The Potato Harvest

Stephen and I finally moved into our own place.  It's weirdly blissful. Weirdly because there's a lot going on and we've still got a huge amount to organise and work out. But it's so peaceful. We're very busy and very peaceful; quietly productive.

We live opposite a junction and watch a lot of agricultural traffic passing through; enormous slow but very deadly looking farm machinery, mud-splattered jeeps, the occasional horse. Every now and again, we'll be sitting quietly in our living room (our living room) and Stephen will exclaim, "Potatoes!" as a truck, bearing enough spuds to feed the village for a year, goes by.


For almost two weeks, I couldn't believe we'd really done it. We've talked about a home of our own for four and a half years. We've talked so much and planned and schemed, so that actually moving in felt like a further exercise in fantasy, as if we'd been allowed to play house for a few days before having to go home. Home - I was finally given my own key to my parents' house on the day I moved out.

This spell was broken by a new washing machine - strictly speaking, a washer-dryer. Turns out, when the machines achieve singularity, they won't take over and enslave us, they'll simply humiliate us by undermining all logical steps we might take to wash our clothes. We could have fantasised about the peace and quiet, the freedom and the flat-pack furniture (it's so satisfying). I wouldn't have fantasised about spending the best part of a day trying to get one load clean and dry(ish). So it had to be real.  It's real.

When he was a boy, Stephen heard the Strangler's Golden Brown and understood perfectly; Golden brown, texture like sun - Hugh Cornwell was quite obviously singing about his love for potatoes, a love that young Stephen could relate to.

This is one reason why I love him. I've known a few people who have survived periods of adversity by holding fast to some positive in their life; a dream for the future, a passion in the present, a pet cat. At some point, Stephen learned to find joy in the minutia; the pattern of veins on a leaf, the comfort of woolen socks or the glorious versatility of the humble spud. He's carried me through difficult times this way. Bad morning? Then let's make lunch an event. To say every day is special sounds both corny and slightly nauseating, but the truth is occasionally like that.

Manna From Potato Heaven; a large, still rather dirty
potato embraced by a pair of manly white hands.

As the potato-laden lorries turn the corner, they lose a little of their load. You often see this in the countryside, at this time of year; mostly root veg and sugar beet, scattered along the outside of sharp corners, usually cracked by the fall and crushed by the proceeding traffic. The gutter outside our house is strewn with spuds, partially-mashed.

A large specimen lands in our garden, perfectly intact. We'll have that. Vegetarian roadkill.


We've always lived in other people's homes, one way or another. Stephen has always lived with his parents. I've lived with my parents, my ex-husband and briefly, a friend, but I've always had to fit myself to other people's routines and rituals, the way other people want to do things, sometimes infuriating in their futility, sometimes just impossible to abide by fully. When I first left my ex-husband, the relative freedom was overwhelming; when you've had someone else dictating everything from what you wear to how you make a cup of tea, it's hard to know where to begin.

Something similar is happening now, although it's shared between us. We need to work out how to manage our energy, now that we can do pretty much what we like, whenever we like. Fending for ourselves, we need to use a lot of energy on the basics, but those basics don't need to accommodate anyone else, whether in terms of space or timing or anxiety that if there's food on every shelf of the fridge, it may stop working altogether.


It's a long time since I lived in a town; I've never lived in the city.  But I don't know what comes next, once all the potatoes are gathered in.  I'm sure onions came earlier - late August, early September. You could smell them, even if you couldn't see them.  Once the potato lorries drive away (Potato Merchant, one of them declares on the side), is that it, for the winter?

I'm so tremendously happy right now.

Coming Home Undefeated

I'm thirty in less than three months time and I am moving back in with my parents. So many truths that I held as dear have been crushed underfoot in the past six months, and here goes another one: Whatever happened, I would never ever live with my folks again.

Squish. But as with most of these recent squishings, it is a surprisingly pleasant sensation.

