Wake me up before you go go

So much for my new regime of get up early, do the domestics followed by an industrious morning of painting.  I did get up early, performed ablutions then went back to bed and fell asleep.  Oh no.

I was all excited about a lovely new painting I have to produce but found I only have giant or tiny canvasses.  I need some inbetweens.  I would go out and get just one in order to start new daubs but I am just too tired and anyway Mr Smith has me on waiting for wine delivery duty.  Not new wine - oh no we are far too poor, but old wine that he didn't sell so it's coming home then going out to someone else.  All far too complicated for me but I am sitting here motionless waiting for the wineman.

I'm off wine these days.  I am tee-total which is a bit odd for me.  I just cannot think of anything more revolting than booze.  My liver is having a well earned rest.

Lost and found

I was looking for a bit of free publicity for my art in the Caribbean so I donated a teeny weeny painting to a charity fundraiser. Last night it was auctioned for an embarrassingly huge amount of money. I hope all are happy; I certainly am. Let's hope I stay flavoursome til my next visit.

I am so stupidly tired I keep doing daft things. Looking like a zombie I went to Kingston to get my photos developed. I only got half of them done although I thought I'd selected them all. Then I went to get Mad Carina a birthday card and lost my purse. Oh no, what a nightmare. Went back to shop and found purse. Then I lost the car. And I keep falling asleep.

Mr Smith hasn't been here all day. I think he goes to his new office these days. What glorious bliss. At long last normal service has been resumed.

Honey, I 'm home

Mrs Smith is home and tired. I will sleep for a week then work work work on lovely new paintings. I had the best holiday ever and I feel so energised (except for the time difference). I am bursting to order new art supplies and paint new pictures and dream new dreams.

Time for bed

Time is so odd here. The sun rises and sets at pretty much on the dot of 6 every day. This means I tend to get up very early and go to bed quite early. Combined with jet lag, that I just never seem to shake off, I seem to sleep for about three or four hours a night then read or draw or just lie awake yearning for daybreak. Although I hate the time and climate changes, I am looking forward to sleeping through a whole night with Mr Smith snoring beside me.

I have now abandoned all hope of ever finishing any paintings, I have completely run out of clean clothes and I couldn't drink another rum punch if you paid me. I think it may be time to go home.

Paradise with paint

Imagine the best dream you ever had then multiply it by a hundred. That's my holiday.

I have two commissions so far, both for decent money and I am excited about them. Mrs Smith's daubs are proving flavoursome. They are a good test of the water as I now know what price people are prepared to pay and, frankly, I am amazed. I am not wholly confident my show will be a sell out. Annie, my agent, has her red dots at the ready. I think she may be a little over optimistic.

I only have two days left here and I think I would prefer to spend them making sketches and notes and taking photos rather than finishing anything. There is the whole of 2012 for that.

Hard work

Today's priorities include trying to tan more evenly and get rid of white strap marks, painting a jungle picture and getting over a hangover.

Mrs Smith's holiday

Mrs Smith is sunburnt.
Mrs Smith discovered a delicious new drink called Go Bananas.
Mrs Smith has been to too many parties and hasn't done her quota of paintings.
Mrs Smith misses Mr Smith.

Painting by numbers

I am very excited as I am having an exhibition of my paintings here next year. A whole year seems a long way off but I know it will just fly by. I just have to be dedicated and churn out loads of jungly pictures. In the meantime I am working on a picture of Charlestown, our capital city. It is really a tiny little town with a grand courthouse that somehow I have made look like a row of cottages - needs work.

I am so tired from too much partying which definitely is not an aid to painting.

Mrs Smith, a woman with tenacity of purpose

It is raining very hard indeed; I have lost my umbrella.
Oh look, the sun has appeared but now I have lost my sunglasses.
Reading a wonderfully exciting book called Hilda Wade, a woman with tenacity of purpose. It's quite Sherlock Holmesy. In fact Conan Doyle wrote the ending because the author died before he finished it. I hope I don't die before I finish reading it. Alcohol poisoning is a possibility. Last night I tried a strange jalapeño cocktail - I nearly expired on the spot and had to have several watermelon and whiskey juleps to put out the fire.

I am working on a very tricky painting so I must dash and tickle it a little more.

It just gets better and better

Hello there. I am in the tropics having THE most amazing time. Just this second there is a storm blowing but it is the middle of the night and by the light of day it will have blown over. That's how it works here. The pounding rain on the banana leaves along with the wind in the palm trees makes it sound torrential when really it's probably just a light shower that will blow over in no time. Right, that's the weather covered.

