This morning, after another night of poor sleep, and bad dreams when I did sleep, I awoke feeling very out of sorts. Chris opened our bedroom curtains to reveal a grey sky outside and long trails of honeysuckle from our neighbour’s bush streaming in the strong wind.

“Is it raining?” I asked.

“Not at the moment, but it has been, and it will again,”said Chris somewhat discouragingly.

“I don’t care, I want to go cycling – I need to go cycling,” I was adamant.

“Well, we had better go soon.”

So shortly after breakfast, with our visitors still in bed, we took to our bikes. My mood was as dark as the sky above us and I hardly spoke. I didn’t experience the usual thrill of flying down the bridle path to Dawlish Warren; and I didn’t even give a little wiggle going over the “sleeping policemen”. What does that mean, do I hear you ask? Now in the normal run, I stand on the pedals as I approach the traffic-calming bumps on the road, lean down into my handlebars, and give a small, barely noticeable, wiggle of my bottom before sitting back on my saddle. I must add that this strange ritual is for Chris’s benefit and he always responds with either a soft whistle or a clack of his tongue (often confused with the clack of his gear change). It saddened me that I didn’t even feel up to giving a little wiggle.

We passed a flock of sheep in the field by the cycle-track.

“Don’t those sheep look funny standing huddled together in the middle of that field?” Chris asked.

“They look like they’re waiting for the end of the world,” I answered miserably. (Oh dear!)

We arrived at Cockwood Harbour – the tide was out fully yet again (how can the tide always be out?) – and it looked dark, muddy and bleak under the grey sky. We usually circle around in the “Anchor Inn”  car park and head back home but this morning was different.

“I don’t feel like stopping,” I told Chris, “you can turn back if you want to but I want to keep on going.”

“That’s okay, I’ll keep with you,” he said.

So we kept on going to Starcross, where there was a major traffic jam both ways and we zipped through on our bikes (and felt grateful to be riding not driving). We kept on going on the Powderham road by the estuary and I looked across at two boats resting eerily on their sides on the sand.

“They look like hulks,” I observed gloomily.

“They are hulks,” confirmed Chris cheerily.

I didn’t believe him but I thought he was funny and I smiled to myself. We passed Powderham Castle and soon reached the little church on the edge of the castle estate, a convenient place to call the end of our outward ride. As we pulled off the road into the church car park I noticed a man, perhaps an usher, about to close the church door for the beginning of service. He saw me and waited a few moments before deciding to shut the door.

“Shall we go in?” I asked Chris.

“You can if you want to, I’ll wait outside,” he said without grumbling (he usually grumbles).

I didn’t go in. Instead, I closed my eyes for a minute or two whilst thinking about my late Dad, my dear friend Amr and my lost babies, and I told them … well, that’s between me and them. I dried my eyes and I was ready to go home.

It rained on the way home and we got soaked through to the skin but it was great; the tide had turned and the sea was coursing back into the river; and I could feel the blood coursing through me as I put on a spurt. I sped past a pair of men’s black under-pants that dangled from the hedge opposite the castle; I waved enthusiastically to oncoming Vespa riders (at least a dozen of them in convoy) who tooted and waved back, and all we ordinary cyclists called out “Good morning” to one another, in spite of the rain; we zoomed through Starcross with the normal traffic, which had cleared; we saw people with cameras gathering by the railway line in readiness for a special train coming through and, minutes later we saw the “Torbay Express” chuff by rather chuffed that fans turned out in the rain; the sheep were no longer huddled and afraid, the reality was not as bad as they had anticipated; and when we reached the first “sleeping policeman” I stood on the pedals, leaned forwards and gave a little wiggle. Chris whistled and clacked his tongue, or perhaps he just changed gear.

The sun is out, it’s warm but not too hot because there is a fresh breeze and the air is soft and delightful. We’ve come home from shopping early and our present guests (number two daughter and boyfriend) are out for the day on Exeter canal (possibly kayaking), so do I (1) Sit in my hot studio, open the windows and doors, and spend an hour writing a great story on my blog, (2) Take advantage of a Saturday afternoon with no children or visitors and make passionate love for two hours (like in the olden days), or (3) Change into my bikini, cover myself with sun-cream, factor 30, and catch up on some sleep on the sun-lounger?

