Daisy Waugh - I think you're talking rubbish.

Every now and then I am heartily irritated by something I read in the paper. This is one of those times.

Daisy Waugh has written a piece in the Sunday Time New Review section about how she moved to the country, found it 'sterile' and came back with relief to London. She ends her article with this hilarious assertion:

"Go anywhere beyond the M25, where the houses are pretty and large enough to have their own utility rooms – and I get the feeling that lady-talk is pretty much all you’ll ever get.”

Well that’s settled then. Daisy Waugh, She Who Has Been There And Knows, has informed us that if you remain within the bounds of the M25, then you can hope to remain half-way cultured and potentially interesting enough to engage her in lively discussions of, I don’t know, the European Community, the war in Iraq, the merits of the Turner Prize show this year and all manner of other stimulating topics. Turn your car in the wrong direction off the Yellow Brick Road and your brain atrophies.

Daisy, Daisy, Daisy! Get out your atlas and have a teeny-weeny look at a map of the British Isles. There is London and then there other cities as well as the country. In fact there are even other capitals. I watched Kirsty and Phil trumpet the benefits of Edinburgh as the best place to live in Britain in 2007. Cardiff was up there too. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were women in both places who not only knew where to source good slate, but could also discuss the state of the British film industry and the best methods of teaching your child to spell. (Not that I’m thinking of last night’s conversation or anything.) I don’t think they’re all obsessing about fairy cakes.

When we were first married we used to live in London, where I couldn’t bear the smug, boring, middle-class dinner conversation, mainly centred around what people either owned now, or were planning to own at some point in the future. Or how brilliant their children were and how much effort they’d made to get them into the frankly fabulous schools to which they had, against the odds, gained entry. It’s a particularly London phenomenon, that one, as you Londoners might recognise if you’ve noticed the look of puzzlement on non-Londoners’ faces as you warm to that particular theme (and trust me, an awful lot of you do.) But then it’s fair to say that I didn’t see my real friends often because I lived in Putney and they lived all over London. I now live in Bristol, where I socialise much more, with a much wider range of people. I drink too much, but that’s rather a function of having more fun than is probably appropriate for a woman of my age.

I went back to teaching a little while back after spending nine years working as a full-time mother and trying to write screenplays. My best friends, also full-time mothers, were a TV producer and a graphic artist on career breaks (and both, now that I think of it, refugees from London life.) The TV producer wrote a book in her time out, the graphic artist had a third child. Our wider circle included doctors, lawyers, teachers, a dentist, a speech therapist, a publisher as well as hairdressers, writers, nurses and all kinds of other people. We were, it is true, short on angsty, neurotic upper middles, but I don’t think any of us felt deprived. The reason we spent so much time together is that we were colleagues in the sense that we were doing the same job, and we would therefore share information.

We now don’t spend so much time together because in most cases we’ve drifted back to work and don’t have the same need to talk to one another about mothering related issues. And we’re all a bit more chilled about the business of parenting. Although I’d guess that many of them, like me, do fret about proper food, and make sure that homework is properly punctuated.

The reason I am constantly with my two best friends is that they are life-enhancing, challenging, knowledgeable, fascinating people. And feminists. And do you now what? We do sometimes discuss Farrow and Ball and slate. And I quite enjoy it, but it won’t take up a whole evening, or even a whole hour.

At this point I don’t want to sound like the large-breasted well-upholstered elderly correspondent to the Telegraph seated at her escritoire, but I’m going to. I’m sure that Daisy is a talented writer, but I’d suggest that authorship of what you yourself describe as ‘chick-lit’ doesn’t entitle you to a flag-waving place in the vanguard of the feminist battalion. I don’t even get much of an idea of what she thinks constitutes feminism. Many women (and some very right-on men) bandy the word around, pinning it to their chest like some badge which makes you, in some indefinable way, a Good Person. I know what I think it means, and I’m sure she knows what she thinks it means, but I doubt we’d agree.

Daisy, in summary, I’d suggest that you rethink the people you mix with. It sounds as if you headed out into the wild green yonder… and spent all your time with desperate refugees from London. What a pointless waste of effort. That’s as bad as my Polish cleaner who can’t speak much more English than she did when she arrived here eight years ago because she spends all her time with Polish people. Going somewhere and not bothering with the natives is a daft thing to do.

