The Tale Of Fredo Viola, The Sad Song And Faith In Humanity.


First of all, listen to Fredo Viola's 'Sad Song.'

Isn't it absolutely beautiful?

Then read the following email exchange between my brother-in-law and Fred Viola, my brother-in-law's being the first email.


Subject: Your wonderful music

Hi,

I just watched/listened to 'The Sad Song' (I got it on a link from this irreverent and brilliantly silly newsletter: http://www.b3ta.com/newsletter/issue157/ ) I was completely blown away, absolutely beautiful. I listened to some of your other MP3's and I'm hooked.

If it is not too much trouble, could you let me know how much you would need to post a copy of your CD to London England (on top of the $15 for the CD)?



Subject: Re: Your wonderful music

Hello there,

Thank you very much for the kind note! Yes, I've gotten a solid amount of traffic from that newsletter! :) If you add five dollars I will send you a cd. :) Thank you very much, again, for the encouragement. It really means a lot to me.

Sincerely,
Fredo Viola


Subject: Re: Your wonderful music

Thanks very much,

I am just waiting on a late payment from a client (freelance design - great when you are working from home in your underwear - sucks when your invoices are ignored by companies who's daily coffee bill is double what you're owed...) So I will get on the case and order your CD as soon as possible.

Thanks again


Subject: Re: Your wonderful music

Send me your address. I will send you a cd, and you can pay me if and when you are able. :)

- Fredo


Subject: RE: Your wonderful music

So, I wake up with a bit of a hangover, and I have to cycle into central London to get a new PC mouse as my last one packed up yesterday. Its Armistice day, so at 11am the world is supposed to stop, just for a minute, to quietly remember all those who gave their lives so we could live, and to remind ourselves why we shouldn't have any more wars, and I'm in the Virgin Megastore (huge loud record shop) at 11, and they didn't even turn the music off. I left and had my quite minute on the street outside, no one else stopped.

So this, coupled with my hangover pisses me off.

The PC Shop didn't have the mouse they said they did on the phone.

On the ride out to my studio in the East End, a taxi cuts me up and nearly knocks me off.

I decide to get a salt beef and mustard bagel to take the edge off, and the guy in front of me in the bagel shop orders 40, FORTY! salt beef and mustard bagels.

So by the time I get to my studio, my day is going very badly, I'm tired, hungover, pissed off, and hungry.

I open my emails and your random act of trust and kindness re-affirms my faith in humanity and makes me smile for the first time today.
So thank you Mr. Fredo Viola, you just made my whole day.

Footnote: whilst I was writing this, my lovely wife emails me just to tell me how much she loves me, and a client emails to tell me money has cleared my account - so I'm off to paypal right now. Some turnaround eh?


All the best


How lovely is that?

Oh, and to top it all the words at the end of the beautiful sad song are baby Harry be good.

Days Like These

You know those days when you just feel really, really glad to be alive? Well I'm having one of those and it isn't even eleven o'clock yet!

Today is a beautiful Autumn day, brightest sunshine yet cold and crisp and breathakingly colourful and as I drove to work (to do a job I love and which inspires me) through the gorgeous Wiltshire countryside I listened to the beautiful man's birthday CD of Ben Folds Five. Played it loudly. And sung all the way.

I love my life.

And those of you who are in it, you help to make it that way. You make me feel joyous.

Be Careful With Words

On 'Lith, 'Sleazenation' started a thread entitled Good News which has the summary: "Describe to me in single words only the good things that come into your head..."

And then Autodidactic on Live Journal wrote Tell Me Something Good About Your World.

I love both of these.

It makes you think. You have to choose carefully. If you have only a single word for each 'good thing' then it makes you sparing about a/what to include, b/how to include it and c/how to make it make sense.

I like the idea of this. I like the idea of telling a story in limited, individual, single words. It's a similar principle to the Haiku poem; sparing and minimal.

Ha. You see, limits are good, because we writers tend to delight in the sound of our own typing. We can be so garrulous. (N.B. I am assuming here for the purposes of this entry that I also count as a writer. No pretence of talent or intelligence or glamour or grandeur should be assumed by this, I am merely referring to the fact that I put fingertip to keyboard on a fairly regular basis.)

So anyway. This is what I wrote:

Mist
Autumn
Trees
Golden
Driving
Home

then

Hearth
Wood
Warmth
Love
Him
Son

then

Laugh
Family
Kiss
Desire
Coat
Fireworks!


What would you write?

So That's Four Down...

My maternal Grandmother just died. The one that taught me how to make jam tarts. She was very old; she was ninety three and very senile. Still, that's four members of my family to have died in just under three years, my maternal Grandfather, my Great Auntie, my Father and now my Grandma. They say it takes you two years to get over the death of a member of your family. Do you think you can have them all in one go or do they have to run consecutively?

I'm not yet crying about my Grandma though. Mostly I feel relieved. Is that bad? No, mainly how I feel is a sudden and growing awareness that there's not many of us left now, my family. It doesn't take two hands to count them. In fact I can count all the people I love with my whole heart on both of my hands.

How very strange.

That means that the older I get, the wiser I am and the more I have to give, the less people I love.

So That's A Resounding YES Then...

On the way home I am thinking, and I'm wondering, and I'm hoping and dreaming and planning. Basking in the beauty of the bruised plum coloured clouds and the sun setting behind them, loving my life and the people in it, and then I see this:



One beautiful beam of what my Father used to call 'proper God light'. Just one, just one in the whole sky shining straight in my direction.

Confirmation, if I needed it.

*Dances.*

As if I need it.

And to top it all I take a picture with my phone and I decide to try, just for the hell of it to send it to my Phlog which hasn't accepted pictures for months. And I get home and I check online and find that it's working again! I can send pictures again! Woo. Yay.

No, no no no no. Stop it right now. Surely?


So I'm driving along, listening to the radio and a song comes on which contains the lyrics:

All you ladies pop that thing like this
Shake your body, don't stop, don't quit
All you ladies pop that thing like this
Shake your body, don't stop, don't quit
Just do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now

Lick this, just like you should
Right now, Lick it good
Lick this just like you should
My Neck, my back
Lick my ... just like that

It's by Khia, apparently. It's number 4 in the charts and if you want to you can hear it by clicking 'listen' here. There's a proper not-for-radio dirty version (just in case the one above isn't dirty enough) which is even ruder, and which goes as follows:

Lick it good suck this pussy, just like you should
Right now, Lick it good
Suck this pussy just like you should
My Neck, my back
Lick my pussy and my crack

So is that OK then? These days?

It's a pop song about oral sex! Oral sex! Does there need to be a song about it then? Is it cool to write songs about oral sex then? These days?

Are all the female teens walking down the school corridors singing 'Lick my (ahhh)' or even 'Lick my pussy' and if they are, should they be? Aren't some things better left unsung about?

Is it just me that feels like this? Am I just really old and out of touch to find this slightly weird?

Only it's just...just...so rude!

Sigh.

*Smoothes apron and goes back to baking scones.*

A Simple Yet Apparently Necessary Lesson On How To Get Your Cat Fed Whilst You Are Away.

A. Do do this:

You: Call someone and have the following conversation:

You: Hello. Will you feed my cat when I'm away?
Potential cat-feeder: Of course. From when till when?
You: (Specify dates)
Potential cat-feeder: Lovely, see you soon then. Bye.

Result: Cat gets fed, all are happy.



B. Don't do this:

You: Leave a message on potential cat-feeder's phone and assume they've got it.
(N.B. Especially don't do this when potential cat feeder is depressed and therefore renowned for not checking their phone messages.)

Potential cat-feeder: Doesn''t get message for four days, then feels awful about enforced cat starvation.

Result: Cat starves for 4 days, all feel bad.



Lesson Number Two.

On discovery of non-cat-feedage, don't do this:

1. Find out cat hasn't been fed and blame non-feeder. Non-feeder does not know he/she was non-feeder since no feeding was requested (as far as he/she knows) in the first place.
2. Blame all other people related to non-feeder, just because they should have telepathically known you had gone away and telepathically should have made non-feeder go and feed cat.
3. Spin Doctor all further reports on conversation to make out non-feeder relation does not give a shit about cat and in fact sends random and horrible text messages related to cat, without regard for cat, cat's well-being, or indeed away-ness induced hunger.

Here endeth the lesson.

Job Things

Well work is ace and it appears I might even get a money increase due to my obviously enchanting nature which is rather lovely...

What's even nicer is that apparently all the other people that applied were as qualified as me, 1 had an MA and 2 even had PhD's. But they chose me over everyone else because I was the most 'likeable'. I had considered that maybe I was picked because I was by far and away the most qualifed - I mean who else with my qualifications would apply for a job with such bad pay?

Well it seems lots of people did. And all with the same idea as me; to use it as a stepping stone into the environmental industry.

