This week’s Guardian column was an unusual one. The core of the subject matter - someone’s sex life and marriage - was not that unusual. These things are the mainstay of an agony aunt’s mail bag. But the fact that the wife had hired an escort was unusual.
I felt a bit of reality was needed in this problem, and how to do that gently isn’t always easy and I’m not sure I always manage it. I felt it was doubtful that the escort had ‘caught feelings’ for the reader, not that she wasn’t worthy of it but I’m mindful that it’s a job to him. Some readers thought I wasn’t attentive enough to her husband’s cruel comments towards her. Fair point. But I felt the specialist, Katherine Cavallo addressed it rather beautifully putting the comments where they belonged - with the husband and him deflecting shame.
Last night everyone seemed to be watching the football and even I did for a bit. I used to watch lots of football when Dino Zoff was in the game but over the years my interest has waned, or perhaps my tolerance for tension has abated. I heard England won 2-1 against Norway when I got up this morning and before I forced myself into the gym to do a 30 min Yoga with Adriene ‘Yoga for Runners’ which was just what I needed after a big leg day yesterday - it’s a gentle yoga session. Then I did a 31 minute run, listening to my trance music and the effort required was physical but largely psychological. I think for the whole of the last ten minutes I kept saying to myself “you are strong, you are amazing, you can do this, you did chemo FFS!”.
Anyway I did it.
In the morning, usually after a long overnight fast, I don’t really like to go straight into a work out because I convince myself I will faint (this is a total fallacy and an excuse to eat and delay my work out) so I’ve discovered this amazing Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding by the wonderful Gina Burgess (whose mother suffered horrific injuries at the hands of her former partner). I’d long followed Gina’s Insta page and have made some of her things. I made the chocolate pudding late last night, without much hope, yet was amazed at how much I liked it this morning. If I make it again I might make it with more nut butter - and alternate the nut butter - less plant milk and maybe experiment with some water. I used only half the amount of maple syrup and it was fine. This may not land well with people who eat sweet things, but for me, who doesn’t, it was heavenly and a nice, light thing to have just before a work out.
I went to Terroni’s in London last week. (No link as the website doesn’t seem to work.) Terroni’s is “London’s oldest deli” and in Clerkenwell. Even though I used to work down the road (where the Guardian and Observer used to be based) I’d never been in there. It was boiling and there is no a/c. Some of the staff are quite surly, borne out of sheer exhaustion, in a way I recognised from my own family’s business - so I felt right at home. But the pasta was great: uncomplicated, delicious, comforting and authentic. It was empty when we went in but filled up with people at what seemed to be school going home time. It’s clearly very popular and I loved it.
This piece in last week’s Guardian was terrifying. I started reading it thinking it would be a run-of-the-mill (but still awful for those concerned) neighbours from hell type of thing, only to realise it was like something out of a horror movie. I think when one is threatened in one’s own home (which is why I think the crime of domestic abuse is so awful, beyond the obvious) it goes beyond anything else.
This article in the New Yorker, like so many articles in the New Yorker, is fascinating - about ticks. I’m so glad someone out there is still bothering themselves with facts. I find it really comforting reading these sorts of articles (not just in the NY, but the publications that still do this are vanishingly few), like throwing myself into the arms of an all knowing grandparent. The piece isn’t what you think, not just about Lyme Disease but majors on something called alpha-gal.
Talking of articles I need to go outside now and immerse myself in actual newspapers. Wishing you a great week.
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