To other people tempted to take the chance and leave the M25, take a lesson from Daisy Waugh, and don’t do as she and her friends did. Take the blinkers off and acknowledge that there is more to provincial life than lounging in the spacious homes of other people who are patting themselves on the back for their bravery in leaving civilisation. Get stuck in and recognise that we’re not all prissy pinafored throwbacks. You might even enjoy yourself.

Spring Forward; Fall Back

Somehow, despite discussing it with my friends last night, I forgot that the clocks went back last night, so here I am alone in my dressing gown, second cup of tea on the go, Sudoku complete, having a good old think.

The papers last week were full of the fact of middle-class drinking. Apparently enormous numbers of middle-class, middle-aged women are drinking at hazardous levels in the privacy of their own home. We are told that one large glass a night can adversely affect one's health.

I have to throw up my hands and say "guilty as hell" to accusations of drinking too much. I further have to say that, although the numbers go down as we all get older, I am one of very, very many I know who booze quietly at home on a more or less nightly basis. And I'm not talking a single glass of wine a night here. I am an all or nothing kind of girl myself. I can quite easily go without for days but then if I open a bottle, it'll probably end up in the recycling bin by the end of the evening. A bit alarming also is the fact that although I'll be kicking myself the next morning, I won't actually feel physically that bad.

In fact I think I solemnly announced here a few months back that Iwas giving up alcohol for good. That would be because I had made a complete arse of myself and caused myself embarrassment on a scale not experienced since my teens. As long as I don't get over-excited, I don't do that, but I don't like the thick head and the tiredness and the urge to eat a great deal of unsuitable carbohydrate and drink Coca Cola. I do really want to stop but the thing is that nothing tastes as good as wine, especially with food. And I'm such a foodie! One month when Martin and I were off the booze, as we are once a year, we went to a really top restarant and had a fantastic meal washed down with water. It simply wasn't the same.

So what I'd like to do is to limit myself to drinking wine with food. I'm not going to makle any solemn commitments here because I rather know that they don't work, but this will be the aim...

Right, I'm off for a third cup of tea and a poached egg on toast. Mmmm. I love my solitude, don't you?

Friends from Africa

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Last week we had Godfrey and Florence staying with us. Godfrey is the Head of a fantastically impressive school in Jinja, Uganda's second city (see links). He knows more people in the British educational world than I do, by a country mile. He spoke on a panel at the Head Masters Conference about international links, having fostered many with schools in this country. Florence teaches primary school children in Jinja.

They are lovely people, and I'm proud now to be able to call them my friends. And I am absolutely set on joining one of the school trips over to visit them in the hometown they talk so fascinatingly about.

Bless you, Amy Winehouse

I don't care what anyone says, Amy Winehouse off her face is better than nearly any other singer alive playing with a full deck.

I just watched a video of her performance at the MOMO awards last week. Yes, she was wasted; yes, she looked like a juvenile rabbit trapped in the headlights; no, you couldn't really make out a word she was singing, but boy, has the girl got a set of lungs and the phrasing of an angel.

We need a great British soul/jazz singer like her. She's a rarity.

At the risk of sounding like a tabloid or Perez Hilton, I hope she gets the appropriate help soon.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, another birthday passes by. I should mind more than I do, if what I read in the papers is to be believed. There's a whole industry of 'lifestyle journalism' which would have you believe that every woman worthy of the name starts hitting the gym when they hit forty, as well as upping the expenditure on face and body treatments. The consensus is that ageing is a problem; something to be worried about. Well, I am here to tell you that it ain't necessarily so.

I am getting older. There you are. It's that simple. No amount of pounding the treadmill and hundred quid face cream or weekly facials is going to change that. As I get older my body gets less gorgeous, my face gets more interesting, and my mind improves. It's FACT. And you know what? In acceptance is liberty. Now I am more admired for my wit and my intelligence than for my looks, although my husband still thinks I'm a hot chick (well, hen), and his opinion is the only one I care about on that front. I've always liked that people get more interested in me as they talk to me and not less. I like targeting someone who hasn't noticed me at a party, buttonholing them and trying to fascinate. Doesn't always work, but gives me a hell of a kick when it does.

