heaven and woolworths

tight

2009-12-09T18:31:00.003Z

If I don’t get up right now to mix some flour with some sugar and fruit and butter and cherries and spices and nuts and wet stuff and then line a tin and heat an oven and add one to another and pop in the third, if I don’t get up to do that then Christmas won’t come and I won’t have to admit how little of the stuff to be done this year I have done or have started to do.

Perhaps I could do all of that and still be a Christmas denier. So long as I don’t turn the thing over, peel away the greaseproof paper, prick it all over and pour over the Marsala. So long as I don’t do that last bit and repeat it over and again, I — and the year — might be saved.

But where’s the fun in that.

draw

2009-12-08T18:01:00.004Z

Okay Baubles, are you all listening? Right. I am thinking of a shape with four corners and four sides. All of its sides are the same length. What shape am I thinking of? Brilliant! Well done! So Baubles, you now have nine points, Christmas Trees, it’s your turn. I have ten pence in my pocket. I buy a cake for three pence. How much money do I have left over? Oo, nearly right, would another Christmas Tree like to use your team’s other go? Yes! Well done! Right, it’s neck and neck. Baubles, this is your last question. Are you ready? What is our largest value coin, the coin that is worth the most money? No, not a pound, but good try, which Bauble would like to take the last go at your last question? Yes! Well done! This is so close, everyone. Christmas Trees, this is your last go. Think really carefully before you put your hands up. I buy some sweets for eight pence and some toothpaste for thirteen pence — cos I’ll be needing it after all those sweets. How much money do I need all together? Think carefully. If you want to, put the biggest number in your head and use your fingers to count on. Yes? Fantastic! Well done!

Baubles and Christmas Trees, you’ve both got ten points. Ten points each. That means we’ll have to have a tiebreak question. This one isn’t a Numeracy question because all the best quizzes have General Knowledge tiebreak questions. That means it could be about anything. Anything at all.

Are you ready? This time — just this time — you don’t have to put your hand up. If you know the answer you can shout it out. Are you listening really carefully? Right, here we go.

Who ...

... lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Rehearsal

2009-12-07T17:25:00.003Z

Cumulatively it’s twelve partridges, twelve pear trees, twelve drummers, at least twelve drums, twenty-two turtle doves, thirty French hens, thirty lords, thirty-six calling birds, thirty-six ladies, forty gold rings, forty maids, forty cows, forty buckets, forty-two straining geese, at least forty-two goose eggs, forty-two swans, and an unspecified amount of unspecified liquid deep enough for swan legs.

With actions, it all adds up.

as above

2009-10-15T17:07:00.000Z

also to be found here:

http://distractedastrologer.wordpress.com/

funk

2009-07-06T15:25:00.002Z

Pah. It's work shadowing day for Mol. She chose to go with G, not me, although this involved getting up at 4:30 and she won't be back before 8pm. She began the day by meeting an astronaut on the breakfast radio show, and is currently being taught how to read the news by the presenters of the local news telly programme.

I could have given her a book about astronauts to put back on the right shelf, and she could have read to Year 1.

Perhaps one day she will learn to choose wisely.

cheater

2009-06-18T19:10:00.001Z

Fuck you, David Chaytor. Just fuck you.

You claimed for a mortgage you'd paid, you paid your daughter under an assumed name, you employ your wife for an undisclosed amount, you falsify invoices for thousands, AND YOU SEND ME SPAM.

Mr Chaytor, you, yes you, will continue to get paid to represent me until the next election, when you stand down. Here, let my boot give you a hand with that.

Mr Cheater, that wasn't your money, it was ours. And now you've made me cry. Fuck you.

Green

2009-06-16T09:10:00.002Z

The Today programme says current apocalypse warning is two horsemen and a velvet-soft pony nose.

Garden is full of sun, birds, strawberries ripening to pink, and taddies ripening to frogs.

Bump nose boy - victim of a cubs-related incident - back tomorrow, me with him. I forecast the low-key anxiety of NOT BEING AT MY TINY JOB will shred in a tumble of SEN maintenance and scattered library shelves.

sixteen

2009-05-05T20:14:00.003Z

Note to self.

Look, just snog him already. And ignore the one with the Burnley postmark.

Don’t drop History. You like History, history likes you. Plant more things.

Carry on with the nerds, soon they will start to be called geeks and their t-shirts will get better.

Buy the red dress, cut off the buttons. Buy the red velvet trousers, and the red velvet coat. Don’t buy the rat, buy two. And walk dogs. Keep writing with a black fine line.

Walk the curve in Central Library. Listen to your footsteps.

You don’t have to pull pints in a pub off Albert Square in the summer of 94, but it helps.

It’s not your fault. It’s just not. Keep that one safe: push it down deep down inside a warm pocket. Give it back when you see me.

grey and lightly brown

2009-05-04T15:51:00.003Z

Holiday here today, with a brown and loaded sky. We had the thrill of trying to find shoes to fit over splints.

Mol has a friend round; their idea of getting lunch while we were out was scarfing five bags of crisps and most of a giant bag of doritos. We were back just in time to save the party rings.

Mol has a new look on her face these days. A blocked teen look I'm feeling less than comfortable with. I've just realised it reminds me of the blank, unresponsive eyes of an unspayed tom at the bottom of your garden. The love hasn't a clue she's wearing it, the way the tom hasn't a clue he's just a spraying bastard.

I will drink St John's Wort tea and make fish pie to politely summon a metaphoric sun.

a failsafe method...

2009-02-02T19:45:00.004Z

...of producing a look of frozen horror on a nine-year-old's face:

Boy [whispers]
We did Sex Education today.

Mum
Oh good. What did you learn, then?

*

Getting ready for cubs. An unfocused play in four parts:

hill.

2009-01-07T21:44:00.002Z

Last night I dreamt I settled back to watch The Englishman Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.

Only it involved a large, brown yet airy, polish-scented library with two large escalators rising through the open-planned centre of its several floors. I've been to this library before in dreams (history is second floor left, by the big windows); it's usually attached to a college or university in which I'm struggling to study, Beyton Middle School, or both. Last night it was neither. It was where Hugh Grant worked, because Hugh Grant was still in the film.

Also involved were fleets of silver, streamlined, eagle-headed aircraft which screeched out earth-scarifying belchy death stuff.

The plan was for everyone to be wiped out whilst H.G was up the hill for a stroll. He'd come down the hill to find total obliteration, so much so that layers of ground-level earth had been rent from their fixings. Thus making the hill a little bigger. Thus making it a mountain.

Then it started to get tricky.

time and relative dimensions in prefabs

2009-01-03T20:01:00.003Z

I stood in front of my first Year 7 class in 1993. I wasn't with them all the time, just long enough for a thorough dowsing in Danny, The Champion of the World, and to see that they were very, very small.

I taught them in a prefab somewhere out the back to the left of the main school; away and askew, even from the other prefabs needfully regimented to withstand Year 9.

They'd tumble in, this Year 7, pinballed through their new school, Big School, bruised, confused at how just eleven years on Manchester, England, Earth was supposed to have prepared them for the corridors, corners, tall voices, sharp elbows and several hundred shiny, new P.E bags and choices of High school.

Give them a few minutes to rattle down and relax and they allow themselves to be small enough to absorb every world in a story read to them. Universes of worlds, time beyond measure. Whatever I could creatively slip into the gaps in a tight syllabus. Surprising how big those gaps are from the inside.

They were my soft, sparky babies. Eleven years old in 1993. Now they will be doctors and vets, plumbers and checkout operators, marketing managers and military subversives. Across this country with its various askew prefabs, 1993's soft, shiny Year 7s have grown to be builders and parents, dissolutes, disparates, and decorators. Teachers, technicians, tutors, and a future timelord. Good luck to him. Fair travelling.

I am getting on a bit.

like 2.0

2009-01-02T17:48:00.003Z

Mol brought her video of Angus down for me to share.

What I like is the embarrassing parents in this, she explained. It's so, like, real.

Intermission:

battle of the bulge

2009-01-01T21:32:00.002Z

Cooked and demolished a marvellous New Year roast beef dinner, with every trimming. That's the last of the sprouts and the crackers.

Fed full and happy, I followed the roast with a traditional, festive sandwich. There's always room for one of these, and they're best when you're full. You'll probably know the recipe, but a reminder never hurts.

For the bread use something tasty and substantial: Gone With The Wind works well, or any James Bond. Disney at a pinch, if your taste runs to that, or if there's nothing else. Something substantial with Eagles, Kwai, Dambusters or Navarone are recommended. Today I used the classic sandwich loaf, The Great Escape.

The filling is a generous scoop of rich, sweet, sleep fluff. Spread it right to the edge of the bread, good and deep. Don't miss a corner.

Take it to the sofa, keeping your cracker hat just about on, and enjoy.

big ben

2008-12-31T15:04:00.003Z

Have you ever tried to stand up straight in the middle of a see-saw?

There's not a day, or an hour of an day, a minute of an hour, a second of a minute, a … little bit of second when there's no choice to make. The crafted leap second between today and tomorrow is the space into which a flipped coin falls.

Head's up, or tail between our legs?

Nano, that's the word.

adapt or die

2008-12-30T19:33:00.004Z

You know, I said to the group back in January, I'm looking forward to the last gasps of this transit being over. I would like my mind back.

That's if it comes back, replied the lovely Bernadette, merrily portentious (who'da thought those two words would fit together just so - not me, til I heard her).

It was the last time I'd think of a major transit like tablecloth or duvet cover – something thrown on for a period and then removed. It's more like Miss Haversham's bridal gown. On for eternity with an elegant, uncomfortable permanence of unreachable hooks and eyes.