I think it is much harder for adults living with their parents when one party is disabled. I am not capable of living in such a way that home is just a base, somewhere to rest my head and store my stuff and borrow the washing machine once a week, spending most of my time out at work and socialising out of the house. My home is my environment for work and rest and most of my social activities. I cannot live alone and I have to live with people who are willing and able to help me and from whom I am comfortable asking for help.

As a sick teenager, I lived in terror of being stuck at home forever. In my early days as a wheelchair-user, riddled with internalised prejudice, I experienced a special kind of mortification when being pushed around by my mother (not helped by the fact that she initially kept muddling the words wheelchair with pushchair). My parents and I had returned to a practical dynamic we had left behind years earlier and I think, for a short time, our relationship actually regressed; I think my parents forgot how old I now was and I assumed they couldn't possibly adapt. There were real struggles around my desperate need to be both looked after and left alone which I thought could never be resolved. And none of it was resolved before I moved out and in with my ex-husband.

After that, living with my parents remained the big threat. I suppose that between lots of couples, there are arguments that culminate in threats of desertion. But for me, the threat was always that I would be sent back to my parents, like an unruly child who having abused her grown-up privileges, has them taken away again.

For all kinds of reasons, my marriage caused and sustained unnecessary tension between my parents and I and since its end, my relationship with them has dramatically improved. This is mostly about me. I have finally shrugged off my adolescent evasiveness and started to be more honest about my life, my experiences, my health and the help I need. I've also seen my parents through different eyes; my own eyes when no other opinion mattered and the eyes of my open-hearted friends. And thus they frustrate me much less, and I like them much more.

Plus, of course, life's dramas always allow folk to surprise you, either way. My parents have been brilliant in the last six months. Not that I thought they wouldn't help me, but I underestimated their capacity to know how to help me and when. They stepped back when I needed space, they stepped in when I needed assistance. They moved all my worldly possessions from East Anglia to Wales and this weekend, they are moving everything back again.

And I feel at peace with them. Peace is something I am learning a lot about. Where it can and cannot be found, how and with whom.

But it also helps that I am choosing to live with them now, because it is a sensible and practical thing which I actually want to do, not because I don't have any other options. And it helps a very great deal, that this situation is not permanent. I think it would be a lot harder without plans for the future.

As you can see, I have new boots. Second two photographs (and plans for the future) courtesy of the amazing Stephen.

On a not dissimilar theme, William has been writing a lot about independence and dependence lately, both from hospital and now in bed at home.

Jiggety Jig

I’m back home again, having been at my folks’ for another couple of days (went back to do some washing, but then the car broke down for a second time and I was stranded). This evening my angelic mother delivered me home, together with a Shepherd’s Pie, broccoli and carrots, kept warm by a great deal of tinfoil and newspaper. Which was very nice.

In my absence and on a diet of nothing but toast, [...] has been moving on with the house and has it looking decidedly more homely. The bedroom and the red room - which looks to have become our living room - are more or less as we’d like them to be. All our appliances are up and running except the oven, which needs a new bit of wire and the washing machine, which needs a new bit of hose. Slight hitch in that the kitchen surfaces are too low for our standard-sized washing machine to fit under, but we can live with that.

There are a few oddities, such as the fact that [...] has deemed it appropriate to put a red light bulb in the bathroom (well, it does improve, or possibly disguise the colour scheme) and despite the great inroads made elsewhere, we still appear to be short of a toilet seat.

The car needs new spark plugs, a new distributor cap, a new rotor arm and new HT leads, whatever the hell any of that is. [...] didn’t know either, so he bought a Haynes manual, ordered the bits of the Internet, spent a great deal of time looking under the bonnet practising what he calls manly noises (it’s a slow but noisy intake of breath, kind of between the teeth, accompanied by much shaking of the head) and is now an expert in car maintenance. He has also bought an enormous shower-cap for the car to wear to stop it getting wet inside when it rains.

However, we do anticipate becoming mobile again very shortly. Oh and I’ve also managed to register us with a dentist, and made our first dental appointment in eight years, which I was very chuffed with.

