COUGH, COUGH & APOLOGIES! by Penny Dolan

 I’m afraid that today’s post is brought to you courtesy of Lemsip*.

I’ve just been through one of those patches where real life has intruded - very happily I'm pleased to say - with the kind of big interruption to which one can only give in whole-heartedly. 

Our distraction came in the shape of a fine family wedding down in London here at Southwark Register office, with party-times and meetings-up and meals here and there along the way: a truly delightful week away. 

Then we drove home.

I’d imagined, somehow, that now the celebrations and visits were over, I’d slip back into the WIP with no trouble.

For a start, there would be no more urgent phone calls, no more shopping, no more checking about clothes or shoes or hats, no more gathering of this and that, including a now-lost but useful umbrella - all of which I decided to enjoy hugely.

I gave in to it all because I knew that when we were home, writing would resume. I was also very sure that while I was hurrying around, a wise idea for this blog-post would have arrived.

It didn’t. The infamous London Bug Soup got to me among my travels. I'm convinced that a foul miasma breeds in the London Underground, seeping out of the vents, like an invisible version of The Bakerloo Flea, and attacking all those not yet hardened to the London air. I arrived home, staggered into bed, and that’s been that.

In my muddled head, I’m imagining I could be filling this post with all sorts of stuff: those Georgian terraces of Peckham and Camberwell; the dangers of satnav and the tricksy congestion charge; witnessing a nasty traffic accident while my arms were heaped with wedding clothes; staring at the sunlit Thames from Waterloo Bridge, loving what remains of the skyline and cursing some architects and companies . . .

Or there’s the not-forgotten general crossness: I could be ranting about the BBC figures on the decline of public libraries, which give only part of the picture, as further cuts are already being stacked up for implementation in 2017. You ain’t seen nothing yet! And still – today - a Minister who knows what's been done makes statements about the importance of Librarians. Or I could rage about that Year 6 Grammar test . . .

Or I could be positive, and praise two children’s books I’ve just read: MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO by David Solomon and ELECTRIGIRL by Jo Cotterill, partly because I was so glad to find books set in the UK. Might have to save those for my next Awfully Big Review. 

I could, I could, but right now I really can’t. Tomorrow I’ll be back, spinning the plates, getting it all together again. Not now.

Apologies, all - and without even a joke to offer. Have a great April!

Exit writer, pursued by her own sore head.

*Other medications and Scottish distillations are available.

Penny Dolan