Miss Tickle

Teenage superpowers

2009-08-03T10:01:00.003+01:00

So a couple of weeks ago I went to see the new Harry Potter film.

If I am entirely honest with you, which is important because I like to maintain a base line of respect and, well, dignity, round here, I went to see it on the first day it was out. I am so dignified.

It was 4pm. The cinema was full of yoof. Girl-flavoured yoof. Some of them were dressed in little outfits. One boy, who was surrounded by girls, all of whom seemed to be messing with him in a sort of acceptable touching type way, was wearing what looked an awful lot like a dressing gown, but I suspect was in fact a robe.

"Oh god," said hub as he met me. It is not so much the yoof that he finds stressful, as the squeaky noises they make.

We sat in the cinema. A billion adverts passed. The chattering around us was punctuated only by squeals and text message alerts.

I like the yoof. I find them endlessly fascinating and also ever so amusing. I love their unself-conscious and self-conscious ways. And on this day they made me grin with glee.

We were into the trailers. There was one for a film with chipmunks. And then there was one which was on for barely a second before the whole of the teenage-girl-type masses around us erupted in a glorious mixture of squeals and screams and sighs and cheers and clapping.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" asked and increasingly out-of-his-depth hub.

OBVIOUSLY what was going on was the trailer for the new Twilight film.

It was ace. Them girls was ace. But how the buggery bollocks did they know? It is like a special tuning-in to handsome earnest looking heart-throbs superpower.

I liked it a lot.

Friday

2009-07-31T21:41:00.002+01:00

I have The Swine Flu.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuugh. And other words ending with "gh".

To be honest, it is not at all bad and in fact rather a lot like having Not Swine Flu.

In other news, hello! I have been not blogging. This is because I have been busying by doing two jobs, being a studing, and also doing a voluntary placement. But now, I am on my summer holiday, and so have time to have things like Swine Flu. And also, do baking.

You might be pleased to know that my garden has been shortlisted for a city-wide (city-wide I say!) gardening competition. To celebrate, here is a picture of my potatoes.

Pimping

2009-07-22T22:25:00.003+01:00

I am breaking my literally many-months-long silence to do a wee spot of pimping.

I do like a bit of pimping. In the sense of "hey I found a nice thing", not so keen on the street corners and physical violence stuff. That's just my way.

ANYWAY.

Please do have a small look at What's In A Name. It is amusing and an ever-so-clever concept. I like it.

Also, it is possible that this summer I will be a little more forthcoming in the blogging stakes. Because I am ON HOLIDAY!

And it is good.

Woolliness

2009-02-21T10:01:00.003Z

The fact of the matter is that I've been quite busy. And a little woo-woo in the brain.

Time seems to just melt away, like a prawn cracker in tea. Not that I have ever put a prawn cracker in tea. But there may have been a tea spillage on the side once, into which a prawn cracker made its final journey.

In any case. I have a weird arm. I got it from writing notes for the first essay for my course. And that was over a month ago now and the hurt is still hurty (like now with the typing for example) and I am having physio but since the diagnosis seems to be "hurty arm" it feels a little like guesswork. Helpful guesswork.

I have also been juggling some problems with my counselling placement, which has been very anxiety-making, but which seems be sorted out now. Or at least it will be in a couple of weeks.

So I've been a little wonky in the brain, feeling a little out of control, a little oh-my-gosh-I-can't-cope.

I've been eating a lot of cake.

Let's put it like that.

Today hub is doing a writing workshop, and I am doing some tea-drinking and some bed-lazing. (Although I should be doing some editing, but I can't seem to bring myself to actually engage with it.)

I suppose things are a bit split. I'm working two jobs, I'm doing my counselling diploma, I'm doing my placement, I'm trying to give hub the lurve and attention he deserves, and somewhere in all of that I get a bit confused and woolly. Like a tea cosy that wishes it were a bobble hat.

I am geek.

2009-01-08T22:24:00.002Z

Watch Torchwood Series 2 Finale Upsets Even Hitler in Entertainment Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I just really really really love this.

(And also, I totally apologise.)

Also, for googling (because everyone should see this) Torchwood, Captain Jack, Joss Whedon, Russell T Davies, Doctor Who.

I am geek. I have no shame.

Displacement

2009-01-06T12:54:00.002Z

I am writing an essay on infant development and parenting with reference to Winnicott, Bowlby, Klein, and Stern.

Or am I:

Doing the washing up
Making chicken soup
Organising my school timetable
Putting a wash on
Making tea
Eating Ferrero Rocher
Fiddling on Facebook with new Facebook friends
Thinking about first therapy session after Christmas
Blogging
Emailing the husband
Looking for books on the library system
Printing out photos
Calling work

What I like to think is that my unconscious has to have time to process and digest so it can come up with the incredible insight from which my essay will be formed.

And I think I'm largely totally right about that.

Now, anyone for a quick game of Scramble?

2008-12-31T09:49:00.002Z

Now I do hope you all have a very very happy new year.

These are my new year's wishes to you.

WISHES!

So.

I wish you lots of nice food and drink including fun nibbly things like Cheesey Footballs or Twiglets and alcoholic things like Gins and Tonics or Champagne. And if you do not drink, I wish you freshly squeezed orange juice, or whatever you would most like really.

I also wish you lots and lots of laughing, maybe generated by ridiculous games or ridiculous people or just lots of general hoo-hah and silliness.

I wish you Interesting Stuff. Stuff that you find Interesting. It might be archaeology or physics or kittens or soft furnishings. I quite like the yoof. They keep me on my toes.

