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:
Monday, February 02, 2009
a failsafe method...
...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:
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:
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
hill.
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.
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.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
time and relative dimensions in prefabs
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.
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.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
battle of the bulge
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
big ben
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
adapt or die
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.
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.
Monday, December 29, 2008
diagnosis
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?
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?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
nigella intervention
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?
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?
Saturday, December 27, 2008
home
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.
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.
Friday, December 26, 2008
presciencearium
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.
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.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
positions
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
boxing day
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.
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.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
tinkers
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.
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.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
bright light
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.
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.
Friday, December 19, 2008
candle
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!
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!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
in season
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
control
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.
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.
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