Illusions

Sometimes it is because we are stupid or uninformed or naieve...but sometimes it is simply expedient to cling to illusions. Today I am badly in need of mine— if that's all they were— reality can hold off for another day.

Memory lane

It has been so long since I wrote in this blog. I thought I had finally put it all behind me, but emailing an old Headmaster today reminded me of it all....


A walk on the beach to blow the cobwebs away.

Me, my dog and I....

Rachel Weisz

I was in Cambridge this morning. It's a place I go quite often with a friend. While he returned books to the library I sat in my favourite bookshop. It has lots of nooks and crannies and it's easy to sit there alone and not feel that you are taking up a table that several people could sit at. But yesterday there were no free tables and I sat at a large table with one other lady sitting at it. I was happy to keep my nose in a book but she struck up a conversation with me, about the book I was reading.

It's such a small world — she used to live in almost the exact spot where I lived in London, and she turned out to be the mother of the actress Rachel Weisz. Rachel Weisz of 'The Constant Gardener' , 'About a Boy' etc. fame. She was really lovely, and seemed almost surprised that I knew of her daughter, who has for years now lived in New York - but of course I knew of her, and her saw her several times in the street in Hampstead where I lived when I first moved to London after my Law Society Finals at The College of Law. I was young and full of life then, probably the same age as Rachel, and my childhood was just that childhood -  as whatshisname said 'The past is another country' and  I wasn't even sending postcards back at the time, I was enjoying life.

But speaking to her now, I had been through that whole car thing and homelessness. She probably would never have guessed. We ended up having a long chat. When we got on to books and writing and things I wanted to do in the future I stalled, because of course I couldn't tell her about the book I had already written. Or maybe I could have done, maybe I should have... Maybe she wouldn't have looked any differently at me, wouldn't have turned away as I fear people will. Maybe now, after all this time, it's time to stop worrying about those things completely, and just be who I am - which is the friendly, respectable, approachable woman who was sitting in the cafe chatting to her.