And also I wish you curiosity, calm, joy, love and snoozing.

And of course, tea.

On reflection, 2008 has been a teensy bit challenging. But right now, right this second, I feel kind of okay about that.

It is probably because I am still in bed.

Do the thing! Do it!

2008-12-08T09:06:00.002Z

There is a lovely thing!

It is here and it is made by the brilliantness that is Stray. She is making a film. She is often doing exciting stuff like that.

ANYWAY. Go! Look! It is about things that matter! Like puppies and tea and fields!

Also, I was 30 yesterday. And hub made me eggs benedict. And it was really very tasty.

Bye-eeee!

Whirlwind-ish.

2008-11-30T18:45:00.003Z

BOTTOMS!

I am back.

Yes I bloody buggery am.

Unfortunately, I have little of substance to say. Other than we built the weird cat a ladder-plank sort of device to help her escape from our outdoor "patio" (small square of concrete) into the heavenly wilds of the wilderness beyond (flat above's garden).

She has not used it yet. It is disappointing.

Life continues apace. I have developed hysterical headaches as a clear message to myself to get some sleep and spend more time watching rubbish telly. Unfortunately this does not fit too well with two jobs, a post graduate studying doodah for which an essay is shortly due, and beginning a placement in which I (I!) must counsel youth.

As if I knew any stuff at all.

In the meantime I am reading books called things like "Working with Adolescents: a Contemporary Psychodynamic Approach", desperately browsing (can one browse desperately?) the internet for presents for hub's 30th birthday, closing my eyes and sticking my fingers in my ears about the approach of my 30th birthday (one week's time!) and trying to deal with my extreme pissed-offness at the increasingly hurtful behaviour of my sisters (including promised presence then sudden unexplained absence at aforementioned birthday frolics).

Oh I am nothing but a write-as-you-would-vomit dear little thing today, aren't I just!

PS. The funeral was, well, y'know, as funerals are. I did read. And I was glad of it.

Holding

2008-11-12T10:29:00.003Z

Well.

It has been a strange week. Granny's funeral is this Friday and so all week I have had a sense of having to hold something. A big wodge of feeling. And it has been strange being away from home, from mum and dad while this big thing is happening. Everything is on hold until I go back.

I am trying to decide whether to read something at the funeral. My youngest sister is going to, and there was a suggestion that all three of us should. I would like to, but at the same time I am afraid that I won't do her justice, that I won't find the right thing to read, and that I will fall apart like a blubbing fool in front of the entire WI (the entire WI will be there. Oh yes they will. She was a stalwart of the Women's Institute, my granny).

So today I am mulling it over. Wondering what I could read. What I could say. How I could express just a tiny bit of who she was and what she meant to me.

It is crazy really.

In other news, I am making a casserole. And the weird cat is making very weird noises.

2008-11-05T22:03:00.002Z

Feeling a teensy bit overwhelmed.

And very sad. My granny died you see. And she was lovely. A bit batty, but lovely.

She's been poorly for a while, she had had two heart attacks this year, and then had another yesterday. She slipped away this morning.

I am spending time floating around in my memories of her, and realising everything she gave me. This includes our shared sense of whimsy and an unwavering belief in the existence of fairies.

I feel lucky to have had a granny like her.

Updates

2008-10-28T11:22:00.003Z

Hello peeps.

It's been a while, I know.

Things I have been doing include:

1. Frantically editing short films with yoof in them.
2. Reading Freud case studies.
3. Listening to neighbours arguing about scaffolding.
4. Wondering why the weird cat has started weeing in corners.
5. Fretting about Christmas and the mother-in-law situation.
6. Appreciating the Autumn sunshine.
7. Driving to the middle of the Bath countryside for a hen weekend.
8. Realising just how young people in nightclubs are.
9. Loving my therapy,
10. Browsing flats on the interweb.
11. Revelling in half term.
12. Fighting the horrible hormonal effects of a new pill.

So.

The landlord situation (if you could please read "situation" with a french accent, it would be most helpful, since that is how it is pronounced in my head). Although he has now increased the rent only by a tiny bit that actually won't kill us, I think we are still going to keep out eyes out for somewhere else. We don't feel quite safe here now, and also (with the encroaching winter darkness) it is becoming clear how very dim it is, being a basement flat and all. And Miss Tickles don't do terribly well with dimness.

The mother-in-law situation is the same. She is still outrageous in her claims and actions. But now her mum (hub's nana) is very ill so it's a bit more complicated. Really I think we are trying to work out ways we can keep her in our life without her being entirely draining and destructive. Hub is ace and strong and only very occasionally furious. I am proud of him.

I have had a tricky few weeks with the lady-hormones. I went to the doctor because I have started suffering from menstrual migraines, and she advised me to try the mini-pill. It was all okay until around period time and then I suddenly turned into a churning mass of anxiety and weird night sweats and not sleeping and head all strangely leapy. It is over now, thank heavens, and I am holding in mind that the doctor did say it would take a while to settle down.

Bloody buggery hope it does though, because it was really terribly yuck.

I am loving my course and finding it intense and challenging and thought-provoking and glorious. And also prone to inducing a peculiar variety of psychological hypochondria, whereby we learn about something and then immediately diagnose it in ourselves (it is a course-wide phenomenon, and not just me... We are all as sensitive and wonderfully loopy as each other). Anyway. It is good, and I am slowly feeling more confident with it all. Also discovered that telling people that one is training as a counsellor/therapist means that they immediately tell you their dreams.

