writer's moll

Blimey, I just reached sixty and can’t believe how quickly I got there. A random selection of stuff, alphabetically arranged, goes something like this:

Angst, anger, alcohol and adverbs – First two have decreased, whilst consumption of the third has increased. As to the last one, I’ve belatedly, though grudgingly, completely accepted that I use too many, but I can't go cold turkey and give them up altogether.

Books - I could never have got through the entertainment-free zone of my childhood, the boring bits of child-rearing, good days, rainy days or bouts of melancholia without them. I still love my long time favourite Wuthering Heights but have found another desert island choice with the recent discovery of Maurice Paléologue’s An Ambassador’s Memoirs, which gives a wonderfully intimate account of his time as the last French Ambassador in St. Petersburg. Somehow, whether describing his meetings with the Tsar, confiding the gossip from the royal drawing rooms, or on Rasputin and his cronies or reporting the horrors of the war front, he gives the book an almost thriller like quality. I’ve read it three times already.

Clichés - I’ve become a spotter of them (it’s warmer than train spotting and you don’t have to wear an anorak) so I now avoid them like the plague, because at the end of the day, the bottom line is, that it’s not rocket science to be able to make your point without using them.

Duty –On a scale of 1 to 10 I don’t suppose my sense of duty would register higher than 5 at a push. I may berate myself, as I did recently for failing to visit my dying brother often enough in hospital, but I still choose guilt over the pain of doing something I don’t want to do – in this case watch a once forceful man whither away to a wordless skeleton. Though I know it was wrong, the truth is that given the situation again, I’d probably do the same.

Eyesight – It used to be excellent and I showed off by offering to thread the smallest needle for anyone. Now I can’t see the needle, but who cares, I don’t like sewing any more anyway.

Education – When I got a second husband, I also got a second, better education. He introduced me to art, architecture, Open University and that formerly exclusive and for me, unthinkable destination, the Mediterranean, encouraged me to write, where previously I'd been so inhibited that even my doodles were done as inconspicuously as possible in the corner of the page and taught me, in his delightfully subtle manner, how less can be more.

French - My schoolgirl flirtation with it became a full blown love affair, although hopes of mastering it are just as distant. I don’t really need a French tutor, but a psychotherapist – verre de vin, schmerre de vin - no problem, but I’m shy and unconfident, so I shop at the supermarket and that way I don’t have to talk to anyone. But now that I spend so much time in France, I get to criticise it in the same way that you’re allowed to criticise your kids – because they’re part of you and you love them.

Guilt –Dame Edna Everidge reckons that the English never go out without their haversack of guilt. The funny thing is that every time you acquire a new source, none of the old stuff falls out the bottom, so why isn’t there a point when entry is blocked by a notice saying “sorry, full up"? So, for all the terrible things you may have done to your children, your guilt lies festering, like non-biodegradable nappies, until you die.

Grudges - Ha, got a positive here cos I have stopped holding them - life really is too short.

Health – Luck seems to play a part in what kind you get, and despite having had my fair share of illness and surgery, I still feel lucky that I’ve always recovered quickly and feel fit and well. My poor, non-smoking, scarcely drinking, 34 year old son has not been so lucky and last year made the grim discovery that a persistent ulcer was cancer and needed the removal of his tongue.

Happiness – I visualise the set of things needed to make us happy rather like those graphs you get showing election results – hollow blocks that fill up with blue, red, yellow, green or other colour according to the percentages that each political party has won. Except that here, it's the more difficult to define ingredients of personal relationships, job satisfaction, creative fulfilment or acquisitiveness that fill up the blocks, but each block can only hold its own characteristic, so when full, can’t spill over to make up a shortfall in another. If you're lucky enough to have blocks with the right combination and proportions for you, happy days! I've still got some topping up to do on some of mine.