A Newsletter About How There Will Not Be a Newsletter This Week
This is a newsletter about how there won’t be a newsletter this week.
I have set myself a deadline for the first draft of the book to be done by next Friday. The deal is that it can be the worst first draft in the whole world ever but it will be a book- length creation from start to finish.
Elizabeth Gilbert says she makes a deal at the start of a book that it might not be good but it will be finished.
So that’s what I’m going for.
Just a question in the meantime. I’ve shared the writing of a couple of friends in this newsletter. Marisa Bates’ piece on Sarah Everard and Joanna Kelly on job hunting in a pandemic. How do you feel about that? Would you be up for me sharing other voices from time to time?
Let me know.
The sun is shining here this morning and we had a very sad week. My mum’s little kitten, Kitty, died at eight months old. The vet thinks she ate lilies. Did you know that lilies are very poisonous to cats? The vet says there should be warnings in garden centres. It could have been something else too, but whatever it was, her kidneys packed up and no more Kitty.
Mum, who spent her whole life not being a pet person, is heartbroken.
We buried her in the garden.
Mum’s upstairs neighbour played the ukulele by the grave and brought a branch of blossom. He told us that, in Japan, blossoms symbolize the transience of life, because they only bloom for a very short time.
It was surreal and beautiful.
Love xx
WHAT I’M READING
This one about touch is really interesting. The writer talks about all the times she has experienced unwanted touch and how the last year has, in some ways, offered a relief.
And happy 80th birthday Vivienne Westwood! You are FABULOUS.
I once went into Vivienne Westwood’s shop in Mayfair. It was when I was working in papers and being paid quite well. I always had it in my head that her clothes would suit me and now that I had a bit of money I was going to treat myself.
I was intimidated going in there and there was a model-looking shop assistant who was doing a great job of performing spectacular boredom until I came out of the changing room wearing a striped dress. He burst out laughing.
“IT LOOK TERRRIBLE!”, he said in whatever accent he had. It might have been Italian.
I looked in the big mirror and I looked like a child who had dressed herself.
‘Did I get the buttons wrong?’ I asked. I seem to remember there were buttons and flaps everywhere. He checked and redid them and it still looked all wrong.
‘Can I try something else?’ I asked. He brought back a couple of things. I put them on and walked out the changing room to more laughter. For the next hour we had a game of me trying on things in the shop just to see how bad they would look on me.
Strangely that is one of my most fun shopping experiences. I laughed for an hour and came out without spending any money.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
TINA, on NOW TV SKY is great, as is this article.