So yes, today my job involved well, lessee, a little meeting in the morning, replying to some letters from local residents and then a lovely 4 hour walk around the Stonehenge site looking at the impact the application could make.

Bother. What a chore.

And when I come home, when I come home there's an angel waiting for me who kisses me and sings beautiful things to me and who writes delightful poetry. "Darlink, the voice of an angel" in every way.

It makes me want to dance and weep with the loveliness of it all and I never want it to end.

On Shortly Returning To The Working World.

I've got a job! (Well I have subject to references and all that palaver). I shall soon be working out a six month contract as part of the special planning team responsible for overseeing the planning application for the redevelopment of the Stonehenge site.

Which is exciting.

It's appalling money - even less than I am getting on benefit (I can't quite work out how that's legally possible, but still) because it's part funded by English Heritage.

So part of my job will be to field all the complaints, enquiries, comments and general kerfuffle from local residents, druids, politicians, environmental groups and basically everyone with a point that a project application like the Stonehenge one generates.

I'm really looking forward to it, not in the least because there is no ideal solution to the current problem which is as follows:

The visitor centre and welcome area is basically completely shit, the current A303 road runs directly to past side of the site and another local road runs directly past the other. This is not good for the monument itself or for the visitors who come to see it. The idea is to re-route the A303 underground (and widen it in the process) rebuild the visitor centre 3 miles away, close off the local road and bus visitors to the site itself. But some people say all the land around the site is sacred and shouldn't be interefered with, some people say re-routing the road is just a sneaky way of beginning the process of building a motorway to the South West, some people will object to the new location of the visitor centre and some will object to the closure of the local road. Some will object to the cost, some will object to the noise and upset and some will object just because they like writing stroppy letters to governmental bodies.

Currently, I have no definite opinion on it. I am just glad to be part of the team who is working on deciding about it, because it's a site that really, really matters to me.

So Yay for me. I feel very proud of myself for getting it.

Raindrops On Roses and Kettle With Noses And Other Lovely Things...

So we're busy chopping the long limbs off trees and I'm balancing precariously up a ladder trying to saw the branch off an overgrown Ash, and then Harry offers to help. He wants to hold the ladder.

"No," says my Mum, "Your Mummy shouldn't really be balancing like that at all, and I have to hold the ladder very still. But you know what? I wish you could make us a cup of tea."

Tea! Oh please, bring me tea!" I say, and we both laugh.

But Harry says, "I can! I can do that! Can I try? Mummy? Can I try?"

"Well," I say, "I suppose you can put the kettle on, that would help."

"Cool!" Says Harry, "What do I do?"

"Go into the kitchen," I say, "Get the kettle, fill it about half full with water and then put it back on the base and switch the red switch on."

So off he goes, and he's gone a while and then he comes back and he says, "Mummy, where do I put the water? Does it go in its nose?"

And my Mum and I crease up at the idea of the kettle having a nose.

And I say, "Yes, it goes in the nose."

So off he goes again, and then he comes back and he says, "I've done it. But Mummy, why were you laughing at me?"

So I tell him, "We weren't laughing at you my love, we were just laughing because you called the bit where the water comes out a 'nose'. It was cute. It was funny. But the actual proper word for it is a spout."

"Oh." He says. "Spout."

And you can see him thinking.

And then he says, "What, like dogs have, instead of a nose? A spout like them?"

And I practically fall off the ladder I'm laughing so much.

***

Nose?
Spout?
Snout?
It's all much the same really, and to be honest I far prefer the idea that my kettle has a nose and my dog has a spout. It makes the world a much more interesting place to be. Don't you think?

Officially My Bestest Ever Joke.

A chicken and a frog are in the library. As the chicken walks along the shelves he goes, "Book, book, book."

The frog follows behind going, "Readit, readit, readit."


The beautiful man told me that.

Erroll The Computer Bug.

I've got my own little computer bug. How nice. He's called Erroll and he's an earwig. He's inside my keyboard.

I can see him because the keyboard is mostly clear plastic.

I've tried to shake him out, but he won't go. He's just cruising round the letters going, "Oooohhh, so theeese is D" in a little earwiggy exploratory voice.

I feel really worried about typing on him.

Do you think he wants to become a pet?

The curse of metaphysical spots, the problems with believing in them and how to get rid of them 'belief stylie'.

It occurs to me that I know a fairly large amount of people who for one reason or another spend a lot of their time hissing 'Out, out damn spot.'

A lot of their time.

It appears to be a vital component of their lives.

They hiss at their hands, at their computers, at their diaries, at their phones. Or even their own heads.

And it has come to my attention that possibly the best way to 'Out, out damn spot,' is not to constantly hiss 'Out, out damn spot' in an obviously failing mantra, during an obviously flawed ritual, but possibly to completely forget that there was a spot to out in the godamn, fucking first place.

I mean, if the spot is completely forgot, then the spot is nothing, right? It's only the attention of the 'Out damn spotter's' that keeps the spot being tangible. Isn't it?

Isn't it true that things only exist if they are believed in? If they are seen and acknowledged?

So if we all forgot there ever was a spot, then surely there would be no spot at all. Any more.

There would be no spot.

Would there not?

On un-PC thoughts, the limited strength of women and why some roles are truly the domain of the male.

Why do the men who fix the wheels on cars tighten the bolts so tightly? And why do the men who design car parts make spare wheels so heavy?

I'm really starting to feel like it's a big conspiracy to make the female tyre-changing populace feel useless.

I mean I know how to change a tyre. I know where the jack goes and I know to loosen the bolts before I jack the car up because otherwise the wheel just spins and you can't undo them. I know where all the components needed for changing a tyre live in my car, and I know the correct application for each (odd looking) tool. I can, in theory, do it.

What foxes me is a/lifting the spare tyre from the wheel well in my boot and b/loosening the bolts on the flat tyre in the first instance.

Not being able to do these things makes me feel affronted. I feel feak and weeble and what's worse is that it makes me feel the following: that because I have breasts what I really should be doing is flagging down a hunky man to help me, whilst I simper pathetically over his shoulder being impressed with his strength. And his oily hands.

But you want to know the really annoying thing? The really annoying thing is this: Why, WHY when I know how to do this job and I can do it perfectly well given the right amount of time, thankyouverymuch, why is it that as I try to heave the fucking spare tyre out of the wheel well and it defeats me, why is it that what goes through my head is not inspirational thoughts encouraging myself to do the job successfully, oh no.

What goes through my head is the immediate knowledge that a man could do it very easily, followed by the desire to have said man on hand in order to assist me, followed by the horrible frustration of knowing a/that there isn't one available and even more upsettingly, b/that what I actually truly wish for is one to do it for me in the first place thereby relieving me of the problem entirely.

You see, when I saw I had a flat tyre I wanted to cry because I knew, KNEW it would be a hassle to change it. And it was.

It's all very well being a modern, independent, free-thinking woman, one that thinks 'I can do anything!' But sometimes I really feel like that's just not true. In the time it took me to change one tyre I could have cooked 'the man that could have changed it for me' breakfast, lunch and tea. AND done the washing up. And put the washing on. And probably even started the ironing.

***

What? WHAT?!

I know that's not terribly PC, but I could have!

And the worst thing is, I don't know whether to feel good or bad about that. Does that mean I am really forward thinking and can assign the correct tasks to the best people for them, or am I just a useless female who is better at keeping house than manual labour?

And if the latter is true, is that so bad?

I really want to know.

Is that honestly so bad?

I Have won an X-Box. Apparently. "THIS IS NOT SPAM."

But is it spam? Have I won an X-Box? You tell me...Only do it QUICKLY. I only have 72 hours to 'comply.'

Here is what I got in the mail:

***

Greetings,

Your email address was entered into our Microsoft X-Box promotional competition
by either yourself or a friend, or perhaps a family member, at http://www.gift-winner.com

This is a prize draw, you have actually won a brand new Microsoft X-Box Gaming Console!

Your package also includes these top 5 games:
- Halo: Combat Evolved
- Grand Theft Auto Double Pack
- NBA Street Vol. 2
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow

You are now invited to login to our website and claim your prize that you have won.
There are only 5 winners in total this month, out of thousands of emails, so do count yourself lucky!

We have provided the following web link for you, it is temporary and expires in 72 hours.
If you do not login within this time, your X-Box shall unfortunately be returned to the prize pool.

Here is your link!
*** Dodgy link - these are my words not theirs for you to click on. ***

On this page you will need to enter this pass code number to proceed:

29071

***

(N.B: I post this passcode here so that you can clearly see the whole deal. f you enter this passcode it's you and not me that is falling for the scam and I wish to make sure that EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT!)

***

This is very important. Do not lose that number!

Put in your address, and we will send your X-Box to you.

We hope that you will enjoy your new X-Box gaming console.

Best Regards,

From Microsoft and the Gift-Winner.com team!