I have to adapt with it. This year has been a numbed sort-of stunned greying dullness of gown. I've had a Haversham year, regretting, replaying the loss of my wits. With a dry, rhythmic rustle I haunt the corridors of old thoughts, scrawling a senseless morse of morphemes into the dirty windowpanes.

Adapt. Grab the Glo White™, the Stardrops™ while I'm at it. Hot water in a bucket, lace cuffs rolled up high. Scissors would make short work of these webby skirts, there's always thermals for my draughty knees. Red ones.

A lot of scrubbing and some sensible underwear. Let's try for a single, polished thought. Next year.

diagnosis

2008-12-29T20:39:00.002Z

Thumbs up for the gammon. Not too sweet, surprising that, considering the gross annual dentist's income of cola it was cooked in. Not overwhelmingly wondrously good, but certainly edible. The Fortnum's Christmas chutney from dahling borrowed Uncle Bob helped.

Thumbs sideways and wavering for our gerbils. I hope and I hope that I'll be able to don that toga and give the gerbils a resolute thumbs up to live. We've had them since Saturday and took one to the vet today. The pet shop paid the bill, however they gave us the choice of vet visit or gerbil return. The gerbils have their tunnel here, remember. I don't know what would happen to mister sneezy red bogies (mebbe a cold, mebbe an allergy) once absorbed back into the pet shop monolith, so here he stays. He's a gentle soul. They are good gerbils, the vet concurred.

G took them for their vet visit, spooling the possible diagnoses tickertape into my distracted ears. I could hear the vet's faded scottish burr form the words G relayed to me, with his very syntax. I could see his dark to greying hair and his glasses, his confidence and reassurance, his prescription pad.

It wasn't until I went to smear Zig's eczemaed arms with his latest cream that I realised my head-vet wasn't our ginger, white cat-disliking vet at all, but our doctor. Well, their practices are on the same road, thought there is a little less poo in front of the docs. What's a species between patients?

nigella intervention

2008-12-28T22:19:00.003Z

It's my annual seasonal Try a New Nigella today. They are a historical hoot. The woman herself is magnificently, fascinatingly, grotesquely beyond self-parody these days. Her recipes? Weeell, some work, some don't; some work sometimes, some work other times.

I have a lump of gammon needs cooking. Thought I'd have a go at her surely too simple ham in cola recipe from How To Eat's White-Trash Lunch For 6 (I kid you not). We have a bottle of tooth-furring, full-on full sugar cola for the purpose. That, with an onion, was to be that for cooking liquor, until, on Christmas Eve, G dropped a pricey bottle of cider destined for his uncle. (How many commas?) The lid knocked and the cider had a little fizzle to itself. Hmm, couldn't really give that, and since I haven't raised a cider to my lips since The Unfortunate Cider Incident Of 1990, a use for it had to be found. Gammon in cider, then.

After pouring away the gammon's soaking water today and adding the cider instead, the liquid level was far too low. Water and aromatics would top it up. As would cola, wouldn't it. In all my time as an excellent bar person I never served cider and coke, but I never had a gammon waving a tenner at me. So, I topped up the cider with a good litre and a half of evil cola, popped in an onion and some peppercorns, and simmered it gently for a couple of hours.

The kitchen air became a fairground of hot sugar, hotdog, and onion, the cider initially adding an authentic tang of vomit which eventually sweet-surrendered to the evil cola.

Then out came the gammon, off came the fat. I lattice-scored the remaining white blobble, studded it with cloves, rubbed in some hot mustard and dark brown sugar (not Nigella), and finished it off in the oven.

It's late, even for supper. We were going to pick at it with some crackers and cheese but this seems somehow disrespectful while it's hot; I fast-tracked potato peeling duty and dug peas from the freezer.

And that, dear reader, is where I am at. The spuds are boiling, peas are waiting, and the rub is caramelising into the gammon fat. I'll tell you tomorrow whether queen Nigella and a cider intervention is thumbs up or down. Now, where's my wine?

home

2008-12-27T21:08:00.005Z

We all have a place we feel at home. I have three: bed, Suffolk, and my deep, dark corner of our elderly sofa. I rarely go back to the middle one, as nothing screams Home quite like the spikey, dysfunctional tumble of people I left there nineteen years ago. I manage to visit the other two homes daily.

Although there have been times when my bed has been my sofa and times when my sofa has been my bed, I've always had at least one touchstone. Somewhere that recalls a primal, bone memory of cave or hole where I, or the thousand thousand bits of others that make up me, rested and fed, warm and relaxed after the hunt and the harvest.

Imagine I never had. Imagine I had never curled under a heavy duvet, rootling a down pillow into a head-sized brain nest. Imagine I'd never tucked my feet under my bum just about exactly in my corner of the sofa where my feet are tucked up under my bum right now.

And then imagine that all of a suddenly I was given both.

Today we went on a fair to moderate quest, at the end of which lay a hard choice for our Mol. There were four alert, interested, lively and engaging young men, only two of which she could bring home. Coins were tossed, conversations held in corners, walks taken to clear minds, more coins. Eyes were checked for brightness, gonads checked for gender.

She thought, we discussed, she thought some more. Finally she made her choice and carried her two young men home. During the journey noses and whiskers appeared at small holes. In a silent, friendly, confidential gerbilspeak, a silver young gentleman with a white patch on his head introduced himself to her as Harvey, his reddy brown companion with the biggest, blackest eyes you ever did see, as Ron.

They came from the petshop, they knew, and a breeder beforehand. A series of cages with a couple of centimetres of sawdust to kick around in. What they didn't realise until the second we gently introduced them into their new gerbilarium, with its deep, warm substrate and subterranean tunnel, was that they or the thousand, thousand gerbils that make up them, come from the desert. And that they burrow.

Be patient, Mol; be patient, camera. You'll see them some more tomorrow. They have a tunnel, and it's home.

presciencearium

2008-12-26T21:43:00.003Z

We gave the girl her present. It was empty. The girl cried some happy tears.

It's not much of a riddle, the why of the happy tears for an empty present. It doesn't take the back-scratching of an Odin, a Mercurial backflip, or the slaying of a sphinx to work it out.

It's not what it is but what it will become. This is our Mol's empty present. Tomorrow the quest to fill it begins. Tallyho.

V for Ve

2008-12-25T16:51:00.001Z

ry Happy Christmas.

positions

2008-12-24T16:40:00.004Z

By the time I finish this Eve will be out of light, our Close a baby Blackpool blitz of bulbs.

O Come All Ye Faithful is on its final, huge, Carols from Kings verse. Cha cha cha.

An hour and half ago a solo boy with a solo verse ripped my doing head apart for just a few seconds, leaving my eyes all stingy and my cheeks wet. He gets me every year, the git.

I wupped the hand mixer on full when some other poor public school puppet chanted some stuff about snakes, sin and suffering. Extra rum for the iced rum sauce.

Oven is warming, the star cutter is as sharp as the angel; veggies are piled to peel, pare, prepare.

Egg whites chilling, pomegranates ready to spill.

There's a bottle or four to open, or so a couple of oranges and a scatter of cloves have told me.

Smoked salmon, gammon, turkey crown, all know their lines though their parts might be new.

The bacon remembers to wrap a sausage scarf, the choccies to shrug off their coats.

Satsumas and stockings make their rendezvous. They would giggle if they could.

recycling

2008-12-23T20:54:00.002Z

We caught one in seconds.

boxing day

2008-12-22T19:28:00.004Z

My:
back aches;
eyes are puffy and Bronson-squinted;
thighs muscles have forgotten how to relax - relax, dammit;
fingers have cramped into mitten shapes;
neck wouldn't be loosened by whiplash.

My adversaries are scissors, selotape, ribbon, tags, bows, nigh on a dozen rolls of paper (assorted designs from jolly to tastful, quality from tear to look at it to roofing felt), and a biro.

Six boxes to go. That's boxes of boxes, packets, tubes, whizzes, fizzes, meltings, mouldings, readables, seedables, maleables, pallatables, scrapables, playables, sayables, displayables, drinkables, thinkables, thimblefuls, nimbles, bakeables, anti-acheables, scratchables, hatchables, hackables, packables, wearables, swearables, bewareables, jokeables, soakables, elopeables, watchables, socksables, gloveables, loveables, containables, maintainables, sustainables, ports, stardusts, at least two varietals of wind ups, four giant toblerones, and a sausage. Not just boxes.

Seconds out.

tinkers

2008-12-21T20:49:00.002Z

Today our earth leans furthest from the sun. The days will get longer now; life begins again. We washed the windows the better to see it.

We fed the birds, swept the paths, and finally chipped away the hefty guano of mortar left against the chimney breast by, we assume, dodgy roof workers from long ago and soon far away.

Sticky from winter dales and fens of royal icing, I stroked herbs in from the garden to flavour a stew. It breathed with a spiced apple cake to smudge our house with incense.

Old scents unconsciously conjoured. Not a one unfamiliar along the warmth of time people have been pulling the suckered ivy and mistletoe into their homes, welcoming the succubus.

Word got round, as round words do, that there was a welcome here. Something short of two thousand years ago they began to move in, hootching us up for a seat by our fire. We shared the stew and the spiced apple cake; we shared stories. Such stories.

Our songs hooched up too: ivy made a little room for Mary, holly berry for a baby, winter sun for winter Son.

Their caravans arrived. They unrolled the longest extension lead you ever did see, plugging it into our waking solstice hills to light their star.

bright light

2008-12-20T21:37:00.004Z

I think I might sort of have this Christmas thing in hand.

Most of the cards are out or written or I'm aware that I've yet to write them.

