A Chance Encounter

The above picture has nothing to do with post but is what I feel like doing now. A few nights of not sleeping well leaves me grumpy and knackered. But I digress.

It's been a busy week, what with sending my novel off to the agent in Ireland - my baby is well and truly on its way so think of me - or rather, it - and cross fingers, please. I feel sick with nerves at the thought of it, so I am trying to focus on Other Things. Like an interview with a cartoonist next week and a free zero balancing session courtesy of the very nice lady I interviewed last week.

One day last week I was walking Moll up near a farm where there is a camp site. Adjacent to this are two fields where I throw her ball so she can race through the stubble and have a good run, so knowing this she ran ahead and stood at the entrance to the field with her head on one side, waiting for me.

As I rounded the corner, I laughed and said, “look at YOU! Just LOOK at you!” (For non dog lovers, I’m afraid this is typical of the kind of conversation a lot of doglovers have. Sad but true.)

Mollie didn’t reply, but a rich, deep voice to my right said, “Who, me?”

I jumped and found myself looking into the widest, most open smile in the blackest face I’ve ever seen. He saw my amazed expression and flung his head back, revealing white teeth with a hint of gold. His face just rang with enjoyment of life. I laughed too – how could I not? And he asked if my dog would bite him if he shook my hand.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s try.”

Mollie might be small but her teeth are very sharp and her jaw is made of steel. I don’t know if he knew that, but he did look rather apprehensive. We looked at Moll who looked up and wagged her tail.

“She’s a good judge of character,” I said.

My new friend exhaled loudly and with evident relief. I asked him where he was from – “Coventry,” he said. My wife and I come down and camp three times a year. We love Cornwall.”

I told him about the private view I’d been to at Morvah, last weekend. I told him how beautiful West Penwith is, and how he should get there.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” he said, with that wide easy smile and we talked some more. About where they’d been, about what I did. “Tell me,” he said, “what do you think makes a relationship work?”

I grinned. I like this kind of conversation. We shared our views and I found that he has remarkably similar tastes to Himself. Though to look at they are somewhat different. For one thing, Himself isn’t into camping.

We laughed and I threw the ball for Moll and he said, “Isn’t this great that we’ve only just met and we’re standing here getting on and having a good time?

“It is,” I said. “It’s a shame that more people don’t do this. Have respect for others and enjoy different company. Life would be much more enjoyable if we did.”

Again that lovely grin. He held out his hand to shake mine once more. “Gabriel Fry,” he said, and clasped my small hand in his comfortable large one. “Nothing to do with chocolate. I hope we meet again. I’ve so enjoyed this meeting.”

“So have I,” I said, and reluctantly said goodbye.

It’s amazing how a chance meeting can engender so much good will. I walked off feeling ten foot tall.

Taking Lungs for Granted

We had a busy weekend but for once had time together to enjoy. This was made all the more poignant by Himself going to have a lung checkup this morning for his condition called Pulmonary Fibrosis.

He dropped me in Truro as I had several meetings there, and he went on to Treliske, not knowing how long it would take – last time he was there all morning. I couldn’t ring him till nearly 1o’clock and he sounded cheery as he answered the phone, so I knew things couldn’t be that bad.

“I had an X ray and breathing tests, and apparently my lungs aren’t likely to improve but it’s no worse,” he said. He paused and I knew there was more to come. “He said that most people are dead within three years of getting pulmonary fibrosis,” he added, in a matter of fact sort of way. “So I’m very lucky.”

It is now three years since he was diagnosed with the disease. I went hot and cold and shook. If there is such a thing as a ghost walking over my grave, this was it. A brush with death. Or a near brush. I’m still trembling just thinking about it.

“In fact, he says it might just be scar tissue, not pulmonary fibrosis after all,” he added.

My first thought was Thank God for that. Then I thought – hang on. Why didn’t they get the diagnosis right in the first place?

But the important thing is that he’s doing fine. He’s playing the cornet well – the Big Gig is in a month’s time – and his lungs have to benefit from that.

The bad news is that we didn’t win the lottery this weekend. But I’d rather know that his lungs are OK. Because you can’t buy new lungs for love nor money.

P.S. Off to Ways with Words in Devon on wednesday to listen to a talk by Celia Robertson about her grandmother. Apparently "by the 1970s, Sophie, the grandmother was destitute and mad. She washed her hair in margarine and cut up presents in case they had a listening device in the lining. In another life she wrote for the BBC; her poetry was published by Leonard and Virgina Woolf; she was reviewed in the national papers and had tea with Vita Sackville West. Celia Robertson asks: Who was Sophie?"

I can't wait to find out....

Printers and Group Sex

First of all, many thanks to everyone for their very helpful comments regarding printers. I now have a Xerox Workcentre 3119 laser printer which I am in love with. It printed the entire novel in under half an hour, and is also a printer and a scanner, so at the moment it can do no wrong. It was also in my price range which is even better.

On the other hand, I am unable to receive emails at the moment - a problem with BT I believe - so if you're wondering why I haven't responded, blame it on BT.

But to other matters. A few weeks ago – in the days when we weren’t awash with rain and gale force winds; when we could count on walking our dogs in a degree of comfort, and warmth. When I started getting a brown face from the sun, so that no matter how wobbly I felt inside, people said, “you do look WELL.”

As I was saying, back in those clement days, I walked Moll up from the beach at Swanpool along the coastal footpath and up to Stack Point.

It should be noted that, according to my hairdresser Jill, who grew up in Falmouth, if you wanted to indulge in teenage fumblings, you would go Up Stack as it was known. Being an innocent, I didn’t know that at the time of my walk. And as I’m a long way from being a teenager, it doesn’t count.

So Moll and I strolled along in the sunshine, she sniffed the ground and bounded along and I picked honeysuckle and watched the ships anchored out in Falmouth Bay. The sea was ruffled with the gentlest of breeze, and the ships looked like items on a wedding cake, cemented by icing.

Then I came to a hawthorn bush with a small message pinned to it. It was written in uneven capitals, and said something along the lines of
ME AND MY WIFE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE FUN SEX
HERE IS PICTURE OF MY WIFE. SHE 53 AND LIKE FUN WITH OTHER PEOPLE.
YOU LIKE FUN TOO?
RING THIS NUMBER – WE LIKE TO HAVE FUN WITH YOU!!!!

I picked up the paper and looked closely at the wife. Frankly, she didn’t look as if she was having fun. She was clad in – well, not very much from what I could see, but the photograph wasn’t very clear. Her smile seemed somewhat strained. As if she was saying, “Oh God, not again”. Or perhaps she was shy and didn’t want to admit how much she did like sex with strangers. Or perhaps she’d just had one orgasm too many and was wiped out… Or perhaps she had indigestion, or was worried about how to pay the electricity bill.

After some consideration, I put her back on the hawthorn bush. And started wondering. Did the husband really pin that message to that bush? If so, why there? True, there’s a certain amount of passing traffic, but most of those passing are Serious Walkers – though of course that doesn’t preclude them being into Serious Sex. Or even Fun Sex with Strangers.

Perhaps the husband had pinned the message somewhere different, and someone picked it up and put it on the bush for a laugh. Or he was walking along the coastal path (prior to group sex) and it fell out of his pocket – and someone put it on the bush for a laugh.

I wonder if anyone did ring her, and what happened. I don’t suppose I shall ever know, but that doesn’t matter. I have enough material for several novels by now.

The next time I walked along there, she’d gone. Not that I was checking, of course.

Printer rage

You’ve heard of road rage. Now there’s printer rage.

A friend of mine suffered from this problem last week, when attempting to print out posters and invites for an exhibition she is having next week. Of course, her printer went wrong at the last minute, started printing things out in the wrong colour, or not at all. So after endless spare cartridges (at great expense), she now has her trusty computer man coming round this morning to fix it. We hope.

By the way, to see some of her paintings, go to This Painting Life.

I’ve been sitting here for an hour now trying to print out my last novel to send to an agent. 330 pages needed in pristine condition, no blobs of ink, virgin white paper (top quality, not the cheap stuff from Asda that I usually use, which I use both sides of as well).

My printer has acquired an unpleasant habit of printing one page, under sufferance. It then decides the weather is too autumnal, that the damp has seeped into its joints, that it has arthritis. So it spits the next page out. And possibly the next page after that. And then three pages get stuck and the red light comes on.

My blood pressure is rising by the moment and the language is enough to make Himself wince. I’ve just been next door where he’s checking his emails and he looked at me furtively, as if expecting me to shout and hit him.

I did shout but I didn’t hit him. I took several LARGE BREATHS and now I am back here writing down my angst. I will then feel better, and able to tackle the next 300 pages.

And in half an hour I shall go and interview a lady who practices zero balancing. I’ve tried it – in the interests of research of course – and it’s like a massage but even better. The idea is that you balance the emotional energies of the body with the physical. I shall be interested to her version of it.

On the other hand - can anyone recommend a reliable printer that won't cost the earth, has cartridges that aren't too expensive and produces good quality print. Looking online is so confusing - laser or inkjet? I don't need colour by the way.
Any advice gratefully received.

Neurotic Writers

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. -Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (1771-1845)

This week hasn’t been one of my best. Not sleeping well and a huge amount of emotional as well as hormonal turmoil.

As most of you other writers know, fiction comes from the subconscious – or at least, when I write it, it does. (Journalism comes from the conscious side of the brain, whichever side that is.)

For those of you that don’t write, I can only describe writing fiction as like meditation. Though meditating is not something I’ve ever been able to do.

When I write fiction, I go into another place. I inhabit another person. I have to be able to breathe, think and feel like that person – or people. I have to BE that person, and live in their house, look out on their view. I have to know their likes and dislikes, understand their insecurities, know what makes them laugh or cry.

When I start a novel, I have an idea of a person who might have come from someone I’ve seen or know. But once I start writing, this person takes on a life of their own. They are in charge. They have their own hangups and talents, headaches and insecurities. They make up their minds what they like and what they don’t.

I can remember going to a talk with Julie Myerson, a fabulous novelist. She was asked why she had written about the death of a two year old – the character’s daughter. She said that one of her deepest fears was that something should happen to one of her children. In order to deal with this fear, and perhaps to prevent it happening, she made herself write about it.

One of my deepest fears is that something should happen to Himself. Which of course it will one day. But this has been bothering me more than somewhat of late. And it struck me the other day, that it’s ironic that I should have written about what I fear most. No wonder I haven’t been able to sleep.

The good thing about fiction is that it’s cathartic. And you can, to a certain extent, dictate what happens. (I say to a certain extent because quite often the characters have other ideas.)

But in the case of Arthur, all is not doom and gloom. He has to understand why things went wrong, and learn to let go. And then he has a second chance of happiness.

So whenever life is bleak, don’t despair. (I have been telling myself.) Weep and wail, grieve and rejoice. Somewhere, round the corner is a letter addressed to you. It could be your chance at happiness – or luck – or love. Or all three.

Accommodating Victor

This is the latest Flowerpot missive, in Cornwall Today - July issue 2008.

Several miles out of Penzance on the St Just road, the landscape reveals how Cornwall must have looked thousands of years ago. A vast expanse of rugged moorland and disused tin mines, scrub and golden gorse, weatherbeaten cattle. Hardly a house in sight. You can almost feel how old this land is, and how many stories it has to tell.

In this remote area of outstanding natural beauty, Andy Holliday, 56, and his wife Faith, 63, live in their campervan, Victor, and manage the Sennen Cove campsite, a job not even considered by many.

“It’s like caring for a big family,” says Faith. “It’s great to see people having a good time. What’s nice is that we get a lot of people who come back year after year. They’re like old friends now.”

Andy and Faith are versatile, love the outdoors and are adept at dealing with problems. “We both like the variety of meeting people,” says Faith. “We go around tying people’s tents down when they try and blow off in a gale.”

