Exhausted and priorities

I have hypothyroidism. A.k.a. ‘an underactive thyroid’. It developed during our six-week stay in the US and now, despite the fact that I’m on thyroxine, I’m not better. In fact, I was worse until yesterday. I had to go back home early on Wednesday, couldn’t go to work on Thursday and couldn’t even work from home.

I know it’s a blessing in disguise. I know that this is happening for a very good reason. To make me think, perhaps. To make me take a pause in my life and reflect on it. Or just to let me see that if I do too much, or even just try to do too much, then my body will let me know. It’s keeping me in check. So I must stop striving to do so many things all the time, in my life in general, but also daily. That’s the general message. Loud and clear.

Ironically, on Thursday and Friday, during my self-imposed rest, all I could think about was writing. Writing writing writing. I was exhausted, I couldn’t function, I could barely get out of bed let alone walk, but all the while, one thought persisted in my head: W-R-I-T-I-N-G. I even got a new idea. It’s based on the same idea I’ve had for ages, but now the concept has evolved and I’m going to build a completely wild story. A real departure from what I’ve done so far, with that idea and with all the others.

It might take me 30 years, but I will write that story. I keep going back to this idea – there must be something in it...

So, in brief, despite my most definite commitment, back in October, to stop writing and stop thinking about potential stories, and to simply be happy, every day (it was clear that thinking about writing but not writing was making me miserable), this hypothyroidism is awakening my sense of priority again and so, despite this October decision, I now realise that I really must write, simply because it is still my passion. It is still the thing I go back to, no matter what happens in my life. It’s inexplicable. It is unfathomable. Tomorrow, I might decide, again, that I’m really not cut out to be a writer, that I REALLY must quit trying, but today (and often recently), as so many times in the past 20 years, I feel the irresistible quality of my desire to write.

The other day, I realised with great clarity that what I need to do is change my approach. That’s all I need to do. I can carry on thinking about writing, I can carry on writing, but what I need to do is incorporate it into my daily life, as I do with everything else – brushing my teeth, taking a shower, doing a bit of gardening (weather permitting), working, doing a few yoga poses, going for a 30-minute walk or bike ride. The way I do all these things every day (or most days for some of them), I need to do just that with my writing: a few sentences at a time. Because even if it’s just a few sentences, it’s still a lot more than I’ve been doing in the past few months. Years. And that’s what I want to achieve – build a story over time, not forcing myself to write it all in one go, in one year, day in, day out, three hours a day, as I’ve been trying (well, dreaming of trying to do!). If I do it this way, making this HUGE decision one day For The Rest Of My Life, there is too much pressure to do it, finish it, polish it and do it perfectly, and so I despair too quickly (because of course nothing is perfect straight away – or ever?). Whereas (I think, I hope) if I just write a few sentences each day, on my PDA or my computer, with no pressure at all, as things come to my mind, just scribbling, the way a visual artist might doodle in her notebook, then I won’t have enough to despise and despair about. These will only be a few words.

I think that, overall, this will practically require me to ignore the fact that I’m writing. I’ll have to see it as typing up words rather than as coming up with a story. I will have to stop myself from thinking about it as writing.

Of course, this doesn’t preclude me from becoming all horrified and in total desolation and hopelessness when I come to edit the damn story (the hardest bit, I know that already), but I will try not to think about this part of the process until it actually needs to be done (simply because I may never even get there!).

At least, maybe this story will still interest me in a year’s time, in 10 years’ time, even. Maybe with this one, I can stay the distance.

Hay-on-Wye take 2

– or why you should always take a book with you, even when you go to the Town of Books.

Stupidly, we waited for the rain to die down.

Stupidly, we pottered about in the morning, instead of leaving as soon as we could.

So, stupidly, we found ourselves in the midst of the non-stop pouring rain – and the mayhem that it caused.

Stupidly, I hadn’t taken my camera with me, so all I can provide here is a couple of pictures that I got off Yahoo.com – so sorry... We had already been to Hay-on-Wye (see this post), it was going to be grey and rainy, we were going to be busy looking around bookshops all weekend, so no, I didn’t take my camera. Damn I regretted it!

Some scenes were quite spectacular: going through the deep puddles, water splashing by the sides of the car and soaking the windscreen in a huge curtain of water; a Mini going for it in what looked like a river but then its engine drowning and dying in a volute of white smoke in the cold 10 p.m. air...

