to do as well!’ I had had enough of this. ‘I want you and your sister ready to go to the stables in half an hour or else I’ll ring wife in the north and swap you both for her children. Let’s see if she can write amusing stories about family life when she only has you two to work with!’ ‘Will you come with us to the lesson Mummy?’ asked Milly. ‘I will be along later dear’, I said, ‘but first I have to see a man about a sheep.’ ‘what about a sheep?’ asked Milly. ‘Well’, I explained, ‘He’s going to chop off all the sheep’s fur so I can write about it on the blog’. Milly thought for a moment. ‘What’s his name Mummy?’ she asked. ‘Alan’ I said. She thought some more. ‘So he told you his name was Alan the Shearer then, mummy?’ ‘Yes dear, what’s so strange about that? Actually his friend will be there too.’ ‘And what did his friend tell you was his name, mummy? Asked Milly. ‘Hmm, let me think, Freddy I think he said, Freddy the Shepherd.’ ‘Mummy’, Milly began, ‘you know you said you wanted to reach out and get to the heart of the North East?’ ‘Yes dear?’ I replied. Milly sighed and raised her eyebrows ‘Keep working on it mummy, You've got a way to go yet I think’, she said, looking very wise for her years, and then she pulled the duvet over her head and began pretending to snore very loudly. I don't think Milly takes me seriously sometimes, sigh, in fact I bet she doesn't even know that you can vote every day untill the 13th June in the blogpower awards.

vote early, vote often

2007-06-06T21:17:00.001+01:00

It's grim up north, but you can make a difference. Please help by voting for this blog in the Blogpower awards. If you won't do it for me, do it for the children. You know it makes sense. Click on the link below, I'm third from the bottom of the list, alphabetically, as Rilly Super, and you can vote once a day until the 13th June. Thank you, sob.

Vote here

I've promised the children they can have new shoes if I get enough votes, well, when I say new shoes, I should say I meant they can just have shoes full stop. Thanks for the nominations and let's just all hope none of the candidates gets carried away and starts taking it a bit too seriously. Please have a look at the other categories while you are there because some great blogs with which you will be familar and which you will want to support are nominated as well.

tagging along

2007-06-06T10:32:00.000+01:00

I have been electronically tagged by the lovely Nunhead Mum of One to disclose eight previously unknown facts about myself. As this is very much a ‘confessional’ style of blog there isn’t much intimate and personal detail that hasn’t been included already but Ill have a go anyway:

1. The chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge fought a duel to decide who had the honour of me attending their university. They both missed, as hitting educational targets is rather red brick, after all.

2. Even though I knew Iain Dale when his famous diary was just a single sheet newsletter run off on one of those manually operated duplicating machines and delivered through the letterboxes in his cul-de-sac when Iain did his milkround he still has not added Strife in the North next to Wife in the North on his blogroll and I try as I might I cannot think what I did back then to upset him.

3. I'm often asked what do I think is the attraction of this blog. I put it down to the fact that in these busy times people do not have time to watch paint dry anymore, but they do still like to read about it.

4. It is a great regret to me that I have no recollection of the births of any of my four children due to the amount of drugs I was high on at the time. This applies to their conception as well and I feel equally, erm, regretful about this too, sigh.

5. I want to live like the common people, I want to do whatever common people do...

6. I failed my maths O-level

7. Very badly, which is why I had to withdraw my book advance in cash and count it on the kitchen table, a hundred and seventeen times

There are my eight facts then. Thank you for bearing with this blog whilst it struggles through this month apparently lacking in meaning or purpose, but I suppose at least I’m not alone in that respect, and thank you as well to anyone who nominated SITN for the blogpower award. Would I get expenses to go down to London to attend the ceremony does anyone know, it’s just that I have a meeting down in town with my agent coming up...

glummer holiday

2007-06-04T09:35:00.000+01:00

I'm most terribly sorry for not having posted anything for a week but it has of course been half term and I thought I should try and spend some time with the children, otherwise I'd have nothing to write about on the blog. The holiday has been a bit of a disappontment though. One day we drove down to London to go to the cinema. The local northern cinema hasn't quite got the latest releases yet in fact I think their main feature last week was the The Great Dictator. Besides being in black and white, I hardly think a film about some unelected leader giving himself draconian powers is relevant to us today and trying to concentrate on a film whilst some chap sits under the screen playing with his massive organ is hardly an experience to take you away from real life for a couple of hours is it. My husband had reassured me that the film we were going to watch would really help me relax so we sat there eagerly awaiting inner peace and contentment and flexible joints. My husband hurriedly checked the tickets when about four hours of people swinging from yard arms and walking planks began. It seemed that Pilates in the Carribean had been an unfortunate misprint in the listings. I'll Just have to buy the DVD I suppose. If I wanted to spend the afternoon with a whole bunch of people swinging I need only have gone to the next village. Not only would I save a tenner on the ticket price but I'd get a G&T as well. Anyway, best not mention that whole subject as my agent might send me on one of his spend a token day doing some local activity to make it look like you're blending in whilst getting some good copy for the book days and there's some sacrifices I won't make for my art, although that G&T does sound sound attractive, sigh. Anyway, now it's all over, the children are back at school, my husband is back in London, and all I'm left with is the memory of a few hours spent with a man with a penchant for heavy eye makeup, well, and Johnny Depp too, sigh.

sixth sense

2007-05-28T19:30:00.000+01:00

The builders had been very busy on the cottage all week so I thought I would drop by and see how things were going as I was at a loose end this weekend. When I got there the cottage was deserted. I stood, all alone, in the empty kitchen. I stared at the wall. The wall was now completely plastered, unlike me unfortunately. My husband had forgotten to order supplies for the weekend. The nearest decent wine merchant is bloody miles away from here and I would rather suffer the raving DTs than be seen setting foot in Bargain Booze. The decorators had only finished the day before and the aroma of fresh paint and turpentine tantalized me like that heady mix of aftershave and pheromones coming from a handsome stranger on the crowded tube on a hot day. It had been a long time to get to this point. The cottage was old, that’s why we fell in love with it, but it was the wrong kind of old so we totally gutted the place and replaced that old oldness, which let’s face it was so last century, with the much more fashionable new old look that I’d seen when reading all those period home magazines that my husband buys in motorway services and hides under the mattress.

I stood and listened to the silence. I have spent my life learning to listen, it’s my craft, my art. My skill has become an intuition, a sixth sense. What I love to do the most and what I’m best at is simply to listen and to understand what other people think and feel, although obviously I only really want to listen to people who think and feel the same things as me. That’s why I listen to Radio 4 and only read the Sunday Times. I listened to the kitchen wall, then I talked to it, in fact a surprisingly good conversation was soon struck up, better than any with my agent that's for certain. With him it really is a case of talking to a brick wall. ‘Whose house in the village is the fairest of them all?’ I asked the wall. ‘Why your’s is of course, darling’, said the wall, ‘and you’re looking pretty damn hot yourself Rilly, if I may say so’. I smiled modestly and breathed deeply. For the first time in a long while I didn't feel so tense. I was breathing in more than air, I was breathing in the future, and happiness, I was breathing in hope, and above all I was breathing in seventeen different kinds of solvent based decorating products and it felt good.

When I got back from my communing with the new house Natalia was looking very concerned. ‘Mrs Super’, she said, ‘I’m worried about Milly’. ‘Whatever is the matter dear?' I asked, rather preoccupied with whether we should have ordered Dimity instead of Tallow with which to paint the inside of the broom cupboard. ‘I think your daughter has been spending too much time reading Wife in the North, Mrs Super’, she replied gravely. ‘I don’t know what you mean dear!' I snapped, 'it's quite impossible to spend too much time reading Wife in the North!' Suddenly the subject of our discussion herself appeared in the doorway. Natalia and I both turned to my daughter. ‘Well, she looks fine to me!’ I told Natalia. ‘Mummy!’ Milly began excitedly. ‘Yes Milly, what is it dear? You’ve had Natalia all worried about you, you know!' I said. Milly’s gaze shifted to somewhere over my shoulder. She hesitated for a moment. 'Mummy', she began, 'I see dead people'. I looked at Natalia, looked at my daughter, and grabbed my keys. I hoped the hope of the doomed that Bargain Booze was still open.

dimming of the day

2007-05-26T11:24:00.000+01:00

The weekend arrived. My husband called to inform me he had to spend a few more days in the South of France with his secretary Fabio, the Belfast sink that was delivered yesterday turned out to be a protestant, I had forgotten to post friday's blog entry and the interiew therein described which I had done for the lovely lady from DollyMix had, I feared for a brief while, been left on the editor's cutting room floor. This weekend marks three months since I reached out into the interweb and although I thought nobody would read this blog it turns out that in cyberspace, someone can hear you scream. I read somewhere that there are over seventy blogs on the internet and this one has the loveliest readers of all of them so thankyou, everyone that visits. I hope you all have a super weekend and when you are out enjoying the sunshine try not to think of me sobbing uncontrollably over a sodden keyboard, lamenting all of my lost dreams, alone in the north as the rain beats mercilessly on the window, beating out the sombre drawing to a close of another dark and lonely day, no, you mustn’t think about that. If there's one thing I'll never do it'll be to exaggerate my own struggles in a desperate attempt to elicit sympathy, no way José.

ladies who launch

2007-05-25T08:58:00.000+01:00

‘Ah well’ sighed the reporter ‘They did warn me it wouldn't all be hobnobbing with famous people in this job’. She peered at me across the table in the corner of the Badger Baiter pub in Keighley. ‘One day I’m interviewing Nora Jones, next day...' she looked me up and down. I didn't look my best, I admit. '...next day, Nora Batty. Nowt but bloody Noras lately!' I smiled meekly. ‘I tell you what’, she said, inhaling deeply on her big cigar as she balanced the twins on her knees. ‘This smoking ban’ll be the death of this business’. I nodded, and tried to concentrate on my agent’s exitement at announcing the launch of my media career with this first proper interview. ‘You mean the pub business?’ I asked. She shook her head ‘No, Journalism’, she replied. ‘This is your first interview then pet?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘Aye, thought as much’. She looked down at the twins and raised her eyebrows. ‘Work life balance, heh?’ she said, ‘Bollocks’ . She paused. ‘Run along to bar now girls, fetch mummy another vodka. Make it a double, it’s like pulling teeth with one’. She blew some perfectly formed smoke rings which floated above the table as we waited for the girls to return. ‘I met that girl from 'my boyfriend is a twat' last week, you know’, she said. ‘Now she were a real lady’. ‘But I’m a…’ I sighed, what was the point. Her daughters returned with a large vodka. She looked at her watch. ‘Oh bugger it!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m late for Dulwichmum's book launch, we’ll have to leave it there pet’, and she got up to leave. ‘Have you got any more questions?’ I asked 'well…’ she began. I looked hopeful. ‘Are you going to eat them chips or not pet?’ I shook my head and she grabbed a handful off my plate and pushed her way out through the door, wiping mayonnaise from her chin with her sleeve. I sighed and quickly wrote down the address of Dollymix where my women who blog interview would soon appear. I just hoped that when I wrote about this interview on the blog Linda the journalist wouldn't spot any minor inaccuracies which might have crept in to my account as a result of the amount I had had to drink that lunchtime. I thought it would probably be alright. I finished my bloody nora, I mean bloody mary, and went to look for the ladies.