Their work involves a 42 hour week, opening the gates of the site at 7am and closing them at 11pm. They also run a shop on site but have assistants who share their work load and enable them to have time off.

“People think that this job is like a glorified summer holiday, but there’s a lot of physical work and we do all the facility cleaning and make sure everything’s spick and span,” says Faith.

This job isn’t for everyone. “You work very hard but if you didn’t like it you wouldn’t do it,” says Andy. “We’re in our sixth season and if you like the outdoor life it’s great.”

Faith agrees. “From the site you can see Longships, the Isles of Scilly and Land’s End. It’s fabulous. I love trundling up and down on our little red tractor with the wind blowing through my hair and the view is just wonderful. I used to get hayfever symptoms but I don’t now because the air’s so clear.”

Andy and Faith met in 1983 on a blind date organised by Faith’s sister and married the following year. They settled in Wiltshire where Andy, who had been in the RAF, worked for several telecommunications companies while Faith was a freelance journalist working for BBC radio in Wiltshire, Oxford and Bristol.

She loved her job but Andy wanted to do something different and they both liked the idea of a challenge. “We’d always camped, so we started off with a little campervan as it was a great way of seeing places,” says Faith. “We loved being able to get up and go. We looked at buying a campsite in the Westcountry but it was too expensive so we applied to work with the Camping and Caravanning Club. You start off as an assistant, so we did that and got promoted.”

The couple worked on various sites before coming to Cornwall. “We started in Veryan, then we were asked if we’d move to Sennen. We said if we could get Victor in we’d run it,” says Andy.

They bought Victor when they were still living in Wiltshire because it was practical. “We had an ordinary 21 foot camper but we needed something bigger and longer so we blew our savings and got him,” says Faith. “That way we could live in him for the summer season each year.” At 33 foot long, Victor is a handsome beast, but his size can cause problems. “You can’t go to the shops with him, so we use our bicycles or the little Jimny car.”

The site is open from late April until early October, and attracts a mix of people. “There is a big influx of families in July and August,” Faith says. “But early and late season we get walkers of all ages and there’s a nice walk through fields to the beach where you can take a dog. We also get a lot of Germans and Dutch people - everyone comes to see Land’s End and some come for a day and spend the week.”

Despite what some say about the Cornish being insular, Andy and Faith have found the locals in St Just very friendly. “In the town people know who you are and stop and chat and I get all the gossip!” says Faith. St Just is an old mining town that now consists of a butcher, several art galleries, a greengrocer, post office and several pubs. “There are no high street shops here but a sense of time gone by.” Faith grins. “That’s why I love it. The butcher supplies me with meat for the camp shop and we use the post office as a bank. They’re all so nice.”

Andy and Faith love the area so much they have bought a bungalow on the outskirts of St Just which is in need of huge renovations. “The house is a long term project,” says Faith. “We fell in love with the location and we had to have somewhere big enough for Victor in the drive.”

And while this project will keep them busy for years to come, they have plans for the future. “Under current law we’ll be retired at 65,” says Faith. “Long term we want to go back to touring round Europe which is what we used to do.” The couple have several grandchildren and would like to see more of them. The only change they would have to make is Victor. “We’d have to downsize,” she says sadly. “He’s great for living on site but too big for travelling.”

For the moment, they are more than happy with Victor on their windy spot in West Penwith. “I love the sheer rugged beauty of this area,” says Faith. “It’s bracing, the people are lovely and it’s a different world. Nowhere else in the country compares with it.”

Camping and Caravanning Club
www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk
Booking number 0845 1307633
Sennen Cove campsite 01736 871588

Cornwall Today July 2008

An epistle on hormones

Last night I celebrated the menopause.

Yes, I say ‘celebrate’ because for the last two or three months I have been having trouble sleeping. I thought this was due to stress. Which in part it was. The writing business is incredibly competitive, and in journalism trying to break into a new market isn’t easy. So I felt under tremendous pressure to prove myself.

I succeeded, but the price to pay was increased anxiety and sleepless nights.

