Oh the sun, the wonderful, magnificent sun, shining away up there this morning in a cloudless blue sky.  It almost makes my hangover seem inconsequential.  Until I try to move.  Or think about rising.  When my head bangs against every wall in the bedroom simultaneously, an elephant in a shoebox with no sense of direction.  Contemplating the tube journey into work does not fill me with anything but horror and the hope I can get there without my stomach flipping over.

Last Night.  The garden looked lovely, all lush and green and ever so slightly blousy, not unlike myself this morning.

Youngest daughter set the table, and by the end of the evening, the candles - which I had to insist she place on the table against tough resistance (they don't match, she protested) - were flickering; the only pinprick of gliterring colour in an otherwise black night - and it was one of those biblical, sixth-day moments where you, sit back after creating the universe (rising at dawn to re-gel gelly, rushing home from work to debone fish, washing dishes that haven't been out of a drawer since the beginning of time, and dashing to the supermarket to buy another 30 quid's worth of last minute essentials in your coffee break) and think:  My world.  Exactly as I see it in my mind, for one day a decade.  Kids flittering around with their boyfriends and girlfriends.  The girls looking beautiful. The dishes enjoying their freedom from the rack, colourful and Good Housekeepingly styled, the garden blooming, the evening balmy.  People - friends I shall call them, just to make the evening perfect - chatting and happy, glasses chinking.  If the happy police were doing their rounds they would have walked on past, satisfied.  And I'm laughing in the middle of it - me and my article on Loneliness - as if it's all faintly ridiculous, or I made it up for the money, the vast sums of money to be earned from baring your soul in the Guardian.  Nobody believes it.  You're surrounded by people - all those lovely children...  And us, they say.

One of the guests, a very confident and strong woman saying how lovely it is to be in the house by herself...  That again.  The potent pleasure of time to yourself when you don't have enough of it, when it's a pleasant change from the otherwise continual demands of family and professional life.  Enjoying and empty house is the privilege and boast of those continually accompanied.  It is not so pleasurable when the house is always empty, always, day after day, and the only thing that greets you is a cat, who only loves you for your opposable thumbs, but which affection, nevertheless, you take gratefully, because it's miaou, miaou or nothing but tick - tick - tick of the clock that has been running slow since September like you, which nobody's bothered to fix, because nobody is just you and you've got used to being two hours and thirty odd minutes behind.  You're the clock fixer, the garbage taker outer, the lawn mower, the window washer, the bed maker, the everything - the supreme being in the lonely planet of Alone.  And you sort of congratulate god for bothering, really, with six days of slog to create the oceans and the mountains, because after a little while of being by yourself in the house, you give up  I haven't made my bed since 2009 - except on sheet changing days.  I don't really hang up my clothes so much - I just drape them on the doors, which I don't bother to shut, and then do a blitz once a week.  Some places - like the sitting room where nobody, least of all me, ever sits for nine months of the year are arranged and tidy - because I don't use them, don't go into them, and let the dust muffle the echo.  The domestic equivalent of - say - Yellowstone...  Pristine wilderness.   Without the bears.  No - other things stalk me in there - other things like pictures and books and furniture, bought by my ex husband, that I seem to be curating.

Anyway, I make jokes.  I'm good at that.  I laugh at myself.  I'm good at that too.  I could do stand up - I don't mind being a figure of fun, because if you don't laugh at some things you curl up in the corner and cry.  It can't always be a lovely summer evening, with your children around you, and random people that you don't know very well, drafted in to bolster you.  In a couple of months, the kids will be gone.  Already, this morning, one is shooting off to Oxford, back to her real life, in a few weeks one of the girlfriends is returning to Brazil, to her own mother.  I just borrowed her for a while.  And the dishes won't come out for another year or two.  But, nevertheless, it looked gorgeous, it was fun - and the family especially wonderful.

And God saw every thing that she had made, and, behold, it was very good.

I've been silently scribbling elsewhere for a while.  Numbers two, three and four unfinished novels.

And watching a lot of boxed sets.

And Scandinavian dramas.

In bed.

Nothing like a subtitle for transforming something essentially rather shut-in sad and desperate into 'high-brow and educative'.  I always feel a great deal cleverer when I've watched a sub-titled film, though the bar is low, readers, the bar is low.

This weekend, as some of you navigating here from the furthest reaches of the universe, will already know, I've outed myself in the increasingly slim pages of the Guardian Weekend Section, as lonely.   I wrote it in February when I was wailing with it, full of dread and empty of people, coming back to this normal three bedroom semi that becomes a cavern of lost dreams and a monument to my own total lack of significance to anyone but the cat, who frankly, has more allegience to the box of Whiskas crunchies than me.  But breezing quickly past that, into the present - I'm not lonely this weekend.  Rather too companioned up if the truth be known.  The house full of hungover YA in boxer shorts and political t-shirts that urge one to Resist (what exactly, I'm not sure) while lolling around eating vegeburgers in front of a Modern Family marathon, as dishes hold a conference round the kitchen sink discussing the great unwashed crisis of 2012.