***

So have I? I think not, since I have to pay the shipping costs.

But have I?

Answers on a postcard please...

Do All The Things You Have Been Dreaming Of.

Get a life, get a reason for being, get a place to be it and a way to do it. Get a way to be it and a place to do it. Get a sensible attitude and a reasoned way of living, get a reasonable attitude and a sensible way of living.

Get the point.

Get something. Anything.

Take your finger out of your belly button and stop waiting for life to come to you. It will not happen without you, you are it, this is it. Did you know that some people subscribe to the view that this life is the actual Heaven that people are eternally searching for?

Stop wanting to be wanted and start wanting. Stop needing to be needed and start needing. Stop caring about what others think and instead think of the others that care about you.

Stop reading about other people. Stop reading about them and if you can't do anything else, for fucks sake, write your own fucking story instead.

Get off your arse and back in the fast line, get fast, and out of the slow lane. Get into the story and stop observing, or observe and write the story yourself.

Get the point, get the goddamn, fucking point.

Stop the indecision and make a decision.

Gather the happiness in armfuls, like harvested corn and then throw it up in the air and watch it, feel it as it showers down all around you, covers you with the dust of grain and kernels. Note the beginning of everything.

Stop deliberately making the happiness into badness, sadness.

Stop going to to bed. Stop going to bed and dreaming of the things you should be doing. Stop living life virtually and instead, instead, actually go and actually do all of the things you have been dreaming of.

Or even go to bed and be awake and alive and inspired and challenged and live. Because at least that would be something.

Find your master skill. Skillfully master something.

Stop closing your eyes.

The colour red may not be red. Have you thought about that?

Open your eyes, pick yourself up, dust down your skirts, pull out your secret weapon, call upon your master skill, rely on no-one, look inward, gaze outward, take in the scenery, observe the landscape, compose yourself, take a deep, deep breath and then...

GET. ON. WITH. IT.

Stop reading, stop writing and stop thinking about it. Really stop.

***

Now start doing.

On your marks....
Get set...
GO.

That Old Cake Thing Again.

So the best friend with baby Tilly asks me, a day or so after my sister's wedding, if I wouldn't mind making a cake for Tilly's Celebration party.

"A single Cake I say. I don't mind making just one cake. But I'm not making loads like we did before."

"Cool," she says, "Excellent. Can it have icing strawberries on it?"

"Icing strawberries!" I say. "What a wicked idea!"

So that's what we've been doing for the past week, my Mum and I. Making icing strawberries and strawberry flowers and leaves and bows and butterflies all for a pink cake, which is also pink and cream marbly sponge inside, and which has strawberry icing. Yum.

So here it is, Ta-da!



The star of the party probably won't be impressed since she still prefers baby rice, but hey, she might like the pretty colours and I'm glad to make it for her.

Still, the sense of satisfaction I get from doing it is disturbing. I am becoming increasingly terrified of turning into one of those sugarcraft women, who have frilly aprons and badly permed hair.

*Shivers.*

On The Problems Of Listening To Radio Programmes And Why I Think Monty Don Is A Bit Of A Guru.

Last week, after dropping Harry off at school and whilst driving to Sainsbury's I heard a Radio 4 programme called Devout Skeptics. It was so interesting and so gripping for me since it was directly about something I had been thinking about for a while now that when I got to Sainsbury's I sat in the car park in my car for 25 minutes in order to hear the rest of the programme.

The guest on the programme was Monty Don, the gardener, a fairly unassuming slighlty famous person whom I have never paid a great deal of attention to other than the fact that I read his column in the sunday paper. But anyway. On the radio he was talking about how he felt about religion. Or rather irreligion. Or rather any conversation that encompasses being, eternity, oneness, reason and life.

And he said this:

"The problem is that in the Western world we are linguistically ill-equipped to describe what we mean."

Which really struck a chord with me.

Basically what he's saying is that we simply do not have the words. In Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism for example, concepts such as (having trouble finding the words here, hahahahaha) the 'eternal oneness that is all things' have proper descriptive words that enable students to discuss these things fully. In the Western world, because our concepts are generally reductivist, (i.e. we tend to try to reduce things down to a single meaning) it means we cannot translate those Eastern concepts succesfully, and the language barrier (in terms of character) makes transliteration difficult too.

So yes. I've been thinking about this for a bit, and then I happen to hear a programme on the radio where someone happens to suggest that the problem is the fact that Westerners are linguistically stuck, and well, it just made the connection with me.

So I want to find it again to quote him.

How does one find old radio programme transcripts? Or even download the actual programme itself? Is this possible? I believe it is, since I have a friend who appears to think so.

And can one do it on a 56k modem or will it cost thousands of pounds, cost hundreds of lives and take tens of hours?

Bad Karma, Snail Murder And The Warped Web-Fu Of My Brother In Law.

So yes. To back track a little, The Beautiful Man and I are staying at my sister and my brother-in-law's flat (where the Hand Incident happened) and we find a pot in the garden with a wooden lid on it. So we lift the lid and inside we find about 20 live snails.

So we ponder this snail prison which my sister and her husband (who shall henceforth be known as The Snail Torturers) have created, and then The Beautiful Man goes and gets a marker pen and writes Camp X-Ray on the top of the lid. And we snicker for a bit and we think no more of it.

Then The Snail Torturers come back from their honeymoon and are obviously doing a bit of gardening because I get a text message from Snail Torturer A (my sister) saying, "I can't believe you wrote Camp X-Ray on the snails!" Which makes The Beautiful Man and me laugh quite a lot, because we had forgotten he did it.

So then, a week or so passes and we get an email from Snail Torturer B, (my brother-in-law) saying this: "Its not just me! I'm going to send them a picture of Camp X-Ray..." And he links us to Snailhausen.

Snailhausen!

I mean, Snailhausen!

Apparently, there is a couple (Mr and Mrs Wheatley) who are so upset by garden snail invasion that they have set up Snailhausen. And made a website about it. They've named the snails - currently the population of Snailhausen is only two (Miguel and Shaun) but worse than that is that Mr and Mrs Wheatley are asking the public to vote on which snail should be executed first.

And people are voting!

So I try to place a vote for 'neither', but it will not allow me to choose 'neither', I have to choose one or the other. Either Miguel dies, or Shaun does. Which is slightly upsetting.

I mean it's funny for a bit, but then it's not because I start to lose it, and my head starts to get all 'Big-Brother-Gone-Wrong' and 'The-Slow-Decline-Into-Public-Murder-Games-Begins.'-ish.

Because alright, it's only snails we're voting on now, but what about next year? Will it be people next year? I mean it could be, couldn't it? Where do you start? You start with snails right? I mean next year Mr and Mrs Wheatley could be running a production company which makes a TV show whereby people who have done something wrong are entered into a nationwide public vote in order that we may all decide which one of them should be executed.

Maybe you think I'm exaggerating, over-reacting, but how do you know that Mr and Mrs Wheatley won't have developed a taste for power by then, and won't have created a monster out of their little Snailhausen joke-ette?

Hmmm?

Hmmm??

***

*Breathes.*

So that's somewhat scary.

***

And then I start to think about how Snail Torturer B managed to find a website which would back up his case for torturing snails and I begin to wonder how long it took him to find something that would justify their actions, and I really start to think about what the Sam Hill he typed into Google in order to find it...

This? - 'Snail Torture'?
This? - 'Other people who torture snails like me'?
This? - 'Snail Camp X-Ray'?

THIS? - 'The snails must DIE, DIE I say KEEL them, KEEL them NOW'?!

I mean first there was 'Camberwell Camp X-Ray' and now there is Snailhausen.

It's all very worrying indeed.

Why I Wouldn't Be Any Good At Being A Fingerbobs Puppeteer At The Moment.*

Oh I feel miserable.

I've got a problem that I can't talk to anyone about but yet it would be nice to talk it through in order to clear my head of all the wispy bits of thought about it that are currently floating around. I hate things like that. I just keep batting away the thoughts as they flicker through my head and instead I am trying to distract myself from the whole rather pointless cycle of thinking about things I can't solve.

The trouble is distraction can't take the form of anything artlike, since my finger is still bent. It curves slightly to the left and is bent over like the top curve of a C and no matter how hard I try it just won't straighten. It doesn't hurt, it just doesn't work which is a little annoying because it is making my writing really messy, I can't really hold my paintbrush very well so I can't start the tree painting I want to do and I'm too scared to pick up a pencil and try drawing just in case it's all fucked up.

I can't mow the lawn since it's raining, and although I guess I could go and hang up all the clothes that are currently strewn all over my bedroom floor, it's not much fun and distraction tactics are supposed to be enjoyable, aren't they?

* Fingerbobs puppets rely on having your middle finger out straight to be the head and all the other fingers bent downwards at right angles in order to make the puppets legs. Since my ring finger won't bend downward anymore than it will straighten, my Fingerbobs puppet would therefore have one gammy looking leg and would probably scare small children.

On Stereotypical Sexual Comments And Why They Get Me Riled.

Becki (the Judas Kiss new girl) on Big Brother, nominated Dan (the beautiful, clever gay guy) for his 'squeamish and horrible comments about female genitalia.'

I am most upset about this. Not because Dan has been nominated, but for the reason why.

I so hope it wasn't the women = fish line. I know that line, I've head it from several friends of mine. It upset me then and I shouted at them for being so narrow-minded and plain nasty, and it upsets me now.

Listen, Dan, and everyone else who thinks that line is so funny: Women don't smell of fish. WE DON'T. (Only the girls who rarely wash ever come close to smelling of fish.) Saying women = fish is as low as the taunts children make about each other in the pre-prep playground.

Grow up and start accepting that people may not all share your particular preference.

I mean, some people like fish.

Hahahahaha....

Harry had sports day today and just to set the scene, last year he was so last in the sack race that he stepped out of his sack with a big grin on his face and hurled the sack over the finishing line. About 20 minutes after everyone else had crossed it.

But he's been practicing.

And this year, this year he came first in the running race, first in the egg and spoon and second in the sack race!

Oh, but how I cheered for him as he was doing them all - I didn't know I cared so much about whether he won or lost. My throat is sore now from screaming, "Come ON Harry!" so much.

Hmmm.

So anyway, I was going to write this: To be fair to myself I wanted him to win so that he would be proud of himself. But actually in retrospect, that can't be true.

Because, you see, he's so zen that he doesn't care whether he wins or loses. He says, "Well I tried my bestest, and that's what matters Mummy."

So I must have wanted him to win for me...

Which is weird.

Just call me competitive Mum.

Found Dog!

Hurrah!

Got a phone call this morning from the farmer's daughter saying, "Your dog's in our barley field!" So we drive like a mad thing round to the field and sure enough there he is standing right in the middle. The farmer and his wife and daughter are all standing at the entrance, occasionally calling his name to try to make him stay there till we get there, because they knew they can't catch him and he will only come to me.

So Harry and I run into the field shouting, "Pickles, Pickles" and suddenly his ears prick up and he comes hurtling towards us and I bend down and he leaps right into my arms.

Ooooooh! I am so pleased.

He's very muddy and tired but the vet thinks he's fine and he'll just sleep lots for a few days.

So Yay, for that.

*Grins lots.*

On The Political Opinion Of Six Year Olds And How Osama Bin Laden Can't Possibly Be Hiding Behind A Tree.

So we're eating our tea whilst watching a news item about Saddam Hussein and obviously this pings the naughty man = terrorist link in Harry's brain because, mid-mouthful of spaghetti, he asks, "Mummy, have they caught that naughty man who crashed the aeroplanes into the buildings yet?"

"Osama Bin Laden?" I say. "No, not yet."

"Oh." Harry says. And then with a tone of awe in his voice he adds, "He must have a very good hiding place. Not just behind a tree."

"Yes." I say. "I expect he's hiding in a much better place than that."

And he twirls his fork in the spaghetti, looking very thoughtful.

And then after a minute or so of thinking, he says, "Or maybe he is behind a tree and they're just really bad at seeking."

To-tor-o, Totoro!



It's utterly wonderful.

Thank you my friend who sent it to me.

On Why Reading Other People's Live Journal's And Losing A Dog Are Not Dissimilar.

A little while ago I made a pact with someone that we would not read the LJ's of the people who were gunning for us. That way, we thought, we couldn't be upset about what they might write, and could more easily get on with our lives.

The person whom I made the pact with is obviously far stronger willed than me, hasn't checked the LJ's since then, and as a result hasn't read any of the comments, but I, I just don't have that kind of strength in me. I feel somehow compelled to go and read the nastiness, feel the hurt and make myself upset about it. I can't help it even though I know it's going to be horrid.

Then, yesterday, whilst looking for the dog, Harry and I saw a white shape on the hill at Longleat. As we walked nearer we thought we also saw blood on the shape. We thought we saw blood, both of us, and yet we both felt compelled to continue walking towards the shape, convinced that it was Pickles, dead, but still having to look anyway even though we knew it was going to hurt.*

And that's the point, really. I wonder what it is in our nature that forces us to do things that we know are going to be upsetting and make us miserable, even though the sensible rational bit of our brain tells us not to look, to turn away.

It's like listening to songs that have sad connotations, songs played at funerals or ones that once symbolised a relationship you were in. You play them, even knowing that they're going to make you cry.

Well, I'm going to try my hardest not to do this from now on.

I'm going to try not to go to those miserable places, because for the first time in a long time I am starting to like my life, and like myself, I like the people in my life and the places I go to with them. I'm going to try my very best not to let the bad stuff get to me and I'm going to concentrate on the good and happy things I have in my life, instead.

Monty Pythonesque it may be, but, you know, it just might work.


* It wasn't Pickles. It was a ripped up sack and our eyes were playing tricks on us.

Pickle dog.



The gone one. *sniff*.

Dogone Dog Gone.

So far we have staple-gunned 65 posters to various trees, telegraph poles and random wooden posts within a five mile radius of the last sighting of said dog, all to no avail.

His basket is making me sad, and the spilled dog biscuits on the floor around his bowl make me even sadder. This morning I cleared them up and put them in the bin, and then I felt bad for doing it.

Then this morning, we had a visit from a lady who thinks she saw the dog on a road nearby, in a direction we hadn't yet considered.

So I've driven up and down the road and called and called and stapled a few more posters up and now it's back to waiting.

Again.

For a while the company I had made the lack of dog presence less obvious. But now the house feels utterly, utterly empty.

Feeling sorry for myself.




Because quite apart from anything else, it isn't just my hand that hurts.

The Perilous Tale Of Why You Should Never Drink Too Much In The Sun With Lovely People And Why Chairs Have Four Legs, Not Two.

Last Sunday we went to Brockwell Park to meet some lovely people from Barbelith. They were so lovely they gave us lots of champagne and wine to drink and strawberries to eat and then when the sun went down and we had tired of sitting in the shade of the trees we transplanted ourselves to the pub and drunk some more.

It was heaps of fun.

Then we went back to my sister's flat and I sat down at the kitchen table, tipped my chair back onto two legs and promptly fell backwards through the kitchen door.

Which was closed.
And made of glass.
And which was unfortunately not safety glass.

Cue much blood from my left hand, we have to call for an ambulance, we have a six hour wait in Lewisham hospital, prodding, poking and head-shaking, referrals to St Thomas's Plastics Department, a four hour wait there, more prodding, more head-shaking and finally an appointment for a general anaesthetic operation the following Friday, in order for them to sew up the nerve, look at the nicked tendon and remove the bit of glass they think is still in my hand. So we're stuck in London, computerless and me handless for a whole week.

So then yesterday they do the operation and I have to be driven home all the way back to Somerset because I can't drive and now my hand is bandaged up and I have a Harry Potter lightning shaped cut from the tip of my ring finger to the palm of my hand.

It hurts.

And I am having to make Tea and to wash and to brush my teeth and to eat and apply my make up and do basically everything with my right hand.

Which as I say is a bit difficult, because I am left handed.

How very dull.

In fact the only nice thing about the whole escapade is that I had an extra week with a lovely person and he nursed me through it all most spectacularly indeed.

So anyway, yes. That's why no posts from me.

Interestingly, everyone has been really kind and helpful about it all with the exception of one person who said when told, "I hope you lose your fucking finger." Which was fairly harsh but totally unsurprising.

And the moral of this story is, I guess: Never, ever go drinking in the sun with delightful people and follow it up by tipping your chair back overly near to dangerous doors.

I have just spent the past hour trying to write a reply to an email I received and I am rendered completely incapable of doing it because I am so incensed. Every time I think of a sentence it just turns into a rant and I end up pressing the keys too hard and using too many capitals and generally behaving like a mad woman with a big grudge and no sense, and all the time the little Angel on my left shoulder keeps telling me that it's "probably best left alone" but it's fighting a losing battle with the Devil on my right who's snickering in my ear and shrieking, "Give it to the fucker, say exactly what you think, are you REALLY GOING TO LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THAT? Doitdoitdoitdoit!"

So I'm going to briefly write it here instead in the vain hope that it calms me down and leaves my rational brain in charge again.

...

...

FUCK THE FUCK OFF with your pompous 'I've been on a course in assertiveness' bullshit pap psychology sentences such as: As none of this was vindictive I am just not going to feel guilty and I suggest you try to keep things in perspective for the reasons I've given. Brooding on what's done and saying "It is now rendered a sad and traumatic thing for me, instead of the joyful thing it should have been" is extremely counter-productive for you.

