How Time Goes Faster As You Get Older.blog

Carly really enjoys going to Brighton. A fun, sassy and exciting place and she has been there many times over the years. But recently she has been going there a lot to stay in Dom and Nic’s flat on top of a hotel overlooking the sea. It is a really magical place to sit and do your writing and knitting whilst listening to podcasts and looking at the sea. And also, to observe the Brighton Eye which is a strange sort of enormous needle with a polo that goes up and down, up and down, up and down. It is all very bizarre. Carly thinks how strange these new “eyes” are that now define the skyline of both London and Brighton. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, muses Carly. She would have thought that old buildings would mark the landscape but no, these “eyes” are new buildings just to show participants the 360-degree panorama. Carly is reminded of an owl. This is one of her favourite birds and the thought of swivelling around your neck to check on what people are saying about you behind your back would be fabulous. But really is this the case? Maybe Carly should not feel the need to be so very paranoid? Actually, yes, she thinks maybe she should! 

So, Carly cannot remember the first time she went to Brighton. This is because Carly’s memory is really bad. Really, she can never recall anything. For instance, she has been to films and then remembered halfway through, after feelings of déjà vu, in fact, she has seen this film before. Similarly, this is the case with books she has read. Really, she should just keep a list! But she would need to fill this in and attention to detail isn’t one of Carly’s strong suits either. Although she does like creating lists. But more, so she can tick things off! For sure she doesn’t like repeating things. Like reading books or watching films. It feels like she is frittering her life away. 

However, she does remember coming to Brighton more recently. She came on the longest daylight hours weekend of the year which also happened to be the hottest in June 2019. This was part of her healing journey from the fallout she suffered from her recent divorce. She wanted to be in Dom and Nic’s flat whilst they were there. They persuaded her to bring the two dogs with her, but this was rather hectic. These dogs were both rescued from “All Dogs Matter”. Gracie(x) was a small and heady mixture of a great number of different ancestors. At least eight on the salivary genetic doggy heritage test. Gracie(x) was super anxious and also territorial. Not a great combo! Bryn was a pure-bred tri-colour collie. Not like a tricolore salad that Carly really enjoys of white mozzarella, green basil and red tomato. Bryn is white, brown and black. Not really a great surprise as dogs are most likely to be white, brown and black! Bryn was high maintenance all the time, with a constant need for attention – “play with me at all times and if you don’t 24/7, I shall bark, and bark and you guessed it bark some more!” Carly wondered why the police hadn’t been round to arrest him under an ASBO (anti-social barking order). 

Bryn wasn’t very good at travelling on the train. Carly liked to knit and tried to ignore Bryn’s inexorable demands. But then he drove all the other passengers mad with his constant need for their attention. So, she opted to drive. However, coming down on a Friday afternoon in the summer to the seaside wasn’t in fact a good idea as the journey took ages as well as being hot and bothersome. Eventually they all settled in, and the dogs slept in the main living room with Carly on a blow-up mattress. This was all very novel for Carly. It felt that the boats on the sea bobbing about were replicated in this living room for Carly. With her excitable dogs jumping up and down, barking for the sheer joy of it and not really considering the sensitives of the neighbours up here or the hotel guests below. And of course, certainly not thinking about their hosts Dom and Nic.  

As Carly is an early riser she quickly got dressed and herded the dogs out for a run and to survey the independent coffee scene. Phew. No shortage here in Brighton, Carly muses. Later on, she reconnected with Nic and Dom and off they went discovering all parts of Brighton that welcomed dogs. Bryn and Gracie(x) thoroughly enjoyed themselves barking at the water, at each other and anyone who paid them the least bit of attention. They also went to the marina and the pier, and they all loved listening to all the antics that Dom and Nic got up to in Brighton over the years. It was a really magical weekend and Carly thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Carly had made some bread from her sourdough starter. Her kids were always extremely rude about this bread. It was really heavy – actually dense – to be fair. But Nic and Dom were far too polite to complain. These sandwiches formed part of the picnic they all enjoyed on the South Downs. They went there on the top decker of the bus and before returning everyone had their own ice-cream. Even the dogs. But not with chocolate flakes. We all know how dangerous chocolate is for dogs. But is it really? Maybe this is apocryphal as humans just don’t like to share this wonderful food? 

The next time Carly went to Brighton was the following summer when she went away with her parents to Eastbourne. They did particularly like the fancy hotel there! It was called the Grand Hotel. It reminded Carly of the Netflix series she had watched of the same name set in 1905 in Spain. But in the Eastbourne Grand Hotel, there was none of the drama, amazing costumes and good weather of the TV series. Only lots of elderly people with their Zimmer frames, sticks and wheelchairs. Carly contemplated that she and her parents were the only guests without any walking aids at all! It was really fun, and it was nice to spend time with them, but she did feel like a bit of a saddo having to go away with her parents in her mid-50s. Maybe this was better than going away with randos. This is the term her daughter Boo calls people that Carly considers as friends, but Boo says she only has a limited connection with. But Carly is a determined extrovert and loves to make new friends all the time. Not so Boo. 

So, on the middle day in Eastbourne, Carly and her parents decided they could get a bus to Brighton for free on their bus passes. Obviously not Carly, but she is happy to pay and knit whilst watching the scenery. The weather was glorious, and most shops were open. There were lots of people out and about and the place felt really alive. Not like The Grand Hotel! Carly wanted to explore a bit by herself. She thought there just some shops you don’t go with your 80-year-old parents when you are considering dating. Carly was about to go away with a man she had met on a dating app. She was quite excited about this but didn’t really want to explain in great detail to her parents the situation. So, she returned to the sex shop she’d seen earlier. But in reality, even Carly was too shy and overcome with embarrassment to go into this shop once she was alone, later on. Carly and her parents all met up afterwards and had a wonderful fresh fish supper siting outside in the atmospheric “Laines”. It was made all the more memorable as there was no ban at that time in 2020 on eating in restaurants.  

Later on, that year, Carly worked flat out. Every weekend and weekday for a month. There was a lot of work around and Carly liked to be helpful and some of it was as paid locum work. Carly was desperate to go away to do her writing and knitting. Dom and Nic were delighted to lend their unused flat to Carly for two weekends in November. And Carly was even more thrilled to be there by herself. She even met up with friends who lived nearby. On the second trip she cycled to the station in London, and brought her bike on the train. She arrived at St Pancras station during rush hour. Oh no. The train staff said no bikes on the train for a further two hours.

What was Carly going to do? All the restaurants were closed, and Carly would freeze waiting for the end of rush hour. But Carly is innovative. And adaptable. She tried to get through the barriers when the staff were looking the other way. She thought she had seen this on a film. But no, Carly failed. This displeased Carly immensely. Then she reconsidered. She will cycle to the next station down the line. Farringdon isn’t too far away. And guess what. No staff! And loads of bikes. All hunky dory. Carly bundled her bike through the barrier. And onto the train. Ha. Yet again Carly wins. This pleases her immensely as Carly is super competitive! She had a lovely journey down and even snuck into first class to charge her phone.  

Carly really enjoyed the cold wintry weather in Brighton. She was interviewed for a podcast. Of course, they never asked her the questions they said they would, which she had prepared. But, actually, Carly is confident in this subject and would just take it on the hoof again when the opportunity arose. None of this irrelevant overly preparation business next time. You just don’t waste Carly’s time and get away with it!   

She invited her friend Lizzy down for the day with her dog Toto. But no more of this now, as Lizzy will someday have a story all of her own.

A bit like Sandra, where Carly is illegally holed up for some of lockdown. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh – just don’t say anything to anyone! Luckily, Carly has got loads of friends, although each of them is likely to be a bit wary about having a story written entirely about them. On the other hand, they are excited to be famous and bask in Carly’s glory and fame. 

10 Carly gives special consideration to email etiquette. 

Carly spends a lot of time replying to emails. She also thinks about them a lot. There are a number of things that irritate her about them. She deliberately uses her time cycling to sort out email replies in her head. She thinks it is dangerous to cycle in crazy London traffic with headphones. She either spends her time cycling doing Latin declensions – really for no reason, citing long lists of rhyming words or more recently replying to emails in her head so that the actual responses when she gets to her computer to logon are more measured.  

