Clare Grant

Filling the long hours

2011-07-14T13:21:00.000+01:00

“One of the things about a new baby,” said Pete as he drove us home from our last games night before our due date, “is what do you do with them? We got our son home from hospital, and he was there in his car seat and we were like: ‘what do we do now? Do we offer him a cup of tea? What do we do?’”

Alec is like a very needy guest, one who won’t sit quietly with a magazine while I do things that need to be done, and who leaves massive, awkward gaps in the conversation, who never offers to help. There are days when I wonder how I’m going to fill the hours until Nick gets home.

And I’m going to admit right now: I performed the internet search “things to do with a baby.”

I made a list of things to do – partly to prove to myself that I really am doing stuff during the day. We change activities as soon as Alec gets bored, or when he starts to “a-heh, a-heh” with frustration. I try to do one household task, and one Alec entertainment, so things get done. And I’m ever ready to take some me-time the moment someone else offers to hold him, or if he falls asleep.

If all else fails, we leave the house. A walk up to the park, or just round the block is enough to cheer him up, and a chocolate bar from the shop is always a winner for me. I point out Items of Interest to him – in a whisper, you know, so no-one can accuse me of loud parenting – “There’s a squirrel going wavey wavey along the top of the fence; and that’s a turkey oak tree. Oh, a magpie! That man is carrying an orange Sainsbury’s bag – see how the sun behind makes it glow? Listen, that’s a train going under the bridge. Do you remember how we…” etc etc.

It’s lovely to run into people we know because they always say how gorgeous he is, and how much he’s grown. And I like the way strangers will chat to you, and tell you about their children and grandchildren.

"I'd love to do xyz but I don't have pqr."

2010-04-16T10:41:00.000+01:00

If I really want to do xyz, I will move heaven and earth to find all the pqr I need.

If I pretend I can't do xyz because I don't have any pqr, people will start trying to help me find pqr, and then I will either end up sulking, or doing something that I didn't want to do in the first place.

There is no need to feel guilty about not doing xyz. It's not because I'm weak. It's not because I'm lazy. It's because I don't want to.

It is absolutely fine not to want to do things -- even things that seem fun, or are good for my body or my soul. I do not need an excuse. All I need to do is to be honest in the first place.

Thaw: Chapter One

2010-03-01T08:00:00.000Z

This is the first chapter of Fiona Robyn's latest book, Thaw. The heroine, Ruth, is thirty-two years old and doesn't know if she wants to be thirty-three. The novel tells, in the form of her diary, how Ruth makes the decision.

Fiona is publishing a chapter a day, and is hoping that 1,000 other bloggers will publish the first chapter today.

These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I’m Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I’m sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat — books you have to take in both hands to lift. I’ve had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I’ve still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about — princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad’s snoring was.

I’ve always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I’ll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say, ‘It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for,’ before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It’ll all be here. I’m using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I’m striping the paper. I’m near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I’m allowed to make my decision. That’s it for today. It’s begun.

A few things about hair

2009-12-22T08:51:00.000Z

Curly locks, curly locks, wilt thou be mine?
Da Vinci drew it curling and running like water flowing.
Hair floats in water. It feels soft and free when you are swimming. But when you get out, it is heavy and sticky and prone to tangling.
When the wind gets in my hair, it sets into hard sharp points that whip my face. It doesn't do this when I'm blow drying it.
Hair in the plug hole is disgusting. I don't even like to think about it. It is also disgusting when it gets mixed up with dust and blows into the corners of the bathroom.
I don't like hair that gets caught in a hairbrush. I hate the grey fluffs I find among it. But I like to comb out my hairbrush and then wash it. The bristles become shiny black again, and the hairbrush looks very pleased and proud after a wash.
On a dry night I like to brush my hair in the dark because I like to see the static. It is marvellous to hear it crackle. In the morning, I like to see the strands fly out -- I am extending the reach of my head.
I like to twist a hank of my hair, moving back from my forehead towards my temple. I pin the ends above my ear. The bundle of hair feels smooth and hard.
I don't like to see an old woman with greasy, dirty hair. I feel angry that she has neglected herself, and then sorry, because she might have problems reaching her head, or perhaps her shower is not working and no-one will fix it for her. Her family has decided she is too difficult and grumpy.
There is advert hair, which gleams like a french polished table, or a tumbled stone. I imagine technicians wearing headphones rubbing and buffing it until there is nothing left of the real hair. Advert hair is hair that I can never achieve -- but I expect myself to try.
There is newly washed and dried hair spread over the pillow and a whispered: "You smell nice."
There is hair that looks better than it should at 3pm on the third day since my last hairwash.
It is lovely to have, on a hot and bothersome and frustrating day, your hair brushed off your face by a cool hand.
When hair gets in the way, it is a great relief to tie it into a pony tail, or to pin it back, or trap it under a tight hat.
Hair can be one thing (a single hair) or lots of them.
It is very satisfying to pluck out a single stiff hair that has been sitting invisible at the corner of my lip.

List of things that will not help

2009-12-15T16:19:00.002Z

Putting another knot in the rope.
Hitting it.
Swearing at the fucking thing.
Hitting someone with it.
Using your teeth.
Pouring petrol on it and setting fire to it.
Running it on an empty tank.
Pushing it into a smaller space.
Rubbing it with a solvent.
Using an abrasive cleaner.
Adding more salt.
Putting it through the blender.
Shouting at the call-centre worker.
Bleach.
A boil wash.
Leaving it in the sun.
Salt and soda water.
A brisk rub-down with a rough towl.
An emetic.
Rubbing with grease.
Buying a newer model.
Trying to raise the nose cone.
A piece of kitchen roll.
A small square of foil.
A weak borax solution.
A repair man.
The fire brigade.
Consulting a physician.
Marker ink.
Dusting with flour.
Plunging into iced water.
Washing it with cola.
Boiling it in vinegar.
Selling it on Ebay.
Static mats.
A copper bracelet.
Reporting it to the authorities.
Filling in a form.
Taping it shut.
Replacing sprockets.
Hanging it in a damp place.
Placing in a cool oven.
Sending it by courier.
Never speaking of it again.

Ten pleasures that don't cost very much

2009-10-09T09:00:00.000+01:00

The chance to be creative: Now that spending is out, I have to be a bit creative about how I get my jollies. That in itself is a pleasure, as sometimes it feels as if the things I make are beautiful, but rather useless.
Books I didn't know I had: I go through the bookshelves and discover a pile books that I haven't yet read. Now I have the time to read them all if I like. I feel as if someone has just handed me 20 free books.
Stretching: Body in Balance is a free-to-view channel which broadcasts exercise routines: including a variety of yoga styles.
Cheap video games: There's a branch of CEX in town: it's a shop that will take back your old games, and give you credit which you can put towards new (or secondhand) ones.
A mint plant next to the front door: Every time I brush past it, I smell it.
Fleece blanket: I'm so glad we bought a fleece throw last winter. It was only £15, and I bought it to go on the bed. As winter comes on, I spend most of my writing day wrapped up in it.
Languid beauty: I was amazed by all the beauty products I had stashed away. I guess that when I had an income, I didn't have the time to enjoy them. Now my morning routine (more like a mid-morning routine) is about twice as long and feels very luxurious.
Finishing food: I've got time to use up the leftovers, so there is much less waste in our household now. I also have the headspace to come up with ideas, and the energy to carry them through. Last week we got four beetroots in our veggie box. I can just about manage one beetroot in salad (I like them raw and grated into long, earthy-tasting magenta strips). But the rest? Then I remembered chocolate beetroot cake, and the rest is history. A rich, reddish chocolatey history.
Charity shops: To get the best out of charity shops, you need to have time for a regular run. Which I do. If I have clothes that I don't wear, I try to imagine what would make me wear them: they often just need a top or jumper to take them into Autumn. I carry in my head those missing-piece outfits whenever I go to the charity shops. Most of the time I find something -- not always what I expected. Tanktop the colour of redcurrants, anyone?
Having a lie in whenever I want: Even more fun because Nick has to go to work. I don't do it very often though, because I really like eating breakfast with him.

10 Activities for a naughty housewife

2009-10-07T09:58:00.002+01:00

I am presently not entirely employed. I spend a lot of time at home doing chores, looking for work and scribbling. But that doesn't fill all the hours that stretch between Nick turning to wave as he turns the corner at the end of the drive and him startling me at 7pm by tapping on the window as he comes home.

Here are some other things I can do:

9am: Fail to empty the compost bin.
10am: Return to bed with my Ninendo DS.
11am: Eat Nutella straight out of the jar.
Noon: Take a shower and use large quantities of beauty products.
1pm: Watch a Warner Brothers cartoon DVD.
2pm: Coffee with a friend, followed by shopping-but-not-actually-buying-anything.
4pm: Cook a complicated and untidy supper.
5pm: Nap
6.57pm: Race round hiding all evidence of Nutella, make bed, plump cushions, putting ribbons in hair.

My favourite stories: Number four: The blue radio that may have come from space

2009-10-05T09:00:00.002+01:00

I was moving out of my first flat because I'd quit my job to go travelling. It was a happy occasion, of course, because I was very excited by the adventures that lay ahead; and I was glad to get out of a damp old concrete box. But it was a sad occasion, too: I'd been happy there; it was a huge leap into the unknown; and I was anxious about flying alone to Pakistan, meeting the group and starting the journey.

So all these feelings were sloshing around inside me as I cleaned the flat for the last time before leaving. Most of the boxes had already gone, including the one containing my stereo. As I washed the windows, I thought "I wish I had a radio to give me something else to think about."

At that moment, there was a cheery "Good morning" from the open front door. It was the postman. He had a small parcel for me. "Lucky I caught you," he said, handing it over.

I pulled off the wrapping. Inside was a small blue radio, and three batteries. No note, no packing slip to give a clue as to who sent it. I stood there astonished, feeling as if somebody, somewhere really did care about me. It's a bit of a leap of logic, but it made me sure that this travelling wasn't all a terrible mistake.

I still have the radio. It's a reminder that the world is full of wonders, and to look out for the signposts.

My favourite stories: Number three: I learn about the fate of the earth, without fully understanding astronomical timescales

2009-09-30T10:32:00.005+01:00

I was given a fat book of science knowledge when I was about five. It explained atoms, and why nails were hard and water wasn't; and how life came out of the oceans; and how homo sapiens evolved from a monkey bush that also grew gorillas and chimps.

One day I came across a sequence of pictures describing the life of a star, in particular, the Sun. It showed how billions of years in the future, the sun would turn into a red giant and expand to swallow up the inner planets (most importantly, Earth), before winking out into a tiny frozen ball.

"But luckily," said the final caption with breezy confidence, "This won't happen for billions of years."

Later that night, my father came up to check on us all. I was still awake, eyes wide in the dark. "What's the matter?"

"This book says that in billions of years, the sun's going to turn into a red giant and the seas are going to boil away into space, and we're all going to burn up."

"So I've heard."

"How long ago did they write this book?"

He took the tome from my hands and looked at the printing data. "1977."

"Is that billions of years ago?"

"No. It's the year you were born."

"Is that nearly billions of years ago?"

"No. It just bloody feels that way. Now go to sleep."

Stitch Watch: Come into the garden

2009-09-28T17:14:00.010+01:00

I'm working on a Di Van Niekerk design, flowers using a variety of different threads, and Di's beautiful hand-dyed ribbons. I get a big smile on my face every time I open the project bag because of all the goodies that burst out.

My favourite stories: Number two: Rosey's purse comes back

2009-09-25T10:11:00.005+01:00

The staff at the hostel in Cape Town didn’t like guests going out for the evening: they went so far as to suggest that if we went out, we would probably be stabbed. “We’re having a 70s night in the bar: you don’t want to miss that, do you? Half price shots.”

But our group leaders had heard about a free jazz festival in town, and we were determined to go.

The other thing the hostel staff warned us about were the minibus taxis: they shuttle around set routes, and are a popular alternative to public transport. The hostel staff said the drivers were lunatics. And that we’d probably be stabbed.

Our group leaders told us they were fine and about a third the price of a taxi. This made them hugely attractive, as we were coming to the end of a ten-week tour round Africa so funds were a bit low.

So the ten of us hailed a minibus from the street outside the hostel, paid our fares to the driver’s mate and bundled in. The driver beetled us all the way to city centre (not driving much like a lunatic) and we hunted down the festival… when my little sister let out a cry of woe. “My purse. I think I dropped it in the minibus.”

“Oh Rosey, was there much in it?”

She hadn’t had much cash on her, but there was a card, which was a bit more worrying. We went into a large hotel and asked to use the phone. The concierge was sympathetic: “Need me to look up the number for you?”

The 24-hour emergency number for the bank led us into automated message hell: “What is the number of the card you are reporting lost?”

“I don’t know, I’ve lost it.”

“I didn’t understand that.”

We resigned ourselves to a damage limitation exercise in the morning.

“It’ll be all right,” I told her. “They haven’t got your PIN, and I’ll buy you supper.”

“I feel so stupid. And I was really looking forward to buying presents for everyone tomorrow. ”

We enjoyed the music as well as we could: but Rosey’s heart really wasn’t in it; and I felt bad for her. She’s normally the careful, sensible one who never loses anything, so she was taking it particularly badly. The group split up because some of us wanted supper while others wanted to stay and listen in the square.

We ended up picking at snacks in a lively bar. Rosey was thinking about going back to the hostel, and I supposed I ought to go with her, when the other half of our group appeared. “Rosey, you’ll never guess what!”

“My purse!”

“The minibus guys heard us talking about the jazz festival. The driver’s mate came and walked around until they found us.”

The money was still there. “He wouldn’t take a reward,” they told us.

And best of all, not one of us got stabbed.

Cape Town photo by Rosey

My favourite stories: Number one: Mr Ishigawa's Glasses

2009-09-23T09:31:00.001+01:00

It was show and tell night at Tunbridge Wells Fortean Society.

Fossils, blurry photographs and things in jars lay on the table among the pint glasses. Articles from Bob's collection dominated: he was an engineer who had lived all round the world and had plenty of curiosities.

A battered pair of glasses caught my eye. They looked as if they'd spent some time buried. I put them on, and observed the members through the almost opaque lenses.

"What on earth are those?" asked someone.

Bob put down his pint, wiped his moustache and said: "They're Mr Ishigawa's spectacles. I found them while I was dredging a canal in the Solomon Islands."

He explained that the islands are still littered with wreckage from the war.

"But how do you know they belonged to Mr Ishigawa?" I squinted at Bob over the rusted frames.

"Well he might not have been called Mr Ishigawa, but they were still attached to his skull."

He smirked as I swiftly removed the glasses and put them at arm's length on the other side of the table.

Picture of glasses from Stock.xchng

50 Things I Remember about Cranbrook School

2009-09-21T14:20:00.004+01:00

This is part of my 50 things I remember project. Here is a list of all the 50 things posts.

Mr Badcock's "Now boys, bring the brains to bear."
The smell of preserved creatures in jars in the biology lab.
Mr Gunn telling me off during A Level biology for staring out of the window... messing around with Nick Robinson... weaving with strips of paper when I should have been cutting and gluing.
Always being cold in winter because we weren't allowed to wear t-shirts under our school blouses, and no-one in their right mind would ever sink to wearing a vest.
Runching our grey school socks down - because who the hell wears their socks pulled up?
Feeling as if games lessons were specifically designed to humiliate: the boys standing at the sports hall window to watch us getting into the swimming pool; being forced to do a dance routine to some stupid Madonna song; aerobics; mixed volleyball.
The nailpolish smell of esters in chemistry.
Doing a rubbish physics practical called 'The Great Heat Race' - each team was given a substance to heat until it boiled. We had washing-up liquid. Clearly not going to win.
I must have wasted literally years of my life waiting for mother to come and pick me up at the end of school.
Looking around the Queen's Hall during assembly and wondering how many of us would get out alive if there was a fire because there were 200 more people in the room than was permitted by fire regulations.
The teachers sweeping on to the stage in their gowns. They looked the teacher in the Bash Street Kids.
PaulV walking me and Katie through the churchyard and carrying our bags.
Telling my tutor I wasn't happy, then feeling betrayed when she told my parents.
Being afraid to use a school labcoat in case someone had put something disgusting in the pocket.
The PCs in the computer room were 286s (the monitors had red, blue, black and white). If you were really lucky, you'd get to use a 386.
Mrs Kerten was guaranteed to break the computer room. There was a printer that brought the entire network down if you switched it off.
The cheese and bacon whirls at lunch still are one of the nicest things I've ever eaten. Also, the treacle sponge. I still miss them.
Afew times a term our house was on duty. When we were in the fourth year, this meant replenishing the salad bar in the dining room. There never was anything to replenish because they put it all out at the start of lunch. But we still had to go and do the duty - we got in trouble if we didn't.
Making a chocolate cake with yoghurt icing in home ec. Katie, Miri and I ate mine because the lunch queue was so badly behaved that the prefects sent us all away.
Being scared to queue up for lunch because some of the boys were so rough -- they used to run at the queue so that you were crushed against the wall.
We had a French teacher who thought that Alex Lightstone was actually called Alex Lighthouse. "Aaaalex, chewing goom, poot it away, dans la pourbelle." She told my parents that we were the loudest, rudest, nosiest, cleverest class she had ever taught. She was a very good teacher, too.
During a year nine experiement to measure the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled by maggots, one of our class' maggots managed to crawl into a capillary tube. GROSS.
A girl in our class sitting, head bowed so her straight blonde hair fell like a tent over a biology text book, while the rest of us dissected ox lungs.
During the dissection of the ox lungs, we were told to use a tube to blow into them to see them inflate. One boy inhaled by accident.
My brother putting his hand through a window during a fight while waiting for the bus.
The monsterous unfairness of us having to wait three quarters of an hour after the end of school because our bus was used by another school first. I can't believe that no-one tried to negotiated a better service for us. Or, indeed that it never occurred to one of us to make a fuss about it.
Mr Gunn said that today he was going to give us some notes on coitus. Nick Robinson whispered "What's that?" and I said: "Bonking." Mr Gunn heard and said "...coitus, or indeed bonking as Clare rather earthily puts it."
Dying bits of cloth bright yellow in chemistry.
Discovering during art that nothing awful happened when I used a sewing machine. I had a lot fun embellishing with silver thread a batik design inspired by tomatoes, oranges and peppers.
Wednesday afternoon activities: rambling was an excuse to get out into the countryside and walk very quickly back to school.
Swimming sports caused all the girls to get their periods simultaneously.
The tuckshop lady said: "Don't worry about that now. Your figure will come through when you go to university." And she was right.
I really liked a girl called Celia because she had thick round glasses that were forever falling down her nose; and because she carried her pencils in a round shortbread tin. I don't thinks she was very happy boarding, though.
Marvelling in year nine woodwork when, following the teachers simple instructions, a pencil box appeared under my hands.
The overwhelming urge to yell "Fire" in a crowded between lessons corridor.
In year nine, the labs in the west wing were brand new and really beautiful. I loved the bright cleaness of it, and the generously sized rooms and corridors: the rest of the school sometimes felt as if it had been made for pixie people who were afraid of daylight. I liked being told to be CAREFUL of the lab benches in the west wing: they were made from single 15m slabs of wood.
Feeling secretly jealous of the guys in the CCF because they got to go on camp and mess around in a hovercraft. I never joined because I thought I'd be rubbish at parade (I still can't tell left from right).
The endless, endless poetry -- both taught in English and written by me. Endless.
A teachers told me I was let down by my Godawful handwriting.
I was mocked by my classmates for suggesting that in the future school children would all carry small computers round with them.
The boy who sat next to be in geography pushed his homework over to me the day I forgot mine.
Mr Hartley leaving the classroom through one door and returning through another. He used to tell us stories of the things he used to be allowed to do to pupils (mostly throwing board rubbers and chalk at them). He boasted that he could leave his classes alone for long periods because they never knew when or from where he would return.
Sitting in the lecture theatre on a rainy day - I thought that it must be a bit like that bit in Catcher in Rye where he talks about going into the museum.
Discovering that with computers, you could do things that you'd been able to do since you were about ten, and people would think it was wonderful. For my GCSE project I built a little point-and-click adventure using Visual Basic, and illustrated it with my own pictures done in Paint.
Trying to add rude books to the library catalogue in the name of a teacher I didn't like.
The lobby in the library would always be crowded at break with small boys: there was a copy of Encarta, with a general knowledge game on it.
Seeing a crowd of boys filling the pavement and a smart-looking lady trying to edge past. One of the boys accidentally spilt his can of drink on her. She looked appalled and told him watch it. One of his friends shouted after her: "His name's David."
Spending Friday lunch times at choir practice because we'd been told it was important to have interests outside schoolwork.
We were each given an element - we had to produce an A4 sized poster about it to be stuck on a giant periodic table. I got iron, but swapped it with another girl for one of the rare elements because it sounded more interesting. But what the fuck do you say about a metal so radioactive it can't exist for more than a few moments. I still wish I'd kept iron.
The crunch of a mercury thermometer breaking, and Dr Lewis sending to the prep room for some flowers of sulphur. "Don't use it as a stirrer!"

Fifty things I remember about my time at DCPS

2009-08-28T12:24:00.004+01:00

This is part of my 50 things I remember project. Here is a list of all the 50 things posts.

Building homes for tiny creatures in the roots of the oak tree in the Upper School playground with Diana Ward.
Miss Ware's sausage machine -- she told us that the year above us had been so naughty that they'd worn it smooth, and it was now used as the tunnel in the Upper School Playground.
The new art room in Lower School smelled of bread and honey.
Mrs Cardwell, who wore pink and grey, and sometimes jade green.
Horrible reading lessons in the sick room. It smelled of puke, and the curtains were drawn so we didn't look out of the window. Mrs Bea kept telling us that we -- and all young people -- were rubbish for saying 'somethink' and 'drawring'; and the others read so slowly that I wanted to shake them, and I always got told off for reading ahead. Miss Ware's group sounded much better. They were reading Willard Price's Lion Adventure. She said it was so silly that they couldn't stop laughing long enough to read it. "People just keep getting eaten... chomp."
The headmaster took us one a week for drama, and he made a huge fuss of learning our names. It made me feel tremendously important.
Seeing bunsen burners on the yellow flame through the window of the science lab, and being scared of using them next year.
I put my name down for puppet-making, but somehow Olivia and I ended up in popmobility. Olivia almost cried. I was totally bewildered. Luckily, we were able to move across.
One hot day, Guy Oxley climbed over the wall and fell out of the tree house. I saw it happen from the other side of the playing field. Later, I saw him being comforted in the library by the headmaster's wife. She was giving him a drink of water.
Climbing through the hedge at the end of the playing field to escape -- but then I didn't really know what I would do next, so I climbed back up the bank.
Writing secret messages and burying them under the hedge. Later, we dug them up, and all the writing had vanished!
During swimming sports, Paul V and James Smith wrapped towels around their hair and strutted around.
James Parsons saying that he looked forward to showing off his legs in shorts when the summer uniform came in. "They're so suntanned and sexy. My shorts, I mean."
Finding dried peas in the pockets of my tracksuit -- we used to have games right before lunch on a Friday, and it was always fish, chips and peas.
The horrible roast dinner on a Wednesday with dark green, bitter cabbage -- where do you find cabbage like that? -- and slices of grey leathery meat, and gravy that tasted of dusty white pepper.
Reading the rude messages scratched on the desks in Mr Clark's classroom: Bone can't f*** and Bone loves Miss Liverton.
Wondering what Mrs Stickland would look like if she did a forward roll. She was wearing a bright pink towling tracksuit and full make-up.
My friends telling me that I would probably be offered drugs at the state school I was down for.
There was a girl in my class who had the same swimming costume as me. She sometimes liked to duck people. Once I sank myself under water and saw the costume above me. I thought she was swimming over me to be spiteful -- but was just my own body reflected on the surface of the water.
Mr Clark saying that so long as we were in the right place at the right time doing the right thing, everything would be OK. And that if any teacher ever told us to do something that contradicted something we'd already been told, we should come and talk with him about it.
Going up the stairs to the art room felt like going into another world -- it was so messy and comfortable.
We were evacuated from the CD room during high wind -- they were afraid trees would fall on the nissan huts and squash us flat. We crowded in the art room with another class and did our work on our knees.
A girl from the year above ate her brick of icecream between the two wafers.
In Upper School, always feeling cold during break on the dining hall playground, and being too scared to join in the running around games because it was so noisy and crowed, and I was afraid of falling over.
Tennis balls flying overhead, the whole length of the playground, and wondering how boys could throw them so far, and why girls couldn't do the same.
Being told off for taking off our shoes during break in the summer.
Putting a large plastic spider on Mr Hendy's chair. He didn't notice.
Outside Mr Hendy's classroom was a large sandbox, which he used to teach us about erosion. It was very effective -- you could see the progress of a river from young to old in a few minutes.
During break, always wanting to go somewhere that the teachers couldn't see. Once we escaped into the shrubbery that surrounded the tennis courts. We wanted to do a rain dance to ensure cross country would be cancelled.
Letting Latin vocab tests ruin the whole of Tuesday morning. Lucky they weren't in the afternoon, really.
Gale Betts folded a piece of paper, licked the fold and it tore neatly in half. I thought that was an amazing trick. I still use it today.
The rough red bricks of Moat -- we waited for the school bus outside that building, so I became very familiar with them, and with the crunchy white mineral that gathered in the holes.
Always wishing that I had better kit than I did: my canvas hockey boots should have been football boots; and my tennis racket should have been graphite not wood; and to have proper school sports socks instead of plain navy ones.
Sitting on the grass eating the stalks of clover leaves.
Beetroot juice staining my macaroni cheese on salad day (usually Monday); and the crispy cheese on top.
Sitting in the quiet playground and knitting.
One day a week, our year could play boardgames in Mr Oborn's classroom -- there was always a scramble for Downfall. We used to play a lot of Cheat, but our cards kept getting lost because people would stuff them into desks.
Our playing field was on the site of old orchards, and there was a tree that produced the most delicious apples: they were crisp and sour-sweet.
In Lower School, trying and failing to climb trees -- I just wasn't strong enough to pull myself up the grey apple trunks.
I was asked to pick up the netball bibs at the end of games; but I had to run to catch the school bus, so my friend offered to do it for me. The games teacher told me off -- even though she KNEW I caught the bus, and that it was always a scramble to get dressed at the end of games and she'd told me off for being late the week before.
A little blonde girl who was so plump and pink and white and pretty -- until she opened her mouth and you could see her teeth were black and rotten.
A few girls in Lower School had the grey school uniform hats. Once, some boys took one and peed in it. We heard about it in Upper School.
There was a treehouse in the Upper School adventure playground. It used to have a deathslide running from it, but by the time we got there, it wasn't working, and the treehouse was supposed to be out of bounds (so naturally we tried to get up there as much as possible.
Collecting scented barks and resins and leaves to make incense. We worked on it in the playground, grinding and grinding. We kept it wrapped in a handkerchief between breaks, a bristly lump in my pocket. Later, Priscilla Parish came round to my house and we wrapped it up in birch bark and burnt it. I think it smelled better before we burnt it.
There was a small tree and on the bare earth under it, a spot where the ground bounced. We had a lot of fun bouncing up and down. And then one day someone decided to dig down and find out what made it bounce. It was just treeroots; and it never bounced again.
A boy dropped his dinner tray because he was hurrying. He went back for more, and dropped it again.
The greyish, slimey feel of the water we used to wipe the dining room tables.
We were talking about what we would like for Christmas with one of the dinnerladies. She said that the only thing she really wanted was her husband (who had died earlier in the year) back.
On his first day in Upper School, my brother arrived late for the bus. The teacher on duty asked why he was late. I explained that he'd lost his trousers after games, and the teacher replied dryly: "Well you should have looked after them better, Clare."
Miss Ware rode into school on a motorbike, and wore turquoise nail polish. I thought she was wonderful (and still do).

50 things I remember about Mrs Hollins' Nursery School at Great Pagehurst

2009-07-28T11:03:00.004+01:00

This is part of my 50 things I remember project. Here is a list of all the 50 things posts.

The builders found a mummified cat in the attic, and we buried it by the pond. We had to be careful to only throw earth -- and not grass -- into the grave.
The minnows in the sink by the french windows died in the frost. Some of the other children took them from the compost heap and pretended to fry them in the wendy house.
The chimney of the stove in the wendy house was always full of sand, and so was the rug on the floor.
They brought out a giant blue paddling pool one day. We took off our clothes, folded them and left the bundles in a line on the lawn. Priscilla said: 'I'm going to put my clothes next to yours, because you're nice.'
Running across the lawn on a cloudy day with Claire chasing me. She was wearing green dungarees, and her long hair was flying.
Mrs Hollins wore a large timer -- the colour and shape of an orange lentil -- round her neck so she knew when to take the bread out of the oven.
One day, I was brave and asked for hot milk with Ovaltine. It was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted.
They took us up into the attic to look at some very old toys. There was a red cloak draped over a trunk, and I thought it might be a ghost. We found a very old gollywog doll, and Georgina liked it so much, and was so good and careful with it that Mrs Hollins said she could bring it downstairs.
A boy called Ned (who had red hair) made a set of traffic lights out of painted round margarine tubs, a piece of wood and some little bulbs.
Tapping nails through bottle tops in the woodwork room, and sawing bits of wood to make a rattle.
The sound of wind in the poplar trees, and the smell of them.
One day, we played with shells. Mrs Hollins said that she liked to arrange little ones in the bigger shells and pretend they were food.
A girl called Lisa who was a bit naughty. She painted over someone else's art.
At clearing up time, washing purple paint off a brush in the sink.
Making tiny cottage loaves to eat at elevensies time.
Warm bread, spread with butter and marmite and a mug of cold milk.
Sitting in a circle and playing musical instruments.
The musty smell of the dressing up box -- which was in the dining room.
Hamish and Georgina and some other children made masks and dressed up as the Scooby Doo gang. They wanted elastic to hold the masks on, but Mrs Hollins only had thread.
Mrs Hollins could hop round in a circle on the square paving stones by the door.
There was a picture of a girl with a hoop on my peg. I shared it with Anna. It was the first peg next to the door. Claire had the next peg along -- it was a blue-green picture of a child holding a dove.
I took a seat for elevensies, and Saskia said that she should have my seat, as it was higher, and she was older. I said that I needed the higher seat because I was younger.
Walking down the crunchy gravel drive.
Mrs Hollins had a lady to help her who was called Molly.
There was a bouncy horse that made a wonderful squeaky-squeaky noise.
Going on the royal blue trampoline.
Wondering at the air wobbling over the heater.
The smell of the old yew tree on the terrace.
Playing in the snow -- a boy hit Mrs Hollins in the face with a snowball, and she helped him to say he was sorry. I thought he was very grown-up, and that she was very kind.
Vicky the black and white dog who lived near the back door and barked a lot.
Claire sitting on the back step and stroking Vicky -- I thought she was very brave.
Going to the top of the climbing frame.
The dining room carpet was grey, and the furniture was black oak.
There was a secret compartment in the coffer where the dressing-ups were kept. It had necklaces in it.
I liked the dry sand indoors -- it was in a baby's bath.
We played in the indoor wendy house, and Anna said that she should be the father, because she had short hair.
Remembering not to leave the lids of the empty perfume bottles so that the smell didn't escape.
There was a red bicycle.
We went to visit Mrs Thomas -- but I didn't fancy it, so when we walked past our house, I escaped from the end of the line with Claire, and we went and hid round the back among my father's cuttings. We heard my mother come out to the dustbin, but I was too scared of her seeing us. I told her later, and she was cross and said I shouldn't run away.
Dipping my hands into the sink of minnows on the terrace to feel how cool the water was.
Georgina taught me, with a grass seed head: "Here's a tree in summer, here's a tree in winter, here's a pretty flower and here's an April shower."
The smell of poster paint in those safety posts with the slit in the top of the lid.
Remembering to wash our hands before we made bread buns.
Hoping I would get a pretty mug at elevensies time.
The hall where the rocking horse and the sand tray was had a polished wooden floor and seemed to stretch out forever into darkness -- but if the kitchen door was open, there was a rectangle of daylight at the end of it.
There was a door out of the woodwork room into the parts of the house weren't nursery school. And another door out of the dining room. I always wondered where they went.
Priscilla saying that her brother was big enough to throw me where the monsters were.
A boy called Kevin playing with an old saucepan in the sandpit. He had a coat with a fur-lined hood.
The garage was in a barn, and when there were no cars in it, you could see bright dots of light shining through the black back wall.
Sitting on the window seat in the dining room and watching all the mothers pulling up in their cars to collect us.

