How’s your hole?

 Blogs have been  thin on the ground lately. The truth is that I have been in a bit of a hole. A writing hole, that I am reliably informed is called ‘THE PAIN.’

THE PAIN (always in shouty capital letters) is the hole that you fall into when you have written ninety thousand words, typed End, read it through and understood that ‘end’ means beginning. There is almost as much work to do as you’ve done before you dare show it to anyone else. My ‘THE PAIN’ hole is filled with signs in colourful, beautiful script. Posters that proclaim: “Who do you think you are?” “What made you think you could do this?” “Why are you bothering?” “No one will want to read this trash anyway.” This hole is zapping my brainpower and making me grumpy and I doubt this blog is a valuable use of anyone's time. It is not even as though I ever wanted to be a writer, I just don’t seem able to help myself. It’s like an illness. 

If I had been writing the blog regularly then I suspect there would have been a hole theme. Life is all about holes. Don't snigger, I'm not talking about those holes, although if your life giving or maintaining holes are playing up then you have my full sympathy. 

If you work in the public sector then you will have got very used to the holes. They are everywhere. There have been too many years of a government that is not interested in funding public services and so gaps turned into craters and are now caverns. Every day you try to plug those holes. 

The magical properties of the wet paper towel are well known. It has to be blue and if run under some cold water it can heal anything but only if applied within a school setting. Knowing this, it's easy to get into the mind of Jeremy Hunt. There's no need to fund everything, send the little blighters to school and they can fix everything there. 

Never mind that the poor kid has been on a waiting list for a tonsillectomy for 3 years and the smell of pus from its mouth means no one wants to sit next to it, just slap on the blue paper towel. 

You think I'm joking but the holes in public services are so huge, entire schools and their crumbly concrete are liable to fall into them and disappear forever. 

The other kind of holes that are ever present in life are the grief holes. My brain is still a bit holey (I refuse to even discuss trauma holes) and as I watch people around me suffer from the loss of their parents my heart breaks all over again for them. Counsellors talk about loss as being like a hole in your life and how the hole never changes shape but you add more life around it. When you are younger, life happens quickly and exciting things surround your grief more quickly. Although it is natural that your parents won't live forever, it can be completely surprising to find that you don't bounce back as quickly as you thought you would and children have a knack of saying stupid things like, "I miss my mummy."

I was talking to a colleague about the holes and out of nowhere she announced, "My hole is fine. That would be a good title for a blog."  So, even though I'm in my own hole of pain, I will step out for a moment to ask you all, "How's your hole?"