She is not shy to tell others when they have clearly uploaded an old out-of-office reply or one that doesn’t make sense. The ones that really annoy her are the ones where people tell you they are so busy when they return that they cannot filter through the ones they have received but that it is your duty to resend it. This is just plain rude. Why is their time so much more important than mine, thinks Carly? I have to remember when these various people are back, she muses. And then resend them? This is clearly nonsensical. And Carly, being a confident person, has no trouble in informing her colleagues telling them that this is poor auto-reply email etiquette. She does know a thing or two about such etiquette. She has even published in a very popular medical journal about how to email patients or their relatives. This isn’t exactly the same thing, but Carly thinks it still gives her more kudos than others on how to use email properly and appropriately. 

There are other things that annoy her about emails from other people. Quite often they use SHOUTY CAPITALS and worse still sometimes in red. She tells them this makes the recipient feel vulnerable and under attack but also reduces the reading rate by 50%. The CAPITALS this is. Not the red. That is just shouty red. This is similar to using underlining, but it is less of an issue as it only interferes with the letters f, j, p, q and y as these have stalks below the line. CAPITALS means you lose the help given by dots and strokes above the line like b, d, f, h, i, j, k, l and t. Carly is keen to teach these useful rules to anyone she meets. A bit like desisting from using abbreviations when no one can remember the full word. She smiles as she never once used FRP in her doctoral thesis which is all about Familial Rectal Pain. “The goal is clarity” whizzes round her head like a mantra regularly. That’s thanks to one of her mentors, Ben Lloyd, who used that phrase regularly.  

Carly spends a lot of time working on her email signature so it clear and helpful. She has a quote by a famous woman to inspire people. She has a picture of a cat in it as she works at the Whittington Hospital. This is in Archway, North London, where Dick Whittington turned round when he heard the sound of the Bow bells. He then marched back into London with his black cat and a stick with his belongings in a red and white gingham cloth bag to eventually became Lord Mayor of London. Carly adores cats and has had various black cats over the years. One was Ocean and another Shadow. The black cat in her email signature is rather chubby, obviously female and has a red stethoscope. A bit like Carly. The size. And being female. But Carly only has black, pale blue and lilac stethoscopes. Not a red one.  

Carly considers very carefully what she will write in her out of office message. She only does this when she goes away. Some people put them on every week as they are part time but getting all these out-of-offfices is annoying thinks Carly. What people want to know who receive your autoreply is; 

What are you doing? And when are you coming back? 

In fact, the latter point is really what they want to know. Over time Carly has been very careful to try and write amusing one or two liners. Here are two recent ones. 

‘I am off to Brighton to watch the sea, curl up under a furry electric blanket whilst writing and knitting for the week. Back at work on Monday 16^th November 2020’. 

‘I am off to a week in Greece. A yoga and writing retreat. I know it is blissful as I have been there before. But you have to be silent until lunchtime. Now that will be tricky! Back 13^th Sept 2020’.  
 

Sometimes they are longer. Carly feels she is justified if she is going for a long time. 

‘I am going on a sabbatical for 4 months to Jaipur. Only 4 years in the planning and endless NHS red tape! I am hoping to try and find myself…..who knows what, where, why and how this will be? But when you have worked for 15 years without a break it is nice to stop and do something different for a bit. I will sporadically check this email account but if you want to see what I am doing you can follow my blog https://howtimegoesfasterasyougetolder.blog/ Back St David’s day 2020’. 

Really this has probably irritated people, as she has expected that people can work out when she will be back. But they really only know Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. St David’s day is 1^st March. Carly says to herself – sometimes we give too much on a plate to people. Thinking keeps people’s minds healthy. 

Often, she tells people about her holidays and what she will be doing. 

‘I shall be on holiday (riding, knitting, getting hot and sticky) and then at a conference returning late on Wednesday 3^rd September 2014. Of course, I will check my emails – who doesn’t anymore? But should I? Probably not. Can I resist? Probably not. Is there WiFi everywhere? Most likely. Enough blither. Let’s get packing and head off to ride a horse in Wales…………before that conference’.  

‘I am going to New York tomorrow for a few days. It will be freezing outside and boiling inside, and I am seriously in doubt I will find any Wifi……! So, it maybe I don’t logon to my emails every other minute. But you never know……………Returning 5.2.17’ 
 

‘Yet again I am being dragged off to the slopes. Lots of comments on how can you ski so slowly? Thanks for coming with us for this run – really one is enough – why don’t you go and have a nice coffee and do some knitting………..pity me. 
And as for checking emails. 
Well not when I am knitting. 
But try me – I might when I have finished for the day. 
Back 19.2.19’ 

‘I’ll be back 29.8.16 when I return from using my annual leave to plan my retirement to run holidays in Israel. Well sort of…… You never can plan too early! Are you up for a knitting break in Tel Aviv in the years to come? Pilates? Watercolour painting? Singing?’  

And some she wonders may really upset people with her directness. Is this a proxy for rudeness? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm wonders Carly? 

‘I shall be away on annual leave until Sunday 11^th August 2013 with some but limited access to reply to those bugging me on email. You know who you are……………….’ 

And at other times she wonders if people might be jealous of her exotic holidays. But Carly firmly believes that it is good to work hard and play hard. Maybe this is just internal justification! 

‘I shall be travelling around Burma with my family until 3.1.14. Elephants, monks, cycles, knitting => bliss!’ 

‘Am off to Cuba with three disaffected and disinterested teenagers. So, whilst they stay in the room hunting for that elusive WiFi, I will be dancing in the street and partaking of Cuban food. Lucky me! Back 27^th December 2016’. 

Carly has lots of comments on her autoreplies. At least one from each set. If she doesn’t then she worries she has offended someone along the way. Really, muses Carly, you have too much time on your hands to be worrying so much about other’s perceptions of your autoreplies. You are a health care professional. Not a stand-up comedienne or professional email auto-reply writer…..She is glad she hasn’t got into trouble yet. 

Carly never got a nickname from her parents. Only her sister has a nickname. And Carly gave that to her when she was two from a nursery rhyme. The one where Polly puts the kettle on and Sukey takes it off again. Her sister’s full name is Susanne, but she’s always been known as Sukey. Even her sister’s children have nick names. Unlike Carly and her other siblings. Carly is still jealous of her sister’s nickname and wants to give herself a nice one. She had some at school, but they weren’t very nice. Mostly she was called Fert or Fart. Neither were appropriate or kind.  

So, when she was in her mid-50s, Carly went on a course. It was all encompassing. It was for her body, mind and soul. During this course she told everyone she had had a brain transplant. Obviously, this was metaphorical. Or maybe metaphysical? Carly knows you can transplant most organs and even limbs but not brains. Well, she thinks not? Anyway, she is adamant she hasn’t had a personality transplant as she was happy with that aspect of herself. Well sort of. As happy as one can expect at this stage. And when she had this “brain” transplant, she took a new name. A known diminutive of her given name. Take out the letter ‘o’ and replace the ‘ine’ with a ‘y’. When Carly previously drew out her name, she drew a car connected to a washing line by an “o”. Car-o-line. By removing both the “o” and the (l)ine she was radically departing from her former self.  

When you take on a nickname later in life, you can actually research this pretty thoroughly. And especially in the days of the internet, you don’t have to go and invest in a baby naming book. 

Carly does like making lists. And looking at other’s lists. She finds a large number of nicknames before she decides on Carly. She isn’t sure she has chosen the right one. But she is pleased there are 23 to choose from. A very lovely prime number. Saul’s favourite. Carly has recently found others who are just as obsessed about prime numbers as she is. Her favourites are 7 and 19. 

Nicknames for Caroline 

Caro – The most common nickname for Caroline. This is what her Mum calls her now. 

Carol – Carly never did like this name. She apologises to all Carols out there! 

Callie – Is Callie a nickname for Caroline? Seems so. Urgh thinks Carly. 