The lodger returned from an all nighter with a bag of shopping that the fridge will not accommodate; the university returnee is still wading through a term's worth of washing and the dryer beeps and beeps and beeps plaintively to be empied of its load, though I want to warn it that the next step to freedom is only a lengthy internment in the refugee camp on the kitchen table, in a manner of folded, surrounded by the food that I'm supposed to be transforming into dinner tomorrow night.

Before I published this article I decided I had to Make an Effort.  Well me and the aptly named Lyrica, which the doctor pushed on me for back pain and which transformed me overnight from depressed and agonised  Marion to two-drinks drunk, slightly manic, depressed, but miraculously almost pain-free Marion, which simultaneously robbed me of my ability to concentrate on anything, even angst, and filled me instead with energy and the desire to paint the glass jars that now house my alphabetised lentils, and revitalise my non-existent social life by again beginning the cycle of inviting people to eat in my house, most of whom will never, ever invite me back. 

I love dinner parties.  In your house.  I love being served, eating food I haven't cooked. Even overeating food I haven't cooked, with the vampirical hope that Mr Right will be another of the guests, single, and desirous of a slightly running to fat matron to light up his life.  Vampirical - not that I want to suck the life out of him, but more that despite the cold light of day having proven this wish to be a vain one, it nevertheless refuses to die and returns renewed with sundown, and a glass of red wine.    He's never there.  But since I'm never there either, it doesn't matter.  I don't get asked to your house.  Because I am horrible.  Or overbearing.  Or full of myself.  Or too talkative.  Or just too Marion - I'm not sure, and though I'm sure there are some trolls who would be happy to tell me in detail exactly why my personality warrants social excommunication, leave me, leave me - please to the Samaritains, just to fret quietly by myself.  You're in safe hands.  Really.  I can do self-criticism.  Mistress of it.  I could teach classes.

So I started with people from the pub. Nice people.  Interesting filmy west london people.  One of them is my builder - he who starts jobs and then forgets to finish them, so that the most expensive cupboard under my stairs in the History of Expensive Cupboards is still missing the ball catches and the handles fall off.  Three years after completion.  So they came; we talked about rich and famous people our children know ( along the lines of: well his best friend is the son of the son son of the drummer in Yes) - call me shallow - they certainly aren't, but who can resist a bit of voyeurism? So gossip, how much drugs our kids take (not me, I make it a policy not to ask); the lack of jobs; the economy; and still how much we all hate Thatcher.   They ate fattoush, and burgers, and spicy roast veggies with harissa and grilled halloumi, and home made tomato syrupy salsa, and caramalised red onions and chocolate trife with vodka jelly and strawberries.  The garden looked like a colour supplement film shot, I thought.  Son said it looked like a DFS advert - (absolutely nothing to pay until 2014 - and all prices slashed - slashed - does anyone every pay full price for a ruddy sofa?) complete with my naff - yes - reduced - Asda outside sofas that got their first unveiling.  The new plastic greenhouse is filled with foliage which, despite the neighbourhood is, actually, only 7 kinds of tomatoes and not weed, and the sun shone like someone had finally paid the electic bill.  We chatted and drank, and drank and chatted and afterwards, I washed up, for about two weeks, then fell asleep on the sofa while man was in mid NME crossword, managing still to answer a few clues between dozes. 

And today - it's cookathon two - the sequel.

Eight or so people coming tomorrow - most caught at work, unsuspectingly, backed into the kitchen so they couldn't come up with an excuse, further terrorised by the bread knife in my hand at the time - and instead of doing  *this*, I should be making basil and canteloupe jelly (I'm into the retro, cheap dessert these days) with a good dollop of vodka. 

I'm fast becoming convinced that to paraphrase myself, previously paraphrasing Julia Child in saying there is nothing not improved by butter (julia), bacon (me), vodka (new Lyrica me - though you're not supposed to mix it with alcohol.  You're not?  Where's the fun in that?' ) One of the yesterday guests - coincidentally - is on the same meds.  We're both happy, depresssed, manic junkies.  Finally.  At 54.  I'm a druggie.  I'm so damn hip.

I sit on the tube and close my eyes to make the world go away.  I'm too old for this: The right words from the wrong person for all the wrong reasons.

The two glasses of wine I drank at lunch time make me sleepy and befuddled but as we lurch into Marble Arch, the train jolts my eyes open and I find myself under the scrutiny of the  line of commuters opposite me staring like I'm a specimen in a display case.  Middle Aged Woman with Face Even Botox Cannot Save and Large Blemish on Chin,  Giacommeti head, Botero body, reflected in the window behind them.