No, no, no, no, no. Those words are so very far from what you should have been saying, which was in fact just 'sorry'.

Once.

Nicely.

So here it is.

(Tumultuous fanfare)

The cake in all it's glory, on the day...



Look at my Mum's amazing sugar flowers on the top. We are glowingly feeling very proud of it indeed.

And here are we, there's my sister there in the posh wedding frock, and her hubby in the dark suit directly behind her behind her, my Mum to her left, and me on the far left with the pink hair and the inane grin. oh dear.

Hurrah! We've just about finished making my sister's wedding cakes. All 165 of them. Now all we have to do is get them to London in one piece.

Unrequited Lust of the Pointless Kind.

I fancy the lovely Daniel from Big Brother. This is seriously depressing.

I hate fancying gay men. It's worse than lusting after film stars. At least when you lust after, say, Johnny Depp, there remains the highly unlikely and very tiny but still real possibility that one day you might bump into him in the street and he'll fall deeply in love with you, take you home and shag you senseless.

Lusting after gay men is completely pointless and deeply unsatisfying. You can't even fantasize about them and they're certainly never going to bump into you on the street, fall deeply in love and take you home and shag you. Or even not fall in love and still shag you anyway.

Why does my limbic brain not know this? Why has it ignored the rational part of my brain which says "He's gay so he likes men, and you're a woman so that means he won't like you."

Surely, if we were better designed, as soon as the rational part of my brain knew he was gay it should have switched off the lusting after bit. You'd think, wouldn't you?

Honestly. Can nobody create anything that works properly these days?

Tut.

I think Halle Berry was specifically created to make all women everywhere feel bad about themselves.

I want to look like her but it is impossible for me to ever look like her regardless of how many sit ups I do (today 35, yesterday 30) since a/she is impossibly beautiful and b/we have completely different skin colours.

She has to be specifically created for that purpose, or else how does it work? How else is it that Halle Berry was born looking like she does, and I was born looking the way I do?

That's not genetics.

That's just a miserable trick.

This is my wall:



What do you see when you look up from your computer?

The Mysterious And Shocking Tale Of Harsh Reality As Defined By The Vanish Oxy Action Incident.

So we're in Sainsbury's and I am perusing the shelves and shelves of washing powder when Harry says to me, "Mummy, are you looking for something to get your whites whiter than white?"

I look at him and I see his completely serious, so I say, "Sort of. I'm looking for something to get the grass marks and mud stains out of your once-white-now-gray school shirts."

"Well, what you need is this then," he says, and he confidently hands me a bottle of Vanish Oxy Action In-Wash. "It gets the stains out of everything."

"Does it now." I say to him. "Well then we'd better get it hadn't we?"

So we buy it, and we go home and I measure out my 100ml to add to the wash, and I rub the neat liquid into the stubborn stains and leave it for 10 minutes before I start the wash as well, exactly like it tells me to on the bottle.

And I do the wash.

Later on I'm talking to my Mum and I say to her, as I unload the washing, "Look at this. They're still as bad as ever and I washed everything on 60 degrees. Bollocks to Vanish Oxy Action."

And I hear Harry careering in from the other room. "Pardon?" He says.
"What do you mean?" I say.
"What did you just tell Grandma? He says.
"You mean I said Bollocks?" I say.
"Nooo", he says, "you told Grandma that the Vanish Oxy Action didn't work."

And he looks at me like I've just told the biggest lie in the world.

"But it didn't, Harry," I say. "Look." And I show him the still-stained school shirts.

And he looks at them, and he looks at me, and he is flabbergasted. Utterly lost for words.

"What's the matter?" I say.

He takes a shirt from the washing and looks at it, and then he shakes his head and says, "On the telly they said it did work, but it hasn't worked in our house."

"No." I say.

And he stands there for a minute trying to formulate his thoughts and then he finally says, "So that means that, that means that the telly advert people, well the telly advert people were just all telling really big lies!

Good evening. You are tuned to Radio Olulabelle, coming live to you from the South West of glorious England. You are listening in stereo.

Thank you for tuning in tonight, song of the evening is Mr Brightside, by The Killers.

We hope you enjoy this station.


****

I can't sing because my throat is really sore, and I hate that. Not that it matters if I sing badly since there's only me and the dog here to listen and the dog thinks I rock however badly I sing, but still.

Tout fatigue,
Tout casse,
Tout passe.

Oh. Spoke too soon.

Back to the original form I was in...

Blogger has redesigned it's site. It's heaps easier to use, but all my old comments have gone.

It's like being reborn.

A great, big, beautiful may bug flies into my window with a huge 'thunk', bangs it's head, falls onto it's back on the windowsill, wriggles around waving it's legs looking like it feels useless, and eventually wiggles itself off the windowsill and onto the ground.

I wait. It's a may bug after all, they're not known for their brains.

It then proceeds to complete the whole process again.

"Excellent." I think. Silly, noisy maybugs have arrived. Summer is obviously nearly here."

Later I look in my book to make sure it is a may bug, even though I know it is. This is what it says:

The cockchafer (may bug) is one of the more familiar of the beetles, thanks to its habit of flying noisily about on warm early summer evenings and crashing into windows.

Ha!

Fucking horrible bastard tree-stealing arses.

You know that picture I posted of my Magnolia flower?

Well, today whilst I was out, someone came and stole my Magnolia tree from right outside my house. I live in a dead end village in the middle of nowhere, there's hardly any 'through' traffic. The tree was about five feet tall, it was in a big pot about a metre wide and about half a metre deep, and it would have taken at least two people to carry it. They would have needed a van to take it away.

This means that it wasn't just opportunist crime, but totally premeditated. Some fucker drove past my house and thought, 'What a lovely tree in a lovely pot, I think I'll come back with a mate and a van and steal that."

Either that or they thought they'd get a few quid for it in a car boot sale.

Bastards.

My Mum bought it for me when it was just tiny and I've lavished care and attention on it for three years. It had eight flowers on it this year. That's really good for a Magnolia tree that age.

I am so upset, and so angry! What kind of horrible, low-life git steals a fucking tree?

People, they really, really suck sometimes.

Fractal theory in the proverbial nutshell.

Blimey. You know when you get something in your head but there's no way you could explain it to anyone? I hope I've got this right! It's taken me ages to make it make some sort of sense.

So OK, do this:


Cut a piece of paper, about 2.5cm wide and about 12cm long.

Holding it in both hands, move your right hand towards your left to fold it in half.

Hold the halved paper, and repeat the right to left movement.

Do this two more times. This means your paper should be folded four times, all of those using a right to left movement. You should have a strip of paper folded a lot and looking very uninteresting.

Unfold it, making sure to crease each fold as you do, so you can clearly see where they are. Turn it on it's thin edge and move it around until it looks like this:



The easy way to find the correct layout of it is to look for the 'square'.

This is called the first iteration.

Now, if you folded it all up and continued to fold it again for the same amount of times, what you would get is this:



This is called the second iteration.

If you kept on doing it and kept on doing it, what you would eventually get is this:



This would be the fifitieth iteration.


See? That's basically how fractals work. It's easy!

If you want to go further and look at it in a tabular way, for this particular fractal sequence you should imagine that your folded paper is a road. The first turn you make is a 'right' one.



This is always the same and always in the centre of your table.

R

On the second fold, if you fold your paper out you can see that initially you've done the same thing as before; made a right turn. But then you turn right again, and then left.



So your table reads as so:

RRL

On fold three the fractal rules start to come into play.



Because each iteration always starts out with the previous iteration, all the entries to the left of the centre table (R) are the entries of the iteration (or table if it's simpler) before.

RRLR

And the entries to the right of the table are the opposite of the ones on the left.

RRLL

So table three actually looks like this:

RRLRRLL

You see? It's kind of like opposite reflections. Sort of like symmetry, but cooler.

The rule is, the last entry into the right hand side of the table should be the opposite of the first entry on the left.

So if you look at your folded paper, and you make your fourth fold, and then you fold it out, it should look like this:



To tabulate that you need to start with your centre 'right' R.

And then to the left of that all the code you have already established, the whole of the previous third iteration:

RRLRRLL

RRLRRLLR

And to the right of it, the whole of the previous iteration but reversed RRLLRLL from centre outward.

Remember, each letter is the opposite of the one on the left of the centre R.

RRRLLRLL

So the final tabulated iteration is RRLRRLLRRRLLRLL  



Isn't it beautiful?



Three rules for this fractal:

1/Start with a Right in the centre.
2/All the iterations to the left of the centre are the same as the table before.
3/All the iterations to the right of the centre are the opposite as the corresponding ones on the left.


*****


You might think this is dull, but for me it's just lovely.


So, Ha. Go forth and multiply!

Bluebells again.

I know I keep going on about it and I should shut up because it's getting very dull, but LOOK.



That picture is taken with my phone. It's low res and pretty rubbish. And yet still.

