it was only a northern swan

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 '.

cleaning up

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.

no sign of the times

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.

big breaths

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

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

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

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.

about last night

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.

secret sibling

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.

Newcastle, New Title

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

'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'