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Fifty. How the fuck did that happen.

I went to bed at 7pm last night. I had a very busy day yesterday - coupled with the media drama of the new Prime Minister getting wall to wall coverage on all platforms. I had a lot of errands to run, this included trying to buy a pair of trousers. I tried on about 30 pairs. Mostly I couldn’t get my feet through the holes at the bottom, they were generally too tight to wear - or certainly cycle in, and the body area was quite baggy - as if I were waiting a nappy. It was a very distressing experience. I am now an expert in changing rooms. The ones in TKMAXX have more space but the lighting made me look sick, old and bald. The ones in Debenhams had better lighting and gave my skin a healthy parlour - but were so small I couldn’t manoeuvre the clothes off and on and kept falling over - shoes being a particular problem. I think it was like being in a coffin.

I caught a cab home last night because I had a lot to carry. I hate spending the money - and I hate talking about politics with cab drivers. He was Scottish. He asked me a few leading questions, realised we were both on the same side and told me that he regularly has to drive Amber Rudd from the station to her house - he described her as the most stupid woman he had ever met who asks questions about what’s really happening in the news. This morning I read that she is going to be Home Secretary. I could weep. And as for Johnson and Fox… I despair - I really do. I can only assume that Theresa May is keeping Amber Rudd in her old job because she intends to keep doing it herself. Amber Rudd is spectacularly pointless and a testament to the theory that sucking up to people and being a creep gets you anywhere. Johnson will make us the laughing stock of the world.

Back to the Birthday

I already hate being fifty. I woke up at 5am and regretted it straight away.

This week has been really difficult for me - and the weeks leading up to it. Apart from the anniversary of my accident earlier in the week - which I really needed to get ‘through’ and ‘past’ - hitting 50 has cast a stupid shadow over everything. It doesn’t bother me that much in real terms, it’s partly a bit of a bench mark - and I don’t look too bad for my age (unless you see photographs of me - which are awful) - but it’s ‘where’ I am now. Not the place I was supposed to be.

The last few years have been really difficult. I’ve been very unlucky, and quite a few time people have taken advantage of my better nature - and like an idiot, I keep letting them do it. Whenever anything good happens - someone or something comes along to fuck it all up. A year go I had money in the bank and lots of interesting work on, mostly through sheer force of my own will, trying to get somewhere in life and adapting to the difficult world we live in. Practically overnight that changed and I’m now in a lot of debt, working much harder for far less money, mentally not at my best - I still forget things and lack the concentration I used to have, and the world is really, really shit. Politics has made enemies of us all. My uncle was buried on Monday - he was the male head of my mothers family - my oldest friend died this year of a horrible type of cancer that she didn’t deserve, and my business is really struggling. I have no idea where I’m going next. This year could see me give up entirely, I could quite easily lose my house, I probably don’t have the transferable skills to get a job in Tesco, the house is falling down and I feel my age. I’ve managed to get to this age through sheer force of will and with no help from anyone. Most of my friends are married and have the support of their partners and the comfort of their children, and most still have parents alive  and are looking forward to inheriting vast sums from small houses in London - which they regularly refer to as they eagerly await their parents death. A friend complained last week about how busy she was and how stressed she is all the time. The same day I saw her father in law outside her house painting the sash windows. He’s done everything in that house, including giving them the deposit. She spends all her time creating instagram friendly arrangements of accessories in her house. ( Actually - I know someone who asked me to comment on their photoset of images they took of the Auschwitz memorial last week - they had used a variety of instagram filters to add ‘mood’ - I baulked).

Everything is shit - or piss, as the dog can now manage up to 5 leaks inside the house everyday. And I’ve pulled a muscle in my neck and it hurts.

I am collecting some friends from London on Friday - they are staying in the ‘spare’ flat of someone I know - it’s like something out of a magazine, a huge basement flat, they live upstairs because the view is better. The downstairs flat just sits there, looking amazing. They are here for the Brick Lane Art Car Boot that is visiting Hastings on Saturday - I am taking part and will be selling prints. I need to sell half of them to break even.

I have a couple of difficult but rewarding jobs on at the moment, and I have to prepare a quote for a ‘big’ job by Tuesday that I know I won’t get but will take half a day at least to prepare. I need to do it to try and get on the ‘pitch’ roster for these people - perhaps after about 10 or 12 pitches they will give me something. I’m doing a couple of jobs for people I know don’t have any money and quite a lot is on hold until the dust from Brexit settles, if it eve does - which I doubt.

I checked on Wikipedia. 50 is a spectacularly dull number.

I bought a copy of 1966 by Jon Savage to start reading today. I already feel like Goldie Hawn in ‘Death Becomes Her’ - sitting, watching television whilst debt collectors break down her door.