In summary, things continue to move in the right direction. And now I want to get on with life and finish writing my bloody fucking book.

This is home

Blogging from Norfolk for the first time! We have our sofas in the little red room and if it wasn't shamefully cluttered in here I would take a a photograph of it to show how very cosy it is. Not exactly ship-shape, but the essentials are now on-line; heat, light and water. We need to go back to my folks' tomorrow to get some washing done, but we're going to have a go at staying here tonight, see how things go. Some toing and froing may be necessarily in the next few weeks.

Am now going to sleep - not the first time I've sleep here; having fallen asleep leant against boxes and precariously balanced on chairs during previous visits, but this time I have a bed.

I've got a glorious feeling...

My letter may have worked. In the last 24 hours...

1. The car has been brought back to life by a spectacularly moustachioed man from the RAC. He had been to my folks' house before - last time to fix the Caterham which brother-in-law was driving. Here is a picture of a Caterham. -->

The ancient rusting Proton was probably a bit of a let down after that, but it lives to see another day.

2. The broken pipe is mended.

3. The chap has come, checked and serviced the boiler. This in combination with 2. mean that we now have heat and hot water. And fortunately it is all coming out of taps as opposed to the ceiling. Which is a plus.

4. The missing mobile phone has been found.

5. The house has working broadband. We imagined this would take weeks to set up, but it's there right now.

6. The fish appear have survived all the stress of the move, the changing temperatures, changing water conditions and all and are now swimming happily about in my Dad's pond. Yesterday the blackmoors skulked at the edge of the pond, the goldfish eying up these exotic incomers with suspicion. But today they all appear to be friends. Ebony and orangey...

They have been through a lot though - and I really am genuinely surprised they have survived. Of course, they need a few weeks before we can consider them safe. And they are now somewhat more vulnerable natural predators, like herons, than they were in the tank.

Anyway, it all seems to be going very well. We've half a mind that we might move into the house at the weekend, even if we won't have any electric lights, a kitchen ceiling or any means with which to cook. The kettle is working okay, apparently, so what else do we really need?

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

The Goldfish
Her Parent's House
UNITED KINGDOM

F.A.O: whichever supernatural being(s) it may concern

The Forces of Predestination
Petty Domestic Misfortune Subdivision
Unit 4B., The Universe
EVERYWHERE

13th February 2007

Dear Sir or Madam,

As you will have undoubtedly predicted, I am writing to ask if you would please reconsider my case.

I have not always been a loyal customer of your organisation, naively assuming that my fortune in life was dictated by accident of birth, accident of circumstance and the decisions of both those around me and myself. You may well laugh. Clearly you are laughing. To be honest, even I was laughing yesterday when we arrived at our new home to inspect how the drying-out was progressing to find that the kitchen ceiling had completely collapsed.

My only excuse for a lifetime of scepticism is pedantry. For example, when I read this months' horoscope at Astrology.Com, it clearly states that for February 2007:

The second week will see the unexpected rear its head.

Forgive me, but should the word unexpected even appear in a horoscope? If am to expect the unexpected, then what is the point of reading an analysis of what I should expect? Far more unnerving was

Mercury enters Pisces on Feb 2nd but then moves into a reverse motion phase on Feb 14th, charged by a near encounter with Uranus and the Lunar Nodes.

Which sounds a little too much like haemorroids to me. Therefore I would very much appreciate it if my case could be looked at again.

I realise I am in no position to judge these things, but according to my calculations, I have already had everso slightly more than my share of petty domestic bad luck this month so far. I acknowledge that I remain very fortunate in all the ways a person would most like to be and if there is any more than pure chance responsible, I am extremely grateful. But I am still anxious to avoid haemorroids, or indeed any further accident or mishap, at least for the duration of this month.