Cut it.

2009-07-23T11:28:00.003+01:00

I've been playing around trying to cut some of my stories down to 100 words, and then to 25 words.

It's a fascinating exercise -- a little like writing a headline. It might seem impossible at first, but if you practise, it gets easier.

I write a 30-word description of a walk I take regularly over at Once Around the Park. I've found this almost-daily practice fun; and it trains me to remember that there is always more than one way of saying something. It helps me to look for the essence of an idea, or an impression, or a thought.

One of the things that inspired me to try this was a stray comment made by one of my lecturers on a poem by the Roman poet Horace. This particular poem is a description of a journey, and one section has a long list of places that Horace's party passed through, each tagged with a little description. One town, however, is not named. It's described along the lines of 'That place which cannot be named in verse.' The lecturer explained that although the verse form Horace was using followed strict scansion rules (scanning Latin poetry is very much like doing equations) it was unlikely that there really was a city that could not be named in verse. Horace was having a little joke at the expense of less dedicated poets. It might have been difficult to work the name in, the lecturer said, 'but these guys could do anything with words.'

The idea of being able to do anything with words appeals to me, so I keep practising.

There's a contest for 25 word stories over at Robert Swartwood's blog. I'm posting a link to get myself a third entry.
And if you want more 30-word descriptions of walks, try Lucy at Out with Mol.

A list of things of which I am afraid

2009-07-21T15:57:00.003+01:00

Deep cold water
Being stung by or even brushing jellyfish while swimming
Jumping into a swimming pool
Plug hole hair
The mocking laughter of strangers
People who describe the plots of horror movies
Clowns
Crocodiles
Angry herds of cattle
Getting lost in a mangrove swamp
Loud dogs
Men who walk as if a large space belongs to them
Women with scraped back hair, grey faces and hard eyes
Adults who shout angrily at their children in public
People who want to be noticed in a bad way
Meeting a person with whom I used to go to school, and finding that they have not moved on
Being misunderstood because I've made a too obscure reference
Accidentally plaigiarising
Editors of all kinds
Having 3BT ragged by AA Gill and Giles Coren
Bits of tissue blocking the sinks in public lavatories
Putting on more weight and not being able to find any clothes that fit
Debt and penury
Being crushed by the cogs of bureaucracy
Never finding another job
The government's attitude to motherhood
The power of doctors
Falling from a high place because I indulged the temptation to step over the edge
Sea mist when the tide is coming in
Being too cold to light a fire
Falling through ice
Dark footpaths
Clicking 'submit'
Not making it as a writer
Failing to write anything good ever again
Causing a road accident because I was not paying attention while crossing the road
Going upstairs in the dark
The house catching fire because I've left the oven on
People shouting outside
Walking along the top of a mountain ridge when there is a strong wind blowing

A list of things that I didn't like as a child, but do like now

2009-07-16T12:04:00.002+01:00

Alcohol
Needlework (thank you to Miss L and Mrs S for that!)
Going for walks
Strong cheese
Charles Dickens, the Brontes and Jane Austen.
Treasure Island
Having a lie in
Buying clothes
Getting my hair cut
Massage
The radio
The scary bits of Dr Who
Not living with my parents
Getting married and having children
Traveling on a train by myself
Nail polish
Stockings
Having a nap in the afternoon
Sunday papers
Chili
Ginger
Spring onions
Talking to strangers
My siblings
Filing my nails
Map reading
James Bond
Star Trek
Kandinsky's Cossacks
Robots

I made this list in response to Jem's comment on the Three Beautiful Things post Museum pieces, the expert and prescription.

What I like in fiction

2009-07-10T11:31:00.002+01:00

I don't like horror and torture and dark cruelty.

I do like female characters, and a fascinating world.

I like to wonder about a character's past -- and their future.

I like stories with some science that is indistinguishable from magic.

I like stories with an idea that I can explore and carry round in my teeth to worry at, bury, dig up, chew on and bury again.

Putting glitter back on your good intentions

2009-07-03T11:52:00.003+01:00

Sarah Salway's sad tweet yesterday inspired this:

Emergency measures in case of coffee spillage

Turn to a new blank page
Build in a reward later in your day so you’ve got something to look forward to
Move on to the next item
Wash your face and brush your hair
Take a snack break
Wear the tiara
Break down your day into baby steps
Well begun is half done
Stop if it’s really going no-where and achieve something else instead
Tell someone where you are going, and when you’re going to be back
Shoot for the moon: even if you fail, you should be able to grab a handful of stars on the way down
Apply bum to seat and words to paper

Long-term measures so you don’t get into this situation in the first place

Write down your goals, and make them SMART (stated, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed)
Why are you doing this again? List ten things you get out of it
How important is it that you do this now? On a scale of one to ten… Anything less than an eight – why are you doing it? What can you do to bump it up to a ten?
Make a list of everything that might stop you achieving your goal – and the things you can do to manage them
Celebrate your achievements – tell people; treat yourself; enjoy your success
Keep a list of everything you have achieved; and read it often

Mistress Clarey, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

2009-06-07T19:57:00.005+01:00

Very well, thank you very much:

Stitch watch: Hardanger

2009-04-26T14:59:00.007+01:00

I haven't been posting much recently, but I have been at work. These pictures are bits and pieces from some hardanger samplers -- the patterns are in The New Anchor Book of Hardanger Embroidery Stitches.

I'm using a mixture of left over perle thread from other projects and some skeins of Anchor multicoloured perle -- hence the slightly eccentric colour schemes in some pieces.

Caw

2009-02-09T13:38:00.002Z

Stitch watch: Mushroom

2009-01-27T07:09:00.005Z

A few weeks ago at the drawing class I attend, we did mushrooms. I traced my sketch with a transfer pencil, ironed it on to a piece of cotton, and made this:

The brown marks are where the iron burnt the masking tape glue -- next time I'm using pins to hold it all together. The pink marks are the transfer pencil -- I gather they'll wash out, but I'm a bit wary of trying this... Better luck next time :-)

Stitch watch: scissors case

2009-01-25T12:30:00.004Z

This is a scissors case from Sue Hawkins' range. I've never done much canvas work before, and this little project was a very pleasant introduction. I love having something pretty that I know I'll use, too. I particularly liked the nubbly rhodes stitch (left side of the front of the case).

The colours glow much more in real life -- I'm not sure if the warmer picture shows this better than the cooler picture of the back of the case. The satin stitch (top of the back) feels lovely.

Stitch watch: Buttercup Lane

2009-01-25T12:03:00.004Z

This is Buttercup Lane from Rowandean. It was great fun to do -- even all that straight stitch grass. I need to work on my stem stitch, though, as it looks a bit knotty, as you can see in the close-up below.

Things which are only pleasurable because of the unpleasantness which went before.

2009-01-14T11:27:00.001Z

The burning tingling of cold fingers warming up.
Feeling better after throwing up.
Once back at home, thinking about eating a tangerine and drinking very cold water from a rinsed-out milk bottle while sitting on a stone behind a low wall, the only shelter from the wind on the top of a cloud-bound mountain.
Waking up with no headache after falling asleep while ill.
The engineer has visited, and now it works.
Coming into a cool, dark building on a day when the light and heat burn my head.
A stuffy warm office after a walk on a morning when a knife-sharp wind is blowing.

Twenty Things That Stimulate Creativity

2009-01-13T11:34:00.001Z

A vegetable box
A walk
Something that needs repair
A list
A new stitch
Planning an outfit I've never worn before
Having a clear out
Writing in my notebook
An art class
Listening to a radio play
Walking round a market
Following a how-to of a craft I've never tried
Doing a writing exercise
Art galleries and museums
Reading a few art or craft blogs
Sitting and thinking
Reading or looking at a source book
Setting a goal
Thinking about a problem
Trying a new recipe

A list of countries appearing in the stats for 3BT

2008-10-26T08:36:00.002Z

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei Darusslam
Bulgaria
Cameroon
Canada
Chile
China
Costa Rica
Cote d'Ivoire
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Islamic Republic of Iran
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kuwait
Lao Peoples Democratic Republic
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Malaysia
Maldives
Malta
Mexico
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
Netherlands
Netherlands Antilles
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Pakistan
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Republic of Ireland
Republic of Korea
Romania
Russian Federation
Russian Federation Tatarstan
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
St Kitts and Nevis
Sweden
Switzerland
Syrian Arab Republic
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States of America
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam

Fifty things I remember about my time at Sissinghurst Primary School

2008-10-24T07:42:00.004+01:00

This is part of my 50 things I remember project. Here is a list of all the 50 things posts.

