Wonka had settled on the spare bed, used about once a yearish by daughter. It was really just a giant nest for him and Baba. To be fair to Baba he did prefer dark uncomfortable corners where he could squash without Wonka knowing. Due to my ongoing anxiety I did have to know, and would spend evenings darting round the house looking for him. Thankfully I did not live in a mansion, or I would have been gone for days. Usually though, a sneeze or the other would alert me.
So I was in the spare room, gazing at my new Life Plan. So far it was looking good and made me look like I was having one. A life. It had five sections and one of them was on about a holiday.
‘Barriers?’ queried Wonka from his giant nest a few feet way. ‘Well, there was you, but now we’ve got the Cat Sitting service……….’ This alone had probably staved off a full on breakdown and instead spread it over the 12 months. Money! Oh yes, the barrier that just kept on being a barrier.
Now all the best life coaching books and philosophies suggest carrying on as if you have no barriers. One of Wonka’s favourites, Edward De Bono, said as much. Just go on he proffered and plan it all as if you have the money! According to this philosophy, the money will appear at just the right moment. Wonka was keen to tell me this did not mean fetching out the credit card. No. it meant relying on the powers of the universe to know you were planning the holiday of a lifetime and deliver up the cost of it. Enchanted by this idea, I would put it to the test and put down in writing my holiday plan. New York, Paris, Isle of Skye…..and that was without even trying. ‘You’ll see’ said Wonka, from his hidey hole in the duvet. ‘and while you’re at it, me and Baba are starving!’
I moved onto the next section, employment. With any luck someone would take pity on me, see through the gaps of employment, the ‘career break’, (another name for a breakdown of course they would say wisely) and give me a chance. Up to now I had quickly reassured my clients, when I had some, that none of these things were a barrier. But I had to come out of my duvet hidey hole. They were a massive barrier.
‘Don’t forget the old and ugly one!’ shouted Wonka heading back downstairs for a snack.
With aged parent to remind me how could I? Mother often opened the conversation with how amazing it was I still had to work. That I still looked fairly alright etc. and the final nail in the coffin, ‘you are taking vitamins aren’t you?’ Of course I wasn’t. I did have a few of those little plastic containers shoved in the cupboard with loads of out of date multi this and multi that.
At times like this I fell back on the coping strategy that worked. Sweets, box set and more sweets. More popcorn anyone?
The finance section in my Life Plan read like a business plan for a meeting with the financial adviser. It would do to shore up any criticisms of how I was getting by. For this section, I had been ruthless. ‘don’t hide anything!’ warned Wonka.
So there it all was. The credit card once more taking all the – attention. It made the monthly outgoings look terribly reasonable. But that was because the credit card helped out with the rest. You know, like food and basics.
Strangely, this section wasn’t inspiring me. Should I have a giant vision about it? I drifted off into a dream where the person says ‘pretend you have enough money for everything. What would you do with your life?’ Well now.
I mean if I couldn’t life coach myself then how could I offer it to the poor drifters out there, those treadmill nine to fivers with lacklustre lives? Ah, this must be that loss of confidence thing, where you go off track and lose focus. I flicked back through the course manual. Yes, there was a whole section dedicated to this apathy, this undermining debilitating weak willed thing. This wanting to give up thing. Funnily enough I had passed this with an ‘A’ and a very flattering comment from the Course Tutor about my level of understanding.
‘Are you there yet?’ questioned Wonka, sliding past me in one of my reveries. Not quite, not quite. In the reaches of this reverie though, I had bumbled upon something the nice GP had said to me, several times, until I thought maybe he had me down as a bit, well lacking. It’s not my intelligence that’s taken a break just my every day coping ability!’ I said, to the no one there. Well Wonka was there and so was Baba. Yes, he had kept mentioning a pension. I had given it all of 2 seconds thought. Goodness me, I had stared into his eyes longer, but best not think about that now. I scribbled ‘look into pension’ and highlighted it in pink. Oh yes, and not forgetting why I ended up with those ‘A’s, I set myself a target date for this. Of three to four months. Be Summer by then, past the ungodliness of February, shooting through the breaking down of Easter straight into the safe middle of the year, when you might be half way to something.
The mounting debt, had a plan wrapped round it, and I practically skipped to the supermarket to exercise the credit card for our tea. ‘Don’t buy any more clothes!’ warned Wonka, and ‘I’ve gone off that Sheba!’ The trick was to get in and get out bypassing any tempting offers, or checking whether they had a random, one off garment that could not be traced back to its supermarket origins. Hopeless. Instead I saw a bargain DVD all about some daft cave explorers who despite grave warnings of bad storms, so bad all their precious equipment blows away, yes they still all pop down miles into the dark. ‘Right up our street Wonka!’ I threw the bags of cat food in pouches and tins and boxes to one side and scrabbled the slim little box out. After a further inspection to check there were no clothes, Wonka agreed.
Baba had taken to going out. It was like going back to his roots really, and whilst Wonka was a happy prisoner, Baba was not. There had been a time when I had somehow allowed the prison door (the good back door) to swing open and both of them sped outside. Baba was swooped on and put back inside and Wonka was captured inspecting the shed. Already well into double and treble checking, I now banged up against doors with my hand and shoulder to ensure their shutness
Never one to take a cat to the vets for nothing, I dillied and dallied over Baba. This summed up another of my little philosophies. One of the greats, more than likely a Greek sunning themselves against one of those beautiful stone creations, a pillar maybe with a couple of sculptured gods thrown in, had dreamed up the nature or nurture debate. (dilemma?) For me, gazing out the back yard at a brick wall on a drab day, the argument went thus. Leave Baba to carry on with whatever strange disease he might be having, or, trustle him up, cram him into a cat carrier, pay enormous amounts of money to find out that he has a strange incurable disease.
As usual Wonka helped out here. ‘You’re in denial!’ he scoffed, jumping out on Baba and making him rush at the back door. I let him out. It wasn’t as if he went far, and at the moment he favoured the dog kennel I had purchased to give shelter to any lone cat out there. It turned out, this lone cat was to be Baba. He loved it and would nestle there all day. Wonka would jump up on the sideboard his favourite lookout for all goings on in the back yard. From here he could spy on Baba, and Ruggles our giant stray.
‘Time to come in Ba’ I would say when it was dusk. I loved twilight and looked forward to those longer evenings. Things were looking up slightly, whether by some Worldly accident or maybe my life plan had tripped a switch. The agency had liked my fulsome CV and invited me for an interview. The demands of family seemed to be copeable or I was just shouting up more.
‘Did you put holidays into that plan?’ enquired Wonka, probably nervous at the thought of cat sitters and such.
Oh yes Siree.
‘Just a couple……..’ I replied, smiling.
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