the belles, the belles

2007-05-23T09:13:00.000+01:00

It was by a curious coincidence that following the wistful remembrances of youth described by M&M, who has the misfortune to live even further north than me, the poor girl, my own childhood memories were pricked by the news of a new St Trinians film. I did feel a pang of regret that I was not asked to act as educational consultant on the production but if my agent tells me that wife in the north got the job because she was The Times education correspondent then that would be but another arrow in my broken heart, sigh. I did just want to dispell the rumour right now that the downshifting blogger's friend, Tom Watson is to star in the new movie as Billy Bunter. Thomas is a lovely young man and I won't have that kind of thing put about, thank you very much. I rang my husband to see if perhaps a rare trip to the cinema could be on the agenda but he was in a meeting so I told his assistant Fabio, who answered the phone, to pass on the message to my husband but to remind my beloved that I hoped he didn’t expect me to sit and watch him drool over a bondgirl for two hours. Fabio, however, the darling that he is, reassured me that it was Rupert Everett as the headmistress that was the performance to which he and my husband were really looking forward. Fabio is so very thoughtful and immediately upon sensing my unease reassured me that he was absolutely certain that my husband would come up and watch the film with me when it eventually arrived in The North because it would have been so many months by then since he had watched the premiere in London, for which he and Fabio had VIP tickets. Fabio then advised me that I should hang up. He and my husband were on business in Cannes, he explained, and stressed business, and they had both forgotten to bring the adaptors for their phone chargers. I put the phone down, took off my straw boater and school tie and sighed. I would find something else to re-engage my husband's amorous interest. I looked at my watch. I was late for my german class.

all clichés great and small

2007-05-21T09:05:00.000+01:00

‘Rilly, darling’ began my agent. I sighed. I knew what was coming. ‘have you read Wife in the North this weekend?’ I had indeed. ‘She’s talking bullocks dear, and so should you be!’ I paused before answering ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been doing since you told me you could get me a book deal dear, which I am increasingly thinking, by the way, is nothing but a figment of your imagination!’ ‘Rilly, I assure you it’s just a matter of a few final details, how to translate talking bullocks into Japanese so it remains the brilliant and sparklingly original witty pun that it is in english, how shabbily you should be dressed in your publicity shots without people thinking we were trying a bit too hard to make you look like a normal struggling housewife, that kind of thing.’ My agent is very convincing. He is the top agent in London, they say, well, he says. However, I refuse to resort to innuendo about studs and rumps and beefcake. This blog is high literature and if I can’t write the book I want based upon my grim life then I will just have to return to my novel where I'm not under pressure to resort to cliché and stereotype. ‘I’m not going to try and turn this blog into a James Herriot story you know’, I told my agent. ‘That’s already been done and much better than I could do.’ ‘Oh gosh!' exclaimed my agent, 'who by?' 'Erm..' I said ' by James Herriot’. ‘Crikey, he sounds awfully good’, said my agent, ‘do you know if he’s got a book deal at all?’ I sighed. Anyway, if I wrote lovingly about farm animals and then it came to light I had complained to the council about the cockeral that woke me up well before ten almost every morning it wouldn’t look good. I said my goodbyes to my agent and read through the letter from the environmental health department. ‘Dear Mrs Super’, it began, ‘further to your complaint about noise from the farmyard near your house we have now agreed that no cocks should be allowed within half a mile of your bedroom’. As if that was going to change anything, I sighed.

hinge and bracket

2007-05-18T09:34:00.000+01:00

I gazed out through the hole in the wall of the cottage and sighed. It reminded me of the hole in my heart where my old life used to be. My husband stood outside, all innocent and smiling, the walls of the garden surrounding him like the edges of a photo. He was framed by the yard, a bit like that poor chap Lord Levy really. A door would soon fill the space, a door that currently lay out in the sun, unloved and unhinged, would soon fit into place like the rest of my life. I felt a bit like the door, exposed to the wind and the sun, to the gaze of passers by, when all I wanted to do was find a door shaped space where I belonged, keep my family warm, and shut out the North all together. Soon there would be a new door and a new dawn. When Gordon Brown takes over, everything will fit into place for everyone, just like it will for me. Everyone will buy the house next door and knock through and the housing problem will be solved. Everyone will have to take over the house to the left of them of course otherwise it would be chaos, like when somebody uses their neighbour’s desert spoon at a dinner party. That's why we need the government, to make sure everyone uses the correct cutlery. I looked down at my diary and crossed out ‘chase builders for door’ and drew a thick line through ‘vote in labour leadership election’, then I looked over to the windows suspended in the breeze, a fresh coat of paint and now hung out to dry. Life’s a bit like that, I thought to myself. I rang Natalia to remind her to collect the children and pick up some Pimms on the way and then reflected some more on doors and the end of Tony Blair's good works, sigh.

strife of bath

2007-05-15T20:48:00.000+01:00

Father Patrick seemed to appear from nowhere and I was unable to make my escape before he caught me. ‘Ah Rilly, my child’ he said ‘I wondered if I could have a word’ I knew what was coming. ‘Look, if it’s about the pew and the confessional door incident, that was Mrs Arkwright, I swear’. ‘It’s about the holy water Rilly’. 'Oh', I sighed. ‘Traditionally, the church’s allocation has always been one immersion per child per lifetime. Is there some kind of problem at home my dear?’ I told the children to hurry up and get dried off. I suppose it was only a matter of time before my use of the font for post-babtismal ablutions was spotted. ‘We haven’t got a bathroom’ I said. 'The builders are four weeks behind.' ‘I’d love to help, really, Rilly’, said the priest, ‘but there’s only so much holy water available, global warming you know, and you're using so much the church is having to tanker it in from Rome’. ‘But how did you know?’ I asked. Father Patrick smiled. ‘The lord moves in mysterious ways my child’, he said. ‘You left this by the way’ he said and handed me a rubber duck. ‘And I believe this is your’s too’. He held out a tube of veet. ‘It’s not mine' he said,' and Father Connor insists he never squeezes his in the middle’. 'Well', I sighed as we left, 'so much for helping the needy!'

A rough looking man in an apron stood behind the counter. ‘I need a baarth’ I told him. The man stared at me blankly. 'You do sell baarths don’t you?’ I was irritated with him already. Northern and trade, the very worst combination. ‘I can do you four candles pet’, he proffered, grinning. I sighed. ‘This a baarthrum shop, is it not?!’ I snapped. ‘That is what its says on the sign’. ‘Hmm, well, we got the work experience lad to do the sign didn’t we. The school's don’t teach ‘em to spell owt anymore', he sighed. Another man appeared behind the counter. Words were exchanged between them. ‘Oohhh, you want a bath, why didn’t you say so pet?' With that he led me towards the display area. ‘Here’s a very popular model love’, he said. ‘Do I look like someone who bathes in fibre glass?' I asked, annoyed. 'We may be a normal struggling family but we're not that poor you know!’ ‘Well’, he said, the next model up is this steel bath, a very good make’. I was now becoming very annoyed indeed. ‘Less poor than that too dear’, I said, motioning him to move along. ‘We have this lovely cast iron model, very exclusive’. ‘What about that one over there?’ I said pointing to a large roll top resting on feet shaped like swans and adorned by gold taps’ ‘Ah, yes, The Cherie, a very good choice, our most expensive bath.’ 'I’ll take three’, I said. ‘Pay the man dear’, I told my husband. 'And I do hope you won’t even think about delivering the showroom model by the way, young man!’ I explained. ‘I distinctly saw some northern children sitting in it earlier!’ and the very thought made me shiver. I would have to go home and summon up all my strength before we even started looking into toilets.

resignation, resignation, resignation

2007-05-13T16:16:00.000+01:00

I picked up the local paper. A large photograph of a proud smiling young local man in military uniform looked out from the front page. I sighed. Yet again somebody else’s bad news had pushed my bad news from the headlines. My agent was going to be furious. I used the newspaper to mop up some baby sick. Just then the phone rang. ‘Rilly, darling!’ said a man’s voice. ‘Who is this?’ I demanded. ‘It’s me dear!’ said the mysterious stranger. ‘You remember, 1997, you, me, the vicar?’ ‘Tony? I thought we weren’t going to mention that night again, and anyway, haven’t you got something else on today?' Then I remembered that was the year I got married and sighed. ‘I’ve got a big surprise for our wedding anniversary!’ my husband told me, excitedly. ‘I’ll pick you up in an hour’. I yawned. He only ever got that excited when he had managed to get Barbara Streisand tickets. What could he possibly have in mind?

I should have known. We stood in the drizzle. Trimdon Labour Club on a wet thursday lunchtime. The great orator, up north for his final oration, but we were out in the cold. 'It’s not that I’m ungrateful’ I said ‘but didn’t you think to get tickets dear?’ I asked my husband. ‘Yes, but the chap from the party I gave the money to was arrested by Scotland Yard five minutes after I left. That kind of thing’s a bit hit and miss at the moment. If anyone tries to sell you a raffle ticket today, just say you haven’t got any change. It’s too risky’. ‘Remind me, why are we here again?’ I asked. ‘Tony Blair is part of our history!’ he exclaimed ‘You’ll be part of my flippin' history if we don’t get in the warm soon!’ I told him. ‘Oh look, I can see some people I know, I’ll see what I can sort out’ he said and he shuffled off with an ‘air hellair’ here and a ‘good to see you old chap’ there until he faded from earshot and from sight.

‘Mummy, why do you like Tony Blair?’ asked Tilly, tugging on my sleeve. ‘Because Tony Blair likes people that work hard dear’. ‘Like Natalia you mean, Mummy?’ ‘Mummy works hard as well dear.’ Tilly looked at me blankly. 'Mummy?' I looked down at her inquisitive expression. 'have you ever met the prime minister?' 'You'll have to buy my memoirs dear', I replied. ‘Mummy?’ 'Yes Tilly?’ ‘Who was that man that Daddy was talking to?’ 'That was Peter Mandelson dear.’ ‘And why did Daddy put his hands in his pockets?’ ‘I think he was just trying to look working class dear.' ‘Mummy?' ‘Yes Tilly, dear?’ 'Who are those men dressed all over in orange and shouting at Tony Blair?’ ‘They are very bad men Tilly.’ ‘Are they terrorists Mummy?’ ‘No, dear, I don't think so, they must be Liberal Democrats’. ‘Mummy, one of those bad men said Tony Blair drops bombs on children. Tony Blair's not going to drop a bomb on me and Milly is he, Mummy?’ 'No dear, he only does that to bad foreign children, but maybe we’ll move a little closer to Wife in the North and Tom Watson over there just to be on the safe side.' ‘Mummy? ‘Yes Tilly, what is it now?' ‘Why are you wearing a red rose?’ ‘Because if I buy a rose it offsets the carbon emissions from Tony Blair’s private jet from London, dear’. ‘Mummy, I need a wee’. ‘Oh, I can’t take you now Tilly, I’ll miss the speech, go and ask one of the men in orange jumpsuits to take you.’

