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

Garbo and Great Expectations...

I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference.

I have recently completed a fun, quick quiz that was signposted just the other day by the deliciously funny, Comedy Goddess

She had found it here at Quizilla...

The idea of the quizlette being that you find out which 1930's actress you could have been... Simples, non? And I came closest to being like the biggest actress of the Silent Era, lovely Greta Garbo... Quelle surprise, non?!

Well you all know, mes bloggy chums, just how star-struck your dahlink Fhina can be, n'est-ce pas? And, would you believe, I once took part in an exercise at work -- You know that 'Creeping Death' kind of thing, where you share with colleagues one thing about yourself that they might not know? You can imagine, mes paramours, that with Fhina being so gobby, there remains little about me that even the nice old man who sells fruit at the stall 'daan the markit' does not know...

On this occasion, however, the idea was to share a dream career path that we would have trodden, were it not for the good old British Civil Service that has gobbled us up like a spider eating a pesky fly... And can you guess, mes dahlinks, what bold Fhina's answer would have been?!



Mais oui, certainement, I would have wanted to be a great actress... Not just any actress. Hell, no!

A great actress, a diva -- Not necessarily nasty in a Mommie Dearest kind of way, but definitely a star in the cinema firmament. Just like Greta in fact... Then later, I might have been able to say, tearfully, "I vant to be alone..."

Some of you might remember me from my origins here in Hollyblogland... Back in January, I arrived here with mes bruised and battered Louis Vuitton bagages, just like the divine Joan Collins, while awaiting surgery on my back... Eventually, I underwent virtually the same op that David Tennant, the outgoing BBC Dr Who, has had in fact... Except he was back on stage at The National playing Hamlet almost as quickly as you can say Jack Lemmon... ...But not jumping around, or lifting anything of course... Not even 'Alas poor Yorick's' skull, as it turned out.



Et alors, the time has come, the Grandfather Clock has struck the Witching Hour, and Wiki Goddess help me, I am going to attempt a return to work next week -- Without which, I do fear I shall become very like a modern-day Miss Havisham, all musty cobwebs, rotten cake and skreeking rats in my coiffure...



But you know me, non? The dim light on the virtual horizon is that I have found the very bag, specially created for me in my new role... Voila! And do you like it, mes bloggy parentheses?



Have you met Miss Havisham? She is a wealthy spinster in Charles Dickens' novel, Great Expectations. She lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella, while she herself is described as looking like "the witch of the place".

La Wiki has been doing my homework for me again - Shame! "Miss Havisham is a contradictory character in literature and in the context of her time. Unlike most unmarried women of the era, her wealth gives her tremendous power, which she uses to coax others to do her bidding and to advance her aims, yet she allows her disappointment at being stood up at the altar to ruin her life. She lays waste to her estate, symbolic of herself, and tries to spread her cynicism and malaise to everyone she touches. She is manic (...oui, it could be me after all!) and often seems insane (ca, c'est vrai!), flitting around her house in a faded wedding dress (tick), keeping a decaying feast on her table (tick), and surrounding herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine (almost, but not quite...).

I shall bleat a little more tomorrow like a new born lamb, if that is all right with you, mes ewes? I feel a little migraine coming on, and a darkened room is beckoning... There is a black velvet chaise longue to languish upon, the oak blinds are drawn on all the blistering windows, and I vant to be alone... A demain, mes bon-bons... Quick kiss? Mwah!