I mean, really, how can I shut up about it?

Parallels.

Gardening and sex are about equal in my book.

They both require care. Sometimes you need to be tender and gentle, sometimes harsh and forceful. They both make you smile and they both make you feel blissful. Often you find yourself in an unusual position, giving it your undivided attention, but equally as often you find yourself doing the same enjoyable easy things repeatedly, and without really thinking about it.

Sometimes they're spontaneous, sometimes you plan exactly what you are going to do. They both have a deep rooted and many levelled purpose in life, but are equally as enjoyable when just done for fun.

They both make you sweaty, and if you do either of them for a long period of time you end up aching, and tired, yet satiated.

They both make your hands dirty if you're really doing them properly.

They're very easy, they're accessible to anyone, and you don't really need to know much in order to be good at it but paying attention to any information you're given can only help.

And, of course, they're both at their most wonderful when done with someone you love.

So yeah. I'm tired. But there's also someone up on Barbelith whom I like talking to.

We appear to live in different timezones, although we live in the same country. But when I get up in the morning at least I get to trawl through previously held conversations.

Hmmmm. You know, trawl isn't the word I need. The word I need means to diligently read past conversations, but only, really, in order to see a particular name.

That word. That word is what I do.

Scroll, scroll, scroll, read... go back and read everything else if relevant.

Scroll, scroll, scroll, read... go back and read everything else if relevant.

Sometimes I wish I lived in that timezone too, lots of the people I like are night-owls. Lots.

And given the choice, I am too. Given the choice I would get up midday, maybe later, and stay up till 4am, 5am because I find I am at my most creative then. But if you stay up till 5am and then you have to get up for school at 7.30am, all you do when you've driven to school and back is go back to bed.

Which isn't ideal. Really.

And if I had a job, (like who's going to hire me? Me: I need to leave by 4.30pm at the latest in order to collect my son. Them: FUCK OFF.) then I really couldn't do the night-owl thing anyway, no matter how much I leaned that way.

Still.

There's someone up on Barbelith whom I like talking to.

And yeah.

I'm tired.

But like I say, there's someone up on Barbelith whom I like.

Oh, it's so simple when you know how.

The mystery of the funny A symbol is solved.

From Blogger: Your template was missing the tag that causes your page to appear with the correct character encoding. I added this to the head section of your HTML:
meta http-equiv="Content-Type"content="text/html;charset=<$BlogEncoding$"

(Obviously I have removed the open and close tags to reproduce it here.)

I tell you this just in case you were fretting about it. You see.

But you know what the mildly frustrating part is? Now they've fixed this for me, none of my previous posts make any sense at all.

Hmmm. When I view my previous post, for me on my Mac I have a funny little A sign which I cannot recreate unless I type a 'pound' symbol: £. Like so.

Headfuck.

£££££££££

I cannot make this go away, I've tried.



This is actually quite interesting, since it doesn't happen to me anywhere else but on this particular blog.

Is it there if you look at this on a PC?

Answers on a postcard please...

What I should have been doing:
Ironing. Or painting the bathroom. Or painting the stairs. Or sewing book bags for school.

What I did:
Went to B&Q.

What I ostensibly went to B&Q for:
1 cold chisel.

What I actually ended up buying at B&Q, due to the black-money-hole that exists there:
1 cold chisel @ £4.98 (for taking the bathroom tiles off)
1 tub of plaster @ £9.59 (for plastering where the tiles have been)
1 plaster trowel @ £6.48 (for applying said plaster)
1 strip knife @ £2.48 (it's just useful)
1 sanding block also @ £2.48 (also useful)
1 large chisel @ £5.98 (just in case the cold chisel isn't suitable for everywhere)
1 box of lawn feed @ £8.28 (my lawn needs it)
1 box of Lobelia plants, containing 8 plants @ £1.97 (well they're lovely, a beautiful blue colour)
1 box of Lobelia plants, containing 8 plants @ £0.50 (cheap, due to general plant lethargy)
1 petrol lawnmower @ £78.69 (well mine is broken and I can't keep borrowing my Mum's and I'll have to buy one eventually, and anyway B&Q were doing 20% off everything, last day today).

Total Overspend:
£116.45



Damn.

The forest is full of bluebells just at the moment, and it's stunning. It looks like fairyland and it smells absolutely beautiful.



And today my Mum brought me a hanging basket she's planted up for me ready for the Summer, and a baby Fuschia plant for my garden and a bunch of flowers that has a bright pink Gerbera in it which looks so daftly cheery you can't fail to smile when you look at it.

Plants do good things to me.

So it's the year anniversary of your Father's death, it's a year to the day that you watched him drugged to the hilt, a year to the day that they stuffed him so full of chemicals that he was unaware of you, and you know they needed to do it because they had to in order to stop him thashing around in bed, but it didn't work because he still does it and he looks so uncomfortable and you kind of wish they hadn't if it wasn't going to make any difference, because then, at least, at least you would have got to say good-bye.

And so you watch as your father flails at the sheets in his stupor, and you watch as that composed and proud and clever man waves his unconsious arms around, and you feel so bad because he's naked in that hospital bed, just like you should be when you're about to die, but everytime he moves he shifts the covers down further and you're scared, so scared that they're going to go too low and you just want to run away, run far way. And you don't want to touch him because he doesn't look like your Dad anymore, and he doesn't feel like your Dad anymore, he just looks like some sad, ill stupid person, dribbling in the bed and making horrible breathing noises, and you can see it physically is him, but to you it isn't him, it's not your amazing, funny, witty, sarcastic Dad lying there, it's the epitome of someone dying, the absolute shell of him.

And you hate yourself.

You know that if you don't touch him you'll hate yourself forever, never be able to forgive yourself, but all you want to do is get back the Dad you know, the one you love who can fix up showers and build extensions and who regularly told you you were funny and lovely, and who took reallybeautiful photographs and who bought you a book on grammar in order to stop you ringing up everyday with questions about punctuation.

And who could do anything. Anything.

So you touch him. You hold his hand.

And you don't know where the words come from but all of a sudden you say, "Dad, I love you, but it's time to go now. You can go now. You need to stop fighting."

And then he squeezes your hand.

He actually squeezes your hand, and you know you haven't imagined it, it's not that you were wishing for it, because you weren't. You didn't even know it was a possibility. You know that he has heard you, and that you have told him he can let go and all of a sudden you realise what a potentially horrifying mistake you have made and suddenly all you want to do is shout:

"Don'tgonotyetpleasestayIloveyouIneedyoudon'tgoDadpleasestayohIloveyouohIneedyouyou'remyDadohGodohGodohGod."

But you can't because you have to BE BRAVE, so you kiss his warm head for the last time, and you leave the room and you tell the hospice that you'd like to leave now, and, no you don't want to be there for when he dies, because quite frankly, you think you might die too if you stay there and watch it.

And you go home, and you wait.

And then he dies, a few hours later.

****

And then a year later, when it's all over with, and you've scattered his ashes, and grieved, and been through therapy, you think, well, it's a year now. Get on with it, move forward. So yeah, there's no-one to fix your shower, and yeah, everytime you see his picture in a magazine it's going to hurt, but you're a BIG GIRL now.

Grow up, get over it and move on. I mean, everybody's father dies eventually, right? This is not specific or unusual, you are not so special.

So you pick some flowers to put by the Yew Tree. You pick daffodils, because you don't want to put down bought flowers, and daffodils are available and anyway the ones you pick are tiny, beautifully scented, and well just really, really Spring. And also it makes you laugh, because you've always had a problem with daffodils.

So you like the contrast.

So you pick them, and you wrap them in wet kitchen towel and they're OK. And then you have lunch with your family and friends, a lunch in the pub that you went to the day after the funeral, the pub where it is always sunny when you need it to be. And it is sunny. It's wonderful. It's so sunny that you sit there for ages, much longer than you intended and when you get back to the car the daffodils on the back seat are wilted and dying.

And you feel so sad.

And you say, "Well, now. I can't give wilted daffodils to Dad. Can I? Can I?" And you look around and everyone there appears to think you can, and that Dad would understand, and in fact they all laugh at what he would say about that.

So you think, "OK," and you drive to the gate, the nearest gate to the tree. But your brother-in-law seems to think he knows better and insists it's the wrong gate and even though you've been there four times and he's only been once you decide to let him go the way he wants just because it's easier than a row, and you pick up the dying/dead daffodils and you walk through the woods along a really muddy path. And you know it's the wrong path, because the path you should have gone down has hardcore and bricks underneath it so it's much less muddy and it's also straight. And this one isn't straight. At all.

And also there's the fact that your stepmum who lives right next to the wood and therefore really, truly, knows, well she told you to be sure to take the first gate and not the second but it's not the day for assertiveness or rowing so you let it ride and you go the wrong way even though you know you are going the wrong way because it's easier to do that than start a fight about it...