‘When is Tony going to make his big speech?' I asked the lady next to me. ‘It was over an hour ago pet’, she said. ‘We’re just waiting for the raffle to be drawn’. I looked down at my glass of champagne. The bubbles had gone but the raindrops falling on the surface made it appear not quite completely flat and the cold damp northern wind had kept it cool. I looked up and a single raindrop fell on my face and ran down my cheek like a tear, like having a real emotion.

american pie

2007-05-10T09:03:00.000+01:00

‘Mummy?’ Tilly raised her sleepy pretty little head up from her breakfast and rubbed her eyes. ‘Yes dearest?’ I said, the paragon of parental perfection despite the hour. ‘Why are we having apple pie for breakfast?’ I smiled at her childlike innocence. ‘Because we have to cater for our American readers now darling, and my agent says that apple pie is their national symbol or something and shows we are just a normal family with a normal life with which they can identify’. ‘And why are we having maple syrup on it?’ continued the sleepy headed questioning. ‘Because a maple is a vegetable and it counts towards our government healthy eating ‘five a day’ target, and it shows what a good mother I am’, I smiled. ‘But Mummy...’ said Tilly. ‘Yes dear?’ I sighed. ‘Why are we having breakfast at five in the afternoon?’ I laughed a loving motherly laugh. 'Because it’s breakfast time in Los Angeles darling, so shut the f*** up and eat your pie or we'll never manage to have lunch before the ten o'clock news at this rate!' said I, with a loving smile.

the long bad thursday

2007-05-08T19:05:00.000+01:00

I don't talk about politics as you know because I always find that whenever I take an interest in anything other than myself I have to go and lay down in a darkened room for several days to recover but last Thursday were the local elections and my agent told me to show that my very expensive education hadn't been totally wasted so I thought a little bit of politics would be just the ticket to show I still had my finger on the pulse. I didn’t know who to vote for so I studied the newspapers and the different party leaflets to see who was the most good looking. I decided I wanted to vote for Ségolène Royal because she was lovely but someone told me you had to be French to vote for her, and a socialist. When the book royalties come rolling in then I will be a socialist too, and I will be able to move to the south of France, so maybe next time, Ségolène. In the end I voted for the Green Party. I don’t know what their policies are but they had the candidate with the healthiest diet judging by the election poster. Nobody ever regreted voting for a vegetarian.

Well, the electricity has been restored to the village after the weekend, even if several days with my husband hasn’t restored it to my marriage, sigh. My husband doesn't like politics either. He's always had trouble with his elections. I was so depressed already by only Thursday afternoon in fact that I went to see the priest. I’m not terribly religious but there aren’t many people in the village who’ll talk to me. I wedged a chair against the door on his side of the confessional before I went in, just in case. ‘Father, forgive me, it has been several weeks since my last confession', I confessed. 'Don’t worry my child’, said Father Patrick. 'I’ve been reading your blog so there was no need for you to come to confession. I know everything already’. There was a pause. 'In fact, your blog saves half the village the bother of coming to see me too. Is there anything else my child?' he asked. ‘I was late returning The Da Vinci Code DVD to the video shop, Father’ . ‘Ah, so that was you was it? They said it hadn’t come back yet when I tried to borrow it. Is there anything else to declare?’ ‘Well, I told my neighbour I was going to call her a terrible mother on my blog, although I was provoked Father.’ ‘Whatever did she say to you Rilly?’ he asked. ‘She said I should visit the Angel of the North.' I replied. ‘That’s not so bad is it? He suggested. ‘She said I should go and stand next to it to prove that there really was nothing else in the North East bigger than my self-pity’. 'Well, I can give you a penance or I’ll let you off if you get me Wife in the North's autograph’ said the priest. I sighed. 'And light a votive candle on your way out'. 'Oh Jesus, I came here to get away from elections!' I sighed my most exasperated sigh, and with that I left, pushing an entire pew against the confessional door on my way out. The lady who was sitting on the pew mumbled something but I told her she should jolly well stop complaining and stop thinking just about herself for once.

radio romance

2007-05-03T07:16:00.000+01:00

I pulled over by the side of the road and my wife in the north talking book CD faded out from the blaupunkt with a sigh. I looked out of the window and up the hill that rose from the roadside. Could it be true, I asked my self, could that lonely figure atop that distant windswept northern hilltop really be what I thought it was? I had to find out if my eyes were really deceiving me. I began to run up the hill, stumbling over Heather and Dale (It was going to cost those two if they didn’t want to be shamed on my blog, I can tell you, this isn’t a bloody Melvyn Bragg novel you know, sigh). The car began to vanish below me as I climbed and climbed. Suddenly, a sound in the silence, a voice? Yes, a voice in the wilderness! Was it calling out a woman's name? I must be imagining things but no, ‘Cathy!’ called a man’s voice, ‘Cathy!’ I stood silent. ‘Cathy, is it really you?’ I could still not see the source of this most insistent and urgent cry, for a frightening and terrible mist did descend upon the hillside, hushing the very wind and drawing my world closely around me. The voice grew near. It was almost upon me! I shivered and drew my shawl tighter round my shoulders. ‘Cathy, Cathy, I thought I had lost you for ever but you have come back just as you promised you would!’ The man must almost certainly have been but yards away now. I turned and gave a start when a tall and imposing figure strode out of the ghostly swirlling fog . He was wild and tall (hmm, did I mention he was tall already) and handsome. ‘Cathy! He cried, raising his arms as if to embrace me. I was now within reach of his strong masculine grasp. I too opened my arms to receive him ‘Oh’ he said ‘bugger’ I lowered my expectant arms. ‘Most terribly sorry, I thought you were someone else’ He looked nervously from side to side. ‘Oh crikey, I feel like a right tit now’, he said apologetically. ‘I’ll be, errr, getting along then’ he said. ‘pleased to meet you and all that…’ and he vanished into the mist, the tails of his long coat being the last bit of him to disappear into the gloom. I shrugged and carried on towards the top of the hill.

I paused as, at one with the moor, the clouds and the birds, the object of my devotion, the subject of my dreams, the answer to my loneliness, which was abject and to my social status, which was reject, stood tall and unyielding before me at last upon the hill top. I began to fumble with my buttons, my fingers numb with the cold. At last, sign of life, a glimmer of hope a ….'No signal!’ My hopes were dashed as my phone told me this was not a phone mast before me, just a repeater for Radio Two. I should have known such a thing up north was too much to answer for. All the others I had seen had just been mirages. I hoped at least that chap I met earlier found who he was looking for, sigh. All at once, the mist enveloped the fell in a mistlike misty mistiness once more. Was that another voice I could hear? A woman this time? Not so much a voice, more like an eerie ghostly wailing . ‘Heathcliffe!’ cried the plaintive voice ‘Heathcliffe, it’s me, Cathy, come home!’ Where was it coming from? I looked around but saw nothing but the swirling fog. Oh, the lonliness in her voice, oh how I identified with her desperate unhappiness, oh if I could only meet her and tell her of my earlier encounter. The voice faded, to be replaced by 'Hello and top of the mornin' to my listener!' The new disembodied voice contined, 'That was a request from a loverly lady in Northumberland who says she misses her husband, so she does, who's on the other side, so he is, down in London, and if it wasn't for reading Strife in the North she doesn't know how she'd survive, so she doesn't, and now the traffic news...' I sighed. I knew now that my accounts of my grim life, painful as it was for me to relive each grim day at night in front of my computer, had brought solace to another lonely soul out there, although I wondered whether anyone actually spoke like that fellow on the radio in real life. I began to walk back down the hill and, as the sun broke through the clouds, I understood now how to really reach people, I understood how to get FM on my phone, and it was a long weekend coming up and I had managed to get in a romantic depiction of a radio mast before the power to the village went off untill Tuesday, sigh.

not raving but drowning

2007-04-29T19:29:00.000+01:00

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.

the kindness of strangers

2007-04-26T12:38:00.000+01:00

We all stood on the kerb. I was going to have to put my thinking cap on for this one. Crossing the road had seemed so easy when we lived in London. Everyone drove so considerately there but The North was so full of downshifters racing to get to site meetings with their architects about their conversion projects that crossing the road, like so many other things in my new life up north, seemed so much more complicated than before. Suddenly a stranger approached. ‘Can I help you, pet?’ said the stranger. ‘You couldn’t take the baby could you?’ I said. ‘Aye, no problem, I’d be happy to help the bairn across the road’, said the stranger. ‘No, just take him!’ I said, thrusting the baby at the stranger. The stranger looked at me oddly, edged away and then quickly walked off. What was I to do now? I decided we should all try and cross a bit further down the road. A few minutes later we came across my friend the nurse. She would help us, I thought. ‘Hello’, I said. She looked up from some chap who was lying on the verge. ‘Oh’, she began, ‘it’s you’. I love living in a small community where people recognise me like that. ‘I need your help’, I said, ‘if you’re not busy’. She looked down at the man on the ground then up at me. 'Are you blind or something?' she asked, which of course I wasn't and she should have jolly well known that, being medically trained and everything. Suddenly I remembered my agent's instructions to learn and grow, to think of others. ‘What seems to be the problem here?’ I asked, quite pleased with my demonstration of character development. 'Is he unwell?' ‘He'll live but he needs a tourniquet’ said the nurse. 'Give me your scarf Rilly'. The man on the verge did look a state, his clothes all dishevelled and covered in yucky stuff, but I did think that french designers were maybe a bit of a leap sartorially at this juncture. 'It's Hermès' I said, 'sorry, but wouldn't he look a bit silly in my clothes whatever the label? What happened to him anyway?’ I asked. Think of others, I repeated to myself, think of others. 'Not sure’, she said ‘apparently he just muttered something about some mad woman then stepped out into the road’. She looked over to the huge 4x4 parked a few yards away. ‘But what about me?’ I said, 'I've got a manicure booked!' ‘Oh God, Rilly, don’t you ever think about anyone else?’ she said, inexplicably annoyed at something. ‘What are you, my f**king agent now?’ I snapped. Think of others, think of others said the voice in my head. I needed to think quickly. I looked at the jeep, it's bullbars splattered by the every imaginable bodily fluid of this poor chap at my feet. Show you care Rilly, said the voice, you can do it girl. I took a deep breath; ‘Oh my God! I exclaimed, ‘Now that’s going to take some valeting!’ Eureka!

all aboard the arc

2007-04-24T20:07:00.000+01:00

The phone rang. ‘Hello’, I said. ‘Rilly’ said the voice, ‘it’s your agent’. ‘I’m sorry’, I replied, ‘I don’t know anyone of that name’, and hung up. The phone rang again. I picked it up. ‘Be serious Rilly, you don’t get paid for cheap gags.’ ‘You really do have the wrong number don’t you’, I said. ‘Rilly’ said the voice, before you hang up, I’ve just got two words for you’. ‘That’s a coincidence’ I said, ‘so have I’. ‘You first’ he said. ‘No, you first’, I replied. ‘No, you’ he argued. No you’, I remonstrated, then I thought perhaps I had gone too long without the company of anyone over , err, however old my daughter was. ‘OK Rilly, here goes’, he sighed, ‘narrative arc’. ‘What another coincidence!’ I said, slightly fibbing. ‘You need to change, Rilly’ said my agent. I looked down at my top. ‘It’s just a bit of sick’, I said. ‘Babies recognise their mother by smell you know, I saw it on a nature documentary, it's a bonding thing’. ‘I mean you must change, Rilly, character development, that’s what we need.’ ‘Change? How?’ I asked. ‘You have to stop being grumpy about The North’. ‘STOP BRING GRUMPY?!’ I shouted. The baby started crying. ‘Stop being grumpy?’ I whispered. ‘Can you hear that? I asked him, ‘I’m covered in mushy pea sick from a baby who gurgles in a northern accent and you tell me not to be grumpy!’ ‘But you have to learn and grow and change as a person from your experiences Rilly’. ‘I am not a novel, I am a free woman!’, I argued. ‘I am not a fictional character!’ ‘But wife in the north has a narrative arc, Rilly’, said my agent. ‘Yes, but she’d rather have a pantry!' I pointed out. ‘What’s in it for me anyway?' ‘Well, according to marketing,’ he began, 'royalties on another fifty thousand sales’.