What else....

The weird cat has started weeing in corners.

It is weird.

The Man

2008-10-13T17:12:00.003+01:00

I like to think the best of people I come into contact with. I look for reasons that might cause people to behave in destructive or painful ways, I am interested in where they are coming from, I genuinely believe in human vulnerability and the bollocks we construct to help ourselves through that.

But sometimes, I wonder if I am wrong.

Sometimes, when hub is railing against the man (as he can often be found doing) and I am saying things like "Well maybe the man just hasn't had a very good day", or, "Maybe he had an argument with someone he cared about last night", sometimes, a little tiny shadow of doubt trips across my consciousness, scattering question-mark shaped confetti as it goes.

Sometimes I can't help but consider that maybe the man is doing really quite well actually. And can have chinese takeaway whenever he wants. And can afford to go to his friends' birthday parties. And has enough money to have, say, a dog.

Maybe the man is sitting comfortably on a sofa somewhere chuckling to himself.

The last week has been very odd. The landlord raised our rent by 10%, then when we said there was no way we would be able to stay, he lowered it a bit. Then when we said that actually we needed a bit more time because giving us a week to decide what we wanted to do felt a teensy bit like short notice, he lowered it again.

Which makes me think that everything he said last week about fixed rate mortgage coming to an end blah blah, cost of replacing the boiler blah blah, forced to do it blah blah, might not really have been entirely accurate.

I feel shaken by this. And we still don't know what to do. Because we have to let him know by 9am on Thursday otherwise he will "retract all offers" and while we can afford the rise in rent as it now stands, and we know we still want the flat, we're frankly not altogether sure we want the landlord.

I feel oddly naive.

A bit of a mug.

I just want to feel safe, y'know? Secure and settled for a bit without the fear that things are going to be pulled from under our feet at any second.

But I'm not sure I trust that man anymore.

Pubs. Gawd love 'em.

2008-10-12T20:54:00.004+01:00

Hubling is writing a story.

At the heart of this story are men in a pub.

We have been chatting and talking and analysing what exactly it is that men like so much about pubs. And also people in general. Obviously. (Although his book does focus on a group of chaps).

So.

User generated content.

Web 2.0.

The technological future!

Let it help us with our discussion, in all its glory! In all your glory, dear generating users!

Tell me, what do you like about pubs? What do you think men like about pubs? Why are they so very important to us?

I await your answers with baited breath...

My kingdom for a house!

2008-10-10T22:49:00.003+01:00

So.

More trouble at (the) sea(side).

It looks like we have to move. Again.

GRRRRRR.

We got an email from our landlord informing us that he is putting the rent up by 10%.

For goodness sake!

Hub and I are currently in discussions about what to do, since this would take our rent up to a figure we would find more than a little painful.

Should we stay or should we go?

We were both very angry given that we have only been here six months, and given our having-to-leave-the-last-flat experience. It seems we are suffering from some kind of bad flat karma.

So tomorrow we are off to look round a few flats, see what is out there, see what we can get for our money, as we have until Wednesday to let the landlord know what we're doing.

Is it too much to ask to stay in one place for more than seven months, is it? I mean, is it?!

It has been a crazy few weeks with horrible in-law drama, troubles with my own parentals, a training weekend meaning I am now on my twelfth consecutive working day, and now more annoying flat stuff.

Oh the urge to swear is upon me, dear readers.

Fortunately, I am a model of restraint.

Overheard morning conversation.

2008-10-09T08:30:00.004+01:00

Radio 4: And it looks like John Terry will be unable to play this evening.

Hub: (To weird cat) Oh my god, what are they going to do without John Terry?

Weird Cat: Silence

Hub: I know, they don't stand a chance.

Weird Cat: Silence

Hub: He's solid in that line-up. Would you like a bit of ham?

Weird Cat: Myeaooooow.

The thing is, hub really hates football.

They were having an ironic conversation.

Drama and all sorts

2008-10-07T09:56:00.002+01:00

It has been a little while, I know.

Things have been rather intense.

I started my counselling course last week (hoorah!) and in addition to the one day a week which will be usual, had a study weekend too, which was wonderful, but which now means I am well into my second week of no-day-off. So I'm a bit floopy and eyes-all-sleepy.

Plus we had all sorts of dramatic family crisis last week involving my mother-in-law going mad.

Frankly, and as I think I might even have mentioned, she has always been a wee bit potty. But has also always hidden it under the appearance of being an open and in-touch-with-her-emotions hippy-type who simply says how she feels, man.

But last week it all went a bit, well, dark, and it became clear that the over-emotional hippy no-boundaries stuff does in fact hide some rather more Serious Issues. And poor hub has been in the horrible place of his mother doing something truly unforgivable to his father (they are twenty years worth of divorced), but also constructing a fiction so complex that it is very difficult to confront her with what she has done.

So it was quite a busy week with backwards and forwards phone calls and discussions and emails to social services and all kinds of nasty things that he, or anyone really, just should not have to deal with.

I have been trying to be as supportive as I can, and to be honest, he is doing amazingly well. He is a strong chap, my hub, but nonetheless I have been ensuring he has regular and reliable cuddle access.

It will be ongoing, this situation, but we have at least got through the bit where immediate decisions had to be made.

And of course having just leapt with glee into the world of psychodynamics, the whole thing has given me endless fodder for pondering. And I'm sure hub appreciates my wild break-offs into enthusiastic introductions to psychodynamic theory in his own quiet way. I'm just sure of it.

