Dear diary…

On anger and cookbooks and school holidays

Dear diary,

Ugh. I feel all out of sorts. And a bit angry too. I keep thinking about people who have slighted me. As if I’m a character in an Austen novel. And I truly hate Jane Austen.

I saw Dolly Alderton has adapted Pride and Prejudice for Netflix and all I could think was ‘god poor her, how awful’. My English degree was wasted on me. All I wanted to read for three years was misery by Plath and Hughes. Imagining their dramatic infidelity speckled marriage. And then top it all off with bags and bags of D H Lawrence. I did not care for anything else and I’m still a bit fickle and difficult to choose books for. Currently I only like Nina Stibbe, Jenny Eclair, Sue Townsend and Clare Chambers. And I’ve read everything they’ve published so they’re making me a bit mad leaving me high and dry. I’ll let Sue off what with her being dead. Everyone else needs to hurry the f*ck up. More please.

Back to the personal slights. They’re not even recent. I’m talking years and years old grudges. I always get a bit like this in the school holidays. Gone are the busy days of pushing swings and filling plastic bags with crusts for the ducks. When the boys are off school they’re mainly pottering about the house now. Gaming, working out, playing with the dog, foraging for snacks. They’re not in need of intense direction or interaction but they do seem to like me in the background. A supporting actor bumbling about. And when I’m doing that, I’m often a bit too fast and loose with my thoughts. And then the rumination leads to the anger. Ugh. I don’t want to be like this. I don’t I don’t.

I am on a throw it all out mission. This cleansing usually goes hand in hand with feeling low level fury. I’ve thrown some wonderful things away in these moments. Every single letter my grandmother ever sent me. Dresses from my youth probably considered cool and vintage now. A newborn snow suit with bear ears worn by both my October babies. All gone! Just things for sure. But then our belongings do mean something. The chattels we surround ourselves with seep into our pores. They are a part of us and we are a part of them.

When I left my ex husband one of things I found most pleasing