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

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.

the kindness of strangers

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!