….’til I’m safely gathered in.

Many readers of this diary will have already realised that I live my life on a knife-edge of fear – of all sorts of things.

Today’s post was meant to be a happy dance around a room that’s clearly moved into its next stage of renovation today. The new doors are in, the old pipework, plaster, artex and woodchip are gone, not to mention the beige bloody paint! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.

There will be new plaster on the ceiling tomorrow and the start of the build-up on the walls. I think my happiness should know no bounds. I should be ecstatic.

However, in order to execute this shot, I needed DMs 17-40 lens, my 12-24 Sigma has shown its inadequacy in glorious detail, with purple fringes on all of the out of focus edges since I got ‘tooled up’ with my new camera so ‘it just won’t do anymore'. Mind you, I’m not entirely sure why I need a posh and expensive bit of kit like that for a shot like this but nevermind. (HUH? I hear you say – what’s all this got to do with the price of fish?)

So, I planned the shot, then set about looking for the lens, with DM unable to contribute to my search, being, as he was, ‘on the other side’. In other words in the studio!

I thought to myself ‘it can’t be hard to find, it’s usually on his 20d…..not today. OK then, it’ll be with his lenses on the shelf…..not today. Alright, I expect it’ll be in his Billingham then…..that’s when it hit me. The thing that tells me (and now the rest of the pbase world) that I am a lowlife coward.

You see, at the moment I plunged my hand into the bag, I found my stomach lurch, my heart sink and myself come out in a cold sweat of epic proportions. You see, it was in similar circumstances, about fifteen years ago, when I did something similar and made a discovery that was to change my life forever.

On that occasion, I innocently plunged my hand into a drawer looking for a set of phono leads and found evidence of infidelity…… not DMs – my ex-husband’s. That moment changed my life in all sorts of ways. Clearly it was the catalyst that eventually manifested into a sordid and sorry divorce but also it turned me into the sort of woman I swore I’d never be. A sneak. After my first discovery, I could not, no matter how hard I tried to stop myself or how hard he pleaded innocence, stop myself from looking for more. I sent myself into a frenzy. I poked around in corners, I checked everything I could to ‘satisfy’ my need to know. There came a point where I knew alright but I still couldn’t stop myself looking. I was repulsing even myself.

DM is not my ex, nor do I mistrust him in any way at all, but I DID find myself do a sharp intake of breath as I plunged in my hand into that Billingham, while my heart sank and my cold sweat poured out of me, and think to myself ‘what if…..’

I need to dance myself out of this panic, I need to be safely gathered in, I need to be rescued from coward/lowlife territory and propped upright in my bright new world. After all, dancing is good for the soul and I AM dancing with myself (oh oh o-oh)!

Speckled eggs were last year's subject. This year, I couldn't hear myself think for squonking chicks!