... to break up the monotony and it's the only thing we're allowed to do, but the odd thing is that one's congenial friends have become less congenial as time has gone on. For example, one group of four walkers has now split into two people who like walking together and refuse to change partners, and a pair who don't much like each other but are forced to walk together even though they are quite bored. This is me of course, and K. I have never really found the right group to mix with. I have wondered if the problem is one of class. The "girls" who chat easily together come from a secure middle-class background and I don't, even though I talk as though I do.
The quiz group has worked better because there is not much of an opportunity to chat. It is good-humoured.
The old school chums are on Zoom tonight and I am looking forward to seeing them, but since Brexit I am much more aware of the differences between us. One friend has to tone down her pro-Brexit and anti-socialist views. One friend talks about nothing but herself and her own doings and looks down on me as a lesser person, her voice is scornful when she refers to me.
(When my daughter came home last we talked about the more middle-class girls she is living with and how they parcel up neat little stories of their life experience in order to entertain each other over dinner. I am pretty sure she enjoyed this at first - and I am sure she was able to hold her own - but now she finds it a tiresome obligation. She wants to be able to talk in a discursive way and talk about ideas, which is the best kind of conversation I think. Or just to be desultory if you feel like that. )
As well as walking with the skiff girls, I have walked with Judith the mum figure, Jane the bees, and Martin my brother - as well as my husband, A. I don't walk on my own, except to the shops or to the allotments. I am quite lazy.
I have just had a total meltdown over the allotment business and seem to have been removed from group emails, and that's OK. They had started to cause me too much emotional pain but also I had depended on them for mental stimulation. Now I shall release myself from this pain and look again at the writing work I was doing before.
I am also quite keen on improving my French. It's something I can do with Carlye and Amanda and I love essayer de parler en francais, lire en francais and ecouter en francais. I have started doing Inner French with the likeable and intelligent Hugo. Not used to it yet, but giving it a go.
On Monday we are going skiffing with Robyn at 9.15. It will be very exhausting after so long.