The pity of it!

2008-09-22T18:55:00.003+01:00

Our boiler is broken.

For some time it has been a little shall we say temperamental. Not the least of which eccentricities was a snapped off hot water thermostat, resulting in decidedly un-hot water.

In any case, on Sunday, it gave up the ghost. May it rest in peace.

Our landlord has been very good in arranging a plumber to come round and fix it. But not quite so good on the timings. The timings being two weeks' timings.

Two weeks with no hot water!

Now it is true, I am a little pre-menstrual. I will grant you that. I will grant anyone that. Probably with a great deal of sobbing "No, you're right, you're totally right.... *SNIFF*"

But the news of the lack of hot water has sent me into some kind of teary-melty-weepy puddlish lump.

All we have is a tiny sink.

A tiny and unfeasibly high sink. (I am, it is true, unfeasibly small. So it doesn't take an awful lot of height to make a sink unfeasible for me. If you know what I mean. And why shouldn't you? I have made it clear in a number of excellent sentences.)

And a kettle.

Anyway. I looked at tin baths on ebay.

It is a possibility.

Oh I am all of a nonsense!

Dear reader, oh!

*siiiiiiiiiigh*

And also,

*sniiiiiiiiff*

What's in a name?

2008-09-15T18:37:00.010+01:00

Now look.

I have a name. Like an actual name. The one that most people call me.

I know you must be disappointed, after all this time. You must feel as though I have been pulling the wool over your eyes.

I'm so sorry.

Here is my quandary: I have an interesting and vaguely amusing post, but it is based on my actual name.

So.

I have come up with a plan, a plan of disguise and cunning to conceal my true identity.

Here goes.

Imagine my first name is the shortening of a name that can be shortened. As "Chris" is to "Christopher".

So if we work here with the name that you believe my name to be, I am "Miss". This is what I am called.

However, there are some people, in this hypothetical situation, whose name is in fact "Missifer", for example, and who occasionally shorten their name to "Miss".

(I was christened "Miss", but some people were christened the longer version "Missifer" and only use "Miss" as a shortened version.)

Are you following?

So.

Again.

Hub came back from work and told me that today he took a booking for a woman called "Missifer Tickle" (please try and keep up). I admit, I felt a little as though my identity had been threatened. And so obviously I googled her.

She is a delight! An author no less!

And here is a selection of her works:

First Cook Book
by Missifer Tickle

It's Fun to Cook!
by Missifer Tickle

Romance in Medieval England
by Missifer Tickle

The Seven Champions of Christendom (1596/7)
by Missifer Tickle

Sir Bevis of Hampton in Literary Tradition
by Missifer Tickle

I realise that now, you could scurry off and do some extraordinary googling, and like the clever sausages you are, you could work out my name.

But I hope you don't.

Mostly because my parallel-y metaphor-ish smokescreen was ever so complicated to work out.

But I thought it was worth it for The Seven Champions of Christendom (1596/7).

LHC day.

2008-09-10T19:34:00.003+01:00

Now. Hubling has been all of a fluster today. To be honest, he has been gaining in excitability over the past week. He can barely contain himself.

Is it that we are going away together for some couplish loving time? Could it be that he is entranced by the thought of spending a few days in the countryside writing his wondrous novel? Or is it that somewhere in the world, scientists are doing a thing?

Go on, take a guess.

So for many, many hours, more than perhaps I would care to remember, and exactly equal to the amount of time I have been trapped in a car with him, he has been telling me all about physics.

My gosh, he really loves physics.

In particular, he has been drilling into me the mechanics and properties of gravity.

I think you can probably make a wild stab in the dark as to Miss Tickle's Feeling on Physics.

Anyway. I was good and patient and I listened like a good and patient person. And slowly, I began to actually understand stuff. (Some of it.)

I would like to share the most significant bit of learning with you, my dear readers.

"So in conclusion, the force that gravity exerts is directly proportional to the mass of an object, which is why when people are in space, away from the earth, they float around."

"Yes, but they don't always though do they?"

"Yes they do, if they're in a rocket in space, they float around. You must have seen film of them shotting water pistols and stuff..."

"Yes but that's only the fun stuff for telly isn't it? They they get back to walking around and doing the work, like on Firefly."

Pause.

"What do you mean?"

"Well on Firefly and Battlestar Galactica and stuff they're all walking around aren't they?"

"But that's made up."

"What?'

"That's made up."

"So there isn't a gravity button or anything you can press in real life?"

"No."

"So those astronauts in space can't walk around, they really are floating about the whole time?"

"Yes."

Pause. I consider this.

"Oh."

So now I understand gravity. But I am a tiny bit less happy for it.

Only a tiny bit.

But still.

Strangely lady-ish.

2008-09-09T17:11:00.005+01:00

I am going to a wedding, of two serenely lovely peeps.

But something about the wedding has fired off some craziness in my brain.

Some appearance-based craziness.

It goes like this:

ImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookprettyImustlookpretty.

And it is mostly manifesting itself through the excessive purchasing of matching accessories.

In the past two days I have bought three hairbands, two necklaces, three bracelets, some amount of hairslides and two cardigans.

In particular I have gone a bit funny about things being matching. In a set sort of a way.

I am confused, for this dress-up business is something new. Usually I am more of a casual sort of a gal. I can't help thinking *whispers* that it is not really about the outfit.

(I am about to do a counselling course, and this might account for my being so very insightful.)

Answers on a postcard please.

