The Loves, life of an alley Cat

From a Pussy Cat Doll...  

What a week it has been... non-stop I have been flat out and sadly not in a good flat out kind of way (as in, struck it lucky)... 

I started the week on an emotional high, full of vim and vigor, filled with a sense of joy at seeing two people loved up and connected at the heart, but as the week has worn on I have felt more than than a sense of growing unease, that there is something more to life than listening to the quiet corners of a house.  Of course this is great when you need the solitude to write, but not so good when you need that special person to spoil or pamper or feel the lurrve with... so I have been people watching at every opportunity, and OMG there are hordes of people around loved up and joined at the heart... Now I wouldn't like anyone to think that I have taken up Dogging or become Leary, or odd (although some may say I have been odd for years) but have you noticed how loved up people are in Spring?  Most writers observe the machinations of daily life from a distance, the micro movements that hide a tale, the macro movements that reveal a plot, but I am beginning to think I need to plunge heart first into a new relationship.

And of course one of my friends (let's just call her Madame X), has frequently asked 'Who takes your bin out or changes the light bulbs or plumbs in the washing machine' she was horrified to realise that it was me (well can't do the WM I have to pay a plumber).  Madame X can't bear to be on her own for fear of having to change her own light bulbs!  It was the first thing she said to me after she left her husband.  I was astonished to find that was top of the list of the 99 things you'll miss about being married.  What do I know?  SO anyway... watch this space, you might find me flirting in my best Alley Cat style at every opportunity.  The Uniqueness of you has also been brought home to me in the ever crisp observation of Tim Clague's blog, Screenwriter and guru, that like Saxon Bullock (real name) you have to be who and what you are regardless of the pressure to change your writing style, personality or anything else, just to suit this person or that company, so from now on I am going to write what I know, add my own quirky slant on it and be damned, which I probably am anyway.

One of my writing buddies has just had his script slated by a producer which has knocked him for six, especially as he has written thousands of scripts which have been broadcast and still continue to be re-run.  Cut to the quick it has knocked him back, which worries me slightly as I welcome any feedback, good or bad so what does that say about me?  Does that mean I don't care or I devalue my work? Or am I being pragmatic because like Saxon I just feel I am what I am?  God it is complex or do we make it more so?

Bank Holiday weekend will find me giving it large at our Arvonite reunion weekend in Hereford, now officially and affectionately known as 'Gathering Nuts in May'.  Like Nigella, I have two large storage boxes of larder products and I am practicing my very best lick of the wooden spoon to camera one, as I intend to make a visual diary of the whole weekend and edit it later and upload it to U tube, with permissions, of course... not...

Lunch with writer and lecturer John Foster was a huge delight, even if the food was indifferent and overpriced.  The desssert was to die for a chocolate fondant, but otherwise everything else was pretty mediocre and charging £1 for soda water in your fresh £2.60 orange juice took the biscuit, especially as it must have cost all of .00001 of a p.  Still what is money when you're enjoying the company?  Talking about writing with a master, and I know that isn't doing writing, was a real luxury and reassuring to know that even the greats have the same degree of difficulty getting their work before publishers or production houses... in a very selfish way it left me with a sense of reassuring hope. I am still working on the law of averages that if you throw enough ****  at the wall some will stick.

This week will see me finishing the decorating of my daughter's old room. The handyman comes on Friday to finish rennovating the elderly greenhouse (I can't bring myself to call it antique), then on Saturday I will be in Wimborne market hunting for bargains of I know not what and lunching again at Pick More Daisies, with a forever friend and my daughter's Godmother.  I met her when I was in my early twenties; I liked her humour and she liked my jewellery, what that says about our personalities I am not quite sure, but we've shared more than a few infamous moments and can both recount entire stories of things that have happened to us, most unrepeatable in polite company and many probably bordering on the illegal, but reunions are always a delight and she will put me straight on my Lurvve issue with her usual wisdom... which will probably involve a man and a cheque book...

More at the weekend... Be good to each other...