I haven't been able to get warm today plus I'm still so tired! Must be old age...

Kate was off school again but we had a nice morning (I was ironing) watching a TV show about the 40 most expensive, excessive things to spend money on. I enjoyed just spending time with her doing not very much. She is good company and her sense of the absurd really pleases and surprises me.

I had lunch with "the girls" which was fun although we froze walking to the pub. We hardly ever have lunch and it felt very decandent. I thought again about the importance of friendship and how it enriches life in a way i never considered when I was younger. I think I get the same kick out of making new friends that I used to get from that feeling somebody fancies you - maybe it's because no-one will EVER fancy me again - horrble thought! I watched a programme about the cookery writer Elizabeth David tonight and although men let her down and she never had kids, her friends and her sister kept her going when illness and despair threatened to destroy her.

I suppose a friendship is in a way the most flattering of relationships as it's based primarily on liking and is not coloured by family ties or desire or need. It still fills me with incredulity if someone likes me - then there's the fear that if they REALLY know me they won't like me...

Friends can make me feel better about just about every aspect of my life - sometimes I feel alone in my own mind consumed by my worries and fears and then someone else will voice or write the same thought and I'm not alone.

I read today that scientists have proved that passion can last no longer than two years. Interesting. It's all in the hormones - apparently after two years the love-molecules are replaced by "cuddle molecules" and this apparently isn't a bad thing. I'm going to write a letter of complaint to someone as P never got his share of "cuddle molecules".

So what happens to a couple after that initial two years. Are we just friends? No, I shouldn't say "just" friends after all I've written about the value of friendship. I think I'll leave that subject for tonight!

Only one day at work this week and it's the reading group tomorrow night. The book was so depressing I didn't want to think about it once I'd finished it much less discuss it! The writing was good - too good. The evocation of childhood holiday memories was exceptional. But the overall feeling of hopelessness left me lying in bed without any will or desire to get up. If I hadn't had an appointment i think I'd have pulled the covers over my head and howled. I've not read anything so miserable since a Stella Duffy book about a woman dying of cancer.

I enjoy the reading group but it's at the end of a long day so i'm always tired and it's sometimes hard to lead the discussions as well as I should especially now the group is so big and vocal! Will be interesting if the weekly group for people with mental health problems takes off.

Bed time. I love bedtime. I love that moment just before sleep with the whole night ahead of me as much as i hate that moment when I wake up to find it's ten minutes before the alarm goes off!