And so I can feel my energy returning.
From not being able to put one foot in front of the other I have managed to start seeing, smelling and feeling again.
Yesterday two women I haven’t had in my kitchen for nearly 20 years, came for tea, they took home baskets of apples from my trees and two chutney recipes. Battersea felt like a continent away..
I then met with a new woman from the Bunny Lane Farm Shop; red lipstick, red coat, life well lived, sense of humour, wit, we met for a cuppa in ‘Juliets’ in TWells.
‘Juliets’ – Ah! a perfect replacement for Battersea Square.
Tea-cups and saucers that dont necessarily match, large fresh hand-made salads, waitresses that call you darling, real tea, fancy tea-pots and the biggest, bestest Victoria sponge this side of Balmoral.
Getting a table at lunchtime means having to fight your way through mothers, babies called Digby, handbags, women whose husbands manouver their chairs under the table and really well turned out ladees who lunch, this is Tunbridge Wells after all..
I had a pot of camomile tea and a very good chin-wag with the red-lipped female who is destined to make life in Twells as enjoyable as I could never have imagined.
Ad Infinitum
Sleeping on the Line….
Today I had a bath at lunchtime. Haven’t done that for years.
Lay in the foamy water and forgave myself for my inability to do anything, anything at all. Not even look for the book that gives instructions for my DAB radio. At the moment I can listen to Danny Baker, Ken Bruce or Schuman’s Piano Concerto in A minor on Radio 3. I had the square cube of digital wirelessness next to my bed in the flat, now it sits on the dresser next to the marzipan figurine of me – complete with beauty spot on my left bosom- made by Andrew Nutter when GFL came to an end.
I didn’t collect the dry cleaning. I didn’t go shopping. I didn’t go to the gym, didn’t call people back. The fact is that I am now totally knackered. The move is over so the recovery begins.
TTFN
As the ‘oosbind and dawter watch Komodo dragons eat their way through a dying water buffalo it’s time for an update.
The cellar is full of unwanted kitchen equipment, plates, bowls, tureens, sieves, knives, forks, big spoons, little spoons and a forest of wooden spoons.
The chest of drawers at the bottom of the stairs has an array of electrical equipment that can rival Dixons, Curreys and Harrods 330 versions of a juicer.
The sitting room has a new revolving rack, a new lamp, several thousand new CD’s, three more bean bags, eighty three thousand books and Gawd knows how many cushions.
The kitchen has been blitzed, re-stocked with fourteen hundred spice bottles, seventeen thousand oil bottles and a pantechnican of teabags.
The bathroom is a slalem of bath salts, bath oils, bath bubbles and creams.
The spare room now has a hat-stand sporting coats, scarves, jackets, macintoshes, and a hundredweight of Gods Gift’s charity shirts.
My bedroom is stuffed to the gunwales with more shoes than Clarks and more clothes than Primarni.
The studio has 35 years worth of dairies, hoards of sheet music, 1 cello, 2 saxophones, 3 bodhrains, 4 xylophones, 5 sets of fairy lights, 6 guitars, 7 whistles, 8 piano octaves, 9 cases of percussion and 10 reasons to be cheerful which includes a banjo, congas, synthesiser and a double bass – all hidden under so much ivy, Virginia creeper and nettles that the brambles that have taken over would shame even the hardiest of barbed wire.
The Big Clean up
Boxes boxes everywhere and ne’re an inch to think. The trilling of the dawn chorus – ooh! I’d forgotten how loud it is here in East Sussex. After three moves we’re nearly out. I’ve still got my duvet, bathroom pots and a handful of clothes in the flat the rest of my life is packaged … Read more
Another suitcase another hall…..
The television has gone from the corner of the sitting room. The rug, the pictures, the clock, the big table, the armchair, the cushions, the colour, the mirrors, the atmosphere. The room is very big and beige. So big that without my glasses I can’t see clearly from the door to the windows.
But I still managed to step on the only glass in the flat.
It made me shriek.
The colony of moths that took residence in the red rug are now homeless and bothering me by flying into my hair. Pesky varmints.
My blood sugar is as high as an elephants thigh and my eye continues to weep for Wales.
After breakfast in the square, an Aero Chocolate bar at East Croydon Station and butter mints in the car, its not surprising I feel sick.
Rhyme nor reason.
Worra time of it. A moving of the clothes A moving of the clothes A moving of the clothes Oh! A moving of the clothes… I’ve been listening to Steel Eye Span!!!! For the last eight days I have been Packing, working, Weeping, sleeping. Driving, striving, Closing down. Talking, walking, Watching, clocking Thinking, drinking, Closing … Read more
Pigeon Toes
Gods Gift drove us to a 70th birthday do at THE GROVE in Watford.
