Watch me

I should buy a watch. I put my watch down somewhere - can't think where - and I turned around and it was September.
I should buy a watch because last week my baby girl started school, and I cried all the way home after she threw her arms around me and said "bye" and "love-you".
I should buy a watch because all of a sudden there are rosey and gold plums on my tree and blackberries at the roadside, and nobody told me that summer was over.

So - how's it hanging?
If you stop blogging, you lose your nerve. You are half-way along the wire in your sparkly tutu and the lights in the Big Top go out and you think "Maybe I'll just stay here and wait till they go on again." Except the lights don't go on again, and then you start thinking what exactly do you have that's worth saying anyway, that someone else couldn't say better - perhaps someone who didn't mix their metaphors? Though I have one advantage - I'm free. No paywall here. Oh no. I'd know if there was a paywall around my blog because I wouldn't be broke. Or maybe I would? I'm not entirely broke though, last night I went out and did a reading for the local Women's Institute, and they paid me with an iced lemon sponge with candied lemon slices, and a pot of home-made raspberry jam. And one of the ladies said "I read your book a couple of years ago - I enjoyed it." I really must buy that watch.

Big and little hands

I had another German lesson.I think I may have discovered the secret to happiness. It lies in the telling of the time. Some Germans, it would appear, do not tell the time as I do. If it was 9.30, they would say: "Es ist halb zehn". It is half way to ten. For 9.15, they say: "Es ist Viertel zehn" or It is a quarter of the way towards ten. That is to say they add an hour. If I could give myself more time in which I could accomplish more, I would be happier. Instead of thinking: "I have to do this work. I cannot play with the children." I would think: "I can do both." Happiness. Apparently, this is the way of going on in East and Southern Germany. I can only think people in East and Southern Germany are happier and get much more done than their compatriots. My handout is philosophical in its explanation: "...even before half past the hour it is quite common to think of the time in relation to the forthcoming hour. This is especially important with half past the hour where there is no choice." Quite so. Cometh the hour; cometh the man. Cometh another hour; cometh the happier man. Or woman. I think woman. Women tend to need more time. They have more to do in it. I am thinking what I could do with all that extra time; take up cross stitch, clean the bathroom, read a book, have another baby. Well, maybe not another baby. That might just kill me. Does it mean, I wonder that Germans are more forward looking? Is this the answer, not just to my time poverty problems, but to countries who spend too much time thinking of past glories rather than future happiness. We will speak differently of time and time will speak differently to us. It will say: "Draw up a rocker. Sit by me awhile. Let us drink coffee and talk of our future."

Daddy's home

My husband is back. This is a good thing because I get to point the children at him and say: "Look children, daddy is back. Mummy is just going for a bath. I'll be out in three days." We have only had one row so far because he made us late for a children's party. We are driving along; he is behind the wheel and I am wrapping the fleecey, black, baa-lamb puppet present in paper that says "Merry Christmas". My husband has been home for three hours. I am not in a good mood. I would go so far as to say, I am in a bad mood. Snipping off a dangling piece of cellotape, I said: "This party was really important to the boys. I really did not want us to be late for it but you had to take them out. You couldn't just let them play for half an hour and get them ready. If I had been on my own with them, we would not be late." My husband psshawed (if that's a word, he made that sort of clapped out steam engine sound anyway) and snarled: "That's outrageous." All this, by the way, in glorious sunshine, driving too fast along country roads which are too narrow . My six-year-old spoke up for sanity in the back. "Daddy's been away for a long time Mummy. He's still getting used to it. OK?" I hate the way men make you feel so unreasonable.