Caddie – Caddie is an old nickname for Caroline. But it reminds Carly of a wooden caddie where you keep things, especially tea leaves. She is not sure that this is how she wants to be perceived going forward. 

Cal – A shortened form of Caroline. Sounds like a boy’s name, Carly thinks. She is keen to remain a woman, even in these days of gender fluidity. 

Car – Short form of Caroline. For real, thinks Carly, she wants to be a car? Errrrrr, no thanks. 

Cara – A sweet, short nickname for Caroline. Carly agrees but has chosen a different diminutive.  

Cara Curls – For a Caroline with naturally curly hair – well Carly has pretty straight hair so this would be misleading, she thinks. 

Care Bear – “Perhaps, the sweetest Caroline nickname according to this search”. Watch out. This has induced strong nauseous feelings in Carly. She may just vomit. 

Carla – This is sold as another popular nickname for Caroline. But it makes Carly think of an opera singer. And one thing Carly cannot do is sing. Once when she was in rock choir the singers either side of her put their fingers in their ears to drown out Carly’s singing. Carly realises that this is a problem with choirs that don’t require auditions. But Carly is sad as singing in this time of lockdown could increase the possibility of spreading coronavirus. Hence it is banned. When she cycles down the Holloway Road in the dark no one cares or can see her singing her heart out.  

Carly – The lexicon says this is a cool name for Caroline. Carly is smiling. This is why she chose it. Can you be cool at 50? Carly thinks so. Her children certainly don’t.  

Carolien – A Dutch variant of Caroline. “Hardly a nickname” muses Carly. All they have done is swap the last two letters around. Really this isn’t a nickname. Harrumph thinks Carly. It is more like a misspelling. 

CaroMine – Carly does quite like this one. 

CaroWine – But Carly likes this one even more. It is true that Carly does like a drink but to be defined by it in a nickname you chose in the later stages of your life really is opening yourself up to all sorts of problems.  

Carrie – Another common nickname for Caroline. But Carly knows quite of lot of them, and they remind her of Carrie’s war which is sad. Carly has enough sadness in her life without choosing a nickname that would constantly remind her of this. Carly wants to choose a nickname which is about new beginnings. 

Cat – Carly considers this a stretch, but it is a legitimate Caroline nickname. Actually, she wishes she had chosen this. She totally loves cats but too late now. Her work signature file always has some black cat image somewhere in it anyway. Never mind!  

Cathy – Carly has been told this is a nickname for Caroline. But this is a stretch. It is clearly one for Catherine. 

Cawol – This name is listed as suitable for a baby girl named Caroline, because if she could talk, this is exactly how she’d pronounce her name. Oh dear, Carly cannot bear this. She really might puke this time. 

Caz – This is popular in the Antipodes. And Carly already has a friend who uses this nickname. Carly just got there too late! 

Coco – This is listed as a cute or funny Caroline nickname; it depends on your tone. Carly isn’t really sure about cute. There is something that irks her. And it always reminds her of Coco Channel. Carly is popular but she isn’t famous! But maybe one day…… 

Leena/Lina – This is from the end of Caroline. Carly doesn’t really like names beginning with an L which is the 12^th letter of the alphabet. C is the 3^rd (prime) and much better and the C letter itself is much curlier she muses. L is too straight and angular. Not at all cuddly. 

Arrow – From (c→-ARROW-line). Carly looks at this and just thinks this is mad, mad, mad. She doesn’t want such a ridiculous nickname. The derision of having Arrow as a nickname is unfathomable. Like her childhood nick names of Fert and Fart. 

Olie – This nickname is using the middle of Caroline. But really it is a boy’s nickname so no thanks to this one.  

But to change your name in your 50s is no mean thing. It is most likely (and hopefully for Carly) over halfway through your life. Carly for sure wants to live up to 100 but probably not much more. Who really does? So, when Carly changed her name, many people she knew got annoyed or irritated. Some got downright angry saying that it was too big a proposition for them to follow. They lectured her that she was far too old to do this. But Carly retorted “why not now?” And then followed this up with “if not now, when?” Actually, Carly used much worse language to be honest and stronger sentiments than this rather meek questioning style.  

Certainly, her children won’t use Carly. But they didn’t use Caroline anyway. And “Mum” from them will always be fine with her. She is their mother and not their friend. Boundaries are important to Carly, and she feels it is important to maintain them at all times. She also wanted her name to align with her children’s names. She now rhymes with them. They all ended with a ‘y’. They have all left home now, but this way she could remain close to them. She thinks they will vomit when they read this. Gosh what a lot of nauseous feelings floating around! 

All the younger people easily manage the change to call her Carly. And of course, all the new people she meets do this as well. Most see taking a nickname is important and respect this. But some don’t. Some blatantly refuse and say she doesn’t look like a Carly. Others take the piss. Like the father of her children. He signs off an email as Artichoke. Now this is just plain silly. Carly is a real name. Artichoke is a vegetable and not a nickname for Ades. She is not sure what he is trying to do. Half of her thinks he is trying to upset Carly (her sad side) and the other half to rile her (her angry side). He is probably just trying to be funny. Anyway, Carly feels somewhat invincible and continues to keep her new name despite protestations from others.  

Since becoming Carly, she often didn’t respond to this name when she first changed it. For 54 years she had been called Caroline. She didn’t even mind that name. But it was very common, and Carly likes to be original. Carly knew at least 30 Carolines. All born in the 1960s and 70s. Also, she had a change in her marital circumstances, so this seemed another reason to take on a new persona. And there was a Carli who had fancied her ex-husband when they were students. This didn’t now matter! 

Funnily enough she did learn after about a year to respond and answer to being called Carly. But for the first month she wore a badge with Carly is big writing. No SHOUTY capitals or underlining. This is another one of Carly’s obsessions besides not using abbreviations. These are grammatical obsessions. She also loves purple, prime numbers and spirals. These are her non-grammatical obsessions. 

People kept approaching her asking why she was wearing a badge everywhere with her name on it? Had she lost the plot? “No!” admonished Carly. It just helped everyone remember to make the change. Including Carly herself. Only at the beginning.  

Carly thinks about other famous Carlies. She really admired Carly Simon, a famous singer who sang “You’re so vain – I bet you think this song is about you, don’t you?”. There were other Carly references online such as the American teen series iCarly and an app for cars. Carly had heard of neither but was happy to take them on as part of her reincarnation! Needs must, Carly said to herself, banishing Caroline to the mists of time. 

It has been drummed into Carly for as long as she can remember that it is very important to get onto the property ladder. She supposes she could have saved more money by living at home with her parents whilst studying but she values her independence enormously. Anyway, this is another one of her parent’s mantras. Being independent. So, Carly sees this above saving every last penny. Anyway, she has a good job, and she marries someone who has a more lucrative one. Carly doesn’t really mind that he earns more as she wins over him on having many more letters after her name than he has after his. And the fact that she is a doctor who supposedly helps people whilst he is a lawyer who makes money out of other people’s misfortunes. She muses that she is being rather simplistic. But he does works in corporate recovery which is a euphemism for insolvency. So he does work with human misery but related to unsuccessful business ventures rather than failed health issues.

On entry to heaven, she is sure she will score higher on the social accountability agenda entry criteria. Carly is competitive by nature. What a shame she gets divorced. Now it is not so easy check on how he does at these heavenly gates where the cherubic angels float around with their clipboards and check lists. Carly doesn’t just have rows with her ex in her head. She often rows with lots of other people. Always in her head. Often complete strangers. They have no idea. Maybe it is better to call them discussions. It is all about how important she feels she is compared to them. This reached an all-time high when she did a paediatric oncology job. Children with cancer. Really you can’t get more brownie points that that, but it also doesn’t get much more emotionally draining either! More importantly the world cannot only be staffed by people doing these sorts of jobs. There is a need to eat and wear clothes, realises Carly. So, judging others isn’t particularly healthy, she realises. Who really knows what is on that heaven entry gate list? This train of thought really is a long way from property. Back to the title.