As I am just one small mortal in a very big universe, I shall present the full itinerary of unfortunate events in this month so far in chronological order:

1. A mistake with paperwork which may have lost us about £100.
2. Inability to operate hot water system, resulting in ice cold shower.
3. Computer dying on me at one of the worst points it might have chosen.
4. Broken beloved mug #1.
5. Bad day for [...] on day of move, forcing him to stop overnight half way, at a cost of £50.
6. The coldest night of the winter so far as he is travelling down.
7. The flood.
8. The landlady’s buildings insurance turns out to be invalid.
9. [...]’s mobile phone – the only mobile phone we have between us – goes missing.
10. The car breaks down. Perhaps for good.
    
11. Broken beloved mug #2.
12. The oil tank in our new garden springs a leak.
13. The kitchen ceiling collapses.

I am hoping that the fact that we are now up to number thirteen, on the thirteenth day of the month, might mean something to your good selves; perhaps a good number on which to end a run of bad luck?

If nothing can be done, I should nevertheless warn you that it is impossible to break me this way. I'm sure you knew I was going to say that. Most of the misfortunes aren’t nearly as bad as they might have been. The computer was back on line within the week and I was able to fulfil the most essential address-changing tasks without it. I was not at all hopeful for the fish, used to house temperatures, surviving the trauma of moving as well as a night in the Travelodge carpark in temperatures of –4C, but they made it. We intend to release them into my father’s pond later today and catch them again later in the spring.

The oil tank isn’t actually damaged. The oil was delivered and the tank filled right to the top. The electricity hasn't fully recovered from the flood just yet, the boiler needs servicing in any case, so we haven’t been burning any oil off. In the meantime, the temperature has risen and the oil has expanded from fill to overflowing. It’s not nice, but it can only get better.

The landlady made an innocent mistake which has given the insurance company an excuse to reject a claim for however much it might cost to dry out and fix up four damaged rooms, plus plumbing and electrics. This could have been a complete disaster, but it shouldn’t be. Until the ceiling collapsed, there was nothing that needs doing which [...] couldn’t do by himself, given enough time. We'll work that out somehow.

And yesterday, in a portent I am determined to see as positive, I saw a kestrel in our new garden. A kestrel. I imagine it was a rather disorientated kestrel as it flew right at me while I was sitting in the car, and only narrowly missed colliding with the windscreen. I can't remember what a kestrel means in the folklore of various world cultures, but I am sure that it must mean something good in at least one of them. Unless the poor bird was merely overcome by the oil fumes (no really, it's not nearly that bad).

I look forward to hearing a decision regarding my case, which I realise, in the anticipation of this letter, may already have been made.


Yours faithfully,

[Illegible Squiggle]

The Goldfish (Capricorn, apparently Gemini Rising)

Waving, not drowning.

One thing gets better and another gets worse. Today's crisis is that the car has broken down. The roof has been leaking in three places for some time, between patch-ups, and now I think something has got wet that ought not to be. May dry out and be okay. Water is not our friend just now. One does begin to wonder if it means anything.

Still, worse things happen at sea. Where there is considerably more water, as a rule.

The worst thing, if I am perfectly brutally honest, is that - whilst my parents' hospitality is very much appreciated, we're very conscious of imposing on them as well as the fact that without them, we'd be homeless in a very real sense - these two are incapable of having a conversation with one another without having an argument. It is like they are in some petty competition all the time; there is no major area of conflict, but they are determined both to wind up and be wound up by one another. Today is particularly bad because they are off on holiday tomorrow, and cannot agree about anything; the latest eruption was to do with what sort of toothpaste should be packed. There is much shouting, stomping on the stairs, slamming of doors, and then each of them keeps coming to me at different times and demanding, "Do you think I am a completely unreasonable human being?!"

Of course, our prolonged presence here can't be helping at all. And uh, they are off on holiday tomorrow and have given us permission to borrow their car, without which kindness, once again, we'd be in far greater trouble than we already are.

It's all about trade-offs. But so far, we are keeping our heads above water. Figuratively speaking.

Those three words are said too much

This is one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a long long time. A pile of Neolithic bones, found twenty-five miles south of Verona (fair Verona, where we lay our scene). And the true story of how they came to be buried like this, 5000 or 6000 years ago? I don't care. I know what I see.

One of the most beautiful things you can do with your body is to allow it to become entangled with another in such a way that you no longer know where you end and they begin. You no longer know which limbs, which hair, which fingers and thumbs and genitals belong to whom. You no longer know the direction of gravity. You breathe their breath. It becomes impossible to differentiate between the two pulses, which merge into a gentle rolling thunder against one another's skin.

And you (I) do think about death in such moments because there could be no better way to conclude one's existence. Warm and close. Never to leave and never to be left behind.

Instead you go to sleep together and wake up in an entirely different position.

Other things of beauty this week: here, here and here. Still not sure what's happening in our saga, but it seems likely we will be stuck living with my folks for at least the next fortnight. Which, much as I adore my parents... There are difficulties looming which I can't possibly go into here which could mean official homelessness, worst case scenario. But there's a friendly roof over our head. And it might all go swimmingly. We'll see.

Ha ha, swimmingly, get it?

I wrote for luck, they sent me you

So [...] eventually made it down south and supervised the removal people delivering our furniture and boxes to the new place this morning. He came round to my folks house at lunch time and then we set off back to our new place just to adjust the heating and for me to take a look at what the layout of the rooms looked like with the furniture in.

As we parked beside the house, there was water pouring from the eaves. It was not raining. And this water was pouring. Entering the house, we saw water was also pouring from several places in the ceiling in the kitchen, hall, bathroom and living room. Onto our stuff; our electrical appliances, the boxes containing such items as books and musical instruments.

I could provide dialogue, but I'm sure you can imagine.

However, having turned the water and electricity off, we managed to transfer all the vulnerable boxes and the stuff out of the damp boxes into the bedroom where it was safe. We have been extraordinarily lucky; the only things that have got thoroughly wet are some CDS, which of course will still play; the paper inlays have got wet but there's nothing irreplacable. The books are okay. The musical instruments are okay. Even the cuddly toys are okay.

Nothing precious has got damaged, nothing that really matters.

Nobody was hurt. ([...] was already deep in the puddle before we thought about the electricity.)

We might have left the radiator for tomorrow. It might have effected every room and all our possessions.

We are knackered. [...] was already knackered and mildly malnourished from the week he has had finishing off in Whitby. We have no idea what happens next. Not even sure what's happened. If we weren't moving so close to my folks, who we can stay with tonight... And Mum had this afternoon off, so she came to our rescue.

Extraordinarily lucky, really. And yet, well, buggery bollocks.

Pet Hates

Whilst living oop North I picked up a handful of dialectical mannerisms and inflections, by gum. For example, my nephew’s name is Alexander which I manage to pronounce Alexander (Northern) or Al-ig-zän’der (English) interchangeably. I have also been known, on occasion, to pronounce bath, dance, grass etc. phonetically as opposed to the English bäth, däns, gräs etc.. If words were meant to be pronounced as they are spelt, or else spelt as they are pronounced, then our language would have a very different character indeed. It would be easier to learn to read and write, and we would be able to make ourselves understood to the rest of the so-called English-Speaking world. Nobody would want that, surely?

This last week, whilst staying with my folks and talking to lots of native East Anglians, I have relapsed into using phrases like “Int it?” rather than “Is it not the case?” and “Oo-er” rather than “Golly!”. Unfortunately, I have not lost any of my Northern inflections – despite having every instance picked up on by (and duly mocked by) my parents. And despite being the presence of my parents, I am still swearing like a trooper - a particularly ill-mannered trooper who has just stubbed his toe.

However, there is one particular word that I would really like to get shot of as soon as possible.

The Whitby accent in particular is a hybrid of the North Yorkshire and Teeside accents, a union which results in the prevalence of the word pet as a term of endearment. And alas, I have picked up the habit of calling people pet when attempting to comfort, reassure or generally be friendly. I have even written it down once or twice.

