getting my oats

Still on the subject of porridge, it having been Burns night and all: we went to our neighbours-over-the-road for the annual haggis-stabbing and a bit of song and dance. Mr. Signs, who is tone deaf, sang his Burns party piece (The Belles of Mauchline) to my guitar accompaniment, Scottish host sang a reggae version of Scots Wha Hae and a lesser-known version of Auld Lang Syne, I sang May You Never (after John Martyn) neighbour-next-door got six of us (though I chickened out half way through) to do a circle dance, following a whisky-tasting session. We ate two different kinds of haggis with neeps and mash, followed by three different kinds of pudding. On the morning of that day I had porridge for breakfast, there was oatmeal in the haggis and in one of the puddings. You could say that I was oatmealed and porridged out, but I have never worried about getting too much of a good thing.
I was too ill to write much last week, but did some editing on a couple of short stories and sent them off, and today went back to the lovely notebook, my big story still warm and waiting for me.
Here's the actual John with the actual song. I can never get too much of this either.

Doing Porridge

No news is perhaps good news because it means I'm doing The Writing. There was Christmas, the befores and afters of which seem to go on longer than in days of yore, not entirely sure why that is, the shopping thing hasn't got any worse than it was. I am ambivalent about the whole thing. What I like: tree, holy nights, cards, connections, mulling, carols. Don't like: shopping, waste, stuffed-up fridge, getting fat. So basically there's more to like than not, but some of what I like - seeing people, fitting that in over the Season, as though the world might end after epiphany - leaves me well into the red, vitalitywise. I begin to feel like one of those wraiths from Lord of the Rings, all gone on the inside (but without the malevolence, obviously). All gone on the inside and fat on the outside. Not a good way to be. So I have taken up eating porridge. I recently discovered how to make it properly and it is my new best friend, except that I like it with cream and muscovado sugar or maple syrup. Never mind, I am on the right road, and porridge is part of my new year's new regime, to which I have given the working title of How To Get Out Of Bed.


1. Wake up. By ordinary standards, late - can't be helped, c'est la vie M.E. - but whenever that is, imagine Gustav Holst's Planets playing as I rise to the new day, even if it is close to mid-day.

2. Eat porridge. Do not smoke a cigarette (especially when this packet of Golden Virginia is finished - a small seasonal blip). Have coffee, but only if immediately progressing to stage 3.

3. Write. Do not switch on computer, and do not get dressed. This is important, getting dressed plus ablutions, will stall me. Go straight to soft brown Moleskine Cahier and pick up Papermate Flexigrip ballpoint.

And so on. You are thinking, probably, that this must be some kind of Shangri-la existence I have here, but bear in mind that these three activities (waking up counts as one) might be the most I can reasonably expect of myself in one day and I haven't even touched on the other stuff of daily life, the duties and the pleasures thereof, all requiring energy - inner substance. I also want to

4. Read. At the moment I have Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah for my book group next week, Kay Syrad's The Milliner and the Phrenologist and Herta Mueller's The Appointment on the go. And poetry: John Burnside's The Hunt in the Forest. Not to mention this quarter's Granta. I've only read the first Petina Gappah stories and don't yet feel as blown away as I might have expected, but this may change. The rest of my list - good, good stuff, is as much a review as I can give in the circumstances, and they are all waiting to be finished. As time goes on, I find reading more difficult than writing, this not helped by failing eyesight (eye test scheduled) but mostly not helped by ongoing neurological crappiness. By the time I get to the newspapers, if I get to them, I am tearing through them, trying to get stuff, take something in, before the curfew.

The snow was intense here, being in the south east, our road quite impossible, Mr. S trudged into the village for newspaper and bread, but mainly we managed with what we had. Too feeble to venture out in it much, my life was not particularly disrupted, and the view from the windows was pretty. Milder weather, however, might mean that I can

5. Walk. Keep one foot moving in front of the other.

Snow on the Edge

Inspired by Cuspie, some photos of where I be, in deepest Sussex. Cheating, because they are taken by my neighbour-over-the-road who has a talent for this sort of thing.

The last photo is of Signs Cottage, the lit up window our living room.

Life Goes On - Bra

I recently went to a shopping mall - I had to, the bra situation wouldn't wait any longer. I went to the M & S lingerie department for a "fitting". A nice woman, softly-spoken with a look in her eyes that suggested she had seen it all before (the state of my underwear, my soul, me) took my measurements and brought me a selection. I tried them on for size, decided they would do and bought the lot because, as I told the nice woman, I didn't want to be coming back for another three years or so. There was a depth of understanding in her nod. You have to be in the right frame of mind for a bra-fitting, she said. Which I never am. Nor in the right frame of body, and I am not talking about the size of my Bristols. If I had spilled the beans right there in the cubicle, about the sheer cliffs of fatigue and how the mere notion of shopping mall finds me perpendicular in Babylon as I remember Zion (may the words of my mouth, O Lord, be acceptable in Thy sight), she would have sat with me and wept. At such times one depends and projects mightily on the kindness of strangers. But anyway, the story does not end there, for when I got home I found that two of the bras did not fit and had nasty hard plastic things that dug into my armpits, so back I go today for refund, for swap. Business concluded I return to the car and find myself trapped on level five for forty five minutes, it is a quarter to five, everyone wants out and there is gridlock. I telephone Mr. Signs who telephones the shopping mall who promise to alert Security. The situation resolves eventually, as things do.
Brighton tomorrow, taking mother shopping the day after, meal out with writerfriends on Thursday, curry night with neighbours on Friday, carol concert Saturday - life really does go on. And my story too, bursting to be written and asking for my undivided attention.

departure

We were given early Christmas presents last night by son, who has today left for India, where he will be for five months or so. Then this morning he said, oh I nearly forgot, and gave us each one of those round chocolate orange things, the dark one for me. I baked gingerbread biscuit shapes for his journey, but he only took a few as they wouldn't have allowed it through the check points. I was dithering about whether to go to the airport. Didn't in the end, muscles hurting, I said goodbye in the kitchen, he left with his dad. All grown up, the lovely boy, he was four years old our first Christmas here, we gave him a dark doll and he named it Reuben.

