Today I held an impromptu book signing by the travel books in Foyles, South Bank, at 3pm.  A select band of friends and acquaintances gathered, and we had a lovely time until someone insisted on seeing the shelf in front of which I was sat, cross-legged, scribbling happily.  I am not sure she really needed to see the shelf, as she merely glanced at it, but I moved.  Politely, as one does.

Then I headed up to John Lewis, via Lush (needed more shampoo, got slightly sidetracked, bought enough that they gave me things - not hard to do when the shampoo and conditioner are in huge bottles costing £10 a throw - but they do last really rather well), and solved my swimming costume problems.  I now posess a swimming costume that should cover.  It was hard.  Most of John Lewis' swimming costumes seemed to be for the fuller figure.  My figure is slightly fuller than it was, but it's still well within the bounds of 'small' and 'flat chested' and 'probably fits into children's wear'.  They didn't have the suit I wanted in my size in children's wear, and the 32" chest was fine in the chest but a bit short in the body.  I acquired a second rubber magnetic ball - this is supposed to stop the washing machine or dishwasher getting limescaley, and means that we need less soap powder.  It seems to work nicely, but remembering to move the original rubber magnetic ball between dishwasher and washing machine proved to be beyond both me and the Great Dane Puppy.  I also acquired a new washing up brush, as the last one was fatally greasy.

Last night, I fell to bits at Guides.  After a Brownie meeting where it seemed that no-one but me knew how to do tie-dye, and I needeed to be everywhere at once, and a Guide meeting where, at one point, all four leaders were hiding in the kitchen, and I'd become fed up with the refrain of 'Jane, Jane!' being bellowed from the other end of the hall (never 'Becky, Becky! or 'Bridge, Bridge!' or 'Clare, Clare!' and what is it with my name that makes those who yell it sound as though they are perpetually whining?), and the girl who prank called me last year suddenly turned up again after a blissful few weeks without her and her one-volume-of-foghorn-voice, and I simply couldn't get 30 seconds silence to talk about going ice-skating in a fortnight, and to camp in the summer, and no-one could be quiet enough for me to give out the promise badges and certificates, and girls had been kicking each other and fighting on and off all evening, I gave up.  We didn't sing TAPS.  I didn't say what I wanted to say.  I took one look at all of them, and remarked:,  "Just Go," before bursting into tears.

It is a good thing that my Welshman was able to come and give me a hug.  And it was a jolly good hug, and I feel a bit better now.  I only need to do one more meeting this term, and that's that.  No More Guides unless it's filling in for someone who can't make it.  There are enough leaders, and they need to get on with it themselves.  I've let the Div Commissioner know that, at the least, I need a sabbatical and that I never wanted to do Guides in the first place.  I only did Guides because Em was ill.  That was supposed to be a temporary measure over two years ago...

I do need to share a story.  A week or so ago, Mum came to visit, and we pottered round the fabric shops of Berwick Street.  I have some glorious herringbone pale blue tweed that will become, we hope, a waistcoat and skirt ensemble.  I plan to pattern buy in the USA (I have two metres, total.  Or two meters if you are in the USA).  She also bought some wheat-free mince pies and a wheat-free Christmas pudding from Marks and Sparks.  Alas, on her way home, she slipped on the bottom step at Baker Street Station and I think she broke her toe in the process.  She didn't fall crashing to the ground though - several good looking young men sprang to her aid, and were very solicitous.  Her thoughts?  "Gosh, if I'd been a bit younger, I could probably  have got off with one of them!"  Toe is still a bit sore, but she's wearing her Crocs and quite comfy.  She was more worried about the mince pies than herself - they got squashed in the process, but I'm told that they tasted very good for breakfast the next day.

I love my Mummy.  She is Utterly Glorious.

xxx

...was at Hatchard's today.

My second will be at Foyles' on the South Bank at some point on Saturday...

It was impromptu but magnificent.  Please excuse me, I am going to go and practise my signature now.  I shall also glow, gently, but persistently.

xxx

Having realised that I entitled the last entry 'Knackered', I cannot do the same with this one.  However, I am.  Tired.  I think that the high from the post-rugby-match-festivities (which is enhanced by drinking full-sugar cola drinks, as that's the only non-alcoholic beverage available), is followed swiftly by a Sunday evening low.  A low where I think that I haven't heard from my Welshman all weekend.  Well.  He did phone, but I missed the call and he didn't leave a message.  A low where it's dark, and grey, and wet, and horrible, and grim outside.  Wet and windy all day, and my umbrella broke, and I lost a glove on the bus and my dairy-free-cream-cheese has a crack in the tub and I need to Get Stuff Out for Dad and there is still a fridge in my sitting room and a couple of rust stains on the carpet.

Oh winter.  Can I hibernate?