I laughed as young Tilly skipped laughing through the buttercup filled meadow under the typically bright and warm northern spring sunshine. ‘I’m so happy mummy’, she laughed. I laughed too. ‘why are you happy Tilly, my love? Because it's always sunny?' I asked, smiling. ‘Because I love you mummy’, she said, with a beautiful childlike grin, and she put a daisy chain around my neck. ‘You look pretty mummy’, she chuckled and we both laughed. ‘Mummy?’ asked my lovely daughter. ‘Yes Tilly darling?’ ‘I want to live in a castle’ she said. ‘We already own half the village dear’, I explained, ‘What more do you want?’ ‘I want to live in a proper castle and be a princess’. ‘Oh gosh’, I said, ‘we’ll have to see what we can do about that dear’, I told her, wondering if my old chum the paper’s court correspondent could swing an invite from any newly single eligible bachelors of her aquaintance this summer. ‘Oh mummy, it’s starting to rain!’ said Tilly, tugging my sleeve, 'let’s go and sit in that old boat over there and pretend we’re in a storm!’ and so we ran, mother and daughter hand in hand, fleeing two by two to board The Narrative Ark and get out of the rain. I hoped we wouldn’t be aboard for forty days and forty nights though; I didn't know how long I could keep this up, the baby sick was starting to whiff a bit and a nagging recollection from my catholic upbringing told me The Ark had no bar onboard.

the hoarse whisperer

2007-04-23T13:18:00.000+01:00

The doorbell rang. 'Deliverance!' shouted a voice. Inside, I examined the riding crop that emerged from my rummaging in the package newly arrived from my agent. It made a satisfying whoosh as it swished through the air. This was obviously my agent’s attempt to help overcome the writers block I had told him about that had just brought my first Black Lace novel to a grinding, shuddering, thrusting halt. The phone rang. ‘Er hellair!’ said the voice, ‘riding stables here! You haven’t forgotten have you?!’ It had been a long night on the karaoke. I had forgotten. ‘I’m feeling a little hoarse’, I said. ‘Practicing already eh?’ said the voice, ‘that’s what we like to hear! All kitted out then?’ I peered into the package from my agent and nodded. ‘Hellair?’ said the voice. ‘I’m nodding’, I said. ‘See you at ten’ and I put the phone down. ‘Ish’ I added. I lifted a hat from the box. It was large and hard, sigh. At least it was black to go with my flowing raven locks. A further rummage revealed some trousers of the same tanned complexion of a slightly disappointing off season week in Tuscany. I looked at the label. Size medium, colour:Lady Godiva. Horses and I do not see eye to eye, unless I stand on a box, I have to take an antihistimine to read a Jilly Cooper novel and if anyone’s going to have a long face in the room it should be me. I remembered the conversation with my agent. ‘Rilly’ he said, ‘you could be sitting on the next Da Vinci Code here saleswise’. This was quite apt as I was sitting on the original Di Vinci Code to reach the desk. ‘But you’ve got to look like you don’t mind mucking in with the locals’. I said I would muck in, but if mucking out was involved he could bloody well forget it.

I arrived at the stables. ‘Er hellair', said a man in even tighter trousers than me, ‘you must be Rilly’. ‘Are you supposed to be able to bend your knees in these?' I asked. The instructor looked impressed. ‘I say, those are the same brand The Queen wears you know’, he said, as if to explain why Her majesty rides side saddle. 'Are you ready for me?' I asked. 'Yep, I've upped the old insurance since I spoke to you on the phone Rilly', he replied. 'Oh dear, did I sound that accident prone?' I asked. 'No, just worried you'd slag us orff orn that blog of yours! Now, let’s get you started then shall we dear’. he said. ‘Foot in the stirrups’, he indicated, ‘easy as visiting the gynaecologist, eh old girl?' Good thing I’m not seeing him today’, I said. ‘Oh, I don’t know', replied my instructor, ‘At least wearing those jods he’d be able to see everything was OK without you taking your trousers orf!’ He steadied the horse with a calm masculine, although slightly horsey smelling, confidence. ‘Alright up there Rilly?' He asked. ‘I can see one of my houses from here!’ I told him. I tried to hide my nervousness whilst making a note to mention it on the blog for dramatic effect. ‘Maybe I should trade in the car for one of these’, I said, patting my mount. ‘How many horsepower can you get out of these things?’ At least I couldn’t lose the keys, I thought, although my husband would probably still forget to fill it with hay, or whatever they run on. Maybe instead of driving each morning to watch other people work I could ride. ‘Does that Philips girl ever visit your stables?’ I asked. ‘Fraid not dear’ said the manly Rupert, ‘but Daniel Radcliffe comes up from time to time, that’s why old Shergar here seems a little nervous. He's been through enough already, poor lad. Don’t worry though Rilly’, he continued, ‘a horse is just like a man, you just need to get on him and ride him until you break his spirit’. Oh dear, I thought as that image entered my prescient imagination, I really should have worn the dark blue jodhpurs today, and I began to slide slowly sideways off of the damp saddle.

Later, as I stepped out of the shower at home and made a mental note to order another gallon of deep heat before the next riding lesson I thought that perhaps I was cut out for this country life after all. I put on my riding hat and resolved to wear it whilst I recounted my adventures to the world. I looked in the Mirror and Ellen Whitaker looked back, although a little less blonde, young and able to tell one end of a horse from the other than young Ellen normally is. Suddenly the doorbell rang. It was Rupert, all six foot of mud spattered Jods, high leather boots and masterful authority of him. I sighed. ‘Just popped by to check you survived’, he said. ‘Come in’, I whispered in a timorous voice I put down to the smokey karaoke of the previous night. My intuition told me he was very impressed that I was wearing my riding hat when I answered the door. 'Very impressed to see you wearing your riding hat when you answered the door!' he said. I don’t know how long he was there but sadly eventually he had to go. ‘I can see you’re really keen to adopt the country life Rilly’, he said, 'just one small word of advice, and hope I'm not too late, don’t forget all your old London ways next time you go back home will you. Remember some things are completely the other way around in the city than they are here’. ‘What do you mean exactly?' I asked, puzzled. He looked me up and down and smiled. 'I think you’ll find that in town the fashion is still hat orff, trousers orn dear.’

As Rupert left, the phone rang. It was my agent again. 'Rilly darling!' he began, 'just read about the riding lesson, just what we need, that's the horsey fraternity hooked up to buy the book for absolute certain dear'. He hung up and I sighed as the prospect of my dust jacket author's photograph replacing the ponies and horses on a thousand 4x4 spare wheel covers suddenly cast a cloud over my day in the sun. I reached for the dictafone that I used for my novel and tried to speak but only a hoarse whisper came out. Would I really ever fit in? Would I ever find the inspiration to finish my romantic novel or was I trapped in the gritty kitchen sink social realism of Strife in the North for ever? Sigh...

dear diary

2007-04-20T12:45:00.000+01:00

06.00 Husband gets up to go to go back to London. I don’t notice because I made him sleep in the spare room last night so he didn’t get me up early.
06.15 Woken by nanny’s crying. She is homesick. She shouldn’t really have her clock radio set to Radio Gdansk Breakfast Show. It can’t help. It is good reception up here though. If not for Denmark in the way you could even see Poland from here.
06.19 Baby starts to cry.
06.20 Switch on Radio to drown out baby. The sound of Carolyn Quinn makes me feel homesick. I start to cry.
06.22 I bang on wall and shout to Nanny that children will be late for school. Pull pillow over head.
08.20 Hear door slam as children go to school.
09.30 Phone rings. It is my agent. Why have I hardly written anything this week? Why not do a diary type post to show how awfully busy I am because everyone thinks the nanny does everything. Put phone down, pull duvet over head.
09.45 Call in Natalia and tell her to make a list of everything I do today.
09.48 Gaze at Radio Times picture of Colin Firth as MrDarcy stuck on ceiling above bed.
10.00 Log onto Wife in the North. Consoled that someone else has as grim a life as me. Read comments onWifey's blog. Someone using a photo of Audrey Hepburn in their profile criticises another commenter for hiding behind anonymity. V. strange.
10.30 Think probably should get out of bed now. Just time for a quick bath before I go out to site meeting at cottage.
12.45 Get out of bath. Can’t find car keys.
12.46 Write blog post about losing car keys and make appointment with post traumatic stress disorder consultant. He can’t see me for three weeks due to sudden influx of downshifters putting strain on resources by losing keys, dealing with homesick nannies and arguing with builders about pantries.
12.57 Find car keys.
13.00 Get in car. Husband has filled it with petrol. Hurrah! Start engine.
13.01 Find favourite CD in glove box to cheer me up.
13.05 Car engine cuts out. Remember now that car runs on diesel. V. bad
13.06 Can’t get James Blunt out of my stereo, as well as out of my head, now ignition dead. Start to cry.
13.07 look in rear view mirror. ‘you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful it’s true’. Cry some more.
13.20 Get out of car. Realize I will have to walk all the rest of the way, sigh, start walking.
13.24 Arrive at cottage for meeting with architect.
13.30 Disappointed when architect says building noise hasn’t forced owners of remaining house in street to sell to us.
13.31 Grumpy local (is there another kind?) complains about housing shortage. I tell him my family occupies three houses in the village so how can he say there is a shortage.
14.00 Arrive back home just in time for health visitor to drop by. She is local so brings an interpretor.
14.01 Health visitor checks baby’s name for records. 'Willy Super', I tell her. 'No, I know your name Rilly', she says, 'what’s the baby’s name.?' I tell her she can jolly well run along and return when she can be more respectful. Health visitor goes red and falls off chair.
14.05 My agent rings. I need to do something to add some local atmosphere. He has booked riding lesson. He hangs up. Riding what? I ask myself.
14.30 Time for first drink according to new years resolution, as amended from no alcohol until 7pm on January 3rd and absolutely not a drop until 5.30pm on February 12th.
15.00 Send Natalia to off licence for fresh supplies
15.45 Children arrive back from school. I tell Natalia to tell them I have died.
15.48 Milly and Tilly start to cry.
15.50 Natalia comes upstairs. She starts to cry
15.51 I start to cry.
15.52 I have another drink.
15.55 Phone rings. I am expected at riding stables 10 am tomorrow. Voice from riding stables says he can't quite match my name with a face. I remind him who I am. Riding instructor starts to cry.

rilly come home

2007-04-17T19:48:00.000+01:00

Terribly sorry I haven't been around much for the last few days. Afraid I’ve had some rather bad news. My agent says that Ken Loach probably won’t direct the film of my life after all. I would have thought my rootless existence would have made the perfect sequel to Cathy Come Home but my agent says Ken thought Strife in The North was simply so grim and upsetting that nobody would think it was true. In the meantime in order to take up the guest appearance on Woman's Hour that my agent has again promised he can swing for me I need to swot for the test on Mary Wollstonecraft that you have to pass to get on the show. It’s very tough you know, even Mary Wollstonecraft failed it although there is a rumour that she was banned after she ate the last chocolate éclair in a pre-production meeting with Jenni Murray. You can imagine how very excited I was when he first told me he was trying to get both me and Wife in the North a Martha Kearney interview but that was then and this is now and the prospect of us sharing a joint Woman's Hour downshifting special receded when he told me that Wifey's chat was on World at One in a Darfur special and my Woman's Hour spot was scheduled for the next Andy Hamilton presented red nose day edition. Sometimes it seems as if I'm just not taken seriously, sigh. At least there'll be some male company in it for me. Anyway, back soon chaps, tootle pip.