Imagine twenty very noisy friends and family.
Imagine a dining hall full of tables with the same.
Imagine people who like to eat seated round those tables.
Imagine balloons and bouquets at the tables where celebratory parties gather to sample the buffet.
Imagine flowers and vases and Eastern European waiters.
Imagine whistles and finger clicks to get the attention of the aformentioned
Imagine the heat and the fuss.
Now imagine the buffet.
Shell fish, smoked fish, pickled fish and mussels.
Red pickles, green pickles, mayonnaise and chutney.
Russian salad, fennel salad, green salad and beetroot.
Bloody beef, bloody lamb, bloody Hell more meat than graze the ranges of Wyoming.
Imagine mountains or crispy roasted potatoes and plains of Yorkshire puddings.
Imagine hot woks and super-sized serving tongs that spring off into the gravy.
Imagine a chef wearing a white hat stir-frying your very own vegetable selection.
Imagine cheeses, and bread and more cheese and even more bread.
Imagine Ethiopia.
Imagine plates piled high with food and then some.
Imagine super-sized eaters shuffling to get their third helping.
Imagine cheese-cake, fruit-tarts, pear-crumble, fresh berries.
Imagine the colon of the guests.
Imagine water and wine.
Imagine stained white linen napkins.
Imagine the grounds.
Sculpture and lily ponds.
Flunkies on the hoof, sycophants in reception.
Imagine the bill.
Garra Rufa fish pie
Sarah Laleham’s comments about me leaving LBC was a bit harsh I thought. Do read them dear bloggers and wonder, like I did, who Ms Murray is? It always intrigues me when somebody writes a nasty cyber blog why they are then not contactable.
Dear Ms Laleham I would assert that you are a lilly livered coward who hides beyhnind the anonymity of cyberspace.
I, however, put it out there, in the open, free and gratis for whomsoever wishes to participate.
And participate they did at my first ever evening at Grouchos. I invited 59 people – who showed up – and a further army of friends and relatives who were either in Bali, Uckfield, or bed nursing whatever virus is spinning round at the moment.
Having taken my clothes off in the snooker room in May my forfeit, as a member of The Groucho Club, was to entertain in the dining room for the delectation of Bernie Katz and his bar staff.
My watery eye was a distraction, but Jo Parkerson – she of LBC showbiz understatement – fielded the questions and guided me ever deeper into the lunacy of my life.
I could not sleep until 4.00 a.m. with the excitment of it all. I loved doing it. It is a bit like stand up and several of my audience members encouraged me to take up the cudgel of the lonliest job in the world, which I may well do. When I watch the film back, made by the lovely Vee and Katy for The Barry, I may decide to continue my Izzard/Rivers journey or jack it all in and become a painter and decorator….which is what I have been doing since Monday.
Lachrymate me a River
Dear Joanna, I am not in the slightest bit depressed, confused, knackered, sad and excited, not necessarily in that order, is my state of play at the moment. But depressed I am not.
I am in the middle of the move.
I have cleared my office. It echoes when I type.
I have cleared my bedroom. It echoes when I snore.
I have cleared the living room. It echoes when I shout at the Murdochs.
I have been to my doctor, an optician and a pharmacist. They all looked at my eye and told me I need to go to a hospital. So on Tuesday I am spending a fortune on having it cleaned, cleared, syringed and sandblasted so I can stop dribbling tears in my porridge.
I am having to go private because the Coalitions waiting list to have a routine clean is so long I will me lachrymating till September the 28th by which time I will have cried so many rivers my cheek will have an oxbow lake indented in it.
I could go and sit in casualty for a day or so but who has that kind of time.
NOT MOI!!!
Rowleys
I went to visit LBC last week. Courtney, the guy on security, hugged me, broke seven of my ribs and hugged me again. Sent me up in the lift and I climbed out on the third floor. Of course I burst into tears, it was as if I had never left.
I hugged Matt, and Jessie, I hugged Declan and Dan, I hugged Chris and a phalanx of LBC’ers, all of whom made me blub even more.
I left the third floor to take the stairs to meet Jo Parkerson but she had left – was on maternity leave – I turn my back and…..
So I met up with Jo a day later, cuddled her delicious baby Lois, and we sat and talked, munched on salad in Leicester square, shared water and vowed to see each other again.
LBC was such an important part of my life, when I walked out of the doors into Leicester Square I felt the loss all over again.
However the move from the flat is keeping me busy and I cannot deny the satisfaction I get from working at BBC London. Esther and the crew are warm, supportive and really good at their jobs. So I have leapt from one hot frying pan into another….