Things I like about getting older:

1. I'm not dead. As Woody Allen once said, "Getting older isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."
2. I don't have to pretend to like things because they're cool. When I told a class of kids that I love grammar, one looked sympathetic and said "Do you have a sad life?" I told him I didn't think so , but he might consider my life sad. How much do I care about the opinion of a 15 year-old? How much should a grown-up care?
3. I don't have to do ANYTHING because other people will sneer at me if I don't. I don't go on fairground rides, because I don't like them. I can admit that I never liked going to clubs. I hate sport; doing and watching.
4. I don't look up to stupid people. Kate Moss, Paris Hilton, Elizabeth Hurley (especially her - stupid cow), P Diddy and their ilk. Dumb, dumb, dumb and dumb. Not even pretty because they look so stupid.
5. I don't look up to, or envy, rich people. Don't get the whole Times Rich List thing. Who cares and why? Maybe I'm happier than most.
6. I don't aspire to be anything except a better me. I don't think anyone is my better and I don't think I am anyone's better.
7. I can like Billy Joel.
8. I have interesting friends.
9. I have a historical perspective on the news and can discriminate between informed reporting and uninformed reporting.
10. I don't get alarmed by food or health scares because I know the reverse will be proven within 5 years.

Life's sweet, even if my waistline's thickening.

SBO

There was a discussion on the radio this morning about the pay gap which exists between men and women.

At one point the interviewer asked the two panellists with some puzzlement something like the following: "Why is it that men whose partners become pregnant are not treated with the same suspicion at work that pregnant women are?"

To their credit they didn't laugh in her face.

Could it possibly be because men don't have babies? Sometimes the perception that the world should be a certain way overrides the common sense and blinds people to the fact that, actually, it isn't.

Memo to self: Don't listen to bollocks about the injustice meted out to women. It just makes you cross.

Oh, SBO, for those of you who don't know, stands for Stating the Bleeding Obvious.

September

Any home with school age children considers September at least an important an annual new beginning as January. For us it's even more so, especially this year when Daughter has just started secondary school a year early in Year 6, Son is now cock of the family walk alone in his old school, and Mum starts a new year with double the timetable in a third school. I haven't been near the computer to check email, let along blog.

Two thirds into the month I can breathe, glug my Lemsip and take stock.

She is loving her new school; Japanese lessons, swimming lessons, Science in a proper lab, lunches on the field and being able to pop along and gawp at the glamorous sixth formers; it's all fantastic for her. Never mind that she's sitting down to three homeworks assignments every evening and her school day is 50 miuntes longer than it was. She's loving it.

He's doing really well, relieved of the burden of a high achieving sister in the class above carrying all before in every arena of school life. He's bringing home 'I'm a superstar' stickers and doing all his homework.

And me? I'm shattered. I'm not the world's most organised person. I'm forgetful about quotidian detail while being able to remember the most esoteric details about all sorts of interesting stuff. So three schools' agendas to remember is driving me nuts. Too many balls in the air - they keep crashing down on my head. But having said that I LOVE my new teaching timetable; the kids, the material, the atmosphere. I love being more a part of my work environment and I'm thriving. I've started a film-making club with a member of the Drama department and it's all hugely exciting.

I read at the beginning of term that young children entering into reception classes show very high levels of stress. If that has been proven, then presumably they were subjected to tests. Might the tests cause the stress? And if they are stressed, might that not be attributable to the parents' attitude to the children's starting school? Children I know are wound up with excitement by the time they enter the schoolroom for the first time. The enjoy it because they are told they will enjoy it. I suppose if you tell your child that there is something to worry about, they will worry about it. Mind you, is not anxiety closely related to excitement? I'm sure chemically it must be. There seems no end to the range of ways that parents are made to feel guilty about their children. Memo to self - don't read these things.