Some stuff to make the bracelets is scattered across the table. The rest of the stuff is somewhere else.

Pressies are in or out of the loft and thrown into our bedroom. One is even wrapped.

The cakes are cooked, stoked with booze and marzipanned, ready to royal ice.

We know where to buy sprouts.

The bird possibilities are in the hands of the random god of Christmas Eve reductions.

G and I are fed and have wine in a glass and in the garage.

The kids are relaxed, excited and watching Gremlins.

Christmas this year is a furry, warm thing. Companionable. I just have to remember not to get it wet or feed it after midnight.

candle

2008-12-19T23:37:00.007Z

Secret Santa gave me a lovely scarf today, lovely and tasteful. A nice thing. He had put it in a pink gift bag and attached a friendly label.

I was made up. My Caliban soul struggles so in its ooze, it's a marvel to me to be given something so pleasant so pleasantly. I want to say ugg and dab at it gently with my forefinger and opposable thumb.

Some people can do it, can't they. Their Venus is doing this right thing somewhere in a good place, making things more pleasant for them and one and all, while my ole Cappy Venus in the 2nd is busy digging a hole for a few smudged coins.

Take A, again. Father Christmas came into school today, for carols (and Last Christmas) round the tree. Every child glowed. Every one. Even the doubters queued for their selection box and glowed. When it was over and the children were watching the reindeer fly from the school field (they said) a pleasant faced man in jeans poked his head into the staff room. It was A's dad. It was Father Christmas. This woman has got the Venus so much her father is Father Christmas. Father Christmas!

The Venus types in the staffroom (those who can put a lovely scarf in a giftbag and make someone happy, and those whose father is the big F.C) were talking about Jo Malone the other day. I should, they urged, try some stuff. It's lovely, they assured.

This evening I looked. I had a blurred idea that it was black on white, like an Everton mint, but it's not, is it. Jo Malone is black and cream. Creeeeeeeeam. Clear shapes, clean shapes, taking up a certain allocated space. Predetermined and determinably priced.

I filled my eyes right up to the back of my skull with those clean lines and clear spaces, black on cream, trying to snuff it up through the monitor. Tommy came in from the rain with piss in his long fur, stomped across the keyboard and bumprinted companionably on the arm of the sofa. I lost the page and felt the ancient despair of hovel life.

Please, good reader, note that at no point during this entry have I said FORTY QUID FOR A CANDLE? FUCK ME!

in season

2008-12-18T21:39:00.002Z

G groping a bigger, fatter belly under his jumper. A belly making thick, brown paper noises.

A cardboard box beneath the old school desk. Look three times, notice it on the fourth.

Quick, thin plastic and thick boot noises through the hall, up the stairs.

Nothing to see here. In biro.

A spilff of London cash withdrawals on the online statement.

He's having that affair.

control

2008-12-17T22:26:00.000Z

I forget the other glitter trauma. Not broken laminator liability indicator nor glam rock noddy nit tiny traumas, the other one, the proper trauma.

We inflict homemade cards on people we like and people to whom we are related. Would have stopped years ago, but bizarrely the poor inbred monstrosities are repeat requested from relatives we never, ever see. I like a bit of glitter on a Christmas card. It stays put on the shop-boughts, detaches on homemades.

You'll know or suspect how much glitter a ten and a seven-year-old sprinkles on a homemade card. (Think of a 1970s child with a bag of sugar, a big spoon, and a bowl of cornflakes. Double it.) This was our 2006 Christmas card effort.

Arrh, we thought, if it spills out of the envelope they can hoover it, brush it off, or just glitter. It's Christmas.

G gave out his work cards. A chap ripped open his envelope, pulled out his card, was showered in the rebel unstuck glitter, and froze. He froze, his face froze.

He had a glitter phobia. A loose glitter phobia.

Seems that, as a very small boy he had been in a car accident. Glass had exploded as car glass does, glittering him into his very own puddle.

I've printed off this year's card. It needs a bit of Fabulous. I bought two pens at the weekend: silver and gold.

I passed the marvellous Mrs Ch today, rubbing her scalp as she chatted to Year 1/2 about the stuff she's finding on her pillow in the mornings. Hair? I asked. Glitter, she replied.

g.litter

2008-12-16T20:12:00.000Z

I think I sort of filled an industrial laminator with PVA today. I think I sort of might have broke it. A bit.

There's nothing to incriminate me, luckily. Nothing but both school administrators and the Year 1 teacher. Oh, and the head. The head, and the tail of glitter that spooled with me from the pool of glitter I sort of might have rippled around my boots.

Glitter incriminates. You! You were doing Christmas! You have glitter on your cheek! And in your hair! Where? Where in my hair? There in your hair! Right there!

One class has Visitors. The parents have been informed, told, and Told. Heads brush when you're helping, so teacherly hair is brushed with conditioner of an evening, and combed through and through again with a small steel comb with tight tight tines.

Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, wait. Speck, squint: glitter.

bad or good.

2008-12-15T20:09:00.001Z

Zig went to bed usual time, unusual for the last week of school. A bit grey under the eyes after three trips to the loo. No book, lights straight off. Unusual.

Corrie on, fleecy blanky up to my neck, I settled into the sofa. Mol's pattern down the stairs:

Mum, what's that music?

I knew. I couldn't hear it, my ears are poor, but I knew.

I don't know, love. I can't hear anything.

It's loud upstairs. Hang on.

Mol's pattern up the stairs. Mol's pattern down the stairs.

It's that van thing, that float thing. It's coming down the Close, dead slowly, with loads of lights and stuff.

Just as I'd settled.

Awrugh. I've just settled. Zig's in bed.

It doesn't matter. Zig's in bed.

Mol's pattern up the stairs.

.

Mol's pattern down the stairs.

Mum, there are people coming to the doors with buckets.

Awrugh.

I'll do it mum.

Okay love, just get the pot out of the Schweppes jar.

The pot is got and brought. The knock's just before I sift half a hand of change into Mol's.

She disappeared into the hall and opened the door. I heard the man with the bucket ask if anyone would like to see Father Christmas.

No thanks.

Okay love, he said softly, thanks.

Thanks. Bye!

Back to me.

Did you not want to see Father Christmas, Mol?

Nah. And Zig's in bed

Big smile. Mol's pattern up the stairs.

I had a sudden gulletful of warm, reaching sadness. I wanted my girl to see Father Christmas. I wanted my boy to too.

Mol's pattern down the stairs.

He's not even fat! Father Christmas is not even fat!

I wait for my window-watcher's newly adolescent comment on men in suits.

He must be making room for all the mince pies.

A smile. Mol's splendid pattern up the stairs.

I'm shocked at my grief. Corrie is Eastenders now, the fleecy blanky is down to my ankles, with a cat atop. I can't seem to stop crying.

jesus

2008-12-15T00:09:00.003Z

Stripping the shiny blown vinyl (magnolia) off the walls was a slow thing. The stripping bit was quick, we all joined in the strippage, giving the kids thick breast slices of job, I took a wing and nibbled the ribcage, Gareth working solidly at the parson's nose.

The job, as I said, was not a long one. The lengthy bit was the months of living in a shiny blown vinyl (magnolia) room before we got around to strippage. I think it was shock.

Where was I? There was a bit of a vague point to this. Oh yeah, the strippage? That was months ago: a summer job. We forgot to allocate sanding and painting to autumn. Which is why fabulous Who Deer Me Deer No Deer has had an open challenge issued by the wall:

and why the baby cheesus has a headache.

What do you think? Too much?

it's not fair

2008-12-13T23:12:00.001Z

Mol has a friend round for a sleepover. Before teknoligee crossed the atlantic in 1998, it was called 'staying the night'. The shiny new term stipulates that at some period between the giggles of 2:53am and the grumps of 5:73am the two girls should, you know, sleep, instead of just, you know, stay, so it's a comer-in phrase I don't get so ferocious at.

Mol and friend were all cool at first, cool, slumped, and unimpressed on the sofa. During the evening they ran the levels from lip-curl to zombie/vampire-chase, embracing made-up-dance-to-show, decorate-the-tree, eat-lots-of-chocolate, and snort-cola-out-the-nose-during-You've-Been-Framed.

They are now upstairs, watching Mamma Mia. Again. The ups and downs of the nearly teens. I must grasp these moments, throttle the treasure right out of them. From March she'll be old enough to sign up for suicide bomber duty.

virtual reality

2008-12-12T23:28:00.002Z

Snow again this morning. Cold again all day. Wind is wuthering away at the garage (wuther + garage = oh, 21st century, how I adore thee) door. Again.

Mol set off for next door but one, dressed appropriately in grass skirt, garland, headband, flower appliqued sleeveless top, and flip flops.

It says something to give a birthday party a hula theme twelve days before Christmas. What, am not quite decided, but something. A desire for contrast? A faith in your central heating and/or insulation? A derring doo ha HA and en garde to the Current Economic Climate? Mebbe just a daughter turning eleven who has asked for a luha?

Summink.

While my daughter confronted the elements with her fury of faux grass and faux flowers, I tucked my double-socked feet under a sleeping bag and ordered the shopping. Because, supermarkets in December? I can't be arsed. People say, I've heard them, they say oh yes! I do my food shop online because it stops all the impulse buys! You only buy what you need!

Do you bollocks.

The slight delivery man works shifts with himself to dump a fat elephant's weight in crap in my kitchen whenever I order online, his eyes an unspoken Missus, why did you buy this, this, or this? All this? Because. It. Wasn't. Real. It was a button I pressed, and then another, and then again, and again. The supermarket knows this about me. They know that while in their shop I might be a forensic expert of the aisle label smallprint, a honed cynic of a fighting machine who trigger fingers the oranges, but an emailed code for free delivery makes that finger trigger happy, repeat ricocheting off Add To Trolley into the beating heart of Place Order.

Right, says the slight delivery man, shaking out my receipt and his strained shoulders in a single, practised move, there's just the one substitution today. They were all out out Credit Crunch two-for-one, so they've popped some Doom Pie in instead. That okay, or shall I take it back?

That's okay. Thanks.

i acknowledge mine

2008-12-11T18:43:00.001Z

I don't have a primary school staff fit. Am not possessed of a primary school staff head. I don't have primary school staff mouth. I growl along full fathoms below primary school carol pitch. The children might all burp, fart and mouth breathe because their noses are busy, busy with fingers, but is it on for the staff?

Take, for comparison's sake, A, a teaching assistant. Off Tuesday with her diabetic son as he needed a few hours stabilising in hospital after chucking up his dinner and chucking out anything like a reasonable blood sugar level; off yesterday chucking up herself. How does she appear after a day of stress, heart worry and National Health antihygiene, and another of nose vomit? As tall, as slender, as artfully, simply glam as ever is how.

How?

Does she have the morning's outfit, perfectly simple black top and trousers, elegant silk scarf for the neck, ready and hangered to pull from the wardrobe? Is it slung artlesslessly across a 1940s padded bedroom chair, to slip into at 6am, or could it be – oh, the injustice – that A has to riffle to the elbows through the laundry for something ANYTHING to struggle into, before a dash to round up the kids to the car to their three different schools then to work – on time – and still manages to look coutured?

And, the red, red cherry atop the perfectly iced, delicately spiced bun: she has the impudence to be a pleasant person with a strong wit, and capable of a filthy nose snort laugh that deserves respect.

Am not a bitter cherry here, because I too can pull from my wardrobe a choice of two outfits for every day, both of which reflect personality through image. Hmm ... today, shall we have the Gollum or the Caliban? Thing of Darkness 1, or Thing of Darkness 2? But of course, it's always both Things of Darkness; I know enough, at least, to layer.

spastic fantastic

2008-12-10T19:14:00.000Z

If there is anything more novel than a nine-year-old with cerebral palsy scooting off ahead down the cul de sac to demonstrate the moves of his Friend Who Runs Weird (and who doesn't have C.P), I haven't seen it today.

Zig has been walking to and from school for, oh, two months - three? As well as building stamina and teaching Dog Poo 101, it allows for greater, um, freedom of expression than the chair. A passing driver, startled by seeing someone who moves differently and whose mum is looking right at her, presses her lips down into the familiar startled Isn't He Doing Well smile. Yes, he is, and he's also being a little sod. Does she realise, I wonder, that my wonky boy is wonkier because he's taking the piss out of his absent FWRW?

He does it all the time. The outward jerk of his arms as he lines up for assembly isn't so involuntarily – he's thinking about the size of the universe. Those unformed yodels that made the man in the Asda queue jump? He was the Undead.

But oh, the prize must go to his performance in one end of year play. He and his mates were just edging out of Year 3 and some genius had decided they would make perfect Von Trapp children. Their turn arrived, onto the church stage they clambered, Zig getting a hand up:

There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too

Aww, look at them all, the audience sighed, aren't they lovely, those satin frocks, the bow ties, the shorts ...

And up in the nursery an absurd little bird,
Is popping out to say

... and isn't that disabled one doing well! Look at him trying so hard, those stiff legs, those clenched fists ...

Cuckoo.

The disabled one's mum peers through a one-finger gap, shoulders shaking, eyes running.

Cuckoo!

The disabled one's dad points his camera and wishes for video.

Cuckoo!

Those stiff legs? Those clenched fists?

He's being a fucking cyberman.

brace

2008-12-09T21:37:00.000Z

Two by two, two by two, the animals board the coach.

The girls twitter, squawk and preen. The boys dead arm and competitive fart, misting the windows and striping the underpant.

A Leo Sun girl's index finger, faithful to her friend, writes Becky and Gemma Rule! The boys write bum. You can see Bolton through it.

Two by two, two by two, the animals enter the Octagon. They try to be orderly, two by two, but still, cats are suddenly herding beasts. Seats down, coats off, hoot at the buzzing school of brown and yellow that share the audience.

We watch a small space become a garage, a forest, a community, a victory. We join in. The only play in Greater Manchester where audience participation is pheasant beating. Stamp, clap, ululate.

we'll put it on in the barn

2008-12-08T22:05:00.000Z

Knock Knock. Knock at the door.
Knock Knock. Is anyone there?
Knock Knock. Knock at the door.
We need a place to stay.

One snow day, a winter vomiting, and a half-attendance. Beautiful, blue, smile-eyed Mary has tonsilitis. We worry that it's a census too far: after two months of late pickups and one parental complete no-show, Mary won't come back to us even after the manger's restuffed with lambs and packed back in its attic space.

Three rooms left- all the other rooms are full
Three rooms left- sorry that is all.

Adults glazed, dazed with the stoned look of mild panic.

Two rooms left- all the other rooms are full
Two rooms left- sorry that is all!

Nightcap. Where's the nightcap? Who can run up a quick nightcap for the innkeeper?

One room left- all the other rooms are full
One room left- sorry that is all.

Looting kitchen cupboards for bacofoil, ravaging santa hats for pom poms.

No rooms left
There’s no room for you at all
No rooms left
We’re completely full

Fingers needle stubbled, the nightcap fits.

mummery.

2008-12-07T22:03:00.001Z

Mum.

Mum.

Mum. I thought you said the two sides of the family should never, ever meet.

I did say that, Zig, yes.

Well, they've just met.

Ah, well, that was okay. We just got away with it. It was only a little meeting. It was quick, chance, and all smothered in this gungy layer of manners. We did well.

Still, somewhere something will have been knocked out of order. A puppy will have hurt its paw, or there will be strange weather, or something.

Oh. Kay.

Violence erupted as unholy creatures materialised in Ramsbottom today. Scientists are confounded.

herculean

2008-12-06T17:57:00.000Z

I went shopping.
I went shopping in Manchester.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday before Christmas.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday before Christmas, with my sister.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday before Christmas, with my sister. We went to Primark.

lo

2008-12-05T13:56:00.001Z

In a tight, dark, hush crowded space a hiding seeking eight year old would pay good rolos for, it takes a bit of a wriggle to reach the shepherds.

Kings gleam, stars gleam, the angels' angles catch my knees.

Lambs flock the manger, stacked on pots for gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Teatowels, tinfoil, tinsel, glitter, card, sacking, satin, smocks, pots.

Camel heads, Buddha-lashed, not needed this year, are left asda-bagged and contemplative in the dark.

potbound

2008-10-19T19:30:00.000Z

I brought the library plant back home for the summer holidays. The school library is a small, square room with no natural light. I put the pot on an upstairs windowsill that catches the morning sun.

September came, school began again, the plant stayed on an upstairs windowsill a road away from the small, square room with no natural light.

Gareth said the plant would have to have a name if it was to lodge here for the summer. Because of the small room with no natural light he put up Gollum. I said I couldn't do that to a small, struggling plant in a black, plastic pot. A dull, commentless plant no one would choose for a spot they loved. I said it had enough without that. I named the plant Precious.

In the new growing season I'll swap the black, plastic pot for something a bit fancier. Less black. Less plastic.

I leave Precious every day and go to sit, round-eyed, quietly hissing, muttering at the tricksy small people, flat-foot stomping around my small, square room with no natural light.

support

2008-07-07T18:53:00.000Z

daughter: I got two housepoints in P.E today, and nobody else got anything!

mother: creep.

spread

2008-04-09T20:26:00.001Z

I asked for Christopher Eccleston

I sighed

and they sent me Christopher Biggins.

Had he not been busy snorting his tea across the lawn,

I asked for Servalan

he could have replied

and they sent me the Death Star.

blahnik

2007-07-03T08:23:00.000Z

eee, but it's just like Sex In The City out there.

But without the legs.

Or the hair.

Or the shoes.

Or the theme tune.

Or the city.

Or, for that matter, the sex.

So what it is out there, really, is a large vehicle driving through a larger puddle just as you walk past.

It's wet out.

hawthorn

2007-06-13T20:55:00.000Z

Had a phone call from Zig's physio at teatime. She asked if I would give my permission to refer Zig to the orthotist to be fitted for a twister brace. His feet and legs twist in increasingly as he picks up speed and, being eight, gives his thought to the next part of the game, not to turning his feet out and straightening his legs.

I'm not happy. I'm sad. And somewhere deep deep down and deep I know it is the circumstance that necessitates (apparently) the brace, not Zig's legs.

This is a young physio who drifts in once or twice a term; the date rarely coincides with the date Zig's helper has been given. Consequently, thus far I've made it to her visits just once. At the end of the call today I asked her in future to ring me with each appointment. She said that parents aren't usually present at school-based physio sessions (but there are no home-based NHS physio sessions for school-aged children). Perhaps they are - perhaps there is a parent present at every school-based physio session she runs. If the degree to which she included me in her instructions the time I was present, and the amount of eye contact she engaged in is in anyway representative of her general manner, there could well be.

She and the orthotist are representatives of a healthcare system which is only interested in treating symptoms. High blood pressure? Take a pill for the rest of your life, then a pill for the side effects, then a pill for the side effects, then a pill for the side effects. Let's not poke around in the circumstance of the patient, or their reponses to that circumstance. Twisting legs? Let's brace them, from the hips down. Let's not ask why the child walks with straight legs when he concentrates. Let's not implement a consistent system of gentle, encouraging, funny reminders for the hours he is away from the non-count parents. Let's not believe that if he fakes it - eventually - he will make it.

It's the system that necessitates the brace, not the cerebral palsy.

This is the thing with C.P. A standard issue person takes the smallest distance from A to B, taking a step is a simple straight message from brain to muscles: when they need to drive to Manchester they pop onto the M66 for a few minutes and there you go. Zig - when Zig takes a step - when he needs to get to Manchester - he chuggers along up into Haslingden, Rawtenstall, Burnley, across onto the moors, into Haworth for a half hour of Bronte breathing, through Heptonstall (hello Sylvia), Hebden Bridge, Todmorden, and then bugger knows how many weaving back roads that criss-cross the M62. And then he gets to Manchester.

He gets there. And has a kebab in Rusholme.

But the NHS doesn't give a shit about this. The NHS's map to Manchester has just one thick blue line that is the M66.

At the weekends, evenings, holidays, there will be no brace. We will explore all the little places that take time, find the tracks and footpaths, hear the skylarks on the moors, poke around the hedgerows, and pick dandelions and sow thistle for Brian.

And we will get to Manchester in time for a kebab.

swearbox

2007-06-05T20:36:00.000Z

Arsehole is ten pee. Bugger, fart and arse are allowed. I missed the boat with bloody and shit, crying freedom of essential expression to no avail. Ten pee piece apiece.

Bastard and bloody can be used only in context. With expression is context enough, I pout. But no. Wanker: ten pee.

Fuck, fucking and fuckfuckfuckerybollocks are out. However I hope for a single charge for the compound, it'll be forty pee in the pink piggy piggybank, won't it, my kids being ruthless little shits. See, that was going to read ruthless little bastards: I now have economy of silent cuss, even.

I don't think they've heard cunt, so cunt is unclassified. I will have twat. Motherfucker is american, so disallowed.

Feck is free. Pee is nowt, no pee.

I can't help but feel that had I been organised enough to sort out regular pocket money, I wouldn't now be sucking my lips together and chewing on my tongue.

Arse.

postcard

2007-06-04T20:55:00.000Z

Do you have a cat called Tommy?

Have you got a cat called Tommy?

There's a white cat with odd eyes, called Tommy...

Um, it's about a cat called Tommy.

Tommy.

Tommy?

Tommy.

So good of the fluffy fuckwit to keep in touch. The lack of fingers scuppers texting and phonecalls a bit, but those two braincells bounced against each other, a stunted dead tin noise, and he bounced from door to door, Road to Street to Close, offering up his torpedo name tube and only biting one child (I know of), as we bounced from Cornish village to town to beach to cliff. He begging tuna and chicken, pretending unfed and unloved, as we scoffed icecream and whitebait, pretending slim enough to take the excess.

Back in the wee smalls to a strangely mowey Dave. Mow, mow, mowowow. Washing machine on and on and on again, then to bed, Dave atop his sleeping Molly.

Catflap clutterdug gone half-two. Bell on the stairs, fluffy fuckfit a pile of purr in my arms. Not left since, except for pee and poo.

Yup, we've got a cat called Tommy.

ba[sic] hygiene

2007-04-18T20:01:00.000Z

Sorry I was a long time in the shower, mum. I had to use the Felicities.

What's Mol doing, mum?

She's using my deoderant.

What's videoderant?

since when

2007-04-11T15:40:00.001Z

we've had a rethink and bought a melodica from eBay, and the very nice and batshit crazy recorder aficianado has shipped in the finger cymbals and the chime bars.

skylawks

2007-01-17T23:07:00.000Z

We have an A. Ladies and Gentlemen. We have our first A.

Left thumb over the hole on the back. First two fingers on the top two holes. Three new moons. (Waxing crescent, gibbous, disseminating, balsamic fingers make not an A but a squeak, a squawk, a bat's cat call, an irresistible play dead to a deaf dog.)

And tight spastic fingers can do it. It takes longer. It's too clenched, too brittle, too first quarter for instant A.

But the A, when it happens, is sweeter.

But then, is there anything salty, lemon juice, deaf dog sweeter than a tumbled slightly farted room of seven and eight year olds having their first recorder lesson with the school's batshit crazy and very nice recorder aficionado?

Afterwards, pressed into the soft tip pad of the left thumb, the first two fingers, are three full moons.

Next week: G.

with your fetlocks blowing in the

2007-01-08T21:45:00.004Z

wind.

Transiting Neptune hooches up to natal Mercury this year. Look who turned up last night, said they were here for the longterm:

Bugger me. Which would be a transit of a different colour.

Hello hello. Good to see you. Honest. Is there anything I could do? Shall I put the kettle on? What d'ya fancy? Tea? Coffee? Something light and China might be good in that hunk of gold you're carrying? Sorry? Oh, wine it is, then. Ching.

I could be doing with some bigtime clear roadsigns for the next year or so.

oh i say

2007-01-05T22:20:00.000Z

We forgot big shed

poop poop

2007-01-01T18:58:00.000Z

This year I must move. I must start to move and keep moving. I must keep moving.

Last year scares me: no movement, no momentum. Nothing to report.

Another year of last year just would not do. Years of last year would be the death of me. Seize. Congeal. Ossify.

This year I must move. I must.

travelling shoes

2006-12-31T16:10:00.000Z

The sales brought Molster the Shoe of Shoes. Well, Shoes of Shoes, as one wouldn’t be much cop, Mol being standard biped.

Shoes Supreme.

Mol adores her Shoes Supreme. When she wears them, and she is standing, or walking, and you are talking, and it’s about the wind or Isobel or chocolate shells or Tracey Beaker or Christmas lights or Michael Morpurgo and not at all about shoes, not a bit, her eyes will light from the outside corners in - just for a second, twinkle and gone - and you’ll know that without looking down she is remembering she has new shoes, Shoes of Shoes, Shoes Supreme.

They are a bit flappy at the back. She doesn’t mind at all. It won’t last a bit. She’ll grow into the slight flap. And out the other side.

I can wish nothing better for you than that you find your Shoes of Shoes. That they take you into 2007, and through it, and out the other side. And that when you are standing or walking, and talking about bills or work or food shopping or the broken washing machine or car repairs or frozen ipods, and not about shoes, not a bit, that your eyes will light from the outside corners in - just for a second, twinkle and gone - and you’ll remember you have Shoes Supreme. Without looking down.

housewarming

2006-12-30T22:53:00.000Z

It doesn’t take long for a house to act unwanted. Three nights, two whole and two bit days.

The key is stiff to turn. December damp makes chill rooms chiller. Too much cat food smelling up the hall, cat resentment on the stairs.

It takes a sparked up boiler, a squirt, a scrub, a lap apiece for two cats, new lights you’d never choose but are glad to be given for a neglected living room window.

Still, I hope I hope next year will bring a new house to warm. This is not an easy country for that to happen. Still, I hope I hope.

woodshed

2006-12-27T11:17:00.000Z

There are tucked away corners to England. Growly corners, glooming with consistent family misunderstanding, tooth-singingly tense with purpose.

Here foreign is fearful. Unless it's Italian food. Here you’ll find no net access, no dial-up compatible phone line, no hope.

East Anglia has the grandest swoops of skies in the UK - imagine the dark force of will necessary to keep everything in such bad, bad light.

Back Saturday.

monster

2006-12-26T22:04:00.000Z

Late last night I was caught by what has caught everyone. Or will catch everyone. I’ve been assimilated, deleted, made like them. Resistance is useless. Futile.

My brain has swollen, pulsing and vague, my head is a foreign place. My limbs are stiff, my voice is altered, I feel squeezed all over.

I’m seeing double, treble, oodles.

Gareth feels similar, but with more wind

stuffed

2006-12-25T21:40:00.000Z

Merry Christmas!

A very merry Christmas! God bless us evr’y one

Merry Christmas!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

James Brown! Ow!

James Brown - Ow!

James Brown OW!

JAMES BROWN! Eh?.. Oh … Ow!

Picking aromatics for the cavity this morning, a V formation passed over my head. I called out Gareth, come quick:

Oh look, there’s a gap.

Turkey next year. Or chicken. Or nut stuff en croute.

sinister santa

2006-12-24T21:19:00.000Z

From Cameroon to Nigeria in five minutes. That’s not bad, not bad at all. You can tell the fog’s cleared up.

Five minutes is the time it takes for Gareth to supervise Zig arranging a carrot and a mince pie on a small plate, and for Mol to measure marsala into a sherry glass. I considered the level before saying I felt the man in red might appreciate a little more, just a drop, up, up, woah.

Mol made loud comment, as they left for bed with A Nightmare Before Christmas and a long wait til morning, that she’s left the glass left handed because that might make it easier for, um, him.

seemed like a good idea at the time

2006-12-23T20:33:00.000Z

Between the bedroom and the bathroom I had an idea of what to write today.

It was Christmas, but wasn’t a spiky holly idea, all prickles and hoopla. It wasn’t a bauble, a small planet of sparkle and potential shatter. It wasn’t a present, a past, a virgin birth, or a polite pagan throat-clearing from under the hedgerow.

It had solidity and the fruity, slightly boozy bulk of my Christmas cake. I knew it as I know my cake, as something I’ve mixed and baked and fed brandy and painted with apricot jam and smothered in marzipan and beaten the eggs and sifted in the icing sugar to dollop and swirl the royal icing and swoop over a final, edible silver dust. Like my cake, my idea was made through formulae from the inside out over weeks; but it wasn’t round and wasn’t iced, however, it felt white on the outside. It was a bit of a cube, squashed a bit flatter, with the corners rounded. A hard caramel. Sucked a bit.

It referenced something, or reflected something, which was its own shape, a darker shadow it overlapped. A fourth year pencil still life. The year you are given charcoal and learn about drawing the shape around the thing, not the thing itself.

That’s about all I remember about my idea of what to write. I had the idea, liked the shape; liked that it was contained, and moved on to have a shower, clean the loo.

and geese

2006-12-22T21:16:00.000Z

Geese can also be white.

And raised free-range, slaughtered, gutted, wrapped, frozen, exported, imported, bought, and recently removed from the bottom of my freezer for three days slow thaw in a cold shed.

All those food miles. Would have been simpler to wait for the bird to fly over my house and thwock it with a catapult. Yeah, I know, the odds, but still.

I’ve never cooked a goose before. I’ve never tasted goose. I’ve talked to geese; I’ve fed geese; I’ve been seduced by their soft honks, and a little intimidated by their comeanavagoifyathinkyoureardenough sideways eye.

What do I know about a goose? I know it has a large cavity and a lot - an awful lot - of fat. All the better to float on water, keep warm, and crisp up roast potatoes.

I hope it’ll not be another rabbit. It seemed at the time like a great idea to buy a rabbit. For a stew. Cheap wartime food: plump, plentiful pot fodder my mum would snare. I lopped (arf. oh dear) it into bunny chunks, browned it and chucked it in a pot with gubbins enough for a darkly rich, delicious stew. All went well and lips were smacked until I dug round under a potato and pulled out a delicate, exquisitely sculpted fan shaped bone. The bunny’s shoulder blade. I wasn’t hungry anymore.

I hope the goose will not be another rabbit. I rapped my knuckles tentatively on its frozen breast and held my ear close enough to its bulk to chill my sleepers.

There was no one home.

Three days.

planes trains and automobiles and popping to asda on the way back for bread, milk, sprouts, and double cream

2006-12-21T22:38:00.000Z

When they said white why did I think they meant snow? Lots of stuff is or can be white: vests, towels, tiles, tic tacs, shake n vac, Major Tommy Fuckwit, his brother Big Dave, a single disconcerting pubic hair, fog.

Fog has been very white around here. London (down and across a couple of hundred miles) is even whiter, so says the news. So very white that many, many aeroplanes are staying on the ground, resting their wings, the better for their pilots and attendants to wrap up warm and run outside, all excited like, to build a Fogman and have a rowdy fogball fight.

Gareth is usually in Capital City for a block of days every week. This week was a last desperate grab at leave owing, consequently, he just had to go down on Monday, so flew. Easy: now with added peasy. So much easy and peasy, when the inevitable, unmissable meetings coughed politely and tapped him on the shoulder it didn’t seem too much of a pain to ask his leave to hooch up a tad between Wednesday and Friday.

Until Christmas tried so very hard to be white. It does so like to please. Plans changed, and all of a suddenly we remember just how very far a mile is. Plane miles and train miles, the difference is the snuggling on the sofa with too much ginger wine and the Father Ted Christmas Special, and feck arse nuns, a tradition is a tradition.

i do enjoy a traditional carol service

2006-12-20T21:13:00.000Z

You know, the kind where you all squish - just - into the church, and affectionately bitch about the girl who grabbed the semi-solo, until her mum squeezes in beside you and you smile and hallooo and change the subject to Marks and Spencer’s turkey collection allocation slots.

Where you hope that the flu relief capsules kick in before you sneeze into the hair of the boy in front, and drip snot - just a drop - onto your carol sheet.

Where you wink at Joseph as he grand entrances next to your aisle seat, to have the step-dad of Jesus stick out his tongue - just the tip - in et tu response.

Where a shepherd with sheep - just the one - focuses intently on his grand entrance, all the better to miss his mum’s wink.

Where a young girl again fights valiantly - just a bit - with the descant, and her mum sings out loud and low in hope that just one girl - just one - might understand that singing does not have to be high and that leaving the high singing to the skylark might be a good idea if you feel yourself to be a warm-throated I dunno owl or something.

Where you don’t Hands Together And Eyes Closed, with a zigzag - just a frissant - of imprinted primary school rebellion, because this is Solstice and this is Saturnalia and who apart from Monty Python says the Son of Man, Son of God’s sun’s in Capricorn anyway, dammit.

Where two adults and two kids in different parts of the church wiggle their hips - just an inch , one two three, left right left - at the very end of Oh Come All Ye Faithful cos a chap in a large papier mache head once sung it as a cha cha cha.

Chrihiiist The Lord, cha cha cha.

face the music

2006-12-19T22:16:00.000Z

Eee, but the shops were full of shite today. They inserted the IV into my Egg card somewhere at the bottom of Market Street, and Their big fat finger hovered over a big threatening button labelled Suck.

So I moved quick and fast and fleet of foot, and found economy shower gel, and enjoyed a rare non-economy of time with Gareth. Over an economy lunch.

I’ve bought all my pressies before today. I have all my pressies. My pressies are in the building.

But still, the lure, the glister, the twinkle.

I was sucked - sucked, I tell you - from the German market on St Peter’s Square, up and into the Town Hall. Case after case of jewellery. 'Designer' jewellery.

Impractical, ill-conceived tat, and all wholly overpriced.

But still, the lure, the glister, the twinkle.

Is the lure of the worm on the hook its glister and twinkle? I did not fall flopping and flubbering from the net to the deck. I was not bashed on the head and stuffed in ice. I was not sold and gutted and battered and fried. I have no earrings.

Tucked politely into a window space behind regimented trawlers of the luring the glistering the twinkling the ill-conceived the wholly overpriced, I met Barbirolli in tryptych, and was redeemed.

That'll be three of your finest Father Christmas hats, please, shopkeep.

my joy to the world

2006-12-18T20:31:00.000Z

This will be my eleventh Christmas with the good lady Molster. Twelfth, if you count the year I turned down mincepies in favour of thick marmite on a coconut macaroon.

She was my first Happy in Christmas.

She flash floods generosity.
She organises her Christmas cards in piles to be strung.
She gives of the Christmas tin of Roses, with the faith she’ll receive a caramel barrel in turn.
She asks for paper, scissors, sellotape, and ten minutes of secret space.
She nods one deliberate nod, lips pursed, when I tell her and Zig their grandad will pick them up after school, as her dad and I will be on important business helping a beardy bloke in red.
She keeps her disbelief to herself in front of her little brother.
She delegates and supervises decorating the kids’ two foot purple tree; the one with the feather fluffy fairy lights: squeezing on baubles enough for a ten foot tree through act of will and an askance glance of pity at elegant sufficiency.
She fights with the descant in Ding Dong Merrily, and grimaces for the camera.

Christmas is safe with our Mol.

christmas prescience

2006-12-17T21:59:00.000Z

This snowman was bubble wrapped at the bottom of deccie box two. It came back from school with Zig two years ago. It would be another two months before he saw Doctor Who.

Genetic memory. Timelord as archetype.

io

2006-12-16T22:29:00.000Z

I’d be buggered in the Southern hemisphere. Winter needs a celebration. Hang on, how cold is Italy this time of year? I somehow doubt the chariot DUIs and turkey pizza dinners of Saturnalia would have had snow on snow, snohoho on snow. But isn’t that the joy of glass upon glass (glahahass upon glass) of Christmas cava? All your seasonal icons get in a muddle and it’s pulling them out of your brain through your mouth in a soggy, glorious tumble of ubertinsel that you realise. Damn. The bleak midwinter is made to party.

Or to drink glahahass upon glass of cava while putting up the deccies and voting for Leona and pretending you have a life and are invited to the sort of parties that bleak midwinters pimp.

stick it to the man

2006-12-15T22:23:00.000Z

And the teachers have ideas. And then all the teachers talk to Mr C about their ideas. And they all mix up their ideas. And that’s a. What’s that called? A democracy.

Top one, Zig. And have you done who decides which ideas are done how, when, and to or for whom?

The word for tomorrow is autocracy.

feat

2006-12-14T23:02:00.000Z

Gareth took a fisheye lomo shot of my feet. These feet have had quite a few Flickr views, a couple of comments - from foot fans, I assume - and a goodly Autumn run in a Paris department store. For black socks. Which I wasn’t wearing. Right now I’m wearing dark blue socks with bright blue toe and heel. Just so you know. Oh, how I dream of one day owning black socks. They used my feet to pimp their product and didn't send me a sample. I'm glad to say the same of the people who left the Flickr comments.

Gareth and I are having a teeny domestic rumble about who took the shot of Oscar Pistorius:

which has about fifty Flickr views less than the feet. Rock paper scissors.

Searching for my feet found Zig’s foot:

prima materia

2006-12-13T21:35:00.000Z

Take an Open Day in a High School with cardboard corridors and pupils who slam doors and startle with a grin.

Shake over the promise of a large budget for a refurb rebuild. Add a generous pinch of extra budget for an autism department.

Stir thoroughly with a physiotherapist who only seems to want to talk to your son’s LSA, not to the mum.

Fold in a prospectus, unfold at the SENCO’s name.

Break the ice with a phonecall. Dig out a pair of trousers that aren’t denim.

Shatter the nerves with a first day.

Take a seat next to a sealed alembic.

Agitate.

Gently.

virgo midheaven

2006-12-12T21:22:00.000Z

Will I ever feel useful? Will I ever feel of use?

Probably not, yet there’s this queasy compulsion to keep trying.

One day. Yes! We could do with you. You are the very person. We have the very thing.

A little thing. That I do. That I can do. Well.

could try harder

2006-12-11T21:30:00.001Z

We don’t send holiday letters. People we know or know of, who by association or accusation are etched into my in-head Christmas card list, can assess our progress through this year’s children’s drawings.

