Smooth balls and spiky streets

Played golf with Marian this morning - in an unexpected burst of sunshine too, which was lovely. I think also that other people must have feared rain and stayed away, as there was virtually nobody on the course but us. Bliss. Mind you, my game was rather up and down. Some great shots and some horrors. But I was hugely pleased with my enormously long one putt at the 4th. Now that's golf. I can wear a smug smile all day.

Or I could have done, if Godalming hadn't been packed with obstacles. Most of them other people, dammit. Though that said, the incident in Between The Lines was entirely of my own making. I was attempting to get some more eucalyptus oil (wonderful for my breathing difficulties, m'dears) off the shelf when the tester version fell off and bounced onto the lovely piece of pottery beneath. Which promptly fell to the floor and broke. Oh Lordy. Anyway, the two assistants were very sweet about it and refused my offers of payment. But I was so traumatised by my own clumsiness that I bought some more De-Stress oil (my, how I could have used it right then), which I knew I needed to stock up on - but when I got home I realised I'd got the wrong version, double dammit. So I shall have to go back next week and run the whole scenario again. Perhaps I shall go in disguise ...

After that, the High Street seemed to become incredibly spiky and determined to undermine me even further - the man in Boots pointed out that if I spent an extra 20 pence and bought something else to go with my sushi, then I could also have a free smoothie and a bag of crisps. Goddammit, I don't want a free smoothie and a bag of crisps - why don't the ruddy shop people ever get this!?! I just want to buy my bloody sushi and Nurofen pills without conversation and be left alone. Is that so hard?? Anyway, I told him it was too complicated and I just wanted the sushi. He parried that by saying under his breath that on the contrary it wasn't complicated at all. Bloody hell, I am the bloody customer - please do not question my opinions, people!!! Worse, do not question my opinions when I am a clumsy dyspraxic red-head with period pains and a desperate desire for lunch. Without smoothie or crisps. I counterattacked by saying that actually I had thought I was entitled to my opinions and could he please just sell me the ruddy sushi before we all died of hunger here, and no I don't have a Boots card so please don't ask me that either. He sold me the sushi. He didn't ask about the card. Wise moves, both.

On the way back to the car, I then decided to get some money out and stood a respectful distance behind the woman at the cashpoint, as you do. Thus forming my own small but perfectly proportioned queue. Without getting in anyone's way. A few moments later, a man came up and told me to move forward as he wanted to get in the queue. There was plenty of room behind me. Ye gods and little fishes! Is everyone in Godalming (apart from the Between The Lines people) on Stroppy Pills today? Mind you, I joined them - I told the man I was quite happy with the part of the street I was standing in and he would just have to get behind me and wait. Which he did. Again, probably a wise move. Any more hassling from the Godalming squires, and I might just have grappled the poor bugger to the ground and torn him limb from limb. Now that would surely have made it into the Surrey Ad ...

Back home, I have attempted to regain my inner calm with some hard-won sushi and a nice hot water bottle on the stomach and struggled away with editing the next two chapters of The Bones of Summer. I really wasn't as engaged with it as I was yesterday, to be honest, and in the middle of the afternoon I gave up entirely and fell asleep on the sofa cuddling up to my fluffy owl, my pink dressing gown, a squidgy pillow and a reheated hot water bottle. Bliss. Still, I'm now at the start of Chapter 7, page 67, so I'm getting there. Slowly. And I redid a sex scene too - and that always makes me feel better. Which I suppose somehow echoes the title of this entry (as it were)!

Tonight, Lord H and I have done the cleaning, and I'm getting ready for an evening's comedy TV viewing. Though I have to do the ironing as well, so I can't collapse entirely. Dammit.

Today's nice things:

1. Golf
2. The Between The Lines girls
3. Rewriting sex scenes.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers