I've packed my large suitcase. It's full. Train at 8:53 from Saxmundham, get to Bath Spa if all goes according to plan at 4:45. Went to sleep listening to Belle's audio podcasts that she sent me as a prize. Woke up at some point and turned them off and the light. Wee smells of sulphur or gunpowder - too many eggs? Something Understood at 6am about something unexpected (not) - the joy of anticipation. It's a shame how good it used to be, and now even Mark Tully is made to spout platitudes. They had a profile of the new Bishop(ress) of London, Sarah Mulally, who was appointed this week. She managed to fill the air with platitudes about equal opportunity and making the church a safe place. Bah humbug.
A card from Charles and the Trevors (I thought it was from sister Jane, who has given me a very welcome £50 for Christmas) . Harriet Watson wants to meet next time I'm in London. which is nice.
I fixed the loo (the plunger had almost completely disappeared). But it came undone again this morning (C.Eve). Do I think I should just be much more competent because I'm sober? Amazing how competent (in little things) I managed to be while drinking.
Reading Adam Phillips' "Darwin's Worms". Brilliant, and I'm still reading the prologue. Death and transcience, and how we invent God to escape reality.
On Marylebone Station (which is very nice, and appears to only have two platforms) - 2 and a half hours to kill. Sukie somewhere on a train.
I'm very excited and really looking forward to it all. A suitcase full of presents and I look like Father Christmas. I videoed Esmé at breakfast yesterday, being Esmé, {insert video here} and of course my voice talking to her next to the microphone drowned everything else out, but sounded very gruff and grandfatherly. She was beautifully colour coordinated (and rather subtle - no pink) but Laura says it's a nightmare getting her dressed because she is so picky about what she is going to wear. And anyway, within an hour she's usually starkers.
Watched 'Holiday' last night before bed, with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Very weepy romcom with a happy ending. And Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was much better than I expected. It's so strange how the whole world apparently wants to go to a traditional English boarding school. Welbury and Ampleforth were both Hogwarts in their different ways. I even caught a steam train from King's Cross to go back to Welbury at least once. Solly the Ogre and all his grotesques as staff, the luscious school nurses, and the wicked older boys (more Flashman than Hogwarts really). Maybe J K Rowling had an elder brother who went to a traditional prep school. Maybe she went to one. They didn't change much - we sent our children to Hogwarts (Salters, Old Buck, St Mary's, Haileybury). Old Buck only let in girls in 1996. That's why we liked them.
Perhaps all children see school and the world as Hogwarts, magical worlds full of horrors and monstrosities, which is why Harry Potter appeals, and all fairy tales - to children they are more realistic than realism. Funny how Hogwarts and Narnia displaces so much modern tat. And it's so classist and racist (and sexist really, despite Hermione). Perhaps I should read the books. All I remember of the Philosopher's Stone was how clunkily written it seemed to be. Pullman does it much better. Ihave his new book to read over the holiday.
Diana is up. We spoke briefly yesterday. She remains in purdah. Andrew said rather sadly they'd just be four for Christmas. She's off on Boxing Day for Ireland to work for 2 or 3 weeks. It's funny, Belle is talking a lot about relationships, and how we need time for the drink to leave the system (she reckons 200 days) before we can really understand the 5 - 10 % of us that is crap, or weird, that we can do something about, and also see in others what is their problem, and not mine. So my first response to Diana was to feel really unhappy at her behaviour and think it was something to do with me and to start to hate her, or at least hate her being around. And then I start to feel sorry for her, how lonely and trapped and unhappy she seems to be, and that she really does have good qualities, she is not just a narcissist even if that's all we can see of her at the moment. No-one who gives such good reiki, or is so kind to small children (that's significant, they're no threat to her) can be that bad. But it takes time to see that.
Sweet email from Pol about her hospital appointment (she's changed it to the day before I go to France) and meeting up on New Year's day. So she reacted badly to my drinking, and yes there are bits of her behaviour that are intolerable, but she's so much nicer now I'm (more or less) sober. I edited something about her out of this a few days ago, which worried me then. This is not for public consumption, to be tailored for my audience - I even thought of starting another, even more secret blog that I tell no-one about, so I can actually say exactly what I want to. This is not an article or an autobiography, and neither is it a secret diary. People are supposed to read it, but I am not supposed to inhibit myself in any way in writing it. I have to pretend I do not know who the people are, or might be.
