What happened to May?
I stopped writing. You probably didn't want to know how many times I peeled dead skin from my feet, or how my starlings are fighting over the bird feeders, or that I'm conflicted that I can't seem to buy bird food not wrapped in plastic but if you did I just stopped telling you. Probably for no particular reason. In many ways May was quite therapeutic but a little stressful and I just didn’t feel like telling the world (or the fifty people that read this nonsense) all about it.
This morning I woke up and felt a bit flat. Cold, rainy weather is never very helpful for low mood. It is just over one year since my brain got a bit holey and I have been having a recurring dream that I am crazy paving, living in someone's garden. They have decided that crazy paving is a bit old fashioned and they'd like to change it for something else, so they stop walking on me and take me up and I sit in colourful plastic tubs, while they decided if I'm useful. Eventually, they decided to put me back down in a slightly different order and walk all over me again. Nothing to see here. Absolutely no metaphors or meaning can be inferred from this. Step away from the dream.
Instead of thinking about being broken, old fashioned, walked on and put back together in a slightly different way I look on Twitter and see what is happening in the world. It’s a dangerous thing to do if you are feeling a bit fragile. As I have been avoiding the world, it all came as a bit of a shock.
What happened to May?
There's a conservative leadership contest starting in Ernest. I do feel sorry for Ernest, everything happens in him. I imagine him as a flat capped, bespectacled elderly gent who has a liking for a stripy jumper. If anyone deserves to feel anxious it's poor old Ernest. There are currently eleven (oh no sorry, ten because one of them has no friends) possible leaders running around inside him begging to be liked and we are at the stage where they are forced to confess the worst things they've ever done. Obviously, none of them are completely honest. Esther McVey isn't tossing her solid mane and admitting that celebrating the increased use of food banks because of her policies was an awful thing to do. None of them are confessing to burning ants with a magnifying glass because that would be too horrific (although fairly normal behaviour for a six year old and not illegal) They are, instead, all admitting to having used drugs. You can see the appeal of tossing a bone like that to the press. "Yes, I tried a bit of pot at Uni but none since, oh and I also snorted some icing sugar and smoked a herbal teabag." It's the kind of confession that can allow people to think they are normal and make mistakes like the rest of us and it might stop the Daily Mail digging around until they find someone who remembers you putting your penis in your dinner at boarding school. During the last leadership contest Theresa May had no such stories to tell. Being a vicar's daughter who had dedicated her life to being a good girl and a public servant the worst thing she could remember doing was running through a field of wheat and the world laughed.
That should have been an indication that she wasn't going to be a very successful Prime Minister. She didn't even have the imagination to come up with a good drug story. I wish we could elect good people to run our country. I'd quite like someone who obeys the rules and doesn't think that they can get away with things that other people can't but the public doesn't like that.
If I wanted to be Prime Minister, I'd be stuck. There's no illegal drug use in my past. I'm not particularly keen on legal drugs and will do anything to avoid even a paracetamol but I've thought about it and this is my story.
In 1983 I went to a disco with the Long Suffering Husband. Obviously I was too young to be officially in there, drinking Bacardi and coke but no one ever asked. I wasn't a huge fan of discos; thinking they were a bit smelly and sticky. This was before they were called clubs This place was a square white building on a dual carriageway, with it's name in fluorescent green lights calling young people with cars through its doors. In my memory it was named after a dragon but I can't think of what a dragon would be called now. Inside there was a lot of pink, again the neon variety and there was a fake animal skin sticky carpet. It had white leather, or plastic - pleather, sofas around the edges with little round tables. Each table was filled with abandoned drinks. I doubt this would happen these days but then you only thought the risk was having an extra shot of vodka added to your drink. Boys, in those days, thought vodka had no smell. It was a hot summer's day and I was wearing an electric blue ra-ra skirt and a broderie anglaise top, with white stillettos. Just before we entered the white box I was stung by a wasp. I'm particularly prone to puffing up when I'm bitten so I was aware that it could be a little bit of a problem but I've never been one to make a fuss or give in unnecessarily. By the time I'd had my third drink my arm was at least three times its normal size, so I left the LSH on the dance floor in his dark blue shirt and thin white satin tie. He didn't notice I had gone because his style of dancing was to look at his feet while shuffling, nearly in time to Gold by Spandeau Ballet. I went to the toilet and balled up a load of toilet tissue to soak in cold water, which I placed on my swollen arm and then sat on the leather sofa nursing a brandy and babycham (my Mum's cure for any illness) and feeling sorry for myself. One of the LSH's friends had a sister who had come out with us. She was larger than life in many ways; much older, more experienced and with a dirty laugh you could hear from the toilets. She came past to surf up any unguarded drinks and noticed me sitting there. She sat and told me about a quick knee trembler she'd just had with the boy with the quiff who was now leaning against the bar looking a bit pale. Then she noticed my arm. "Hang on," she said rummaging in her tassled handbag. "I've got some Piriton in here." From the fluff, dust and half sucked polo mints she pulled a blister pack of tiny pills. I assumed they were anti-histamine but they could have been anything. They made me feel very woozy, the room spun a little and I fell asleep on the sofa before the LSH noticed and took me home. This was my first experience of Piriton and I can honestly say I regret it. We all do foolish things in our youth. I hope the public can forgive me.
It's not good enough is it? It's a good job I have no intention of running the country. That's no job for crazy paving.
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