Category: holiday cabin

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Two Days in One (Again)

Wednesday, 05 May 2021

I started writing, but after about 100 words looked up and realised nothing was happening, the last couple of sentences I’d typed weren’t there. I thought I must have accidentally overwritten it, as sometimes happens when I’m not paying attention, then I found that my mouse wasn’t working, tried the touchpad on my keyboard and that wasn’t working, nothing was working, I had no cursor. I waited for a while, then tried alt-del-ctrl and that didn’t do anything either, everything was frozen, so I switched off and started it up again. When I finally got back into Word, what I’d written wasn’t autosaved, so I had to start all over again, even though I didn’t really want to write this morning anyway.

When I got home on Tuesday I called my cat a few times, but she didn’t respond. This isn’t like her, when I’ve been away she’s usually really pleased to see me, but I didn’t worry, thinking she would come out when she was ready. I spent about an hour in the kitchen, very excited to have wifi in there at last – my son installed a booster for me when he was here on Saturday, and I now have wifi in the kitchen and bedrooms, which has been a huge bugbear for me in the four years I’ve been living here. I thought she’d appear, but she didn’t, so I went round everywhere calling her name and looking in her usual hiding places. Got my dinner – and hers – then afterwards went into the front room for my evening telly-watching. Still no cat. About eight o’clock I went all round upstairs again, and in the study (I’d been in there before) I found a little face peeping out nervously from the bottom of a book case hidden in the corner behind piles of junk and stuff.

I need to do something about this room. It is so awful. I just leave it and leave it and let it get worse.

Thursday, 06 May 2021

That’s what I got to yesterday and then gave up. Maybe today I’ll just fill up what’s left. This week I don’t seem able to come up with a full 500 words on any day. The words are there, they always are, but the inner critic keeps batting them away as being too boring or too depressing or whatever.

I got a text from my daughter, asking if I want to go and stay with them after the 17th but before she goes back to work. I told her about losing and finding the cat, and about the mess in the study. She and her sister-in-law want to go away without the kids and husbands for a few days, maybe to the cabin and I have a key now, so I could get the train and she could meet me at the station. Or she might come here and help me sort out the study, then take me back with her. I sent her photos of the mess.

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Bank Holiday

My first Bank Holiday Monday in Southsea, I walked to the seafront and had breakfast sitting on the prom outside Rocksby’s, watching the sea and the boats and the Isle of Wight, the first of many (discounting one previous occasion when I went there for breakfast as a visitor); then walked along the seafront past the castle and the common to the Square Tower, where the annual ‘May Fly’ arts festival was in progress.

This year I’m with my son, daughter-in-law and the ‘boys’ (dogs) at the ‘cabin’ (the name we seem to have settled on as sounding less pretentious than the ‘lodge’) in the Surrey Hills – hopefully another ‘first of many’. I came for a couple of odd days when they first picked up the keys and for my birthday, when things were still in lockdown. Now it’s busier – the swimming pool is open, but for pre-booked sessions for single-cabin-only groups, and yesterday morning I booked a slot and had my first swim since September in Cyprus, all by myself in the empty pool. It was glorious, but the changing rooms aren’t open, so I had to walk back with my clothes on over a wet swimsuit – which was okay, apart from the seat of my jeans, which got soaked, and I hadn’t brought a spare set of bottoms because I’m travelling on the train and had shoved everything into my backpack – including my swimsuit and towel, which my son scoffed at but I really enjoyed that swim. My daughter-in-law kindly lent me a pair of trousers while they dried over the radiator.

It’s close enough for me to easily come over for a day, and I have my own key now so I can come whether or not they’re here. Admittedly it’s a hundred mile round trip, but not a bad one, mostly on the A3.

Tuesday 4 May 2021

I didn’t finish writing yesterday because the others got up and I never got back to it. So I’ll cheat today and just add to what I’ve already written.

There’s not much to say. We went out for a lovely walk across the fields in the sunshine, came back and then the weather changed and it was wild and stormy all afternoon. We played board games, laughed and got grumpy as families do. The wind is still wild now, but it’s not raining.

Going home today. It’s been a flying visit, but a peaceful one. Home today, on the train. Never want to leave, never want to go back. I don’t know how to get round that. I don’t know how to fight off the great waves of hopelessness that well up from time to time. Is there an answer? I’ve been looking for one for so long. Being with people helps sometimes; sometimes it makes it worse. Ditto being on my own, the advantage being not having to consider and deal with the reactions of others.

The wind howls around me, but the sun is still shining.