The Uninspiring Return

Isn’t it odd the different things that comfort us? For me today is been the above… Tuna sandwiches, with salad cream - not mayonnaise, mayonnaise will normally make everything better – but not tuna sarnies.

I’m feeling glum; I always get like this after a holiday, but not normally to the level where I am reaching for the tuna and shopping last minute for salad cream. I have had the best couple of days in ages and now being back in London it feels a bit bleak. Its work tomorrow and that means I will be back in the fray. Doing all the stuff that I don’t dislike and gets me paid – but after this weekend I know my heart won’t be in it. I think I may have to do some stock taking on everything for a few days and see how I feel – no rash moves Simon. I love the people I wok with, the jobs not a bad one but being away and just feeling so relaxed and yet so inspired makes London seem greyer than it has in a long time.

There is a slight ray of light in my horizon though, in fact there are three. I am going back north this weekend for a ‘home’ visit to Matlock and the grandparents. I have spoken with Michelle and Yorkshire is still looking likely in April (static caravans, the Bronte’s house and Famous Five picnics ahead) and there is a lovely new writing competition for me to enter thanks to a quick shop (half price Sarah Water’s novel ‘The Night Watch’) in Waterstones in Kendal this morning. I can’t believe I was the other end of the UK only 12 hours ago.

The competition is not what I would have expected to be thinking of entering but any writing competition must be entered this year. I have made a pact with myself and I am determined to see it through. The competition in question is ‘Miss Write’ its with Waterstones and Cosmopolitan and they are looking for the next ‘Chick Lit’ writer ‘male applicants welcome’ – does that mean ‘come on you poofs give it a go’? Well I bloody well shall! It’s the first 3000 words, and a synopsis and I think I could do it. I mean ‘chick lit’ wasn’t how I saw myself writing but I think I could do it (I’m not being bigheaded) and you can move on and change genres in your career surely.

The piece on ‘chick lit’ was actually very interesting. It was an interview with three of the biggest selling authors in that field Sophie Kinsella, Wendy Holden, and Jill Mansell who have sold over 20,000,000 between them. Now I will admit to liking a bit of ‘chick lit’ (hell I have been known to read the odd Mills and Boon) I love all works by Lisa Jewell (‘A Friend In The Family’ is particularly brilliant) and Bridget Jones is fabulous, plus Jane Austen technically wrote ‘chick lit’ and look what happened there. Now I just need to research – oh and get a new laptop – this one is behaving most weirdly, keeps crashing and producing a blue screen… what does that mean?

Have just had a brainwave, maybe the first line of my chick lit book could read... 'she knew there was only one thing for it. She reached for the white bread, tuna and salad cream and got stuck into a proper tuna sandwich, it made everything better'.