You Know What You Should Do

 

 



 

 I am sat here this evening, a vision in a gentlemen's dressing gown. I'd rather like a more feminine article, but so far I haven't taken the plunge. You know me and the art of procrastination. I probably have a list of ones I've liked and where I liked them somewhere.

There were goldfinches feasting on the dandelion seed heads in the grass this afternoon. Much squabbling ensued as they fought for the best patch of grass. I was wrestling with assembling my new lawn mower at the time. The old one having finally given up the ghost last week. It must have been at least a quarter of a century old. My Auntie Julie gave it, and lots of gardening tools to us before she emigrated to Australia the year Sam was born. So as I sat on the rug in the conservatory, swearing quietly at the very unhelpful instructions, I was struck at the sweet serendipity of it all.

I am not an assembler. Not a good one anyway. I'm not much cop at assembling myself. While waiting for Olly to come out of his class at the end of school, I noticed that I had dirty patches on my trousers from kneeling on all fours while scrubbing floors that morning. And splatters from the Flash with bleach that I like to spray around the house with gay abandon. It's a requirement in a house full of boys. It was all rather unkempt with a bit of middle aged haywire thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, there I stood musing away when someone felt the need to give me nutritional advice. I don't know why. I didn't ask for any. In fact only last week I purged the house of all cookery books pertaining to the delicious,  the glowing or  the quitting of sugar. I felt cleansed. It was better than a detox any day of the week. It was like telling them all to go boil their heads and leave me alone with my wobbly tummy and dodgy thighs.

I stood and nodded and smiled, because that's what I do when offered uninvited advice. That often starts with 'you know what you should do' and ends with me punching them in the face. Except not really. I never punch them. Well sometimes I do. In my mind. Not in real life. In real life I'm actually very restrained and lovely ;))  I smile a lot, and I laugh loudly. I'll notice if you look pretty, or had your hair cut. I can sense sadness and defeat. I'll not offer advice, but I'll listen and give you my full and undivided attention. I'm a massive shrew, but only with my friend Liz. Who brings out the worst in me, and I'm terribly thankful for it.

In fact now I think about it, I've been offered a lot of helpful advice lately. It ranges from the hairstyle that would suit me (a kind of rock chick messy bob apparently. I thought it already was. Minus the rock chick bit). To why a bit of make up would really perk up my looks. Can I just say for the record that while I have nothing against make up, I really don't like the feel of it on my skin. Also I never seem to get it right. I don't really know what I'm doing. So I don't. And I'm quite happy with it. It just bugs me that other people aren't. Why do they care?

This weekend has been glorious and awful in equal measure. The above pictures show some of the glorious. My frayed edges carry the awful. It was a sobbing into my husband's shoulder awful. It was more of the same, with a extra helping of for fucks' sake thrown in for good measure. This week is all about a deep breath, a steeling of the shoulders and marching back into battle. Because sometimes all you can do is dig your heels in and keep walking in a straight line.

I leave you with a quote from my favourite film...

"You know what we should do."

 

"How could I possibly know what we should do. What should we do?"

 

"Get out of it for a while. Rejuvenate."

 

"Rejuvenate? I'm in a park and I'm practically dead!"

 

(Withnail & I)

 

 

 Leanne xx



(I should apologise for my last post. I realised yesterday that half of it had been deleted and the rest was all in the wrong place. So sorry if it seemed rather abrupt. It wasn't meant to be so. And thank you for your comments and kind words).