PS. This particular craziness contributed significantly to a rather embarrassing moment earlier today. The setting: the changing rooms of a cheapy high street shop designed for those somewhat younger than myself. The item: a red strapless dress with puffty skirt designed for those somewhat younger than myself. The problem: getting stuck. I was there for some time and just couldn't bring myself to ask for the help of the assistant. For she would have seen my bosom!

Comings and goings

2008-09-03T13:46:00.004+01:00

Last night, I had fish. And today, I have ill. I am not that pleased with the transaction.

It is not terrible ill, as I know these fishy things can be, but it is still quite definitely the wrong side of well.

Despite my terrible not-wellness, I struggled out of bed at some ungodly hour this morning to go to the induction for my new groovy supportive role working with the yoof. And I felt grumpy, oh YES, I felt grumpy. And cross. And irritated. And I did not want the school holidays to end and all that mean work stuff to start again.

And then it was really nice and I remembered how much I like yoof and I felt like a big old silly-head.

Also, and in a brilliant stroke of hilarious, the subject area in which I will be applying my groovy and supportive nature is Motor Vehicles.

Ha.

In other news, I am bereft of friends as they selfishly hotfoot it off to another country to have some kind of adventure. I will miss them a lot, but on the plus side, they left us a chair from which the Weird Cat has not yet detached herself. So plusses and minuses then.

Magic

2008-08-27T14:34:00.004+01:00

I am still on my school holiday, but go back next week. So I thought it was about time that I started to get myself sorted. This year I'm continuing with my hip and trendy job with the yoof, starting another job working with the yoof but in a more groovy and supportive type role, and also beginning my post-grad diploma in psychodynamic counselling.

So I was going through my diary and writing all the important wheres I need to be, and whens.

And gradually I became just a teensy bit panicked.

As I realised that nobody's holidays co-ordinate with anybody else's holidays which leaves me in a position of never having any holidays.

So I started to hoover.

As one does when one is feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

Obviously.

But all the stuff was still going round my head, about timings and fees and books I must read and visiting friends in different countries that I may never be able to do.

And then the doorbell rang. Or strictly speaking, the door made a knocking sound.

And something arrived that somehow has made everything just a little bit better.

I just feel that little bit more prepared.

Mmmm (it's back)

2008-08-25T23:51:00.002+01:00

So I wanted it to be Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords, but he's not terribly photogenic (or at least googling comes up with some right old shockers). So instead, please with all your heart and soul enjoy this.

I'd love to see his business socks.

*sigh*

Tentativity (which should be a word)

2008-08-21T16:28:00.003+01:00

I am aware that I left you on somewhat of a cliffhanger. And then disappeared without so much as a tiny update.

Things are still very fragile, a bit wobbly and unsettled.

But the husband has not left.

And that is the most important thing.

It is hard, I am finding it hard (and so is he I think) to look at ourselves clearly and be honest. It is hard to keep a balance between strength and hurt. But we are trying.

He said he is not ready to stop trying yet.

Which is good.

I think.

(I am still secretly keeping my fingers crossed. A bit.)

Hoping

2008-08-13T20:40:00.004+01:00

I am going back to the flat tomorrow.

By invitation.

(Albeit slightly grudging invitation.)

But invitation nonetheless.

Which is good.

I do not know what the future will hold.

I do know that I am weeing in my knickers.

Through nerves, you understand.

*closes eyes tightly and crosses fingers*

Wishes

2008-08-12T02:17:00.004+01:00

I do not know how you are meant to write about relationships and heartache on the blogs. In fact I am pretty sure there is a rule against writing about relationships and heartache on the blogs.

But.

It is two o'clock in the morning and I am in a bed which in not my own, in a place which is not my home.

I am toying with the idea of driving to the place which is my home, sneaking undetected into my own bed, and sleeping there for an hour before waking up and driving back to this place.

This is the sort of thing that I think gutsy heroines would do. Heroines who wanted to win the one they love back. They would drive two hundred miles at two o'clock in the morning without a second thought.

They would creep in quietly to the flat they have been away from for over a week, and quietly hug their weird cat before slipping in next to their loved one. Then vanish before the sunrise.

I wish I were a gutsy heroine.

I wish I were at home.

I wish I were not waiting here in a bed which is not my own at two o'clock in the morning for my loved one to come to a decision.

Waiting.

Unwanted melody.

2008-08-11T18:56:00.001+01:00

"And tiiiiiime goes byyyyyy so sloooooowly..."

I'm in a situation boys and girls. A situation I don't want to be in one little tiny little bit.

And all I can do is wait.

It would be a lot easier if I didn't have the blooming Righteous Brothers insisting on keeping me company.

Platitudes

2008-08-09T12:53:00.001+01:00

I swear, if my mother says "Never mind" one more time, I shall bite her nose off.

Memes galore

2008-08-07T09:52:00.002+01:00

Life has gone a bit weird at the moment, so I am grateful to Cliff for tagging in a timely fashion, just when I was wondering how not to abandon my blog forever. I am leaning on memes, and that works for me. I do hope it works for you too.

1. My uncle once: went to school with Bill Oddie.

2. Never in my life: have I not stopped to gawp at puppies.

3. When I was five: I wouldn't wear trousers, only dresses.

4. High school was: mostly an unhappy experience.

5. I will never forget: crying so much when I got married that Eric the registrar said "Well done" every time I managed to get the words out.

6. Once I met: Sir Ian McKellan. But my sister met Brian Blessed and that is much better.

7. There’s this girl I know: actually, there are these two girls I know, they are my sisters and they are completely and utterly brilliant. But terribly short.

8. Once, at a bar: I fell asleep. Or cried. One of the two, and always in a bar. Shortly after eating crisps.

9. By noon, I’m usually: on my fourth cup of tea.

10. Last night: I considered leaving the country.

11. If only I had: known that it is okay to be who you are.

12. Next time I go to church: I will feel envious of the peace I find there.

13. What worries me most: is difficult to say because frankly I worry about everything from the fate of the tiger to how stupid my growing-out fringe looks and if I am going off raspberries in between.

14. When I turn my head left I see: Chloe my parents' dog snoozing on the sofa.

15. When I turn my head right I see: a wall.

16. You know I’m lying when: I smile all the way through speaking.

17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: being at primary school. I loved primary school.

18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: now is this what I am or what I would like to be (Beatrice)? And is it what I am at the moment (if I'm honest, probably nearing Ophelia) or what I am usually (more like Trinculo)?

19. By this time next year: I'll be a millionaire.

20. A better name for me would be: Gloria. I think Gloria would be a better name for most people.

21. I have a hard time understanding: maths. I am genuinely dysnumeric and do weird things with time in particular, often resulting in dramatic early/lateness.

22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: have more perspective about the whole thing.

23. You know I like you if: I pinch your bum.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: my husband.

25. Take my advice, never: take a balloon out of a home-made pinata until the whole thing is completely dry.

26. My ideal breakfast is: pineapple, then fresh bread and marmalade, with freshly squeezed orange juice and an endless supply of tea.

27. A song I love but do not have is: Do You Know The Way To San Jose by that singing lady whose name I can't remember and can't be bothered to google.

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: bring some wellies.

29. Why won’t people: value nature more.

30. If you spend a night at my house: the freezer is really loud and might keep you awake. But the cat is brilliant.

31. I’d stop my wedding for: is too late. My wedding has been and gone. And Christian Slater didn't turn up. And neither did that Scottish bloke I quite fancied last night on Lost Land of the Jaguar.

32. The world could do without: women's magazines.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: sleep with Jeremy Vine.

34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: I'm not really a fan of blondes but let's say Paul Bettany for sake of argument.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: napkin rings. Honestly, what's the blooming point in napkin rings?

36. If I do anything well it’s: listen.

37. I can’t help but: wriggle my toes in bed at night.

38. I usually cry: full stop.

39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: laugh, cry, talk, love and do silly dances.

40. And by the way: this too will pass.

TAG! Bobo and Hullballoo and Anna please.

Trying to think of a meme pun and failing.

2008-08-04T09:45:00.006+01:00

I love a good book meme. Oh I DO.

So. Bold for if you've read it, italics for if you mean to read it and brackets if you totally <3 it.

(This meme comes courtesy of Kat-esy.)(That was a rubbish pun.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 [The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien]
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 [Harry Potter series - JK Rowling]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 [Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte]
8 [Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell]
9 [[[His Dark Materials - Philip Pulman]]]
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller - Oh I would so like to read this, but I find it imediately weird and alienating. I have tried, how I have tried....
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 [Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks]
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 [The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald]
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams]
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (but what about no.33?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 [Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne]
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 [One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez]
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 [Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery]
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 [The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood]
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie proving he is not just, like, totally boring, man.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 [Brave New World - Aldous Huxley]
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 [Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez]
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 [Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov]
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 [The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett]
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A. S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - Do you know, I ordered it from Amazon only last Thursday?
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 [The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton]
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 [The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery]
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - I tried to read this. I found it weird. Too weird.
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - I would never read this, I value my emotional stability too highly.
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl]
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

What surprises me, is how few of the classics I have read, and how little I appear to want to read them. I must be some kind of terrible philistine.

Tig tag for Caroline and Hullaballoo and frankly everyone, do it, do it, do it!

The physics of poo

2008-07-24T08:33:00.006+01:00

I love living in Brighton. Moving here was far and away the best decision hub and I made. I love the big bright buildings, I love the people and all their groovy ways, and I love the sea.

What I do not love, are the seagulls.

And more specifically, their poo.

My poor little car takes a battering every night, and some mornings it is tricky to see through the windscreen.

This morning I was awoken blearily at silly o'clock by the sound of something hitting our bedroom window. In my sleepy imaginings I conjured a tom cat weeing very hard at my window, or perhaps weeing not so hard in my garden, then scattering soil with its toilety diggings.

Later investigation revealed that the same fate as daily befalls my little car had also befallen the bedroom window.

Which I was totally confused by because we live in a basement flat.

Which made me wonder exactly where the seagull was. At the time of contact.

And frankly, thank god that hub 1) understands physics and 2) is a more than capable Microsoft paint artiste, otherwise I never would have understood.

Vlex

2008-07-22T11:42:00.005+01:00

So I've been doing this project at school.

The brief was to create a new word, a verb, to describe what is unique about what young people do today.

I've been working on it all year.

And one of the reasons I've been so quiet in the past couple of weeks is because I've been up to ears working on the final show for this project.

Which was yesterday.

And was ace.

(Which I was VERY relieved about.)

Anyway.

As part of the project, I asked some lovely independent producers to work with the kids to make a small animation which demonstrated the concept of the word.

I thought you might like to see it (because I think it's completely brill.)

So here it is.

Vlex:
To express control in a virtual world.

Like what I'm doing now, innit.