"Any Human Heart" by William Boyd

"Any Human Heart" is the edited journals of Logan Mountstuart, 1906-1991, sometime journalist, novelist, spy, art dealer, terrorist associate and flawed human being. It is the creation of the wonderful William Boyd and has shot straight into my all time top ten. Logan Mountstuart starts his journal with schoolboy pomposity at the age of seventeen and by the close of his journals, the end of his life, at a point where the bequest of a house from an old writer friend has saved him from a life of dogfood-eating penury in London, he has reached acceptance and wonder.

His route from one end of life, and the century, to the other is one which brings him into contact with many of the famous names of recent history - he encounters Picasso, Cyril Connolly, Hemingway, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name but a handful - and he has brushes with many of its formative events. This slightly Candidesque quality which imbues the novel is one of the things I find fascinating about it; Candide has been one of my favourites since teenage. But I find it astonishing that I am still thinking about the book weeks later and about the character of LMS himself.

In one memorable passage LMS describes his life as “Not so much a rollercoaster — a rollercoaster's too smooth — a yo-yo, rather — a jerking, spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child”

Now why couldn't I have written that?

It's an extraordinary feat of writing and of invention. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Welcome to Britain - now do as you're told.

What a shock it was stepping off the plane at Heathrow.

For starters it was cold. Not unpleasant after the 42 C of Oman, but a shock. Then it took 45 minutes for the transit bus to make it to the terminal. No explanation or apology. I wished I hadn't decided to wait to go to the loo! Other passengers talked about their onward journeys, most to the US and Canada. Conversation started to peter out as they wondered if they'd make their connections.

From the moment we set foot in the terminal building until we got into the taxi we were screamed at by hatched-faced women holding walkie-talkies. We were also admonished by enormous posters designed by people who clearly believe that all passengers are slack-jawed idiots.

As we trudged wearily along after getting off the transit bus from hell, a large woman with a loud voice yelled "STOP!" at us and stretched out her not inconsiderable arm to bar us from passing. Catching sight of a miscreant passenger she barked "Walk to the LEFT, sir. The LEFT." A pause, and then "Yes, you sir! Don't look around. I'm talking to YOU." The use of the word "Sir" was, as you will observe, ironic.

When the arm was lifted without explanation, she herded us into the right lanes.
Walking obediently on, we saw a tiny, rather timid Asian girl being harassed by two fat white women with their arms crossed. "She SAYS she's lost her sponsor." One yelled at the other, who was about six inches away. "She SAYS she can't find her boarding pass." she carried on with a meaningful look. "Oh did she?" bellowed the other. "Did she really?" They gurned at each other. The timid girl clearly didn't understand a word of what they were saying. "YOU CAN'T CONTINUE WITHOUT A SPONSOR OR A BOARDING PASS." shouted the first woman. "SECURITY." We all know, don't we, that if we talk really, really loudly in English, foreigners will understand us? Crowds of people passed by and watched, grateful that they weren't the ones being thus singled out.

"BE CAREFUL ON THE ESCALATOR" screamed a poster at the top of the offending machine.

People shouted at us a bit more as we shuffled towards the passport control. A couple of people got told off for various misdemeanours by a woman passport controller who clearly does not have a life outside work. A man in his fifties who ducked under a rope barrier got a particularly vicious dressing down.

Going through customs another sour woman pulled around a sniffer dog. As we passed my son let his hand trail over its back. "DON'T DO THAT." she yelled. A small hint, dear lady: where there are dogs, children will touch them. Deal with it or adapt the training so that the dogs will back off whimpering if they encounter anyone under four foot nine. I said rather loudly, but not too loudly in case she set the dog on me; "Don't worry, darling. She's a silly lady. You didn't do anything wrong..."

Another poster. This time it said "DON'T LET YOUR CHILDREN RIDE ON THE TROLLIES. IT IS DANGEROUS." Hitherto I had had no intention of letting the kids ride on the trolley, but seeing this, I scooped my son up and stuck him on the top of the luggage.

"CHILDREN AREN'T ALLOWED TO RIDE ON THE TROLLIES" said yet another officious old harpy, pointing at my son.

"Mine are." I said, and we swept out of the door.

Welcome to Britain. I'd just like to say - we're not all like that.

