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Julia Gets a Life [Secure eReader (recommended)/Microsoft Reader]
eBook by Lynne Barrett-Lee
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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description:  When Julia's husband has an affair with local siren Rhiannon de Laney, she feels as if her world is falling apart. Once the arguments have abated, and her husband has moved out, Julia realises she's well and truly on her own, a single parent with two teenage children, a bad haircut and no idea of what to do or where to go next. Gradually, however, Julia begins to recognise the benefits of being single: it's the chance to meet new people and make new friends, change her hairstyle, throw out her old clothes, experiment with a new image, resurrect her photography career, travel the country with a boy band and, in short, rediscover herself outside the context of loyal wife and dutiful mother. She also rediscovers the joys of dating. After a few false starts, she finds herself learning more about the talents, musical and otherwise, of the lead singer of Britain's most famous band. Julia's certainly got herself a life you wonder whether it is the kind of existence she wants to live permanently, or whether her ailing marriage is worth saving. Light-hearted, humorous and at times surprising, Julia's battles with this age-old dilemma prove instantly recognisable yet highly entertaining, with a twist in the tale that may surprise or perplex.
eBook Publisher: Accent/Accent
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2007
Available eBook Formats [Secure eReader (recommended)/Microsoft Reader - What's this?]: SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT [374 KB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT [263 KB]
All formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN, eReader (recommended) ISBN: 9781905170401
 
I ALWAYS START WITH a list.
Today?s list is written on the back of an old card. It reads:
Clothes/shoes etc.
Books ? biogs. Not novels
Car/engineering mags
Wooden coat-hangers
Dumbbells
Trouser press
I keep cards (I keep most things), though not efficiently so. Like
anything paper-based that is unsuitable for immediate binning, I tend
to shove them anywhere I can find a suitable nook. This one I
plucked from a wodge on my bedside table, that was stuffed between
Flat Stomach, Now! and Wild Swans.
Inside the card there is a poem. It goes:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
What more could I need,
When I?ve someone like you?
Though real flowers were never much of a thing with him, Richard
did do cards. Rubbish cards, mainly (this one is a montage of hearts,
flowers, ribbons and what look like mouse droppings but are
presumably buds, all buried under a crusty overspill of pearlised
glitter), but personalised in his own sentimental, if rather prosaic,
style. And there?s more. It says, To my wonderful wife on our
anniversary. Love you always. Kiss, kiss kiss. It?s old, this one. From
three, maybe four years back. But not longer, I estimate, because it
was four years ago that we had the new carpet.
I know my list now so I rip it and bin it.
The thing about spring cleaning your bedroom is that it is tangibly
different from cleaning, say, a kitchen. When you clear out a kitchen
it?s simply a case of pulling everything out, chucking away anything
that looks like it might be a useful addition to a biology lab, scrubbing off all the crusty bits, and then lobbing it all back. But
with your bedroom it?s all start, stop, inspect, peruse, recall, smile
wistfully, regret, start again, stop again etc., etc.
And filth, quite frankly, when you?re as slovenly as I am. For
me spring cleaning is simply the conjunction of two entirely
unrelated words: something that occurs when you?re flicking a duster
and it just happens to be April.
Today though, I am spring cleaning proper. As well as the
vacuum and a rag made of old pants (my mum?s speciality), I have
cans of polish, bin bags, a selection of cardboard boxes, labels and
Sellotape, and carrier bags. I considered bringing up a cheese
sandwich in a lunch box to keep me on task, but I couldn?t because
we?ve run out of bread.
Which is a remarkably apt illustration of the quality of my
housewifery skills generally. As I cast about me now I note that my
bedroom is beginning to look rather like an extension of me ? wellintentioned,
but tending towards disarray. This is because my
possessions have all begun individual Triffid-like pilgrimages into
previously uncharted regions. The top of the chest of drawers, for
instance, was once home to just a lamp (horrible, wedding present), a
photograph (of Richard and the children, by me) and a variable
quantity of loose change. But now it looks more like Widow
Twanky?s lost property corner: a sea of balled socks and odd socks,
tights and frayed knickers, with two empty wine glasses coming up
for air.
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