beautiful monsters

I am a saint

I’m going up to Rotorua for a week during the university holidays. I’ve been going there about once a year, if that. There’s little to draw me back; my parents are there, but they can always come and visit me down here or meet me halfway. My Rotorua friends have all moved on, and the house aggravates my allergies. Still, I’m looking forward to it. The stream slipping past under the dark, bush-covered banks. The trout basking in the shallows, the herons and shags, and even the ducks. Don’t get many ducks around Wellington… My mother’s garden; spring is the best time to visit. The magnolias will be swollen with buds, bulbs pushing up through the earth, the early blossoms. Heather has created a ten-acre garden, and it’s incredible. Natives planted along the stream banks, the plantation trees edged with golden larches, thickets of vegetables, fruit trees and nuts, and flowers, everywhere the most gorgeous flowers.

I’m going up for my great aunt’s 90th birthday. She’s absolutely fantastic, plays in a little orchestra… imagine being 90 and still living in your own home, still keeping so active. She says she’s an “Anglican Quaker.” She believes in the Quaker philosophy, but she misses the singing. Must run in the family. While I’m north I’m going to go to Hamilton, get the feel of the place again, since my novel is going to be set there. Oh yeah, the novel. I was going to do some more writing tonight, but I’m so tired.

I haven’t had chocolate, or any sugar or caffeine, for five days now. That’s probably the longest fast in my whole life. The headaches and shakiness have eased off a bit, I’m not bursting into tears or hysterics all the time any more… but it’s still the Only. Thing. On. My. Mind. I keep trying to distract myself by getting ahead on my reading journal (only three and a half books to go!) but that doesn’t help, because the characters keep on eating yummy sugary delights. I’ve just been flicking through Fire and Hemlock, cos I finally got around to writing it up for my reading journal and there’s a cat in the story called Mintchoc. It’s torture. Every couple of pages, there it is. Mintchoc. Mmmmmmm mint choc…

I've been so restrained. I've walked past endless advertisements and shops filled with chocolate. I sat through three workshops with chocolate biscuits piled in the centre of the table to taunt me, and I handed out biscuits to the kids this morning without so much as nibbling on a crumb. I am a saint! No, really. Fionnaigh, the patron saint of recovered chocoholics.

Posted by Fionnaigh at August 10, 2003 10:27 PM