PS. For the actual thing, we made a pinata of that monster. Then totally bashed it to pieces. Yes we did.

Difficulty

2008-07-15T06:01:00.005+01:00

I struggle with anxiety.

It's just a thing, a thing I have tried in the past and try every day really, to deal with.

And most often, I manage it. And all is well.

But sometimes, I feel a bit overwhelmed. Sometimes, life seems a bit terrible and bleak and I don't believe in my own ability to get through the day.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, it all gets a bit much.

And when it gets a bit much, I become a bit much.

Expressions of emotion become a bit, well, overdramatic. I state things in extremes. Because things feel extreme.

And this can make me a bit difficult to deal with. The extremity, the drama, the overwhelming feeling of it all.

I understand that at these times I can be difficult.

But it is also at these times that I need the most support, the most encouragement, the most positive feedback (and yes, I know, it would be much more useful if I were able to provide myself with with such things. And I am trying to head in that direction, really I am).

And sometimes, sometimes, the being difficult gets in the way of this.

And then things go topsy-turvy.

I'm just wondering how I can put them the right way round again.

Ginkgo Biloba "Troll"

2008-07-07T16:39:00.010+01:00

Here is our special tree. We had a lovely time peacefully wandering around a brilliant nursery we found, and finally chose this. To stay with us always, for us to care for and to mark the memory of a special little bean.

"A lovely and very rare form of Ginkgo with compact, bushy growth. Ideal as a container plant on the patio where after several years it will form a stunning leafy tree that is not too large. Ideal if you would like a ginkgo, but do not have very much space - and much better behaved than a real troll as well!"

Your invisible friend.

2008-07-06T21:51:00.004+01:00

I lurve Google Reader. It is a brilliant invention which delivers all of your glorious words in one neat package, just ready and waiting for me to gobble them all up.

AND it gets through the school firewall, so I can sneak a peak even while I'm at work.

BUT.

It does mean that my commenting rate, my ability to exchange thoughts and ideas, offer support, celebration or commiseration is somewhat reduced.

Which is annoying.

But I just want you to know that I am still reading.

And appreciating.

Even if you can't always see me.

thankyouverymuch

Morning.

2008-07-04T08:20:00.007+01:00

I am lucky with my job. I have a certain amount of hours each week that I must work, but I can organise when I work them. No getting in late and meting disapproving glances for me. Lots of relaxed mornings.

It is good.

And since I am not exactly what you would call a morning person, this set up would seem to be ideal.

If it weren't for two things:

At some hour, unpredictable, but in the main between 3am and 6am, the weird cat gets up. This obviously involves scratching vigorously at my chest of drawers and the carpet, and then leaping with all the grace of a tiny elephant to land on my tummy. For it is breakfast time. Obviously.

Over the past few weeks we have been developing a technique known as "Secret Breakfast". This involves one of us bringing the cat to bed the night before and shutting the door, then the other putting her breakfast into her bowl ready for the morning and coughing loudly (it is a small flat).

Sometimes this works, and I can sleep, all the way through until 7am.

When the alarm goes off.

Hub leaves for work at half past eight, but has an extremely clever system which involves the alarm on his phone going off a gazillion years earlier, and then hitting snooze a gazillion times until he gets up a gazillion years later.

Seriously.

I feel like I haven't slept for weeks.

And I am no Margaret Thatcher. (In so many ways).

I need to develop a technique for him.

I think I will call it "Secret Mallet".

For the phone you understand.

Dithering

2008-06-30T10:31:00.006+01:00

I would like to say sorry for not being a more committed and generally present blogger.

I have been quite busy, with some amount of being weird in the head.

As well as the upcoming sad, last week my granny had a heart attack, her second in a month and a half, and is in hospital. My mum has also been all weird in the head (obviously a hereditary trait) and told me I couldn't go back to see granny because she was too busy.

Not granny, mum.

Which was strange.

And then I have been all worried about what I am going to do over the summer because school is, as they say, "out" and so my time is, as they also say, and rightly, for it is an accurate use of the word, "free". Which I understand that most people would think is lovely and glorious and relaxing, but which I find alarmingly empty and open-ended.

I am sometimes not very good at being on my own.

For days.

So I have been trying to work out what to do. And coming up with nothing at all. And trying to register with temp agencies, only to be told by women with strange sing-songy voices that there isn't even any telesales.

NOT EVEN TELESALES!

Which I would be useless at in any case.

(This was meant a be a post about alcohol. Oh well, another day.)

And the other thing is that we are very poor due to a number of issues involving hub not being very good with money, or indeed tax, or, for that matter, fees. So at this point in time a bit of extra income would be really Very Helpful.

Oh I am all of a dither.

Dithery dithery dither.

It is sunny though. And that is nice.

I will never reveal my true identity.

2008-06-24T11:05:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Bobo and Hullaballoo for finding a way of finally revealing my true self.

You are Spider-Man

You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.

Spider-Man		85%
Superman		80%
Robin		72%
Hulk		65%
The Flash		65%
Supergirl		62%
Wonder Woman		62%
Green Lantern		60%
Batman		55%
Iron Man		50%
Catwoman		45%

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Gah.

2008-06-20T13:12:00.002+01:00

Only six days ago this little patch of new garden was free of pesky weeds.

My mother tells me I should view the careful easing-free from the soil of the little blighters as therapeutic.

Gah.

The Thing.

2008-06-16T09:50:00.002+01:00

So.

The thing is.

(I think this is the thing.)

In twenty days' time it will be the day on which the baby was due.

