Guest Writer Spot

June 28, 2019

Guest Writer Spot

I’d like to welcome Marian Wood to my Guest Writer Spot. I met Marian at the recent Annual Bloggers Bash in London. We both thoroughly enjoyed the day and came away feeling very inspired about our writing. Marian is sharing one of her stories with us today. Before you read her story, here she tells us a little bit about herself:

I am Marian, I am married with two children. A daughter aged six and a son who will be eight at the end of June. I started writing at the end of 2017. They say that everyone has a book in them, I have always been a dreamer, but it wasn’t till then that I started writing. It was a year later, October 2018, that I started my blog, where I write about my children, being a mum, fiction stories and poetry.

I am currently writing two novels. One I started in 2017, the other, this year. I am enjoying writing and developing and creating worlds. One day I hope to complete them and complete the long road of creating a novel, from writing to publication.

Now for her story:

Just one of those days

By

Marian Wood

Have you ever had one of those days where you want the world just to swallow you up whole? One of those days where what could go wrong does go wrong? This was my day. A phone call from Mark at 8.30am, as usual, woke me from a deep slumber. Why had my alarm not gone off? I was due to be sitting behind my desk by 9.00am and I had a half hour walk ahead of me.

Jumping out of bed, I grabbed my clothes and chucked them on whilst Mark berated me for being late. I’m good at late, if I can be late, I’m late. I am rarely early, I may be just on time, but never early. Racing through the house, I dragged a brush through my hair, got my lunch out of the fridge, picked up my bag and keys and ran out of the door slamming it hard behind me. Now the challenge of getting to work, I started to run.

My boss is not an easy man, and my tardiness does not help matters. We have had a few run ins and despite not liking him very much I do not want to lose my job. I’m not a very fit person and very quickly I was feeling breathless, so had to keep stopping to regain my breath. Finally, I arrived. It was now 9.10am, not good. I work in an estate agent’s office and I was seen immediately as I fell through the door panting.

Elizabeth, sat at a nearby desk started laughing, “What the hell do you look like?”

I looked down and my heart sank. I was wearing odd socks and odd shoes, what a start to the day. Finding my desk, I turned on my computer whilst hiding my coat and bag underneath it. At least the general public would not be able to see my odd socks and shoes, just my hysterical work colleagues.

On reading my emails I could see the latest was from Mr Williams, title of ‘late again’, my day just got better and better. From the odd clothes, to the meeting with my boss explaining my lateness, to the irate customer that expected me to find her a flat in the local area for less than £100 000. I have not got a magic wand. I wish I did, I could teleport to work then.

As the day went on, I could feel the stress just getting on top of me. Text messages from Mark were not helping me. At least he had phoned me this morning; he knows me too well. Boyfriend of two years, won’t commit but forever phoning and texting. I guess I can’t have everything, problem is I want everything, and I want it now. Shame I have a mortgage to pay because today, right that minute, I would have loved to tell Mr Samuel Williams where to stick his stinking job. I could feel the unhappiness rising in me and my face redden.

I told myself, face it, Susie, you have a mortgage, you have a house, you have a boyfriend, he won’t commit yet, but he is there. My job is important and I need to ensure that I set that blinking alarm every night. I need to stop upsetting my boss as regularly as I do. My day passed and finally the work day was over. Collecting my bag and coat, I said goodbye to Elizabeth and started to walk home. Thoughts racing round and round my head, I decided that heading straight home was not an option. When I get myself this stressed I like to walk, so I took the long way home through the fields.

Entering in through the familiar wooden gate I could smell the scent of heather and the cows in the fields. The flowers were gently blowing in the breeze and it felt so calm. I needed calm right then and to put my life into perspective: So what, Mark does not want marriage and kids right now and the boss is unlikely to ever promote me. I know that I need to sort my life out, get to bed earlier then 11pm and get out of bed at 7.30am not 8.30am when Mark phones.

I sat and watched the yellow rape in the field and the beautiful red poppies. Maybe I needed to sit and reflect and make a list: My life is not too bad, I have so much to be grateful for. The feeling in the pit of my stomach though, would not go away, the nagging feeling of failure. Wearing odd socks and shoes to work today did not help that.

The day turned to evening around me, the sun hiding now behind the gloomy clouds. Getting up again I carried on walking. I needed to focus on the good in my life, it wasn’t that bad. I stopped to look at some sheep drinking from their trough, watching the bees in the hedgerows, the nature and life around me. Hearing the sounds of engines, I knew I was nearly at the road and nearly home. Feeling a little disappointed, I was not looking forward to a night alone again inside the same four walls. However, I could also feel a rumbling in my stomach indicating that it was time for dinner.

I had skipped breakfast again and was scoring very badly on the healthy eating scale. What was I going to have? I hate cooking and will rarely cook just for me. Decisions, decisions, maybe baked beans on toast. Yes, easy.

Reaching my house, I let myself in. There was a funny smell, like food. Why could I smell food? As I walked into the hall, I could see the light was on and there were noises. My day had suddenly got a lot better as there looking handsome in his apron with ‘the world’s best chef’ written above a pug and cooking me a Chinese dinner was Mark and on the table was a vase of red roses.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said, “I was wondering where you were, but you are home now. Take your coat off and sit down, I got the feeling that you need some cheering up.”

“Oh, Mark, wow,” I said speechless. Mark, dinner and roses, really what more could I ask for?

***