Mrs White the dinner lady saying: 'Eat your fritter'. A fritter was a diamond-shaped piece of battered fish.
scratchy hemp skipping ropes
peering through the silver grey fence panels at the flowers in the church yard
staying in at break because a funeral was going past
looking through the gate at the fourth year juniors sitting in the field with the goats
Helen Pope's and Bronwyn Riley's heads touching as they shared an advanced spelling book. They would also play their recorders for hymns in assembly
Using pooters to catch insects (beakers with two tubes, one you suck and the other to vacuum up the creatures. Mr Martin explained that the sucking tube had a valve to stop you getting a mouthful of ants.
Mr Martin telling us to sing louder in order to drown out the new children who were crying in assembly.
The clunk-clunk of the fire escape door. And being too scared to use it, until I learnt to read the 'push bar to open' sign.
Leaning against the wall to get up on to stilts -- there were three sizes, bigs, mediums and small, all splintery and varnished in bright orange and yellow.
Being told off for telling the girls who came to take us for games that our teacher always let us play with the stilts.
Mr Martin's fierce orange eyebrows
Mrs Covelli's fierce black eyebrows
Being told in assembly that Mrs White was very ill, and then later that she had died. And then sitting on her memorial bench, and wondering if she was watching.
I didn't like the name of one of the dinner ladies so I called her Mrs Jones. Her real name was Mrs Grabham (Mr Martin said that this was a very appropriate name, and we should do what she said or she'd grab us).
On hot afternoons going out for a nature walk round Chad Lake.
There was a wendy house behind the blackboard.
Weaving on cardboard shapes with fat yarns.
Ned Crowe coming in from boys electronics in the hall and picking up a thick piece of wool from the floor and saying 'Whatever is this'.
Holding hands with Ben Bower and him saying I was just the sort of girl he would like to marry.
Country dancing -- and crying because I couldn't do Lucky Sevens, and being surprised at how kind Mrs Covelli was.
Mrs Covelli escorting Mairi Smith out of the classroom, holding her shirt sleeves up so her painty hands wouldn't get everywhere and calling her a messy little girl.
Not being allowed to go home until all the scissors were accounted for.
Mrs Covelli counting down from ten while we tidied up.
Jonathan Martin getting under the mobile classroom
Digging down in the gravel in the adventure playground and finding the gravel got wetter the further down we went.
Digging a hole in the sandpit and being afraid we might get to magma.
Priscilla Parish holding forth on the correct way of taking a crisp from someone else's packet.
Buying packets of crisps from the school secretary Mrs Smith, who had wirey black hair and a beatific smile.
Insisting that the nit nurse checked my doll's hair before she checked my own.
Mrs Suthers making me stand up on my chair to sing a song about Jesus because she said I hadn't been listening.
Mrs Hall explaining the correct way to carry chairs (which I can't remember) and the incorrect way to carry chairs (which I can remember): Don't carry it on your head. Don't support it on your hips with the legs sticking out to the side.
The smell of scented rubbers, and scented felt tip pens.
Calling felt tips 'felts'. 'Can I borrow your felts?'
Queuing for the loo before going into the swimming pool and discussing whether it was all right or not to wee through your bathers before you swam.
Walking back from the games field holding hands with Eleanor Milburn and doing 'All girls together, no boys.'
Nearly up-chucking at the smell of Emma Bowyer's fishpaste sandwich.
'Georges win! Andrews in the bin.'
Gordon Russell dropping a fat, snotty tear on my green reading card. He was standing behind me in the queue to have his reading heard, and had just been told off. I was cross, because it was a newish reading card and I would be stuck with the stain for a very long time.
I had to do a maths exercise which involved colouring in a square to show how many boys there were in the class. They ran around so much that I couldn't count them, so I coloured in all the squares. Later, I was told off: 'Mrs Covelli doesn't have 30 boys in her class!'
Being frightened of a dinner lady's twisted hands and shining knuckles -- Mrs Filmer must have had painful arthritis, which is probably why she always seemed so cross.
Finding a cross carved into the trunk of the lime tree in the front playground.
Horrid boys trying to push girls into the damp and smelly boys' loos in the back playground.
In the summer, we were allowed to eat our lunch in the front playground. My form teacher Mrs Covelli came and kindly asked me what I was doing alone in the cool deserted dining hall. I explained that the sun was too bright and hot, and that I preferred being inside. She sat with me and ate her lunch, and complimented me on my pink Victoria Plum lunchbox.
Singing lessons with Mrs Crowe, in which we sang 'We All Live in A Yellow Submarine' and 'John Brown's Baby's Got a Cold Upon its Chest'.
One afternoon our teacher was late back from lunch. We lined up outside the locked classroom and sang 'We all Live in Tub of Margarine'. When she still didn't come, we sang 'We All Live in a Bubblegum Machine.'
A rumour flew round reception that if we put two words too close together, the thing to do was to put a neat dot in the middle of the line.
Getting changed after swimming under my blue towling poncho. The highlight of the swimming class was doing a whirlpool -- we would walk round the circular pool, pushing against the water, and then stop and let ourselves be washed backwards.
A lesson where we had to read one of a set of non-fiction books -- they covered every topic you can imagine, and we could choose whatever we liked -- and answer some questions at the end.
Simon Butler asking a girl who had come in to do work experience how to spell 'kerfuffle', and her looking really confused.

50 things I like

2008-10-16T13:41:00.000+01:00

The Addams Family
fingerless gloves
handcream
embroidery
workshops
Mini cheddars
sunshine
apple juice
Futurama
Kazu Kibushi
Sushi
Fleece blankets
Lie-ins
Eating breakfast with Nick
Listening to the radio
The typefaces Palatino and Garamond
Pencils
Google
Oranges
Abel and Cole
BBC 7
PaulV
bunches of anemones
buying a few expensive chocolates
Nutella
Going to the beach and making footprints on the sand
Autumn colours
Wild Mushrooms
A mug of coffee
footpaths
Maps
Candles
A campfire
Browsing in a bookshop
Walking
Planning something fun
Snuggling
Having a bath
Neil Gaiman
My suitcase
ginger biscuits
slow cooked meat
rare steak
wild food
Scherenschnitte
turquoise
fossils
The Mighty Boosh
Sunsets
playing creative games

2008-09-21T13:41:00.000+01:00

I'm in the literary magazine qarrtsiluni.

That is all.

List of words associated with the elderly

2008-09-21T13:12:00.003+01:00

wisdom
older people
life experience
dementia
home
warden
assisted living
illness
death
stories
depression
laughter
walking stick
zimmer
bridge
whist
Darby and Joan, Evergreen, University of the 3rd Age
grandchildren
support
advice
talk
marmalade jam
gardening
thinking
hearing aid
heater
difficult
grumpy
kind
bereavement
loneliness
outreach
alarm
conmen
antiques
white-headed
hoary-headed
grey beard
During the war we...
When your mother was a little girl...
I remember
mobility aids
scooter
feeding the birds
it's not how it used to be
butterscotch, York fruits, Murray Mints
Bronley soaps
fruit cake
bus travel
gossip
what's that, dear?
road accidents
...a more innocent time
driving very slowly
blue rinse
getting up very early
pensions
pensioner
OAP
December
twilight years
dying at home
staying in own home
power of attorney
prescription drugs
stockpiling pills
conversations about illness and death

List of words associated with success

2008-09-14T18:23:00.002+01:00

victory
triumph
target
hit the target
hit the mark
peak
summit
achievement
tour de force
trial
hill top
laurels
trophy
cup
prize
spoils
grand prix
complete
finish
first pas the post
winner
commended
excellence
bested
came out on top
winner takes it all
victor ludorum
chequered flag
goal
in the bag
podium
medal
gong
Olympian
top of the pile
best in show
blue / red ribbon
finalist
placed
finish line
game, set and match
throw a six
top of the heap
gold medal, silver, silver gilt, bronze
complete
tape
yellow jersey
sash
checkmate
bingo
top score
high score
he shoots, he scores
top marks
leader board
100%
bull's eye
effort has paid off
in the cup
hat trick
won by a nose
scraped in
broke the tape
convincing win
broke a record
number one
award-winning
won
lap of honour

Stitch watch -- Pincushion

2008-08-20T21:12:00.010+01:00

Here's a little pin cushion from a Vari-Galore kit that I finished tonight. I am very proud of it and so pleased to own something so beautiful. Katie keeps looking at it enviously.

I thoroughly enjoyed making it -- the instructions leave enough freedom to make it good fun, and the hand-dyed threads are gorgeous.

I picked up the kit at a show at Ally Pally last Autumn. I've been checking the Vari-Galore catalogue and wondering what I should order next. I'd quite like to try some turkeywork... and also ribbon embroidery. And more stump work.

List of items to do with moving house

2008-08-15T08:52:00.000+01:00

boxes

worry

dust

lost items found

items lost

cups of tea

money concerns

nostalgia for old house

regret at leaving

excitement about new house

breakages

lifting

smell of cardboard

relief that it's over

learn to love your boxes

one box a week

chaos

irregular meal times

worries about parking

stress

newspaper and bubblewrap

newsprint

lorry's engine running

trip to the dump

Champagne

discovering lovely things I'd forgotten I owned

fear of theft

a fresh start

change of address notes

new things

logistics

ditching

unwanted

dead tired

break from routine

wondering if the day will ever end

sound of cardboard tearing

tape and the smell of tape

sound of ripping tape

things put together that are not usually together

Embroidery watch

2008-08-14T20:46:00.005+01:00

This is the sewing I keep at work. Sadly, we're not allowed to listen to streaming internet content, so no BBC7 in my lunch hour. I may have to buy some sort of MP3 player. Don't ask for better pictures -- there are none.

