'Funnily Enough' in the December issue of IBelieve, the Christian Lifestyle Magazine

The last extract in a series that has spanned eleven months,

when I have often been given a line on the front cover:

My Mother's Maddest Moments in Movies

It all started when Mum played Mad Mary in the She-Wolf of London. My sisters were mortified. 

She then appeared as 'a lovely Babooska' in The Saint with Val Kilmer for Paramount Pictures. He was dressed up as a babushka too, trying to escape from some baddie, you'll have to tell me who.

Things got worse. Here she is in The Ghost of Greville Lodge, but what shocked her friends recently was seeing her looking hideous as the Dowager Duchess in a TV movie Maggie Smith starred in called Capturing Mary. It was directed by Stephen Poliakoff. At least she was drenched in jewels.

Seeing Mum on Casualty was somehow more appalling. She played a pathetic character called Doreen Oaken in one episode but said it was quite restful as she spent most to the time being pushed around on a gurney. 

Her best part was playing Miriam in The Chase directed by Sue Tully, who I worked with years ago when she was in Eastenders. The Chase is a BBC drama series about a veterinary practice in Yorkshire. Mum adopted the accent, and was given a terrible haircut, to play a resentful woman on community service who found fulfillment when she came across a baby otter trapped in rubbish and managed to rescue it. Needless to say it was her own tame otter. She must have spent days in a costume comprised of fisherman's waders over a red zoot suit but has never been happier.

Mum's lastest role was playing a nun for the BBC. I just hope my sisters do not see the result.

Click here for more photos of this mad life or read the true story - snatches of which are in Funnily Enough.

Quite fun: The diary I kept when I first went down with CFS features in the June issue of iBelieve magazine

Am very excited! I didn't see that I was given billing along the top of the front cover.

The photo was taken on the jetty at my parent's house last summer.

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iBelieve, the Christian lifestyle magazine full of interesting testimonies

I was dazzelled to find that this month 'Funnily Enough' is being included alongside feature articles on such great Christian authors as Joyce Meyer, Nicky Gumbel and Sarah de Carvahlo

And there is an hilarious cartoon of me, looking GLAMOROUS and organised.

I'm always packing things up for the post but never this neatly.

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Gloria Gaynor and me - in iBelieve Magazine

The third installment of excerpts of Funnily Enough in iBelieve ~ the Christian Lifestyle magazine

~ Please click on image to enlarge ~
illustration provided by the publisher

To keep reading, Funnily Enough is available on Kindle and in print.

To subscribe to iBelieve magazine please click here

Click to watch the clip of Mum on Channel 4 ~

  "It was very nice to see you on Channel 4 last night. I see what you meant re. your mum's eccentricity, hard to believe she was a JP, never mind." Colin Salvage, by email

Now with colour illustrations on Amazon Kindle Worldwide ~

http://sophieneville.net/books-by-sophie-neville/

Funnily Enough, the e-Book is now available with colour illustrations

click below for the book's Kindle page, on either

Amazon.co.uk  ~  Amazon.com ~ Amazon.de ~ Amazon.fr ~ Amazon.it ~ Amazon.es

“I am LOVING this book! A great read!!!! Funny as promised, interesting and encouraging. Well written and I love the illustrations. Very enjoyable. ” Jenny Nash

I love the Kindle app on my iPhone, and know I always have a book to read if I find myself waiting endlessly at the hospital or stuck at the airport for hours. Rebecca was stationary on the highway for 8 hours not long ago.

Cotswold Life Magazine ~ October 2012

A book review from South Africa

Funnily Enough: funny, real and inspiring

I laughed the first time I read "Funnily Enough" and as I re-read it now, I am laughing at exactly the same places.

As much as the book is humorous, it also brings home the reality of how we push ourselves for fear of falling behind or losing what we have built up. We forget that all this can change in the twinkling of an eye and ultimately is not important.

