Ladies Who Lunch

Hormones and weather hounding me - the wind huffing down the chimney, my mood as grey as the fog-laden sky sinking onto the drenched hills. Vestiges of the snow that fell on Saturday morning cling here and there. Most of the daffodils have struggled open, after looking for a time like the heart-breaking kind that never do. Their bright yellow star and trumpet cheerfulness offers a small sign of hope. The weather forecast is quite abysmal for the next three days, but at least it is set to get warmer again, and Thursday is billed as the one sunny day in a long stretch of drizzle, cloud, light rain, heavy rain.

I met the therapists on Saturday, which is always very heartening, and I feel my struggles are understood and not judged. Right now I feel if anything more lost than before, though I am certainly not ungrateful for the work at the school. Quite the reverse. But half a day's work does not solve the overall problem, good start though it is. I have no money. Hoping to be interviewed for the teaching work in Leeds, where they seem to have changed their minds about not hiring til the autumn. But no date set yet, and no guarantee I'll get it either.

I confess I'm rather dreading the Census work, with all its fiddly record-keeping, codes, barcodes and the like. And the admonishment not to wear sunglasses. I wear light sensitive glasses, which frequently darken even when you don't think it's bright, and I need them. Too bad if householders are offended, I can't do my job without glasses, or without them darkening. Then there's the small matter of toilets. I shall go scouting before I start work, but it seems to me unlikely there are any public ones in the very rural areas where I'll be collecting, and I'm not one who can go hours at a stretch without going. I'm sure we'll be advised not to ask householders for the use of theirs. I'm sure that is exactly what I'll have to do (selectively of course.)

In a little while I shall go and pick L up from her Pilates class (I always think of Pontious Pilate when I see it written), and we shall go for a little jaunt to Todmorden, taking in the tip to deposit cartons and cardboard, the garden centre to look at cordless strimmers, lunch at the wholefood shop cafe, and Lidl! At the wholefood shop I shall buy some slippery elm bark for my stomach, as recommended by friend H. I'd said I wanted to go out for dinner to celebrate signing the contract with the school, but by the time L had pointed out it's only ten weeks' work, and I'd pointed out my stomach is iffy, and we'd both realised I'd better save the little bit of money in the savings account I was all set to spend, for the rainy day that is definitely already here, we decided that lunch out would be nearer the current mark. So lunch it is.