Soon I began to realise that sleeping had become a Problem. And once you start worrying about something as basic as sleeping, it becomes much more difficult to sleep. Having a very active brain, the only time I do switch off is when I’m asleep, so sleep is crucial. And when I couldn’t I was lying there worrying because I wasn’t sleeping and knew I’d be tired the next day – and so on it goes.

I tried everything. With a sleeping pill I could get 5 or 6 hours kip a night. Without I got 2 or 3 hours, and I really don't function on 3 hours sleep. But I worried because I didn't want to get addicted to them. I tried heavier lined curtains, milky drinks – you name it. And no, I’m afraid any herbal remedies had absolutely no effect.

I started getting more worried, thinking I couldn’t cope. Why couldn’t I cope? I always had done before.

In desperation, and after nearly 3 months of this, I started seeing a counsellor and it was an incredible relief to spill out all my worries to someone who was able to deal with them. I didn’t have to worry about worrying her. She understood. And that goes a long way.

I finished the first draft of my novel and thought – hooray! I can celebrate! Forget about it and have some time off.

Then an agent emailed saying she would like to see the entire manuscript of my previous novel. Normally I would have jumped in the air, celebrating, but as I knew it needed some revision, that prospect seemed more pressure than I could cope with.
I needed a holiday. Badly.

Then I got an abscess, and two lots of antibiotics had drastic effects so I had to stop taking them. Then my GP gave me something else to knock me out at night and the effect of that was my heart started banging so hard I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. I lay in bed, holding onto Himself for dear life, crying, “I’m frightened.”

After that I seemed to have palpitations on and off – like having an ongoing panic attack. For no reason. I despaired of ever sleeping again properly. I felt I was cracking up. And having done so, many years ago, I knew that dark tunnel is the most terrifying place you can imagine. Literally a living hell. Where you can’t relax, don’t feel safe, feel as if you are splintering into tiny fragments. Don’t go there.

We came back from our break and I managed to get some rest and sleep a bit better. But on Monday I woke up and my heart was racing – another day long panic attack. Oh no. What was I to do?

I met a dear friend for lunch which I couldn’t eat. Food wasn’t going down. Another bad sign for me. She listened thoughtfully and said, ‘do you think this might be the beginning of the menopause?’

I looked at her and a large question mark filled my mind. I raced back home and googled ‘menopause symptoms’. There I read –
“insomnia often due to anxiety. Racing heart – palpitations. Sore breasts. Irregular periods – or none at all.” In fact the only symptom I didn’t have was hot flushes.

I could have cried with relief. I wasn’t cracking up. It was The Change!

Suddenly everything fell into place. I looked up my file from Dr Gray and saw she had written, “if you start to feel low start taking half a patch (HRT) twice a week. If symptoms don’t improve, raise the dose.” The last time I’d seen her I was feeling fine, which was why I hadn’t remembered this significant gem of advice.

I rang her, just to make sure and she said, “you’ve done absolutely the right thing. But if you need me, you know where I am.” What sweet words of comfort.

So I opened a lovely bottle of wine and Pip and I toasted my hormones.

Since then I am now sleeping better, have cut down my sleeping pills and hope to be off them for good very soon.

Courtesy of our break I am more relaxed, enjoying editing my novel before I send it off to the agent, and have finished a piece on our wedding for a bridal magazine. Next in the pipeline is a piece on zerobalancing. But I am enjoying the variety and the challenge. Every day is different and while I must be careful not to overdo things, I love what I do. And I intend to get better.

My counsellor has signed me off, saying she’s there if I want her. But I seem “in a good place at the moment” and why rock the boat? Why indeed?

I walked Mollie round the castle this morning and enjoyed the sunshine, the sweet scent of the dog roses. I was incredibly grateful just to be alive and be happy. To love and be loved. To live in such a beautiful place. And to have the support when things go wrong.

So the motto of this epistle is – take breaks. Don’t work too hard. Enjoy life. Ask for help if you need it. And remember, if you’re of a certain age and start feeling you really can’t cope. Stop. Listen. It could well be your hormones.