When Effie saw Cosby Puckett out of the corner of her sight she saw a woman with a want. Not some innocent school girl who sat studying a bunch of books on her momma’s porch. Letting on, like she always did, that she was too shy to smile at a man and too innocent to notice one smiling at her. And Lord didn’t they! All of them. Even Effie’s husband. Especially, Effie’s husband. But Calvin was only flesh and that was the way of the world. Effie nor nobody else could help that none. Ever since Eve came along with all her nakedness some woman had been trying to temp some other woman’s man into doing something he would never have done without her. Effie’s mother had taught her this when she was no more than a girl herself, and she had been able to see such things with half an eye ever since.

Last month I put on a pair of roller skates for the first time in twenty years. It’s this whole Yes Man thing I’m trying. I loved it. I mean, I still think skating backward is nothing short of sorcery. But I’m really geared up for my next trip to the rink. And I desperately want to drag my sister along with me. Because that would just be the best date ever.

Last month Rachel Cusk had a brilliant article in the Guardian on women’s writing. She made several good points that illustrate the conundrum many of us find ourselves in. Importantly, she asked whether women’s writing should seek equivalence or distinction from its male counterpart. She’s inclined to agree with Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf and think the latter. Just as we need a room of our own, we should rightly have a literature of our own. Not simply writing by women, but writing that ‘arises out of, and is shaped by, a set of specifically female conditions’.

She also acknowledged people were sure to question: Why does it have to be politicised? Why can’t we just get on with it?

I’ve managed to misplace the article, so I can’t give proper attribution, but I clipped a quote which might just sum it up. In any case, it gives pause for thought – which is something I plan on doing a lot when my teeth stop hurting.

‘This is an important book,’ the critic assumes, ‘because it deals with war.’

‘This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.’

Eighty years after A Room of One’s Own was first published – and 50 years after The Second Sex – the same value system prevails.

Plan was: US Airways from Charlotte, brief layover in Philly, 8am arrival in Manchester. It’s now 2:20pm and I’m sitting in the BA Lounge at Gatwick. But that’s not the best part.

The best part was getting delayed out of Charlotte and missing our Philly connection, having to fly straight to London instead, but not getting to land because of snow, having to reroute to Manchester to refuel, which should have been our final destination, but not being allowed to get off because customs and immigration deemed we enter by way of London, sitting on the plane…IN MANCHESTER…for four hours before being flown back to London arriving six hours late, missing our connection back to Manchester, and getting bumped to another flight which we’ve just been told is delayed 2 hours (and counting).

The whole ordeal was made worse by the TSA tossing a ‘too sharpy’ Christmas Present I forgot to check with my luggage, and The Euro’s shaving foam which he special orders from France.

But the BA lounge has good cheese. And a shower. So that’s something.

Next week we’re going back to England. It feels more hypothetical than done-and-dusted and that’s probably to do with the busy we’ve been keeping. The Euro’s been filming for over a month, and I’ve been eating, sleeping and breathing 1 of 2 manuscripty projects since mid-October.

Yesterday I walked home – it was freezing and I stuck paper towels in my ears to keep the cold out. It’s the only exercise I’ll get this week and it’s no where near enough. I’m just shy of stir crazy and the knitting someone suggested isn’t doing the trick. (I just want to poke things with the needles.)

Last night my neighbour was lighting his house and his tree and this made me want to light something too. We’re not putting up a Christmas tree this year. Not even a Christmas Twig. This makes me feel a little like Charlie Brown but not too much because Holt House always has a wonderful tree and that’s where we’ll be.

Speaking of Christmas, barring books for my besties I’ve done zero shopping. That leaves six days and counting to get things sorted Stateside. I am totally freaking out.

Orson Welles meets HG Wells and someone was there to broadcast it. (Please note the misspelling in the video title is not mine.)

HG is lovely. And asks Orson about the film he is making – Citizen Kane.

Orson Welles: “It’s a new sort of motion picture with a new method of presentation.”

HG Wells: “If I don’t misunderstand you completely I think there will be a lot of jolly good new noises in it.”

Delicious.

I blame Stephen Fry.

.

For some reason, every time I look at photos of Flynn and me from our EPIC ADVENTURE WEEKEND, I break out in BABOOSHKA and arabesque around the living room. “Babooshka…Babooshku…Babooshku…” See. Told you.

Happy Birthday Bunny.

I love you.

B.
xx

p.s.
A squirrel took this photo.
I am dead serious.