rainy days and mondays

2007-04-13T08:48:00.000+01:00

I pulled open the curtains and looked out of the window. Outside it was sunny and Friday, but in my heart it was raining and Monday because my husband was staying in London at the weekend working. He has it so easy in London, he doesn't understand how grim it is up north. A small bird came and perched on a bush in the garden and I thought, hmm, that’ll make a nice little anecdote for the blog because it shows how sensitive I am and it’s also a metaphor for my life, because I am a lonely little bird shivering in the cool night air, my cockney sparrow feathers ruffled by the north wind. I wondered if the little bird had come to our house to await my husband's arrival from London and was going to be as disappointed as I was, knowing that when I opened these curtains tomorrow I'd still just see The North outside and the sheer awfulness of it all wouldn't be blissfully blocked out by my beloved's range rover parked outside. I went to the stereo and put on my favourite CD. I love The Carpenters, not only because they come from the seventies just like my descriptions of The North and my writing style, but because any pop group with a building related name does it for me. I sighed. I couldn't be on my own all weekend. If I couldn't have my husband I would have to make do with a local for company. In desperation I picked up the phone and turned to one of the names in my list of other mothers from the school, just the other side of the road and yet in another world. Trembling, I began to dial the number. I didn't have to dial the code and I would hear the neighbour's phone ringing across the street but I knew I would still need to punch in that magic London 020 to feel I was about to phone home. Perhaps one day this would be my home, sigh, oh wouldn't it be loverley...

the outsider function

2007-04-12T09:15:00.000+01:00

Milly and Tilly were keen and ready to go on their expedition far and away across the other side of the road but I stopped them at the front door. ‘Ok girls, you haven’t forgotten anything now have you?’ ‘No Mummy’, they sighed. ‘Let’s just make sure’ I said. 'You must be prepared, it's grim up north you know.' I ran through the checklist:

Telescopic poles to tap on the road so I know where you are
GPS electronic satellite thingy to save £2 cost of streetmap
Ray Mears wilderness bushcraft survival handbook and DVD

large heavy copy of Bravo Two Zero to beat off local children
Brightly coloured woolly hats with dangly tassles to blend in

Supply of kendal mintcake to trade for real food in emergency
Portable Camping aga, well, just never leave home without it
Flag sent from Ken Livingstone to stake claim to village green
Sunglasses as disguise from journos not from Sunday Times
Anecdotes about falling down a crevasse on Hamstead Heath
Spray-on repellent and hat to keep locals at bay if item 4 fails

I realised I needed to quickly go and work on a less tenuous sounding action mountaineering adventure movie inspired title so I left out the last twenty five items on the list. 'Ok girls, I want you back from Freya’s birthday party by six. Don't dawdle, don't talk to any local children on the way and don't come back without a goody bag worth at least the same as Freya's birthday present, oh hang on, damn, her present, I knew there was something I'd forgotten...

I believe in angels

2007-04-10T08:44:00.000+01:00

I answered the door to find a tall blond man on the doorstep. ‘Hello’, he said, ‘You are wife in the north, ja?’ ‘I’m afraid not’, I told him, ‘and you are..?’ He held out his hand. ‘I am Sven Svensson from Sverige, pleased to meet you’. ‘Ah’, I understood now, ‘you must be from the car company about the missing keys’. ‘No’, he said, ‘I am from the Nobel Prize committee. The panel thinks that anyone who can write three blog posts about losing their car keys can give JK Rowling a run for her money this year.’ I looked puzzled. ‘Only joking!’ he laughed, 'yes I am here about the keys'. ‘Wife in the north has found hers’, I said, ‘but I could do with your help here’. I led him to the car. He looked inside and saw Tilly trying to guess what ‘S.W.’ was for the fiftieth time in her one-girl game of eye-spy. ‘I thought the custom in England was for the parents to lock themselves in the car with the children all bank holiday weekend’, he said. ‘This has changed now?’ ‘We’re downshifted’, I told him. ‘We like to be a bit different’. He studied the lock. ‘Actually’, he began, ‘My brother works for the car company but I asked if I could stand in for him as I am such a big fan of wife in the north’. ‘That’s nice’ I said. ‘Also, he was a bit confused by the directions to her house.’ ‘Oh?’ I said. ‘Yes, he thought wife in the north must be in Lappland but then he found out she was in England and he said ‘but England is in the south! These English are crazy! I am not going there if they are all so strange. I will stay in Sweden and beat myself with birch twigs like any normal person!’'. He fumbled in his pockets and produced an allan key. I was sure that wouldn’t open my super high-tech Swedish electronic locking system. He stuck the allan key in the lock and the entire car door fell off it’s hinges. ‘Are you sure you’re from the car company?' I asked as Tilly looked up and said ‘Mummy, are we nearly there yet?’ Well, actually...’ he began, 'I work for Ikea but it’s the same principle’. I nodded in understanding. ‘That’s done then’, he said. ‘You don’t mind if I use your sauna do you?’ 'I'll get you a towel', I sighed. Soon Sven would go back to Sweden and I would be left alone again, oh Sven, when you're gone, how can I even try to go on...

defibrillation angels

2007-04-08T10:26:00.000+01:00

The easter weekend was not going well for me but I wondered to whom I could turn. It’s so hard to find someone locally who’s on my wavelength when it comes to sensitivity and empathy and I feel quite desolate sometimes, although that's not surprising when there's so much desolation around. I was starting to think that downshifting was not all it was cracked up to be. I like to think however that the local nurse and I share an almost sisterly bond. I saw her today chatting to old Mr Sutcliffe from number sixteen. I could see she looked very concerned about something so I went over to offer some helpful advice. I could see that Mr Sutcliffe was really not interested in the conversation at all and obviously wanted to spend his sunday laying around on the village green. He certainly needed the sun as he was very pale. 'You look very concerned dear', I said, ‘but I hope you're not thinking about downshifting because it's not all it's cracked up to be.' She looked at me in a way that confirmed that this was indeed exactly what she was just at that moment considering. Mr Sutcliffe didn't express any view on the subject and just carried on getting paler. This is normal. The locals I find are often this reluctant to engage in conversation. This is understandable as most of them didn’t even go to Oxford so they probably don’t want to talk to someone like myself for fear of exposing their lack of proper southern education. ‘Hold these’, she said, indicating some round thingys attached to wires that she had put on his chest. She flicked a switch and his eyes opened with a start. He looked up at me. 'Heck!' he cried 'Either I'm not dead yet or I did something bloody awful when I was alive!' It was a miracle! A local had spoken to me! Sunbeams shone down through the clouds onto our little group ‘Now,’ said my nurse friend, ‘what can I do for you Rilly?’ I pointed to her amazing bit of resuscitational wizzardry that she had just demonstrated to me. 'Well' I began, ‘I couldn’t borrow that to jumpstart the car could I darling, and then I thought perhaps I could use it on our bloody rowers as well'.

not a good friday

2007-04-07T22:49:00.001+01:00

Oh Gosh Rilly, what’s happened?’ asked my neighbour yesterday, sensing my alarm. I could hardly bring myself to recount the trauma that had befallen me. ‘I’ve..I've..I've lost the carkeys.’ The words stumbled from my trembling lips. ‘Oh, don't worry Rilly, it could happen to anyone, just ask young Tilly to look for them, they’ll turn up in no time’, she suggested. ‘Just one small snag’, I said, ‘Tilly’s in the car, and I fear she’ll be in there all weekend.’ 'But haven’t you a spare?’ asked my neighbour. ‘Well of course, I have Milly so it’s not a complete loss’. ‘I meant a spare key dear, not a spare daughter’. ‘Oh, I see’, I said, ‘afraid not, and the thing is, it’s such an expensive top of the range car you see, much nicer than anything you could afford, that you can’t just get a new key cut, you have to get someone over from Sweden to sort it out’. ‘Oh gosh’, she said, and as I reflected that perhaps that last bit of information had undermined the effect of the sympathy seeking vulnerability I was trying to convey she continued ‘and how is your husband taking it?’ 'Terribly, as you can imagine’, I said, ‘All his Judy Garland CDs are in the car, I don’t think he can make it through the weekend without them, and if Tilly plays them all while she’s locked in there then the battery will be as flat as pancake by Tuesday. I'm going to get absolutely crucified if he misses his appointment with the interior designer next week because of this.’ ‘Oh golly, poor you’, said my neighbour. 'At least you picked the right weekend for it, ha ha, however are you going to sleep tonight?’ ‘Don’t worry’, I reassured her, ‘The car’s got really good soundproofing so Tilly’s shouting and banging on the windows all night shouldn’t keep us awake.’ 'Thank heavens for small mercies’, she said. ‘See you in church Sunday then Rilly, hmm, I suppose you'll be needing a lift...’

gregorian calender girls

2007-04-05T09:00:00.000+01:00

This morning the ecclesiastical calendar calculator website confirmed my suspicions that this weekend is actually Easter. Damn, I’m sure this means I should have collected Milly and Tilly from school by now this week. I shall have to send Natalia round to see what has happened to them. Easter is quite a major occasion in our village. The vicar, recognizing more than anyone the importance of this festival in a small community organizes an easter egg hunt in the village and enlists the help of the verger and local W.I. to ensure it’s smooth running. Things can get quite competitive amongst these ladies, especially on the baking side of things. I was asked to help when a representative from the organising committee came round and noticed the aga. ‘Oh, you’ve got an aga dear, that’s marvelous’, she said ‘You must help us with the baking!’ ‘You mean you can cook stuff in these as well?’ I replied. ‘Crikey!’ I did my best of course, but village life being what it is the only observation I received on my efforts was ‘we’re going to need considerably bigger hot cross buns’. Anyway, my husband will soon arrive from London and with him to myself at least some of the weekend and several days' production from Green and Blacks entire orgasmic chocolate factory in the pantry, I very much hope, given the abundance of bunnies abroad in the village, that there will be at least one rabbit which doesn’t need to see the light of day this weekend, sigh. Should anyone out there run out of men or chocolate before Tuesday, I jolly well wish them good vibrations this weekend. See you soon, hug...