The book helps to put life back into perspective and to remind us of where our hope, trust and faith should lie. Sophie's diary entries of the goings on within herself, the family and pets and with her friends over a period of a year while she is coming to terms with her illness and working towards recovery are thoroughly entertaining and illuminating. Her sketches add to the already vivid pictures that Sophie conjures up through her writing. Some of the incidents are absolutely bizarre but yet so typical of our journey in life. It was a completely enjoyable read the first time and even more inspiring the second time around. Superb. 

by Jennifer Hutcheon, Gauteng, South Africa
~ 3rd July 2012

Parrots I have known ~

Today I have been writing about parrots. Parrots I have known. Parrots I have lived with. Parrots I've observed in the wild. I've even appeared in a movie with a parrot on my shoulder. And on television.  In front of the camera not once but twice!  Am I brave or what?

When I was little my grandmother kept two budgerigars. They were called Pippernella and Chrysanthemum. Pippanella was blue, Chrysanthemum was green and yellow. Everything about them entranced me. If we were good and very gentle we were allowed to take them out before bedtime. Since Granny was an invalid, stuck in the house all day long, the birds had become her very special friends. They were beautifully cared for. If one of them shed a tail feather it was kept in a glass vase on her desk.

My parents must have kept parrots, parakeets or macaws for most of their married lives. We were given two of them. They out-lived their original owners and were brought to our house. I've no idea why. It is amazing that they stayed. My mother couldn't bare the thought of them being cooped up in a cage so let them out as much as possible. They loved this but it caused endless dramas. Josey-Jo, my mother's Blue-fronted Amazon parrot would fly around the house only to lose sight of places to perch. If you weren't careful she'd land on the top of your head. It can give a girl quite a fright. Once she landed on the side of a frying pan, once she ended up in the dish-washer. Dad nearly turned it on with her inside. She did terrible damage too, nibbling away at the top of veneered corner cupboards or antique picture frames, dining room chairs and rather a good chest of drawers.

We thought that an aviary would be the answer. The result was an enormous parrot cage built outside the kitchen door. This is illustrated above. Please don't copy the design. It did not work well. For some reason it now houses guinea pigs.

Josey-Jo was eventually given quite a large cage in the dining room where she happily spent her days. She originally belonged to an old lady and had picked up her voice. When you arrived home she would say, 'Hellow' in a slightly cracked and rather smart inquiring manner, sounding exactly like an 87-year-old woman. Any stranger would ask if Granny was still at home. No burglar alarm could work better.

Henry, our scarlet macaw, had a perch rather than a cage. He was unable to fly but loved being allowed to sit in the willow tree or on a post in the garden where he could see everyone come and go. Sometimes he would climb down and alarm visitors by walking pigeon-toed across the lawn to greet them, bent forward so that his tail did not touch the grass. His long red tail feathers were kept in a jug too.

When I lived in Africa I often came across small Meyer's parrots in the wild. Apparently they are often considered 'parrotlets'. No matter. They gave us such joy. One sighting and one's spirits would soar. Apparently they are classified as 'trans-continental parrots', having the widest distribution of any parrot in Africa. You can find them from South Africa up to Ethiopia, flashing through the trees.

The filming? Ahh, you can read about filming with Captain Flint's parrot and appearing on Animal Magic on my other blog. The most bizarre experience - which I don't think anyone has ever written about - was when I went with Alastair Fothergill to watch the wildlife camera man Simon King filming great tits in Bristol. They were about to fledge from a bird box nailed to someone's shed in rather a grotty part of town. The only way of reaching the long back garden was through a basement flat belonging to an odd old couple who were living in an extreme state of squallor and filth, almost like tramps. They had a budgie. It seemed very happy and was singing away but obviously hadn't been cleaned out for years, so many years that a column of black and white flecked guano had formed on the base of the tiny cage, rising nearly five inches high towards the perch on which the little bird sang. I didn't know what to say. We walked on to relieve Simon. This was crucial. He hadn't been able to leave his camera position all day for fear of missing the moment when the little great tit chicks left the nest. As a result he was dying to go to the loo. I told him that he'd better let Alastair take over for a while or he'd end up like the budgie.

