A beautiful early Spring day today (sssh, I didn’t really say that, otherwise it’ll snow or something or more very likely rain). Today started with me barely able to walk to school, you see whilst getting ready for school I trod barefoot on the curse of parents of small children everywhere, a wooden block, which although at the time hurt like hell, the pain quickly wore off. However I have treated pes cavus (very high arches) and my feet, although a lot lot better than they were in my twenties are still prone to being very easily injured, however at the time of treading on the block, I had thought I had got a way without any lasting damage. I carried on getting everyone ready for school, got everyone out of the front door, walked a third of the way down the street, just happened to put my right foot down (the one that had trodden on the block earlier) like you do and it literally felt like my foot was going to give way, a sensation I’m not too dissimilar with, but it normally rights itself pretty quickly but not this morning. I literally couldn’t put weight on the front of my foot, so thank goodness for the pushchair to lean on, I literally walked the rest of the way to school by walking on just my heel for my right foot. Luckily by drop off I could put my weight back on my foot, although it still hurt a bit, so I decided to continue on with my plans for the day, which was to walk up to the craft workshop to pick up our latest ceramics and then catching the bus into town as the workshop and town were in opposite directions. I get half way up the road towards the workshop and I’m walking like a 90 year old again but I carried on, partially because I’m stubborn and I don’t like my feet dictating what I can or can’t do, partially because to walk home again was about the same distance as carrying on to the workshop and the bus stop and partially because I knew from experience that sometimes when my feet feel like that the best thing is for me to walk on it, it unties the knots in my foot somehow.
So we made it to the workshop, lonely looking workshop owner looked temporarily very excited (until she realised we were just picking up something we’d already done) as the shop was rather empty. I offered some of the books I sell as freebies for her play area on condition my details were in the back of the books, so I will go back to deliver them and will do some more ceramics then (just to say thanks for the semi-free advertising really), now the question would be do I do it when Boy Lacer is in playgroup or not in playgroup? A chance to do some ceramic painting uninterrupted would be a rather nice childish pleasure but I would feel guilty.
Then onto the bus, once we got to the bus stop in town, we ended up walking past Uni Qlo, which I normally try to avoid doing because I end up going in there and buying things. The sunny weather was getting to me though, inducing thoughts of temporary forgetfulness, making me think I had absolutely nothing to wear for Spring and as I’m going through a bit of a shirt phase, ended up buying a pretty blue and white floral shirt for £14.99. We then walked past Clarks and my foot was still killing me and a little voice was going in my head “Maybe some new spring shoes would be more comfortable?” and I’m easily lead. Actually there was some sensibility in this, my winter boots have a slight heel, which is amazing I can wear at all, as they’re not brilliant for my feet, so a nice pair of absolute flats would be good. So I went in for a look and could not decide between a pair of patent green Mary Janes and a slightly posher looking pair of purple patent shoes which looked straight out of a purple version of The Wizard of Oz. Boy Lacer really liked the purple shoes and gave a big thumbs down for the green shoes but the green shoes were more comfortable and the green exactly the same green as some of the daffodils that are starting to bloom here, so that swung it. I tend to be a one pair of shoes at a time girl (which is why when I decided a pair of flats would be good idea for my poorly foot I had to literally go and buy some, I only had my winter boots, no other shoes at home other than my running shoes, which aren’t brilliant for me to wear all the time either), so buying my spring / summer shoes laughably in February, means that I’ll have worn through / wrecked these shoes by June / July, as I wear the same shoes all the time and walk so much, so I can buy the purple shoes then!