strife on mars

2007-04-04T08:44:00.000+01:00

My name is Rill Super. In 2007 I had a terrible accident, I took a wrong turn off the Edgeware Road and when I ran out of petrol I found myself back in 1973. Am I in the North, in a coma, or did I go back in time? The bakelite telephone in the dusty corridor rang. I picked it up. ‘Rill’, said my agent, ‘we’re trying to get you back’, he continued, ‘but there’s been a code twelve at the old factory.’ ‘Trouble at mill?’ I replied. ‘What’s a code twelve anyway?’ ‘Theft of the introduction to a spoof 1970s TV show that was on telly last night’, he said. ‘You mean All Creatures Great and Small?’ I asked. ‘No, All Creatures Great And Small was a real 1970s series, not a send-up’ he corrected me, ‘and it wasn’t on TV yesterday’. ‘It was up here’, I pointed out ‘It’s shown on a continuous loop, only interrupted by broadcasts from President Botham.’ ‘My God, it’s grim up north’ said my agent. ‘So what do you want me to do?' I asked. ‘You have to solve the case Rill, get all the facts’. ‘Facts?’ I said, ‘but I’m a journalist’. ‘Looks like you're buggered then love’ said my agent and hung up. Would I ever get back to 2007? Would people stop pointing at my haircut from 30 years in the future and laughing? Would everything be hunky dory? Could I send a distress signal to the outside world, it was still the seventies here in the north, surely I could find some flares? One thing I did know for certain though: cue apt contemporary music clip and roll credits…

running on reminiscence

2007-04-02T12:27:00.000+01:00

I only had to look at the expression on my husband's face to know that the little pointers on all the dials had dropped below the red and were heading rapidly for zero. I’d like to say this was the first time this had happened. He did actually say he was sure that this was the first time it had happened, but we both knew it wasn’t. running on empty once more, the story of our lives. Out of juice again, how could I forgive him, all he'd had to do was point the damned thing in the right direction and fire away, how hard could it be? I sighed as we coasted to a halt. There weren’t many tasks I expected of my husband but he couldn’t even manage his few male responsibilities nowadays. There was an awkward silence as we both sat looking out of the window. He leaned over and turned on the radio and the cricket commentary filled the gulf between us. 'Freddie's out' he said, as someone whose name ended in 'off' traipesed sullenly from the field of play. 'You don't say?' I muttered. ‘Hmmm, oh well’, he reflected further, ‘I think perhaps a little stroll on my part might be called for too’. I didn’t even turn to him to give my reply. ‘Yes, I think that might be a good idea’ I said, ‘and while you’re up you can go and check the bloody car’s got petrol in it as well before I go out to collect the children.’ I pulled the bed clothes over my head and listened to his footsteps grow quieter as they went down the stairs and out into the garage, just as the memories of our first kiss became feinter as they sailed away towards the distant sunset on the misty horizon of my rememberance, sigh

no sign of the times

2007-03-30T08:16:00.000+01:00

I was feeling rather down already when there was a knock at the door. When I opened it I found standing outside a woman brandishing a shorthand notebook and a scruffy man in a raincoat clutching a camera. ‘Oh, hello darling’, said the woman, ‘fetch the lady of the house for me, there’s a dear’ I think she detected my puzzlement. ‘Is she in then, you know, wife in the north , tell her the Sunday Times is here will you’. ‘Are you doing a feature on her?’ I asked. The woman leaned forward. ‘between you, me and the reclaimed antique gatepost’ she said, ‘I’m the new education correspondent and I’m just here to see if she knows about some stationery that we can't find and ask her where she left the keys to the cabinet with all the biros in it'. ‘She doesn’t live here’ I explained. ‘You need to go a bit further north’. The woman looked at me uncomprehendingly. ‘Bloody hell!’ she said ‘You mean there’s somewhere that’s even more north than this?!’ She thanked me for my assistance and walked back to her van muttering to the man in the dirty raincoat. I thought about how the Times education section had obviously gone downhill since wifey had left just as the Saint bartholomews orphanage and abandoned puppy rescue sanctuary newsletter had similarly declined since I stopped writing it. It made me think back wistfully to my last day there before I moved to the north, the orphans waving the last newsletter that I wrote at me and asking ‘please miss, more’ and the puppies looking forlornly at me through the bars with their big sad puppy eyes. I haven’t talked about my work with orphans and puppies before lest people should think I was just trying to exploit their emotions but it left a big mark on me. I had even resolved to give the profits from my book to help those less fortunate than myself, until I moved to the north and then there wasn’t anyone less fortunate than myself so I’ll probably just spend it on a cruise instead. The big sky satellite dish on the Sunday times van disappeared behind the trees as it headed up the A1. One day they would come back and it would be to write a big feature about me instead of just to find out what happened to the office stapler, and I sighed for the life that lay ahead and the one that I had left behind.

Grimm up north

2007-03-28T12:07:00.000+01:00

Having detected just a hint of criticism in some recent comments on this blog, although it'll probably just be me being oversensitive again, which is a weakness I have, I thought about how I could make myself more lovable and I have therefore followed in the footsteps of another blogger who I read from time to time and started learning German. This will hopefully endear me to some of the locals whose consumption of budweiser shows a predelectation for all things german. The other reason for doing this of course is that the way things have been with my husband lately this might help break the ice a little. After all, you know what they say, German is the loving tongue. Bob Dylan didn't know what he was talking about by the way, in fact neither did anyone who listened to him without a lyrics sheet in front of them. He didn't even have a blog, for goodness sake. I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework in between adding some more photographs of the aga to my new Herr Flickr account which I had started up to complement Strafe, I mean Strife, in the north when Tilly came in from school ever so upset. I could see she had been in the wars again ‘Mummy, all the other children keep calling you the the fallen Madonna with the big boobies! She cried, referring to the the effects of the new baby on certain of my vital statistics. My new found teutonic confidence instantly came to the fore and I leapt to my feet. ‘For you Tilly, ze var is over’ I reassured her, and leaving my German homework texts on the table I took Tilly by the hand and marched her back to the school. I resolved there and then that if the headmistress so much as thought about telling me to listen very carefully I shall say zis only once , then I would deport, I mean remove, Tilly from that school straight away. I won't have people making tired and obvious jokes in doubtful taste about my efforts to learn german! I didn’t know if I could educate Tilly at home but at least she would have more living space and I knew that I had months of bed time stories lined up from my german literature studies. Yes, it’s Brothers Grimm up north you know, seufzt…

winkle picking

2007-03-27T10:54:00.000+01:00

As I stood looking around at the hundreds of oysters that lay at my feet on the wet ground amongst all the other shellfish and stranded marine life I suddenly felt terribly disoriented, which was a very strange feeling but might have been because I didn’t actually think I was anywhere near the coast. And yet, I also felt curiously at home, perhaps because just thinking about how they made London underground travel cards from these ancient creatures gave me a warm homely glow inside. I leant over and picked up a salty shellfish. Prizing it open, I thought of Wife in the North as I beheld the beautiful and enchanting revealed pearl that glistened in the sun. Then, opening another silvery shell I thought about my own life and saw only a grain of sand lying in the moist mollusk. I thought about how Wife in the North seemed to mine a deep historical seam which I was sadly yet to discover and I thought about how her loyal followers would have gathered together even in days of yore before the advent of the blog comments box. I stared out at the flat, grey and calm expanse that seemed to stretch forever until my reflections were curtailed by a traffic policeman who asked me to please move away from the overturned seafood lorry, as they wanted to reopen the motorway. I smiled as I thought about getting my husband in the mood when he was next up in the north so I slipped a couple of oysters into my pocket, well, Rick Stein wouldn’t miss a small one, in his restaurant I mean, would he? I just hope they'll do the trick, sigh...

big breaths

2007-03-26T15:17:00.000+01:00

I took a deep breath when the phone rang. I should have known it was going to be my agent. I would have been quite silly not to have known as I had to drive into town to take the call. ‘Rilly, darling..’ he began, ‘I’m here at the publishers, you’re on speaker dear’. This sounded very important. ‘I see Wife in the North has done breastfeeding on her blog, damn, she's good, and we think your blog needs more breasts in it, to give a more rounded picture, so to speak, so what do you think?’ I knew there was something, but I couldn't put my finger on it, then it came to me. ‘Just one snag', I said. 'Oh God, you're not pierced are you Rilly?!' exclaimed my agent. 'I haven’t got any nursing children’ I told him. ‘Hmm, that is a problem’, said my agent and another voice asked ‘Rilly, we really need breasts, this is Tim from marketing by the way, how quickly can you get a baby? What’s the lead time?’ As I tried to add nine months to the next time I could see myself having sex another voice came on the line. ‘Howdy Rilly, this is Hank in the New York office, listen, you really need to work with us on this one ma’am. In our polling, 64% of male college students and 97% of the soccer mom demographic answered yes to the question should Rilly Super get them out, as long she doesn’t do it at the Superbowl. Our American readers are counting on you Rill!’ I could see the point that London and New York were making, that such a personal and private mother-child intimate moment would naturally be expected to appear in the blog by my readers. Another voice, a woman, came on the line 'Konnichiwa, Rillysan, I am interpretor for Mr Nagashima in Tokyo office, Mr Nagashima ask can you write about your breasts being different sizes like Wife in North. Mr Nagashima say his wife very interested in this problem, In fact Mrs Nagashima have to wear padded kimono to match left with right and stop her walking round in circles.’ I'm not sure if they detected that my hesitancy was from a concern to keep my blog in the best possible taste. Tokyo came on the line again. ‘Mr Nagashima say, if no breast feeding in blog, readers not think it genuine account of family life but think probably all just made up to market book. Mr Nagashima have to go now, translation of latest wife in the north post in Japanese just arrived. Sayonara Rillysan’. New York came back on. ‘Gotta go too Rilly, gotta check the mock-up promotional Wife in the North barbeque apron. Be seein' ya!’ and he left me alone with my thoughts, my agent and the entire marketing department in London. ‘I’m not just making something up you know’ I warned them. ‘I’ll lose all credibility if Strife in the North isn’t totally truthful’ . There was a hushed murmering from the other end of the line ‘We know you’ll make the right decision Rilly darling’ said my agent and hung up. I didn’t think I could make up stories just to sell the book, just to keep people reading the blog. I would be deceiving people for whom total honesty was the very thing they most expected from me. This was just the story of an ordinary family, not Desperate Housewives meets Emmerdale. Suddenly as I examined my conscience, my deep ethical and moral contemplation was interrupted, and I could hear the baby crying…

bruises are blue, Tilly Tilly

2007-03-22T11:54:00.000Z

My excitement at Wife in the North's return has been rather tempered by her sombre tone and also by similar events in my own life. Tilly came home from school with a big bruise on her head and a distinct reluctance to tell me how it occurred today. When I questioned big sister about it I found out that it was as I had feared. She had got a lift to school with Freya’s mummy (the school is all the way over the other side of the road and obviously she can’t take the bus because some local children use it) and unfortunately, my impetuous daughter had got out of the car before Freya’s mother had put the step ladder up and poor Tilly therefore performed the time honoured act of falling headfirst out of a large agricultural vehicle, a fall commonly known as the Fulham Flop, after the district of London famous for it’s farms and rough terrain and therefore prevalence of such accidents. It’s a good thing I was back from my recent trip away to comfort young Tilly in her distress, so I made her a cup of cocoa and calmed her down in the old fashioned way, with a lullaby. Soon she was snoozing like a baby, sigh.

Hush now baby, don’t you fret
Mummy’s gonna write about you on the internet

And if that don’t cheer up your gloomy look
This is all great material for mummy’s book

You’ll look back on this and think it’s groovy
When you see yourself fall over in the movie

Hush now baby, stop all this commotion
Mummy’s gonna use you in her self promotion

And if mummy’s book doesn’t sell
Kiss goodnight to the film rights as well

So remember that your childhood adversity
Will pay for you to go to university

Hush now baby don’t you worry
It’s not as if there’s any tarmac in the north to fall on like there is in Surrey

the future's orange

2007-03-20T20:24:00.000Z

The future’s orange as a certain advertising slogan says and although my future may be the Orange Prize my present is the thogger, which has been handed to me, a little oily, by a very nice man who resembles Lembit Opik’s twin brother, that’s the twin that spends less time with his trousers off as he’s only a stripper and not a Liberal Democrat. This is for bloggers that make you think. I believe it is good form to nominate some others who make one think, but I haven’t been doing this very long and we don’t have electricity for enough hours in the day here to allow me to have really got to grips with all the blogs out there yet however to enter into the spirit of things, and hoping that next year these will be a little more personal, here are some blogs that make me think.

