Life has pottered on through the summer, I've had my own version of a mid-life crisis and dyed my hair for the first time ever ... and no, not to cover up any grey, just for the hell of it. However I am totally in sympathy sometimes with the reaction of Eva in 'The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year'. When you have spent half your life seeing to the needs of other people you can see the appeal of just retiring to bed and refusing to get up again. While the book was pretty dire it made me laugh quite a bit, including this lovely exchange between her weird genius twins:
" 'No,' said Brianne, 'tell me now.'
Brian Junior said, 'It's nothing much, but Dad rang and said that after we'd gone Mum went to bed wearing all her clothes, even her shoes, and she's still there.'
...
Brianne said, 'That's what happens to women when they get to be fifty. It's called the men-o-pause.'
'So what do they do?' Brian Junior asked.
'Oh, they go mad, shoplift, stab their husbands, go to bed for three days ... that kind of thing.'
Brian Junior said, 'Poor Mum. We'll phone her after the Fresher's Fair.'" (p.38)