Carly likes to decorate her home using lots of colours. In one flat the palate was limited to only lime green and fuchsia pink. When she buys a bottle of navy-blue shampoo, she has to keep it in a cupboard for fear of colour offence. Next time find the right colour – never mind the brand. Or even the product. Oh dear, Carly must really try harder. Luckily most toilet paper is white, so this was less of an issue. Actually no. Wait a moment. Her sister has black toilet paper……but all this attention to toilet paper colour is, as her daughter Boo would say, is a first world problem.

Also, she has to have outside access as part of her property. Not that Carly smokes. She hates that. Rather she needs to feel the wind, look at nature and read novels outside. It could be a balcony, or a garden will do. Especially if you can have a trampoline. Large or small. Bouncing is always good. Especially now Carly cannot knock herself out post breast reduction surgery! When younger, Boo would often bounce in the sleeting rain with the dogs on the large trampoline. Those small exercise ones are fun but they aren’t really for sharing. The older Boo is now much too worried about her makeup to do this reckless exercise.

Carly likes to have some connection with water. Best to look out over the sea, a river or reservoir. However, once she had a hot tub. This worked well as she had three teenagers who would never desist from using their phones which really bothered Carly. They loved to take their friends into this gorgeous, calming water and even they didn’t want to risk drowning their beloved devices.  So, Carly managed to get them off their screens for at least some of the time. The dogs loved the hot tub as much as anyone who went in it. They would always want to play “bring the ball and drop it into the hot tub” and when the ball was lost, they just barked at you until you flicked water at them which they drank mid-air. Snappy, snappy went their jaws. Really this was very tedious, especially for the teenagers who had come into relax and chat. Instead, it felt like active dog sitting or playing. A bit like babysitting when the children won’t go to bed, and you have to play with them and not get on with your own stuff. And worse still, no one paid you for these dog entertainment games. The hot tub was made of wood and had lights which cycled through the rainbow spectrum. A bit like Carly’s water feature in her current rental home which would otherwise have to connection to water. Carly wonders about this recent obsession of cycling lights through the rainbow spectrum. Her old car radio did the same. Bizarre she thought.

The only other connection to water in her current rental house is the automatic atomiser. This house was clearly built by very fire averse architects. The smoke alarms go off before you even put the bread in the toaster. Really far too sensitive and the scream it makes is something else. And in addition, there is this system in the kitchen set to drench everything. Carly knows that more damage is done by water to put out fires. Her son was home cooking roast potatoes but clearly things got too smoky. These atomisers behave a bit like daleks with flashing lights and spray vast amounts of water at head height all over the kitchen. Carly and her son had to fuse the whole house to turn this system off. Part of the problem was that Carly insisted she knew where the boiler was. But she confused it with the hot water tank. They do look similar, Carly muses and forgives herself this temporary aberration of knowledge! Carly is trying to be kinder to herself and only admonish herself for really serious misdemeanours. Luckily this atomiser system is now deactivated until the engineer comes round to reset it. But who is going to let the engineer know? Certainly not Carly. Nor her son. One internal tropical storm is quite enough.

Carly also has to sell her home too. She makes the house really attractive. Everything is put away. It looks homely but without clutter. Marie Kondo who wrote “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying” would be so proud of Carly. She takes photos of how she wants it to be kept looking so that everyone knows the baseline. Also, when an appointment is booked, there is coffee roasting and bread baking. She has a large stash in the freezer of those half-baked rolls. She even gets someone to take the dogs out when Nathan, the estate agent, brings round potential buyers. She didn’t want to put off people who are scared of dogs. They always say they are allergic. But when these people come round and are fine with her cats. Carly knows that they aren’t the allergic type as cats are much more allergenic than dogs. Just scaredy cats! Funny word for dog phobic people.

One afternoon Carly is having a bath. This is special and unusual. Carly makes the bathroom smell nice with candles and incense. She puts rejuvenating salts in the bath and eases herself into the hot and comforting water. She tries so hard to relax. She empties all thoughts out of her head like she has been taught in her mindfulness training. She breathes deeply and slowly. She really does try hard but after five minutes she is bored. So, she gets up, plays some music and does shaking in the bath. She has learnt to do this on a course. She shakes away in time to the music. She is in a trance jigging up and down in the bathtub. Thump thump thump. Yes, she can carry this on for much longer than lying in the bath trying to be mindful. It is good to be using up this energy in a productive way. She starts doing some shouting too. Ahhhhhhh. Oooooooooh. Grrrrrrrrrr. She did that on the same course. But she can’t be too loud as there are the neighbours to consider.

Being Carly, she can’t really keep this shaking up too long as she gets bored of that too. So, she gets out of the bath. During her jigging she thinks maybe she heard her daughter Boo return home. With her towel wrapped round her she dashes up to Boo’s bedroom. Carly knows Boo will be in bed. She has been a mother to teenagers for nearly a decade now. This is the place they go. Unless they are eating or showering or going to the toilet. Everything else is done in bed. Carly enters Boo’s bedroom, but she cannot see her. Boo is under the duvet cover. Carly thinks this is unusual even for a teenager as it is mid-afternoon. Boo is hiding. Then Boo talks from under the duvet. She admonishes Carly for having sex in the bathroom with the estate agent Nathan. “For real?” thinks Carly who cannot decide which is more ridiculous. Having sex in the bath or having sex with an estate agent. Boo then pulled her trump card and said that Nathan wasn’t actually bad looking.

Carly does eventually sell this house; Nathan is worth his weight in salt – she just cannot allow it in gold! She will always be contemptuous of estate agents. Even good-looking ones. Carly considers her next move. She buys a flat which overlooks a reservoir, has a veranda and is part of a large development so she can always meet new people which is very important for an extreme extrovert like Carly. It has a concierge to deal with her online shopping obsession. It also complies with the now very stringent cladding laws. But most importantly it only has one bedroom. Her children are now adults as they repeatedly remind her. They forever moan when they claim she is “helicoptering” them. So now with this new flat she is promoting their independence. They can of course choose to live with their father.

Carly has done an online course about the five stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. Carly is very worried about being angry. Carly has been worried about that for years. So instead, she is miserable. Really miserable. Crying all the time. Her face is puffy like a puffer fish.

She tries specially formulated skin creams, but they don’t help. Sharon at work says these anti-aging skin creams have no evidence they work. But she would say this as she does Botox injections to help aging skin look lush again. Carly feels she has cried so much she has run out of sadness. She thinks she can get closure for her grief. She thinks that the five stages of grief are artificial, and she doesn’t need to be angry. She is very worried about what she will be like if she is angry. Maybe she will never stop being angry. It will be overwhelming for everyone. It is more acceptable in society to be sad. It is not good to be bad (angry) or mad (overly sad with voices).

So, Carly starts a course of therapy to help her grieve for her very long marriage that ended. She wants her therapist to help her deal with her sadness. Her therapist tells her she must get angry. Carly is angry with her therapist for telling her to get angry. Instead, they move onto what Carly’s ideal new partner would be like. Carly considers this in her usual high-energy, dedicated and organised fashion. She reads her list of 19 key attributes in alphabetical order. Carly’s therapist suggests that she might never find a partner with such a long list of requirements.

Carly agrees and hones her list to only two. Carly is happy as these are all prime numbers. She explains that nineteen minus seventeen equals two. Her therapist pulls a face, but Carly explains that she loves numbers. So much so, that her daughter thinks that Carly is autistic. But Carly has already just diagnosed herself with ADHD and she cannot add to this burden of additional diagnoses. Eventually, it is time for Carly to stop her course of therapy. As predicted, Carly and her therapist talk about endings. Will Carly be able to manage without her therapist? Carly believes so. She managed before she started therapy, so why shouldn’t she afterwards? Her therapist isn’t so sure. The question is who really needs the therapy to continue?