Questions for Book Clubs

1.  Is it important that Funnily Enough is a true story? Why?

2.  Whilst most readers say they laughed out loud whilst reading 'Funnily Enough' one reviewer thought it a sad story. Another said that it is not a funny book.  Is it sad?  Is it funny? Would the funny stories lack appeal without the reality that ME or Chronic Fatigue is a disease that needs to be taken serioulsy?  

3.  Do you think the story could be made into a stage play?

Or could be read on stage with music and sound effects?

4.  How would you alter the story to make it into a feature film? Would you make it into a romance, a thriller or both?

5. One Book Club thought that the Christian content would hinder sales and book reviews in mainstream newspapers and magazines. Do you agree?  If you were a publisher would you reduce or cut out the Christian sections?

6.  Do you want to know what Sophie did next?

Scotland's Knitters - as featured in 'Funnily Enough'

My time working in the fashion industry 

Occasionally I am asked if I ever did any modelling.  I have not, but there was a time when I worked in the knitwear business, apprenticed to my aunt, in truly medieval fashion. She was the primary British producer of hand-knitted cashmere which sold, wholesale, on streets paved with gold: London, Paris, New York, Tokyo.

The epicentre of Aunt Hermione’s knitting enterprise was situated in the stables of her rambling Georgian house above the council estates of Loch Lomond, designated an area of high unemployment at the time.  My apprenticeship was organised by the head of our family, Granny, who paid for my train fare. Whilst not exactly sleeping under the counter, I worked for the experience alone. Aged thirty.

I was first enslaved when Val the head seamstress went ‘off sick with depression’. Before leaving she explained how the business was managed.

‘Nothing’s actually made here. Hand-knitted garments arrive in the post from outworkers and wool for the next order is sent back with a cheque for the labour.’

Not too complicated. I started to help by weighing balls of cashmere for various consignments, seeing the activity as the dawning of a dazzling new career in the fashion industry. It was more difficult than I expected. Gloves for Polo Lauren had seven different colours in the pattern. Small amounts of valuable yarn had to be calculated and compiled. Incredibly complicated.

The cashmere jerseys that came in were stunning. I was amazed as they got bundled up, shoved in the washing machine and later hung up to dry on a pulley above the Aga in Hermione’s kitchen. Her dining room was full of cardboard boxes. Piles of garments in different colours and sizes covered the table, waiting for despatch.

My aunt was to be found in her office busy making designer-ish sketches whilst waiting for Bloomingdales on the phone and forecasting her fluctuating turnover.

‘The drawings are simply to impress the Regent Street buyers,’ she said. ‘I won’t use them for anything else. There is absolutely nothing artistic about the design of separates,’ she went on. ‘I just ask what will sell. If they say Fandango is the colour for next year, Fandango it will be.’

‘What are these buyers like?’

‘Oh, hysterical.  I love them all. They don’t love me though. They just want to know I’ll deliver.’  I was then instructed to sew labels on a pile of pale pink polo-necks so she could get an order off to Japan before Christmas.

I assumed that taking over the production would stretch my talents but found it just entailed dealing with a series of chatty knitters. They rang up non-stop. ‘Knitters in a twist,’ my teenage cousin called, wafting by.

‘Don’t let them talk for long,’ hissed Hermione.

‘Doo-n’t let your wee aunt leave me with noth-thing too doo over Christmas, noo.’

I was urged not to let them bully me. ‘They’ve no reticence, these ladies. They seem genetically pre-programmed to knit and get anxious if they don’t have any work. They are addicted to it. In fact they can quite persecute you for more.’

I learnt that there was a knack to keeping phone calls short. ‘You say: “OK – very gud. Bye.” as fast as you can and slam the phone down.’ I would never have dared to be so abrupt when I worked for the BBC.  People might have been offended and made a fuss about paying their licence fee.

Hermione said that the buyers could cut you short too. ‘Oh, when I was in New York I spent all day plucking up the courage to ring one designer. I eventually managed to speak to her and was busy explaining how each garment is an original, carefully knitted by hand, in the traditional Scottish way, when the woman leant back in her chair and said, “I don’t care if they’re knitted by monkeys, I don’t want ’em.”’

‘How upsetting.’

