actually rather liking the rain

felt ill all day yesterday and went to bed early with a ginger tea and "the phantom tollbooth".

and didn't it rain in the night?! i woke and could hear it pouring, woke later and the water was almost smashing down from the sky. You wouldn't believe it could just be falling, it was as if it was being thrown at us

i slept then, and slept again, and slept again and the rain reduced to a steady dripping and splashing and I slept and slept again so in the end i woke at eight after nearly nine hours sleep, to a world of grey and umbrellas in the street and feeling rested, stomach not hurting, neck not so painful and a clear and simple world to live in today.

So much happening..

So first of all, there's the end of work next week. So relieved to have done this though of course the idea of having basically no money coming in and quite a lot going out, is a bit worrying..

Then, it's my mum's operation at the end of June and there's a lot of getting ready and getting organised around that and it makes me feel a bit scared and worried (as it does my mum too, of course.. ). Though I do think the operation will be okay - but is it time then for my mum to move down to Brighton? And if so, how do we manage this?

I'm hoping still to spend most of July in Portugal, coming back in the middle to see my mum and also for my schoolfriend's memorial service.

In August I really need to get running! I've entered a 10-mile run in October and so far I can only do four... I've been up to six but there's a lot to build up for ten miles.

If all goes well, in September, I should be starting a Creative Writing MA. It's been my dream for so long to do something like this.. I was amazed to be accepted on the course and I can't wait for it to start.

Before that though, I've a haircut today; my mum and her sister down for the weekend tomorrow; the arrival of Hass and Sarah and family on Sunday; Bulgaria on Monday and Tuesday; my mum's pre-op consultation on Wednesday; Hass and Sarah again on Thursday; last day at work on Friday; Rose for lunch on Saturday; Mike's mum's 90th on Sunday; Paris to see Lisa on Monday and Tuesday and then it's Lichfield Lichfield Lichfield for my mum's op..

the absolute bleakness of winnersh triangle

It's absolutely not unfair, in fact it's kind of me, to call this area bleak.

Bleak to me, means wide empty winter landscapes with a raw and savage beauty all of their own. Whereas, bleak here means that from my window I see a pedestrian bridge- white and empty - across a grey five-lane road - also empty. On the other side of the road I see an office block, To Let. The sky is grey. Our office is silent apart from the clacking of keyboards.

listening to music as if for the first time

well, it's kind of prosaic because the nurse cleaned my ears out of wax which is something I think of as happening to small kids, not mature middle-aged women like me.

it's like my ears have been dead for months and now they live and the music - Gil Scott-Heron right now - just dances down those fresh clear tubes and I feel connected with my world again.

Ladies of the Net

so here we are, in the lowest possible tennis league in our corner of sussex, enjoying our tennis, improving a little each time, and just playing a few matches to help us learn more.

At midday, precisely, the Ladies arrive. They're from a village a few miles away. They arrive on our courts: part of a park or -as they like to say "council-run courts" - where university boys in shabby t-shirts relive their school tennis rushing clumsily around the courts; small children stand near the net missing every ball their proud parents try to feed them; a talented ten--year old is on her fifth hour of tennis today.

The Ladies look around and they do not like what they see. "Will our bags be safe?" asks one.. "Is there water?" asks the second..

The third lady - perma-tanned, perfectly groomed, recently waxed and hairless legs, skintight skirt and top demonstrating perfect bump-free and almost bosom-free body - astonishes us all by asking if the net is the right height. We confess that we have no idea.

There's a sharp, estuary-accented, intake of breath. Our perfectly groomed chum produces a special gizmo designed for the measuring of tennis nets. We are a centimetre low but she shows us mercy and deigns to play on our substandard courts with the rough people and the low-hanging tennis nets.

I wish I could say we beat the Ladies of the Net but they trounced us totally.