Sophie's World: A Sneak Peek!

It’s blog time and this week’s been a busy one! Between the Manvers Lake Dragon Boat Race and the Wentworth Festival, we’d hardly had a moment to breathe! That’s why we’re grateful to take a sneak peek into the wonderful (and fictional) diary of Sophie, which can be found in the much anticipated column “Sophie’s World” in our magazine. We’ve even given you a sneak peek of the logo - do you like it? Let us know.

Monday, September 20th 2021

Three words for the week: Annoyed. Tired. Monday.

So this is diary-keeping. Mum says she’s fed up of hearing it and I should write it all down. Apparently, it’ll be funny some day. Or that reading it back’ll help me get to sleep.

I don’t really know where to start. Yesterday? Yesterday, Rachael came round and said “leave him”. She tossed her platinum and brass hair in the air as she said it. “Leave him.” Helen at least had the good grace to look at the floor as she said it. This was, of course, just before she - Rachael - broke a nail on our decking. Freshly done, my **** - the growth on those was three weeks minimum. [note to self - mustn’t swear in the diary; kids might find it]. Anyway, that’s not the beginning...

I’d have left him, I think, if he’d not gone already. If he’d tried to stay. If he’d wanted us. Well, me. Not that he’s seen the kids… But he just stood, looking at his socks, so I looked at them too. The left one, with a hole in the toe: it couldn’t decide whether to be grey or yellow and the right one, still white but wrinkling around the ankle and I thought, that’s us, those socks. That’s what we’ve turned into. And then I laughed. And him, in his socks, he smirked too and our eyes met and-

And then I remembered. Her. Stood behind him. And our holiday photo, the one we took in Majorca in 2008 that had James - Jimmy then - beaming at the camera with a beautiful gummy smile, clutching his starfish teddy, was suddenly at a right angle on the floor, their enthusiasm having knocked it over. She’s a knee high sock. Maybe even a fishnet one.

Nobody needs three socks. I guess we aren’t a pair anymore. But who wants to be an old, odd sock? We were better off mismatched. Well, I was; he’s stuffing all different kinds of socks together now, I expect.

When she said it though - Rachael - I just nodded. I didn’t have the energy to explain that it didn’t matter. That he didn’t want me enough to give me the opportunity to reject him. I just nodded. It was enough. She started ranting about Lee and his ever-expanding football strip collection, her ice clinking jarringly against the plastic beaker she’d poured her ready-mixed margarita into and it’s you I want to be telling about Rachael, Dave, not mum and not a sodding diary. But I can’t. Because I’m an old, odd, wrinkling sock.

I’ll try again soon.

Soph x [Who’s the ‘x’ for?]