Short list of words that I will be consciously asking if I need to write this week

2008-08-11T08:34:00.001+01:00

almost
nearly
really
quite
some
very

Things that happen when it rains

2008-08-10T21:47:00.003+01:00

There is a rush to get everything inside
A curious emptiness
Damp clothes
Clamminess
Drips off umbrellas
Constant noise
Cars swooshing
It's not so bad once you're in it
Wanting to be indoors
A drop falling off a leaf
Rushings in gutters
Scallop shaped waves run downhill
Blurred light reflections on the road at night
It gets dark early
Bruised flowers and soft fruit
Wet shoes
Dust puffs up where the drops hit it
The smell of wet dust
Wet and muddy footprints near the door
Dirty floors
Long columns of water
Uncertainty about how long it will last
Sheep go to shelter, or do not go to shelter and we think it means something
Fish jumping
Chills and coldness and aches
A dripping nose
Wet hair
Whispering as the rain falls on the ground
Streams of water in places previously dry
Mud
Lying in bed hearing the rain falling on the roof
Worrying about things left outside and about water getting into places where it should not be
Puddles
Being splashed by cars
Clots of dead grass in drains
Squelching on a lawn
Soaked trouser cuffs
Slippery surfaces
Landslides and floods
Rain diamonds on grasses
Spray
Deciding we don't have to worry about the watering
Accidentally standing on a snail
High winds lashing rain against the windows
Feelings of safety and security because the weather can't get in
Stamping in puddles while wearing wellies
Making damns and streams from a mud puddle
Falling rain showing up in the light of a streetlamp
Longer stopping distances while driving
Not being able to dry clothes

Indicators of warm weather

2008-07-28T12:13:00.003+01:00

short sleeves and trousers
bra straps showing
bumble bees on flowers
sticky tarmac
cars with windows down
other people's music
a curtain flapping out of an open window
people describing the outdoors atmosphere as 'really chilled'
slow walking
deep shadows
sunbathers on towels in the park
a longing for cool drinks
the smell of cucumber
clinking of ice cubes
lethargy
sunburn
traffic jams; the smell of hot cars; scorching my legs on dark leather upholstery
aromatic plants
not being able to sleep in the heat and throwing off the covers and sleeping under a sheet
cold showers
sound of an aeroplane overhead
sound of a lawnmower or a strimmer
children shrieking and splashing
scent of pine woods
buzzing insects trapped indoors
ants circling
not trying to keep warm
prickly heat
seeking shade
heat haze
stillness
bird song
crickets ticking and flies buzzing past your head
flowers make splashes of bright colour on brown and green background
drying grass heads
things flipping and flollopping into the pond
flower heads turning towards the sun
creatures rustling in the shade
the sun is warmer than the air
the grass is damp
ice cream vans
air conditioning shivering my skin and fans whirring and drying out my throat
thin cardigans
not wanting to touch white paper or white sewing
strawberries, cherries, raspberries, melon
dust outside
bare feet
treading in water and leaving footprints on the terrace
finding tea very refreshing
not wanting to be near supermarket freezers; and seeing that all the other people in the queue have bought meat and drink for a barbecue
not drinking enough
Pimm's; white wine; cider; cold beer; gin and tonic with lime
vegetables and herbs from the garden
very soft butter
food spoiling in the sun and outside air but no-one can be bothered to clear it away
horses crowding into the shade and standing with their heads down
trying to get some air through the house by opening all the doors and windows. Closing all the doors last thing at night, and opening them all first thing in the morning
putting my face against something cool

Stitches

2008-07-27T11:55:00.003+01:00

This is my first go at sashiko embroidery -- it's a beginner level sampler that I picked up at the stitch fair at Ally Pally last autumn. I think I might sew this panel on to my black cotton shopping bag.

It comes from Euro Japan Links. They offer more advanced samplers, and I'd like to try them out. As you can see, this effort was a bit wonky, but I'm sure I'll improve with time.
I'd like to try this sort of sewing on some denim -- I've got a pair of jeans with a busted crotch; and if the tailor at Manuela's Retoucherie says 'No', I'm going to cut the legs up and make me some panels.

Ways for Clare to make work bearable

2008-07-24T09:14:00.003+01:00

Adjust your mode of transport -- if it's fine, walk in. If it's not, get the train. Check for train problems before you leave. Wear comfortable shoes for gettig to work. Empty your handbag regularly so you are not carrying un-necessary weight. Keep an umbrella and a waterproof at work.
If you're running late, don't worry -- phone in and apologise. It's not going to get you there any earlier.
Choose five outfits for the week -- most of my clothes can be edited up or down depending on the weather. Keep a pair of black shoes, and a pair of brown shoes at the office.
Have five photographs on your desk, and change them each week.
Buy sandwiches from the van, and have snacks available (unless there's something particularly nice to bring in).
Keep handcream and a nailfile and a lip salve on your desk -- those are things you like to have by you, and there's no shame in that.
Keep a needlework to do at lunchtime.
Work out how much spending money you have and enjoy it. Take a look at how long you must work for certain things.
Be positive.
They have a library downstairs, so there will always be something to read at lunchtime.
Have something to do that is not obviously not work for those times when there is no work to do.

Tag

2008-07-14T11:57:00.008+01:00

Tania has tagged me.

What were you doing ten years' ago?

What 5 things are on your to-do list today?

Say YES to Courier job. (done)
Buy a present and card for Louise.
Think about supper so my tired housemate doesn't have to.
Write 3BT (done), Once Around the Park and my notebook prompt. (done)
Hunt down 3BTs all about change for a submission.

What would you do with a billion dollars?
Gradually buy the entire block of flats where Nick lives and make it into one house then set up a fund to ensure we have enough to live on comfortably for the rest of our lives. A billion dollars is such a mind-boggling amount of money -- I have no idea what I could do with it! A quick Google indicates that I might be able to buy YouTube or a social networking site; but I think I'd be inclined to get rid of whatever I didn't need as quickly as possible so that I don't have to worry too much about it.
List the places you have lived:
- A white weatherboard and brick semi-detached house in the middle of wheat fields.
- A black converted barn in the middle of a forest.
- A strange-smelling university hall of residence.
- A buttermilk coloured terraced house beside a busy road, in a room with bars on the tiny window and a drafty door down to the cellar behind the bed.
- A split-level brick house in the middle of a city, in a room with a curtain for a door, a piano and a sliding window out to some external steps.
- A damp concrete box on a sunny residential dead-end street. I grew sunflowers on the flat roof outside.
- An end-of-terrace with garden, shared with my partner's best friend and his collection of wonderful books.
- A second floor flat on the High Street. The kitchen was beautiful and I still miss it.
- A first floor flat with a huge living room and beautiful fireplaces on the junction between two residential streets. My room overlooks some lime trees.
List the jobs you have held:
- Writer
- Assistant to a writer
- Editorial assistant at small publisher
- Proofreader
- Sub-editor at a company producing material in Braille and large print
- Freelance journalist
- Healthcare journalist
- Freelance Sub-editor for a homes magazine
- Sub-editor for a gardening magazine
- Freelance sub-editor for newspapers
- Freelance editor for a website
- Sub-editor for a local newspaper
- Memoir editor
- Plant label typer
- Cherry seller
- Apple picker
- Baby sitter
- Dock leaf weeder
List the people you'd like to know more about:
- Rosey
- Katie
- Glamourpuss
- Christine
- My aunts (who don't have blogs -- that I know about!)

Ten beautiful things about classes and courses.

2008-07-04T09:12:00.001+01:00

1. Now it is spring and the nights are drawing out. For the first time this year, I hurry to a writing class in daylight, taking a short cut across the park.

2. Twelve years after leaving school, I am still amazed at how, in the real world, no-one shouts at you for being late. They just want you to get to your seat with as little disruption as possible.

3. Stapling my scripts for writing class. It's all very well seeing the lines on the screen, but having real pages makes me feel as if I've done the work.

4. I like it when the class gets the giggles -- this week it was because of Sarah's stories about a mischievous writing trip to Venice.

5. For nibbles at writing class we have discs of smooth milk chocolate flavoured with Earl Grey tea.

6. Russ patiently shows me how to take tiny slivers off the bowl of my wooden spoon with a crook knife. I am surprised at how quickly and neatly the bowl forms and I work at this until it gets too dark.

7. During yoga, I open my eyes and spot a classmate silently pointing out the sunset to the woman next to him.

8. Learning new knots and the stories that go with them. 'This one is used by Siberian goat herders because they don't have to take their gloves off for long when they are making it. Wave to your friend over here... if there's a triangle there you're doing it right...' 'Round this one twice then both once...'

9. We read my plot and the teacher says: 'Everyone, let's brainstorm this.' And within minutes, the other students have produced a selection of ideas from which I can write the first couple of scenes.

10. My poledancing teacher says: 'That bit at the end where you stopped yourself falling. You were supporting your own weight on your arms, which you said you couldn't do. Now I know you can. Busted.'

How to open the door to beautiful things

2008-06-30T00:45:00.001+01:00

Section 1 -- connect with people

Give things away through Freecycle
Write to an author
Write a thank you note
Postcrossing
Bookcrossing
Help someone in trouble
Say: 'YES!'
Volunteer

Section 2 -- love the world

Go for a walk with an open mind
Look at the sky
Clean or mend something
Watch animals

Section 3 -- be mindful

Stop and wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing
Make time to walk without filling my head with its own sad thoughts.

Section 4 -- be free

If you aren't happy, ask yourself why, and change something
Don't always worry about what other people think

I do and I don't.

2008-06-23T09:01:00.000+01:00

This came over from Sarah Salway

I do write when I'm carefree.
I don't write when I'm thinking about selling my house.

I do write when there is no noise.
I don't write when there is music with words.

I do write when Nick is around.
I don't write when someone is standing behind me making comments.

I do write in bed, in cafes, when on the sofa, at my computer or sitting still.
I don't write while travelling.

I do write late at night and early in the morning.
I don't write at tea time.

I do write when I know what I want to say.
I don't write if I don't give myself a starting point.

I do write when I have a deadline.
I don't write when I've got all the time in the world.

I do write when I assume no-one is going to read it.
I don't write when I try to edit as I go.

I do write if I take the time to catch the character's voice and the setting.
I don't write if I don't prepare.

I do write when I'm not waiting for a phone call.
I don't write if I keep checking my emails.

I do write if I promise myself a reward.
I don't write if I beat myself over the head.

I do write if I scribbling like no-one is watching.
I don't write if I worry what others might think.

Chin's 33 Happy Moments

2008-06-21T10:52:00.000+01:00

I first made Chin Sheng-t'an's acquaintance in The Idler magazine. Chin lived and thrived in the late Ming period -- he was executed in 1661. He is most famous for a version of epic novel, The Water Margin. His 33 Happy Moments is less heroic, but very lovely. I think he is a born 3BTer, and his work deserves to be more widely known, so I am quoting it here -- I appropriated this text from The Idler with the permission of the editor.

1. It is a hot day in June when the sun hangs still in the sky and there is not a whiff of wind in the air, nor a trace of clouds; the front and back yards are hot like an oven and not a single bird dares to fly about. Perspiration flows down my whole body in little rivulets. There is the noonday meal before me, but I cannot take it for the sheer heat. I ask for a mat to spread on the ground and lie down, but the mat is wet with moisture and flies swarm about to rest on my nose and refuse to be driven away. Just at this moment when I am completely helpless, suddenly there is a rumbling of thunder and big sheets of black clouds overcast the sky and come majestically on like a great army advancing to battle. Rain-water begins to pour down from the eaves like a cataract. The perspiration stops. The clamminess of the ground is gone. All flies disappear to hide themselves and I can eat my rice. Ah, is this not happiness?

