Housekeeper's Diary
A Day in Manchester
T’was the loveliest few days away from home. A reminder of the degree to which my heart has already left this house, this village, this way of life. And how it is that sometimes the things we need, really do begin to manifest themselves. Not perhaps in the way we imagined them, but simply embroidered in patterns that simply weren’t yet ours to predict before.
I am something of an accidental manifester. I once created a vision board with a fluffy blonde dog and a big white car and within a year I had them both.. I have often whispered what I want to myself and sometimes the universe has listened and it is only when I go back and look at my annual 101 wish-lists that I see how very often announcing my desire for certain things somehow imperceptibly shapes my reality accordingly. Not perhaps via some kooky spiritual voo-doo, but instead via the simple psychology of my head making decisions according to desires I have usually quite forgotten I possess. Trusting that what is meant to be will unfold.
It’s been the loveliest of weeks. A sort of holiday. A night spent watching my beautiful friend throw a Kylie Minogue disco in my living room. A late night up with Finley watching Summer Slam. And a couple of nights in Manchester with Ben.
The next big city along to the one that has always been mine, Manchester started tugging on my heart strings two years ago, when I had my big, wild idea to mover there, to start again, to live a city life, instead of this slightly half-baked village life. But the time wasn’t right, and in the way that is often the wise thing to do with BIG. WILD. IDEAS I thought it best not to go like the proverbial bull at a gate, but instead to allow the idea to ferment, to form itself, and to offer space to serendipity to play, to show herself and should she see fit, to tickle me under the chin.
Manchester is Ben’s world. His family live in a gorgeous bohemian suburb, roads lined with pavement bars and interior shops stuffed with retro pottery. And I sit at wobbly tables watching the world go by and feel at home in a way I don’t ever remember feeling. The quirky mix of people going by, familiar to me, as I sip cocktails that may as well be the odd experience that is pesto in a glass and watch Ben, arms folded across his chest, people watch with all the same fascination I feel about human nature at its artiest, loveliest, least self-conscious. Both of us giggling at a man we have dubbed Sultan of the road. Staring at faces half familiar because they are off the tele. And at the antics of other couples, who order elaborate meals and then sit across from each in stony silence we are bewildered by because there is still so much to say.
On Monday we took the tram into the city centre and he humoured me as I was a little giddy silly about the whole thing because we don’t have trams in Liverpool (though let it be known I had imagined little bus sized San Francisco/Blackpool jump on and jump off affairs when Manchester trams are but trains of a sort). Giddy silly about public transport! Humouring me too, when I overheat because I am a drama queen and cannot be squashed. Nor manage the overwhelm of doing something new without a bit of kerfuffle. But Ben handles it with anticipatory aplomb. Noticing the shifts in me always and altering the path accordingly. Leading me to an Italian restaurant where we sit outside and eat perfect bowls of carbonara in the sunshine, al dente and smoky with pancetta and parmesan, and talk over the book I am writing, debating what should and should not be included in what is destined be a neurodivergent memoir of sorts, before we head into Harvey Nicholls and I swoon at Free People dresses and we come to a stop at a window on the third floor and stare out over a tumbly muddle of Victorian roof tops and I remember that is views that describe evidence of all the lives lived before, of domesticity and dailiness that thrill me in the way even the most magnificent of mountain top views have never been quite capable. And for one perfect moment I am more alive than than I remember being in ever such a long time. For one perfect moment my whole body relaxes. And I cannot articulate why it was perfect, but it was.
Afterwards we sit outside the oldest pub in the city. A tumbly Tudor affair with a patio full of parasols we park ourselves under and hold endless funny muddled debate about plans for tomorrows we have not yet manifested, while Ben digs in his pockets for change for those who come to our side asking for whatever we can give so they can make enough money to secure a bed for the night, while he shakes their hands and asks them how they are and I watch him, with my eyes brimming because he is bumbly and beautiful and so kind I barely know what to do with him. Watching him turn towards those so many others sharing the privilege of relaxed afternoons in the sun, simply shake their heads at and turn away from. Then it grows dark and late. and a Canadian comedian whose name evades us, holds court over the two old ladies he is with, positing profound advice – I say, if you don’t like root vegetables, you must stop buying them Susan! (which shall forever more now be the mantra I will live by) while greeting those who know him in bombastic delight. It is fun and happy. Then for a moment I lose Ben as we wander back towards the tram and I spin around in confusion, in the warm bustle of the night and know, suddenly know, that he he isn’t gone, that he will not be gone, and of course he isn’t and he re-appears and we get the tram back to the house we are staying in and I am daft-silly with tiredness and contentment and know that without a doubt, the time to move to Manchester, to this quirky, arty suburb has come and that the estate agents of the area should stand by their beds, because Alison is on her way and she is ridiculous and the very next day will pour an entire bowl of chicken soup down her cleavage and in the meantime has absolutely no idea how a person goes about making a big wild idea, an ACTUAL REALITY, but knows that what is for her, truly won’t pass her if she just takes one baby step at a time.
Today then, the gym, and then the counsellor. A zoom meeting with a potential agent. A long conversation with my Dad and a deep frown at the overgrown child who seems to be swallowing hedonism for breakfast, dinner and tea and could probably give us all a masterclass in living the highlife without apology. Two cups of beef broth as I detox my way out of pasta, garlic boules and cheese fondue. The bin pulled back up the path because it is Wednesday. The procuring of an estimate for the razoring of the garden from a young boy with a new business I want to support. And tonight. A midweek roast dinner at the special request of a boy in possession of a new hair-do – the man-bun gone and in its place an all grown up combo of curls and neat sides. My baby now on the verge of 21 and looking it more and more by the day.
All that and of course a spoonful of worry. Because I remain not so much suspicious of happiness, but still so very scared of it. The kind of fear that has me pulling back and retreating inside my own head all over again today. A silence that descends within me and insists I stay on my own track as I force myself to make the kind of progress I define for myself. Feel shy all over again. My tendency toward independence so deep-rooted I find myself wrestling with it constantly.
Fear that says “Well heckity pie, a book! A new house! A new city! And a life to both pack up AND unravel! Have you gone completely mad!?“. The kind of fear I take to the counsellor who sits in front of me and nods sagely, and says again and again, “It is time, Alison, it is TIME. Be brave! Take action! WRITE THE BOOK!! MOVE (YOU’VE GOT NO CHOICE!)! MAKE IT ALL HAPPEN!“. She’s quite shouty for a counsellor. I like her terribly.
So this is me standing looking out over rooftops I might just get to walk among while I try so very hard not to hear the lyrics from Dog Days Are Over taunt me eargasmically, “Happiness hit her, Like a train on a track, Coming towards her. Stuck, still no turning back – She hid around corners, And she hid under beds She killed it with kisses And from it she fled“. Taunting me and daring me to run, though I know I don’t have to now. That maybe it IS time to stop buying those damn root vegetables, drink my pesto from a glass and believe that the universe is arranging things exactly as they should be and all I have to do is start packing boxes full of books and possibility. Have a productive day. Have an early night. Keep unravelling. Keep unveiling. Stand still in the certainty, that I can do hard things. That I might have a bra full of soup but I am brave.
T’was the loveliest of days away from home you know?