A typical Saturday with a weekend trip to Bluewater. I think of Bluewater as ‘Kent’s day out’. When the sun shines there’s the beach or Blean woods, in the winter a Bluewater experience fills the empty hearts of cold seaside folks.
If you convince yourself there’s some item you need then the occasion will take on a fine sense of purpose, the buying of said item will trigger a sense of fulfillment, so the day will pass muster as a happy one. Unless (like me) you dissect the day and decide it was wasted time, spent among loathsome crowds throwing money at barely needed stuff.
No matter, two weeks later we’ll be back at Bluewater, and I’ll be relieved to find a plan for an empty Saturday when my boyfriend decides he needs a new shaving mirror or tie pin. Or maybe the sun will smile on us and a picnic on the beach will be purpose enough for everyone.
My boyfriend and I went to Bluewater with our three-year old son on Saturday, while my daughter saw the stars at Greenwich Observatory with her London dad.
The middle classes leave London for blue skies and a better life in Kent, I wonder if they know that when the blue skies desert them the only plan will be Bluewater shopping?
Our three-year old can be persuaded to like Bluewater if we buy him enough comics and Yo Sushi. His Yo Sushi habit could well pay for the price difference between a Kent three bed and a London. He’s old enough to know his colours. Unfortunately he likes red.
I work from home these days, usually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Long ago I worked in the London office and I’d spend lunch hours in Selfridges or John Lewis buying pretty things to wear for work.
I’m visiting the office next week to meet my boss - but I don’t want to wear jeans and a T-shirt. Our Saturday Bluewater trip was inspired by my desire for pretty things to wear to the office.
My mission was accomplished and I was briefly happy. I loved my new dress. They hadn’t had a small, but it was a great dress so I decided a medium would do.
I got my dress home and tried it on, of course medium wouldn’t do. It didn’t fit.
A frosty Sunday, and my boyfriend left first thing for Copenhagen. He was facing work and frostier climates than Whitstable, I was facing Sunday on my own with the boy, with no plan.
I suggested a trip to the library to return overdue books. He declined, I didn’t argue. He played with a plastic She Ra that had been dad’s before he developed automatonophobia, while I settled to my laptop. Another popular Kent pastime is online shopping.
Coffee was enjoyed, a dress purchased, along with shoes and a green cardigan.
I didn’t take up my boy’s offer to play with his plastic figures, instead I logged into eBay and typed ‘bee.’
I found a Victorian 2 colour gold bee brooch for £110. It was beautiful.
I like old things. I liked this bee. The bee had lobsided orange enamel eyes, its imperfection reminded me of my sticker drawings; orange is my favourite colour.
I loved that the bee was so tiny, you could wear this brooch and no one would even notice.
I’m not a brooch sort of person. I’m certainly not a £110 brooch sort of person.
I could imagine wearing this secret bee on occasions when I wanted to be reminded of happy bee things, like magic, dreams and inspiration.
Maybe I could wear it to the office with the smart new dress and shoes?
I never wear brooches. I never buy £110 jewellry. But this week I’d had a £890 tax rebate. It was also our 5th anniversary and we hadn’t decided what to do about presents. Plus my boyfriend had said I should buy myself something as a reward for starting a new job.
Maybe I could justify spending £110 on a magic secret weapon eBay bee?
Or was this just another dull Kent weekend purchase? Would it really cheer me up or just be another thing to mark the day? Did I really need a gold bee to remind me of dreams and inspiration and magic? Wasn’t all this a part of me, so why did I need an expensive symbol to wear?
My boyfriend emailed, mentioning news of a friend finding difficulties buying his house. It reminded me of our struggle to save up for a deposit, plus the added complication that I wanted a move to expensive London. £110 bees wouldn’t help our plans.
It was, after all, just a thing.
It was a lovely thing… A thing that I would treasure forever, and wear regularly, and even want to be buried in (yes, I saw an eBay brooch and decided this.) This little bee would always remind me of my dreams and hope and inspiration.
I made a decision. I would find money for a deposit, the house in London, and the bee too.
I would fund this bees purchase by selling on eBay all the crap I’d bought at Bluewater this winter.
The eBay bee had no bids, which was hardly surprising, Victorian insect brooches are not fashionable. There was a strange fad for Victorian ladies to cover themselves in flies, spiders and bejewelled bugs, but this craze hadn’t lasted. In any case this bee was an expensive example. I’d checked eBayVictorian gold brooches and realised I could have my pick of gold brooches for around that price.
I only wanted this bee.
The auction ended just after my boy’s bedtime. I liked the timing. It meant that as my hard day of stay at home mothering was ending, as I transformed from bored Mum into a screenwriter with 75 pages under her belt, the moment would be marked with the purchase of a symbolic bee. It no longer mattered that this symbolic (possibly magical) bee was £110 expensive.
As I finished putting my son to bed my iPhone pinged with an ‘eBay auction ending’ notice.
4 minutes to go, 0 bids.
A bid of £110 would be enough to win this.
I typed £115, smiling because 5 is my favourite number.
I headed downstairs to my laptop, ready to log into PayPal and pay. I decided the bee might arrive by Wednesday if I was lucky, in time to wear to the office on Thursday.
I’d been outbid. The bee had sold for £117.
It was all over.
Of course I still have magic, inspiration, dreams and all that.
The only real change is that I’m writing this blog post tonight instead of page 76 of my screenplay.
I just don’t have this thing. This beautiful thing.
The grey-blue metallic swans are the possession of bluewater. They are a lifeless facsimile of elegant and majestic creatures who strive freely in ponds far from material heaven. They can only hint at a tranquil location, for the reality of their situation is the heights of human demand, greed and mayhem. No amount of love could beckon these swans ashore.
Had you come to possess it, the bee though also a facsimile would have been an aide memoir to the heart and soul that beats within and defines you. Most that saw you striding through life would see only a golden bee facsimile. Those same swans in another’s pond might speak genuinely of tranqulity.
The stars in London are obliterated by light pollution, we need Greenwich facsimiles. I once lay on the Devon coast, and just watched the universe unfold and swallow me in its immenseness. We are all an insignificant brooch on someone’s shoulder. I think the bee would have been a fine choice for a momento mori. I want the bee too.