Carly has been on a course about anger. This was particularly interesting. It was a residential course using cognitive, cathartic, ritualistic and ceremonial elements. It was all-encompassing. Unsurprising, Carly cried a lot. Carly learnt that you need a degree of anger for your energy levels, your lifeforce, your mojo. Anger is a force that can be used for good and to promote change. Now Carly is prepared to get angry so she can feel alive and purposeful. She can get really angry if she applies herself. This has been revelatory for Carly. She can be angry, but it can be contained and not dangerous. Rarrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhh growled Carly. But where can you actually go to do this getting angry business? You just cannot open your mouth and roar anywhere you fancy.

So, Carly chatted to others about how they deal with their anger. It seems that lots of people like to shout and get angry but don’t advertise this about themselves. One man told her that he shouts his head off in his car when he is driving up the motorway. Carly thinks this is a good plan. She once went on a road traffic awareness course. It was probably the only course she went on she can say truly changed her behaviour. Well, a bit, as she has got a couple of speeding tickets since. On that course, she learnt that country road driving was the most dangerous and motorway the least. Therefore, next time she is on a motorway she will also shout her head off and know she and others are pretty safe with her driving in this state. It needs to be a long enough drive for Carly to work herself up. A five mile stretch between two junctions isn’t long enough to get in the right frame of mind.

Her cousin in New York says that she yells as loud as she dares when the subway train comes in the station. She stands at the front of the platform, waits for the train to just pass her so the driver doesn’t get worried and then she hollers as loud as she can. Sometimes she does it with her teenage sons. They all thoroughly enjoy this. Carly is not sure this could work on the London Tube. English people are really much more uptight.

When Carly is by the sea, she can put on one of those full-face breathing masks on and bellow as much as she likes when she swims out. She is sure the fish won’t mind. She is not even sure fish can hear? But Carly does look like something from another planet and the whole thing feels weird and ghoulish. However, Carly is creative. She is a doctor. She knows that when you ask to see a child’s throat, you can tell them to roar like a lion to get a good view of the tonsils. She demonstrates with a moderately loud ahhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and then she and the child take it in turns to really growl getting louder and louder. At least five times each. Only Carly knows why they are doing this. The child thinks it is a game. The parents think it is part of the examination. Only Carly knows it is for her benefit alone. These children have constipation or flat feet. The staff outside sigh. They say – well that Carly – she is something else.

Carly thinks about how to deal with denial and bargaining. Maybe she can enrol on a joint course for these aspects of grief? Carly goes off to investigate. She hopes she will be successful in her quest as this might help stave off her grief. 

Carly does get very sad when her cats die. This picture is here as she has enough in her Carly adores cats story and here is a good place to put this drawing. As her dad always used to say. “Waste not, want not”. Then he would add. “Pick your nose and eat it”. Her mum was very disgruntled about that addition. Carly doesn’t eat bogies anymore, thankfully.

Carly really adores cats. The question is do they adore her? Or admire her. Of course not. Dogs always adore their owners. Cats clearly don’t. Cats come and go as they please. They seem to change owners at the drop of a hat. Actually, very often they have several owners on the go at any one time.

Whilst Carly admires this trait, she finds it irksome. She like to be the centre of their world. Actually, everyone’s world. But if she tries really hard, she can see it from the cats’ point of view. Carly is allowed to come and go as she pleases; to go to work, out for a walk or a cycle and away on holiday. She sometimes wonders if they want to join her as she often finds them in the suitcase when she is packing. They probably like the cool dark space a case affords. Carly considers why should the cats stick around for her for when she decides to return? Cats have their own territories and businesses to attend to. Just like Carly. So, her cats will do as they please. Hmmmmmmmmmmm thinks Carly. She does actually get it.

Carly realises cats are important in her life. They are grounding for her, particularly in this time of uncertainty. She always has had them coming up through the ranks. This means she has several cats on the go at any one time of different ages. So, when they pop off their mortal coil, Carly already has replacements in the wings. She learnt this early on. She was devastated when her first cat Mitzi went missing. She presumed this cat was taken by a restaurant. To go on their menu. She had no evidence for this. However, she decided to report Mitzi as missing to the police. Whilst mildly sympathetic, the officer told Carly that they don’t log missing cats. He said, “this was because cats was of an itinerant nature”. That was the last time Carly went to the police about any of her cats.

Next up was Hamlet. He was a big, fat cat who would lie around her neck like a fur collar. One memorable day, Carly came home from work. She was struggling with Hamlet in the cat basket, a toddler and a very large belly. This contained an eight-month-old unborn baby. When she arrived home the man from the organic box delivery scheme arrived simultaneously. He wanted to be helpful. Once he had put the beetroots, parsnips and turnips in the kitchen, he offered to bring in the cat basket for Carly. “Oh no” she replied somewhat aghast.  “The cat is dead, and the house is hot and he will soon start to smell. But thanks”. Carly was pleased that she was firm and direct whilst being grateful but didn’t see why this man fled at such speed from the house.

Later she dug a hole for Hamlet, but this was hard as the garden was miniscule and very stony. This left Carly with only two cats: Boadicea and Spartacus.

But Sparty left soon after the second baby was born. This was a home water birth and Sparty did walk around the edge of the massive birth pool. But the commotion of a birth and a new-born proved too much for him and he fled never to be seen again.

Then followed a series of black and white cats called Ocean, Shadow and Ice respectively. And some other cats who were the rejected litter from one of Carly’s work colleagues, Jeanette. She bred hairless Sphinx cats and backcrossed them with moggies to strengthen their characteristics. Carly had some of the hairy versions; Jazzmine Juicy Inferno, Gilbert and Sinjan Billy.

By this stage, the family had a lurcher which is a collie/whippet cross. This dog Jake came as a puppy from Battersea. He was great with all of these cats. Every time a new kitten would arrive, Carly would slowly introduce them to Jake. But by the end, when Jake was old, he would raise one eyebrow as if to say, “here we go again” and then go back to sleep.

Carly introduced the family to a cat death ritual. They would be buried in the garden under a flowering bush. The colour of the flower would match the deceased cat’s fur as a reminder to the family. One day Griffid, who was an old ginger cat, died. Carly instructed her nanny to dig the grave which was difficult as the kittens Shir Khan and Shadow kept scurrying in and out of it in a rather disrespectful manner. The nanny had also failed to put Griffid into a curled-up position, so the grave had to be extended as rigor mortis had set in.

Carly picked up the children from school and they went home via a garden centre to buy an apricot rose bush. Their tradition was to bury cats under a matching flowering plant. She returned to find her husband checking if Griffid was indeed dead. He looked the same as he normally did with his ginger fur. Carly lifted him upside down and showed how he could be installed as toilet roll holder.

She knew this from a book called “101 Uses of a Dead Cat”. However, they decided it would be better to bury him instead. The children were encouraged to bury something of their own with Griffid in his grave. The youngest child put in a necklace she didn’t really like; the middle son wrote out a song the family used to sing about Griffid. “Griffid the tiger, Griffid the lion, Griffid the mighty friend of Jake” and the oldest one who was hitting adolescence wrote a note to him and folded it up. Without anyone watching, Carly took a look at it. “Griffid, I have no idea where you have gone but it’s got to be better than here”. She quickly folded it and replaced in the grave with the cat and put the apricot rose bush on top.

As new cats arrived, Carly asked her children to find them suitable names. They called them Stinky Miranda Tallulah (known as Mandy), Jaja-Binx-Et-Mouse-Chicken-Legs.com (called Binx) and Gus short for Asparagus during a vegetarian phase.

Carly adores her cats. Some have long names, some short and some ridiculous. All have nicknames and they keep her grounded.

Carly loves coffee. She adores it. I mean she is obsessed with it. When someone tells her, she must be understanding to smokers as they are addicted, she doesn’t really get it.

They ask her, if she, Carly, could give up coffee? She contemplates this. She is silent for a while. This is very unusual. Carly is rarely silent. She thinks silence is good. But really for others, as what she has to say is novel, fascinating and original. Anyway, once Carly has thought about giving up coffee, she realises that she can’t, as she too is addicted.