The fun thing about coming back to the same place every year is catching up with all the people and hearing all the gossip and filling in ones mental divorced/beheaded/died chart. Apart from beheaded there is much filling in to do. A dear friend broke his back a couple of weeks ago falling off his balcony which is near to beheading.

Now it's time to calm down. I partied from 8am to bedtime yesterday so today I shall take it easy and potter and do some serious painting - hangover permitting. Or maybe I will just lie in the sun and sip something. How I love this little jewel of a paradise island.

Whistle stop tour

Well that was a mighty quick dash to the sea and back. How I had enough time to acquire a hangover is a mystery ... But I did.

The Edward Burra exhibition in Chichester is superbly good and I recommend you pop in if you are going that way. I timed my visit carfully so I would have exactly 20 minutes but someone fell out of their wheelchair outside the ladies and I was required to assist their carer in righting them. I went to get some proper help. I am highly suspicious this person was quite able to walk but just didn't choose to. This good deed meant I had all of ten minutes to whizz round the gallery but I still enjoyed it and will go again.

So tomorrow I am off for two weeks of sheer heaven on the little paradise island of Nevis. Be jealous, very jealous.

Liistless

One big problem I have with going on holiday is getting thoroughly overexcited and not being able to sleep. I redo lists endlessly in my head until I can take no more. Actually, by the light of day, I realise the world probably won't end because I haven't ironed the sheets and my passport is in the safe where it always is and its expiry date hasn't mysteriously altered whilst it was in there.

Today I am off to the seaside to look from one side of the Atlantic towards the other and I will be sure to do the same when I'm in the Caribbean. I am going to the hairdressers then an exhibition in Chichester. I don't like hair appointments - all that staring at yourself in the mirror - so I am going to Pallant House Art Gallery as a treat afterwards. Then I will enjoy an evening of the pub quiz with my friends and a Mr Smithless night in my lovely flat before whizzing back to London tomorrow morning. All a bit fleeting but I need to see the sea.

I rather unkindly told Mad Carina she is mad. I gave her a firm talking to about her shopping and gifting addiction and made her promise to buy me no more presents but then I had to ring her back and ask for a scrapbook for my birthday. She was delighted with this request as she had already bought me one .... probably several! I asked her where on earth she gets the money to buy all these things; housekeeping. Gosh, how clever. Her husband lives in the belief that his one fishinger costs £90. Mr Smith does our shopping.

And now back to my list of tasks - suncream and currency. Oh I'll get them at the airport with the housekeeping money.

Giving it all away

Mrs Smith is on Twitter but .... How does it work? I don't think I can be arsed to find out. I am so busy hating Facebook with a vengeance that I don't have time for another social network.

I thought I wouldn't really bother with packing for my forthcoming holiday to the Caribbean (just thought I'd drop that in to make you jealous). Instead I would just use that boring couple of hours at the airport to buy everything I need there. Given my propensity for buying things that don't fit, I don't think that is my best idea yet as taking the things back would be nigh on impossible. No, you don't understand, Mr Security Man, I'm not flying anywhere I just couldn't get my big backside into this stupid teeny weeny swimsuit and I need to get my money back. Actually, I think the shops all have other shops elsewhere.

Yesterday I was so determined to stick to my low calorie regime but I then had lunch with M-C and Gay Virginio. We went to a lovely Italian and had the most delicious meatballs, sausage and polenta - at Gay Virginio's insistence. Oh it was so yummy and came with lovely focaccia and that dipping oil. I almost had to be wheeled down Northcote Road I was so full.

Mad Carina popped round for tea .... by taxi. She only lives round the corner. She was more bonkers than ever. She has shopping addiction. This isn't about acquisition which is relatively normal "Ooooh all the lovely new things in their rustly tissue paper, mine all mine". Her addiction is gifting. I stopped her buying me endless presents last year but she has other recipients. Why doesn't she spend some money on herself? Her woeful over gifting just makes her appear madder. I think she is past help. I only realised yesterday just how badly addicted to shopping and giving she has become. In the end she will run out of money. When she left she found she had lost her purse. That'll control her for a while. No, I didn't take it; she'd left it in the taxi.

Today is housework day. Mr Smith looks far more excited about this than me. He is composing a list then is off to play golf ..... with his list shoved in his golf bag.