SP05 - fix your 5% - says it all. I change a little about me, and that helps the other change the 5% in them that reacts badly to my bad. And so small changes start to move mountains.
Drinking thinking is so drama queeny - it's all me, it's all the other, there's nothing I can do, I'm hopeless and helpless and powerless (what;s wrong with AA, again). I can't change the world, or become a different person, but I can do something about that 5% - in my case, not drink. But what can poor Diana do? What's her 5%?
And the illusion (that only grew up quite late in the day with me) that all my defects (?), problems (?), all the things that make me me, are caused by booze, and the gradual realisation (it is only Day 79) that actually, I now remember, these things were always there, only now I don't see them as problems, defects, things to be fixed - this is me, and I am, thank god, old enough and maybe wise enough (meditation and all that has certainly helped, and just having been around for 65 years) to accept that. To not worry about feeling nervous going to a social occasion.
Funny how much fun I've been having with drinkers. I'm just as happy and funny and shouty and social. I just see them becoming less funny, capable, happy - all confusing the alcohol with the fun they have in company and with people they love. It's funny to think that first time I met David and Camilla (and really enjoyed it) I was drinking and remember very little, and that every other time, when I've been sober, I've enjoyed their company just as much, and remembered it all.
Alarm going - 7 am and time for porridge. I have been getting so antsy about emptying the bins and sorting out the dishwasher and tidying up the kitchen, and Laura and Andrew just trashing it five minutes later, or leaving all the doors open, but the truth is I like doing it, and the results, and I think they appreciate it, even if they never acknowledge it. I used to do the same with Pol, and then seethe with resentment as she turned the kitchen back into WWI while making a cup of tea. So all she noticed, I suspect, was the resentment, and felt anything but gratitude for my efforts.
Pol has given me her photograph of the Dalai Lama, re-framed, with the letter on the back from her relly - Arthur Jelf, 1910, Sikkim. And rather beautifully wrapped. I don't know why she was so diffident about it, and why she suggested I give it to Aden if I didn't like it. I love his expression. Looks like he thinks the camera will bite. Or that he's about to bite the camera. Not a bit like the current Dalai Lama.
Belle's now talking about sprinkler people and avoiding them if you haven't got a raincoat. Why should my stopping drinking stop them being trouble, and why shouldn't I walk away if I start to get wet? SP11-sprinkler. Hat-trick and I may agree that she has the wolfie thing wrong, but she does talk a great deal of good sense.
I start to panic. It's 7.30 and I must meditate before I get dressed and go to the station. Which is rubbish. I have all day on trains and buses and tubes to do nothing else but meditate (maybe not if I sit with Sukie on the train to Bath).
There are no bears here. SP15 - incongruent. The absence of chaos is NOT boring. SP18. We cannot have too much time. Last night about 10pm I did my accounts (I like to work out I have exactly £33.71 in cash and £103.05 in the bank, and know where I wasted or spent sensibly every penny - I know it's sad, but I've always loved double entry book keeping). And another thing I'm quite proud of - I've bought Steve a bottle of Glenmorangie and carefully wrapped it, several days ago, and I haven't even thought about drinking it. A few years ago I bought Pol a bottle of Tobermory malt. It lasted 24 hours. I ended up having to buy another bottle, literally minutes before setting off to see her. I didn't wrap it, just put it in a nice paper bag.
My deepest fear (I think, at the moment, hence the drinking dreams). That I slip, I have a glass of wine, or a whisky, or just get hammered for a day, but then the next day, I don't have the guts to just get up and say, right, Day One, again. Day 100 here we come. I want to be utterly uncompromising. Don't fail, don't relapse, and if I do, don't give up. The last 79 days have been among the best in my life. No question. I do not want to be where I was in the Hotel Les Amis at the end of my holiday on Naxos, ever again. That miserable, that ill, that desperate, that frightened.
