Laureate

Carol Ann Duffy came to read to us last night as part of the Festival. In fact she generously agreed to come at short notice when Ruth Padel pulled out a few weeks ago (leaving the Festival 'up s**t creek without a Padel' as the fellow who introduced her put it...)

Carol Ann was a revelation in the flesh, having seemed to me a little chilly on radio and tv. She is not chilly at all, in fact is warm, sexy, and very very funny! She reads beautifully, and in her The World's Wife poems, written from the perspective of Mrs Midas, Mrs Aesop, Mrs Darwin, her comic timing was superb. Her gravitas deeply moving in a poem about her mother, her passion palpable in the love poems from Rapture, our copy of which she later signed in the bar.

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I'm tired to the core.

The therapy is beginning to reach inside.

We are once again busy and worn out with house-moving possibilities. A house whose garden we like but which is a couple of miles away in the next village, a house we looked at before that needs loads doing to it but is up near the moors, full of light, and has enormous potential (as they say...)... and meanwhile another viewing here on Sunday. The last three have led to nothing, so who knows? These people apparently live in Hong Kong and want to buy a property to let, as an investment... Not sure why they want to buy it here, but I dare say we'll find out...

Some Serious Knitting Of The Ravelled Sleave Of Care

And then I got sick. It began with whirling dizziness in the early hours of Sunday and the havoc that plays with one's stomach and general well-being. Continued with an extended stint of sleeping for England. Most of the day and all of the night. And now continues with swollen glands, warm cotton wool in the head and still fairly heroic sleeping efforts. It has meant postponing three important meetings tomorrow, the meetings where we review with the schools how the last year has gone. Inconvenience for several people. But the meetings can and will be rearranged. And I just need to sleep. The niggle of feeling bad about letting everyone down can be managed. Is gradually approaching the vanishing point now.

Sadly I am also missing a Klezmer band called Klonk, but luckily the Festival has many more delights in store and I made L promise to buy a CD if they are good.

I went to sleep after she went out. But was woken by a car alarm, which persisted for half an hour, drove me out of bed to make camomile tea and come up here to visit blogistan. But someone has either returned to the vehicle or alternatively it has been smashed by irate neighbours or vapourised by aliens. Anyway, it has stopped disturbing me, so I shall now return to the important business of slumber.

Stand Alone

Friday! Finally... Working from home this morning, then off to supervise one of my team, followed by shopping at Asda!! Then maybe a bit more work if I can persuade myself, then it's the weekend, and Hebden Bridge Arts Festival starts tonight, with a performance by the Dhol Foundation. Big drumming bhangra music, so should be another dancing opportunity.

I am still very weary and now have PMT into the bargain. I long for some sustained time off to digest and absorb, ponder and dream. For now, only a weekend, but it's only three weeks til the end of term, and then everything eases, and holiday is planned.

Already it is very clear that the key learning from the crisis is to take very seriously my need for time on my own. I could write screeds, but I should be starting work now, and I'm really really tired, so that will have to wait, but let's just say what happens to me is I get frantic inside if I don't take care of the need for solitude, for my own separate life, and become convinced the only way forward is to be entirely alone, to leave. It is utterly compelling, and also involves withdrawing so far from L that I forget how much I love her, so such a plan seems possible. Eventually the bubble bursts, I know I cannot leave, I know I love her, and, this time, I still know exactly how important it is we spend less time together. I am currently enjoying being with her more than I can remember in a long time. Also looking forward to going out with another friend tonight, and to being alone for a while on Saturday. L has promised to go away more, and we are back to looking for a bigger house. We are playing with other ideas for nurturing opportunities for separateness. Friends of a friend have a caravan some distance from their home, one of them can go off to when they feel the need. We still await our allotment. Maybe I need a 'writing studio'... Because, yes, it is out of the quiet, solitary place that the creativity comes. Poetry is in me waiting to emerge, but it doesn't if I don't stand alone a while and listen.

Longest Day

Saturday night I went to hear a wonderful ska band with friends, and danced myself sweaty and senseless. I came home to L looking more miserable than I think I've ever seen her.

We began the longest day early, with tea in bed, and finally really talked, and somehow the fever had broken, the tears could be shed, and love could once again flow. We are slowly recovering. Sleep has resumed, but I am still weary to my bones.

Wild Wind Blowing

Wild wind blowing round the roof all night, and my panic and distress culminated in 3am camomile tea and an ocean of tears. We had spent the evening as normally as possible, eating a good dinner and watching a programme on the i-player, and agreeing not to try and talk any more. But the un-talked about just jumped us at bedtime, and we ended up talking for ages in the middle of the night... I don't know what words to use. Crisis. Confusion. Turmoil. I can't see the way forward.

The new therapist lives on the beautiful edges of a town not too far away from here, is very reassuring, warm and attentive, and didn't say too much. Nor too little. Which is the way I like my therapists...

Mostly

I click new post then wonder what on earth to say. I long to fast forward or possibly rewind my life, to be anywhere but now. And that is why I keep drinking on weekdays (though not yesterday - small triumph). I know there has to be a way through this and life will continue, move on, settle into new shapes. For now it's mostly just hell.

More Drinking, More Midges And A Sicky

Another bad night for sleep. Awake from about 2.00 to 4.30 and then, after camomile tea at 3.30, eventually that awful fitful sleep, twenty minutes at a time, and more dreams of fire and explosions.

Spent the evening with E, my friend and neighbour from up the road, drinking wine on the bench down the road, in glorious sunshine and looking at the view down to Hebden and along the valley. Green green green at the moment. The midges didn't come to bother us til about 10.00. E is currently in the early and exciting stages of a new relationship. Decided to offer me tips to spice up my sex life! Some of them serious... We laughed a lot. Did me good.

Today I have gone off sick - pleading dizziness, which has intermittently been a problem, though actually not today. Not much of a sicky really, as I have to travel down South today for the organisation's annual conference tomorrow. I'll spend the evening with my Mum, stay overnight and then travel into London for the conference in the morning. If I don't sleep any better tonight I'll have trouble staying awake in a lecture theatre all day.

I have made an appointment to see a new therapist on Wednesday, with a mixture of reluctance and relief. I've been through this so many times, and it's hard work having to start over with someone new, but she comes recommended which makes all the difference... I feel I'm just carrying too much at the moment and though friends are great, they are also too close...