On the beach.

This was a local beach on a warm day last week. Yesterday the Sandman and I made it our own, he on his bike, me panting along with the Innocent Smoothies, matches and sausages to cook. Mistrustful youth had bought sandwiches too, for me to carry, reckoning that anything grandmothers try to do in the male department of fire-lighting and al fresco cooking is bound to fail. He wasn't even enthusiastic about collecting dry sea-weed and drift wood. Once the setting up began in the shelter of a re-inforced concrete anti-tank block (they can't even get rid of them by blowing them up!) he showed more co-operation digging a hole, finding big stones for the edges and making the little pyramid of starter grasses, seaweed, fir-cones, driftwood and so on. When the matches came out he was on top of it! We failed our Scout fire-lighting badge (if they still demand a two-match-only start)used a whole box and eventually the wood of the box as well, protecting the tiny flames from the wind with much care until I stood up to get rid of a cramp and the wind took over and we had - a fire!! Small, but once it was hot it was very, very hot and cooked four sausages impaled on green sticks and laid across between the stones. Triumph. This Child of the Times looked dubiously at the first sausage muttering about food poisoning. I told him about a disastrous hike with the Guides in the rain when my patrol got lost and we ate raw sausages with cold baked beans so hungry were we. No grit the young these days. He has more grit now as the sausages were crunchy with blown sand. Still, it was a success.

Angels on overtime.

I liked Chillsiders comment about keeping my angels on overtime - it's true. I looked at the first house yesterday and although in many respects it's perfect - late Victorian stone built with 6 bedrooms, three attic rooms (undecorated but with a bit of plastering and paint they'd be bigger and better than I'm using now) two reception rooms, a BIG dining room, a newly fitted kitchen (with plenty of room for a table for 6 so the sort of heart of the house to sit around in yacking to the cook and then eat in) a utility room, three shower-or-bath rooms with all facilities... somehow I still couldn't see us all living there. A night's sleep and a few possibilities have popped in that would make it good but.. I think it faced in the wrong direct so there wasn't enough light for me. It was a sunshiny day and only the large living room was getting it.

I'm seeing another more modern spread, bungalow this time, tomorrow. The problem with modern houses is the sound. It generally filters everywhere. No privacy!! That solid Victorian house had a drum kit in the attic. I wanted to get Sanders to try it so I could walk around and test for sound - maybe when we go back.

His hip is better - tick one off.

Decisions, decisions.

Not much energy is being put into book sales of late. Strangely the income stays the same although the numbers of orders drop.

Somebody must be looking after me up there, but I don’t envy them their job.

A couple of days on the couch with Michael Connelly (he’s readable) and a bottle of Marks & Spencer Rosé (reduced, very quaffable) and I came up with a solid plan for my future. I’m getting rid of all my book stock (friends have been alerted) and, probably, putting this place on the market. I’ve even asked Estate Agents for ballpark estimates. The one who has turned up so far called it ‘quirky’ and was apparently rather taken with it so said he’d have to go away and think about it a bit because it wasn’t what he’d been expecting. If nothing else I may decided I like the quirkiness and stay after all. I very much dislike featureless houses and there are far too many of those around. It isn’t the best time to be selling, to state the obvious, but prices don’t seem to have dropped as much in this area. For the next move - well, there has been a suggestion made by other members of the family for a ‘family’ sized house which might help Sander's sense of security and lessen the number of bedrooms he has with his name on to wake up in. This is the fun bit; I'm beginning to nose around properties in the area. We shall see. I love looking at houses so won’t mind a bit if it drags out.

Nosing into people's lives and talking to book dealer friends again make a welcome break from worrying about Sanders who is still the front end of the donkey (‘Heee’ on the inbreath to my ‘Haaaw’ on the outbreath.) Occasional glimmers of what is going on for the poor child do nothing to reassure. Throat = communications chakra where problems stem from fear of voicing thoughts, fear of making oneself heard in the world and so on. When he is ever going to feel he can have his own life back I just don’t know. He worries about both his parents and telling him not to doesn’t seem to make any impact. Frankly the lack of professional help available is as much of a scandal as the saga of Iain’s back. Even after hospitalisation he is still on a long waiting list for the child psychs - and will they be any good?

To go back to the Plan (to cheer myself up.) Once I’d decided to sell all my stock one way or another I started to wake in the night thinking about books I want to keep. The pile is getting bigger and bigger. Will I ever be able to go back to putting humble paperbacks on my shelves? I suspect not. There are books I like to read once a year, books I have promised myself I will read one day, and books with decorated covers I like the look of too much to part with, quite apart from reference books, local books, etc. etc.. It’s all very difficult.