Carly has drunk coffee forever. Actually, not as long as knitting. She started knitting aged 11 whilst still living at home. Then she drank hot chocolate and Horlicks. She’s lucky she carries that mutation that means she can enjoy milk after the age of three. She smiles as usually having a genetic defect isn’t great, but this is a good one. Especially for her. Lots of her friends drink non-diary milk substitutes but Carly finds that it leaves a sort of skin on the roof of your mouth. Her daughter goes on and on about how the dairy industry is actually the single worst thing for climate change. And is worse than airplane flights. Carly considers this. She does lots of recycling and turns off all the lights both at home and work, plunging everyone into darkness. Her daughter, who is a teenager, remains unimpressed with Carly’s viewpoint. Carly has had enough of rowing with her daughter who, anyway, continues to secretly eat cheese, yogurt and ice cream.

Carly thinks back to when she first had coffee. It was on an archaeological dig in Cyprus. “Goodness!” She says “that was very boring”.

Getting up at four in the morning and spending eight hours sorting through dust and dirt for coins, glass and shards of pottery. At least she had coffee to enjoy for breakfast halfway through this tedious sifting.

At university, it was always instant coffee. And to be honest, she thinks now, that that was ok then. Of course, now she really is a coffee snob and aficionado. She has coffee textbooks to prove this. She only drinks cappuccinos. And only when she is out. But back then instant had to do and there wasn’t this plethora of coffee places or these fancy machines her son now has. He is equally addicted. When Carly was pregnant with him, Costa opened up in her local high street.

Carly went there all the time. When she was pregnant, on the day of his birth and during all the time she was on maternity leave. So, he really was exposed to the wonders of coffee firstly through his umbilical artery, then through breast milk and finally babycinos. Actually, this last one is frothed milk with chocolate powder but nonetheless he was exposed to this coffee culture from the get-go.

Later on Carly would go regularly to Crick’s Corner. This was a small, fabulous independent institution near her work. But it mostly remained a secret from the 1000s of workers at her hospital. She didn’t advertise it as she was keen to keep it her safe haven. She would, however, arrange to meet all sorts of special people there. She took the provost from her university there once. He was the head honcho of the entire institution. Having coffee always relaxed people and he had lots of issues he highlighted. So many people were being mean to him. Carly was rather surprised as she thought that being at the top of the tree meant everything would all be fine and dandy. He was quite a sweet old man. Carly couldn’t believe how tricky things were for him and the provost couldn’t believe how naïve Carly was.

Carly meets so many people there, that Cricks is her default location when she uploads any meetings into her diary. She has experienced all sorts of emotions there. Carly has laughed, cried and even been hysterical there. The staff don’t mind as they know Carly will cope. She often goes there alone and does her knitting. On a Saturday morning, Carly has a regular coterie of friends to walk through the park with her dogs to have a coffee at Cricks. This pleases Carly as it is killing not just two but three birds with one stone. Having coffee – always the most important, walking the dogs comes second as it is a necessity and then going with friends. They aren’t really third, Carly justifies to herself but the other two are absolute necessities. Carly wonders if her friends ever realised just where they were on her list.

During the Covid 19 lockdown most coffee shops were shut. Carly was morose about this and made it her business to discover any that were open. There were some but they often had very long queues. Carly would pass the time by striking up conversations with the people either side of her. Carly is a determined extrovert and loves to chat to people her daughter would term as “randos”. Carly couldn’t help but scowl when customers chatted to the coffee shop’s staff for too long. She realised that people were lonely, but Carly is both impatient and important. She has a job to do. Carly expends a great deal of mental energy considering how waiting around affects her. She often keeps people waiting and sometimes feels sheepish about this. Woe betide anyone who dares to keep Carly waiting. There seems to be some subtle exchange going on in Carly’s head ranking people. Of course, there are some things you are never late for. And with everyone’s attachment to their phones you can keep updating people of your progress. However, this texting delays things further but more importantly, Carly feels, texting causes her thumbs to ache and then she cannot knit. She has tried to use voice recognition software but what appears on her screen to send is often incomprehensible. Carly is in a bind. Really, she needs to consider all people as equal and just get there on time. None of this “two legs good but some two legs are better”. Or is it “two legs good and four legs better?” Her knowledge of Animal Farm is ropey to say the least.

Carly likes the caffeine fix the coffee gives her. Once a year she has to fast from all sustenance for 25 hours to atone for her sins. She has to take this very seriously as she has collected an enormous number. Carly has been warned that, as she is addicted to the caffeine, she should only drink decaffeinated coffee a week before the fast. Then she can atone for her sins without a thumping headache. But Carly decides that life is too short for her to suffer drinking coffee without the buzz for such a long time. She will just have to manage her atoning with a caffeine withdrawal headache. Life is a balance and 364 proper coffees a year will have to do.

Sometimes Carly has every intention of having her coffee, but things do conspire against her. Recently she bought an electric scooter. She knows these are illegal, but the police are too busy fighting drug crime where she lives to notice her. But Carly is not ok trying to scoot over bumpy pavements and carry a take-away steaming cappuccino in one hand. Splat goes Carly. Coffee all over the pavement. Some men rush over but Carly is fine. A bit mortified. But she is too embarrassed to return for a replacement, so for that year only 363 coffees. And of course, that number is severely open to question. Carly will often have more than one coffee in a day. The absolute minimum is one. Carly feels that is acceptable. But like any addiction, sometimes she has more. Oh no. Carly on speed. Watch out. You’ve been warned. Even more energy than usual.

Carly has a rather tumultuous relationship with plants. Well, maybe, ambiguous is a better way to describe this. In recent years, she has been more taken with the putative positive effects of growing plants. She has a number of friends who have allotments, but this level of commitment seems over the top to Carly.

She is happy to devote a lot of time to knitting as this is her hobby, to work as this pays her wages and to eating as this sustains her. Often, she approaches growing plants with suspicion. Previously she was often given orchids. These were from friends coming over for meals. They always look nice and let’s be honest – they don’t cost a whole lot and seem exotic. But however hard she tries to look after them they all keel over and die. She dusts them and talks to them, and she tries to under water them as she is told most indoor plants die because of over water. She has a friend who goes around every Sunday night at 1930 and gives each of her orchids one cube of ice. Carly rather likes this idea, but she doesn’t have an icemaker. She thinks only filling up the ice cube tray for limited orchid plant watering seems a bit of a waste when really ice cubes are best used in gins and tonics.

But there is another reason it is ok for these orchids to turn up their noses and pop their clogs. Carly has been giving all her half dead or actually mostly dead orchids to Jean for a great number of years. Jean is her ex-step-mother-in-law, and this sustains their relationship keeping it on the straight and narrow. It seems to keep both of them satisfied. Jean can bring this ragbag collection of orchids back to life. Carly can pretend that she is delighting Jean with a present that, really, she is offloading and didn’t pay for anyway. Carly thinks having people over for dinner costs a whole lot more than the price of a measly orchid. And then Carly feels guilty as Jean rarely comes over for meals. Carly makes a note to herself to rectify this. It isn’t Jean’s fault that Carly is divorced.

When she was a child, Carly grew sweet peas, but they were never fragrant. She also grew runner beans as the rabbit liked them. But this rabbit went the way of many pets dying of old age and Carly never liked beans much anyway. However, Carly has picked up quite a bit of knowledge along the way. She has quite successfully grown herbs. She is proud of this and anyway it is super easy to replace them if they don’t prosper, as you can often buy them really cheaply in the local supermarket. And yes, she has remembered to keep those pesky mint plants in their pots, so they don’t take over with their roots. Carly likes to imagine these mint roots having secret plans and clever tricks (thanks Raoul Dahl) to take over the garden. They meet at night and confer on how to invade the rest of the garden with their imperialist tendencies. It is known as the great mint root advancement plot. Really this train of thought is ridiculous. Plants of all things are meant to be grounding. They are not there to promote fanciful thought, with your mind wandering off in ridiculous directions. Carly begins to chastise herself but in this new era of looking after yourself, she decides that she must desist from this too. Really this is getting hopeless.