Others quite amusing: Monsieur l’Anglais setting a trend by getting off the car and standing on the verge of the road to relieve himself; me NOT setting a trend at all by trying to hide between the driver’s door, the central reservation and Monsieur l’Anglais holding the huge golf umbrella, and NOT managing to relieve myself, so petrified was I, despite the ‘It’s OK, nobody’s looking’, the ‘I’m siiiiiinging in the rain, la la, la la la!’ and the ‘Come on, chérie, everyone’s going to think that you’re having a crap!’ (now that really helped, of course!!...NOT!)

And yet others quite miserable: abandoned cars, flooded cars, sorry drenched drivers walking by, on a mission – but which one? The closest town or shop was miles away, we were in the middle of the A40, about 15 miles away from Gloucester!

But we were lucky. Very lucky. At least we weren’t on the M5 or the M50. Those who were slept in their cars that night of 20th July 2007, a day to be remembered. Instead, we were on the glorious A40. We spent a very romantic 12 and a half hours in our little MG, sometimes a bit worried, sometimes laughing our heads off, sometimes annoyed, sometimes happy because I had taken a book with me (‘just in case’, as I always do – though Monsieur l’Anglais hadn’t wanted to listen to me and was bored stiff a lot of the time!), sometimes surprised that we had already been waiting on the same spot of tarmac for more than four hours, sometimes alarmed at the realisation that perhaps we would not make it to Hay-on-Wye for our anniversary...

But we did make it, and we were in a warm bed in a warm room at 1.45 a.m., 15 minutes after arriving at our little B&B in the centre of town. What a relief!

By 8.55 the next morning, we were up and ready for breakfast (they stopped serving at 9). We had only had a few nuts, a few dried apricots and a little water between 1 p.m. the previous day and 9 a.m. that day! Thank you Me, always ready for the unforeseeable – at least we hadn’t starved!

And then by 10 a.m., we were pushing the door of the first of the 20-odd bookshops we were to visit that day and the next.

Unfortunately, the bad weather continued, so we didn’t even get to go back to The Spot Where Monsieur l’Anglais Proposed. Getting to that spot would have meant going through mud and probably impassable paths, where the rain had lodged itself... I was gutted.

It was an interesting adventure. We will always remember our first anniversary. A rainy anniversary. Ah – a bit like our wedding...

No, I wouldn’t recommend planning anything around 20-22 July in future. It seems to always rain... We won’t any more. We’ll celebrate our anniversary a bit later from now on!

But here’s the remarkable collection of books we managed to buy and bring back from the Town of Books! (Recognise the kitchen counter?!)

A growing pumpkin...

My hope is that this is the first pumpkin that we’ll eat, come the end of September/beginning of October. You see, we’ve been growing all these pumpkins (two plants are yielding, at least, eight pumpkins!), but now we’re going to go to the US... just when they’ll be ripe and ready!!! Gggggrrrrrr! So yes, I really do hope that this little pumpkin will grow quickly enough for us to relish a pumpkin soup or pumpkin pie at the end of September. Fingers crossed!

From this:


To this, in just 10 days!

First cucumber!

Just a quick note to show you our beautiful cucumbers! And they're delicious, too!!! Behind are the pumpkins... (well, the leaves and flowers at least!)









From this:


To this:


To this!

Isn't nature just amazing?!

Rhubarb, rhubarb

Where I used to live (before moving to Oxfordshire), there was a café called ‘Rhubarb, Rhubarb’. I loved it there. It was also a shop that sold all sorts of objects, mostly very arty, of the ethnic kind, and very expensive, but there was the odd thing I could afford so I bought a couple of things from there. They played jazz all day long, served homemade food, and because there were only a few tables, we all had to share them with one another, which made for a social and convivial atmosphere.

I have always loved the fruit itself, rhubarb, so my love of the café had as much to do with its name as with the décor, atmosphere and originality.

One of the first things we grew with Monsieur l’Anglais was... yep, rhubarb. We put three seeds into three small pots, and when they were ready we planted them out into our vegetable patch. Then we started clearing some of the patch, and what did we find? A very old, slightly sick-looking rhubarb plant! So we now have four thriving rhubarbs!

In April, I harvested our first crop of rhubarb stalks. I was a bit worried that I had hacked everything and that we probably wouldn’t have any more rhubarb this year. I shouldn’t have been: three months on, I have another huge crop. Just look at that!





Tonight, we’re having guests, so I’m cooking an almond and rhubarb cake, of course with rhubarb from the garden. Here’s the result:



I just love gardening when it yields such wonderful results!

Spa day

I have finally ‘spent’ my Christmas present from Monsieur l’Anglais. On Friday 13th, I went with a dear friend of mine who, incidentally, has given me all sorts of baby clothes and nearly all the equipment for our future baby – whenever he or she might arrive, hoping that we’re not tempting fate in this way... – and who is going to go back to France with her husband and three sons, if not in September then most certainly by January. So it was a thank-you and farewell present all in one.