I'm wearing a red dress and have felt, all day, like I should be handing out samples for the Special K diet.  But it was that or the pink one that makes me look like a politician's wife according to my youngest daughter.  'I'm going to open a fete,' I joked to a colleague the last time I wore it.  'Really - that's amazing,' he replied, believing me.  The Sam Cam style does not become me.

One of my fellow commuters looks like a Mormon on his proselyting year abroad painted by Stanley Spencer, and has a jade tinge to his skin that gives him more than a passing resemblance to something that's been dead, or undead, for a while. He twist his long spindly ET fingers with Lady MacBeth angst.  I feel sure this has nothing to do with me, though his eyes don't flicker away when I stare back but keep examining me.  Next to him, an Asian man whose index finger is a down-turned sad clown face over his mouth, shifts his gaze to my right ear, as if to pretend he had been contemplating this, and not the small planet on my chin, all this while.  On his left, a bald man in a yellow hill-walker's anorak, with a daytime Radio 2 presenter's face, drops his eyes and resumes his texting. 

I look to the other side.  Mormon man is still transfixed but his neighbour, a shaven headed chap in plimsolls and a pin-striped jacket blinks and examines the space in the middle distance between us.  Damn.  I wonder if I've been snoring.  No way to know.  In my head there's a running commentary from the person I just had lunch with, but all around me are mute, except for the disembodied voice of the underground who announces that the next station is Lancaster Road.

I thought I was going off to meet a man about a job, but apparently not.   I'm too old for the casting couch.  And for what?  A book review paying twopence ha'penny  for 500 words that he forgets to bring with him, and so far has forgotten to send?  And even if it had appeared.  I still have to read the damn book beforehand.

He thought we'd go to the Savoy for an afternoon of passion.

Really, and what am I supposed to do then?  Congratulate myself on an afternoon of good shagging and go back whistling as I work? Do middle aged men know anything about middle aged women?

I don't want an afternoon in the bloody Savoy unless it's with a man whose going to come home with me afterwards and put out the garbage.  I may have got rid of all my children and a husband, but then why would I want somebody else's?  I've been the leavings on the side plate of my own marriage, and now I should willingly step up to be scraped off the dish of someone else's?  Sod that.  I want someone who will buy a dog with me, and then walk it.  I want his and hers cats and a holiday companion who will drive across Europe with me, who will come round on Boxing Day for a second Christmas, and pick me up from the airport when I come back from a trip.  I want someone who will wind their arms round me in the morning and kiss the back of my neck before he gets up, and be back in the bed in the evening.  I want someone who will share grandchildren, and a wide bath with a handrail for when we get arthritic.

'If you want a mistress who doesn't rock the boat of your outwardly perfect marriage then I suggest you look around the wives of your married friends and see who is the most discontented, and tip your hat at her,' I said,'but women like me - we're on a different page of the almanac all together.'

He blinked.  Like I was imparting the secrets of the universe.

'Maybe she too is in an unsatisfactory relationship but doesn't want to lose her spa membership, her half of the pension plan and the house in Essex with the three car driveway, and for whom the idea of a matinee in town, a vegi-burger and two glasses of Sancerre followed by a suite in Savoy afterwards would be a welcome distraction.'  But that's not me...

Not even with a book review thrown in.

Now a two book deal - that's another question all together.  Then I'd settle for a couple of hours in a Travelodge. And the vegi-burger would be optional.

I have on my desk the three major food groups of weight loss:  Salt, Aspartamine and MSG, namely Instant Soup (providing a two-fer), soya sauce and Diet Coke.  I'm guessing that alcohol, currently top of my dysfunctional food pyramid at least provides a bit of variety as well as most of my calorie intake.  In the SMEG I currently have four kinds of vodka; while several different grapes have been blended to provide the contents of my wine rack. I'm a gourmet.  Heston, eat your heart out

Happy Monkey

New Year Resolutions

Eighteen months ago in a bookstore on Madison Avenue (oh yes, I'm that swanky) I bought a bunch of books with the usual stickers and gold seals printed on the front and packed them into my suitcase.  In December, I carried them back to New York with me, returned to the same bookstore and added to the pile.  All came back home with me.  They then travelled to Florence, back again to the States where, despite a week long delay thanks to Miscount Volcano - yep - they went into the suitcase and returned to London.

They have since been to Syria, Lebanon (where my ereader broke meaning that I started reading the dross that other people leave behind in hotel rooms - but still not the ones I'd physically taken with me), Crete, Budapest, and Brazil.

Those books have travelled.

They have not yet, however, been read.

They make my bedroom look very literary however, should the thought police pass by and scrutinise my bedside table.

My new year resolution?

Surely, it's finally to read What was Lost or one of it's siblings?

No.  It's just to stop packing the dratted things.