Carly has had limited success with growing vegetables. Her friends from Dorset gave her Jerusalem artichokes to grow. And they are very easy to grow but they are super muddy and pretty small. All that effort and a huge amount of wind as a result and not a lot else. However, she is very committed to eating plants. Since completing Lifebook, which is a 12-step personal development course, she has had a green smoothie every morning for breakfast. Very healthy. Carly is very pleased with herself. That is because she is pretending she isn’t off for a coffee as soon as she has downed the green smoothie. But she is. Carly is much more obsessed with coffee than plants and she supposes if she lived in hotter climes, she could grow coffee. Now there’s a thought….

Carly has done a number of courses that involve plants. Flowers to be more specific. Once she did an ikebana course to display flowers in a Japanese style. The course said it was to bring out the inner qualities of flowers to express emotion. Carly liked that and carefully arranged the flowers in trios. But it felt too minimalist for Carly.

She also went on a kokedama course. You take a houseplant and cover the roots in compost for the inner layer, moss as the middle layer and string as the outer layer. You can display this in a handmade macramé string holder but Carly, like most people, last did this craft in the 1970’s and she feels this is rather unstylish! So, she puts her kokedama plant on an enormous square glass plate. And it is doing very well thank you very much.

Most recently she went on a course to make flower headdresses. Usually this is for people at hen nights who make them to wear at a wedding. Carly isn’t sure why she booked this course as she has just got divorced and there are no wedding bells on the horizon. It was a very rainy afternoon, and she was the only one on the course. “Great” thought Carly. They won’t have to go at the speed of the slowest participant. Carly is fast. Actually, superfast and really has no patience for slow coaches. On this course, Carly excelled herself and she was so fast, she made two flower headdresses instead of one and gave the spare one to her cousin who had also just got divorced. Carly is a bit jealous of her cousin as she has obviously moved on much faster than Carly and has a boyfriend. Hmmmmmmmmmmm muses Carly. She wishes she was slightly less competitive. She is happy about the being speedy, mind.

Carly does like to hug trees, but she often forgets to do this. Also, in spring, she has tree pollen allergy, and this means she gets very itchy and sneezy. She feels that she might get relief by taking out her eyeballs to give them a good scratch and then replace them. Luckily, she has trained as a doctor and has been to medical school, although it was a while ago. She does remember removing eyeballs leads to permanent blindness. Carly has often wondered if it would be worse to be deaf or blind. Really, she isn’t sure. But maybe an antihistamine would be a better option for her in the spring? Carly is unable to answer that last question she set herself. Instead, Carly hugs people. Even when it isn’t allowed. During lockdown no one was in the office where Carly worked. This meant she could walk around liked she owned the joint! Of course, this was short lived in the end. But it did introduce her to a new plant at work. Tradescantia. It has wonderful dark green and purple leaves with a silver pearlescent shimmer. Carly became obsessed about it. Every day she went and broke off a bit and popped it into water. Roots were quickly established, and Carly took them home to grow. Besides coffee and knitting, Carly is obsessed with prime numbers. So, she has 17 plants in her bedroom, 5 in the hallway in hand knitted plant pots, 23 in the front room and 19 in the basement. She gives them away to people when she goes to them for supper. And she has found that their common name is “Wandering Jew” which feels entirely appropriate. Carly is Jewish and has moved around quite a bit in London. Since she was an adult, she only lives in places beginning with an H. Hackney as a student, Hampstead, and Highgate as a nice Jewish wife and now in Highbury as a still nice divorcee. Shame the letter H is the eighth letter in the alphabet as it doesn’t fit with the prime number theme! Her ex-husband grows spider plants, but Carly clearly prefers her plant as purple is her favourite colour. And spider plants really are rather spindly. Maybe, Carly is just being mean for the sake of it!

Finally, Carly is able to combine plants with her knitting hobby. She has often used time honoured plant-based yarns such as linen and cotton but more recently bamboo. This feels really luxurious, but she does worry about the amount of chemicals needed to turn it from hard sticks into a soft yarn. Similarly, she feels the same with eucalyptus. She has crocheted with this. She wonders what yarns will be discovered next from the plant kingdom. Maybe something from mint roots, she smiles gleefully to herself?

Carly has a list. She knows there are lots of things out there that she does to feel grounded. They go in phases. A bit like her friendships. Firstly, she had friends from her school and her youth movement, then from university and finally from her work, her local community and knitting. These knitting friends rarely talk to Carly about what they have in common. They talk more about their lives in general, their goals and aspirations but more often woes and upsets. Well apart from the work friends. They do groan about work. And that really means they moan about other people. But for sure, Carly doesn’t talk about politics. This is a big no no. Carly hates fierce, deeply held argument. Challenge oh yes. But politics. A big NO.

So what phase is Carly in now to feel grounded? She muses about how many other divorced women with young adult children are in the same phase. Carly hopes none, as she likes to be an individual. This is a bit of an obsession. She even hopes her list of what she does to feel grounded is bespoke. She wants to be decidedly original and individual. She hates the thought of being just like other people.

First up. She likes to burn incense. She takes it everywhere with her so she can burn it to feel grounded even when she is not in her lovely and calming home. At work, she definitely burns it. And gets reprimanded. Really, she thinks, a burning incense stick is not likely to burn down a hospital. Why can’t they ban smokers instead? They are a much more serious threat. Not just to the fire service but to their own health and others who breathe in their despicable smoke. Really Carly has never had any time for smokers. She has never learnt to smoke and remembers many times when she was younger of chopping up other people’s cigarettes and hiding those very thin papers people use who roll their own. She does understand it is an addiction and her actions don’t help but they seemed to mollify her strong feelings about smoking at the time. Now she has a loaded water gun at work to fire on any of her co-workers who smoke under her window. Woe betide anyone whose smoke curls up and wafts in through her window. Also, she acknowledges she is always there to enjoy the incense and if it really got out of hand, she could extinguish any flames with her water gun. Finally, she comments to herself, that lots of people passing her office really enjoy the wonderful smell of the exotic. It feels like a no brainer to continue. Carly decides she must just fight on with this incense battle.

Carly realises to feel grounded she needs to appeal to her five senses. Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch. After brushing her teeth, she puts on a costly special face serum to keep her wrinkles under control. Carly likes to be in charge, but it seems that she cannot just order her wrinkles away, whatever the expense. Anyway, Carly says that wrinkles make you look kindly and grandmotherly. She strokes her crow’s feet and sighs. She does massage her face, and this feels good. She did once have one of those head massage devices, but she kept poking the wires into her eyeballs. She loves to have an Indian head massage with tonnes of oil. It feels great but then she must deal with her hair sticking to her head. She once had this problem when she was a swimming teacher. Her hair became so dry that she that decided to condition it with cooking oil as this was cheap and plentiful. Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave home for a week because she ended up looking like a soggy chip.

Carly decides to have body massages instead, but they are expensive. In this new phase of keeping a tighter hold of the purse, she only has them occasionally on holiday. Instead, she regularly hugs her sons. Her daughter is in a phase of not allowing Carly to cuddle her. Carly hopes this phase passes soon. It is tedious and upsetting for Carly who doesn’t know why her teenage daughter is like this. Sometimes you cannot understand these things, ponders Carly.

So, this covers smell and touch. Actually, back to smell. Carly likes to wear a perfume she once made on a course. She does love to go on courses and this one was sensational. She has called her perfume Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It should have a prime number of the letter m as Carly likes prime numbers too. Did you count? It is 13. Anyway, this perfume has lots of base notes and has a very rich scent. She has kept a list of the ingredients as she has filed away attending this course in her work appraisal folder. She knew this didn’t help her on her journey to being a better doctor, but she could suggest that the course made her a more rounded person? She thinks so. One son thinks this perfume is too overpowering and it makes him gag. Carly tries to be thoughtful and when she sprays herself with this perfume, she creeps down the stairs and goes past his room hoping it won’t waft under the door. She holds her breath erroneously thinking this might help the non-passage of the perfume. She knows this is the same as the breathing in she does when she drives her car between bollards.