2. A friend, one I have not seen for ten years, suddenly arrives at sunset. I open the door to receive him, and without asking whether he came by boat or by land, and without bidding him to sit on the bed or the couch, I go to the inner chamber and ask my wife: “Have you got a gallon of wine like Su Tungp’o’s wife?” My wife gladly takes out her gold hairpin to sell it. I calculate it will last us three days. Ah, is this not happiness? (note from ed: that’s nearly two bottles of wine each per day).

3. I am sitting alone in an empty room and I am just getting annoyed at a little mouse at the head of my bed, and wondering what that little rustling sound signifies - what article of mine he is biting or what volume of my books he is eating up. While I am in this state of mind and don’t know what to do, I suddenly see a ferocious-looking cat, wagging its tail and staring with its wide-open eyes, as if it were looking at something. I hold my breath and wait a moment, keeping perfectly still, and suddenly with a little sound the mouse disappears like a whiff of wind. Ah, is this not happiness?

4. I have pulled out the hait’ang and chiching (flowery trees) in front of my studio, and have just planted ten or twenty green banana trees there. Ah, is this not happiness?

5. I am drinking with some romantic friends on a spring night and am just half intoxicated, finding it difficult to stop drinking and equally difficult to go on. An understanding boy servant at the side suddenly brings in a package of big fire-crackers, about a dozen in number, and I rise from the table and go and fire them off. The smell of sulphur assails my nostrils and enters my brain and I feel comfortable all over my body. Ah, is this not happiness?

6. I am walking in the street and see two poor rascals engaged in a hot argument of words with their faces flushed and their eyes staring with anger as if they were mortal enemies, and yet they still pretend to be ceremonious to each other, raising their arms and bending their waists in salute, and still using the most polished language of thou and thee and wherefore and is it not so? The flow of words is interminable. Suddenly there appears a big husky fellow swinging his arms and coming up to them, and with a shout tells them to disperse. Ah, is this not happiness?

7. To hear our children recite the classics so fluently, like the sound of water pouring from a vase. Ah, is this not happiness?

8. Having nothing to do after a meal I go to the shops and take a fancy to a little thing. After bargaining for some time, we still haggle about a small difference, but the shop-boy still refuses to sell it. Then I take out a little thing from my sleeve, which is worth about the same thing as the difference and throw it at the boy. The boy suddenly smiles and bows courteously saying, “Oh, you are too generous!” Ah, is this not happiness?

9. I have nothing to do after a meal and try to go through the things in some old trunks. I see there are dozens of IOUs from people who owe my family money. Some of them are dead and some still living, but in any case there is no hope of their returning the money. Behind people’s backs I put them together in a pile and make a bonfire of them, and I look up to the sky and see the last trace of smoke disappear. Ah, is this not happiness?

10. It is a summer day. I go bareheaded and barefooted, holding a parasol, to watch young people singing Soochow fol-songs while treading the water-wheel. The water comes up over the wheel in a gushing torrent like molten silver or melting snow. Ah, is this not happiness?

11. I wake up in the morning and seem to hear someone in the house sighing and saying that last night someone died. I immediately ask to find out who it is, and learn that it is the sharpest, most calculating fellow in town. Ah, is this not happiness?

12. I get up early on a summer morning and see people sawing a large bamboo pole under a mat-shed, to be used as a water-pipe. Ah, is this not happiness?

13. It has been raining for a whole month and I lie in bed in the morning like one drunk or ill, refusing to get up. Suddenly I hear a chorus of birds announcing a clear day. Quickly I pull aside the curtain, push open a window and see the beautiful sun shining and glistening and the forest looks like having a bath. Ah, is this not happiness?

14. At night I seem to hear someone thinking of me in the distance. The next day I go to call on him. I enter his door and look about his room and see that this person is sitting at his desk, facing south, reading a document. He sees me, nods quietly and pulls me by the sleeve to make me sit down, saying, “Since you are here, come and look at this.” And we laugh and enjoy ourselves until the shadows on the walls have disappeared. He is feeling hungry himself and slowly asks me, “Are you hungry, too? Ah, is this not happiness?”

15. Without any serious intention to build a house of my own, I happened, nevertheless, to start building one because a little sum had unexpectedly come my way. From that day on, every morning and every night I was told that I needed to buy timber and stone and tiles and bricks and mortar and nails. And I explored and exhausted every avenue of getting some money, all on account of this house, until I got sort of resigned to this state of things. One day, finally, the house is completed, the walls have been whitewashed and the floors swept clean; the paper windows have been pasted and scrolls and paintings are hung up on the walls. All the workmen have left, and my friends have arrived, sitting on different couches in order. Ah, is this not happiness?

16. I am drinking on a winter’s night, and suddenly note that the night has turned extremely cold. I push open the window and see that snowflakes come down the size of a palm and there are already three or four inches of snow on the ground.Ah, is this not happiness?

17. To cut with a sharp knife a bright green water-melon on a big scarlet plate of a summer afternoon. Ah, is this not happiness?

18. I have long wanted to become a monk, but was worried because I would not be permitted to eat meat. If, the, I could be permitted to eat meat publicly, why, then I bold heat a basin of hot water, and with the help of a sharper razor, shave my head clean in a summer month! Ah, is this not happiness?

19. To keep three or four spots of eczema in a private part of my body and now and then to scald or bathe it with hot water behind closed doors. Ah, is this not happiness?

20. To find accidentally a handwritten letter of some old friend in a trunk. Ah, is this not happiness?

21. A poor scholar comes to borrow money from me, but is shy about mentioning the topic, and so he allows the conversation to drift along on other topics. I see his uncomfortable situation, pull him aside to a place where we are alone and ask him how much he needs. Then I go inside and give him the sum and after having done this, I ask him: “Must you go immediately to settle this matter or can you stay awhile and have a drink with me?” Ah, is this not happiness?

22. I am sitting in a small boat. There is a beautiful wind in our favour, but our boat has no sails. Suddenly there appears a big lorcha, coming along as fast as the wind. I try to hook on to the lorchas in the hope of catching on to it, and unexpectedly the hook does catch. Then I throw over a rope and we are towed along and I begin to sing the lines of Tu Fu: “the green makes me feel tender towards the peaks, and the red tells me there are oranges.” And we break out in joyous laughter. Ah, is this not happiness?

23. I have been long looking for a house to share with a friend but have not been able to find a suitable one. Suddenly someone brings news that there is a house somewhere, not too big, but with only about a dozen rooms, and that it faces a big river with beautiful green trees around. I ask this man to stay for supper, and after the supper we go over together to have a look, having no idea what the house is like. Entering the gate, I see that there is a large vacant lot about six or seven mow, and I say to myself, “I shall not have to worry about the supply of vegetables and melons henceforth.” Ah, is this not happiness?

24. A traveller returns home after a long journey, and he sees the old city gate and hears the women and children on both banks of the river talking is own dialect. Ah, is this not happiness?

25. When a good piece of old porcelain is broken, you know there is no hope of repairing it. The more you turn it about and look at it, the more you are exasperated. I then hand it to the cook, and give orders that he shall never let that broken porcelain bowl come within my sight again. Ah, is this not happiness?

26. I am not a saint, and am therefore not without sin. In the night I did something wrong and I get up in the morning and feel extremely ill at ease about it. Suddenly I remember what is taught by Buddhism, that not to cover one’s sins is the same as repentance. So then I begin to tell my sin to the entire company around, whether they are strangers or my old friends. Ah, is this not happiness?

27. To watch someone writing big characters a foot high. Ah, is this not happiness?

28. To open the window and let a wasp out from the room. Ah, is this not happiness?

29. A magistrate orders the beating of the drum and calls it a day. Ah, is this not happiness?

30. To see someone’s kite-line broken. Ah, is this not happiness?

31. To see a wild prairie fire. Ah, is this not happiness?

32. To have just finished repaying all one’s debts. Ah, is this not happiness?

33. To read the Story of Curly-Beard (who gave up his house to a pair of eloping lovers then disappeared). Ah, is this not happiness?

2008-06-19T16:55:00.000+01:00

Things I have achieved in the last 12 months

Tried book crossing
Got into the daily prompt-writing habit
Sold an article
Finding a part-time job
Once around the park
Learning to use InDesign
Not losing my boyfriend
Played some sessions of RPG games
Quit my job and observed that the ceiling did not fall down
Got a response from the BBC Writers Room and learned to enjoy a positive rejection
Started a 3BT Facebook group
Wrote Once Around the Park for a while
Got my daily reading under control using Google Reader
Learned to trust my filing system
Learned to use Duxbury and Brailler to produce documents in Braille
Watched Ellie growing wiser every time I saw her
Was brave enough to stand up and say what I wanted
Discovered that if I'm going to write, I'm jolly well going to do it in my own voice
Learned to enjoy watching television again
Decided not to buy any more CDs or DVDs
Decided not to fly any more
Made drafts of two plays that I am really happy with.
Took crits of my work on the chin
Felt genuinely proud of my brother for getting an article in a national newspaper before me
Aquired a soldering iron and used it to (finally) fix my hairslide
Decided that in the grand scheme of things, the feelings of my friends are more important than those of strangers (ie, not to be ashamed of my friends in public

Sounds heard at a trade show

2008-06-14T13:52:00.000+01:00

Muddled voices in a large space
Heels on a wooden floor
Door shutting
Phone ringing
A laugh stands out
Cafe calls 'One tea, one cappuccino'
Shoe squeak
Coffee machine whirrs and sucks
Hubub
'You've got two long big section here and anover one over there.'
'I said to them before.'
'Can I take dis one?'
Voices on two-way radios

Fifty things that make me happy

2008-05-31T10:43:00.000+01:00

Talking to my siblings on the phone
Earning a bit of extra money
A cup of coffee
Anticipation
Pretty dresses (mine)
Compliments
Seeing my friends happy
Laughing at a stupid joke
Making a good joke
Writing
A journey
Shiney wet roads
Stars
My leafy waterproof
Hearing other people's beautiful things
Letters
Stamps from abroad
Hedgerow fruit
Overhearing conversations
Rainbows
Oddities
A good sunset
Watching insects
Strootching in leaves
Jumping in puddles
A good pen
Dinner invitations
Gossip
Seeing how I have improved at something by looking at earlier attempts, or talking about what it was like when I started out
Finding a book I want
Greenness
The smell of rain on dry earth
Central heating
Clean hair
A light suntan
Beaches
The wind in my face
The colours of embroidery thread or beads
Ice cream and a hot pudding
Martini
A few olives
Unexpected guests
Children playing
Sparrows
Crabs on a beach
Short stories
A parcel of books
A clean fridge
The smell of baking
Imaginary lands

Page 123

2008-05-11T19:47:00.000+01:00

This is a meme and it came from Elspeth Thompson, who has mentioned me in her book, and has the same name as my cousin (but my cousin uses her other first name).