‘Didn’t matter. The people at Hermes liked them.’

My uncle went on to explain that a lot of the outworkers are looking after infirm relatives and cope with the frustration and endless, blaring television by knitting.

‘It can become an expensive hobby unless you’re commissioned. Their fee - ‘knitting money’- gets put in a jar to pay for treats and holidays.’ Hermione’s marketing spiel described this as ‘sustaining a traditional craft’.

     
Despite the banter in the workroom I was to learn how truely wonderful the knitters were. It was not just their skill that was highly valued. When we only had three days to get samples together for Yves St Laurent in Paris, the local ladies rose to the challenge and pulled out the stops. They never missed a deadline.

‘They are incredibly speedy and can easily complete a complicated cable pattern in a week,’ my aunt insisted. ‘There are over three hundred of them. The thought of them all knitting into the night is really quite terrifying. Actually one of them never sleeps; hasn’t been upstairs for twenty years.’ I didn’t believe her. ‘It’s quite true. She just lies on her sofa and snoozes for a couple of hours. There is a huge Alsatian dog so everything comes back hairy, but she’s a frightfully good knitter.’

Hermione seemed to have had all sorts of adventures with the knitters’ husbands...

‘I sat on one. He was lying in the gloom under a blanket on the sofa and I simply didn’t realise he was there. I went to visit another knitter and walked straight into the bathroom by mistake. There was a man in the bath. A big fat one.

'Another lady was unexpectedly late with her knitting. When I rang up she said, “Well my husband’s just died. I haven’t buried him yet, so I’ll do that and then get the cardi finished, OK?”’

The knitting orders kept me absorbed and I loved the feel of the cashmere, but the work had clear limits. The challenge was Hermione’s. It was her name on the label. The zenith of my internship was reached when I learnt how to wind wool electronically. Granny rang to see if I was being useful, earning my keep. When I told her a ball had just flown off the winder and hit me on the nose I found her surprisingly sympathetic.

‘Oh yes, I remember. All those wretched little balls of wool.  When are you going to South Africa?’

Sophie Neville in Hermione Spencer Cashmere

     

After 25 years Hermione sailed away from knitwear design, but I still have one treasured cashmere jersey. Hand-knitted in Scotland by a dedicated expert.

How do you cope with being laid up in bed day after day?

15^th April ~ A huge Get Well card has arrived, signed by my entire cast and crew. It’s a picture of a crocodile in bed with a thermometer in its mouth. Not a very sexy looking one. My P.A. had written ‘Rest: don’t feel guilty about spending time in bed, you work too atrociously hard.’

I’m reading a book about the French Revolution but I can’t take it in; my brain seems to have shrunk to the size of an apricot.

Mum went around in a Police car today with a video camera, in an attempt to catch speeders speeding. The life of a J.P. (Justice of the Peace.) She absolutely adores being a magistrate. Having always complained about public lavatories, it gives her a title suitable for bullying people to do something about them. And, she always had an aptitude for prosecution. I can remember waiting at the traffic lights when we were little when Mum sharply informed a boy on his bike,

‘It’s getting dark, you should have your lights on.’

‘So should you lady,’ he answered back.

He was right; she hadn’t turned her own headlights on.

Alastair came to see me, leaving a trail of destruction. It comes naturally to him. In the last few years he has broken the dishwasher, sloshed coffee all over the Persian carpet and split open our pink bath. He stood in it. For some reason he got in without any water, which was just as well as Dad found a live electric wire running underneath. Rats had gnawed off the plastic insulation.

It’s sweet of Al to come over, but it’s rather enervating having him around. Like many high achievers, he switches from being frantically outgoing to being totally self absorbed. I just wish he could understand that we love him for who he is and not for what he can achieve.

I don’t know; he’s crazy about what he does; Alastair is even more engrossed in his work than I am. His great passion in life is birds and he loves, loves, loves making films about them. I once asked him what was the most important thing in his life, thinking he might talk about his faith or his family, his health or even perhaps me. He said, ‘Peregrine falcons.’

‘Oh. What’s the second most important thing in your life?’

‘White fronted bee-eaters.’