I’m not saying but any moment now I shall be high-tailing it out of this hot studio. I went to bed rather late last night and I didn’t sleep for ages because of over-tiredness…

Whatever you’re doing, whatever your choices may be, I hope you all have a lovely afternoon.

“To say hello from an old friend”  – that was the heading of the email awaiting me in my e-mailbox this morning. “How intriguing,” I thought. “How fascinating and exciting…” I gushed to myself. “Who is it from?” I wondered. The sender’s name (a man, naturally) rang a bell…”Of course, Ian”, Gorgeous Ian, the swimmer and beachboy I used to know. I haven’t seen Ian for over 17 years – since before I was married. How did he get my email address? I don’t know. Do they give them out over the Internet? Was it even the same Ian? It had to be. It was! He wrote…

Hello Sally
I was looking on the net for “artist” and you came up, good to see again. So you are still painting, that’s good to see… and living in Dawlish.
I am still doing some painting in Acrylic & watercolours. Are you on Facebook? I am.
Love from a old friend,

Ian ……. x

Wasn’t that nice? Needless to say, we are now “old friends” on Facebook and I’ve quickly caught up with what has been happening to Ian in the intervening years. I’ve seen his photos. He’s still handsome, if a little greyer than when I last saw him, and very fit and sporty, by the looks of it. There was even a photo of Ian taken before we first met on Dawlish beach (I remember he wore an Australian t-shirt and he was brown and hunky). I saw photos of his friends and present girlfriend (not married then).

I rather dread what Ian will think if/when he looks at my Facebook photos because my nieces and nephews are apt to put vile photos of me on Facebook and I don’t know how to get rid of them! Thank goodness I’m already married and don’t have suitors trawling through those nasty Facebook photos. On a whole, I’d prefer that he went to my blog where all photographs are carefully selected by me. But if he reads my blog…

Dearest Ian, if you should find your way to my blog and read this, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve shared your private email with my huge readership – I just couldn’t resist. By the way, I’m not nearly as ugly as those photographs on Facebook suggest!

Hooray! The grey skies have disappeared and the sun is shining. Somehow I just don’t feel the real me on miserable grey days even when it isn’t cold. My happiness seems to depend on sunshine… and real food. By real food, I mean nice food with calories, as you probably guessed.

The Dukan Diet (my saviour) is most effective but impossible to stick to for long periods. The last week has been difficult, dull and boring – foodwise (I never let myself get bored in other ways). One of my good friends, who knows me exceedingly well, showed great surprise and almost disbelief when I let it slip in an email that I was off my food and had hardly eaten anything in the last few days (well, it’s all relative- isn’t it?). Chris and I had decided to be ultra strict with ourselves when we went shopping last Saturday. No bread, potatoes, biscuits, crisps, chocolate or anything really nice; in fact, we didn’t get much shopping at all owing to my suggestion that we should eat salads and whatever it was that filled (and practically overflowed from) our freezer.

The first few days were fine. Every time, on the hunt for food, I went to the fridge, I found I was quite satisfied by the variety of cold meats, crab sticks, chicken pieces and salad that greeted me; but the fridge became a less appealing place as the days progressed and the cold meats (what were left) dried out and curled at the edges, the crab sticks turned soft and tasted, rather disturbingly, of mint, the chicken pieces tasted processed and ersatz, the lettuce wilted, the tomatoes became softer (and less easy to slice thinly), the cucumber became green slime, and the strawberries from last week rotted (well, we weren’t eating fruit on the Dukan Diet).