Pick the nearest book about a foreign place. Go to page 123. Count down five sentences and then type up the next three. Here are mine.

They, too, had been attacked by typhus fever and smallpox. I said farewell, and, mounting my horse, heard angry words behind me. Turning round I found that some of the lepers wanted to near to speak to me, and the Yakuts were driving them away in horror, fearful lest they might catch the disease.

Kate Marsden: On sledge and horseback to outcast Siberian lepers. In Mary Morris (ed): The Virago Book of Women Travellers. Virago Press 1996.

My colleagues gave me this book for my birthday after I returned from a 10-week holiday in Africa. I have always loved travel books (particularly historical ones) and in the pages I ran into some old friends (Christina Dodwell, Dervla Murphy, Mary Kingsley) as well as some new companions (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who created a scandal in Turkey, and Eliza Farnham, who was 'determined to decrease misery in the world').

I tag: Ellouisestory

Alternatives to work.

2008-03-31T16:25:00.000+01:00

Each morning, my housemate and I talk. 'I don't want to go to work today. Let's:

Go to Brighton'

Steal some sperm from our boyfriends, have three or four fat babies and live on benefits'

Ring each other in sick'

Watch all the DVDs we own'

Lie on the sofa with the curtains drawn'

Pretend it's snowing and we can't get down the path'

Have a drill for what we'd do if the door swelled shut'

Just quit'

Sit in a coffee shop'

Drop out'

Forget it'

Have a duvet day'

Hold each other hostage'

Bake banana bread and muffins and sell them to hungry office workers'

Wait in for the boiler man'

Go fishing'

Buy a stack of women's magazines and make bitchy comments about celebrities'

Make another pot of tea'

Go back to bed'

Pretend we've broken up with our boyfriends and need to have a day off'

Drink a hot chocolate in every coffee shop in town'

Eat a second breakfast'

Miss the bus and fail to catch the train'

Lose our keys'

Have really bad women's problems'

Claim a cat that we really like has died'

Watch daytime TV'

Go back to sleep'

Pretend we are too posh to work'

Acquire some sugar daddies'

Sit in the window and sew'

Clean the kitchen until it shines with an Arctic whiteness'

Work from home'

Knit yards and yards of scarf'

Embroider our lives on a table cloth'

Look after our parents'

Go to the cinema when the sun is shining'

Watch a film and cry'

Suffer from non-specific malaise'

Light an aromatherapy candle'

Call up our burlesque teacher and ask for a class'

Doze'

Go and see our beauty lady'

Wait in for parcels of clothes'

Have absolutely nothing to wear'

But we never do.

Sounds during Sunday lunch at a quiet restaurant

2008-03-26T13:42:00.001Z

Plates clattering
Traffic outside
Faint music
Gentle conversation
-- Everything all right?
-- Today we've also got...
-- I'll just get the card machine
A glass put down
Cutlery on plates
Eating noises
Things being crossed off and things being written on a blackboard
A cork removed from a bottle
Wine pouring
A hunt for change
The card machine printing off a receipt

What I am reading.

2008-03-13T08:07:00.000Z

Joe has asked me to record the sixth, seventh and eighth sentence on page 123 of a book I happen to be reading:

...spun gold, added a good foot and a half to his height.
Lord Tywin had given him that crown to replace the one that was lost when the mob killed the previous High...

List of sounds heard during the interval at the theatre

2008-03-09T09:41:00.000Z

Everything is deadened
Music that has nothing to do with the play
'I must say...'
'To me it seemed...'
Tip-up seats creaking
Things being unwrapped
Newspaper cutting rustling
Plastic sandwich bag whispering
Bag of sweets pulled open
Cellophane unwrapped
Very quiet conversations punctuated by laughter and sneezes
Deep or high voices stand out
A sudden laugh
'Excuse me... excuse me...'
Stiff paper flapping -- programmes used as fans

Sounds heard in a secondhand bookshop

2008-03-06T10:18:00.000Z

Traffic passing outside
A polite enquiry
A strip light buzzing
A cardboard box slid across a gritty floor
Foot steps across a wooden floor above
A box being untaped
Till bleeping and cash draw opening
A mobile phone ringing

How to be mopey

2008-03-05T21:19:00.000Z

Feelings

1. Put-upon -- this can be achieved by having someone ask you to perform small tasks; and also by doing many tasks that they do not ask you to do.

2. Anxious -- ensure you are always waiting for a phone call, and believe that life cannot continue until this phone call comes.

3. Blocked -- something is preventing you from doing what you want to do; it could be lack of money; or it could be the phone call; or it could be your to-do list of small tasks.

4. Hungover -- or dehydrated. This is achieved by drinking too much, or too little.

5. Frustrated -- an erratic internet connection.

Routine

1. Go to bed later than you meant. Stay up doing something that you don't really want or need to do -- channel surfing, or playing Mine Sweeper.

2. Sleep in for at least an hour -- but feel guilty about it. Have local radio playing during your lie-in.

3. Instead of getting dressed, waste some time, either channel surfing again, or reading a book you don't enjoy but think you ought to read.

4. Eat something for breakfast that you don't like because either you are too lazy to go out and find something you do like; or because whatever it is needs finishing.

5. Turn the computer on and launch Mine Sweeper. Close Mine Sweeper. Launch Minesweeper.

6. Phone your mother.

7. Get dressed in clothes you dislike.

8. Start a project. Become bored with it.

Fifty things neighbours do that annoy each other

2008-03-04T10:20:00.000Z

Move boundaries
Put up fences and hedges that cast shade
Rev engines
Park in the wrong place
Allow their garden to run to weeds
Having noisy children
Play loud music in their garden
Play musical intruments outside
Work with a car stereo playing
Let their dog bark all night
Sit on their porch and just... watch
Allow their children to run free
Leave footballs and bikes out on the drive
Form cliques
Argue loudly
Have thin walls
Do building work without discussing with neighbours
Let their car alarms go off
Build an aviary next to the fence
Steal fruit from your garden -- not just the stuff that drops on their side of the fence
Not look after parcels
Pilfer mail and newspapers
Drive over planters
Cause a flood by leaving the hose on or by water gardening badly
Light lots of stinky bonfires
Have noisy sex
Have parties and not invite you
When you complain, turn the TV right up
Talk about you behind your back, rather than coming out and saying what you're doing to upset them
Complain about you
Have a noxious compost heap
Smash milk bottles
Instead of asking you not to park in a particular place, put a barrier up or vandalise your car
Borrow things and not return them
Angle their outside light so it shines through your windows
Send anonymous notes to complain about things
Ignore planning permission rules
Allow their children to scream all the time, and yell at them
Refuse to bell their cat so it frightens off your wild birds
Spy on you
Zap your TV with a universal zapper
Shoot your porch light with an air rifle
Dump junk mail through your letter box
Kick your bins over so the bin men won't collect them
Refuse to pay for shared maintenance -- cess pits, shared paths and so on
Pile old recycling up on the kerb and then do nothing about it
Drive across the corner of your front lawn
Sweep up leaves that blow out of your garden and dump them in your porch
Refuse to look after dangerous trees in their garden that overhang your property
Run a brothal or a crackhouse

List of everything I can hear at my desk

2008-03-03T16:31:00.000Z

The hard disc whirring and croaking
My keyboard tapping
Bird song
Wind.
An aeroplane circling
A car going past.
My neck joints crunching.
My chair creaking
The creak of the desk
My metal buttons hitting the desk.
The return key, which makes clunk, rather than a clatter-tap.
My own breathing.

The thirty best things about my twenties.

2007-06-21T08:00:00.000+01:00

1. My 21st birthday party which I marked by using some money from my father to buy a new dress, a case of fizzy wine and dinner at the much-missed Pierre Victoire in Durham for 21 of my friends.

2. The new Star Wars films.

3. Harry Potter books -- first discovered following a tip-off from my great aunt who believes in fairies.

4. and 5. cannot be repeated in public.

6. A bad date made me so angry that I slept in the garden and woke up with my hair full of slugs.
7. My 23rd birthday, spent in Langzhou, China. Our Chinese guide, whose birthday was the day before, organised a tyre-sized cake covered in creamy roses (most of which ended up smeared on people's faces. After we had finished fighting, we took the rest of the cake into the back room of the cafe, where 20 Buddhist monks were watching a kung fu movie.

8. Surviving white water rafting. Twice.

9. Getting a job at the English Garden -- I was temping at the Courier at the time, and I'd been waiting all day for the phone call. When it came through, I danced round the office, and everyone cheered.

10. Resigning from the Courier to go travelling and being asked if I would like to come back after I returned.

11. Handing in my resignation letter to the English Garden because of the relief.

12. The Blue Radio incident -- I was moving and I wished I hadn't packed my radio. Just at that moment, the postman knocked with a parcel containing a radio.

13. My mother coming safely through an operation to remove a pituitary tumour.

14. Telling a colleague that I was struggling with that our working relationship really mattered to me.

15. Finding a red rose on my doorstep on Valentine's Day, and the anonymous Valentine's card.

16. Weeing in a litter bin on Durham market place.

17. Cutting my face open in Africa because of the way everyone looked after me.

18. The Gulkin Glacier, Pakistan, because of it's vastness and the noise when you drop rocks off ice cliffs.

19. Chatting to a tiny little girl in Nepal who showed me her pictures of film stars and her plastic bag. I showed her my water bottle and my umbrella.

20. Buying my first and second flats.

21. Becoming a Godmother.

22. The Ganglion incident.

23. The Millennium -- and the digging up of the Blue Peter Time Capsule.

24. Seeing my relationship with my siblings growing and improving.

25. Starting to get on with my cousins.

26. Meeting Nick.

27. Cat and Fenella and Marie's weddings.

28. Starting Three beautiful Things.

29. Winning a prize for a story I wrote.

30. Having life coaching.

More to come.