I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled...

Where were we yesterday, mes dahlinks?

What's that you say? Fhina lifts ear trumpet to cabbage ear...

Ah, yes, la Wiki and her foretelling of what might happen to la Fhina were she not to get her dear ass back to The Office next week...

It won't be easy for her, you say?

How do you imagine that? For we all pretty much have to work, to earn our baguette, don't we?

... Unless one is, as you say, like eccentric Miss Havisham, 'independently wealthy...'

"Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that Miss Havisham is only in her mid-fifties... (Phew, I've still got a few years left, then!)

However, it is also indicated that her long life away from the sunlight has in itself aged her, and she is said to look like a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton, with moving eyes. (...Not a good look, Fhina has found - Not even the Sainted YSL's Touche Eclat can help with that, mes jolies!)



"Miss Havisham's mother died when she was just a baby, and her father, a wealthy brewer, spoiled her as a result. When he died, he left her most of his money. As an adult, she fell for a man named Compeyson, who was out to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen.



At twenty minutes to nine on their wedding day, while she was dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realized that he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar.

"Humiliated and heartbroken, Havisham had all the clocks stopped at the exact point in which she had learned of her betrayal. From that day on, she remained by herself in her decaying mansion, Satis House, never removing her wedding dress (as a result of being in the process of getting dressed when she receives the letter, she only has one shoe on), leaving the wedding cake uneaten on the table and only allowing a few people to see her. She can be called eccentric..."

You don't say! Fhina, in a very large nutshell, en effet!

Did you know, mes dahlinks, that, Eliza Emily Donnithorne (1827-1886) of Camperdown, Sydney, was jilted by her groom on her wedding day in 1846 and spent the rest of her life in a darkened house, her rotting wedding cake left as it was on the table, and her front door kept permanently ajar in case her groom ever returned (although he died in 1852). ...She was widely considered at the time to be Dickens' model for Miss Havisham, although this cannot be proven".



And there you have it, mes dahlinks, never mind 'Blogger's Ass', if I were to remain at home, with only the love of blogging to sustain me, I could turn into one of the Miss Havishams, or might even become like Greta, hiding from the world, in order to sustain my mystique, my beauty (*ahem*), my intrigue and feminine allure, for many years...

Do you believe that, mes paramours? No, neither do I, but I have to get to a point where I say it... I love you more than I love my possessions... You have become more than dahlink friends to me, and have seen me through wibbles and wobbles and secrets and lies (there weren't any lies, really, truly...For you know I can't...); the glass half full, glass half empty; the stained glass; the designer baggage, and my literary aspirations, and things for me will never be the same again...

I shall be stepping up my entry back to the world of full time work over the next few weeks, with more than full time commuting -- Living out in the sticks as I do and working in the city...

Please forgive me and please do stick with me if I seem a little distant, a tad more absent, over this time... If I do not manage to come and say, Bonjour, each day, in fact...



...It is not me who is driving Fhina to this madness, it is that mustachio-twirling evil-doer, that weighted millstone around my neck, it is the blasted mortgage on Crumbling Crawford Mansions that is pulling me back to the harsh strip light of the modern gaol cell - The Office...




As Garbo, I want to say, and I know you know, I love you lots, loads in fact, and will see (and kiss, air or otherwise - for you know how soppy la Fhina can be?) you soon, mes champignons du mars... I might not be here every day from Wednesday onwards, but think of me here, indomitable in spirit, and seen only in glimpses, in chi-chi sunglasses, undulating silk scarf pulled over my golden tresses, and always, always, that raincoat, cinched provocatively around my (ever-expanding!)waist a la Garbo...



Things will never be quite the same again, now that I have met y'all, you beauties, and thank you in advance for staying by me... It's not au revoir, it's more a bientot