On the floor...

At the back of my mind…

Is the thought that I have signed a Terms of Settlement this week which included the clause that carriage of sale of the house would be jointly between the go solicitors and that we would both agree to be bound by that which means they sell our house for whatever price they agree, both solicitors take fees and we have no say in the sale of our home. I sign it, in gut-wrenching fear and trepidation, thinking; this is what I have to do, legally, I am crunched up with anxiety, not sleeping, trying to push it all to the back of my mind, endlessly repeating the mantra which seems futile now;’ everything will work out, everything is happening for  my highest good.. The reality is that I am sleeping, waking anxiety. Out of breath, panicking, wondering what will happen. I’m used to working hard, I’m used to be the one who earns, I’m used to being the one who takes care of everything and now I’m scared. Really, really scared. The house I worked so hard to pay for, my home, MY HOME, I snow under the control of 2 solicitors. And whatever they agree with whatever estate agent ….How has it come to this? There is no conflict with regard to assets, no battle…why should 2 solicitors divvy up what I have worked so hard for, take 2 commissions, sell the house to??? and take their fees? It feels so wrong and I feel so wrong, that we would be bound by whatever price and any means that two solicitors should sell the house for whatever price, via whatever estate agent, and that we should be bound by their decision. I sign the document, and spend every waking moment in fear of what may happen,. I have signed away control of my life…I can’t bear this, yet I must if this is the legal requirement.  More than anything. this gets to  me. I have signed away control of my home, of my life of the last 25years, to 2 solicitors. And it feels wrong, so totally, totally, wrong. It’s not like we were in dispute, I’d agreed a 50/50 split.

I’m scared and I’m not sleeping, not sleeping. Control of my life is now between two solicitors because my solicitor told me this is how it has to be and I know no different, and I’m already upset and heartbroken by all this. And I don’t know what else to do because if this is what the legal process requires then this is what I have to do even if it leaves me lying on the floor in a foetal position, consumed with anxiety and helplessness. That’s the worst of it. I feel helpless. My life my marriage, my home….Now 2 x solicitors control all. And I feel worse than ever. All that I have worked so hard for, all the pain, all my life-handed over to a legal process. I am doubled over with anxiety in my bed, crunched up with the pain in my gut. All I am left with is an irrational hope, a crazy hope, that it will all turn out ok, because it must. It must. Mustn’t it?

Cake

Credits:
Baked by; A.D.
 Iced and decorated by; B.C.
 Eaten  by; M.E.
Merry Christmas everybody

Serious stuff

The Incident

Something happened and I can’t make sense of it. I have tried and tried to remember, I have scraped the walls of my memory but no images, no logic stream, nothing comes that helps me say; yes, that is what happened. I cannot make sense of it at all.

Friday evening; My best friend and I were on a night out. “It’ll do you good to get out” she’d said. “A club, entertainment, a few drinks, a fundraising night for a good cause we both support.” I’d eaten dinner, dressed up, put on make up, high heels.  “You look gorgeous” she’d said when she called for me in the taxi.

The night was fun, music, laughter. We had a few glasses of wine each. Me being me, I’d also consumed a tube of cheese and sour cream potato crisps.  Off she went to talk to some people she hadn’t seen for a while. The place was jammed. I got up to dance in front of the stage with all the others who fancied a bop.

I flopped back down, panting, and people watched. Noticed a man lounging at the door. I thought he was staring over at me, although I didn’t recognise him.  Suddenly I felt a bit unwell.  I went to the loo and it was if the room darkened, as if someone dimmed the lights. I felt really weird. I felt as if my knees were buckling. Something was wrong. I remember taking out my ‘phone and trying to call my friend. I had the ‘phone in my hand, but somehow I couldn’t figure out how to use it. I could not make the connection between brain and hand. I tried and tried to think but I couldn’t figure it out.

She came looking for me and found me in the Ladies. I heard her speak but it was like I was under water – moving and listening underwater. She got a taxi and got me into it. Got me home.  In the garden, the legs went from under me. Up to my bedroom. Legs went again and I fell against the mirrored door of the wardrobe. Got into bed.  I still had the ‘phone in my hand.  

