When will it stop......

Quite frankly I've had enough. Prince Philip is not the only one to get taken down during the Jubilee celebrations by the howling gales. I went to Dorset for the long weekend, to take the sea air, celebrate my Goddaughter's 7th birthday and eat red, white and blue cake. Having enjoyed rude health for the whole winter, before, after and during Christmas..... for which I am traditionally cold-stuffed-and-coughing........ I now have a monumental cold that has resulted in bed rest.....in June. And so I am going to get away from it all for a short foreign break....... where at least the rain has an accent.

I leave you with a picture of what summer can look like.........

Top tip: Ginger Beer is much better than Barley Water or Lucozade as a sick-bed tipple.

It's not over till it's over.....period.

Gentlemen, you might want to look away now, I’m going to talk about the menopause....…..

The first rule of being menopausal: you don’t talk about the menopause

Weird isn’t it ….I know it's getting a bit more fashionable….but the bottom line is no one wants to be menopausal. And no one wants to discuss it. It’s not sexy, it’s not glamorous, you don’t look good, you don’t feel good….by varying degrees. I had never even heard of perimenopausal until I was. These are just some ….. yes some …… of the symptoms: hot flushes, night sweats, anxiety, depression, mood swings, sleep problems, weight gain, wrinkles, thinning and greying hair, headaches, diminished sex drive, allergies, vaginal dryness, feelings of isolation, bloating, tiredness, and spots. And you lose your mind. Suddenly and without warning. It happened to me. I had it when I came in the house and by the time I’d walked into the kitchen I had no idea where I'd left it, why I was in there, where my keys were or what my name was. Or anyone else’s.

Why?

If you’re in a relationship then just at the point when your kids are flapping their wings, you are morphing into a grizzled-greying-exhausted-fat-sweating-husk of your former self, and your man will probably be eyeing up a Moto Guzzi and or a Ferrari, the twenty-something office temp called Carly, gym membership, chunky-silver-skull-themed jewellery and a piercing....or two. And if you’re single….. well good luck with that. Perhaps it should better be called: men-on-pause.......

Tracey Emin recently said the menopause is the beginning of dying and I have to agree with her, it can feel like that, it is the death of your reproductive years. According to Jill Shaw Ruddock, in her book: The Second Half of Your Life, we are all going to live a whole lot longer so we need to get through it and embrace the new found vim and vigour that could be waiting on the other side. Technically, the menopause is declared ‘official’ exactly 12 months to the day after your last menstrual cycle. The day after that…..you’re post-menopausal. However, the stop/start nature if this imprecise period, usually somewhere between 43-59, means you don’t know which period is your last period until you never have another one. And the symptoms may continue. The typical length of the whole transition is 5 years.

I hadn’t had a period for almost 2 years. Till Sunday. Just when I thought I was post-menopausal……..back to square one. But, oddly, I felt younger.

For those of you who have followed my recent theatrical adventures, thank you for your kind words ....good news, I have tickets for Love, Love, Love next week. Being old and irritable I rang the Royal Court again, to weep and gnash my teeth and the lovely girl said: oh yes we do have some tickets available for people who were cancelled. Really, I said, no one mentioned it before. Oh yes, she said, we didn’t then but we do now…..better seats but you can have them at the same price you originally paid…… result. Sometimes being old and irritable has it's moments.......

Top tip: Tracey Emin: She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea at Turner Contemporary, Margate.......go see her work the menopause.

The play's the thing ......

I was going to the theatre to see Mike Bartlett's, Love, Love, Love and I was very, very excited about it. I really, really wanted to see it. I went to work in the sunshine smiling. But I thought to myself, I do hope it's not cancelled because it's sold out, what would they do? I never think that when I go to the theatre. A few hours later I recieved an email saying that night's performance was cancelled, an actor could not go on for personal reasons. No understudies at the Royal Court so no show, run sold out, awfully sorry............ whatever happened to the show must go on? Surely rule number one in the acting book of rules, no? I was very upset. I was mortified. I am not good with dissappointment. I've never been good with disappointment. As a child when it rained on our picnic and we were told we could go to the cinema instead, I was the inconsolable child. Being good with dissappointment is a good skill to have as life is more often than not, disappointing. I do not have this skill. Everything was ruined. And thing was, my mate Matthew offered me a ticket the week before and I said no thanks, I'm going next week......


