Disappointment

It's one of those weeks. I keep telling myself that in order to fully enjoy the good, great, wonderful aspects of life, I need to trudge through the shit occasionally, but it's no fun when it happens.There's nothing wrong really. I am so lucky. I have everything I need and more besides.It's January, that's what it is.
The bleakest, coldest, darkest, sludgiest, meanest month of the year.
( when I'm fed up, I start inventing my own words cos current ones just don't cut it )
I walked through Biggleswade this morning and wanted my sisters with me, so we could pop into Surfin cafe for an Americano and a big fat danish or two. You can tell that a cafe is thriving when its customers happily sit outside wrapped in blue blankets ( to match the fingers ! ) even when the ground is frozen. Some are parked outside to suck on a Silk Cut, but most are there because there's no room inside. It's a lovely cafe, right in the middle of the market square.
I love Biggleswade.
Every time I feel the black fog descend, I remember how much I love this town and how it's not really an option to move back up North, tempting though that thought sometimes is.
We've flirted with that notion before, on more than one occasion. It's a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand, I love it here. On the other hand, I miss everyone up North. I thought the effect would be diluted, over time. We moved down south in 1998 and eleven year is a long long time.

The credit crunch is bad down here and even Londoners, in that most frenetic hub of commerce, are feeling it. It must be worse up North surely, because there are more jobs in the South East.
I love our house and I love this place. I feel as though all roads in my life led inevitably to this place, this town. It's like an overgrown village without the everyone-knows-my-business vibe. People are friendly, but not in your face.
Biggleswade has lost a couple of businesses recently. Woolworths, that ancient British instition, an ever fixed beacon on every high street, is no more. And Bookworms, the lovely independant booksellers, has gone too. I remember a film with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks; You've Got Mail.
It's pretty formulaic American stuff. Cutesy blonde Meg owns a beautiful old-fashioned book store,the kind where the owner actually reads the novels and cares about her customers. Tom Hanks opens an enormous new book store, the kind which has 3 floors and a cafe the size of a carpark. Tom's store gets more customers, so Meg's has to close. But everything works out prettily in the end when Meg and Tom meet ( back in the days when instant messaging was a new fangled, exotic phenomenon ) and fall in love. One, Two, Three.... Awwwwwwwwww.
Unfortunately, real life is nothing like a Nora Ephron movie.