James says he finds it somewhat annoying; not the bird fetish so much as the desire to get up so early in the morning. Al says he’s sure everyone thinks he’s bonkers but doesn’t care. The great thing is that one is whisked along with his enthusiasm and where it takes you; out to see gannets on the Farne Islands in sparkling sunlight and high seas or off to remote parts of Morocco to find the flamingos and egrets he last filmed in the Camargue. Surprisingly good fun. A group of us girls went out to Kenya one Christmas to see him when he was making a film on the white fronted bee-eaters with Simon King. Al was so focused on the project that when we returned from a long and adventurous journey to Lake Turkana he didn't even say Hello. Mind you, he was battling to complete a sequence with a mongoose. (They predate on bee-eaters.) It wouldn’t do what Alastair wanted at all and that can be extremely frustrating. I had the idea that Marmite might smell like a female on heat. They got a shot of the mongoose sniffing a bit but somehow the Marmite got everywhere. Under Alastair’s arms, on Simon King’s pigtail, all over the mongoose, and I was covered in it. Mongooses don’t smell very nice either. The idea of making wildlife films suddenly lost its charm.

16^th April ~ My littlest sister Mary-Dieu, aged nineteen, has a baby girl aged one. She’s called Daisy, has no schedule at all and arrives with a huge pile of laundry. It’s pretty difficult looking after her as she normally sleeps in bed with my sister and objects to being plonked in a cot. But she’s come to stay because Mary-Dieu wants to go ‘Clubbing’. Night clubbing. The thought alone exhausts me.

Daisy is a delight. Her big eyes and curls make her look like a little imp with a question mark on top of her head. I really didn’t know what to do with her, but found Atalanta’s baby-walker behind the sofa. Daisy thought this was great and spent all afternoon whizzing about my room. I rather need a baby-walker myself.

Nicola, one of my best friends from school, came over. She looked at Daisy with horror and then said in a small voice, ‘I’m pregnant,’ sounding like a frightened sixteen-year old. She isn’t sixteen; she’s twenty-nine and has been married for two years. I think it’s exciting that she’s going to have a baby. I showed her the schedule, which is still hanging on the sitting room mantelpiece.

‘Oh, Sophie, I thought that was for you.’

‘Yes. I suppose it could be.’

‘Do you manage to keep to it?’

‘No, we’re always behind.’

Daisy is sleeping with Mum in her bed and my father has migrated to his study. I lie alone in my high four-poster, looking at the card of the crocodile. Mary-Dieu (Dieu as in mildew) was nearly four when we adopted her. I was fifteen. She was the sweetest little thing, easygoing, bright and extremely articulate. Our only problem, and it was quite a hazard, was that she was, and still is, radically outspoken. She could state the obvious at embarrassing and inopportune times. We all had to go to court for her formal adoption. Mum knew that the old judge only had one hand. The other had been replaced by a hook. We were all terrified that Mary-Dieu would declare, ‘You’ve got no hand,’ or something and had been drilling her frantically. Instead, she walked into the court, paused in the doorway, and when sure of everyone’s attention, looked at the judge, looked up at Mum and said, in her clear piping voice, ‘I no say anything about the hook. I just tell him to be careful of the crocodile.’

17^th April ~ Mum came plodding upstairs to ask if I wanted Rufus Knight-Webb to come and see me. I looked at her a little oddly. I know that Jesus wanted the sick to be visited but I’m not sure I should have so many people in my bedroom. Rufus is the son of our old G.P. and I haven’t seen him since he was adolescent. He’s an artist and lives in London; I’m sure he won’t want to come.

‘You’ve absolutely got to see his wife. She’s beautiful.’ I’d no idea they were downstairs.

Mum was getting impatient with me. ‘It’s all right, they live in a squat.’ She was referring to the chaos in my room.

Rufus’ new Yugoslavian wife is beautiful. Startlingly so. In the way she is, as much as how she looks. She speaks not one word of English. Rufus, in contrast, hadn’t brushed his hair for a long time and spoke without drawing breath.

