And so I enter the final leg of my working year; just eight weeks till my new book has to be in a fit state to be seen by an editor. Time for my annual attack of FUDs.
Fears that my want of talent is at long last going to be unmasked.
Uncertainty that I can pull this mess into the shapely book I envisioned ten months ago.
Doubts that I should ever have given up the day job.
All writers go through this, except for a few with monster-sized egos. We are mainly timid creatures who hide down dark holes. When we are hauled out periodically to give an account of how we've spent the year, we are gibbering wrecks.
A friend tells me that Vikram Seth, who most certainly can write, so dreads explaining himself he tells strangers he's a hairdresser. I don't think I'd get away with that one. They'd only have to look at my hair.

A travel agent called from...well, let's say, The Other Side of the World. She wanted to check the pick-up arrangements for my husband's tour clients. She asked if he provided a limousine.
I said, 'This is Venice. There are no limousines.'
Silence. But I knew she was still there. I could hear nervous breathing.
I said, 'No limos, no compacts, no station wagons, trucks, Harley Davidsons, two-strokes, road bikes. No rickshaws.'
'Wow!' she said. 'That's some place!
Wow indeed. That was some travel agent.

We have 78% humidity, our canary's seed is sprouting in his feedbox and everyone has the grumps. Mr Fitzpatrick bought a new hat yesterday, a straw Montecristo, black band, size 59. The whole transaction took place without Mrs Hat Shop speaking a word. She just blotted the perspiration from her brow and pocketed his damp bank notes.
They say we may have rain before September.
28th July 2006

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I got my trousers. They're here, clean, pressed, two legs and a zipper, the genuine thing.
'Call yourself a business woman. Never again will I send any garment of mine into this black hole you call a 5 day service. Never again will I darken the threshold of this apology for a dry-cleaning establishment,' I almost said as I headed for the door, pants clutched tightly to my breast.
But I didn't. The poor woman was sweating like a race horse. Behind her there was a holding pen of winter coats piled a mile high, in front of her, a line of disenchanted customers. Let's face it, she's not coping. She has scheduling issues. Maybe she also has carbon tetrachloride intoxication. She needs a vacation and I'm going to give her one. For the next few months I'm wearing strictly machine-washable.

The strawberry water ice I made for last night's dinner was so good I woke up thinking about it. It was my runner-up highlight of the evening. First prize went to Big Sid Stires who played us into the dining room with Sing for your Supper and played us out again at midnight with The Party's Over.
I'm getting the medal struck, Sid. It'll be ready 2009.
And there is leftover water ice. In Sicily they eat it for breakfast, stuffed inside a croissant. Just another wonderful reason for getting out of bed in the morning.
June 22nd 2006

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So I popped my morning beta-blocker, pulled up a comfortable chair and prepared to do battle over my mother's missing pension. I'm still reeling from what followed. A real person picked up on the second ring. Mrs Newby. She listened while I told my mother's story. She said, 'Her pension hasn't been stopped. There was a bit of a hold-up last week, that's all, and it's nothing to do with the visit she had. They do these spot checks and they don't seem to realise how an old lady would feel. Husband died and she's been faithful to his memory all these years, then somebody with a clipboard comes along and asks her if she's got a boyfriend. I'm so sorry she's been upset.'
I take my hat off to Mrs Newby. A sensible and caring adornment to the Department of Works and Pensions. Long life to her.

There was a debate on Monday, at the Royal Geographical Society in London. The motion was 'That Enough Money Has Been Spent Saving Venice.' It's a proposition for which I might well have voted, though I did take exception to one speaker's assertion that nobody lives in Venice anymore. Ahem... well there's me and the other 55.000 or so other residents.
But apart from the fact that it's a very nice place to come for fund-raisers, I don't understand why people don't go save somewhere less complacent and more grateful. Venice really has get off the stick and save itself. Or settle beneath the waves. I mean, how about saving Brazzaville?
June 14th 2006

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My mother, aged 81, had a visit from what she calls The Pension People. I'm sure their real title is something far more opaque, and I'll bet they have a call centre with lines so long people have died while 'on hold'. But anyway, they wanted to know how my mother came to be awarded Industrial Death Benefit. An easy one, that. My father was killed in an industrial accident when he was 49 years old.
The Pension Person wanted his particulars. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, thirty two years in the grave and you can still have people noting down your particulars.
She wanted to know if my mother had remarried. Negative. She wanted to know if she was co-habiting. My mother was getting uncharacteristically sassy by this point. 'Yes,' she said, 'and he's hiding in the airing cupboard.'
Uh-oh. Never jest with a Pension Person. Today the Industrial Death Benefit failed to appear in the bank account, so tomorrow I'll find out at first hand whether there are any human beings at this call centre or merely a closed loop of menu options. If your heart is sinking, press 'star' twice.
I don't know which has amazed me more: the insensitivity of asking these questions of an old lady who has worked and paid taxes all her life and whose husband did likewise during his rudely abbreviated span, or that my mother could be so witty on the subject of co-habitation.

The drycleaner says my trousers may be ready Friday. Seven weeks, and counting.

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