Decisions, decisions

So, a few weeks ago I decided change was in the air. Fairly soon afterwards, I emailed my resume  on spec one Saturday morning to Exciting Startup Company, and their CEO emailed me back within a couple of hours. Two weeks and three interviews later, there’s a tempting job offer on the table, ticking all the boxes I’ve been looking for: flexible working hours (including limited time required in the office); less of a commute anyway; more holiday; bunch of very smart, very committed people to work with, company with a clear vision and a great new, disruptive business model that I think has an excellent chance of successfully  reinventing the publishing sector it’s in.

It was so easy, it took me by surprise. The decision to change jobs was straightforward, and this morning I emailed my boss to give my two weeks’ notice. I expected Current Company to be a bit disappointed, but to let me go without a murmur.

Then it got complicated. Current Boss was very gracious, and then counter-offered. Not only that, but  counter-offered very generously, in a this is a whole new decision to make over again kind of way. Less time required in the office; more holiday; loads more money; timetable for departmental restructuring to make me Queen; and frequent avowals that everyone on both sides of the Atlantic thinks that I rock (and I think we can agree, that’s a lot of people) and that eventually I can rule the known world and probably conquer new ones too. Basically, I’ve been offered the reference publishing version of my own trailer, with on tap champagne served by David Tennant, and fresh fruit facials on the hour.

Things were so clear cut at 9.00am this morning, and then by about 9.45am they were not. And it is in this perplexing state of non-clarity that they have remained. What do I want? The moon on a stick, obviously. An iPhone. A pair of Coach ballet flats. The complete works of Trollope. A Ferrari (although I’d settle for am MGBGT, spoke wheels, chrome bumper, BRG). Beyond that, though, the life size things? How the bloody hell do I know? I never had a plan. Mostly what I’ve been yearning for lately has been more time and I had assumed that would require giving up some salary and career. And I was fine with that.

Now it looks as though I can have more time + more money + more career. This has thrown me. Surely it’s against the rules? What to do, what to do, what to do. I am not used to these decisions being so difficult. When it comes to jobs I get bored and then take the next interesting thing that comes along. The generally upward trajectory has been incidental. I’ve usually mostly closed one door before the next fully opens, and in the meantime am hanging around in the hallway, flicking through the newspapers. This time, both doors are wide open, both revealing equally interesting interiors, while a draught whistles along the corridor.

Argh. I said I’ll give an answer tomorrow morning. I hope inspiration visits during the night.

Update: I am staying with Current Company.

Birthday eve

Tomorrow I turn 38. (Eek!) I racked my brains to think of a restaurant to go to for a special birthday meal, but since the vegetarian dish is a token afterthought on most menus around here, I opted to stay home instead. The food is better.

So tonight we have friends coming round for dinner. Seems like ages since we’ve done that, probably because it is. The table with the extra leaf that we bought back in February hasn’t even been put to the test yet. Must try harder.

Today has been a quiet day of cooking and cleaning up, and more cooking and more cleaning up. Although there is just about enough physical space, somehow there still isn’t room in the kitchen for both of us at once, so it’s a tag team activity.

Mike spent the morning making cassoulet. It contains pork, duck and chicken, carrots, beans and onions in tomato and red wine and I definitely saw chicken consomme going in there as well. There is enough to feed the  entire town if they show up. Once he was done with that, I made chocolate and ginger cookies, and then shortcrust pastry. The pastry is for my part of the meal, which will be a vegetarian pie of beans, potatoes, onions, carrots, green pepper, chillis, garlic and an array of spices. My special request was for fennel poached in white wine, with parmesan. When it’s done right, it practically melts in the mouth.

The kitchen is warm, and smells of all these foods.

I just did the booze run, so there is white wine in the fridge, red wine getting to room temperature, beer in the crisper. Our friends know their way around our kitchen pretty well, so the guys will help themselves to the beer. (Zoesmom once arrived here before I did when we’d arranged to meet up, and when I got here she was sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine. It was exactly what I hoped she would do, and I love that she felt comfortable enough to dig out the corkscrew and open a bottle.)

And now it’s getting to that part of the evening where all the work is done, and it’s time just to pour a glass of wine and wait for the guests.

Daphne by Justine Picardie

Which I got for free from Bloomsbury as an LT Early Reviewer’s copy.

There are two interleaved narratives in this book.  Narrative the first is that of Daphne du Maurier and her correspondence with John Symington about Branwell Bronte. Symington is a dodgy character, a manuscript thief who has built up a collection of Bronte materials over the years and now sits in his study, bemoaning his lost reputation. Du Maurier plans an autobiography of Branwell and turns to Symington for information, research and such books as he will sell her. The second narrative is set some 50 years later, when a young researcher who is obsessed with du Maurier, finds some of the letters. So there are fictional letters and then a fictional diary and didn’t we do this already with Possession?

I’m always chary of books that fictionalise real people, and I just couldn’t get into this one. None of the characters felt real, and the story seemed awkwardly contrived. The second narrative in particular put my teeth on edge: spineless young woman (SYW) marries older man with fascinating previous wife named Rachel, and then gets all insecure about it. Even though the narrator herself points out the irony that she, the du Maurier obsessive, is living some sort of poor man’s version of the Rebecca story, it doesn’t make it any less heavy-handed. And, it’s no wonder her husband is getting annoyed with her, because she insists on behaving with the emotional maturity of a character from Twilight. I mean, look love, if you’re that concerned about Rachel’s bedroom still being the dark red of the room in which Jane Eyre was locked up one day (gratuitous literary reference to prove serious academic credentials despite DDM crush), then nip yourself down to Homebase and Buy. Some. Paint. Also, email Rachel to tell her if she doesn’t come and get her stuff, you’re taking it to Oxfam.

And really, nothing happens and I’m really not sure what the point is. Daphne exchanges some dull letters with Symington and writes her Branwell biography; SYW mopes around, cries, obsesses, writes copiously in her extremely boring diary through which her part of the story is told, and has brief outing with Rachel during with R apparently swipes some mss from the Bronte parsonage at Haworth. Which is just what she would do because she is stock dishonest academic character 2B.

She was wearing a scarlet silk wrap dress, with smooth bare legs and high heeled strappy leather sandals that showed off her beautifully painted red toenails. All of which might sound absurd for a trip to Yorkshire, but she looked entirely at ease, somehow more herself than anyone else I’d ever met…

I don’t care if it is June, she is going to freeze in Haworth. A couple of pages later ’she raised one of her elegantly shaped eyebrows…’ . Well, of course she did. I’m pretty sure she gestured with one of her perfectly manicured hands as well, but thank god that was off screen.

Is there supposed to be a literary mystery around the swiped Bronte stuff? Am I supposed to care about du Maurier’s collapsing marriage and own episodes of paranoia? I just can’t. And now I feel sorry for Daphne du Maurier, who may have been a cast-iron bitch at times, but was a good writer and didn’t deserve to be turned into cardboard and stuck in this novel.