gamboling.co.uk

It’s a time of furious action at the magazine as we prepare to go to the presses. Despite all the swirling nonsense of life, or maybe because of it, it’s somewhat pleasant to be forced to concentrate on something – and work may as well be it.

Decisions must be made, text reviewed and rejected. I’ve had to be a bit unpopular this issue as I’m in the gloriously lucky position of rejecting stuff that’s excellent because we have so much good material. It’s especially tough on the rejectees though. I encourage them back for the next issue when I’m bound to be about a quarter short.

It always seems to go that way feast or famine. Occasionally I wonder if it’s my fault, do I subconsciously lower the bar sometimes just to make my life easier – but I know the truth. I do move the bar sometimes just to fill an issue but I always do it consciously and always immediately regret it. Those poor pieces haunt me still and I know which issues they lie within.

No such fear today this issue is a succulent peach even the advertising, which thankfully doesn’t contain anything as dull as Gosports fixings, is bright and interesting.

Hard good work, quite satisfying.

-Stephie

So you might have noticed that I didn’t talk about the lunch I had with Alison.

I also noticed, not pleased with what’s happened there, and clearly I’ve not been willing to talk about it. She’s very confused with what’s happening to her, and she’s now convinced herself that she’s unsure about Anthony. She’s not convinced about Roger either, as it happens, but Roger has opened her eyes about some of Anthony’s shortcomings.

I don’t know what to do. I’m supposed to be jumping into a waiting Cessna with bunting flowing out of the back declaring that her decision to question her relationship with Anthony is the greatest thing since the ability to slice bread was selected in preference to gnawing on lumps of loaf.

I was so sure that he was a bad influence, but now I wonder if I was acting in her best interest or mine? Simon-from-the-office would know but I’m not prepared to bring it up.

I want her to be happy, that’s clear in my mind. Surely one of the key principles of being happy is the element of self determination, and my meddling is messing with that. Sometimes there are special circs though, and I decided that this was one. We’re not talking rational decision making, we’re asking if, at 26, it’s a bit early to be settling.

I went to work, sulked and mithered.

-Stephie

They say that Sunday is a day of rest, and it was for me. After weeks of not being satisfied with merely burning the candle at both ends, but rather popping the whole thing in the oven to get it good and melted as fast as possible it all came back to roost (the birds that is, not the candle).

I slept until mid-day. Had breakfast in bed instead of lunch. Read my book on the chaise in the afternoon and only dressed for dinner. Claude had made me soup with croutons for dinner, which I ate and then I went almost immediately back to bed. Perfect.

-Stephie

I wake on Saturday morning and surprisingly my first thought is towards work. It’s really started to hit me that Barbara has left now. There’s a new girl in her place, Joanna, but it isn’t the same. Barbara was my rock, and this new one isn’t even a pebble. I’m sure over time she may make her way up the geological scale a tad, but she’ll never out Barbara Barbara.

Barbara was my assistant when I joined so I suppose I learned as much from her as she did from me. I’m sure that would have happened with anyone who was in the post, but we gelled as friends and soon enough we had a little gang at the centre of things who could get everything done. Shame to see it break up, but such is life I suppose, she had the most incredible offer and I couldn’t stand in her way.

I hate being reasonable sometimes.

-Stephie

Beautiful day today. Could it be that Spring got drunk, had a quick kip in Norway, or wherever, and has finally stumbled into late May looking for coffee and a fry up and wondering why nobody else is in the kitchen?

Simon-from-the-office was annoyingly cheerful this morning. I swear the man looked fit to burst forth whistling. Luckily for his personal safety he kept himself away from the tuneless blowing I hate so much.

“So Stephanie,” he said. I’m Stephie to everyone except Simon-from-the-office and angry Aunts.
“Yes,” I replied. For my side I try very hard not to utter his name to him. He’s Simon-from-the-office in my mind and it’s how I refer to him to all, even in his earshot. But I figure it’s probably a bit off to call him it to his face.
“You seem,” he continued unaware that he was interrupting my inner monologue, “to have got yourself into a bit of a pickle with Alison.”
“Well blasted Roger has duffed up the whole arrangement. What he was thinking is beyond me.”
“Indeed.”
“Not sure quite what the current posish is,” I said.
“No, hadn’t we better arrange a meeting with Alison? Might not she be best placed?”
“Yes yes. I lunch with her tomorrow, I’ve got to meet with the Gosports this afternoon and I’m going to need all my strength. You know they fell asleep at dinner?”
“You did mention.”
“Well I hope it’s all worth it in the end,” I said.
“I think if you can find a way to mention that your readers are obsessed with cabinet fixings I’m sure that will make things easier.”
“Won’t he see me terribly transparent?”
“I doubt it. He’ll merely imagine the entire circulation rapt in attention to his droning which, I imagine, will loosen the purse strings.”
“I’ll give it a belt, you know I will.”
“Excellent, and I’ll arrange the luncheon.”

-Stephie

Now not sure what I’ve done letting Roger loose on Alison. At least he seems to be enjoying himself. Shame about everyone else.

I’ve had ancient relatives rising up kraken like to ask what’s occurring with my acquaintance Alison and wondering I might consider knocking some sense into her.