Because what’s the use of keeping children if they don’t scribble something mewlingly festive in felt tip, which the parent can grab by the scruff, shake, and scan? Before stuffing in a sack and drowning in the waterbutt.

Here, goes the printer: Here, have many, many mewling festive scribblings. Splurge goes the pritstick. Hah. Instant xmas art no one dare criticise because. It. Has. Been. Done. By. Children.

Genius. And then, because I loathe everyone on my Christmas card list who cares for the state of their carpets, I bring out the PVA and add glitter.

stocking

2006-12-10T22:36:00.000Z

Nanna would make my stocking and Grandad would watch and pass comment and humbugs. Sweets, puzzles, plastic toys, marbles, bubbles, balls, and comics, wrapped and partially peeking from the skinniest of paper. The satsuma would’ve been in the toe, only the stocking always became a carrier bag through necessity.

Nanna died three years ago, Grandad soon after. I stumbled. Today we’ve collected sweets, puzzles, plastic toys, bubbles, balls, party poppers. We’ve wrapped them, partially peeking through the skinniest of paper. We’ve loaded them into a Rudolph stocking, the toe lumpy stuffed with chocolate coins.

Tomorrow I’ll post it down the country until it nearly hits the bottom. To Aunty Maz - Nanna and Grandad’s daughter. When I stumbled she fell splat on her face. A satsuma would go squidgy and smell.

all i want for christmas

2006-12-09T21:51:00.000Z

It took a big hammer.

piss cat

2006-12-08T23:34:00.000Z

I have a cat I would love. I have a cat I would love if once every six weeks or so he didn’t forget the catflap, raise his tail and quiver any interior piece of house he happened against. He truly is a cat of cats. He is curled into my legs every morning and loathes my laptop because he is my laptop. He is fluffy, white, a scrap of scrawn with one cat coloured eye and one blue. He makes me jump. I would love him.

mouthful of chips

2006-12-07T21:07:00.000Z

This evening Mol told me she had to dress scruffy as they were having a Tramp Supper at Guides. She didn’t have to bother with a dirty face or anything, she said, just scruffy clothes.

I was utterly, utterly thrown.

I nudged Mol to Guideswise when her Brownie trousers started to skim her ankles and she ran out of badge space on her gilet. I thought it would help encourage independenceyetfunctioningaspartofateam, social responsibility, and an excuse to dawdle over a late supper and watch Catherine Tate when she got home.

Now it seems I can add hypothermia, malnourishment, mental illness, addiction, and prostitution to the Big Guides List of pre-11 Life Experiences. Oh, and a knack for rooting McD remains from bins, snarfing chips off the pavement, and acquisition and care of a dog on a rope.

But that’s okay! We’re not talking about homelessness here, chaps, we’re talking about Tramps: happy fellas with a beard and a bottle, a ruddy glow and a hearty high ho silver.

Either that or I was expected to send her in a red latex mini and a pair of high heels, and expect her home complete with a scarlet rimmed dogend and a broken heart of cynicism.

I hope to fuck they have a subtext here.

In other news, Zig’s class had a dentist in to talk teeth today. He solemnly explained that he should not rinse after brushing as it removes the floorboard.

Fluoride?

No, mum: floorboard.

eta, she came home:

Sooo, what did you learn about homelessness?

Lots.

Like what?

That there are err three hundred and eighty thousand people homeless … in our country

…

Oh yeah! we ate chips.

puddin

2006-12-06T20:55:00.000Z

Nigella is batting at the camera and doing Christmas. She swoon voiced Women’s Hour last week, with how It Was Filmed in July But That Was Okay As Her Grandmother Always Had A Second Christmas In The Summer Because She Liked The Whole Christmas Thing So Much, so that’s all right.

That steeped, liqueured, glut stuffed, whipped, creamed, cinched, gravadlax dulcet dominatrix act she pulls is so seductively compulsive I can almost forgive her for only ever having given me one recipe that works.

The One Nigella Recipe That Works (For Me)
(and it’s Christmassy. Brucey Bonus).
Iced Rum Sauce
300ml double cream, 2 large egg yolks, 2 tablespoons golden syrup, 2 or so tablespoons dark rum, small sack of crack*.
Beat the cream until stiff and the yolks until frothy. Yeah, baby. Keep beating those frothy eggs and splunge in the syrup and the rum. Fold into the stiff cream, plurup and dollollop into an airtight container. Stuff into the freezer. Pull out about half an hour before money shot onto hot pud. Or do as I do and tease it from the freezer spoon by hard spoon.

*Optional, but advisable for the Nigella wide-eyed, Oh Big Boy Oh Oh OH glaze.

Pickles! Must buy pickles.

pamper

2006-12-05T19:56:00.000Z

The Wash of the Wash, Cut and Blow includes a deep down deep circle-finger scalp massage.

Every time I forget until I’m there, leant back in the chair, washed warm and sudsy. Then press, massage, soothe, relax.

Around and around. Press. Massage. Soothe. Relax.

Neck tightens. Jaws clench. Nails dint white crescents into the palms. Insides clench and screech

Get off. Get off. Get off.

I tip.

once upon a time in the m.e.n arena

2006-12-04T23:46:00.000Z

Glowsticks come in blue, yellow, orange, green and red. I found this out this evening. Oh, and purple. They also come in purple.

I also found out that pissing against the wind is giving out six thousand assorted glowsticks to six thousand assorted children aged seven to eleven - who are the act not the audience, by the way - and asking them not to snap and wave them until the Morricone world premiere - the penultimate sing song of a two hour concert.

Not that I snapped my glowstick (red) as soon as the lights went down and waved it like the buggery, or anything.

long-leggety beasties

2006-12-03T22:10:00.000Z

Mum, is it the bit where Charlotte tells Wilbur, In a day or two I'll be dead?

No Mol, it’s not that bit.

Right.

…

Mum, is it, No one was with her when she died?

Yes Mol, that’s the bit.

Does it still make you feel dead upset when you read it?

Yes Mol. Dead Upset.

Oh. Ohhh.

Right.

jumper

2006-12-02T23:42:00.000Z

Does European cinema have all the bad jumpers? Manchester tried for a few today. Batwings of solid, striplit colour. Half-arsed, half-hearted doodle of a golfing pattern turned retro chic £29.99 desirable (six quid in Primark). But they are half-arsed half-hearted. The full throated unabashed bellow of bad jumper belongs to European cinema. As is and ever was. Time without end.

thing that go bump

2006-12-01T20:51:00.000Z

At nine at night on a Friday we sit in a row on the sofa. At nine at night on a Friday I realise I have two arms because I have two kids; I have two kids because I have two arms. Whichever, whatever, strike and reverse. Each kid gets an arm and we all get Most Haunted. Green night vision faces with wide, bright pupils, and never a free arm with a free hand for my wine glass.

note to self

2006-09-22T12:21:00.000Z

If, when writing the Brownie Christmas play, you find you've written this Fairy made me come so quickly, I left my sack behind, rephrase.

twins

2006-06-28T19:51:00.000Z

Which one was that, Zig?

Dan.

How can you tell?

Dan’s the one with that face. Joe’s the one with the other face.

trouser snake

2006-06-10T15:28:00.000Z

Today was Zig's a bit belated seventh birthday party. I met the Queenie. She stretches from here to here or there to there, and weighs five stone.

Her tail liked my pocket:

But her head preferred the birthday party boy:

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst.

Over here, little boy ... You and your strange extra hand ...

like the first bird.

2006-06-07T08:35:00.000Z

Is it darkest before dawn? Is it always darkest before dawn?

What happens if you don’t get that far? Don’t even get to the night proper? Don’t even get to the stage where you shower, clean your teeth, have the last wee of the evening (and wash your hands, ladies and gentlemen), set the alarm for a couple of hours after the dawn it gets darkest before, fumble into bed and fall asleep over the same page of the same book you’ve been falling asleep over for five days now?

What if the nearest you get to the night that gets darkest before the dawn is the dusk? Some perpetual twighlight: after the blackbirds, before the stars. Some still, grey brown suspension you breathe through gills.

Scientists have recorded the noise of Jupiter. They call it the dawn chorus.

nicey nicey zoo zoo

2006-05-14T21:21:00.000Z

We went to the zoo.

I took this photograph.

It makes me happy.

a life less apostrophised

2006-04-28T16:02:00.000Z

Casually suggested to Gruff as we pulled out of Somerfield car park:

We could do with renting the robots of death.

Said to Zig just now, as he struggled to pull away from the Fairly OddParents:

Just concentrate and write the Rosetta Stone.

I reckon it’s useful to have a Bank Holiday to do list

Gruff went in and came out safely. Thanks to the drama of developing a dramatically dramatic allergy to any antibiotic beginning with Ciprox, he was in for nearly a week, has more than one reason to be a bit lighter, and has only just stopped walking a bit deliberately. But now he’s back and - well - Balanced, if you get my meaning, with a scar to make grown men faint and curious wives poke and prod. Just the one, though, eh.

Mind you, if any curious wife out there is that curious, make me an offer and perhaps you can come and poke and prod too. We need to build up a bigger pot for the big brave grown-up house move we’ve been intending for a few years now; this could be our answer. Telling you that he’s all scrabbly from dissolving stitches and hair re-growth just makes it better, oh yes.

baubles part der

2006-04-08T08:19:00.000Z

I wonder if Gruff is the only person to have gone down* to surgery with ‘Xmas Trees’ written under allergies on his wristband**? Because you never know when your surgeon will be strung with tinsel and gripping his scalpel between Blue Spruce fingers.

Or - as Gruff added, to derail the twiggy hands idea, as he had Raggety nightmares as a child, and doesn’t really want to wonder about vengeful childhood horrors looming over that bit of him when he’s out for the count - if the anaesthetic will be pine fresh.