Wife in the North for making me think that you don't have to have had a terrible childhood or be a lesbian to be the next Jeanette Winterson.

Bronteblog for making me think that living in the north with consumption and no sex is hard but is still the best route to getting a book deal, Hollywood interest, and a Kate Bush song in your honour.

Jack Havana for making me think I must always be sincere as sincere can be in this blog or someone will send me up.

Alpha Mummy for making me think that a ceasarian story and a cake recipe in every post is the future of blogging, and for making me think that if I plug this then the Times will do the same for me, just like they did so splendidly for Wifey

Girl with a one track mind for making me think, well, I think I'll keep that to myself actually except she does make me think I would never have fallen for that fake flower delivery scam, oh hang on, that was the Times as well wasn't it so I hope this doesn't cancel out number 4.

I'd better go now, it's late and I have to get this ballgown back to mutterings and meanderings for her Young Farmers do. I'm crying all over it and it's dry clean only, in fact my eyes are as puffy as the sleeves, sob.

only the lonely

2007-03-19T15:17:00.000Z

I saw my agent while I was in London last week. ‘We’re really pleased Rilly’ he said, ‘the book's coming along nicely’. He peered down at the manuscript, reading a witty neologism here, a poignant paragraph there. ‘They haven’t made the final decision which department to give you to for marketing purposes, Chick-Lit, or Wrist-Slit-Lit, but I know they really want to do something with this…’ I noticed his attention drift away from me as he began to read a particularly wistful and moving description of when the range rover drove through a puddle and got slighty muddy. Tears welled up in his eyes and began rolling down his cheeks. He was soon weeping uncontrollably. ‘Is my writing really that emotional?' I asked. He shook his head. 'I’m Sorry Rilly, this just makes me realise how much I miss wife in the north, I wish she’d come back from holiday, reading her stuff’s the only pleasure I have in life these days’. I rummaged in my handbag and put every tissue I possessed on the desk.' I know dear' I consoled him, 'we all miss her' and, hoping that Wifey would be back soon for all our sakes, slipped out of the office to leave the poor man alone with his grief. I hope his lonely tears didn't cause the ink to run too much on my book manuscript. That was the only copy.

hell's bells

2007-03-18T12:02:00.000Z

Sunday morning and, back in the north, I sit in bed, missing my husband who has returned to London. We passed, like ships in the night, exchanging a wistful glance across the central reservation of the A1, he on his way back to London’s fair city, I on my lonely return into exile. I am banish-ed, there is no life without Islington’s walls. From the village church comes the bells' toll, do they toll for me? I hope not, they’ve got no bloody business tolling on a Sunday morning when people are trying to have a lay in. Church bells, like other people's children, should be seen lovingly described in the pages of Joanna Trollope novels but not heard. I should go and storm into the church and give them a piece of my mind, but I don’t want to cause a scene, at least not a scene from the end of the The Graduate anyway . The pen is mightier than the sword, or rather my new Aga laptop is mightier than the sword and uses more metal in the construction too. Some people sniff that a laptop that requires your nanny to help you carry it and which runs on burning woodchips and ramblers' trousers collected from barbed wire fences is nothing but a status symbol and something from PC World is just as practical for writing to the environmental health officer about noise from people doing things that you don’t do and at inconvenient times. They’re just jealous because they haven’t got a car with adequate suspension to transport it. They're absolutely essential when you live in the country and everyone has them you know. It looks like that letter means my Sunday is spoken for. It’s a good thing I don’t do anything on Monday to Saturday or that would really be a bother. Oh, for the peace and tranquility of home, but wait, the bells have ceased, now a glooming peace this morning with it brings, and a chance to work on more subtle shakespearean allusions for the blog. A woman's work is never done, sigh...

about last night

2007-03-16T12:26:00.000Z

I shaded my eyes from the sun as he set down the coffee by the bed and opened the blinds to let the bright London sunshine flood into his apartment. ‘I suppose you have to be getting back to your husband’, he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Staring down into the still swirling coffee I nodded. ‘I know you must miss him, having to come away on your own like this’ he said. ‘yes’ I replied quietly, adding with a girlish grin ‘but you could say there are compensations.’ He smiled. ‘I got a couple of good woe-is-me-I’m-so-lonely blog entries out of it’ I said and his expression became more serious and understanding. ‘Oh, yes of course’ he said. ‘Just one question though Rilly...’ he began. I looked up from my coffee. ‘What’s with the always keeping one foot on the floor deal ? Is that a northern thing?’ 'No, silly’, I said, 'it’s just because my blog only alludes to that kind of thing , in a way that’s just enough to cause a knowing nod from the reader but firmly leaves them at the bedroom door. I have a question too', I said, pulling a pair of knickers out from under the bedclothes. ‘Whose are these?’ 'Oh', he said, 'I had girl with a one track mind over the other night.’ Oh, I said ‘you’re not…’ ‘In her book?’ ‘You are?’ ‘Page 74.’ ‘Crikey’, I said, ‘I think I’d better get dressed now.’ ‘You are dressed’ he said. ‘You told me it was because in the north it’s so cold and damp you have to sleep with all your clothes on or else you’ll get consumption.’ I got out of bed and as I looked at my slightly crumpled self in the mirror I realised that, for want of any original material coming my way in the forseeable future, my hope of getting a sex blog to turn into a companion volume for Strife in the North was just another aspiration that I abandoned when I moved to the north, left behind in my lovely house in Islington along with the light fittings, the carpets, and my dreams, sigh.

and you may find yourself

2007-03-15T11:32:00.000Z

...in another part of the world, sitting in the window of the Islington Yo Sushi, letting the days go by wandering around the underground, watching all the people walk past outside in the street, wondering how many of them notice the lonely woman behind the glass contemplating her fate only to then go home, and remembering that wistful expression looking out at them as they checked their tie or their makeup in their reflection earlier in their dreary day, begin their daily blog entry with 'I saw that Rilly Super in town today!' and then their commuting life won't seem so grim after all.

You may ask yourself how long since you were back home and experiencing the long forgotten delights of home made North London cuisine. You may ask yourself why up North can't you get any fish that isn't battered never mind not cooked at all, in fact you can't get anything that isn't battered north of Milton Keynes, the last outpost of civilisation as you travel regretfully up the road of tears that is the M1. How, you may ask yourself, did I get here? I can't remember where have I parked my large automobile? How did I get this beautiful blog? How did I become this beautiful wife?

And you may tell yourself this is not my midlife crisis, and you may tell yourself I'm sure I didn't order this, and you may ask yourself hmm, not sure if I wouldn't mind some gravy and scraps on that. And then an old flame, a once in a lifetime, with eyes as blue as your bluefin tuna before it was caught in muddy waters, and a smile that can defrost, skin, fillet and deep fry a frozen haddock at fifty yards comes in through the door, and you're free all day, and you may tell yourself, my God!...what have I done, but then you may ask yourself, oh sod it, who's ever gonna know?

time out

2007-03-14T14:03:00.000Z

I’m afraid the dischord this week with the daughter that I don’t have for the purposes of this blog because she won’t sign the release form has left me rather drained so I’m going to take some time out with my Time Out and go home for a couple of days to have some me-time, see a movie released in the last three years, have a drinkable latte, prise my agent away from the office for lunch whilst wife in the north is away, and just get away from it all in general. I’ve left the children with my husband and Natalia and have written out some phonetic polish phrases in case of emergency such as ‘Mummy’s been gone two days now, can we have tea yet Natalia?’, ‘Nanny, put that man down, I think the house is on fire!’ and 'No Natalia, I think you must have misunderstood the man from the camera club who works at the garage when he told you he was a top Hollywood supermodel agent’. I know women out there will understand, I’m not deserting my husband, in fact I don’t think I can put it any better than in this old favourite of mine which has a sentiment I think we could all learn from. It could be me on that verandah in fact, the porch is just like the one we had in London. I used to have a dress like that in London too. I used to know all those words off by heart when we lived in London, I used to bel... sigh. I’ll be back at the weekend so please stand by your Rilly and I'll see you soon.

secret sibling

2007-03-13T11:20:00.000Z

Not much time to be lilting and lyrical today I'm afraid. There's trouble at mill, as they say here in the north. My eldest daughter who, rather unreasonably in my view, refused to take part in this blog, cruelly branding my normal uncommercial account of normal family life in the north as 'The Osbournes in Barbours', claims that she has been mentioned in the comments section in breach of our confidentiality agreement. Please of course don't tell her that I told you that she told me this and don't tell anyone that I told you not to tell them that I told you. It's a real shame that I'm not allowed to tell you about the row she and I had over this because it's just the kind of thing which would make a really good read. I have to go back now and find out if Hilly, which may or may not be her name, if she really exists, has indeed been mentioned on this blog and then try and glue together the spode and, if there's any glue left after that, try and piece together our mother-daughter relationship, which would, ironically, also make a really good blog entry which makes the whole affair even more tragic. As I said, I'm not allowed to mention our little tiff, which was nothing really, but if you drop by Chez Rilly in the next week or so best keep your Hunters on untill Natalia's got all the broken glass up. You couldn't make any more of a mess, which I cannot confirm that there is of course, than there is already. Well, I suppose this kind of thing happens in every normal family, which is what we are, sigh.

Tilly Elliot

2007-03-12T08:46:00.000Z

Tilly, charming and delightful as always, was ever so excited as she rushed into the kitchen just as I was taking the scones out of the oven. I knew why of course, but I still pretended not to have heard the news that today was the day the film crew arrived to begin shooting the new film version of the stage musical version of Billy Elliot. ‘Whatever is it dear?’ I asked feigning lack of knowledge that Easington had now become so gentrified with all the Londoners turning the old terraced miners’ houses into weekend places because they loved the north so much they had started to shun the more picturesque villages because they kept finding everything they did reported on the internet by the many bloggers who had moved to such places in search of fresh air, fields and film deals, that the film company had to look elsewhere for their backdrop and had decided upon our village. ‘Mummy, mummy!’ began Tilly, excited, charming and delightful, ‘there are lots of men with black faces all over the village!’ Gosh, I said smiling, I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about dear.’ ‘But Mummy, isn't that why you and daddy wanted to move away from London?’ 'Oh silly Tilly', I reassured her ‘There's no need to worry, they’re miners!’ ‘What’s a miner?’ quizzed my daughter in her typically charming and delightful manner. ‘Well, in the olden days before you were born there were lots of miners, but they didn’t vote conservative so Maggie Thatcher had to sack them all, because that’s what happens if you’re naughty’. I beckoned Tilly to come outside with me to see that these frightening working class people were really nice and from the south like us, just like everyone else I allowed the children to speak to in our village.

