Tuesday 11 August 2009

shoes and stuff

Don't tell Hubby, but I have just bought another pair of shoes from Amazon. Well it's his fault. He has practically ordered me to get rid of the fat-busters, and I have to replace them with something (several things, in different colours, actually). But, they are all in the sale, massively discounted, so just think how much money we are saving, hmmm? And in any case, every girl needs a pair of red shoes, doesn't she? I know, I already have some, but I can't actually walk in them, or even stand still holding a Pimms glass in them, and I have to walk to the mess in my trainers, and hide them in the shrubbery to walk home in. So I have purchased some practical-yet-elegant shoes that hopefully I will be able to manage more than a couple of teeters in, without doing a Naomi Campbell (no, I don't mean hurling my phone at the maid).
Apart from buying shoes (that I need, can afford and can't get cheaper anywhere else, honestly), I have been frantically writing the novel. I did a word count today and realised that I'm about twenty-five thousand words short of my target. Hmmm, that's some sub-plot to shoe-horn in, or alternatively I re-work it for a Mills and Boon market, as they like books around seventy thousand words, which I could probably manage. What d'you reckon? People pooh-pooh Mills and Boon, but people also buy escapist novels in a recession (I know this is true because I read it in the Economist - apparently Mills and Boon were the only ones to buck the last great global recession in the 1930s - so it's tempting. Might go and have a look at their website now, actually).
Right, I've been buying shoes and now I'm going to look at the Mills and Boon website. Does this mean I am becoming a stereotypical bored housewife?

Incidentally, a bomb went off in Kathmandu this afternoon. I know I blather on about shoes and stuff, in a Marie-Antoinette-ish kind of way, but I am aware that things are all going a bit pear-shaped out here, to say the least. Nepal is on the brink of a famine ('food crisis' is the term used, but when more than half the kids are malnourished, I think that's pretty much on the brink of famine), still has no properly functioning government (the Maoists keep buggering things up), and because of the delayed monsoon will also have water and power shortages again this winter. It is all pretty dire, and whilst I live in my La La land of red shoes and lattes I do realise that this is a real crisis for Nepal and the Nepali people. In moments of selfishness I just thank God that we are from a developed nation and we can escape at a moment's notice. Otherwise the situation just makes me angry - the people in power seem to care more about petty political squabbling than actually doing something for their people. And I also feel powerless, because I am, after all, just a trailing spouse, who is only here to look after my kids.

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