Truth is I don’t even know what Roger has done which alerted the relics to his presence. I thought he was going to subtly persuade Alison that there is more to life than Anthony, not barge in being a danger to shipping.

With all that personal chaos going on it was handy that at work the new girl, Joanna, has arrived. Hope she cuts it.

-Stephie

I woke on the Wednesday and got ready to go in early. I have a routine, such as it is, and I always stick to it – except when I don’t. What I mean is that the actively getting ready portion takes about the exact same time every day. I do sometimes shift things around by either determining to go in early, or late, or just by finishing my book before heading in. I feel like I can justify this as having a widely read editor is crucial for, said editor, to be proficient in cancelling your best work.

Now I don’t mind moving my start time around if need be, but I do not take kindly to having my start time moved for me. This morning the cab was delayed when a man, quite crazed, was running in the middle of the road. The cars and cabs had to stop just to avoid running him down (although my driver was keener to run him down and be done with it – I was a steadying hand).

When I eventually arrived at the office my meeting had started without me. I spent the whole day being physically 5 minutes late to everything but feeling about 10 minutes late. Not helpful at all.

The day had gone so badly I decided to leave early. As my grandfather said, “you should never be late twice in the same day”.

-Stephie

The magazine was short of a feature this week so they asked me to contribute with my answers to the following questions: What’s in my fridge, What’s in my freezer, What’s my favourite meal, and what’s a food I hate.

What’s in my fridge?

Gave Claude a bit of a shock today when I suggested I wanted to see what was going on in the fridge. He started to feel upset that I was suggesting he couldn’t anticipate my every need, but he started to calm down when he realised that it was for your benefit not his. So here it is: 3 bottles dom perignon, 1 jar caviar, salted and unsalted butter ready to be put out. Salmon (smoked), ham ready to be carved, leftover beef from Sunday, some salad leaves and some radishes. Milk, for guests, can’t abide it myself and a selection of cheeses from Fortenhams which need eating by the smell. A half dozen eggs sit on the top shelf next to some home made raspberry jam from when I got carried away last year.

Not sure we have a freezer.

My favourite meal

My favourite meal is actually scrambled eggs on toast. I get to go out to so many lavish wonderful meals, each lovely in its way, but I don’t want to eat much and it makes me feel guilty to waste it. Much nicer to come home of an evening and have something simple. Scrambled egg on toast fits, bit of pepper. Maybe, just maybe, some cress.

A food I hate

Never have been a particular fan of bacon. Not sure why, just never have been. Actually that’s a lie, I know exactly why. Once when I was a girl I was called with an aunt to the vets as one of her dogs needed an operation. They needed to cauterise the wound and the smell of that burning dog reminded me of bacon. I can eat it, can eat anything if decorum finds it necessary but I’m not a fan.

-Stephie

I’m not particularly sure why I keep the umbrella in my bag still. It’s not going to rain and there’s always a cab but I feel I don’t want to be surprised by the consequences of a sudden rainfall. When I was a girl I would love to walk out of an afternoon, get the resolute drenching I deserved and then trudge home and be fussed over. I suppose my worry is that now I would be judged rather than fussed over. Actually am I more concerned with being fussed over? Not very comfortable with that.

The umbrella is a midnight blue affair with a series of parading scotty dogs over the arc of the thing. Not terribly sure where this scotty dog thing started. I remember being given a broach when I was young by Aunt Clara. Not sure I had much of a choice about wearing the dratted thing after that. The rule seemed to be that on each subsequent visit of any significant dignitary one should be wearing or holding as much of the previously proffered clobber as one could reasonably manage and remain standing.

I think it was mainly that the broach was easy to pop on top of anything and therefore stood me in good staid incase of unexpected Aunt based activity. This, I think, broadcast to everyone that I had a particular affinity for the blasted scotty dogs when, in fact, I was trying to show an affinity for father’s sister.

So why now this umbrella? I have mainly put away such childish pooches but I saw this new invention, a handbag sized brolly, with dogs upon it and it seemed designed for an echo of me. But shoot me if I ever buy an actual dog.

-Stephie

I allowed Roger to have telephoned three times before I permitted the call to be put through to me. Yes I did think things were different than before. Yes I did think Alison was worried. And I agreed that she did, as Roger suggested, need a shoulder to cry on. I listened to quite a detailed description of said shoulder. I’m not sure that chiselled features are that comfortable to rest upon if I’m honest – but perhaps that’s just me.

Roger seemed to have fully moved from a funeral march to Yankee-doodle-dandy in terms of changing his tune. Now he was keen to prove that he could be an adequate friend for Alison in this terribly manufactured time of need.

This happily left me in the position of having set the ships off into the ocean without having to fully consider the ruddy great icebergs that said ships were heading pell-mell towards.

As I considered it I wasn’t sure I had totally agreed to it conceptually. I really worried that these two wouldn’t be terribly suited. The only countervailing thought was that Anthony and Alison were the worst possible sickly combination of coupling. Boring to all outside their own bubble. And then the fear struck me, what had I done? What if I was valuing the deterioration of my relationship with my friend above her happiness. That couldn’t be true – she was missable with him – or was she?

What had most worried me about yesterday was Roger’s sense not to mess with bliss. Why was a plank like Roger able to take avoiding action when I had no common sense? Please don’t answer that.

-Stephie