I need to do the following before I go to bed

• make the bed
• the Brownies accounts
• pack up the router so it can be reprogrammed tomorrow morning.  Also pack up the parcels that need to be taken to the post office to be mailed.
• finish knitting the collar on Mum's sweater (a knitting black hole if ever there was one, the cowl collar)
• eat something vaguely sensible and healthy, having had crisps and cake for lunch, and a mid-afternoon snack of boeuf bourginon and rice after rugby. Slice of toast with a topping of some of the rescued side of the dairy-free-cream-cheese, plus mini tomatos (tomatoes?) and carrots.  Also, orange juice.
• make tomorrow's packed lunch.

Sigh.  Again.

xxx

---

Spoke to my Welshman, and we will have a picnic on Tuesday (hurrah!  I think.  Anyhow, I get to see him, which will be lovely as I miss him).  The Great Dane Puppy's girlfriend has arrived and informed me that I look tired (does she not have a place of her own?  Am now keeping a record of when she's here as I'm getting to the point where I feel it is too often, but I want to work out if that's my perception or no.) .

Must. Pack. Stuff.

And then make the damn bed.  I want to have a bath and get straight into it afterwards.  Making the bed is a loathed activity.  Perhaps I should cave, and give up on the five blankets, and have a duvet?

xxx

• Put kitchen contents back into kitchen
• Take photos of kitchen so you chaps can see (please excuse missing tiles etc.  It is a Work In Progress).
• Debate with my Welshman what to do about the old fridge.  Freecycle or get the Council to collect?  It's not in the best of nick.
• Write up the excitements of yesterday.
• Sort out route for walk for Guides on Friday and walk it.
• Buy paint Weirdly, Hobbycraft didn't like my card.  However, I've managed to order a drawer divider with it since.  Odd. Odd.
• Brownies Accounts
• Hoover sitting room
• Move sitting room back to correct arrangement (bar fridge).
• Find a set of drawer dividers for the cutlery drawer (don't Lakeland do something modular?)
• Knit or sew or something
• Wrap Emma's birthday present ready for 28th
• Order spare parts for oven need to identify one of them, but, yes, have found the other.
• Laundry begun

OK.  Must get on.  There's a lot of crates and stuff to move. Maybe I should get dressed too?  Can we have a vote on that? I'm happy to declare a moratorium on getting dressed until you guys make up your minds PJs are quite comfy, but my toes are cold.

xxx

For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Lawrence Binyon

(and a total lack of photographs).

Naturally, in the midst of a kitchen remodelling (there are tiles coming off the walls as I write - but the fitters are being careful of my cherished hand-painted tiles which came with my flat, and which are replaceable but I'd rather not have to), one's thoughts turn to baking.  Specifically, gluten-free baking.  My  usual method is to use a gluten-ful recipe, chuck in some extra oil, and hope for the best.  However, I have a copy of BabyCakes, and a trip to Florida in the offing, so I'm thinking some of the more esoteric ingredients may be easily acquired.  The various types of bean-flour and so forth.  Xanthan gum I can get in my local Fresh'n'Wild, or Whole Foods Market, depending on whether I'm looking at the sign or the label on the bag.  I am dreaming of cupcakes and gingerbread.

Last night, I headed out to iKnit London to listen to Franklin read.  He amused us greatly with an extract from the new book, which has to be turned into an audio book.  He's got such a distinctive voice, and to hear him read his prose is a real treat.  I resisted buying sock yarn, or any other sort of yarn, enabled the buying of someone else's Christmas present, and happily escaped from the shop, wallet intact, to get the bus home.  Most days, I cycle over Waterloo Bridge.  Last night I got the bus in the dark, and could indulge my daily desire to spend the whole crossing looking from one side to the other like a demented tennis fan.  Came home, continued my Daddy's sock, watched Born Romantic, and decided that I have to own the film.  It's very London-y, and a vast number of scenes were filmed in Camden.

Three times this week, I have been in my Club.  For drinkies, for curry and for dinner with friends. I would like escape out again tonight and have a terribly indulgent dinner there, but suspect I shall potter out to the High Street and find something a little less finangly and which doesn't require me to change out of my jeans and into reasonably smart business attire.  Changing out of jeans also means changing out of knitted socks (currently sporting a blue pair made out of very strong and soft and slightly fluffy Bear Mountain yarn, knit as part of a sockapalooza).  I have no kitchen sink, and washing up in the washhand basin seems somehow dreadfully unhygienic.  I also haven't worked out where to put the microwave so that I can use it properly, so I am even beyond baked beans on toast.  Toast is not a problem.  No real washing up required for that other than the plate.

Drinkies at the club was ridiculously fun: one of the Younger Members hauled out a rather large trophy "Takes 9 bottles of champagne to fill it, you know", and was filling it with a bottle at a turn and passing it round, rather like a very fizzy communion cup that threatened to overwhelm the supplicant.  The location of a napkin, which was used to wipe after each drinker, only served to underline the resemblance.  Curry was curry and obliviated my need to eat anything for 24 hours afterwards - I had a little bit of everything and was entirely stuffed.  Dinner was plain lovely.  It's a shame that the clock moved inexorably towards hometime and we had to disband.

