Positive thinking

Well - I met the senior daughter in Waitrose car park in Towcester at lunch time today to say goodbye - she had driven down from London, to return one of the 5 cars owned by her sainted father, who was then going to drive her to Heathrow to catch her plane, and she and I were going to say our goodbyes first. What a fractured existence we lead.

We had lunch in Waitrose - she a vegetable curry, I a chicken curry - actually, it was rather good. But - I thought to myself, what has my life become, in my mid-sixties, that I have to share my lovely girls, meeting a daughter in a supermarket car park, so as to avoid the arsehole of the century.

This apology for a man and father, is working so hard on my girls at the moment, trying to get them on 'his side'. What he fails to understand is that they will never accept the tired old slapper he has taken up with, nor will they choose him over me. Their loyalties are obviously divided, but appalling behaviour reaps its own 'reward'. Disloyalty is not to be worn like a badge of honour to be rewarded.

What I really hate is that he has spun such a tale to the slapper about our marriage, the wider world laps it up, and I cannot defend myself. I suppose it was ever thus - and I should really put it behind me.

I am looking forward to the Bank Holiday wweekend. Tomorrow night, I am going to the engagement party of the daughter of a girlfriend, Sunday is gloriously free, and on Monday, good friends are coming for lunch, including my recently widowed girlfriend. If the weather fulfills its promise, we will have lunch in the garden, hopefully under the apple tree on the lawn, and delicious food will be eaten,and I will open some of my very special claret, jealously guarded, which will be savoured with pleasure.

I certainly do not feel so stressed now I am living on my own. The sheer joy of not having to put up with the mulish intransigence and sheer indifference of my erstwhile husband is a real positive. It is life sapping to get the constant riposte after a request for help "Piss off" Fuck off" "Do it yourself" "Not now" "Later" Or even - no response at all. As John Inman used to say 'I'm free'!

I also do not have to spend weekend after weekend at home on my own, knowing that the jerk was up to 'something' and would return smirking, and sure that I did not know what he had been up to whilst away, What a facile idiot!

I must share a little secret with you all - many times he would say where he was going/had been/ who he had been with - and I would not tell him that often his alibi would ring to fix up tennis/golf/etc. and I would know that he was up to something! Delicious, huggable joy! How about this one - quite some years ago, pre-mobile phones, he used to say that he was staying regularly at the Sheraton Belgravia in Lowndes Square. I needed to get in touch with him urgently and rang the hotel. A recorded message said that the hotel had been closed for refurbishment for two years, and would not re-open for another 18 months. I wet myself! There was the Christmas card from the Pembridge Court Hotel, to Mr and Mrs W, our loyal and regular guests. The idiot had signed the hotel register with his home address, calling his then mistress Mrs. W. The phone call from Kiki McDonough, a very expensive jeweller whose jewellery I would die to be given, but at that time, I had never been given any jewellery at all! And - so it went on and on - the phone call from the Mirabelle restaurant to confirm the lunch reservation for Mr and Mrs W, except he was not supposed to be in London, but had given his home telephone number. Do you think he is normal? I think not. The postcard from someone on holiday in Rajasthan, saying how much the sender was looking forward to sharing the same experience with him. Bollocks, bollocks. I suspect he many times did not say that he was even married, the times the phone was quietly replaced when I answered it, the expensive sunglasses in the drawer by my side of the bed, the black lacy knickers under the bed, the lipstick and scent in the bathroom, the sex manual in the drawer on his side of the bed. Dear God, was he mad and did he think I was a fool?

Do you know, I chucked him out five times, tried to divorce him, was given not much hope by the lawyers, he begged to come back, and I laid myself open to even more humiliation. What is the matter with me? Nothing any more, I now have peace of mind at last.

I have a message for Chic Mama, however bad it seems now in your period of transition, the end result will be peace of mind, and that is worth so much. Go for it, girl, I am behind you all the way.