Hospital day yesterday. It was quick and efficient.
Nicola arrived from London on Tuesday and bought delicious, French macaroons.
We ate dinner at Wheelers (4 courses 65 GBP including a dozen native oysters) and she stayed in Georgina’s B&B in the same room/bed I stayed this July.
The following morning we bought her Wellington boots from the ancient shoe shop Wooley’s on the High Street and went for a long walk on the snowy beach. Met other very jovial dog owners and the little dog ran like a mad thing through the melting snow, his little pink paws skidding over the ice.
The woman in Wooley’s, incidentally, remembered fitting my school shoes when I was a boy. Wooley’s has been on Whitstable High Street for a hundred years next year. They asked if they could put my photograph in the window when they celebrate their centenary. I was honoured!
We walked to The Battery, Marilyn’s place on the beach..I described it in my blog the other day. On the way there, however, we peered through Janet Street-Porter‘s cottage window at her austere modern kitchen and her Gary Hume prints. I wouldn’t want to live there. It was so impersonal and the yellow walls were painted the wrong yellow.
The Battery looks a bit worse for wear. I may nip up there later today and take a picture of it for you so you can see what I am talking about.
If you hadn’t noticed I feel leagues better.
I decided to let myself off the hook. Become quite tearful when I write it down like that. It’s time to stop beating myself up. Give myself a break like they say in the Narcotics Anon literature.
I was chatting with a friend yesterday and I realized that I was finally out of the woods. It’s a decision. I have been waiting for a storm to pass rather than wash something down the drain.
My friend was telling me that he would find it hard to love again after his last failed romance, that he had been tossed aside…and I thought to myself, “Bugger that, life is far too short not to fall in love!” I come from a long line of men who can say proudly that they love another man. I love you is possibly the hardest thing one man can say to another. I am doubly proud that I have said it and I meant it.
Saying I love you is much harder than saying I want to fuck you.
All I have to do is find a man who can hear those words and value them.
So, today I tried not to engage with bad thoughts and old resentments. I thought out loud, come on LOVE you can show this old man that life is worth loving again. So, I’ve been feisty all day but not angry. I have been creative all day and not asleep.
I pulled out a couple of scripts. I made a couple of calls. I thought about finding a producer. I had a meeting with a woman I might do a property deal with.
It was good day. It is good to be home.