Too sexy for my t shirt

Yesterday I took back all the I'll fitting clothes I had bought last week and replaced them with more ill fitting clothes. I am confused. I bought a dress marked in my size - Hippo Elephant - too small. I then went to M&S and tried on something in a larger size - Whale - it was much too big. I am somewhere between a 14 and a 16. This is now the average British woman which means you have to be quick to get your hands on anything that fits before they've all gone.

The purpose of my shopping trip yesterday was to buy some nice loose fitting clothes for my forthcoming expedition to the tropics. I tried on my new purchases and gave Mr Smith a twirl - "Well, it nearly fits" he said charitably to something that was marked L in H&M but was at least two sizes too small. I have decided to keep it and try it on every week until I can eventually do up the zip .... and exhale.

Term time is resumed at patchwork school today where they all hate me. Don't know why as I am very nice. I think it's because they are a load of horrible old bats with nasty dispositions and maybe because I'm teacher's pet. Well, MC and I are good chums. I must remember to be particularly offhand to her today. Then we can go out to our fav Italian restaurant around the corner for lunch and talk about the other students.

There's an ap for that

Now that I have been in possession of my iPad for two weeks I am completely addicted to it. If I want to know anything at all I can instantly consult either Google or I can download an application for that particular subject. Yesterday, I wanted to know where the constellation of Orion actually is, what to cook for dinner and how much my hideous Christmas weight gain is in both pounds and kilos. All was answered at the press of a screen. I now have a sky at night ap that lines up me and the stars exactly where we are which, I don't know about you but, I think is pretty much magic. It draws all the lines on the map so it is no longer just a mass of indecipherable dots. Jamie Oliver told me what to cook complete with a little demo and I now have bits of it attached to the screen. For the weight gain I simply downloaded a calculator that looks a bit complicated to me - I only wanted a bit of 14 times table as I didn't have enough fat fingers, but now I have everything from binary to trigonometry and a diet ap for good measure.

My iPad also has the newspaper every day, television, a superb library of books, music, art (both to look at and do) and photographs to both take and admire. I have already read three books the loveliest of which was Pride and Prejudice. I also loved Small Island by Andrea Levey. The downside is I haven't moved much. Perhaps I should take some exercise and occasionally speak to Mr Smith. I'm sure I can find an ap for both those.

Fatty goes shopping

I spoke to my friend Hotel Gwen on the island of Nevis, a little jewel of heavenly loveliness in the Caribbean sea. She is having such a hard time managing her hotel where everyone's thick and lazy and they all hate her. I am going there next week and she is so excited. Me too. I'm sure they don't really hate her; it's just that they need to get used to someone new. A bit like me with my children except I am not new but they just hate me anyway.

I went to the dentist yesterday and now have a perfect front tooth. Hooray I can eat biscuits again. Oh no I can't; I am hauling my enormous fat self along a Caribbean beach in seven days a bit like a giant walrus. I don't want to be any bigger. On the way back from the dentist I popped into H&M where I bought two perfect bits of holiday wear - neither of which fit ..... remotely. Back to the shops I go. Everything looked huge in big sizes but sadly I am bigger. So it's going to be a week of meagre portions and much jumping around for me. I know it's all much too late but I would like to decrease myself a little bit. Shall I take the clothes back or put them in the wardrobe and let them grow? .... with the others.

Mr Smith has gone to early golf in the dark. He has stolen my car because his doesn't work. This to me is like borrowing my toothbrush; I am far from comfortable about it. He has just rung me to ask how to put petrol in it. Yes, he is that useless. I think he wanted me to trot round to the petrol station and do it for him. At 6am! I don't think so. Mr Smith's out all day so the dog and I can stay in bed lazily and work out our exercise plan. Actually, I might walk to the swimming pool and do something fat and splashy, then walk back. This afternoon is a toss up between afternoon film and a fitness DVD. I usually take about the same amount of exercise in front of both as I lie on the sofa watching the thin fit people wiggling about. At least Mr Smith won't be here looking at the pretty model/instructor then at fat sweaty puffing me "Gosh, the resemblance is uncanny." Just go away, borrow my car forever.

Yes, we have no bananas

My brilliant idea of working through the freezer has resulted in making more frozen food than we had before. I found a chicken, defrosted it .... a bit, chopped it up and cooked it with wine, vegetables and stock, making it all much bigger than it was. I then served it to the ungrateful who simply declared it to be enormously large. Oh well, if they're not going to eat it I will pop it in the freezer.

