Muddling through the day

[Anne Brooke]

Lord, what a disjointed day it's been. One minute calm and the next in the depths of frustration - never say my life is not a rollercoaster ride. You must get tired reading about it, but that ain't nothing compared to actually being on the damn thing! Ah well.
The good news however is that my friend with the dead grandfather (at last! at last!) has this week just bagged her first headteacher job - hurrah!! No, double hurrah!! And I'm seeing her tomorrow at her husband's 60th (he's older than she), so a double celebration indeed. And it just goes to show that once you finally get rid of the family deadwood, the sky's the limit. Ha!

And I have just finished the most marvellous book which you must all rush out and read - Louise Welsh's "The Bullet Trick". This is such a relief for me even to write this as her first, "The Cutting Room" was excellent, but the second (a novella called "Tamburlaine Must Die") was an out-and-out disaster and should have been stuffed in a drawer at birth or, better, not been written at all. But TBT is even better than TCR - dark and vibrant, bleak and punchy. With an oh-so-sympathetic anti-hero, whom you grow to love hugely through the story. I love it when a book like this comes along - it makes my skin tingle and makes me feel alive. I'm devastated that I've finished it, and I'm still thinking about it. Hope the next one is equally as good and not the rushed (I suspect) disaster of the second.

I've also typed up another 1000 words of "The Gifting", which is ambling along fairly nicely on the water - no rush there then, missus. But (sigh), no eager publisher waiting for it either, eh?

Apart from that, it's felt like an edgy day - probably the aftermath of yesterday - and I'm still feeling tired. But what's really tipped me over the bloody edge is the fact that my fecking bloody printer is bloody well playing up and I have things I need to print and they're not fecking - hell, let's say it as it is - they're not fucking coming out. I hate my bloody fucking printer. And I hate it that I won't be able to sort it out until Lord H comes home and hears me weeping and gnashing my teeth. It's just the most frustrating, annoying thing in my world right now. It's making me soooooo cross. So much so that I have bought another two packets of my depression-minimising Vit B pills, when I was thinking of weaning myself off them - I spoke too soon!

Anyway, no wonder my blood pressure is up - which it is, incidentally, as I had my regular six-monthly test yesterday. Though not enough for the nurse to give me the lecture and threaten pills this time. I will have to ensure that I do my regular exercise sessions daily - I've been slacking a little recently (well, I've been ill, manic, low, published ... etc etc - take your pick). Fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the evening is supposed to see me through to seventy. Allegedly. Oh, and my blood is fine - the hospital test was clear so I'm likely to live another year. If the blood pressure doesn't get me first ...

Tonight, Lord H and I are off to see a Pinter play at the theatre, which I suspect isn't going to be the calming experience I am needing right now. And I do hate going out on Fridays - it means we can't have wine with our pizza, garlic bread and ice cream, and get drunk as skunks, or the Guildford playgoers will start to complain. Still, sometimes Pinter really gets to the spot and it's got Neil Pearson in, who's as sexy as hell, so if I don't like the play I can always just do the fantasising. Hell, isn't that what live performance is for?

Oh, and I've been eating chocolate like it's going out of fashion today - I am so obviously trying to fill the gap left by my lack of personal integration. Ha! Lord, but I am so cliched. Somebody pass the shell-suit and white stilettos (well, I am from Essex ...).

Today's nice things:

1. Knowing a new headteacher
2. Reading "The Bullet Trick"
3. Theatre-going (and sexy Neil).

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk