A Little Woman

Inexplicably grim this morning, I was. Up early, cracking on with the start of the day, I found myself hitting a flat spot just after 9 a.m. You know, (or perhaps you don’t?) when you feel a bit aimless and end up staring out of the window at the grey clouds scudding across the sky and bits of spitty rain tip tapping at the windows, and wishing you had a massive slice of fruit cake to hand but you don’t because you are trying to lose some weight, damn it, and haven’t done any baking for AGES.

‘Do some writing,’ I said to myself sternly. I tend to talk aloud to myself because sometimes mine is the only voice I hear all day, and I like to check a) that my voice still works and b) so do my ears. So I sat and wrote for an hour and a half. A couple of interesting plot points showed their faces, so that was good. Sometimes writing reveals some surprising ideas. I mean, I know it is me that thinks them, but they still surprise me sometimes.

During this time, the postman delivered a new broadband hub because we’ve just had to go through the rigamarole of renewing our contract with BT and, of course, it entailed paying £9.99 for an updated hub (I’m rolling my eyes here) BUT we will also receive one of those talking tower thingies that does Alexa, worth £89.99! Yeah, like I wanted one of those, but hey! It might be fun - ‘Alexa, play ‘The Queen of the Night’ aria from Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ followed by the theme tune for ‘The Banana Splits’ then tell me what the weather will be like in May.’

By 10.45 I was feeling restless again. I answered the phone to a scam caller, telling me there was something terribly wrong with my internet (sigh...) so I said, ‘Do you know, I think it is really sad that you have to work in a job that requires you to scam people,’ and the caller replied, ‘If you think that, I hang up,’ and they did. So that was good. Whilst I was near the phone I made an appointment for a cut and blow dry for the beginning of February. I shall enjoy this one because my hairdresser does a ‘Pay for three haircuts, get your fourth one free,’ offer. And this will be the freebie. I then emailed a good chum because she is a very good listener, and we off-load to each other in these moments of grimness.

And then I thought, just go out somewhere. Anywhere. Just go out. (I didn’t say this out loud because by now even I was getting bored of the sound of my whinging.) So I got in the car and went to a nearby garden centre which has a branch of Hobbycraft. Which had a sale! I bought some painting brushes, a watercolour set, some pipe cleaners and some embroidery threads. And when I went to the checkout to pay for my little basket of bargains, the assistant said, ‘You look like you’ve stepped straight out of ‘Little Women.’ That’s a compliment, by the way.’

Well! Here are the ‘Little Women’ from last year’s BBCs adaptation...

Was I pottering around Hobbycraft in a big old frock with flowers in my hair? Nope. I was wearing a corduroy tunic top in blue with little red acorns dotted around on it, purple woolly tights, purple boots, a blue/green poncho and my hair in sticky-out bunches! Mind you, I enjoyed that the assistant equated this 54 year old woman with feisty girls less than half that age. Unless she was thinking of their mother, of course. I hadn’t considered that...gosh, how vain of me!

 Anyway, it cheered me up no end, that comment. As I paid for my goodies, we discussed the new ‘Little Women’ film which the assistant said she saw a couple of days ago with her mother and daughter, and that it was EXCELLENT, so I really must go and see it.

Then I came home and had soup for lunch. Grimness gone!