Yesterday I took my new lovely bright red plastic collapsible shopping trolley out for its first stroll. I had to go via the shop it came from to ask how the heck you fold and unfold the wheels. The man told me he had carefully shown Mr Smith how it worked when he bought it. After I had stopped laughing he then gave me the same origami demo which left me totally baffled. "Oh I see, like that, yes that's easy peasy, no problemo. Gosh, what an idiot my husband is." It will stay up forever. I took it to North End Road market where they sell all the produce in little baskets for £1 a go, though I was disappointed to discover you don't get the basket. I just went along the stalls selecting a basket of this and a basket of that until I had filled my trolley to the top. I seem to have bought fields of potatoes and onions, bushels of greens and enough bananas to support a small West Indian island. It was too heavy to get home so Mr Smith had to collect me. "Why did you get all these onions and potatoes you stupid woman; we've got loads already?" Oh I wanted to test the capacity of the trolley. It seems very good. It then collapsed under the strain and folded its wheels away all by itself. I don't suppose you'd like some bananas? I really should have let Mr Smith go to Sainsburys.

I have carefully written a shopping list for Mr Smith and e-mailed it to him as shopping is not something he is able to discuss with me in a reasonable tone - he just found the bananas.

Off my shopping trolley

Oh it is so so stormy. My cold frame is in next door's garden in exchange for their tree which seems to have come crashing down breaking our fence. Tempted though I am to call in Special Branch tree surgeons and send them an enormous bill, we'll probably do it ourselves. If I don't consider them suitably grateful I will call in super expensive fence menders. If you should come across our bin lid could you bring it back, ta. It's green with a squiffy 16 on the top. Sorry if you live the other side of the Cairngorms.

Mr Smith is having a day off. They'll have to make the tea themselves today. He is bursting to put on his cape and be Supermarketman but I have him firmly tethered to the floor. He comes back with SO much stuff and Icewoman here is determined to mine her way through the freezer. Last night I found some ribs, possibly mammoth, in the lower layers of permafrost past the orthopaedic peas and sublimated ice lollies. I also found some sausages and a packet of skinny little chips that never cook until they burn. Accompanied with baked beans and pale chips with black ends, our ribs and bangers made a mighty feast though I couldn't actually eat the ribs or chips with a chipped front tooth still held together with home dentistry and the Best Boy (with a hangover) took all the sausages.

The dentist rang. They can see me on Friday. That is now tomorrow. Oh that doesn't seem so far away. My broken bit of front tooth is held on with a teeny weeny bit of tooth mending mixture and is feeling a bit wobbly. Every little bite is taken with trepidation and I am avoiding a vast range of foods from biscuits to toffees which is a shame because my absolutely favourite biscuits are those ones Prince Charles makes with bits of toffee in them.

The telephone has rung non stop all morning. Mr Smith is sitting next to it so why can't he answer it? Oh he's very very busy - sudoku! "Hello. You're calling from India? Mr Smith? Yes, he's available. It's for you."

I am now going to the market with my lovely new shopping trolley bought for me by Mr Smith for Christmas. Most of Mr Smith's gifts have a slightly selfish edge in that they are gifts that will in some way benefit him. This year we have the cookery book, oven gloves, jar of mustard and a shopping trolley for me to fill with things purchased by me for him to eat. The alternative is him over shopping in the supermarket so I will put on my sturdiest raincoat, thickest gloves, and impermeable boots and brave the elements. Oh maybe Mr Smith could just go to Sainsburys.

Soup and chips

With the dreadful loss of Supermarketman who has now found more useful employ as a businessman, I have decided to work our way through the freezer. There are endless little pots of this or that which results in smorgersborgs of unidentified dishes at every meal. Last night it was some pasta thing with something that tasted a bit like chicken plonked on top. Yesterday I found a couple of partridge that I roasted and served on a bed of rice and dog food - I still haven't the faintest idea what it was but they ate it. Today looks no less interesting. I haven't really made much of an indentation in the permafrost yet so I'll keep you up to date with our ever exciting menus.

The Apprentice and I eventually braved the elements and travelled to the end of the garden where we sorted through boxes and boxes of stuff. I now have a lovely, well equipped studio - all I need is the motivation to use it; it's far too tidy to mess up.

