decorating October 2006

So what is October news since I last wrote at the tail end of August? Not much. We are still decorating FP’s house and every so often, when I am in the tortuous throes of painting, grass cutting, clearing out (he keeps old newspapers and old shoes in drawers – weird or what?) I MOAN and complain about why he didn’t do all this during the last 4 years when he had loads of time all on his own and nothing to do. He says he had neither money nor inclination, but despite being the world’s greatest tidier who regularly rues throwing out something important, which I have done several times to my cost, it is IRRITATING. However, last Sunday we packed up to go home at 10.30pm having almost finished the last room which has required enormous work re-plastering the walls after stripping paper and then papering and painting again and we hope we will be ready to rent early November. It’s a lovely little bungalow with some great features and he has been told he will have no problems getting tenants. Now it looks so lovely I think he will be a bit sad not to be living in it, but of course being with me is SO WONDERFUL – not.

I am not being particularly brilliant company at the moment. I am a bit of a victim of my own success at work – just finished organising a 3 day food festival that was number 1 place to go in the Times listings and saw 10,000 people – not bad for a normally deserted EC1 street! The work is cerebral and can be hugely fulfilling – big budget, lots of responsibility, a carte blanche for creativity – but it takes it out of me and by the time I get home – sometimes from 12 hour days there is nothing left. I am wiped out zonko. Add on Scarman with their never ending national financial disasters, regional directors with huge ideas and egos and no sense of accountability when the big ideas go tits up and my days off are well and truly taken up. At 10am in the morning, I am fine. At 9pm at night I think, why am I working so hard, earning good money and still scraping by? What am I trying to prove? In the last few months all it took was the petrol incident in my diesel car and needing new contact lenses and glasses and I am plunged in to overdraft. It all goes on my outgoings with the kids. However, A*, bless her, who told me yesterday she could get a first if she hadn’t got to do bar work for extra money, will be finished next summer and after that my outgoings start decreasing in substantial chunks. And of course I am glad I chose to work hard now and not get maintenance, but keep the house.

The children are all fine. A* is much happier this year and enjoying her studies. We have had a conversation about her having the option to return home after university to save for her travels or whatever, although I will expect a small contribution and she seems really happy with that. Many peer group mummies and daddies have downsized since their offspring moved out and there are no spare bedrooms for them to return to – interesting how the rich stay rich!

J1 is about to go through a selection process to join the marines in the territorial army and has been consumed with fitness, manhood anecdotes and testing himself to extremes. I admire his focus and I am mortified by the thought that in 18 months he could be trekking off to Afghanistan or Iraq. However – we are not there yet. His one day a week PR job gained from his work experience over the summer pays him more than Waitrose for many less hours. However, he is being required to study much harder this year for his uni course. He is still heart-rendingly loyal and concerned about me and rings/visits me at work weekly. Even A* has started ringing me weekly instead of the other way round. Perhaps she is worried I will downsize!

J2 is just J2, tottering on the brink of adulthood, scarily realising things like Saturday jobs beckon and how can he fit it in with all those lovely Millwall matches and football training and being free and without any responsibility. He has actually had a nice life really over the last few years because when I work at week-ends he is usually off to Wales with a mate and he and FH have been to see lots more games than they would normally have done in the past. By his age the other two had Saturday jobs.

As far as FP and I are concerned we are working on our relationship in the midst of perpetual motion and things keep going wrong! His car has broken down with no funds for fixing it so he is driving around in mine. The website for Can Do Freedom travel will not function! He is worn out living with an emotional whirling dervish and adjusting to my constant ‘projects’, lists and visions. Of course it’s nice in some ways. We are never lonely. We now have a local pub in the village where I keep the horse where we know lots of people. He likes the horse and doing things for it where once he was scared. The children totally accept him and are even beginning to positively tolerate his children when they come every third week-end. But it is a huge adjustment and sometimes I wonder if it will all seem too much or the negatives outweigh the positives for both of us. We are also negotiating a frame of reference for our relationship which is about staying separate financial entities, not getting married and it is different from our previous relationships and maybe doesn’t seem very romantic either to us or to people looking in. When I am caught in moments of despair I long for the routine of my married life, but then I only thought I knew it and I didn’t in the end. One of my friends said to me the other week – ‘but Hazel, you have just been so much more creative since you have been on your own!’

There remains a world of options out there. Last week I went to a jobs conference for work overseas which I haven’t given up on as a possibility once J2 leaves and of course FP and my financial situations should improve and then, with our shared love of travel and our range of skills we could do anything.