annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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No thanks
Didn't go to Friday writing group, just felt too vulnerable. It had been one of my safe places but not today. Yesterday I'd met one of the guys who comes to the group, who I like, in general, as he's very smart and a fantastic writer so we have good chats. His wife comes to the group when she can but she works now so that's not often, but it's all cool usually. But he takes a similar view to the facilitator guy, that all kinds of things can trigger all sorts of people and we have to be responsible for ourselves. Which was really what tipped me to not wanting to go there any more. I have my other writing group and the opportunity to meet with two of the others from that on a Thursday, if I could ever remember, so that will do me and the Friday lot can fuck off. Obviously I may change my mind about this, possibly several times, but right now I feel that the decision not to go today was the right one, even if I did waste all the time I gained by frantically fucking about on my phone. Awful.
But I did phone the woman from the cemetery who was lovely and very happy to have our Sammie join her little gang. She was about to lead a funeral so we're going to speak again on Sunday. I checked in with Son and Grandson - what is it with blokes not responding to texts? I'd sent them both texts with photos of the place, asking for reactions to the idea but nothing. Anyway, Son was enthusiastic about the idea of a stone and a proper place to visit - he's never been into the scattering of the ashes which is the norm these days in our secular society and I realised that I'm not really either. I'm not against it for other people, but not my girl. Grandson was more 'Yeah, whatever,' but I know he's still a bit detached from it all and I'm going to nudge him along without putting any pressure on him. He's busy this weekend and works till after it's dark in these depths of winter, but next weekend I will take him and his GF there to see how they feel about it and with luck it will be clear. I had to have a little think about what to call our non-religious society. I knew it wasn't atheist because that's still about God(s) and really that's not how it is. Then I remembered the word secular, but having now looked it up it apparently means not religious or spiritual, only concerned with the physical. I don't think that's quite it either but it'll have to do.
I did make it back to art at the museum, which was quite nerve-wracking but I just got my head down and did another painting of 
my house. I might have to locate a summer photo to copy from as we have the wild echiums which reach at least fifteen foot quite quickly in the spring and hang around till the first winter frost kills them off. I want to do one in water colours with more ink, then a single colour, probably indigo.
Talking to the boy, he recommended ignoring the relaxing of Covid measures, which he didn't need to tell me, as I'll be keeping going. I wore my mask all through the art group although it's probably not too risky there as the ceiling is high, the group is small and the windows were open. There's one bloke who wears his mask over the mouth but under the nose which pisses me right off but so far I've kept my opinions to myself.
Today I am grateful for my lovely son and having a long chat on the phone about film scripts he's been reading and all kinds of things. Fab hearing him raving about Thelma and Louise, how even though he knew how it ends he was gripped, turning the pages faster and faster, hoping for a new ending despite knowing it was always written. I know what he means - I always feel that with Romeo and Juliet. Walk away, Juliet, I want to shout at her, walk away!
Night night xx
12:55 a.m. - 22.01.22
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