Today's goodly task is clothes sorting. I will adopt my usual three graces method - Faith, Hope and Charity. Faith is things I have lost faith in and know I really have to chuck. Hope is the category for things that don't currently fit but might one day i.e. entire contents of wardrobe. Charity shop donations are only things in good nick that I know I will never wear again, if I ever did. Must bury the ones with price tags firmly in bottom of bag away from the judgemental eyes of Mr Smith - we all make occasional bad buys. I will carefully fold them and leave them in the boot of my car for several months to mature.

Gosh, I am positively steaming through the task list and Mr Smith isn't even here with his whip and clipboard. Maybe that's why.

Hi ho

Mr Smith is off to work with his new brief case that I gave him for Christmas. After three months at home every day this is truly a new beginning. I woke him this morning with "First day at your new school - so exciting". I hope he gets milk at break time and no one nicks his dinner money. My man is back in the West End - good for him. I will miss him; who's going to wash up, hoover, iron and cook .... And shop?

The Apprentice and I are spending the day in the shed. Since constructing this beautiful edifice at the end of the garden all we've done is dump things in it until opening the door has become quite a feat. So today, at long last, we are going to sort it out carefully placing things on their smart shelves in neat order. Shed things are tricky to make tidy e.g. bits of wire and lengths of wood but we will give it our best shot. Actually, there is a mighty storm blowing at the moment so maybe we'll venture to the end of the garden when it's stopped raining quite so hard. Poor Mr Smith is being buffetted at a bus stop on Putney Heath.

Shall I design a brand new quilt or finish and old one? I think new year, new quilt, don't
you? Ok, compromise; I will finish something first then design a new quilt. Maybe I ought to do some of the tasks on my task list - the iPad does brilliant lists. I'll start a new one for
Mr Smith's tasks.... Wash up, hoover, iron, cook .... And shop.

Resolve to resolve

Resolutions are pointless because they always falter by February so I resolved to make none. Luckily Mr Smith made mine for me. I was dreading the usual be less fat, more tidy, less idle, more energetic, less chaotic, more organised. Yes, there is room, just a teeny chink, for improvement. You can add be nicer, less extravagant, less angry, less indolent, less rude, less ugly and less drunk but he simply went for read more Dickens with particular emphasis on Bleak House, which is a great story but a mighty tome. I got as far as the introduction of the four thousandth character before putting it down and now I've forgotten where I was as Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags on and Mr Turveydrop becomes more tiresome.

Today's goodly task, for I plan one a day in my strive for perfection, is to dig over the vegetable garden. It is looking a bit of a sight as I still have the bean poles up. This is because until last week they were covered in flowering nasturtiums but then frosty wind made moan and they eventually died. I suggested Mr Smith did this but he thought not, with some charming endearment such as "Go poke it"; so I will, with a fork.

Oh so exciting, tomorrow Mr Smith starts his new job. I say job but regard this loosely if you will. He is putting on his suit and going to town to sit at a desk and no longer be here every minute of the day monitoring me and my inertia. I think he'll find commuting somewhat ghastly; he hasn't done it for years. He may prefer a late start after walking the dog, cleaning the kitchen and making my breakfast. I do hope so.

Twentytwelve

Happy 2012. It looks hazardous to me. With an unemployed husband and a recession I don't predict a covering in riches beyond our wildest dreams. The master plan is to sell our hovel and purchase another smaller hovel in the country. We could also sell my beautiful beloved seaside penthouse and let me be miserable for the rest of my life. You might detect I am not particularly partial to that idea.

In two weeks I am leaving Mr Smith and heading off to the Caribbean where I will pretend to be an International Artist when in reality I haven't picked up a paintbrush for a year. Gosh, I hope I can still do it. Don't give me that riding a bike thing because, actually, you can forget. I did. Very wobbly it was and I fell off a lot. I don't think you forget how to swim but there will no doubt be some day of drowning when I prove myself wrong. I wish Mr Smith was coming with me but he wants to stay at home and sulk. Anyway, he's useless at life saving. "She drowned just there."

When I return from my arduous two weeks of drinking rum in the tropics we have the dreaded Giant Clear Up so we can show our house to greasy estate agents and the odd day tripper. I am sure bored people do just go to look at houses as something to while away a dull afternoon. Let's face it who on God's earth is going to spend their money on this awful house in this awful area? Maybe someone looking for a bargain - it'll be cheap. Actually, the area isn't awful; it's not Brixton or Peckham but it ain't Belgravia. However, it's Mr Smith's castle. Really it's a big piece of dreary brown antique furniture that nobody wants. I'll polish it.

And now for a resolution ..... eat and drink less. I think that'll do.