I led her up to one burly blackened miner. ‘Way ay lass!’ he said by way of greeting. ‘Mummy, it’s Gandalf from Lord of the Rings!' shouted Tilly, in her charming and delightful innocence of Sir Ian Mckellen's true status, and of his ability to bring more magic to the screen in his acting than even Gandalf with all his powers. ‘Hello darlings’ said Sir Ian, ‘are you here to watch the filming?’ ‘Oh yes please!' exclaimed Tilly. Just then the director called out over the megaphone ‘CAN ALL THE SINGING MINERS PLEASE LEAVE THE SET, I JUST WANT THE DANCING MINERS!' Obviously the same director as The Producers, I thought. ‘Oh, that’s me!' said Sir Ian, ‘got to go and shoot the big tap number! See you later darlings!’and with a flourish and a ‘don’t start without me boys!' he turned to the gathered synchronised bobbing miners lamps and tap danced over to the MDF colliery wheel illuminated in the beam of the film lights. ‘Is he the star of the film mummy?’ asked Tilly, as Sir Ian theatrically tripped over a cable in his rush to begin the scene and landed in a heap next to Renee Zellweger, Billy's dance teacher in the film. 'No', I replied, smiling at my amazing ability for wry observations and dry wit, ‘it’s just a miner roll’. I must remember that one for the blog, I thought, and we all went back home and gathered around the aga for tea and scones with strawberry jam and lashings of Joanna Trollope

maybe it's because I'm a liberal

2007-03-11T18:40:00.000Z

...that I love London so, although I'm stuck up here in the north now unfortunately and I don't know if I mentioned it before but it's grim. I also love wife in the north of course, who seems to have had an uncannily similar weekend to my own. On Saturday my husband and I both went down to the cottage so we could feel good about helping the village by combining two houses into one and reducing the village's carbon footprint by displacing an entire family from the community. While we were down there I’m afraid I got rather annoyed with the builder fellow who's doing the knock through. Now I’m a liberal, and this family occupies four houses at present and you can't get much more liberal than that, and being a liberal means that everyone should speak like I do wherever I go because a liberal is the only thing to be. As far as I'm concerned it’s no more acceptable for someone up here in the North East to call me pet than it is for a waiter in some foreign clime to give me a dirty look when I order the polenta slowly and loudly in Cheltenham Ladies College english. That's just pure prejudice on his part and we all know what a jolly bad thing prejuduce and condescending stereotypes are, don't we boys and girls! I've decided that when my husband moves up north we will reclaim the north for the God, Harry and received pronunciation! I'm sure if those Gideon chaps started putting Forster in hotel bedrooms instead of the bible that would be a start in showing people how to behave. We may no longer have the empire but now the north has become the white man's burden and with my huband at my side we'll jolly well re-colour the north pink just like in the good old days!

But for now though, Sunday has arrived and as I write this my husband and Fabio are on the sleeper back to London, making the sacrifice of sharing a berth to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. As I close the front door after them I contemplate that he's left me again with nothing but the children, my veet squeezed in the middle (men!), the joint account chequebook and an aga catalogue mysteriously stuck together at the centrefold. Just as I gather my thoughts, my new mission to achieve universal radio 4 pronunciation receives it's first impetus as Milly asks me 'mummy, do we own some seaside all for ourselves now?' 'Whatever do you mean dearest?' 'Well mummy, when Fabio had left with daddy, Natalia asked us what we thought now we'd seen daddy's beach'. So many people not like me, so little time to change them, sigh..

the prodigal papa

2007-03-09T11:30:00.000Z

My husband arrived late yesterday from London. He looked ever so pleased to be up north with his family again. ‘You look ever so pleased to be up north with your family again’ I said, sharing my writer’s intuitive emotional insight with my beloved. ‘You bet!’ he said, ‘you’ll never guess who I was on my train up north with today! Only wife in the north's husband!' ‘Oh golly’ I said. 'I’ll tell you something though Rilly darling,’ he began. ‘I jolly well hope you don’t go getting ideas and telling everyone about us on the internet!’ I smiled reassuringly and lovingly at him. ‘Oh, and hope you don’t mind, brought some work home, you know my secretary, Fabio, don’t you dear?’ ‘Ciao, Signora Super’ smiled Fabio, and in the distance the hooves of an untamed stallion thundered into the northern sunset.

We’re still living in the rented house, which only has one bedroom, and one bed, but it’s so lovely when we’re all together. Last night the girls Milly and Tilly, Natalia the polish au pair, my husband, my husband’s secretary Fabio (my poor dear love, just can’t seem to leave work in London when he comes up north, he’s very important you know ) and myself all sat in the bed and waited for the embers of the fire to finally leave us in darkness so we could all put down our Catherine Cookson novels and go off to sleep. When I’m alone I find it hard to get off, but last night with my devoted husband by my side I can honestly say that I got more zeds than there are in the name of Natalia’s home village.

In the morning Milly gave me a puzzled look as I rubbed my eyes and tried to get the two cafetières that I could see before me to merge into the one that I knew was actually there. ‘Mummy’ she began hesitantly, ‘yes Milly dear’ I said. ‘Tilly and I are a bit worried about daddy.’ ‘Oh gosh girls, why ever might you be worried about him?’ I queried. ‘Well’ said Milly, ’you know how people lose their memories when they get old like you and daddy, well I think daddy’s losing his memory.’ ‘We all forget things’ I said, 'even children!' ‘Yes, but mummy, why else last night did we hear father keep asking Fabio who’s the daddy?’ ‘I expect it’s just because he’s been working late darling’ I reassured her and poured my expresso into an eggcup.

downsizing damp

2007-03-07T12:49:00.000Z

I wandered down to the cottage with Tilly today for a site meeting with the builders, an ancient ritual which all us brave restorers will have experienced. Sometimes I think it's taking longer to knock the place down than it took to build all those centuries ago. The walls may be coming down but the costs just keep going up. I got so exasperated last week I even let off steam to the district nurse when I saw she was in her office when I visited the surgery with Tilly one day. 'Oh!' I cried, 'Everything takes ages around here and sometimes I think it's just impossible to get anything done on your house for under a quarter of a million up here in the north'. She looked at me in what I could see was her shared annoyance at such high building costs and I knew she was thinking exactly the same thoughts as me. It was obviously a common problem. 'Hold this while I get the scissors' she said, handing me the umbilical cord. 'I mean, my God,' I said turning to Mrs Arkwright from number 14 down there on the delivery table 'You obviously can't even get a ceasarian around here, how bloody dark ages is that!?'

I had, however, resolved to remain calm this morning down at the cottage. In the kitchen our guide, our builder's new young assistant, reached up and placed his hand on the wall, shaking his head. I noticed how his muscles were so wirey you could certainly supply all the electricity to the new reproduction period swimming pool through them. Not only that, his thighs encased in those tight jeans were so thick and strong they could easily replace the oak beams that held up the authentic venacular wet room and sauna. He was as tall as the old yew we chopped down to build the double garage, his eyes were the colour of the blue mediterranean tiles in the third ensuite bathroom and his jaw was chiselled out of the very same ancient rock from which the cottage was built before we got started on it. Suddenly I felt a childs elbow in my side. 'Mummy!' nudged Tilly. 'Yes dear' emerged I from my day dream. Tilly raised her eyebrows at mummy's lack of attention. 'The man says you've got a damp patch'. Glaring at our builder and pulling Tilly in front of me I exclaimed indignantly 'Well actually, I said, I left my bicycle out in the rain, not that it's any concern of your's, mister!' and I took Tilly by the hand and we stormed home.

Newcastle, New Title

2007-03-06T08:26:00.000Z

I went to Newcastle, where they have the nearest working telephone to my village, to pick up a message from my agent in London today. 'Rilly, dear' he began, 'Ran your idea for the new title of your book about how grim it is in the north past Viking-Penguin earlier and they say The Satanic Mills really works for them dear, on so many levels. They had a big hit with something similar a few years ago as I recall, went down a bomb, and as well as that whole Salman Rushdie meets Chariots of Fire meets Jilly Cooper eighties nostalgia thing (you're a genius dear!) they reckon if they send a couple of their Australian lads up north to wind up the spiritual leader Geoffrey Boycott about The Ashes they can even get a fatwah out on you. Apparently Komeini asked for 5% last time and although they reckon it might cost a bit more this time around as we're dealing with those awful Northerners instead of the Iranians it doubled the sales back then so it's worth a shot. Anyway, got to go darling, I'm taking Wife in the North to Fifteen. The staff there all feel sorry for her with her grim life you know, being disadvantaged themselves, so we get extra helpings, talk soon dear..' and as the dial tone replaced my agent's enthusiasm over the handset I thought to myself, could I really be so successful as an author writing about how grim it is up north that I could afford to buy a bigger place down south? The truth really is stranger than fiction...

disappointment

2007-03-05T08:11:00.000Z

'Hmmm', frowns your agent, peering at you over the top of his spectacles as he ruffles the pages of your latest manuscript, 'I presume this is just a working title'. 'Er, oh, of course' you reply as you recall the long northern winter of toil it has taken to finally come up with Petite anglaise in the north with a one track mind. 'And you really need to include some short and snappy pieces which give the impression that you have other things to do in your life than blog but not that you've nothing to write about because not much of interest has happened to you lately'. You're already mulling over his advice as you get up to leave. 'Oh, Rilly dear, one more thing...' he calls out as you reach the door. You turn around in anticipation 'Send wife in the north in on your way out, there's a love'

sunday morning

2007-03-04T14:08:00.000Z

In my husband's London flat I sat in the bed, my husband next to me. ‘I’m sorry’, he said, ‘I think I’ve just been working too hard’. I confess that he introduced into the conversation an adjective which had not occurred to me in respect of the man at my side at that precise moment. He almost unconsciously raised his arm and pointed the remote at the VCR and as Meet me in St Louis flickered onto to the screen I wondered why even my reading aloud from the colour charts in my best seductive tones and dressing only in come hither fabric swatches didn’t seem to turn him on today. I just couldn’t think what could be the problem although I wracked my brains for what seemed like an age. ‘What are you thinking about?’ He asked, noticing my pensiveness. ‘Oh, nothing’, I replied evasively, ‘just the cottage’. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean!?’ he snapped. I’m sure I didn’t know what he was talking about so I felt around on the floor beside the bed and grasped one of his body building magazines. As I began to flick through it, trying to take myself away from this awkward situation, I wondered why despite subscribing to all these fitness magazines he had not yet got around to buying any weights himself but I reasoned it was because he didn’t want to have to transport them up north when he came to live with me and our daughters in the near future and he was just committing all those exercises and poses on the well thumbed pages for when he started his new healthy regime in the north. Yes, that must be it. Suddenly I realised he was crying. I snuggled up to him and softly told him he mustn’t get so upset, that these things happen to every man from time to time. ‘Sorry’, he said, ‘this number always gets to me’, as have yourself a merry little christmas began and he turned up the volume to allow Judy Garland to drown out his sobbing, and leave me none the wiser regarding his reluctance to come and live with me. I began fumbling around on the floor again. ‘What are you looking for now?’ He asked. ‘Somewhere to plug in my laptop’, I said. ‘I haven’t written anything on my blog for hours. I can’t just sit around here all day, my readers need me’. I had pencilled in the diary to write about sex this weekend but it looked like now I might have to make something up and I hoped that the readers of my hitherto truthful blog wouldn't notice. I felt very alone, even my friends had only rubbed salt in the wound when I'd talked about this problem. ‘All relationships have sticky patches’, said one, not realising I would give my right arm for a sticky patch in my own relationship. As I tapped on my keyboard, oh how I wished for just a simple sign from my husband, just one, to give me a single clue, to let me into that locked closet where he kept his feelings. While his attention was diverted I slipped some of his muscle mags into my handbag. I knew he wouldn't mind, what is marriage all about, after all, if not sharing? I knew though that when he moved north everything would be alright, from now on our troubles will be miles away...