the schlong good friday

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!’

sixth sense

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.

dear diary

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.

time out

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

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.

the prodigal papa

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.