I don’t do terms of endearment. Of course, sometimes, even those who use such words towards strangers can be very charming as long as they otherwise being friendly and respectful (the lady at the benefits agency addressed me as lovey yesterday, bless her). But most of us know the frustration of being addressed as pet, dear, darling or mate when one is otherwise being treated with the utmost disrespect. And I find that in many of the contexts in which these words are used they tend to be insincere or patronising – even, or perhaps especially, in the most intimate of relationships. I know this, because I find myself doing it when softening criticism, apologising, asking a difficult question, or otherwise being a git. The only thing worse than hearing an arguing couple, not an ounce of affection in their voices, continue to slip honey, love or sweetheart in between bitter ripostes is when you hear a parent shouting at a child along the lines, “Shut the fuck up petal, or you’ll be in for a slap!”

But pet... Perhaps it is snobbery to try and get rid of it? It is not as if I am saying it all the time. Perhaps I should embrace a hybrid dialect, oo-er, 'appen? Because it does become a hybrid; you think these things cancel one another out, but they don't always do that. I once stayed with a family in Falkirk, the mother of whom whom had been born and brought up in Essex and she had the weirdest accent you have ever heard - not because it was half-way in between, but because it constantly alternated, producing phrases like, "Och aye, cor blimey gov'nor!"

Anyway, after rabbitting on about nothing, I must subject you to the two versions of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. The Four Yorkshiremen sketch was something that we used to perform amongst ourselves as children. We could all put-on a Yorkshire accent on account of our grandparents, and many of my Grandfather's stories would begin "When I were a lad..."

So we would compete with one another with the most ridiculous scenarios, although very often using bits from Grandad's stories, the phrase "remnant of barbed wire" used to come up a lot, for example and very precise imperial measurements; Grandad Kelly was a civil engineer and didn't see any reason not to detail the size and shape of things to the nearest sixteenth of an inch, even when recounting a tale to his very young and congenitally metric grandchildren.

Anyway, the original...

And the tribute...

That was then, that was that, that is gone, that is what I wanted you to feel.

Today is my last day in Whitby. Official move is next... next week sometime, to be honest I am completely disorientated about such things and am merely doing what I'm told.

I am fine, somewhat tearful. No reason; we have nothing to lose. I think there are only a handful of things in life anyone can claim that they have actually lost. We have both had a great time in this place and nothing can ever take that away from us. Only it moves into the past tense and can only be revisited in the imagination. We never get to revisit the great times in any case; even if their locations have been frozen in time, we have not. And that's not a bad thing. There are other great times, new adventures to be had ahead of us, new places which will become special to us further along the road. There are friends out there who we don't even know yet, perhaps a few who are not yet born, let alone all those who exist who we are only going to get to know and love better with time.

Nobody has died; nothing to mourn.

But saying goodbye, even to a place, even when you know that it's time to go...

Things I will miss about Whitby #2

Thanks for all your congratulations yesterday - that was really very lovely indeed.

I have to have a go at this, although it is impossible not to reach for the words which have been reached for time and time again.

I will miss the river. It is never silent and never still. It rises and falls twice a day, sometimes so low you could wade across it, sometimes so high it swallows half the street. And it is flowing constantly, sometimes very smoothly, sometimes drunkenly towards the sea. Drunkenly? Sorry, you know, when it’s a bit choppy. Sloppy. Schloppy, perhaps. As opposed to when you might be mistaken in thinking that the water is really some glossy fabric or foil.

People add to the life of it. They add electric light to dance on it, add boats with their bobbing hulls and clanging rigging. There are river cruises (oh how I shall miss thee, Mini Endeavour, with your penetratingly loud yet incomprehensible running commentry!) and the Dregder that... dregdes and is always fun to watch.