By Tuesday I had turned to the freezer for inspiration and found four mouth-watering (if the packaging was anything to go by) Bird’s Eye fish fillets in breadcrumbs. The two frozen fish fillets inside the cardboard carton looked suspiciously unlike the ones in the photo but I thought they might magically transform during cooking. Sadly not. Worse still, the little pieces of grey fish (of a variety I’ve not seen before) covered in fake breadcrumbs (bread must be far too expensive for manufacturers to use for breadcrumbs) tasted as terrible as they looked. I took one mouthful of mine, spat it out and deposited the rest in the bin.

“Want something else?” Chris asked hopefully.

I thought of the curly cold meats, minty crab sticks, chemical chicken, slimy cucumber and dead lettuce, and I grimaced as I shook my head.

“No thanks, Darling. I’m quite off my food after that,” I answered.

“Well surely you could have half of one of those little chocolate puddings with me? It would take the bad taste out of your mouth,” Chris cajoled.

Things have looked up since Tuesday. We went out for dinner last night with Ron (a thank you for painting his balcony) – I had a small salad… with big haddock in beer batter! I’ve just made a fresh loaf in the bread machine – we had bread and jam for lunch, with lashings of salty butter, of course. We’re having visitors again, until Sunday. Now you can’t put your guests on a diet – can you?

Our friends, Stephen and Janine, live in The Lake District. Even more interestingly, they own the house where Arthur Ransome lived towards the end of his life and from where he wrote the wonderful children’s book, “Swallows and Amazons”. At least, I’m sure it’s wonderful, judging by the first chapter (thought I had better read it as our friends own the famous house now). Their house is set within the rolling landscape overlooking beautiful Lake Coniston, the inspirational setting for the story.

Our friends intend to let the guest accommodation adjoining the main house, and Stephen has asked me to come up with a suitable logo to put on mugs and place-mats, that sort of thing… for sale to the visitors. Hence, I’ve been drawing and PhotoShop-ping Arthur Ransome all day. The funny thing is that the author reminds me greatly of my Granddad Barnes. I said to Chris, “I rather like drawing Arthur – he looks just like my grandfather.” Chris took a look at my drawings and said, “He looks like everybody’s granddad!” What do you think? Does he look like your grandfather?

Those words have been going over and over in my head ever since last week when I saw the 1987 film of the  “Queen” Concert Live from Budapest. The film began at ten-thirty one night on BBC Four and I thought I would just watch a half hour of it before going to bed. Eleven o’clock came and went, twelve o’clock came and went – it was magical. It was so entrancing that even Chris stayed awake to watch all of it, which is just as well because had he snored I would have hit him (or prodded him fiercely!).

When Freddie Mercury began the haunting strains of “Who wants to live forever?” I had tears in my eyes, thinking about his premature death from AIDs in 1991. I took some comfort from the irony that he does live on in a way, in his work and in people’s memories – maybe not forever, but as he sang… “Who wants to live forever?”

What can Daniel mean?

My nephew, Daniel, is a charming boy. He loves his Aunty Sally, of course, but he’s at the age that he doesn’t want to be kissed (not by aunts anyway). For that reason I always approach him as if I’m going to kiss him but  I give him enough time to pull a pillow up to his face or to run and hide. Yesterday he was on the sofa when I entered the lounge-room and went over to kiss him.

“Oh no!” Daniel pulled a face and grabbed a pillow, “I don’t want to be kissed by a fat panda!”

“A fat panda?” I asked. (So much for Dr Dukan’s diet and those four pounds off.) “What  a horrible thing to say to me, especially when I’m so slim now. What if I was sensitive?”

“I said a ‘pat panda'” he laughed.

We both laughed and he let me run my hand through his hair instead of kissing. I seem to remember that I didn’t like people coming up and kissing me when I was child…I have changed!

What could be more pleasant than nipping down to The Anchor Inn at beautiful Cockwood Harbour on a summer’s evening? The scenery is stunning…

Excuse me if should come across a little bit tipsy at the moment but, following my recent discovery in Brittany that I actually enjoy a tipple, and my blog announcing that I intend to drink more, I could hardly refuse a drink or three from the bottle of lovely red Australian wine that Catherine, my friend and neighbour, brought around half an hour ago (it was a thank you for mowing the grass the other day – quite unnecessary really because all the effort of getting through the thick couch grass down by the sea wall was rewarded already by a two pound weight loss (of course I put it back on again but it’s off again now). But that isn’t what I wanted to tell you about this evening, let me think….

Oh yes, I remember. Our nice P’aussie (Pommie/Aussie) visitors left for Cornwall this morning. We really enjoyed their stay, so much so that both Chris and I forgot our commitments for the day; there we were chatting away merrily after breakfast when the phone rang. It was Ron ringing to remind Chris that he had promised to take our neighbour to hospital for a minor operation, which in turn reminded Chris that I had to go to the dentist. That call was rather a conversation stopper, suddenly we were all running about getting ready for “the off”; Chris flew out the door first (the hospital was waiting), Sue and Glenn threw their suitcases into their hire-car and bade their sad but hasty farewells, and I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom, cleaning and flossing my teeth, and gargling with mouthwash, before setting out to Newton Abbot with 45 minutes in hand for the twenty minute journey… in winter traffic.

I arrived at the dental surgery five minutes late and had time only to read one Somerset Maugham short story before I was called in, greatly to my surprise. “You look surprised”, smiled Alison, my dentist, knowingly, from the doorway as she watched me fumbling with my large book and reading glasses, “I see you expected a very long wait!” It was a different room to usual. And a different chair.  “No armrests”, I noted and Alison understood. She usually gauges when to stop drilling by the whiteness of my knuckles gripping the armrests and by the curling of my toes simultaneously – I always endeavour not to scream although I have been known on occasions, when the drill makes it impossible for me to hear myself, to make funny whimpering noises without me even realising it.

Alison gave me what I now realise was an injection on a par with a tranquiliser dart for an African elephant, no doubt to make up for the loss of the vital armrests. In spite of the fact that I felt no pain, my tongue nevertheless objected to the shrill, watery drill and it tried (against my will) to push the blasted thing out of mouth.

– “Can you pull your tongue back, Sally?” Alison asked.

– “I’m afraid it has a will of its own,” I apologised.

We had to stop several times for me to swallow and for Alison and her nurse to compose themselves.

My dentist had to make a temporary crown for a back tooth that had broken off (the ravages of popcorn – eat it at your peril) and she had to guess the size of my mouth in order to choose the right device for making an impression.

– “That’s perfect,” she said, very pleased with herself that she had guessed correctly.

– “What size is it? Am I normal?” I asked. (Well, you would, wouldn’t you?)

– “Average”, Alison answered, “but there are small settings and large. Just the other a day a man came in with the biggest mouth I’ve ever seen!”

– “I’m so glad to be average,” I said. (Never thought I’d ever say that.) “Have you ever kissed anybody who had a really small mouth?”

Alison stopped making her impression to give the matter some thought while the dental nurse giggled somewhere in the distance behind me.

– “No, I haven’t actually,” she looked at me in the manner of a pretty blonde meerkat and continued,  “why have you?”

– “It was awful,” I informed her.

– “Yes, I can imagine,” Alison then puckered her lips and moved her mouth up and down.

– “That’s it exactly,” I laughed.

We all burst out laughing. As I left Alison told me to be careful with my new temporary crown (the real one will be fitted in a fortnight), especially when eating, for the following two hours. Chance would have been a fine thing! And I was starving. All I could eat three hours later was an ice-cream (sorry but the diet was of secondary consideration at the time) and even then I bit the side of my mouth terribly, but I didn’t find out until that elephant dart injection had worn off six hours later! By that time I was nearly finished painting Ron’s balustrades with Chris (it will be a nice surprise for Ron when he comes home tomorrow) and when at last we had dinner of steak and broccoli I couldn’t eat it because it tasted of bathroom sealant (at least, as I imagine bathroom sealant tastes!). So you see, my slimming Dukan diet hasn’t been affected too badly after all. Tomorrow may be a problem though because I want to go vegetarian…