Hello! I have a couple of housekeeping announcements: Firstly, my new novel ALL GROWN UP is 99p throughout August - it’s a happy, heartfilling story about what happens when you’re navigating midlife and your three adult daughters all move back in without warning (and you want them to GO AWAY and stop eating your yoghurt so you can spend some time with your hot new boyfriend.)
Secondly - if you want to start a creative project, or if you’re somewhere in the middle and feeling stuck, I’d love to chat to you! Email me - creativeconfidenceclinic@gmail.com - if you’d like to find out about booking a Mini Mentoring Session. You can read more about how it all works here.
I’m currently planning to teach a Write Like A Reader course in the Autumn. I believe that if you love reading stories, you can write a brilliant story. I want to show you just how much you already know, and make you feel truly excited about writing. If you’d like to be the first to find out more about the course, I’d love to hear from you. Email creativeconfidenceclinic@gmail.com with Write Like A Reader in the subject line.
Before Bridget Jones, there was Captain Davey Warbeck.
In Nancy Mitford’s novel, The Pursuit Of Love, our narrator Fanny acquires a stepfather when her guardian, Aunt Emily, unexpectedly produces a fiancé. Uncle Davey, as he is known, is one of my favourite characters in literature. Extremely kind, often wise, well-read and funny, he’s also thrillingly neurotic about his health. Uncle Davey navigates his way between red days and white days, politely turning down various unappealing dinner items on the grounds that it counts as the wrong colour for the day. (Fanny notes that on the rare occasions that there’s any chocolate going, it seems to count as red and white.) He swallows enormous vitamin pills and compliments the bread, to the consternation of the assembled guests. (‘I’m sure it has the germ.’) Davey’s obsession is presented as an eccentric hobby, and his health seems no better or worse than any of the other characters in the book.
I was thinking about Davey this morning, as I consumed the following: A home made ginger shot. A mug of kefir. A glass of water with a scoop of creatine powder whisked in. A banana. A kiwi fruit. Two Heights Vitals+ supplements (a gift, thank you Heights!) One Viva NMN supplement (purchased by me this weekend after being influenced by these two pieces)
I chased this unholy concoction with two fried eggs on a slice of Kingsmill 50/50, purchased by my husband. I resent the Kingsmill. Every time I eat it, I think I should go and buy some organic sourdough. It definitely does not have the germ. For what it’s worth, I also did these things in the name of health and wellbeing. I completed my daily MadFit five minute arm routine. I ran around the park. I followed this with a very short Adriene Yoga for Runners video. I used my Shark LED mask, selecting the ‘better ageing’ programme, and then zapped my face with an electrocurrent toning device. Davey is an amateur.
Arguably, following this routine every day, or almost every day, is only possible for me because I don’t have children, or a proper job. I suspect that other, better people could do it all. And they’d have nicer bread at their disposal. Also, I frequently catch myself wondering whether any of it is actually helping. I know, after years of trial and error, that the running is good for my brain, regardless of what it’s doing for my body. My mind is a nervy whippet that needs to be taken outside frequently to dash about. (‘Now, we’re going to stop barking because the world is ending, and listen to this nice podcast instead.’) But everything else makes me feel as though I’m observing a sequence of superstitions. I’m presenting the Gods of sleep, and energy, and balanced moods with a little pile of sacrifices, then swallowing the sacrifices to show that my intentions are serious.
When I quit drinking, I didn’t just do it for ‘wellness’ reasons, but ‘wellness’ was at the back of my mind. I couldn’t wait to go to the doctor’s and answer the how many units a week question with a big, smug ‘zero!’ Secretly, I couldn’t wait to lose weight. After all, I’d be consuming around million fewer calories a week, thanks to all that white wine I wasn’t drinking. ‘You’ll sleep like a baby!’ promised the blogs. ‘Like baby Jesus! You’ll wake up filled with optimism and positivity and the urge to sort out your tax return! You’ll be able to mediate without an app!’
Four years later, I’m…well? Better? Balanced? Let’s say it’s a work in progress.
Firstly, I’m 41 years old, and it’s been a shock to discover that no matter how serious your intentions are, or how many pints of niacinamide you pour onto your face and neck, you can’t actually reverse time. Secondly, I find that I am unable to stop eating chocolate buttons. Obviously, the main reason that I’m not a toned, glowing goddess is because my husband occasionally buys sliced bread. It has nothing to do with the fact that I tried one of the new pistachio Magnums, found it horribly disappointing and then ate another one the next day, to check that I hadn’t been the victim of a bad batch.
My obsession with personal maintenance during These Times definitely falls into the category of fiddling while Rome burns. Perhaps that’s the point. Maybe we could all stand to spend a little less time listening to personal development podcasts with billionaires – but maybe taking our vitamins is an act of optimism. It’s very, very hard not to fall into the slough of despond at the moment, but every time we work out how to get more magnesium into our bodies, we’re working out ways of not giving up. We want to stay strong, and we want to stay around.
Earlier this year, a piece in The Cut made the case for taking up smoking as an act of nihilism. Occasionally I wonder whether I could quit drinking now, if I hadn’t back then. Under these conditions. In this economy. Many heinous things have been committed, implied and inserted in the name of wellness – but I like to think that my daily routine is an act of optimism. Maybe that’s doing me just as much good as the kiwi fruit.
Our wellness icon Captain Davey was caught between wars. Mitford presented him as an eccentric man, but not an atypical one. It’s absurd to emerge from WW1, to witness grief, senseless violence and tragedy, and then to use an arbitrary classification system to govern what you eat. Why would you think you could try to live forever when you’ve seen death come from nowhere? And yet, it’s a very human response. May our ginger shots strengthen our emotional immune systems. May the magnesium bring the sleep that provides the energy to keep fighting the good fight. May conditions improve, globally and locally. And may the people at Magnum do a little bit more R&D on their pistachio flavour.
Love and chocolate buttons
Daisy x
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