Easter

Easter with the Eggyrises was like the curate's egg - good in parts.
Good bits:
*Sophie was with us for four whole days and two bits. This was VERY good.
*Chloë's birthday lunch was garlicky and tasty at the best of the two local Italian places.
*The weather was often beautiful.
*Plenty of chocolate.
*A trip to Clava Cairns and the newly refurbished Culloden battlefield exhibition (Sandy enjoyed that because he was able to use a wheel chair as his hip is still bothering him and there's a lot of walking outside. He was doing wheelies by the time he left.) I preferred the cairn's. They are set in a pretty glade and never fail to intrigue me with their complexity and the hugeness of the stones used. I'm doubtful of the claim that they are burial mounds. Why line the entrances up with the winter solstice sunlight? (That's rhetorical by the way. Obviously there are reasons why they MIGHT line burial mounds up but I'm just not convinced by those reasons. Gut feelings and all that.)

Less good bits (I'm sure the curate was VERY polite and wouldn't have called them 'bad.')
*Sandy came back from eight days with his dad and almost immediately started a panic/stress attack that is still going on. His throat is all tight and the sound he makes is like someone having an asthma attack but it isn't asthma because the wheeze is on the inbreath not the outbreath and anyway he has spent two days in hospital under observationa during which time we learned diddly except that it isn't asthma. Once he gets to sleep his breathing reverts to normal but as soon as he wakes he's off again. He seems to have enjoyed his time with dad but was glad to be back, had been having very late nights and not getting fed during the daytime (dad doesn't bother much with food) but did some fun things, so ????????? We all have our theories but have nothing to substantiate them. Poor child is fed up with us asking him 'was it this or was it that?' He simply doesn't know. The next plan, mooted by his mum, is for the two parents to go back to mediation to try to get to the bottom of it without involving Sandy directly. Not sure dad will agree but that's his problem.

I was with Sanders a lot of the time whilst he was in hospital when Mum was working and others were out walking. It proved more entertaining than I had hoped. For the first time I played Wii tennis, went Wii bowling, and raced Wii cars round crazy tracks. I lost regularly, beaten by the whooping and wheezing 10 year old, naturally, still it was quite fun. The food in the hospital restaurant is pretty good too. I really enjoyed a beef stew - it was also very cheap which kept me cheery. Nice not having to cook.

Enjoyment is to be found in the most unpromising circumstances.

Spring cleaning.....

....has been happening. Somehow it feels inevitable with the sunshine showing the dust and the time to see it; also to prowl the house on my own. Amazing what comes up; photos and knick-knacks I haven't seen for years, old clothes I haven't taken out of the cupboard for years, keys to other houses long since moved out of (oops!) Dissertations on 'Performance Art,' 'The Knee,' 'Teaching Techniques for Sports. Written by my three children at their respective places of further education ( Some very wise words about 'trauma as it is held in the body' written by my son who I really didn't think was into that stuff. Somewhere along the way it must have been part of his training course for teaching watersports and ski-ing.)

Piles of half-starts and half-hearted-starts at stories, poems, novels, by me. I feel as if I have been living on deep litter made of paper.

Walks, coffee and cake (a new place discovered; V. nice) and connecting with friends. A desultory attempt to be present at a performance of singing crystal bowls was thwarted by the absence of the performer yesterday, so that's something for another day. All in all a good and rather lazy time is being had by this person.

Fairies and sunshine.

Suddenly there is a rush on books about fairies. Is it because it's Spring? Even a limited edition book I never seriously hoped to sell has just gone off to Australia, 'The Fairy Family' which was the first book to be illustrated by Burne-Jones.

It's a glorious day today and begs me to go gardening or (as the grime shows so much better in the sunlight) to spring clean. Happily a friend rang up and we're going down to the beach for a stroll then off to seek out coffee and cake somewhere. This is the first day of a week in which I officially have nothing to do. Sandy is at his dad's and Chloë is on her way to a cranial osteopathy course in Leeds. I stayed in bed till 11am without a qualm of conscience. All the writing I plan to do and - yes - spring cleaning - looks like having to happen around other plans that are forming. Goodness. It feels like a holiday.

April Fool

So who got caught out this year? I did. The most shaming thing is I've been caught by it before:

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Hi Yous
We just found our old school photos at:

http://www.worldschoolphotographs.com/

Please do send us a copy if you can find yours.

Love and XX
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