What lies beneath

In these days of 'let it all hang out', 'if you've got it flaunt it', 'what you see is what you get', 'in yer face' physical self-expression, perhaps it is unsurprising that modesty is regarded with such suspicion. Considering this, and the uncomfortable tendency to paranoia about overt religious expression, nothing rattles the unquestioning Brit like a niqab, or full Islamic veil. Once an oddity on our streets, now we are increasingly accustomed to the sight of young girls clad in Muslim headwear, whether it be hijab, burqa or niqab.

But of course, despite all the rhetoric about inclusiveness and religious tolerance, it couldn't be a matter of simple personal choice. Oh no. So we get stories about 'terrorists' (by which of course, they mean people the police want to talk to...) fleeing the country hiding under a veil, women jurors listening to MP3 players under their headwear and other heinous things associated with the veil. Or just being a Muslim, actually. And the implication is that It Is Not Healthy. Going out in your smalls at night (Sienna Miller), wearing belts across your tits and foregoing the small matter of a dress (Jodie Marsh), gracing the Oscar ceremonies with hot pants and a gaping cleavage (Pamela Anderson) - absolutely fine. Covering up; no.


In Oman, outside the hotel, and to a substantial degree within it, most of the people we met were Muslims, and they were mostly dressed in traditional clothing. The men and boys wore dishdashas, the loose white gowns fastened at the neck, and caps, and the women and girls over a certain age wore black gowns and various degrees of black headwear. Only the little girls wore Western clothing. People were dignified and restrained, and were enjoying themselves. Knots of girls laughed behind their hands with each other in the soukh as the men drank tea together. Some of the black robes were embellished with gold embroidery, and I caught glimpses of the odd Gucci handbag over an arm. The clothes are the expected norm. Some slightly hysterical commentators think that this in itself is a bad thing, but frankly there are worse things. While I'm sure in some countries there is a substantial pressure on some girls, and maybe occasionally coercion, to take up the veil, I'd guess that for most it's just what you do. In my country, in Britain, it's a girl's choice, and frankly, religion apart, I can easily see how it might be a very attractive one.

The overwhelming pressure in British society to value yourself in terms of how sexually atttractive you are, and in some cases how available you make yourself, has disempowered girls to an astoundingly depressing degree. When I was a child I was taught that my body was just a vessel to carry my mind and my heart around. And just as you'd keep your car in good running order, so you should maintain your body properly. The idea that we are put on this earth to look good for men and have sex with them transports us in a heartbeat back to the stone-age. It's as if we never moved on. And the ubiquity of booze enhances this. "Get drunk and get laid". That's the overwhelmingly accepted idea of how to have a good time. And that is propoagated in advertising, on radio shows, in songs, and to an extent on television and in films. Certainly there is no perceived shame in aiming no higher than this.

And now that I have a daughter, I object. I object so massively you would not believe it. I object to the models of womanhood with which she is presented. I object to the objectification of women and to their own self-objectification. I do not think that Jordan is a great role model for women, as it is now fashionable to assert. I am very pleased that she's happily married and she seems a sweet girl, but she's a rubbish model of femininity. Firstly I am training my child, against all odds, that she is not too fat at ten because her hip bones do not stick out; she is not going to be failing if she doesn't have gigantic jugs; it is her brain that will get her where she wants to go and no; falling out of a club at three in the morning with a huge smile, a dim-witted man and vomit down her dress will never make her a success. At the moment she aspires to greatness rather than to shagability; she admires singers who keep their clothes on and aims for quirky rather than self-abasingly sexy. At the moment I'm winning, but give it six years, when the opinion of her peers is more important to her than mine...

So yes, I can see the appeal of saying no, I'm not playing, and covering yourself up and getting on with that old-fashioned idea of life while all around you frenetic people let it all out and drink and shag and do drugs. Absolutely. And I don't see anything wrong with it, or suspicious about it, or that is an odd decision in any way.

And interestingly I couldn't stop myself staring at the girls who had the fullest veils, those ones with the little grille over the eyes. In the airport there was a woman wearing one.She was with a multi-generational group, so there were no clues as to her age, but she walked like a beautiful woman. I kept turning to look at her and at one point saw her holding her veil up while she talked on a mobile phone. She was young and pretty, if not as exquisite as I'd thought. It struck me that the hiding of oneself is very powerful. I noticed the details of the women in Oman much more than I'd see in any number of scantily clad, louche party-girls in the West.

