Funerals

One of my favourite bloggers 'Inspired by Caffeine & Nicotine' has just written a piece about where he'd like his body to go after his funeral. I really like his idea of sending half of his ashes around the world in a chain letter while the other half are to be blown in the eyes of his enemies.

I was having a little 'Grrrr' moment at the time and, morbid as it might seem, it set me thinking about gravestones. What words would I like on mine? I decided on:

'She was never taken seriously'

My 'Grrr' moment was because I'd mentioned the cupcake business I have recently started (which I hope might one day be enough to get me out of the world of cleaning while I wait to be 'discovered' by a fabulous literary agent -- I can dream, can't I?) to a family member. Rather than give me a few well chosen words of encouragement, they said what I should be doing is making brownies because they had read of a woman who had made squillions out of her brownies. The point is my cupcakes are really lovely and scrumptious, I've set up the business and if I'd wanted to sell frigging brownies I would have made frigging brownies! Why do people always start sentences with 'what you should do?' As if they have just got to give you advice.

Of course, the other reaction I usually get to my cupcake business is: 'Well, I know a woman and she makes the best cakes in the entire universe.'

It's almost as if they are saying 'you can't possibly be any good at this?'

It's the same with my writing. Fortunately, I am blessed with a few wonderful supporters and you know who you are. The rare, few people who have championed my pursuit to be a writer and for those people I say thank you so much because generally speaking the reaction to my writing is somewhat different. For example, when I won the first short story competition I had ever entered people told me to enjoy the moment because it was beginners luck and probably wouldn't happen ever again. And if they didn't say that they said 'Yeah, well. I could write I just don't have time.'

Even now, when I sell a short story, people invariably say: 'Oh, are you still writing those little stories of yours, then?' Or 'haven't had any success with your book though, have you?'

One person actually said: 'Oh, you're not still banging on about wanting to be a writer, are you?

I have come to the conclusion that people have put me in a nice little box marked 'cleaner' and it wouldn't matter if I brought peace to the world, eliminated hunger and cured every known disease they still wouldn't take me seriously.

Before I became a cleaner (I became a cleaner so that I could be a full time mum) I was a P.A to a board of directors in London and then Office Manageress at a Japanese shipping company in Vancouver.

But that's a long time ago. Now I'm only a cleaner. That's how people describe me when I'm in their homes. 'Oh, it's only the cleaner,' I hear them say to their friends on the telephone.

And that is why I want 'She was never taken seriously' on my gravestone!