After the shoe shop it was off to buy the slightly more boring large brown envelope, except even that’s not that boring, as excitingly I’m about to submit my first ever manuscript to a publisher and it was only when I was searching for the brown envelopes in Smiths did I also think “What am I going to put the actual manuscript in?”, I had just thought maybe a paper clip to keep it altogether as it’s a manuscript for a picture book, so quite short, but I then tried to envision the person in charge of the slush pile, opening my brown envelope and having to juggle all the pages that have got loose from the paper clip. So then I thought I better put it in some sort of folder, something with some sort of holding thingy-me-jig so the pages don’t fall out and then faced with all the plastic options recalled the environmental credentials of this particular publisher and opted for a slim line cardboard ring binder. It’s all quite ‘stressful’, I’ve sweated for months on getting the words right and now I don’t want to hamper my manuscript by doing ‘something wrong’ in the submission process, so I want my ‘baby’ to look it’s very possible best. I’ll write a bit more about the excellent resources out there that help, when I eventually pluck up courage to put that manuscript and query letter in that brown envelope. I wrote the letter yesterday and need to look at it again today, it’s as bad as editing your manuscript!
Then after all that, finally onto the supermarket and then back home. We hobbled back along the river, me and Boy Lacer found a bench and ate some hot cross buns overlooking the water. I’ve been feeling guilty about not making the most of the last year of Boy Lacer being home most of the time, but sitting there on that bench made me realise that the best times me and the kids always have is when we’re outside and it hasn’t been the weather for that. We even had a bit of a momentous moment, Boy Lacer dropped some of his hot cross bun and wanted to put it in the bin but the bin (although still in sight) was a little bit of a walk away, so it was toss up time, do I let Boy Lacer walk to the bin on his own, hoping that he a) understands where the bin is b) comes back, thus giving him a valuable taste of independence or do I hobble off the bench and go with him? I should point out that there’s no nearby roads and he’d have to go down some steps (which he has trouble with) to get even near enough to the river to fall in, so we were safe on those aspects. I opted to let him have his independence, I watched with heart in mouth as he toddled off to the bin, knowing with my bad foot it would be a little difficult to run and get him if I needed to, he put the bit of hot cross bun in the bin with a big grin and then toddled happily back.
After that I decided to change into my new shoes for the rest of the walk home. Here’s a picture, note I’m wearing socks, I’m hoping its now deemed fashionable to wear socks and shoes like that, it feels like it is because I don’t particularly want to go round without socks in February, either that or I’m on the slippery slope of thinking wearing greying socks with Jesus sandals is socially acceptable.
Boy Lacer was sitting next to me on the bench as I was stretching my legs out to take the photo whilst avoiding taking a photo of the discarded fag packets and ring pulls. He decided to copy what I was doing, so here’s a photo of his shoes.
We then hobbled home (the new shoes are far more comfortable). I had hoped for a stop off at the playground on the way as Boy Lacer has recently discovered slides but as the usual pattern goes, he managed to split his lip open last time he was in the playground and now my over cautious little boy doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.
There are more photos from our (slow) walk by the river today, here, here and here on my photoblog.
I love Dexter the TV show, so it was only a matter of time before I read the books in fact I knew getting the omnibus of the first three books was a fairly safe bet. The first book of the series is Darkly Dreaming Dexter, from which series one and two of Dexter the TV series is based. For those that haven’t seen the series, Dexter is a blood spatter technician in Miami who has a sideline in killing bad guys, basically a serial killer with an almost conscience. It was interesting seeing the comparisons between the book and season one, it starts out pretty much identical, bar a few very minor changes but then becomes very much of condensed version of the TV series, if you can call it that, considering the book came first, not the TV show. The book itself is fairly short (relatively) and you can see the necessity of having to flesh out the plot to make it into an however many episode TV series it was, it’s in fact quite odd comparing a book to TV conversion where they’ve had to add to the plot instead of take it away. In the conversion they also made some changes to the ending, probably with the knowledge there would be a second series, in mind. But TV series aside, it’s a good book, some of Dexter’s internal prose is a bit OTT and his methods of dispatch are a bit more gruesome than the TV series (there I go talking about the TV series again) but other than that it’s a good book, definitely a more unique take on the murder genre.
