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.