We spent the day in our bathrobes and slippers, apart from two hours at the gym (one in the morning and one in the afternoon).

We started with a free session on a massage chair for 15 minutes each. It was there for customers to use freely because the ‘creator’ wanted to do a trial and to get people’s opinions. I gave it a 10/10 – it was better than a masseur!

I then had a ‘hydrotherapy bath’. It was a bit disappointing. It was like being at home in your own bathtub but with lots of jets of water going up and down your body and with lots of bubbles. I was allowed one essential oil (I chose ‘detox’ because the lady also put seaweed powder, which is a detoxifying substance apparently), and OK it smelled nice, but 25 minutes in the Jacuzzi was just as nice, if not nicer because you can actually relax in a Jacuzzi, which you (or at least I) can’t in a bathtub (it is always two inches too long, I can never reach the end of the bath while resting my head gently above water). Unless I wanted to drown in bubbles and lots of moving water, I couldn’t relax, having to point my toes against the other end of the bathtub in a totally un-relaxed and un-relaxing position.

Then we read a few pages of our book/magazine and at 1 p.m. we had a delicious lunch, very simple, very healthy, but oh so tasty: free-range roasted chicken, penne pasta with pesto, a mixed salad with the freshest lettuce leaves and halves of cherry tomatoes, freshly baked bread, the smoothest butter I’ve ever tasted (yes, even in Normandy!), and finally vanilla yoghurt with blackberries, blueberries and strawberries delicately set on top.

Nicely full, we went to the gym and got some energy back into our bodies, enough to then go for a swim in the circular pool. After that, we relaxed in the Jacuzzi again, sharing our impressions about the books we’ve read recently.

At 5 p.m., we reluctantly left to get showered and changed and to go back home. Just like for my wedding day, I wanted to do it all over again!

New table and benches

At the beginning of June, we bought this lovely table and matching benches. Because of the horrible weather, we were only able to put them up a whole month later!

And because it practically hasn’t stopped raining since then, we have only been able to sit at it three times!

But when the sun is out, especially in the morning and in the evening, oh, what blissful minutes and/or hours I spend there, reading my book, writing my novel, dreaming, looking at the red kites above and stroking the cat!

House swap

I can’t believe how natural it was for me to say ‘Yes, it’s a good idea’. What is wrong with me?! I seem a lot more relaxed about a lot more things these days (and no, I’m not pregnant yet, before you ask).

And so I said ‘yes’.

And so in less than three months, we’ll be flying to San Francisco, and an American family from that part of the world will be flying to London and come and stay in our house for... six weeks!

OK, we’ve got the better end of the deal: the two of us are going to stay in a huge detached, 5-bedroom house in an area where there are no floods (but earthquakes), with presumably all mod cons in a BIG way (six-foot fridge with ice-cubes provider, icy-water provider, room-temperature water provider and the like), while the four of them are going to stay in our poky little 3-bedroom semi, with no dish washer, no TV and a tiny little two-people fridge. But hey ho, Mr American is the one who suggested the house swap in the first place – he can’t complain!

I must add that this is all a work thing that Monsieur l’Anglais is involved in and he does know Mr American. Still, I’m slightly nervous, and I know that I will be more and more stressed as October looms...

Slowly

I got too excited, that’s what happened.

I got too excited about the two little dark-green leaves that were growing on each of the two sunflowers that I planted two weeks ago.

I didn’t run or anything, but the wood of the decking was so slippery, there was no chance to keep my balance, and BLAM! flat on my arse I was, my right clog three meters away and my right knee in agony.

I screamed so loudly that my cry echoed in the quiet, sleepy town (it was 10 o’clock on Sunday morning).

I then shouted Monsieur l’Anglais’s name so loudly it sounded like I was about to die.

No answer. He was in the living room, the radio on, oblivious to any other noise and to what was going on outside.

Later, he told me that he had heard the racket I had made but thought it was the kids next door playing. As they do most Sundays. Couldn’t blame him.

It took another two long, loud shouts – along with seeing me outside the kitchen window clutching my knee – for him to come and see what had happened.

I couldn’t stop crying. It was painful, but mostly, I think, I had been sooooo scared when I had realised that the step I had taken that was going to get my balance back had been even worse than the previous one and when, in that split second where your mind disassociates itself from your body and you kind of see yourself from above, I had seen that I was unable to prevent a fall on my back, right on the edge of the step of the decking. My hands were also hurting quite a lot. I had used them to ‘soften’ the fall. The base of the thumb on my right hand was the most painful bit.

