A rainy day

Literally - deluges of rainwater - at times it seemed as if bathwater was being poured out of the upstairs windows, running down the lower windows like Niagara Falls.

Rain is not good for low spirits. Today I have been struggling with mountains of paperwork - I have never been good at it, and now, in the throes of a very messy divorce, I am submerged in it. It is also time for the dreaded Tax Return. Oh, how I wish I was more focused on such things Thank heavens for my saintly accountant.

It is a very strange process - laying bare one's very soul for the divorce courts - I am at the stage of my life when I imagined I would be able to settle down to a gentler pace of life. Oh no, I have instead to, it seems to me, justify my very existence, the air I breathe, and every penny I spend. Funny that, I spent 40 odd years married to a man who thought his money was his, and he could spend it as he liked. He thought my money was his too, in that I was required to spend it in order that he could avoid giving me any of his! I had to suffer the indignity of his very unpleasant cocky young lawyer telling the Judge that I was a profligate wife, and it was a disgrace that her client had to maintain me, and justify his expenditure! Dear, oh dear, Women's Lib, what have you done to women?

So - dear husband - I so hope you feel proud of yourself - forty-three years flushed down the pan. What an indictment - and I bet you simply cannot remember the names of the myriad women you slept with, thus betraying your family countless times.

Me - I think I will survive all this - each day there are more moments when I realise I am actually free - a chum said to me yesterday that I should have called myself Phoenix, because I will rise from the ashes. A bit of a cliche, but possibly true.

Now is a good moment. It is 11 o'clock at night, Classic FM is playing, the house is otherwise very quiet, the dogs are sleeping and I almost feel at peace with the world and I remember how, this afternoon, I found a little rainless window to take the dogs out. As we came down the track above the ford outside the house, I saw what I thought was a very large ginger cat looking at us, for what seemed ages. It was nothing of the sort - it was a very cheeky young fox. Billy suddenly sprang into life and flew towards it. It only got away by a whisker, and I had one very proud Whippet, and one very disappointed Jack Russell who went the wrong way! I find moments like these pure pleasure. The fox gets away, and young Billy enjoys the chase.

It is time for bed - and time to start a book I have had for a while, and as yet, have not opened - The Easter Parade by Richard Yates, who wrote Revolutionary Road. I actually bought this book in Strand Books, in New York, whilst visiting the senior daughter. She always takes me there, what a feast, a wonderful store full of eclectic and interesting tomes. Some new, some secondhand, but always an amazing selection.