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Life hasn't turned out quite the way I planned, but there's one thing I can change

Carrying some compost home this week, I felt like a completely different woman: a woman who might know how to use a trowel and enjoy long walks, probably with a black Labrador. Imagine my surprise to find I didn't live in a quaint stone Cotswolds cottage

Jenny Eclair
Friday 05 January 2018 16:20 GMT
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Surely this is my life? No?
Surely this is my life? No?

Talking about sharing accommodation with other women, back in the early 1980s I shared a flat with a beautiful girl called Frances who was all milkmaid curves in a white nightie, while I was a rabid streak of anorexia who only ate carrots dipped in Marmite.

Our flatshare came to an end when I threw her butter out of the kitchen window. When she told me I’d have to buy her another packet, I climbed out of the window and scaled rooftops in the rain to fetch it back.

Some friendships survive all kinds of crap and for Christmas 2017, Frances sent me some delicious sheep’s cheese, a packet of neon crayons and a bag of tulip bulbs.

The picture promised frilly-headed blooms in dark plum and white. I read the instructions, found some pots and trotted off to the DIY shop for some potting compost.

Carrying that compost home, I felt like a completely different woman: a woman who might know how to use a trowel and enjoy long walks, probably with a black Labrador.

By the time I got home, I was quite surprised I didn’t live in a quaint stone cottage in the middle of a Cotswold village.

This keeps happening: the haunted feeling that maybe I could have lived a different life but now it’s slightly too late. Too many bridges have been burnt, and I am never going to have five children (preferably all little girls with names beginning with P who could sing close harmony and make me a fortune).

The cast has been set: I am a 57-year-old mother of one, I cannot play the piano and I have never used a food processor. I live in South London with my partner, we have a tiny garden, there is no orchard or pony – ah, but there will be tulips.

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