On Saturday, I intend to head up to Loop, to see Ysolda and have her sign books for a friend and probably for myself as well.  Sing out if you want your own copies.  They are £12 each.  Today's glittering delights involve a trip out to collect a prescription.

Oh.  Finally.

You remember how often 'The Book' appeared on my to-do lists?  And may have noticed how it's fallen off again recently.  That would be because it's being published on 17th November, and is now available for pre-order from Amazon.  I'm a bit chary of singing out too much - I like to hold onto the last of my anonymity in this internet world.  If you know me, it's easy enough to find... Needless to say, when I had completed the overwhelmingly sad exercise of looking for myself on Amazon last night and actually found myself, I did an awful lot of excited, silent squee-ing in the privacy of my bedroom.  It's out there.  I can actually believe that it's happening.  Folks. I wrote a book and someone seems to think it's good enough to publish.

xxx

All I ever seem to do now is a weekly list: just too tired in the evenings after work (or, this week, far too busy going out on the razz - I was at my club twice in the space of three days for either Younger Members' drinkies or curry.  I ended up checking the club rules on my return home.  Why yes, the ladies' sitting room is open to ladies only, regardless of membership status).

Anyhow, I have what feels like 1001 things to do today.

• Collect prescription from chemist, drop off request at doctors.
• Get photos printed, and mail parcel
• Collect flooring from floor place, arrange for it to be fitted.  Or, possibly, just phone them up... but this will have to be done on Monday.
  
• Stay in for the phone man who is putting in the work line makes this a bit harder, particularly since the normal phone line isn't currently functioning, but the internet is (?)
  
• Remove kitchen floor
• Clean out contents of kitchen cupboards into crates which will go I know not where, probably my bedroom, as this is London and it will insist on raining.
  
• Church Parade
• Rugby
• Give up on the concept of laundry and going to the supermarket.  There is nowhere to put the laundry to dry, and there is no point in adding to what needs to be moved out of the cupboards/the fridge this week.
  
• Knit
• Knit some more
• Manicure and pedicure More of an effort in throwing varnish in the general direction of fingers and toes.
• CHOCOLATE AND GIN
  
• Do not let sitting room get any more untidy (the pile of boxes containing the new kitchen is quite enough untidiness) More or less winning this one...
  
• Maintain tidiness in bedroom. Given that the entire kitchen is now in my bedroom, perhaps not the easiest task.  But I'm trying.
  
• Take stuff to secondhand shop
• Get my Welshman's camping gear into the shed if he hasn't found anywhere to live.  If he has found somewhere, it can stay in the back garden because he'll need to get it out of the back garden rather than out of the locked shed.
  
• Replace his bicycle helmet which fell off the top of the precariously balanced bag of puffy envelopes. Apparently he is in no hurry for this, but since he hasn't been out on the bike since last week, there is no huge hurry. We must sort this out next weekend.
  
• Brownies Accounts
• Add new Brownies to waiting list (I shall not ask why they turned up wearing pink frosted lipstick last night).
• Get cardboard boxes into loft (my Welshman or the Great Dane Puppy are supposed to be doing that). But I did it.
  

At some point, I'll tell you all about the Younger Members' drinkies and the curry, but not now.  I have to get to Boots to get the prescription stuff (it's bath stuff.  It's been sitting there for about three weeks, and the Boots in question is not open on Sunday, which is generally when I remember to go!).

xxx

---

Well, there has been gin, but not enough chocolate.  There is an awful lot of stuff that is not in the right place, and my neck muscles are screaming.  However, it was my rugby boys who got the massages.  One of the really young ones - OK, at this point, since I don't work there anymore it doesn't really matter: the Graduate Business School at which I worked until June started a new one year course for students who are one or two years out of University this academic year, so there are some really young chaps on the team now - blew a kiss at me on my way home.  Bless.  The older guys on the rugby team have a new game on the back of this.  They find a really pretty lass on said course, and then ask if her Mum's single...  The captain also borrowed my Hawaiian shirt for the post-match celebrations: cheating, really, if you ask me.  He's cute enough to get away with it, though, and I don't need to take a fine for not wearing a Hawaiian shirt after matches (it's a perk of being the only girl on the team).

The floor is up, and I only made one hole in my hand.  My Welshman took most of the lino up after I'd had a wibble about it - there was rubber flooring over lino, and, you know what?  It's really hard to remove rubber flooring from lino, but rather easier to remove lino from wood.  Bless him.  Deep down, I know he's not 'the one', but we have a good thing going here, and I'm so much less scared about the idea of a relationship in general, I'm in a healthier place than I was this time last year.  I've been doing much thinking.  I think I'm getting to know what I do want, after many years of being entirely unsure, and this is comforting.  Rock on.

I have fresh microwave popcorn, and am about to hit the Brownies' accounts.

xxx

---

It is 20.26.  Those boxes are going in the loft.  I'm getting the ladder out.  The only way to do things round here is start them yourself.  Then I shall knit with chocolate.

Promise to check in in about 5 mins.

---

Still here
xxx