Still, he said, after all was done and altered but not Altered, the metal snap stickers along his torso made him Neo.

Or a babygrow, I didn’t add, because the poor chap had just had rather nasty surgery on his man bits, and if being Neo makes him feel better then good for him. And a few après surgery metal snap chest stickers are available on the National Health. Floor length leather coats are not.

It went well, but things were trickier than expected, so he will be in until at least Monday. He’ll be fine; he has Cartoon Network.

*I was about to write why ‘down’ when surgery wasn’t ‘down’ at all, but over, across a bit, a bit more, and along? Then I remembered that Gruff had been moved to the second floor and surgery was on the ground floor, therefore he did indeed go down to surgery. Smartarse or keen observationalist I’m not.

**The wristband they make you wear so you don’t get lost. Or someone doesn’t pick you up while you are dozing and take you home in mistake for their baby. Which, when you’re a bit plump, a bit bald with temporarily bald nads, could happen. Even if you’re so much 36 you're very nearly 37, and always very much 6’ 1 ½”.

ooch

2006-04-04T15:00:00.000Z

Will somebody please tap me on the shoulder when it's International Think Before You Speak Day. I'll be just here, with this cushion over my head.

what’s the name of that book again?

2006-03-29T13:50:00.000Z

These days I’m holding my breath. My eyes must be bugging, my cheeks puffed, numb and tingling, my lips turning blue from the outside in.

Somebody get a pin. Or tickle me. Or something.

onward and upward

2006-03-24T12:41:00.000Z

Or: Why I will never be a theatre critic. Or have tea with the queen.

Since about this time yesterday afternoon, Mol has been 10. Double figures. One of my kids is in double figures.

The shock called for high culture, and high culture was got.

I might be thirty-five; I might bristle to the touch, be a bit tough to chew and a little wizened around the edges, but when the banging and knocking had finished and the cloth was lifted, my sensibilities roared and my gut donkey kicked

OH MY GOD! IT’S CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG!

FUCK ME! SHE’S FLYING!

Chaps, I had a tissue up my sleeve, secret-like. I am crap.

But, fuck me. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

he he he

2006-01-19T15:47:00.000Z

Am downloading some Glenn Miller for Molster, who is learning to play In The Mood in keyboard lessons.

I get a little jolt every time I see Glenn Miller's face on an album cover, and it's not James Stewart.

you have 357 days to comply

2006-01-06T19:09:00.000Z

Zig claims to have forgotten his new year’s resolutions. Year 2 stormed the stairs (for stormed where Zig is concerned, please read rode the Robocop-worthy, cooler than Stannah any day matey stair chair) to the computer suite, to tap their resolutions into a hard drive.

Sarah’s mum says Sarah said (repeat quickly fifty times and score ten points) she resolved to keep her bed tidy. Not the bedroom, for she’s a practical six-year-old with a feel for what’s reasonable.

While hoiking him into his chair, I asked Zig what he’d resolved. He screwed up his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, and turned up the corners of his mouth. Hold for ten. Release.

I can’t remember

Apparently he didn’t resolve to do all the washing-up for the year. I checked. Whatever they were, quick as made, his resolutions blew away to make friends with the ether. And probably do all its dishes for the year.

Either:
1) He remembers his resolutions perfectly well, but is concerned that I might hold him to feedingthecatswashinghishandspickingup litternotpickinghisbogeysresolvingworldconflicts every day for a year
2) He remembers perfectly well but is afraid of the cloud of failure should becoming the Archbishop of Ramsbottom not be feasible before December
3) He remembers perfectly well but thinks it none of my bloody business
4) He’s forgotten

Any are possible; I empathise with all. I’ve deliberately side-stepped resolutions this year. I’ve also, until now, side-stepped the side-step, with a breezy whistle. Letting a resolution slide is just too cloudy, and if I don’t let them slide, I might, you know, succeed.

The very idea.

Thing is, in the computer suite on the second floor of a school not too far away, there’s a hard drive. In this hard drive there are Zig’s resolutions, which for reasons 1-4 or 5) Other, he has chosen to keep quiet.

My innards being sneaky, I reckon I’ve got a hard drive too. I’d take the stairs but I forgot to plug in the Robocop-worthy, cooler than Stannah any day matey stair chair to charge.

I'd best just stay here on my arse. Pass the chocs.

up up up up up up up

2006-01-05T18:56:00.000Z

Molster was given three juggling rings. I’ve nicked them, and practice in the kitchen. Am spending a bit of time unhooking juggling rings from wine racks, swiping them down from the top of the fridge freezer, and hoopla-ing shallots.

It takes a whole different hand position than juggling with balls. A sideways flick is trickier than an open palm toss. As every good girl knows.

I was taught to juggle by a new friend, before he became a good friend. Which he was before I learned to keep three bright balls up in the air.

He’d turned up on my doorstep, with a soft, cheery knock and a backpack full of passata and gnocchi. Knock, gnocchi, passata and company were all welcome. I’d just returned to an empty dump of a student house in a rough part of Manchester, to discover I’d been robbed.

Not being heartless, they’d left me my kettle and a muddy footprint in the center of my bed sheet. With kettle, knock, gnocchi, new friend, footprint and passata, I could conquer the world.

Instead, we went to the park, where I learned how to keep all my balls up in the air.

Haven’t the foggiest where my new friend, good friend is now. Or his backpack.

I’ll keep on tossing the rings.

stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur sez no

2006-01-04T22:11:00.000Z

I’m the bad cop parent. The one who puts her foot down with a firm hand. The one who says no.

Every so often, however, I’ll take a breather, and – if I don’t exactly say yes to something – allow the impression of a yes to slide past.

When a boy has saved his money until he has enough for a stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur, who am I to say no? Specially when, on the quiet, I really want to have a go.

The impression of a yes (so cunning an impression I’m the one who places the order online) slides past, and a couple of days later there’s a stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur on the living-room floor.

In its box.

Because, no matter that I let the impression of a yes slip past, I’m not the only one able to say no, it would seem.

Being only able to find five of the necessary six high-powered rechargeable batteries needed to power the thing, although there are eight of them in the house, that’s a no. So I make an impression of a yes and charge up the six make-do lower-powered batteries.

To then spend a good half an hour untwisting twisty plastic-covered wire tags to release the beast, to discover that I can’t unscrew the buggering thing's feet from its base. I just can’t get the damn things loose. If I struggle any longer, I’ll wreck the threads, and that will be that.

The stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur has had its foot put down with a firmer hand than mine.

You’ve got ‘til Friday, cats.

run, bellamy

2006-01-03T21:05:00.000Z

Watership Down is a very, very sad film, Zig decided, lots of squirrels get killed.

This wasn’t the only moment I wondered whether the kids had been watching the same film as us parents, squished up together on the sofa though we were*.

Much is said about the increasing violence and aggression that children absorb through screens today. Yet what is the film that made Molster stark awake until 1am, when she came and snuggled in our bed with Freddy dog, and was sat on and purred to sleep by Major Tommy? What is the film that made the bad dream that brought Zig through before dawn, to squeeze the last half inch out of the kingsize and throw his mother off the edge?

A U-rated film about bunnies, made in 1978.

Art Garfunkle is that scary.

*Until near the end, that is. After a few childhood late 70s, early 80s years of owning the bookofthefilm, before seeing the film, and seeing more spoofs than my childhood cats had rabbit paws on string to pat and gnaw**, I know enough to hop [geddit] from the sofa and out of the room before Hazel felt that he wouldn’t be needing his body any more, so he left it lying at the edge of a field, and stopped for a while to watch his rabbits because even now, all grown up, even typing - and probably misquoting dreadfully – the line, makes my nose and eyes strangely runny. Shut up.

**I’ve never owned or read the actual, you know, book, even though there has to be a copy in every charity shop before a charity shop can be called a charity shop. That and Jaws. It’s the law.

use or ornament

2006-01-02T21:30:00.000Z

We park the Dyson between the merchant chest and the hinges of the living-room door. It’s not exactly hidden, not exactly on display. When I twirl round in this computer chair, I stare at its strata: sandy stuff, dirty stuff, paper stuff, fluffy stuff, hairy stuff.

I know you’re supposed the categorise the Dyson as use, not ornament, however, I must spend more time looking vacantly at those layers than at any other bit of useless tut on the units or walls of this room.

Today was the day we took down and repacked each and every shiny thing we unpacked and put up a couple of weeks ago, plus a few that snuck in, seasonally quiet-like. Then we hoovered, because Dysoned is not yet a verb and vacuumed sounds too … empty.

Twirling just now, I noticed the strata are: glitter stuff, dirty stuff, wrapping paper stuff, tinsel stuff, hairy stuff, sweet papers.

My quandary is, although it’s use, not ornament, does my looking at those layers, however vacantly, more often than at any other bit of tut in this room automatically classify the … what do you call the see-through plastic middle bit of a Dyson?.. does it automatically classify that bit as ornament?

Do I have to empty the Dyson before Twelfth Night, or do I keep it as is and enjoy dirty Christmas right into February?

feathers fly

2006-01-01T20:10:00.000Z

My first sliver of 2006 daylight sliced a single wince-opened eye. I groaned for water, then grumbled for tea.

I then lay in bed until gone midday, and read a tatty paperback about a man who, finding the minds of his people muffled by torpor, the lands of his people fallow through skills forgotten, the hearts of his people numb and limp, sets off on a quest across land, across sea, past the world known into the world uncharted or unchartered, to find, challenge and vanquish whatever big tog, superking duvet was doing the smothering.

Is doing the smothering.