I can't quite believe it. I'm on the train. I haven't left my hat behind. The ticket machine at Saxmundham was out of order but the one at Ipswich gave me my tickets (for my Triodos card, as usual my CoOp card with which I bought the ticket is unacceptable), I have a coffee, the sun is shining, I made myself sandwiches (when have I ever made myself sandwiches), Andrew took me to the station, Diana is almost human, the laptop is working on the train, and I have plenty of time to get to Marylebone to meet up with Sukie. And I made my bed and left my room neat and tidy and welcoming.
A card from Charles and the Trevors (I thought it was from sister Jane, who has given me a very welcome £50 for Christmas) . Harriet Watson wants to meet next time I'm in London. which is nice.
I fixed the loo (the plunger had almost completely disappeared). But it came undone again this morning (C.Eve). Do I think I should just be much more competent because I'm sober? Amazing how competent (in little things) I managed to be while drinking.
Reading Adam Phillips' "Darwin's Worms". Brilliant, and I'm still reading the prologue. Death and transcience, and how we invent God to escape reality.
On Marylebone Station (which is very nice, and appears to only have two platforms) - 2 and a half hours to kill. Sukie somewhere on a train.
I'm very excited and really looking forward to it all. A suitcase full of presents and I look like Father Christmas. I videoed Esmé at breakfast yesterday, being Esmé, {insert video here} and of course my voice talking to her next to the microphone drowned everything else out, but sounded very gruff and grandfatherly. She was beautifully colour coordinated (and rather subtle - no pink) but Laura says it's a nightmare getting her dressed because she is so picky about what she is going to wear. And anyway, within an hour she's usually starkers.
Watched 'Holiday' last night before bed, with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Very weepy romcom with a happy ending. And Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was much better than I expected. It's so strange how the whole world apparently wants to go to a traditional English boarding school. Welbury and Ampleforth were both Hogwarts in their different ways. I even caught a steam train from King's Cross to go back to Welbury at least once. Solly the Ogre and all his grotesques as staff, the luscious school nurses, and the wicked older boys (more Flashman than Hogwarts really). Maybe J K Rowling had an elder brother who went to a traditional prep school. Maybe she went to one. They didn't change much - we sent our children to Hogwarts (Salters, Old Buck, St Mary's, Haileybury). Old Buck only let in girls in 1996. That's why we liked them.
Perhaps all children see school and the world as Hogwarts, magical worlds full of horrors and monstrosities, which is why Harry Potter appeals, and all fairy tales - to children they are more realistic than realism. Funny how Hogwarts and Narnia displaces so much modern tat. And it's so classist and racist (and sexist really, despite Hermione). Perhaps I should read the books. All I remember of the Philosopher's Stone was how clunkily written it seemed to be. Pullman does it much better. Ihave his new book to read over the holiday.
Diana is up. We spoke briefly yesterday. She remains in purdah. Andrew said rather sadly they'd just be four for Christmas. She's off on Boxing Day for Ireland to work for 2 or 3 weeks. It's funny, Belle is talking a lot about relationships, and how we need time for the drink to leave the system (she reckons 200 days) before we can really understand the 5 - 10 % of us that is crap, or weird, that we can do something about, and also see in others what is their problem, and not mine. So my first response to Diana was to feel really unhappy at her behaviour and think it was something to do with me and to start to hate her, or at least hate her being around. And then I start to feel sorry for her, how lonely and trapped and unhappy she seems to be, and that she really does have good qualities, she is not just a narcissist even if that's all we can see of her at the moment. No-one who gives such good reiki, or is so kind to small children (that's significant, they're no threat to her) can be that bad. But it takes time to see that.
Sweet email from Pol about her hospital appointment (she's changed it to the day before I go to France) and meeting up on New Year's day. So she reacted badly to my drinking, and yes there are bits of her behaviour that are intolerable, but she's so much nicer now I'm (more or less) sober. I edited something about her out of this a few days ago, which worried me then. This is not for public consumption, to be tailored for my audience - I even thought of starting another, even more secret blog that I tell no-one about, so I can actually say exactly what I want to. This is not an article or an autobiography, and neither is it a secret diary. People are supposed to read it, but I am not supposed to inhibit myself in any way in writing it. I have to pretend I do not know who the people are, or might be.
SP05 - fix your 5% - says it all. I change a little about me, and that helps the other change the 5% in them that reacts badly to my bad. And so small changes start to move mountains.
