annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three Good Things and a Bit of Bella

As I came to write, and saw my last entry had been called 'And the skies are grey' California Dreaming came on the radio - the Jose Feliciano version. Cool. 

It's not been a great day. I pulled it together in the end, but nearly 3pm, which is late. I was all set to swim with H, one of the grief mothers but she cancelled and I fell to bits. Eventually one of my friends in the world of MS posted a link to a fundraiser the MS Society are doing about walking your dog and that combination appealed to me so I set up a page and went off with Shirley for a long walk to get us in shape. When setting it up I was asked for a name for the page and as I was still grumpy and sad I typed in #fuckms which I always put on posts about Sam and was accepted, which cheered me right up. I'm mature like that. It looks a bit cringe when shared on Twitter, but too late now. Here it is, as I'm sure you're all itching to bung me a quid or two or a dollar - I think JustGiving is international

https://mymswoof.mssociety.org.uk/fundraising/fuckms

So three good things: 

1. I walked nearly 4 km with the dog. I've gone metric. We walked near the river, on the downslink path which is the old railway line resurfaced. It comes right up by the river at one point so we swapped onto the tow path and amazingly there was an endurance swim going on with a couple of hundred swimmers all thrashing their way downstream - quite exciting


2. I've made another sourdough loaf despite the last one being really crap. Fingers crossed. It's in the fridge for the last proving overnight.


3. Instagram set me up with a fundraiser and someone put £25 in it at once! It's not connected to the other one, but I've raised £35 altogether so far.

Also, reading through the lockdown blog I came across this and wondered if it would stand alone as a short story:

Bella looked at the woman. Megan, the tall, elegant woman with the unfeasibly kind face. She wanted this. She wanted this flat so much. She wanted this woman, this Megan, to be her landlady. She felt sick with the wanting, the unfamiliarity of actually caring about something.

 

“I’ll let you know, then.” Megan said as she closed the door on Bella and all her hopes and dreams. “There’s a couple coming round for a viewing later, then I’ll let you know, OK?”

“Mmghmm,” Bella’s attempt at cheery confidence came out as a strangulated squawk and she hurried round the corner, out of sight, collapsing onto a garden wall, head in hands.

Everywhere else she’d seen had been awful, mostly because of the smells – as soon as the front doors had been opened she’d felt the urge to run away, mostly from a nasty cabbage-y, sweaty, mouldy, horrible stench, but once, that place opposite the beach, it was aftershave, rank, chemical, poisonous, making her gag.

This place was so perfect. She could even put up with the child, that bloody child who talked bollocks at 90 mph. She wanted it. This was where she wanted to live.

She remembered Sheila, her keyworker, who believed in affirmations. Bloody magic, Bella had thought, but maybe Sheila knew something. She had her life pretty well sorted. Maybe Bella needed a spell.

What the fuck was a spell, though? Supercalifragilistic and all that, but that was just a film. Mary Poppins – if she was real it would be a different bloody world, full of kites and dads who spent time with their kids.

There was Macbeth – eye of newt and something of frog. Maybe she could make one up.

Eye of cat and hair of dog – no that was for a hangover.

Eye of cat and tail of dog – but then what? Wasn’t she meant to gather them up under the light of a silvery moon or something and then boil them in a cauldron, whatever the fuck a cauldron was.

I JUST WANT THIS FUCKING FLAT, Bella screamed inwardly. LET ME GET WHAT I WANT FOR ONCE IN THIS FUCKING WORLD!

She blushed with shock as Megan appeared round the corner, waving a bunch of car keys. “Oh, hello! You’re still here – well, the couple who were coming later cancelled so the flat’s yours if you’d like it.”

Bella could only stare.

 

12:37 a.m. - 20.08.23

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next