Monday 20.7.09

H is off school for the summer holidays. It is a sobering thought that this may be her last summer holiday as a schoolgirl. she has one compulsory school year to go. We had a nice morning sitting around in pj's laughing at TV programmes chosen by H at random. She also showed an interest in what I was writing, which took me by surprise.

I spent much of the day writing a proper synopsis of the book as I had promised that I would send my mum a bit from it. I was a bit nervous about that as I'm inclined to feel judged and be found wanting. I assume that she certainly won't admire me for writing a romance. There's nothing to be done though. If I finish it and publish it (I'm dreaming, I know) then she'll see it anyway. I wish I could write like Ernest Hemingway but I can't.

I got it all emailed off within a whisper of my friend H turning up. Just as well that she was, as always, fashionably late. We went to see Bruno at the cinema. She was a great choice of companion, and we cackled like fools through the extraordinary language, the long pauses, and the behaviour of the American right. It is a complex thing, not to everyon's taste, I think. The plot feels a bit weak in the middle, and some of it is gratuitous. I do think it makes a point about discrimination, norms of behaviour, and what is acceptable and what is ridiculous. I just wish the Bruno character was a little more real, a little softer some of the time. Once that happened, the ending was a bit magic. With all of that, I loved it, and want to see it again.

After that, we went to Nandos to see where the fashionable people go. In spite of lots of medication, H was very lively. We had along talk about how to know illness from wellness, drawing no conclusion. I felt, as I always have, free and accepted with H. These days, I also feel protective of her, and anxious for the future. She is optimistic though and we made a bet that she would still be well six months from now. I hope to be giving her the champagne when the time comes. On the way back, a man was being sick outside of a pub. I was about to make a sarcastic comment about the classiness of Coventry when H walked over to him, crouched down, and gave him tissues from her bag. As I once told her, she is the kindest and the cleverest person I will probably ever know. When she later told me a story about some fool complaining she hadn't worn makeup for a foolish horsey event, and I looked at her face, carefully and unnecessarily made-up as a result, I wanted to hug her. We are neither of us the same women we were twenty years ago, but, like old couples on park benches, we have each-other.