The friend I was going to the theatre with suggested we go see a screeing of Britain In A Day at the BFI as her husband worked on it. A series of clips filmed by all sorts of people in all sorts of places doing all sorts of thing over 24 hours. It will be on TV in June on BBC2. It was good, very moving. A bit bleak. I did cry. And laugh. But it wasn't Love, Love, Love.

I woke too early this morning then fell back to sleep. And slept too late. I dreamt of people in the wrong place and spaniel dogs and I was angry and I couldn't move and the sky was pale and bright and blue and I could see the ghost-white moon and then other planets, many planets in the pale blue sky, and I said to my son, I have never seen this before, and we looked up and then I woke up. I felt leaden, bed-crumpled and my head ached. 

But the sun was still shining and so I actually abandoned my socks for the first time this year and went to work. I bought wholemeal sour dough bread from Ottolenghi and avocados and baby gem lettuce and Emmental cheese and honey roast ham and tomatoes and made a sandwich and sat in the park at lunch time. With my toes in the sun. But it wasn't as good as Love, Love, Love......

Top tip: Go outside ....... who knows how long it will last.

Age cannot wither her…but does make her bloody tierd….

Everyone seems to be saying the same thing .......  it’s been a long week. I think it's the weather. It's exhausting.

I went to a Christening at Emmanuel College in Cambridge and the sun actually shone for my friend’s son. We went on the train. A late marriage quickly followed by a much wanted baby meant it was a very special day. There were ducks on the lawn. Our party had swelled for the return. We bought wine at the station M&S and continued the celebration with a train- party on the journey home.

I met someone some weeks ago but I don’t know if we're dating or not. It's perplexing me and so I made a triple layer, Devil’s Food cake for my boy's birthday, with white chocolate frosting, from a recipe in the Magnolia Bakery Cook Book. I didn’t know I was making a triple layer cake because I hadn’t read it properly. I had enough frosting to ice most of north London.

I had dinner with friend’s and drank too much wine because the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not had not called. So, I decided I wasn't dating him. When I got home I discovered I had a missed call from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not, hoping we were still on for our date at the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican. So, I decided I was dating him. 

I went to the cinema and saw Blackthorn, the story Butch Cassidy seeing out his retirement in Bolivia, and fell in love with Sam Shepard. Again. And Bolivia. When I was in Argentina this time last year, I travelled north to Salta, near the border with Bolivia and drank mate surrounded by the hills of 7 colours and walked on the salt flats, pretending I was Etta Place. And I wished I was there again.

I went to the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican with the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not. It was a delight. We went for a noisy drink in The Slaughtered Lamb but we are old and it was loud. So we went for a quiet drink in St. John Bar & Restaurant. It reminds me of being in New York. And I wished I was there again.

A confusing good-bye from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not left me confused. The drama kept me awake. So when I got home from work I picked some rhubarb from my yard and made Raspberry & Rhubarb Crumble Cakes with Marscapone. And ate them on the sofa watching Episodes and Graham Norton and I thought, if you have to wonder if you're dating someone or not then the answer is probably in the question....

Top tip: Go see: Jeff Who Lives At Home…..made me laugh, made me cry and Susan Sarandon looks brilliant…the woman’s 65!!

Singing in the rain........

"I can't see you this weekend." he said, gravely.
"Oh," she said, "right."
"You're going to be so envious," he said, the smile returning to his voice, "when I tell you where I'm going this weekend."
"Really." she said, wishing he hadn't phoned.
"Yeah, I'm going away for the weekend."
"Where are you going for the weekend?"
"Oh you're going to be so envious."
"So, where are you going."
"I'm going to Paris." he said.
"Right. Great. Paris. Great." she paused, wishing she hadn't answered the phone. "Right."
"Yeah, I'm going to see my friend, you know," the smile had become a grin, "the one I told you about?"
She thought for a moment.
"Chloe." she said.
"Yeah, it's been booked for ages. I booked it ages ago."
She thought for another moment.
"Great."
"Mmmm, yeah." he said, tentatively, "going to meet her new man."
She didn't speak.
"The American." he said.
"Right."
"Yeah," he said gravely, "hope it doesn't rain," trying to make the trip a less enviable prospect, "probably will."
"Does it matter?" she said, "It's Paris."

I found a large bottle of vintage port and a box of 'intensely chocolatey' French truffles on my desk, a note saying: thank you so much. .....for fixing up the mess and covering the ass of my young colleague while she was away on her 3 week holiday.


Top tip: How About I Be Me (You Be You) Sinead O'Connor's latest album will keep you dancing round the kitchen on even the wettest days.