Oh and one other thing. There was a moment at the pool when I was strolling around looking for a child, clad in my one-piece swimming costuime, and I met a couple of women in veils. I felt rather abashed as I looked at them, and thought to myself, this is where two worlds collide. And then they smiled and nodded at me and I smiled and nodded back. And I thought; no actually, it's where two worlds meet and shake hands amicably and pass on.

Perspective

Well, I'm back, and I have so much I want to record, from the inadequacies of the British system of welcoming guests to its borders, to the admirable dignity of the Arab world and the attractions of modesty, to the wonderful work of a certain William Boyd, to the mysteries of how people can be so utterly, utterly unalike in all that they think and all that they do and yet have humanity in common, to all sorts of other stuff. I'll have to gather my thoughts and post them one by one or it'll come out as so much sileage, but really, my mind is awash. It doesn't help that I'm sleep-deprived as anything and can barely keep my eyes open.

See you later.

From Shangri-La

This is all new to me. Despite all those years spent toiling in the IT industry I'm such a Luddite. When I left computers I left computers, if you get my drift, and I didn't keep up with the accelerating advance of technology.

But thanks to Martin's boyish enthusiasm and need to keep in touch with his burgeoning business Empire from holidays, here I am on the computer. Rather inexplicably, given that it's about 8am, I'm sitting in my waffle bathrobe in our rather lovely room in the Shangri-La, Muscat, Oman, keeping up with my blog while the children sleep and Martin pounds the treadmill in the gym. I have a cup of Twinings Earl Grey on the go and I couldn't be happier. I'm going to go do some exercise when he gets back, because I've eaten something just shy of my bodyweight in the 36 hours since we've been here and something has definitely got to give.

We haven't left the hotel compound yet and probably won't until tomorrow. It's their off-season here because it is, to put it frankly, bloody hot. About 37 degrees and it's only the pool, the shade of the umbrellas, the slight breeze and the cold towels that the staff pass round periodically which make it bearable. The idea of sightseeing in this heat really doesn't bear thinking about. We have to build up to it. Anyway, the children are having an amazing time in the pools and the sea and I can't face the sulky faces. Despite repeated lashings of Factor 50, Son has burnt his face and shoulders for the first time in his life, and is bewildered by the soreness. T-shirt today, I think. And maybe he won't whinge so much about the sun cream application. Nevertheless last night as he came back with the pieces of cake he'd drenched under the enormous chocolate fountain, he sat down at our table and said "I am so loving this holiday." I'm kind of with him on that. Much as I hate to admit it, I who like to rough it a little and yearn for a camper van, a bit of luxury is a wonderful thing.

O Man! Oman...

We made a decision a while back to try and book our summer holiday last minute to get a bit of a bargain.

Ho ho. That was before the heavens opened with biblical flair and Britain shut down for the summer. Summerwear is bring discounted ferociously everywhere in the shops as sales of cold and flu remedies rocket. For a month we looked at everything through a curtain of rain. While the sun is now blazing in the sky, the fiasco of July sent everybody scurrying to buy a ticket our of this sodden land. So what are the chances of getting a bargain on a holiday? Non-existent. What are the chances of booking a holiday, any holiday at all? Slim. Having tried to book promising looking holidays on Malta and Madeira only to be told that they rooms had already been allocated, Martin walked into Trailfinders last week on a mission to book a holiday. When he came out we were booked to go to Oman. They didn't have anything else for our dates.

I think we can safely assume that we may not be followed by the rain jinx which has followed us over the last three holidays we have taken, when on each occasion we were staying in the only place in the country where there was not tropical sunshine(although I still cling to the theoretical possibility that everybody, including the weatherman) was lying to us.

Oman looks good. I'm hoping for immense luxury, great food, relaxation and the odd sightseeing treat in the shape of a souk, a palace or a visit to a beautiful mosque. It will be, as my friend Jo remarked, "pigging hot" so our pale blond children will be swathed in sun-repellent clothing and soaked thoroughly in Factor 50. But I'm really looking forward to it. I've never been to that part of the world at all, so it'll be something completely new.

