Heat has been restored, I could have kissed the plumbing engineer who did it. After six days of no heating, our house felt clammy and bone-chilling. I developed a physical hunch; that natural reaction to the cold in which we scrunch up our shoulders. Today, in a show of decadence I kept the heat going all day long, relishing the walk from room to room with no temperature differential. This winter seems interminable.
My children returned to school, we enter another half term of early mornings. At least there's the prospect of Spring to keep us going. I find in my own mind that the prospect of 'something on the horizon' for me is making the present a whole lot more tolerable. Proving once again that it's all in the mind. How I regard life is how life is. I handed in my applications today for the writing course.
Meanwhile, I am wondering, frankly, if I am too old to wear Nike Air Max as a fashion item?! And also, why everything I buy to wear this winter is black? Am I in mourning (for my 30's)? Black is to my wardrobe what white is to my house. The chance for a clean slate? The simplest, most pared-back version?
I am approaching my 41st birthday next month! After all of the fanfare of turning 40, this one feels more grounded and honestly, being 40 has been a BIG adjustment. This adjustment presents itself subtly, almost imperceptibly, but it's definitely there. A curious thing, this getting older.
So life goes on, I roast a midweek chicken for dinner; we pull the wishbone and my son always wins. Fact. I surreptitiously order wardrobe staples from Boden (confirming my middle-England sensibility). All in black. I call my friend Natalie, who lives too far away for a soothing kitchen-table cuppa tea but who I spend hours chatting to on the phone, like we are teenagers from the 1980's. I read book after book; this week it's 'Middlesex'; I am 20 pages in. I, on daily basis, lament the clean/cook/clean process that unfolds even though I know: this is how it works! I make it, they eat it, we (I) clean it.
I listened to a radio discussion about whether women find playing with their young children boring. I have to put my hands up and say, yes guilty, that was me. I wonder if every mother has a phase which suits them best. For some it's those snuffly baby days, for some it's toddlers, for some they reach their pinnacle in the era of the school mum. For some it's teen. Some hit their stride when they have young adults. Who knows? I am still trying to work out when my phase is. This could be it.
I watched the Vanity Fair Oscar footage on Snapchat (how modern am I?) and thought it's been a long time since I was at a party wearing high heels.
Happy Tuesday.