Carly likes to listen and watch the essential elements of nature – water and fire. She completed a personal development course where this was really encouraged. She lights scented tea lights next to her bed early in the morning and late at night. Always two or three as this plays in to her prime number obsession. She drinks a cup of herbal tea when she wakes up using the travel kettle her mother gave her. It is good to increase her fluid intake. She has been told that this is the best way to get rid of bags under your eyes. She has a pitcher of cool water by her bed and forces herself to regularly drink from it. But really drinking water is so very dull and Carly doesn’t do boring. Luckily Carly does other things that make her feel grounded that aren’t boring! Yoga is not one of them, however. Carly forces herself to do guided yoga daily for 10 minutes. This is more to keep her back supple and free from pain. It seems to do the trick. It doesn’t make Carly very Zen, as her mind wanders all over the place during this short yoga session.

After yoga, Carly does a seven-minute workout which actually takes all of nine minutes as there are regular breaks of a few seconds between the various exercises like star jumps, push-ups and triceps dips. She does this downstairs in the garden whilst her cats watch her bemused. Carly has read some literature that this is the only exercise you need to do in a day. By not paying much attention to detail, Carly has failed to read the small print that you need to repeat this workout several times a day. Instead, Carly convinces herself that she is fit as she rarely uses the car and cycles everywhere. Cycling does her the power of good. She can respond to tricky emails in her head, so that her responses are much more measured when she replies later on. Some days she likes to reel off rhyming words. She recently worked with a doctor called Clea. There is a huge list of words that rhyme with this name. She does it in alphabetical order, so she doesn’t miss possibilities out. Previously she used to practice her Latin declensions when cycling to the station on her way to school. Let’s see if she can remember. Paro, paras, parat, paramus, paratis, parant. Fabulous. She has no idea what that verb means but is happy she remembered how it went! In fact, it might be wrong as Carly’s memory of Latin is wobbly to say the least. Carly is deluding herself about how fit she is getting as she has an electric pedal-assist bike. But for sure it keeps her grounded and she goes out in all weathers and will cover most distances she needs to travel.

Carly recently invested in a water feature. This is quite an embarrassment. It has lights that cycle through the rainbow spectrum. It is also rather small and insignificant. Her cats love to reach up and drink from it. So, it might not be great at helping Carly to feel grounded, but it is preventing her cats from being dehydrated. That is some solace to Carly.

Her cats are around for Carly to stroke. Well certainly at night when they sleep on her bed. Except Carly is then asleep too. They and their predecessors have been a constant in Carly’s adult life. She just adores cats. She recently went on a yoga and writing retreat in Greece and Carly took some postage stamps of cats and distributed them to any feline-loving fellow participants. Her nemesis Caroline was writing a book about how cats who could talk, helped the French resistance in WWII. It was an enthralling story to hear. Carly can only write about her own personal experiences. It might be because she is not very imaginative. But actually, she thinks she is fascinating, and Carly hopes others think similarly.

Playing the card game patience and doing dot-to-dot or spot the difference are also grounding for Carly. She doesn’t like those adult colouring books as she finds too difficult to colour in so slowly. If she colours in fast, she goes over the lines, and this is highly unsatisfactory. Carly does more things to feel grounded, but this is enough for the time being.

Carly goes on a course. Actually, Carly goes on courses all the time. Loads of them. One week in August last year she went on three courses. The first during that week was on cyanotyping. She is very committed to going on courses and this one was in Trowbridge, which is far from home. She knew nothing about cyanotyping but it looked pretty and she likes blue. It predates photography. You mix light sensitive chemicals in the dark and put them on paper or fabric. Then you use the sun to develop the colour and use interesting items as negatives to make the pattern. On the course she completed twice as many items as all the other participants. Carly felt good about this as she is very competitive. She was a bit dismayed at the quality of her efforts but for absolute quantity, she had won. She smiled to herself. She then tried this process, later, at home. But to limited success. This is mostly likely due to Carly’s inability to read the instructions and to be patient for the right weather.

That same day in Trowbridge, she did one on glass fusing. She has done this before but cannot do it at home as she doesn’t have a kiln. Also, her usual teacher Ginny has cancer so isn’t running courses at the moment. Carly is a bit irritated about this situation. Then she feels guilty for being so selfish and uncaring. She makes a mental note to contact Ginny to find how she is. Carly hopes this will absolve her of any guilt she now feels.

The last course of that week in August was a Boro Japanese slow stitching course. In one evening, she mended the tattered armpits of a favourite dress, so she was very pleased. She will do this again with her next item that wears out. But not her leggings as these really are tatty and baggy. For sure, they just need to be cut up and turned into dishcloths but not yet as they are soft and comforting, even if unflattering. These craft courses are easy for Carly. She loves them and is good at them. They don’t last too long, and she doesn’t get bored on them. Boring isn’t something that Carly is very good at. She is working at this, but Carly finds this boring too.

One way to enjoy a course is to have a glass of wine in hand. Carly likes these evening courses as wine earlier in the day defines you as a committed drinker. Carly likes to be in charge of her alcohol consumption. Not the other way round. Let’s be honest. Carly like to be in charge. Period. On these evening courses Carly has learnt to paint in the style of Van Gogh and come away with her version of the “sky at night” and “sunflowers”. Of course, she finishes before any other participant and so wins again. It is a bit embarrassing for her to lug home these wet canvases on the London Tube whilst tipsy. Like some of her other craft projects, which are often rushed, Carly is not too smitten with the quality of her paintings and puts them on a wall at work for students to enjoy. Surely these are better for them than looking at bare walls? She never asks the students as she doesn’t really want to hear their criticism. She is sure they are grateful. Or assumes so.

She has been on other courses too. There are always courses at work. Carly works in a hospital. Many of them really are boring. Carly is not the only one to think this. Why does she need to go on a course to learn how to lift patients? She works with babies. Even big babies weigh less than her shopping. Supermarkets don’t demand certificates for customers to see that they can lift their groceries. To be honest, Carly feels she should keep this thought to herself. If the government got wind of this, they could well bring this in as a mandatory requirement for all shoppers. A strength test at checkout. That would be truly dreadful, Carly muses to herself.

Why does she need to go on a course at work to put out fires? She can read the instructions on the red fire cannister at the time of the fire. It would be much better if she went on a course to explain to patients why they cannot smoke in the hospital. Fire prevention is surely better than fire extinguishing? Carly is angry about these mandatory courses; she has work to do. One much better course was how to manage tricky conversations. This followed a complaint from Sasha (a parent). Carly always enjoys these courses as she learns something new. She then did a role play with Julie, a senior clinician in her hospital, who had met with Sasha. They agreed to do a role play. Carly played herself and Julie played Sasha. Carly was quite pleased with her performance, but Julie had to curtail this practice session as she realised that Sasha was, in reality, impossible in her demands. So even good work courses can be a waste of time in some instances!

On another work course Carly is learning how to be a good leader. She is set lots of theory homework to prepare beforehand. Carly finds this tedious, and we know what Carly thinks of boring. Let’s not go there! For Carly, not being boring is right up there with being competitive. So instead, on the morning of the course, she looks up a TED talk given by the author of the paper. She is right in her assumption that these leadership gurus have always made a TED talk. She daydreams of making a TED talk. She has plenty of ideas but doesn’t feel she has one specific idea. She then makes a list of all her TED talk ideas. She could do a series. A bit like a podcast series. A TED talk series of lots of short topic ideas. Her mind has wandered. She has to start the preparation for her course all over again. She is taught many different leadership styles. She feels that she aligns most closely with disruptive leadership. A while later she is asked to give a talk on this subject to her students. She runs an experiential workshop that all the disruptive innovator participants love and the rest hate. Hey ho, Carly says to herself, some you win and some you lose! But actually, she is irritated. She knows her session was far from boring. However, for some students she didn’t ace this session. Carly is a bit despondent but quickly moves on. There are always plenty more fish in the sea, courses to do and win as the best teacher in the future.

Carly has to decide now which course to go on next. She could probably do well to study a course booklet to make a wise decision. But this isn’t how people like Carly function. She will float around doing courses on an ad-hoc basis as she always has. As long as the course isn’t boring and Carly wins then she is happy.