Was it a bargain? Er... no. But we'll revel in the luxury for a week and then live on offal for a few months when we get home.

Losing the twins

I was away with a number of other families in a nice hotel. We were having a fab time and all was going swimmingly; I looked out into the sea of children and identified Son and Daughter and then panic set in - where were the twins? I looked for the two little boys, tousle-haired; one with dark straight hair, and the other brown curls. And they were nowhere to be seen. Absolutely nowhere. My panic escalated as I scoured the hotel.

Then I found myself outside the hotel in my bikini in a strictly religious Muslim country. I was careering around beside a busy road, barely knowing what I was doing. The fumes were choking me and people were pointing in outrage at my indecent attire. Women pulled at their burqas and men dialled angrily on mobile phones. My panic was increased by the sense of guilt I suddenly felt at having not looked out for these two fragile boys, exacerbated by realisation that in all other areas of our life I was not giving them the opportunities that we had provided for the other, older children. In fact while I could remember Caleb's name, I wasn't even sure that David was the name of the other twin. My mind was unravelling.

I woke up disoriented in bed, turned to Martin who was getting ready for work, and experienced a huge surge of relief.

"I dreamed we lost the twins..." I said.

"What twins?" he answered, "We don't have any twins."

It took me a good few moments to get over the shock and convince myself that he was right.

Not quite sure how to read this: am I so attuned to guilt that I have to conceive of imaginary children to feel guilty about? Am I convincing myself that I was right in my decision not to have more children (as if I ever had a moment's doubt about that...)? Is it something to do with my teaching? I have no idea. All I know is that it has been a long time since I've had such a vivid and terrifying dream, and one which took so long to surface from.

Hey Eugene

Yes, I know it's not brand new or terribly off the wall, but I love this from Pink Martini...

I owe you an explanation

If anyone ever reads me, ever, and needs an explanation for the radical shift in mood since I was last here, no, I'm not bipolar. As far as I know.

St John's Wort, mate. Nature's Prozac. Marvellous stuff. That and the Evening Primrose (which I share with my neurotic dog) and the romantically entitled Starflower Oil are getting me back on track.

A little patch of heaven

This is a tiny little Grade II listed cottage in Wales, miles from anywhere, nestling in a lush valley, its grounds bordered by a stream. There is no mobile phone reception and you can't get television. It only has reed bed drainage and open fireplaces, there's no kitchen and it's minuscule, but utterly, utterly perfect.

And we've just had an offer accepted on it! How happy am I? Unfortunately we can't afford to use it for ourselves so we are going to let it out for as much of the year as we can once we've done enough to it to make it attractive for holiday lets. Which is as little as we can, because we don't want it spoiled. We will put in a composting loo and run some radiators off the Rayburn stove and put out loads of books and board games and a stove and a Welsh dresser and people like us will love it! We've been saving bits and pieces for ages against the day when we found the right house, and this is so it! Now I have time to go and cruise antiques sales and bric-a-brac shops to make it irresistible. This little house deserves to be full of paying customers all year round, and the pub and the garage-cum-grocery-store could do with the business.

Please let it all go through! Please, please, please!!

A little pen portrait I wrote a while back

There’s an artist who comes door to door and breathes whisky fumes at you. Every time I open the door to find him there I get a shock of annoyance and wish I’d used the peep-hole. He gets maudlin when he sees my children behind my legs. He leans down and exhales over them and tells them that he’s lost his kids. He seems to think I’ll be surprised. Even now when he’s been on my doorstep half a dozen times and told us the same thing.

I feel sorry for him with his rheumy eyes and his threadbare clothes but not for long, because then he starts to annoy me with his whining and his self-pity. You’d think he was the only man in the world to have lost his job. And wife. And kids.