As we say in French, I think there had been ‘plus de peur que de mal’ – more fear than hurt. We put some ice on my knee, then I massaged it with body oil, as prescribed by my dad who’s a rhumatologist, and I tried not to use my legs too much. Fortunately, it rained more or less all day and I had intended to finish sorting out our wedding pictures, so it didn’t affect my plans. Our first anniversary is in less than three weeks (can you believe it?!) and we want to finish the album by then. It’s nearly done, we just need to add a few pictures of the day before, the day after and the French wedding.

Yesterday, my knee was better already, so I walked into town to run some errands. But I had to walk very slowly. It was nice actually. I realised what ‘slowly’ really meant. I took my time, told myself there was nothing I could do, so I had to be patient, and I made the most of it: I looked at the trees, stopped to find the bird that was singing so melodiously in one of the fir trees in the park (I’m hopeless at ornithology and my eyesight is not brilliant, so I don’t know what it was, but it was pretty!) and took in the busyness of the town, while I slowly wandered around its streets.

I might do that again today, especially since, for now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain so much...

Serendipity

So at least I look like I could have children.

Well, that’s something!

I’m starting to find the monthly disappointments a bit boring. I’m starting to get impatient... But never mind. At least we’re making the most of our ‘no-children’ life. DIY, gardening, going out for dinner on a whim, reading, writing, watching Desperate Housewives till late without worrying about being woken up at 6 a.m. the next morning. Yay!

I went to the gym last night. I nearly didn’t go because it had been raining like mad and because it was getting late, but in the end I went because I had worked for 7 hours proofreading some French revision cards, trying to finish the project (and failing miserably), and my whole body was starting to ache: neck, back, arms, fingers. It was time for a good walk uphill on the treadmill and a vigorous work-out on the so-called transporter.

If I had decided not to go to the gym
and if I had decided to do 10 minutes on the transporter rather than 15 minutes (I nearly stopped at 10 minutes, but then thought ‘Come on, you can do another 5 minutes!’)
and if I hadn’t realised that it was 7 p.m., when the Legs, bums and tums class finishes and all the girls rush to the changing rooms to put their decent clothes back on and hurry home to their Friday-night TV/film/meal
and so if I hadn’t rushed, myself, to be in the changing rooms before the LB&T girls’ invasion
and if I had taken that little bit longer to tie my shoelaces...
well...
I wouldn’t have met this lovely French woman who was coming out of the LB&T class.

Let’s take this further.
I wouldn’t have heard her speak French and would have been none the wiser when I saw her in front of me just about to go out the door. (I probably wouldn’t even have noticed her!)
I wouldn’t have had time to think ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have another French woman in my circle of friends? Or at least someone to go to the gym with?’
I wouldn’t have had time to think ‘Shall I? Shan’t I?’

She was walking quite fast ahead of me. I only had three seconds before it was too late to approach her. I thought ‘What the hell? Why not?’ and then the words spilled out of my mouth:

‘Bonjour, je vous ai entendu parler français, vous êtes française?’

And this maybe was the start of a great friendship. Only time will tell.

Yes, she replied, she is French. In the couple of hundred metres that separated the gym from the car park where, presumably, she had parked her car (I can just walk to the gym, I don’t need a car), we learnt where we both lived, that we were both married, that our husbands were English. She told me that she had just moved from a town 20 minutes away, I told her that I have been in this country for nearly 12 years.

‘My children go to the international school in C.... [10 miles away]. That’s why we moved.’

Indeed, they’re now a lot closer to the school than they were before.

And it so happens that that school is in the same town where Monsieur l’Anglais is going to start his new job next month.

You see? You see the link? SERENDIPITY.

If I had been lazy, I wouldn’t have met this woman! I love serendipity. I love understanding the reasons behind this or that. I love creating my own life, too, and this is a perfect example of life creation, because it was all under my control: If I had stayed at home, if I hadn’t pushed myself a little on the transporter, if I hadn’t looked at the wall clock at the gym... and then of course, if I hadn’t had the guts to talk to the woman who had just spoken in French to another French lady...

When we were about to part ways, French Woman said:

‘Do you have children?’

It always stuns me when people I don’t know ask me that, because I still think of myself as 20 years old and therefore as looking very young, innocent and sooooo unlikely to have children already! Yet I am 30 years old, I’ve been married for nearly a year (can you believe it!?) and we’ve been trying for a baby for a few months, so it’s completely plausible that I could have children. I shouldn’t be so shocked.

‘No, not yet!’ my answer came.

Maybe French Woman and I will be great friends.
Maybe our children will go to school together.
Maybe her husband works where my husband is going to work.

The possibilities that serendipity opens up!