copyright@ Gerry Rose

 Jilly was someone who loved to plan. She had never been able to accept what life was going to throw at her. She had always enjoyed making lists, mood and vision boards. When she was at University she was renowned for her love of timetables and to do lists. Her fellow students that she shared a flat with were astounded by her revision timetables and lists. She had her own system of using different coloured pens to show priorities etc. She even used to offer to make lists for her flat mates. In Jilly’s world there was really no point in doing anything unless you did it exceptionally well. She invested huge amounts of energy in anything she did, to ensure that she got it right. Her latest list was more like a Gant chart really.

 1. Sort the house out had various phases. She was currently in phase 1. There were stages which had to be completed before she could move into phase 2. She was up to date with it though.

  2. Make friends. She had made 1 friend and by joining a variety of different Meetup groups she would have more opportunities to meet like-minded people. The problem was that Jilly found few people were like her. She disliked messy chaotic people. She also hated ugly people. Unfortunately there were a lot of them about. However, when she did meet people who were organised, good looking and as neat as her, she did find that they were often rather dull. This was at times rather paradoxical for Jilly, as she often found that people who were broad brush people, who did not attend to detail and were not perfectionists, were often more interesting and creative. Jilly’s creativity was often confined. Her love of art had never extended beyond classical art. She knew that her rigidity and precision had probably caused the end of her marriage.   

 3. Find a job. Jilly loved interior design but had no qualifications in the field. She thought she was probably too old to go back to University and certainly did not want to pay the fees. She had a friend who had an interior design business in London. She had called Carla and asked her for advice. Carla had suggested that she found a job in a shop which specialised in interiors, so she could get a feel for what was around at the moment. She also suggested she bought lots of magazines to see what was on trend. Carla said that she would not encourage Jilly to take a University course but she did signpost her towards the British Academy of Interior Design which had some good certificate and diploma courses. Jilly was grateful for this advice and researched shops in the area to visit and see if she would like to work in one of them.

  Carla who was happily married to Stephano a very attractive man whom she met at a conference in Milan in 1982, asked Jilly if finding a man was on her list. Jilly was quick to reply that it most certainly wasn’t. Jilly had emerged from her marriage with many emotional scars which she kept well under cover. She felt she was still in recovery and really could not face putting herself through the process of finding a replacement for Alan. Carla told her that an attractive woman like Jilly shouldn’t be alone because it cast her in a poor light. Carla said it was completely logical why unattractive women were without partners at her age. Jilly struggled to see the logic of this.  Carla said that people would think that Jilly had traits that put men off. Jilly considered this but dismissed it as ridiculous. Carla encouraged her at least to have lovers. Jilly loved the way Carla assumed, that there were loads of attractive older men who were free and open to becoming her lovers. To date she had only met one attractive single man and he was very keen to point out that he already had a girlfriend even if she did live in New York. Carla had then suggested that she might make ideal mistress material. At this point in the conversation Jilly was wondering why she counted Carla amongst her friends. Jilly felt it was rather sad that a woman cannot be considered to be content unless she is in a relationship. Society favours the couple and Jilly could not help but feel sad, that society didn’t applaud people who were strong enough to want their independence and did not want to be part of a couple. There were so many more single households emerging and Jilly did not feel that the Government and other institutions had caught up with this. She definitely would rather be alone than with the wrong person. She did not buy into the myth that in order to have status, you had to have at least a partner or better still a husband or wife.  Carla’s parting shot was particularly hurtful.

‘Jilly if you don’t mind me saying, I think you are in danger of becoming somewhat bitter. Bitter older women are never going to light up anyone’s life including their own.’

 Jilly finished the call abruptly, by saying that someone was knocking at her front door.  She thought that she would rather be bitter and independent, than saccharine sweet and needy any day.

 Jilly bought loads of magazines and emersed herself in what was fashionable and desirable in home interiors in 2017. She thought Carla’s suggestion that she needed to visit shops which specialised in interior accessories was a good idea.  There were very few shops in Hove which fitted into this category. She visited Velvet on Church Road and was impressed by its home accessories. It had some lovely vases, candles and mirrors but it was not really going to be the type of shop where Jilly could gain the sort of experience Carla had suggested would be useful. The staff were really lovely and the prices were great. She did buy a coaster which said London, New York, Paris, Hove. Jilly felt she probably needed to venture further afield to the dreaded Brighton! However, she noticed there was a shop in Portland Road which would be an ideal place to work. She decided to go into the shop and speak to the owner.

 Jilly had been delighted to get an invitation to a party at Babs’ house. She felt that she was beginning to live the life she had wanted to have in Hove. Jilly was always wary of thinking that she could have it all in life. The party had been interesting. She thought about the people who had attended and compared them to people she had known in her village in Norfolk. Jilly concluded that there was really no comparison. To date her experiences in Hove entirely involved meeting other single women and men. She had not realised that Brighton and Hove was a fantastic place to be a single woman. She was no longer an oddity. Jilly was a little wary of Maria. Maria seemed to be very opinionated. Jilly had no problem with that, but she felt Maria thought only her opinions were valid. Jilly had overheard Maria saying what a terrible president Obama was and how delighted she was to see Donald Trump take over. Jilly was surprised by this. John seemed to be a nice enough man, but he seemed to cling to Maria’s every word. Jilly still felt that Babs was her favourite person in Hove so far. She quite liked Sue but didn’t get much of a chance to speak to her in any depth. She liked Fanny and hoped she would get an opportunity to get to know her better too. She still found Trish hard to like. Jilly did not like excesses and she felt Trish drank far too much. Trish definitely had not grown up. Jilly suspected that there had never been a reason for her to do so. Women who had never married and never had children were often quite self-centred in Jilly’s opinion. They were much better at being single than divorced women were. Jilly felt that divorced women were either very bitter and had no desire to be married again, or they were obsessed with getting back to the status of desirable woman in a relationship with a soul mate. She knew which camp she sat in. Now she realised there was another camp. She had dismissed Carla’s suggestion about becoming a mistress, but after meeting Gemma, she wondered if it was an option. She found the drama that ensued with Ying, Gemma and Harry to be quite an eye opener. Jilly did not ever aspire to be a Mistress, having experienced the betrayal that adultery causes, she had little respect for women who felt it was a valid way to behave. Jilly had little time for men who believed the grass was greeener and it was their God given right to have a nibble. As far as she was concerned grass is grass. If a man thinks that there is something better than the woman he made vows to, he is just an immature individual in her books. She also had little respect for men or women who were serial marriers. She could understand the desire to remarry if your partner died, but men and women who kept marrying people were either gold diggers, or deluded losers or chancers in Jilly’s world.  

 Life had taught her that very few people really led charmed lives. She knew she could be very judgemental.  She did look forward to having a chat with her daughter who would be eager to hear about her new life and would tell her off if she thought she was being too opinionated. Meanwhile, her son like most young men was too busy getting on with his life which at the moment included a new girlfriend.

 Jilly would go and chat to that owner of that shop in Portland Road and hopefully would tick off another item on her list.

 Jilly went to bed and had a rather vivid dream. The next day she felt disturbed. Jilly had always felt that someone, or something was meddling with her life. She called this entity her bad fairy. This was not something that she liked to openly discuss with anyone. Jilly was keen to give the impression that she was totally in control of her own life. If she admitted that she frequently felt that she was not in control, she worried what this might lead to.