And so you're there, holding your badly dying/dead daffodils and you step oddly in the mud and you fall. You fall right over.

You fall like a cartoon character, a proper banana skin slip, and you land with your arse in the mud and you sit there wet and muddy, mud on your trousers, up your back, all over your legs, your hands, your face, your everything, and you laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

And you look and you see that everyone is laughing, because it really is funny, and none of us can stop. It's just so fitting that this should happen.

And then you look and you see that not only are the dead and dying daffodills dead and dying, they're also spattered all over with thick brown globs of mud.

And you think, "How funny. How sad." You're laughing, but it could so easily turn into hysterical sobbing.



And the flowers you end up placing by your father's tree, the big tall, fully-grown been-there-for-a-hundred-years Yew Tree that he used to sit under most every day, the tree that represents 'him' to you, well the flowers you put there are muddy, wet, wilted, rubbish, dying, dead daffodils.

Muddy. Wet. Wilted. Rubbish. Dying. Dead.



He would have absolutely pissed himself.

It's so nice to hear from a friend that you haven't heard from for ages, especially when they sent you lots of emails which you didn't reply to because you were feeling so completely dark, and then suddenly you get another one out of the blue which shows they didn't give up on you. Because it would have been so easy to, it's dull sending 'How are you?' messages out into the ether and never hearing anything back.

My friend, it makes me feel happy to find out that so much has changed for him, and that the changes are good ones, and I like the reassurance that it's not only me that dithers with choices and not only me who wonders what to do with life.

And I love, love, love the fact that in the space of three years he's been a highly successful web innovator, a struggling yet brilliant novelist, and now he's doing something so different that it's completely off the other end of the spectrum.

I once asked my Dad what, when he was little, he thought he wanted to be when he grew up.
His answer? Everything.

I think my friend is a bit like that.

Why is my lawnmower broken? Why? Why?

This is becoming unfunnier by the minute.

You know you're stupid and unable to cope when you forget to ring the oil man and have your oil tank refilled.

You know when you've got no heating and it's freezing and you need a bath but there's no hot water and you haven't got anyone to blame but yourself, well you know then that you're really a big failure and you have no life skills whatsoever. And you know when you've got no heating and it's freezing and you need a bath, no you want a bath because it might make you feel a little less sad, a bit less stressed, but you can't have one because you failed to make sure your fuel supply was continuous, well you know then that what everybody said was right.

You are rubbish.

And, just so it's clear, you feel glad that at least you're the only one up, so you're the only one who is cold and sad in the house, because the other person who lives here is currently toasty warm in bed, dreaming of smashing up Springville. And anyway you sorted it out enough that the oil man comes tomorrow.

At least you managed that.

So. Yes.

Two more days, and then a year will have gone by. So very quickly.

And life appears to have gone on. I am still here.

Still.



Time, time on your mind
A conscience ticking
Images passing by like picture slides arranged

Love will survive
It twists and turns you
A circuit inside your head reminds you that it's fine

I miss you more than words can say
A part of me has torn away
A china heart will always break
A fracture to a twisted face
But things are gonna heal again
Eyes once blind will see again
I miss you more than words can say
I miss you more than words .....
Quickfade

Try, learning to fly
Reach new sky
Find a new place to be and watch life pass you by

Try to get high
Jumped so you could feel it...

You're living inside a dream
As waterfalls surround

I miss you more than words can say
A part of me is torn away
China hearts will always break
A fracture to a twisted face
But things are gonna heal again
Eyes once blind will see again
I miss you more than words can say
I miss you more than words .....
Quickfade...fade, fade, fade...

Glide, Glide over tides
And waves that pull you
Oceans divide us once and bring you home again

Love will survive
It twists and turns you
He's gone, gone, Quickfade
Its gone, gone, Quickfade...

I miss you more than words can say
A part of me is torn away
China hearts will always break
A fracture to a twisted face
But things are gonna heal again
Eyes once blind will see again
I miss you more than words can say
I miss you more than words .....
Quickfade

Feeder, Quick Fade

Tai Chi

Aikido

The physical and possible violent power of gentle movement is a new feeling, and one in which I find myself not completely comfortable with. I am used to the centering of self, the Ashtanga Yoga philosophy; the movement of Chi internally, only internally, without the potential power of moving it into someone elses space.

And yet I think I like this new feeling.

I like the philosophy of combative non-combat, I like the idea that I can fight by not fighting.

It seems to suit me, somehow.

"I am the greatest American poet who ever lived," the lead singer of this little known band says. Just so you know, he was standing on a stage in a small club in a big English city. Just so you know, he wasn't Henry Rollins or anything.

Behind us the man who's job is to sell the band's records for them during their set is sitting behind a flimsy trestle table with a pair of headphones on so that he can't hear the band, and he's reading a book about Julian Cope.

Just to point out, they're not that bad, this band. But they're not that good either. They're just a small band in a small club playing to a few people.

Afterwards a girl comes up to us. "What did you think?" She says. "Aren't they amazing?"

Me? I look at her, and I say, "Not really all that amazing. Actually. And he was a bit of a twat with all that 'greatest American poet bollocks.'"

"Twat?" She says, and she looks at me as if I've slapped her, hard with the back of my hand. "He's not a twat. He's a genius." And she sighs and gazes a practiced longing look in the direction of the band's abandoned instruments.

Just so you know, this girl, she's the sort of girl who falls for lead singers of little known bands. She's overweight and she wears glasses, and she's tried too hard with her outfit and her make-up and you just know that her masturbation fantasy is where the lead singer sings a song to her, looking directly into her eyes, then climbs down from the stage and takes her home.

My friend, he's standing next to me and he's listening to this.

My friend, he's not the type to stand for over-age teenage mooning.

He looks at me and he's got that look in his eye that he gets, and so I think about it for a minute, and then I know what he's going to do before he does it and I start to smile.

So the girl and I, we watch as he fiddles in his pocket and he takes out three pound coins and he turns and he goes up to the table behind us, and he doesn't hand his money over to the guy behind the table, he just puts it down on the top and picks up the 7" version of the bands single, and he brings it back to us.

And the girl squeals, "Ooooh, ooooh, you liked them then!" And she's so excited to find that her heroes might have added to their fan base that she's almost jumping up and down and you can bet that her toes are all curled up inside her boots. You can bet that someone buying their record is enough to make her knickers wet.

But my friend doesn't say anything back. My friend, he just looks at her and and he takes the record out of it's sleeve and he holds it up, and then he breaks it in half.

And the look on her face, it's so funny. You can see her brain is struggling to make sense of what's just happened.

She looks around to see if anyone else is laughing, and they are, they all are, and I know she can't help being stupid and silly, a girly groupie and I know it shouldn't matter how overweight she is, or how bottle-thick her glasses are, and I know it's horrid and bitchy and bullying and mean but the look of disbelief and utter confusion on her face, it just makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

I was sorting a few things out and I found this picture. It's my favourite ever one of Harry.



See the wellies? He didn't take them off for six months except to go to bed, and even then it took a lot of persuasion.

On bizarre yet rocking rainbow dinosaurs and nonsense songs with missing verses.

I love the holidays, we've had such a good day. First of all Harry made cupcakes with his Grandma whilst I went to my last Psychology appointment, and then we all iced the cakes, and then we watched Harry make this magnificent multicoloured dinosaur:



Doesn't he rock?

And then we went for a walk in Longleat in the sunshine and sang A Horse called Bill over and over again. But I always forget the last verse so we came home and I looked it up online. Oddly, I found that there are at least five verses I've never heard of and heaps of different versions of the song which all start the same way but meander off in different directions towards the end.

I think it's an American folk song and now I want to find the 'original' words but I'm not sure how to go about it. How will I know which version is the original? The version I know was taught to me by my Father when I was a little girl and it was my favourite song. So I taught it to Harry and now it's his too. My family has been singing it for years but I never knew about the other verses.

Anyway it goes like this:

A horse named Bill.

I had a horse, his name was Bill
When he ran he couldn't stand still
He ran away
One day
And also I ran with him.

He ran into a barber shop
He ran so fast he couldn't stop
And then he fell exhaustionized
With his teeth
In the barber's left shoulder.

I had a girl and her name was Daisy
When she sang the cat went crazy
With Saint Vituses
And deleriums
And all kinds of cataleptics.

One day she sang a song about
A man who turned himself inside out
And jumped
into the river
'Cause he was... so very sleepy.

Oh I went out into the woods last year
To hunt for beer and not for deer
I am
I ain't
A great sharp-shooter.

At shooting birds I am a beaut
There is no bird I cannot bloody shoot
In the eye
Or in the ear
Or in the finger.

Well I went up in a balloon so big
The people on the Earth, they looked like a pig
Like mice
Like katydids
Like flieses and like fleasins.