I am eating gingerbread stars, hearts, little men that look like the figures on exit signs, and wedges of chocolate orange. The cat howls and does not know why, but I do, and I tell her that he will be back in May.

All day it has been so dark. I went out and bought more candles.

Own Brand

Perhaps it is not a surprise that I didn't manage 50,000 words in November. I should say, though, that I was "on track" half way through the month, just before going down with flu proper. My revised target was then to reach 30,000 by the end of the month, that representing a respectable 1,000 a day, and I am exactly 399 words short of this - a bit annoying, but still. I did what I could, and it has been worth the doing, for I now feel that 1,000 a day is manageable - just - and I have, in spite of everything, produced something I want to carry on working with.
I am post-viral, very, and this is the real bastard, not the actual flu which conducted itself in a predictable and proper fashion - one feels ill, yes, but it is a normal, healthy kind of ill with stages and resolutions. This too will pass. I had a scary bout of asthma, not too bad, but reminding me of the time I was hospitalised with it and each out breath felt as though it might be the last. I have the toothache - nothing (apparently) wrong, but something has agitated the nerve, which hammers most insistently to be acknowledged. Hello nerve, hello tooth. Talking of which: hello heart, hello psyche. Yes, I know, but would you ever just pipe down and let me get on with, you know, things.

So here we are again in advent which, for the whole of the civilised world - in my neck of the woods at any rate - means shopping. Though not for me because, as you know, shopping never was or will be my thing. I was standing in a post office queue the other day gawping at the quantity of cut-price sweets and biscuits on the shelves (post office is in a Co-op store).
Doesn't that look disgusting, said the woman next to me, and for moment I was thankful that the shelf display was there, having its (unintended) effect. For I love chocolate as much as the next person, but there is nothing like a heap of Celebrations and Cadbury's Roses to make you sicken at the excess. The same woman (a village acquaintance) said, I think that everyone who did all their Christmas shopping in June should be shot. And though I might feel that to be a step too far, I cannot but applaud the spirit. I will achieve grumpy old womanhood yet. Ok, I have bought advent calendars and beeswax candles. There will be a feast at Christmas, as is right and proper. The Signs children will get some money because that's what is needed, and little gifties to open, because they are good for the soul, and Mr. Signs will get - well I don't yet know what, as The Wire is all finished, but something. Actually, he has made a list this year and although this may appear to contradict everything I have just grumped about, I do like a man who knows what he wants. And everyone else will get a jar of home-made (but not by me) chutney or jam.

Me, I might have put silk underwear on my list, but actually I need them now because of the cold so I have ordered some from Patra - silken long johns and vests. The creative unconscious is a strange beast. I recently wrote my first ever proper sex scene (bear with me, this is relevant) - proper in the sense that it describes two people who are actually Doing It, whereas usually I tend to come at these things (shut up) more obliquely. By this I do not mean euphemistically, you will find no "she felt the length and breadth of his desire" in my works - forsooth. Focussing on apparently unrelated particulars can sometimes be more potent than zooming in on the act itself, but this time the story asked for it, so I obliged. And blow me down with a feather if silk underwear (thermals, actually), didn't find their way into the scene, yes, and on the male character too, not the female. There he stood in his white undergarments, very fine he looked too, and it did occur to me that if only I could bring myself to get the brand name in I might be onto something lucrative. She felt the depth and quality of his Patra thermal long johns. No, I couldn't possibly.

Happy advent, peeps. The light shineth despite the Celebrations. And that's quite enough brand names for one post.

I have been speaking to the National Pandemic people and it looks as though I may have swine flu (it seems to have come in the wake of chest infection). Not that they can tell for sure, obviously, but enough boxes were ticked for them to suggest a) contacting my gp and b) taking antivirals. I tried to do a and then hung up after waiting for ages, not their fault but it's tiring at the end of a line with a high temperature, more tiring than doing a little blog post. Temperatures are a good thing, they burn things away, and I will try and stay with it for a bit. I am not persuaded that taking antivirals is necessarily a good thing. I don't know. My gut feeling is not to, so I'll go with that.

I gave Son a lift in the car yesterday and sneezed. Bugger. He is due to travel to India to work for several months on 7th December and has work commitments until then. He is away this weekend, saying goodbye to friends (just as well), Daughter was due to come with lovely new boyfriend on Sunday for lunch, and to collect important things for a project she is putting on in London. "I can't get ill now," she says, "I just can't." So Mr. Signs will have to go to the station and hand the heavy bag of photocopied material over at the station and not breathe on her or the boyfriend in case he is incubating. In fact, neither of us should breathe on anyone at all for - I need to look up how long. I probably shouldn't even be breathing on you, folks.

There is a nagging voice that says, you brought this on yourself by blasting away on the NaNo. You knew it was too much, didn't you? Shut up, I say. And when this is over I am going back to it - The Writing, I mean.

Meanwhile, I'll be spooking around the place and dreaming.