Super Things I Have Bought

1. A new purse. This is the first time I have owned a purse since the unfortunate incident with the car window and the motorway in 1983, so it's something of a momentous occasion. So momentous, in fact, that for a moment I wished there was a way I could contact my mum on the Other Side to let her know that at the grand old age of 37 I have finally taken my first laminated, floral step towards adulthood and maturity:


Now, if only I had a handbag to keep it in...

2. A new house. In an elaborate plot to avoid ever again having to speak to the estate agent in front of whom I embarrassed myself the other day, I managed to persuade the lovely Mr BC that we should buy a house through a completely different firm. The owners accepted our offer yesterday, hurrah!

There's no chaundry or victualling room*, and one of the rooms is haunted (either that or the bad vibes are emanating from the horrible fireplace), but these are small prices to pay for the fact that the house and its immediate surroundings would look quite at home in a BBC adaptation of Jane Austen.

I have no doubt that my middle class guilt and self-loathing will kick in at any moment (especially as, unable to contain my Inner Tosser, I've ordered a hand-painted Farrow & Ball colour chart) but until it does (or until the purchase inevitably falls through), I reserve the right to do a joyful little dance around the living room.


* Although I am planning the almost immediate addition of a downstairs garderobe.

It's All Gone A Bit Geoff Dyer...

...or it will do if I don't make this very short.

Anyway, it's 1993. I'm walking across the car park of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College in Egham, Surrey, with my boyfriend of the time. It's early evening, autumn time. He's carrying something, probably white camouflage netting. None of this is particularly interesting. The important thing is that as we're walking across the car park, I tell him that I'm happier than I've ever been.

The odd thing is that I don't have any memories of ever saying this at any other point in my life, even though I *must* have, surely. It's such an unremarkable occasion on which to have come out with it, walking across a car park. And if you asked me to look back on my life* and point out a time when I was truly happy, my first choice probably wouldn't be the autumn of 1993. But I remember saying it, so I know that I was.

Which is why I want to say now very quickly, because I tend to avoid sentimental stuff if at all possible, that right now, January 2006, I'm probably happier than I've ever been. There isn't anyone around to tell this to, so I'll just note it down here, and then in thirteen years' time, I'll remember (or - hey - read it in my archive), and know that I was.

Ahem. As you were.


* My life to date, I mean. Christ, I make it sound like I'm on my deathbed. I'm not. Why, quite a lot of my hair is still its natural colour. Not that I can actually really remember now what that was. I'll stop now, I'm not making it any better.