‘I’m painting with ultra-violet in the dark,’ he told me. I could just imagine it. Rufus in Peckham, painting in the dark. I showed him the luminous stars stuck to the ceiling above my bed. His works of wonderment need to be illuminated by a black light or something. Weird. (How can you get black light anyway?) They’re going to James’ dance in May, when we all have to dress up as soap opera stars. I tried to persuade him to go as a carrot and represent The Archers.

My photos of South Africa have arrived from the developers. Oh, how I wish I’d never come back. The horses look so beautiful. I’m sitting on a big black Friesian with a flowing mane and tail. There are shots of us riding with the game. Shots of us walking through the mountains. Well, me walking, Sarah-Jane striding. I must’ve known her for twenty years. She has a wild and free life. And I mean a life in the wild, where she has freedom. Strong minded and independent, she’s torn away from convention and does what she wants. And why not? About five years ago we drove down through Africa and, although she had no money at all, she decided to stay and start her own business in tourism. Rebecca was on that trip. I’m going to send her some of these photographs and persuade her to get out there. It’s very much her thing.

18^th April ~ Syndrome worse today. Achy back. I can hardly do anything at all. It’s so frustrating; being unproductive goes against the grain of my essential make up. I’m not even much fun to talk to. But surely I’ll be better in time for James’ party.

I went to see my family’s General Practitioner. She peered down my throat.

‘Yes, well this is infected for sure, but tell me, do you always push yourself to the limit?’

‘In what way?’

‘Were you getting stressed-out at work?’

‘I was under a great deal of pressure, but I’m used to coping with that. It can be all quite exhilarating.’

‘How long have you been doing this job?’

‘I’ve worked for the BBC for about eight years, and have been in this particular job, directing stuff, for three.’

‘But is it a stressful job?’

‘Yes, it’s up to me to come up with the goods; the filming is pressurised,’ I admitted. ‘I work with children who are only allowed on set for a limited time, so I have to operate at a fair pace, directing with two cameras, but it’s not as if I was getting particularly anxious or worried. I enjoy it.’ I do, I love my work. I didn’t go into the details but it was the stupid recce that nearly killed me. These times of planning and reconnaissance are normally fun, but we had no time at all. I was going to have to film difficult sequences from a canal barge and wanted everything to be well organised. It was all rather difficult to envisage. Instead of delegating, insisting my production manager chose the locations, I’d spent a Saturday cycling miles up a gravely towpath and I think I pushed myself too hard physically. The only stress was on my muscles, which I’d thought would be good for me. But I was still on antibiotics and must have felt better than I really was.

‘Well, you have had two bad bouts of ’flu this year. I’d say you definitely have post-viral fatigue.’

‘How long can I expect to be ill for?’ I asked.

‘It’s hard to say.’

What I somehow never managed to explain was that while I was with Sarah-Jane I recognised the fact that I was badly in need of a long break; a proper sabbatical.

I staggered back from the surgery, sank into bed and spent all afternoon in a deep, hot sleep. Mum came back from Gloucester looking pretty exhausted herself. She told me that Mary-Dieu was still in bed when she’d returned Daisy at half past five. In the evening. Honestly, even I get up before then, and I’m meant to be in bed.

‘Her basement was filthy,’ Mum reported, ‘so I set to, scrubbing away. Mary-Dieu just sat on the sofa smoking, and watching me.’ Mum hates cigarette smoke. ‘I don’t suppose the night clubbing was much fun.’ Mary-Dieu’s lived in Gloucester for two years but hasn’t many friends. She seems to lead a nocturnal sort of life that I suppose cuts you off from the world after a while.

Mum, worried about christening her granddaughter, once asked Mary-Dieu if she had a church. ‘Yeah, I belong to The Church of Can’t be Bothered.’ It’s her choice but she must be so bored. Poor Daisy has to put up with all the muddle and smoke and the darkness of this ~ I don’t know what you call it ~ alternative lifestyle. Mum was quite funny though, going on about the mess; her own room is just as bad. The things she has on her windowsill alone: piles of letters, Agatha Christie books, wire coat hangers, one shoetree, empty boxes, her old specs (I bet she’s been looking for them for ages) and we are not allowed to interfere. Mary-Dieu knows this of course.

