No-one’s bringing you diet pills or anything are they?’
Sometimes even Tatania makes me feel defensive and that’s when I switch the talk to my favourite topic. Her dog, Jock, and what she was going to do with him.
Tatania soon learned it’s hard to find a home for a dog as big as Jock. Luckily, there’s a woman who does some part-time work at the hospital who has two kids and a big untidy garden. She saw the ad that Tatania posted and it turns out she loves German shepherds and had been looking for a ‘wussy’ dog like Jock for her kids. Even though it broke Tatania’s heart to see Jock go, she knows it’s the best thing for him.
I’m the one who’s had to do the comforting for a change because Tatania gets teary just talking about Jock. The night the new family came to get him was pretty traumatic for Tatania. She said the house feels empty and the yard seems tiny without Jock’s big body stretched out in it. She told me she phones up the new owners for Jock Bulletins—she needs to know what he’s eaten, where he’sslept, how the kids are getting on with him and if he seems happy.
Zoë’s been coming to see me this week. I must be way better because we’ve got so much to talk about again. Not like on the phone a few weeks back when she’d call and I couldn’t think of much to say. She’s having a few problems with her boyfriend Jason. And for the first time I think I kind of helped her!
Not that I’ve ever had any experience with guys, but God knows I’ve read lots and lots of romance novels and love poems. And my mum used to talk pretty openly about all that stuff. So does Babs for that matter. Zoë said it was a relief to be talking to me ‘normally’ again after all the fuss at school over the interview. And for the first time we laughed a little about how ridiculous it was that such a small lie turned into such a huge mess. Then we couldn’t stop. We laughed so much one of the nurses came in to tell us to tone it down because we were disturbing the other patients!
When we finally calmed down Zoë told me there’s no-one else, not even her mum, who she can talk to in the way that she can to me. I just hope that you also have a real friend like this, Princess Di.
Zoë gave me such a big hug before she left, it hurt. But it was a good hurt because it felt like something wasmended. It must have been a good-news day because after Zoë left my doctor told me I could go home at the end of the week. I’m happy but just a bit frightened too. I’ve been given this contract about food and exercising and I really want to stick to it. I think I can.
With all my love,
Diana Moore
PS. Of course you know that Diana is a goddess’s name, don’t you? Well, how about this bit of trivia? Zoë was bored in an English class one day and the only thing she could find to read was the Companion to Classical Literature. It didn’t have an entry for ‘Zoë’ so for fun she looked up the word ‘trivia’ and it said,
‘See Diana’.
She copied out the Diana passage and couldn’t wait to show it to me:
From her association with Artemis, Diana took over the character of Moon Goddess; and since Hecate was sometimes associated with Artemis, of an Earth Goddess. She had the cult title of TRIVIA from being worshipped like Hecate at the crossroads.
More trivia is that Artemis was the goddess of wildlife, childbirth and all young things—as well as being associatedwith the moon. I like that a lot. And Hecate, who I thought was just to do with witches, is the queen of ghosts and is associated with the night. Long ago they made images of her at crossroads to scare away evil!
All this under
‘See Diana’!
16
Coming home was hard. I’d been in hospital for two months and by the end I felt comfortable there. I dreaded seeing Marcus even though poor old Graham had promised that he’d ‘see to it’ that things would be much better between us.
As if!
I thought, but I was grateful he was trying.
Tatania
Sometimes even Tatania makes me feel defensive and that’s when I switch the talk to my favourite topic. Her dog, Jock, and what she was going to do with him.
Tatania soon learned it’s hard to find a home for a dog as big as Jock. Luckily, there’s a woman who does some part-time work at the hospital who has two kids and a big untidy garden. She saw the ad that Tatania posted and it turns out she loves German shepherds and had been looking for a ‘wussy’ dog like Jock for her kids. Even though it broke Tatania’s heart to see Jock go, she knows it’s the best thing for him.
I’m the one who’s had to do the comforting for a change because Tatania gets teary just talking about Jock. The night the new family came to get him was pretty traumatic for Tatania. She said the house feels empty and the yard seems tiny without Jock’s big body stretched out in it. She told me she phones up the new owners for Jock Bulletins—she needs to know what he’s eaten, where he’sslept, how the kids are getting on with him and if he seems happy.
Zoë’s been coming to see me this week. I must be way better because we’ve got so much to talk about again. Not like on the phone a few weeks back when she’d call and I couldn’t think of much to say. She’s having a few problems with her boyfriend Jason. And for the first time I think I kind of helped her!
Not that I’ve ever had any experience with guys, but God knows I’ve read lots and lots of romance novels and love poems. And my mum used to talk pretty openly about all that stuff. So does Babs for that matter. Zoë said it was a relief to be talking to me ‘normally’ again after all the fuss at school over the interview. And for the first time we laughed a little about how ridiculous it was that such a small lie turned into such a huge mess. Then we couldn’t stop. We laughed so much one of the nurses came in to tell us to tone it down because we were disturbing the other patients!
When we finally calmed down Zoë told me there’s no-one else, not even her mum, who she can talk to in the way that she can to me. I just hope that you also have a real friend like this, Princess Di.
Zoë gave me such a big hug before she left, it hurt. But it was a good hurt because it felt like something wasmended. It must have been a good-news day because after Zoë left my doctor told me I could go home at the end of the week. I’m happy but just a bit frightened too. I’ve been given this contract about food and exercising and I really want to stick to it. I think I can.
With all my love,
Diana Moore
PS. Of course you know that Diana is a goddess’s name, don’t you? Well, how about this bit of trivia? Zoë was bored in an English class one day and the only thing she could find to read was the Companion to Classical Literature. It didn’t have an entry for ‘Zoë’ so for fun she looked up the word ‘trivia’ and it said,
‘See Diana’.
She copied out the Diana passage and couldn’t wait to show it to me:
From her association with Artemis, Diana took over the character of Moon Goddess; and since Hecate was sometimes associated with Artemis, of an Earth Goddess. She had the cult title of TRIVIA from being worshipped like Hecate at the crossroads.
More trivia is that Artemis was the goddess of wildlife, childbirth and all young things—as well as being associatedwith the moon. I like that a lot. And Hecate, who I thought was just to do with witches, is the queen of ghosts and is associated with the night. Long ago they made images of her at crossroads to scare away evil!
All this under
‘See Diana’!
16
Coming home was hard. I’d been in hospital for two months and by the end I felt comfortable there. I dreaded seeing Marcus even though poor old Graham had promised that he’d ‘see to it’ that things would be much better between us.
As if!
I thought, but I was grateful he was trying.
Tatania
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