Frizzworld

Anna came back from New York with goodies for me – I have a summer wardrobe without actually going to a shop – I could get used to that.

What happened was I said if you see anything nice from a certain make on sale and have time…  As it was only one make there was limited choice, but still amazingly I love all the stuff and I’m obsessively particular.  We have slightly different tastes, not hugely different, but she’s more low key and I’m going through a bright coloured phase, so I’m really moved, because she bought the clothes with me in mind, which I think is quite hard to do.

Where to start? What a day? Even pre-day; I dreamt I was crossing a big road, one with lots of lanes and I was carrying a gun, aware that the drivers were watching me to see what I would do. When I reached the other side it was actually our garden and I had to hide the gun. Powerful or powerless?

I had this big ‘Bleak House’ meeting in the morning (which might explain the dream), after stressing all week about it, it actually went OK. This is an odd thing to notice, but one of the people at the meeting had my Dad’s lips, they were a similar shape, which I took to be a good sign. He turned out to be half-Jewish, we are all related somehow, aren’t’ we?

Then I had a lovely lunch with a friend, because I knew that I was going to need to see a friend after that.

Eventually I ended up at an archive with not much time to do some work.

Leaving at the end of the day, I trotted off to the nearest Waterstones to look at an H. G. Wells book, because apparently there is a description of the character cycling near here – I skimmed through the whole book – my work is having this kind of effect – but didn’t end up buying it – I can’t bring myself to spend £7.99 on a book anymore.

With a migraine threatening to come on I somehow ended up going from Euston to Victoria on a bus, in rush hour, via Oxford Street, part of which was spent sitting opposite a rather drunk woman, only in her twenties, with rotting teeth…

Then 15 minutes to get a train ticket (pictures of serious queues to follow). [added]

I should have let it end there, but no. There was another person who was supposed to be at the ‘Bleak House’ meeting and had just disappeared… so with migraine still threatening, I decided to pop round and see if he was in. He did eventually open the door. We had one of those unsatisfactory circular conversations, which I’m not sure I understood. Then just as I was leaving, who should be at the door, none other than the ex- neighbour herself and part-cause for the ‘Bleak House’ meeting. I swear this is true – she just about looked at me and said, “oh that’s the girl, the girl from next door” just managing to say my surname, as if she was dragging it from the depths of her brain. I just stood there and nodded, I would like to think sagely. She looked like she thought she looked good, but actually she looked small and diminished. Feeling utterly overwhelmed, I went home.

Anna just called from Tesco’s where she is buying gluten free flour so she can bring me an Apple Crumble tomorrow.

It’s days like this that really makes me appreciate my friends.

Sunday I had a lovely afternoon at little R’s 4th birthday party (can you believe it). He spent the day happily playing, bouncing, chatting and running with lots of small friends. I got a little bit of quiet time in the garden with him after everyone had gone, which was lovely.

During bath time we had an in depth conversation about swimming, me trying to convince him of the joys of learning to swim underwater and explaining how not to get water up his nose, that has to be one of the worst experiences of childhood, your having so much fun and then whoosh you don’t know what’s hit you.

And talking of surprising experiences he was messing around sticking his hand in his mouth and lets just say he now knows what the gag reflex is.

Saturday was lovely; I ventured north of the river for the first time in a while and met up with the folks from yoga in the park. Then went to a meeting and met J who I’d been talking on the phone to for a while and turned out to be exactly as I’d imagined (hi there). Then I finally got all caught up with C who I’d not seen in ages, we went and had a lovely dinner in Belsize Park, not the main bit, but the lovely village-y bit. We tried the Hill first, but you know when you go somewhere and there are so many people and everywhere expects you to have been thinking in advance and booked ahead and neither of us had the energy to fight for a table. The place we ended up was lovely, all genteel and local and we got a table outside and enjoyed the lovely evening weather.

Anna bought me a top for my birthday, I only got it yesterday, what with the Chickenpox scare and various other cancellations. I loved it, but it was a bit big, so I tried to swap it for a smaller size, only they didn’t do it in the smaller size. I could only exchange it, so I had to walk around the shop looking for something else. I came away with a skirt, a top and a bag… Oops.