He says that his street is the worst in the world for drug-dealers. Or rather it was, because he’s been moved now. He says it’s better now but there are still drug deals going down. Well, of course there are. There’s a dealer down every street in the land. And everyone’s always stunned by the revelation of criminal goings-on in their leafy avenues and nice neighbourhoods. My parents had a coke dealer operating out of the house on the corner of their Georgian cul-de-sac. There was a dealer on our last street who’d get his methadone at the chemist while I was picking up nappies. There’s probably one in the street we live in now, nestling among the students and the therapists and the social workers and the teachers.

The artist carries his wares in a plastic bag. Not a solid carrier from a high street shop, but one of those paper-like supermarket jobs which rustle when they fold and cut into your hand. He does beautiful architectural drawings, complex, technical. Not my taste, but admirable. I’m always astonished by them, and have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn’t do them himself. No one could drink the amount his breath tells me he does and draw straight lines. He says he used to be an architect before things went wrong for him. I always wonder if it was the drink first, or the marital breakdown, or the job loss, or whether they came thick and fast, a tidal wave of sorrows that engulfed him. So now he’s living in a council flat in a drugs-infested street and telling his woes on the doorsteps of strangers who will say anything to get rid of him.

Once when I’d protested several times, but pleasantly, that I didn’t have any money and therefore couldn’t buy one of his drawings, he pressed one into my hand.

“Take it anyway,” he said, “No bugger seems to want to buy any today.”

And he pinched my tiny girl’s cheek half-heartedly, as she stared back at him with blank curiosity.

It was a drawing on a post-card of St Philip’s and St James’, down in the centre of town, a run-down old Victorian church set amidst the concrete and glass of the shiny newly rebuilt shopping centre. It serves during the day as a drop-in centre for the city’s waifs and strays, a place where they can tip their contraband liquor into plastic cups of weak coffee and exchange misery.

I didn’t want it, but I couldn’t give it back. It sat on the hallway shelf for ages and has now made it into a drawer somewhere. I feel bad about it, because I really didn’t want it and I should have told him that, rather than saying that I had no cash. Now when the doorbell rings, if I remember, I use the peephole. I don’t know why, because I still open the door because I know he can hear me and I don’t want him to think badly of me. I think I’m probably nicer to him than most people because he relaxes when he sees me, leaning on the door jamb in a way that makes me search in my mind for excuses to get away; “there’s something on the stove”, “the baby needs changing”, “I’m terribly sorry but I’m really desperate for the loo”; that sort of thing.

“Hello, it’s me again,” he says, and I smile wanly, “I’m here with more of these drawings,” and he holds them up resignedly, knowing that no bugger wants them.

Rain, rain, go away

It's raining again.

It feels as if it's been raining for weeks. It hasn't of course, but it feels like it. We have had some sunny spells, but I don't think we've had a whole day without rain for ages.

Since I walk dogs every day, I am aware of the rain. They are so encrusted in mud now that I don't even bother to clean it off. So our house is festooned with dog towels. The windows were cleaned inside and out yesterday; a triumph of hope over experience if ever there was one. My house is full of washing draped everywhere in the vain hope that it might dry. We don't have a tumble dryer because we don't think it's a good thing environmentally, but if this goes on we'll be turning on the heating, which won't be doing our carbon footprint any good.

Tomorrow we're off to West Wales with kids and dogs to househunt for a holiday home. We'll be pootling round Pembrokeshire coast and the Brecon Beacons looking at seven houses. None of them will be improved by the rain, I dare say. But at least we'll see if any of them let in the water. What a joke! Apparently torrential rain will be making travelling difficult - we're to expect an average two months rainfall to happen in the next two days. Excellent. Just what the doctor ordered.

None of this is good for repelling the dog. I know some people suffer in winter with SAD - seasonal affective disorder, and they have to spend time in front of those sunlamp thingummies. Me, it's rain does it. I hate it. I can feel myself getting sadder and sadder. I don't care if the sun doesn't shine. I just want it to stop raining.

Yes, we Brits do talk about the weather all the time. We're sympathising with each other. And we laugh, if we can; it's all we can do.

Down tempo

I'm in full flow on my novel, but I have to break to post something which has troubled me for years.

Is it just me who hears songs I used to love years ago and thinks they're much SLOWER than I remember them?

Is it?

If anyone else thinks that, any ideas why?