The river carries souvenirs it has collected upstream. After bad weather, it will run brown with huge bigs the bits of tree and other organic debris as well bits of wooden fence, wire, sacking, a length of rope. And even on a calm day you can often spot a random object; a plastic football, a balloon, a hat. Everything travels in the same direction; some items turning and twisting as if resisting the inevitable, others surrendered to their fate, floating serenely towards the sea.

Then there is the wildlife. The seals, which have far more grace and beauty than I had ever imagined. The swans, all white but one, which is jet black. The many and varied breeds of gulls and all manner of other seabirds; shags and wagtails, divers and guillemots and all sorts of things I have conscientiously looked up the names for and promptly forgotten.

Yes, I think I will miss the river more than anything.



In blog news, The 7th Disability Blog Carnival is up over at Disability Studies, Temple U. Meanwhile, please will you go and read An Unreliable Witness and having concluded that it is a truly wonderful blog, go vote for it as the Best UK and Irish Blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards. I will never ask you to vote for anything ever again.

Poetry Corner: Packing (a haiku)

We must try to put
Our lives in cardboard boxes.
Yet nothing quite fits.

Shopping for wheels

We're going to need to arrange some mode of personal transport once we move. This would be my current favourite...

Reflect what you are, in case you don't know

I used to loathe mirrors. [...] felt differently, and overruled my objections to having several around the flat. If I didn’t like what I looked like, he said, I would simply have to wear a paper bag over my head.

The paper bag became quickly crumpled and torn and after a few weeks I caught a cold which made the whole thing completely impractical. So I just had to get used to them.

The wavy mirrors are my favourite. Nice and long, but impossible to examine one's overall appearance in on account of the fact they give you extra limbs, sometimes an extra head and they render your body twice as wide as you hope you really are. The novelty of this is yet to wear off.

Currently, however, these and the three others we have elsewhere are under threat. Not sure there'll be anywhere appropriate for them to hang in the new place. Thus they had to be documented in what is soon to become the most uninteresting collection of photographs since... actually some of these manhole covers are really quite pretty.

Things I will miss about Whitby #1

I like to watch people wandering about, particularly very early in the morning. Of course, the tourist industry stays up late and the fishing industry wakes up early so there’s very little of the night where there will be nobody about. However, it’s not only fisherman you see first thing, but all sort of people, walking, sitting on the fence overlooking the river, or just standing looking at it. Sometimes, if they look particularly intense, I become quite concerned and have to watch them until they go away.

When we have been in town on Christmas Day, there have been loads of people out, mostly by themselves, wandering around Whitby. Naturally, you make up stories. Are they by themselves today or have they escaped the chaos and tension at home? Are they perhaps having far more fun being by themselves, enjoying a nice peaceful stroll about on a glorious December morning?

The ability to wander about, to just taking off by myself with no particular object, is the one thing I mourn most about my physical limitations.

(Picture from freefoto.com)

There are places I remember

It’s all a bit tedious here just now. We're busy trying to get ourselves together, sorting out all the paperwork involved in the move and trudging our way through various telephone menus. Your call is valuable to us, as if they know; I could be an absolute time-waster whose call isn't even slightly valuable to them. Meanwhile we have managed to tell the most important people in town that we're leaving and this hasn't been quite as painful as I imagined it might have been.

I have been taken photographs of random bits of the flat. We have lived here five years, and it is a good flat. The best bit is, of course, the view over the river, but there are odd bits and pieces I suddenly feel compelled to record.

Like this foul wallpaper. It is not the most hideous wallpaper I have ever seen, but it is pretty gruesome. It is one of those items which someone must have designed, but you can't really imagine anyone sitting down and creating it, thinking, "Hmm, I'm sure somebody would like this pattern, in this style, in these particular colours on their walls."

And you can't imagine anyone choosing to buy it above any other type of wallpaper, above the inoffensive plain textured wallpaper we have almost everywhere else.

Fortunately, we have managed to keep most of it out of sight for the duration of our time here, behind bookcases and pictures.

While I was thinking about such things I fished out an old picture of the mural on the wall in my bedroom in Ipswich. It is not a good picture, having apparently been taken from lying on my old bed.

It was still there when my folks sold the house a few years ago and I do wonder whether the people who moved in there have kept it or destroyed it within weeks of their arrival. I have a secret hope that they may have covered it up so that someone might uncover it decades later and wonder who put it there. Before promptly destroying it themselves.

The other walls in the room were green, the woodwork was yellow and the carpet was dark red. But it all sat together very nicely. Honestly. No really, it did, I swear.

House

So we went to look at this place. I was in that sort of adrenal high you get sometimes after a bad night where you feel like you’re positively buzzing, but actually nothing is working properly. Inhibition, for example.

Moved three times but I’ve never dealt with an Estate Agent before. Bless the poor chap, he was very nice and friendly, but he did live up to the stereotype. Convertible Beamer, immaculate dress and hair, insisted on calling me Debbie even when [...] gave me the rather over-familiar introduction of Debs and came out with some smashing lines, such as

“The decoration isn’t in bad nick, but it is rather… striking.”

“Of course, the colours look less vivid when the curtains are shut.”

“If the landlady would only go through and paint it beige, she could put the rent up by two hundred pounds and get some Americans in here.”

I’m afraid he was perfectly serious and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Fortunately, we redeemed ourselves by agreeing to rent it. The room with blood red walls and navy blue carpet was the most extreme, but there was nothing you’d actually need sunglasses for. And in fairness, the colours did look less vivid when the curtains were shut.

But crucially the chap implied, if it wasn’t in a bit of a mess, it would be well beyond budget. It is a detached bungalow, with central heating, good sized rooms, space to park and a bit of a garden. That is pretty damn luxurious for us. It is in a very quiet area, it is close to my folks without being within within walking distance. And despite the wrenching loss of the moors, we’ll be just inside Norfolk, between the Fens and Thetford Forest. So the countryside is very pretty, if somewhat lacking in breath-taking rugged beauty and seagulls.

This is, of course, complete madness. In the space of two weeks, we have decided to move two hundred and fifty miles down the country - something which needs to be achieved by the beginning of February. We don't have our own car just now, we'll need one very soon. We haven't told our Whitby friends we were even thinking of moving. The water tastes horrid down South. Stark raving bonkers.

However, despite being actually quite frightened about all this, I don't have any doubt that this is the right thing to do and that we'll be able to do it all right, somehow.

Moving

Another reason our trip to Suffolk was quite stressful was that we decided to move down there. Which means we’re actually travelling back down there tomorrow to look at a place.

We did talk about heading South this time last year, after Rosie announced she was pregnant. We speculated moving to Hampshire or Dorset, close to where they live or else East Anglia, where my folks and the rest of my family are. We discussed it at length over the first few months of this year, looked at Estate Agents etc., but then we decided that too much was going on and we’d stay put for the time being.

This time was different. On our way down South [...] stated that this was really something he thought we should do. I agreed we should think about it. But then a few days later, [...] popped into an Estate Agent near where my folks live and found somewhere that would have been absolutely ideal. Within a very short space of time we decided we would go for it, only then the landlord said that he had received an offer to sell and so that fell through.

The fact that we had even entertained moving so very quickly brought it home that this is really something we want to do now. And frankly, it makes me a little sad. Because I really love Whitby. I am not someone to have a great affection for places, but Whitby is a very special place. It has a great history, a thriving and very tolerant culture and it is a beautiful, beautiful town in one of the most beautiful areas of natural beauty in the whole world. I honestly believe that.

Unfortunately, over the past three or four years since my health deteriorated, I have lost access to very much of what I love about it. I’m not getting out so easily, I’m not socialising much, and indeed, the local culture revolves around drinking in smoky places which was always a difficulty for both of us. The wheelchair keeps me off the beach or from having picnics in the Abbey Grounds. And at the same time, we are making regular trips down south where all my family are, and where we have better access to a greater number of our friends.

Oh no, I know, we are completely mad. We could be moving within a month...