Next day; I eventually struggled up out of bed. My right hip was very badly bruised from falling without any ability to protect myself or cushion the fall.  The small toe on my right foot broken was broken – I knew from the pain. The wardrobe mirror wouldn’t have disgraced the Lady of Shallot. When I managed to make it downstairs, I found my glasses lying in mud in the garden, broken. I was in bits. Worst of all, I had no idea what had happened.  I didn’t have a hangover, which I would have had if I’d been that badly affected by the wine we’d drunk.

Over the course of a long night, 7 pm -12 pm, we’d each had 4 glasses of wine. I’d eaten dinner before I went out. I’d eaten snacks. I’d had glasses of water as well. She was perfectly ok at the end of the night, I wasn’t.

Over the week, I’ve talked about it. A work colleague told me himself and another guy had been in a bar, drinking cocktails. He woke up in hospital, broken collarbone and other injuries; he’d walked out under a car. His friend had made it back to their apartment, where he’d sat in front of the front door, key in hand, but couldn’t figure out how to connect the key to the door… My blood ran cold…

The hospital had told him (they took blood tests) that it was rohypnol…afterwards the police figured it was intended for the two girls at the next table.

I don’t know what happened to me that night. I know I went out, ate, drank, talked, danced…It never occurred to me to have myself tested, even if I had been in a fit enough state to do that. All I know is, I went out to enjoy myself and ended up bruised, upset and wondering what the hell had happened.

Bruises heal, broken toes heal, broken glass and broken glasses can be mended. I stood in the kitchen in desperate need of a hug. I wrapped my arms around myself and gave myself a hug as best I could, desperately wishing for a re-assuring , warm pair of arms around me… What else could I do? There was no one else to give me a hug. Well there was but hugs were not on the agenda.

Cooler heads and psychologists have since suggested that I was drugged (by accident or design) or might have suffered a neurological event. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to me that night. I set out looking good, feeling good. I will never know.

But in between see-sawing between awful scenarios, I know this; my friend was there, my Guardian Angel was there, I was ok.  And when I’m scraping the walls of my memory trying to remember what actually happened, I wrap my arms round myself and  comfort myself with the thought of what didn’t happen. Thank God.

I was with Blister 2, going over it all again. I don’t understand, I said. I’m going over and over it in my mind, but I don’t understand. Build a bridge and get over it, she said. It’s past. You’re ok. And so I have to get over the worry and the shame of not knowing what happened to me, and move on. I know I did nothing wrong, I feel it. But I will never know, never be able to make sense of it

Laughter and Fears

Laughter and Fears

Well, I did it. I stood up in front of about 100 people and did my thing.

I put my name down for the open mic night in the city centre, re-wrote my piece 30 times, learned it off by heart, rehearsed to make it look spontaneous, re-wrote, panicked, re-wrote, rehearsed in front of the bedroom mirror with props and clothes, freaked out, and practised having A POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE and CONSIDERING THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN. Considered withdrawing my name, then decided to go for it. If I fall flat on my face, and I will – apart from anything else I haven’t a big chest to stop my nose hitting the floor -then at least I can say I tried. Strike it off the list. 

Some family and friends came. We sat at little tables in candlelight. Have a glass of wine to steady your nerves, some said - more likely to unsteady my feet and make me forget my lines. I asked the MC to put me on early, to get the agony over with.  I was the last “act” before the interval. When he announced me, and said “Now we’ll have some comedy from - “ a huge weight of expectation fell on me.  I stood in front of the mike and began, hoping neither my voice nor my hands nor my knees would shake. Started talking, addressing the front row of little candlelit tables. There was laughter. There was laughter! When I finished, there was lots of applause and cheering, not all of it from my supporters.

Afterwards I was buzzing. High on adrenaline. High on applause.  Delighted and so grateful for the support from my family and friends.  People I didn’t know stopped me on the stairway and in the Ladies room and said kind words to me.

When I got home, the Prince of Darkness was still up, sitting at his PC. How did you get on, he said. So I told him; the MC said I got the biggest cheer of the night. “That’s only because you had rent-a-crowd with you”, he said. My bubble deflated…

The following day, a man I knew to be a part-time actor and director called me. He had slipped in to the Open Mike night unseen and sat behind the sound engineers. He had heard them discussing the acts; apparently I had been their favourite. As for his opinion; your material was brilliant, he said, but your performance was a little bit (a little bit!) nervous. I can help you with that.  If you can write about an hour or an hour and a half of material, why not put on a one woman show in one of the small pub theatres?