19^th April ~ Woke up with a stiff neck, feeling turgid and somehow compressed. It seems I’m unable to do anything productive. I ended up sitting slumped by my bookshelves reading about a boy who was dying, called William*. I was completely caught up by the story. His mother, Rosemary Attlee, tells the first part. Now I’m reading the journal William wrote in the last four months of his life. He was nineteen. It’s a spiritual journal and so touching. All true and much better reading than the French Revolution.

This diary of mine ought to be a spiritual diary but I’m shy about what people might think. I mean, it’s very personal. I used to think faith was a private thing, but we’re not going to learn anything by internalising what we experience. Anyway, it’s exciting hearing about what God’s doing in people’s lives. I don’t know if what’s happening in mine will be. Where do I start? I’m in the middle of so much. Start where I am now. Not a good place because I feel that nothing spiritual is happening in my life at all. I feel clogged up intellectually (and can hardly spell. I’ve just spelt hour: OUR and her: HAIR).

Should people pray when they’re ill? Well, yes, I’ve so much time on my hands. I ought to try to get closer to God. He really is here the whole time. That I have noticed. It’s a staggeringly beautiful spring for a start. These last few days I’ve been sitting quite motionless for ages, just soaking in all that is around me. I look out of my bedroom window at the cherry blossom. It’s spectacular. In the past I’ve been so busy filming that I’ve missed this extraordinary sight for years. Now it seems as if it’s out just for me, undaunted by wind or snow. Do people just get so busy they fail to appreciate God’s presence in their lives?

20^th April ~ Tried to pray. Can’t; too groggy. Must, must keep my intellect at least ticking over by writing more creatively. It’s essential to persevere. And take risks.

P o e m

If it wasn’t for all the mud and rain

Reality wouldn’t be the same.

Better try harder.

Try brain exercise. Must read newspaper. Reach for The Times. Ghastly news:

It says that an estimated 100,000 people have just died in Bangladesh, killed by a cyclone. That’s an awful lot. But then you read (well, I read in Bill Bryson’s book) that 1,360,000 people in the USA are airborne (flying over it) at anyone time; that must be about 5,000 aeroplanes; more. Dad says unless a load of planes are in the air, there’s not enough runway space for them to park up. Can’t bear to think about it. Give up. I don’t think I’m very well. Perhaps I could write about being ill for the advance of medical science.

I was just beginning to feel dejected when Mum appeared bearing ten pairs of the most enormous knickers I’ve ever seen. Five pairs white, five pairs ‘flesh tone’. Tamzin, who claims to be my most down to earth sister but is really quite glamorous, had just sent them to her for her birthday. Being a housewife she doesn’t earn any money, so my brother-in-law Johnty had had to pay for them. What an hysterical present. Mum had asked for knickers and told her to get the biggest possible, but these are VAST.

Dad, seriously concerned now about safety aspects of handling garden machinery, is writing an article about his experience with the rotary cultivator for The Kitchen Garden Magazine. They’ll just think he’s nutty.

21^st April ~ Nicola has kindly given me some emu oil for my skin. Real emu oil, all the way from Australia. The Aborigines say it has wonderful healing properties. The only problem is that it makes me smell like a roast chicken.

I’d love to be married like Nicola, but it’s just as well I’m not. I can’t bear anyone touching me at the moment. You don’t when you have ’flu and I feel like one does the day after the fever has gone, only this day seems to be going on and on and on. I must thank God for all the good things. He is in control. Control over a sick girl smelling like an emu.

Dad came back from buying plants looking relieved as he learnt that he’s not the only one to have an absurd relationship with a motorised plough. The man who runs the nursery, who after all is a professional gardener, said he started his rotavator in the garage and for some unknown reason it leapt into reverse too. The thing pinned him to the wall, blades spinning frantically within inches of his person. Like Dad, he was all alone and there was no way of escape. He had to wait until it ran out of petrol, which took about forty minutes.

*'William's Story' by Rosemary Attlee (Highland, 1987)