Wednesday, July 28, 2004

In Between Days

Funny, I was not sure what I was going to title this entry but as blogger loaded I started to think about how long it has been since I last posted. Playing alongside that thought were the Cure-ish melodies that have been languishing around my brain for the last few weeks and as I read an interview with Robert Smith in last month's Uncut mag and In Between Days just seemed the most appropriate title. And what a song eh?

Enough of my brain dumping.

Yes, it has been an age since I've been here. For some reason I have found it quite hard coming here. In retrospect I see that I have not actually wanted to see what was going on inside me head and lets face it, blogspots are pretty much an ugly braindump kind of place. Well, mine is anyway.

I've been depressed. Probably have been all year. A combination of things I rather not go into here. Safe to say though that I feel like I've cleared away the grey veil I seem to have been watching my life through and I can honestly say I am happier than I've been since before I miscarried last August. Yuck.

A bit of a recap of the last few months in the Berry household. We had a lovely week here in late June which was utterly blissful. It was 38 most days with a gorgeous sea breeze. Ian read a book a day and I managed only 5. We got a great tan, had some fabby meals, swam every day and rested our weary bones in the wonderful sunshine of the Aegean Sea. It was heaven.

The following weekend I flew to Paris to meet my friend Janet who had attended a conference in Berlin but was asked to visit Paris to discuss her research. She was originally meant to fly to Manchester after her conference but called me after she was invited to Paris asking if I minded meeting her there instead [!!]. I ran it past Ian who said it was fine so off I went only slightly trepidatious for it was the first time since I arrived in the UK almost 5 years ago that I'd travelled on my own.


It was a fabby weekend in which we spent 5 hours on Saturday in the Louvre (and having read half of The Da Vinci Code in the gate lounge at Manchester Airport this was even more significant!) which was brilliant. Art really is good for the soul. We shopped like fiends on Saturday afternoon and quaffed the obligatory chocolate crepe from a stall near Gallery Lafayette. Dreamy. We had dinner at a great little restaurant called La Soufflé which was amazing and I dragged Janet home a little tipsy after half a bottle of white wine. She's not a big drinker in case you were wondering...

Sunday we wandered over to Notre Dame as our hotel was in the Latin Quarter and lit some candles. It was quite lovely. As it was raining in Paris and wandering around was a bit out of the question we had a lazy lunch and I headed back to Charles de Gaulle to catch my flight home. I had a lovely time and it was great to catch up with my dear friend Janet who I had not seen for nearly 4 years - the last time we were face to face her son was just learning to crawl, he is now in school, and talking!!

Nothing much else has happened really. My job is still tedious and the weather in Manchester has been dire. No barbies or al fresco eating for us which is harder to bear given every food magazine I buy has page after page of wonderful things to do in the sun. What bloody sun? I find myself muttering as I gaze out at the rain once again. Bugger.

So, we have a weeks holiday left till the end of the year. We are not sure where we are going but we know we need to get away, preferably somewhere with more blue sky and sunlight than is currently on offer up norf. After that we have a much anticipated trip to Australia which starts on Boxing Day and will hopefully last a month. I miss Australia very much these days and I am desperately looking forward to seeing my hometown of Melbourne and beyond that the southern ocean. Ahhh.

Enough catch up!

Listening to: The Official Fiction, Something for Kate
Reading: Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy