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I have holiday starting about 9.30pm tonight (Friday) and I haven't got a clue what I am going to do with myself.
There is so much I should be doing, could be doing, want to be doing, BUT which I shall do, or feel up to doing, is the unknown quantity. I set out with such good intentions but the reality of my energy and inspiration levels always means I fall short of my own aspirations. The children are otherwise engaged and miss my grandchildren as I do there have to be times when I share them, reluctantly, with other members of their families. Anyway, I have to do maintenance work on my own psyche and individuality because if that falls apart then I shall end up like a lot of the sad women I have looked after over the years, lost and moribund. They have subsumed themselves so entirely in home, hearth and family that when the children have flown the coup, the husband/partner is dead, and they can no longer manage the home, they are left with precisely nothing. No interests, no personal individuality and no impetuous to drive them forward.
So now we are on Sunday and what have I done? Well, I have transplanted lettuce seedlings, and planted more spring onions - I have carted water for the tomatoes and now the sun has gone away and growing conditions are at a premium. I have made bread and muffins (chocolate), fiddled with various designs and photos and more than anything struggled with this laptop which has suddenly decided to play silly b's with my pictures and programmes. It freezes, shuts itself down, and the cursor becomes paralysed. My mobile phone is also temperamental and will send/receive multimedia messages as/when it feels like it. I am fed up especially as I haven't changed any settings. I bet if I take them back to where I bought them the first line of defence will be to ask me what I have changed? Of course they will then work perfectly and make me look a complete prat!
Bank Holiday has dawned bright, fair and windy - just right for hanging the washing out, cleaning the vacuum cleaner filter, thus covering myself in dust, desperately trying to make the place look presentable ready for the hairdresser visiting tomorrow. Isn't life riveting? And protecting my tomatoes from the coming gale. Is this really nearly June? So, I rigged up this Heath Robinson affair of a wind break around my baby plants, composed of bubble wrap, pea canes and pegs. Very useful items pegs. Not classically decorative - bubble wrap and bright orange pegs- but serviceable.

We are onto Tuesday now and the hairdresser finally arrived. Why are they so afraid of my hair, of cropping the nape of my neck so the hair doesn't stick out at a 45 degree angle as it grows out of my scalp?
The excuses are interesting if not bizarre - it will make your head look small, it will make you look masculine, I can give you a false hairline - NO! Just do as I ask - you ask enough money for it.
Then I went for a lay down after an early start and disturbed night. I get up and guess what? One side of my hair is as flat as a pancake. When I lay on the other side this does not happen. It simply confirms a long held view that my hair, like the rest of me, has a life and mind of its own, that continues without reference to my control.
Wednesday. This entry has to stop being a draft and become a published post so I will endeavour to bring it to some sort of conclusion. I had the most horrendous night which did not bode well for the day to come. It was broken sleep punctuated by vivid, bizarre rather than frightening, dreams and an inability to relax or get comfortable. This of course meant that I overslept this morning. I was going to do so much in town before going to see my daughter and the pixies. The weather was dank and misty, more reminiscent of November than the end of May, and it didn't take much to talk myself out of my original plan, truncate the agenda, and head for the supermarket to pick up lunch and then to my final destination.
Those pixies - what can I say? They do me the world of good with their zest for life ( and destruction) and redress the sense of hopelessness that occasionally assails me. Of course they are wonderful, of course I am biased, but you don't get great children without good parents and if the pixies' elders need to reassure themselves about their abilities then they should be comforted by the plain, straight forward, rightness of these particular imps. The day, after I left to come back home, deteriorated somewhat, weather wise, and as the rain cascaded off the guttering I turned my back on it and lost myself between "facebook" and you Dear Blog.






































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