I forbore to tell him that present times being what they are, I spend more time crying than I do laughing. But I was thrilled, thrilled, thrilled by his words. Once again, I was as high as a kite and felt good about myself.  I couldn’t wait to tell my friends in the Writing Group. I knew they’d be thrilled for me as well.

I’d done it. I’d taken the leap, taken the chance and it had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  Plus I’d put another brick in the wall of self-esteem. Result! Maybe the books were having an effect after all…

Ah here, you want jam on it...

Ah here, you want jam on it…

Today I called in to Blister 2 and explained my needs. Could she lend me a rolling pin? What do you mean; you don’t have a rolling pin? What else don’t you have? Have you a pastry brush to put the jam on the cake even? No I don’t have a pastry brush. Well that’s what you’re getting for Christmas – what else don’t you have? Well I don’t have a vegetable brush either, I said. Bet you don’t even have a bread knife, she said. Well I definitely don’t have a bread bin I said.  Or a wooden spoon, which is what someone told me is ESSENTIAL to every kitchen…What! She shrieked.

By now Niece 2, a witness to all this, is shrieking with laughter. 

What would I use a pastry brush FOR? I ask.   I don’t make pastry. God you’re hopeless, she said.

Not at all, it’s completely logical to me; Plan B; buy packets of ready made marzipan, packets of ready made roll –out icing (no water to be added) icing sugar and more jam to stick it all to my new cake.

I left with a rolling pin and four cake ornaments; a Santa, a fir tree, a “Merry Christmas” sign and a holly leaf. Bring it on!

Nothing would do my lovely Bridge partner but that I bring the cake to her house to be decorated with her help. (Cake decoration under the supervision of a responsible adult?)

Ok - D Day!  I stand amazed. Educated. In awe.  She heated up the jam in a Bain Marie, cut out grease proof paper to the exact measurements of the cake sides/top, and spent ages rolling out the ready made marzo (she learned something too – that there was such a thing as ready made anything) and in one hour the cake was painted with warm sifted apricot jam using a regulation pastry brush and the marzo was applied – and didn’t fall off. Apparently “The Cake” must now reside on her sideboard for a few days while today’s paint job dries.  (Is this what Michelangelo had to do with the Sistine Chapel?  Just askin’)

 In a few days Step 3; the ready roll white icing can be overlaid. According to Bridge Partner, four ornaments are perfect for a square cake- one at each corner. So all will be shimmery and symmetry… I’ll put a photo (with credits of course) on the blog when The Creation is complete. Then I’m going to eat it. Well ok I’ll try to restrain myself till Christmas - Eve. But I’m not making any promises…Or maybe I should break a bottle of champagne over it and launch it…like the Titanic…

The truespirit of Christmas...

The true Spirit of Christmas…

The talk last week in the Bridge Club was all of making cakes, making puddings, making mince pies…I related the tale of my culinary misadventures. North was apparently a master of the kitchen table as well as of the Bridge table, where she certainly takes no prisoners. If you can read you can cook, she said. All you need to do is follow a recipe. I’ve never found it that simple, I say. 

This week said Bridge Master approached me before the Turkey Competition began. See me after the game, she said. Make sure you speak to me before you go.  Am I in trouble, I laughed. Just make sure to see me before you leave, she iterated.

After being blitzed due to the fact that I and my partner were listed to play with the bloody A players, masters, grand masters and what have you, we knew there was no chance of a turkey. Or even the giblets. Or the bottle of wine, or the box of chocolates. There was only one thing for it. Hit the pub on the way home and de-stress/de-adrenalize/drown our sorrows. Before we left, I threaded my way between the tables and waited until the Grand Master addressed me. I have something for you, she said and with that, handed me -a Christmas cake.

Thank you so much, I said as I hugged and kissed this person I only know from coming up against her in the Bridge Club and coming off worst at every encounter. What kindness. It’s not iced, you’ll have to do that yourself, she said. The cake was large, square and heavy; a real, proper Christmas cake.  I thanked her again, and told her that I forgave her for annihilating me at the Bridge. J