The balloon turned up with its bottom side higher
It fell on the wife of a country squire
She made a noise
Like a hound dog
Like a steam whistle... also like dynamite.

In 'Frisco Bay there lives a whale
She eats pork chops by the bale
By the hatbox
By the pillbox
By the hogshead
By the schooner.

Her name is Luna, she's a peach
But don't leave food within her reach
Or babies
Or nurse-maids
Or chocolate ice cream sodas.

She loves to laugh and when she smiles
You see her teeth for miles and miles
And tonsils
And spare ribs
And things too fierce to mention.

When she's happy, how she plays
She rolls her eyes for days and days
And vibrates
And Yodels
And breaks the ten commandments.

What do you do in a case like that?
What do you do, but jump on your hat
And your grandmother
And your toothbrush
And anything that's helpless.

I didn't know the Daisy verse, the sleepy man verse, either of the balloon ones and I thought the ten commandments one was the last one...

So now I'm going to have to learn them all, in order to be able to sing it properly all the way through. Which will be another random and pointless yet weirdly pleasing string to my bow...

So this is the adapted version of a picture I drew when I was in hospital. Does it make you feel happy? It's supposed to make you feel happier than when you look at the original, which is here.

You see, the general consensus of opinion about the first one was that the Lily looked like it was rotting.

Personally, I didn't think that but anyway, my Psychologist wanted a letter (although actually I think she was angling for a painting) which expressed how I feel about my period of 'therapy.' And so I thought these two Lilys might represent that quite well.

Spring.

Love.

Warmth.

Clarity.


My beautiful Magnolia has flowered. In every way.



I spent some lovely time at the weekend looking at an organic herb catalogue from Jekka's Herb Farm choosing plants for someone else's garden. I so wanted them all, not in the least because I am now the happy recipient of Holistic Herbal - a book that every gardener should own.


Living things.

Plants and flowers, nature and growth and the cycle of life is what it all comes down to when you really stop to think about it, spend a little time contemplating it.

And the delight of it all blows my mind.


*

April Fools? Ha ha ha.

My Mum, bless her, is still sad that glow-in-the-dark grass doesn't exist and she heard it on Radio 4 on April Fools day many, many years ago.

Personally, I think Radio 4 have a duty not to trick their listeners. At least not the ones who would fall for glow-in-the-dark grass...

I've just spent a lovely couple of days driving up the M5M4M42A46, seeing my best friend and her baby, and then driving back again. (I include the driving since much of the visit is spent doing that; 5 hours there and 4.5 back.)

Sigh.

Why is Lincoln so far away from me? And more importantly why does she live there when it is?

Anyway, today we all went to Rand Farm Park for a jolly Easter holiday jaunt which would a/entertain Harry, b/entertain us and c/allow us to push a 6 week old baby around in a buggy for a bit without waking her up. (We were going to see The Cat In The Hat, but it hasn't hit Lincoln yet, Lincoln being the epitome of uber provinciality.)

It didn't matter though because the farm was ace.

There was a stroppy donkey who kicked the bars of his pen everytime you fed any animal other than him.

And there were lambs!

We fed them!



Bless.

But best of all was a red deer doe called Heidi who had been hand-reared, and who, (it said on the information sign) 'liked coats and hats.'

Well, 'good on her' is what I say. So do I.

I've had a bit of a 'subversive art' weekend spotting Banksy all over London.

It started with this:


'To advertise here call 0800 Banksy'

We saw it opposite a spray painted advertisement in the same font and the same style with the 'real' advertiser's name on it, selling space on a wall in Bethnal Green.

So I'm looking for it everywhere we go and we see the Banksy monkeys and we have a big conversation about Banksy and stencil grafitti, and we see lots. But then bizarrely, the next day I see this:


'Heh heh Nesstle how many kids did you ya kill today?'

Which is so far up the other end of the spectrum that you can't even see it without a heat lamp.

The sentiment? Well yes of course. I can see the point of it.

But, hold on. Call me picky if you like but I would have said that in order to get your message across with any sincerity, you really, surely need to be able to spell the name of your adversary correctly first...

Oooooooh.

I am now an official Barbelith moderator!

For Creation, and Books. Which sums me up rather nicely don't you think? Creation and Books.

I am strangely over-excited about it, is that sad? It probably is. But it makes me happy and that can only be a good thing I guess.

Random Incidental Domestic Fact:

For years my steam iron has been broken and wouldn't produce any steam, so I ironed using a spray bottle and just a hot iron. It was annoying, but I put up with it.

But when we moved I bought a new iron.

So I'm ironing Harry's trousers this morning with my new iron which works properly and which produces lots of steam, and he comes into the room and he says, "Mummy, why is the iron breathing?"

The church in the village I live in is absolutely beautiful. It was built in 1712 by Viscount Weymouth, the then owner of the Longleat estate and legend has it that he built it for the employee's of the estate to worship in.

Anyway, it's at the top of the hill (I can see it from my window), you have to either walk up a little dead end lane bordered all the way by multitudes of daffodils, or across a beautiful grassy field in order to get to it and once you're there you can walk all the way around it on a little windy path inside the graveyard.

It's the kind of church in which you should sit amongst the leaning gravestones and the creaking Cedar trees, watch the sun go down (or come up) and just be.

Curiously, it is also filled with gravestones made out of a stone which seems to weather exceedingly badly, and as a result the grass is filled with what look like interesting stumps of very badly rotted, lichen-covered teeth.

On why Psycholgists rock harder than The Darkness on PCP.

Her: How are you?

Me: I feel awful. I feel miserable and sad and useless and rubbish and pathetic and needy and angry with myself for feeling those things and just really, really bad. *Dissolves into tears.*

Her: *Hands me a tissue.* And you expected to feel? How?

Me: I dunno. Happy I guess. Better.

Her: So you thought you could move house and it would make the pain of the marriage break-up and the sadness of losing your Dad and the fear of what to do with your life and the feelings of worthlessness and the fragility of being depressed all suddenly go away?

Me: Um...I dunno. *Sniffs*. I guess not.

Her: Because you don't have a red cape on do you?

Me: Pardon?

Her: Well you're not Superwoman are you?

Me: *Laughs*. I don't look good in just my tights.

Her: And if it was your best friend feeling like this what would you tell her? That she was stupid and pathetic to still be feeling miserable?

Me: No! Of course not, that would be horrible! And wrong.

Her: Well, er...

Me: *Thinks.* Oh. Right. Oh I see.

I give you:

Bugsy Malone.

Down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out
Down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out

Down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out
Down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out

You don't have to sit around
Complaining 'bout the way your life has wound up
Think of all the time you waste
And time's a precious thing to let go by

Sure you've hit the bottom
But remember you'll be building from the ground up
Every day's another step
That takes you even closer to the sky, so give a try

Down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out
Down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out

You don't have to sit around
Depressed about the way that luck deceived you
Fortune sailed away, you missed that boat
And found that you'd been left behind

Fight and fight some more
Until you know the world is ready to receive you
Lady luck is fickle
But a lady is allowed to change her mind

You don't have to sit around
Complaining 'bout the way your life has wound up
So be a man, you know you can't be certain
That you'll lose until you try

You don't have to sit around
Complaining 'bout the way your life has wound up
So be a man, you know you can't be certain
That you'll lose until you try, so give it a try

We as one shout
Up, up, up and out

I've fixed my picture messaging on my phone. Apparently, GPRS had 'temporarily lost' me. I quite like the fact that, if only temporarily, I was untrackable by satellite. It made me feel a little bit like 007.

So now I want a phoneblog. If I had one I could post pictures like these:



I took it whilst walking my dog in Longleat today. I saw the tree back lit by the sun and it was so beautiful I wanted to record it. But what I especially like about this picture is not the tree. What I like is that because of my phone's inability to deal with the light, the sun looks eerily black.

Is This Distraction Tactics?

Still to do this evening:

1/Put the shoes and things in the 'storage solutions' boxes under the bed.
2/Paint the bathroom.
3/Put the magnetic board up so Harry and I can play FridgeRacer without contorting ourselves into tiny shapes in order to get right down to the level of the fridge.
4/Put the curtains up.
5/ Shorten the curtains before they go up.
6/Put up the curtain rails before the curtains that need to be shortened go up.
7/Fix the new towel rail up. (New, because the old one has snapped off.)


Yes. I think it is.

***

I've noticed that I have become a stranger in my own house. You know that feeling that you get, when you're at someone else's house and you do the washing up but you don't know where anything goes to put it away?

Well I've got that here.

I also don't know how the washing-machine, iron, cooker, fridge, or heating works and it's all a bit trial and error at the moment. But not being able to find things is the worst. I mean, I put them away.

And the worst thing is, I've got so much else to do that would be heaps more interesting than housey things, but the housey things really need doing so the interesting stuff will just have to wait.

A bit longer.