Drinking thinking is so drama queeny - it's all me, it's all the other, there's nothing I can do, I'm hopeless and helpless and powerless (what;s wrong with AA, again). I can't change the world, or become a different person, but I can do something about that 5% - in my case, not drink. But what can poor Diana do? What's her 5%?
And the illusion (that only grew up quite late in the day with me) that all my defects (?), problems (?), all the things that make me me, are caused by booze, and the gradual realisation (it is only Day 79) that actually, I now remember, these things were always there, only now I don't see them as problems, defects, things to be fixed - this is me, and I am, thank god, old enough and maybe wise enough (meditation and all that has certainly helped, and just having been around for 65 years) to accept that. To not worry about feeling nervous going to a social occasion.
Funny how much fun I've been having with drinkers. I'm just as happy and funny and shouty and social. I just see them becoming less funny, capable, happy - all confusing the alcohol with the fun they have in company and with people they love. It's funny to think that first time I met David and Camilla (and really enjoyed it) I was drinking and remember very little, and that every other time, when I've been sober, I've enjoyed their company just as much, and remembered it all.
Alarm going - 7 am and time for porridge. I have been getting so antsy about emptying the bins and sorting out the dishwasher and tidying up the kitchen, and Laura and Andrew just trashing it five minutes later, or leaving all the doors open, but the truth is I like doing it, and the results, and I think they appreciate it, even if they never acknowledge it. I used to do the same with Pol, and then seethe with resentment as she turned the kitchen back into WWI while making a cup of tea. So all she noticed, I suspect, was the resentment, and felt anything but gratitude for my efforts.
Pol has given me her photograph of the Dalai Lama, re-framed, with the letter on the back from her relly - Arthur Jelf, 1910, Sikkim. And rather beautifully wrapped. I don't know why she was so diffident about it, and why she suggested I give it to Aden if I didn't like it. I love his expression. Looks like he thinks the camera will bite. Or that he's about to bite the camera. Not a bit like the current Dalai Lama.
Belle's now talking about sprinkler people and avoiding them if you haven't got a raincoat. Why should my stopping drinking stop them being trouble, and why shouldn't I walk away if I start to get wet? SP11-sprinkler. Hat-trick and I may agree that she has the wolfie thing wrong, but she does talk a great deal of good sense.
I start to panic. It's 7.30 and I must meditate before I get dressed and go to the station. Which is rubbish. I have all day on trains and buses and tubes to do nothing else but meditate (maybe not if I sit with Sukie on the train to Bath).
There are no bears here. SP15 - incongruent. The absence of chaos is NOT boring. SP18. We cannot have too much time. Last night about 10pm I did my accounts (I like to work out I have exactly £33.71 in cash and £103.05 in the bank, and know where I wasted or spent sensibly every penny - I know it's sad, but I've always loved double entry book keeping). And another thing I'm quite proud of - I've bought Steve a bottle of Glenmorangie and carefully wrapped it, several days ago, and I haven't even thought about drinking it. A few years ago I bought Pol a bottle of Tobermory malt. It lasted 24 hours. I ended up having to buy another bottle, literally minutes before setting off to see her. I didn't wrap it, just put it in a nice paper bag.
My deepest fear (I think, at the moment, hence the drinking dreams). That I slip, I have a glass of wine, or a whisky, or just get hammered for a day, but then the next day, I don't have the guts to just get up and say, right, Day One, again. Day 100 here we come. I want to be utterly uncompromising. Don't fail, don't relapse, and if I do, don't give up. The last 79 days have been among the best in my life. No question. I do not want to be where I was in the Hotel Les Amis at the end of my holiday on Naxos, ever again. That miserable, that ill, that desperate, that frightened.
I can't quite believe it. I'm on the train. I haven't left my hat behind. The ticket machine at Saxmundham was out of order but the one at Ipswich gave me my tickets (for my Triodos card, as usual my CoOp card with which I bought the ticket is unacceptable), I have a coffee, the sun is shining, I made myself sandwiches (when have I ever made myself sandwiches), Andrew took me to the station, Diana is almost human, the laptop is working on the train, and I have plenty of time to get to Marylebone to meet up with Sukie. And I made my bed and left my room neat and tidy and welcoming.
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