And although I knew it was coming, at the weekend, I suddenly knew it was coming.

And so I cried in the car park at Sainsbury's (for this is the time when the knowledge chose to strike. It was before we had done the shopping. In case you were wondering.)

There is something tricksy and complicated and difficult in the mourning of something that never was. The grief is attached to a loss, but the loss is attached to a what?

An imagined future?

It is the idea of the parallel life that is so very ouchy. The one in which on the 5th July (or thereabouts) I am in hospital holding a little tiny person, a bundle of life that hub and I made together. (And yes I know that in this parallel life I am also screaming and in the most pain I have ever felt, I am exhausted and covered in baby sick, I am tetchy and resentful and hub and I fight and bicker, I know that too.)

But.

And I want to mark it somehow.

But I don't know how.

Because I don't really know what I am marking.

That I would have loved the little tiny bean that I lost? That I loved it already? That it meant something?

I so badly wanted to know who it was.

So badly.

And I never will.

And the 5th July just makes me know that all the more.

Rubs in it.

Like being smacked around the face with a wet fish.

Only more ouchy.

Eeyore.

2008-06-14T16:12:00.005+01:00

Today it hurts a bit too much to grin and bear it.
Today my teeth hurt from crying.
Today my chest feels tight and my tummy full of flutters.
Today hub is at a loss to know what to do (and he has tried tea.)
Today no amount of reasoning or logic is helping.
Today I feel trapped and anxious and a bit lost.

Today is a bad day.

For no reason.

Just a bad day.

I am pleased there will be a tomorrow.

(And a little relieved.)

Go go go go!

2008-06-11T18:32:00.003+01:00

There is a book!

It is a Good Book.

And you should buy it!

All roughly half-dozen of you my dearest readers!

It is for a good cause and organised by the fair Lady Peach and her clever team.

And it is full of brill stuff by some pretty blooming ace bloggers.

Do it, man.

You know how you want to and stuff.

PS. It is possible that I am in it. *very quiet whooping with a little jig*

Sunday

2008-06-08T16:31:00.002+01:00

The husband has a terribly poorly shoulder.

Last week the doctor told him it was an ill called "Frozen Shoulder" (usually only found in 40-60 year olds, but five times as likely if you have the diabetes. Like what hub does.)

Then this week, when hub went back to the doctor after a sleepless and pain-filled night, the doctor changed his mind.

To "I don't know what it is."

That well-known condition.

So hub has his shoulder in a sling and I have been trying to be a really good wifey and do the washing-up and clean out the cat litter tray and EVERYTHING.

Unfortunately I am a bit hungover and therefore a bit* grumpy.

So I am not being as gracious as I could be.

And after a terrible incident in which a hairbrush attached itself viciously to my hair, my mood has worsened.

But I just ate some bacon, and that helped.

*This is a lie. I am totally and utterly grumpy.

Smiley. (And with a cat sitting on me, although that is not connected.)

2008-05-28T16:45:00.004+01:00

I am feeling rather warm and glowy.

The dynamic and dramatic bobo (I still haven't worked out how to do his special squiggles) has written a post about what each of his blogroll means to him.

(What a lovely idea.)

And I am feeling all affirmed and pleased and also a little bit bashful.

But mostly pleased.

Very pleased.

It is so nice when people are nice. And also when they are open and generous and giving and authentically ace.

Y'know?

In other news, I am considering the purchase of a piece of art which claims that "Tea revives you" (do not all rush there and buy it, for there might be none left for me!)

And also, I am quite damp.

And thirdly, have I ever told you the story of how hub and I met? (I could not remember, and my tagging system is entirely not a system at all.)

Finally, hoorah!

New flat, same old cat.

2008-05-25T19:24:00.004+01:00

Shall I let her out of the bag, shall I?

Buses.

2008-05-16T14:46:00.003+01:00

I am in Birmigham, in the home of the parentals, awaiting both aforementioned parentals and also travelling sister, who is no longer travelling and who I will see for the first time in about nine months.

Littlest sister will be joining us later and together we are spending this weekend in the family home for the last time. It is not only me who is moving next week, it is also mum and dad. The home that we grew up in, we are saying goodbye to.

Things are all change.

Just before I stepped into the Tickle-mobile to putter up to the Midlands, I received a letter. A letter which informed me that I have been accepted onto the counselling course.

All change, move along the bus please.

And on Monday I move with my lovely hub and our lovely weird cat to our lovely new flat (I am still fretting about where the litter tray will go...)

Ding ding!

I am apprehensive and excited and a little full of loss. Doors are closing and opening. Buses are arriving at their destinations and new buses are departing.

And this would be an appropriate place for some sort of journey-type metaphor.

Blimey.

Blimey.

I had an interview

2008-05-14T17:53:00.002+01:00

And I do not know how it went.

There is no funny story, no tripping over of any kind, or accidentally saying "willy" at any point.

Which I think is good.

But lots of hard questions.

(It was an interview to get onto a diploma in psychodynamic counselling. The hard questions were things like "What would your nightmare client be?" and "How would I know if you were angry?")

Also, I have a cold. And my voice sounds like a powered down version of Mariella Frostrup.

Also, I have a cyst! It is on my chest and looks as thought someone has hidden a small golf ball under my skin. Yesterday, people stared at me as if I were a freak of some sort! It hurts a lot. I have antibiotics to make it not-inflamed. They have upset my tummy.

I'm rather surprised I managed to attend the interview at all.

I will find out in a week.

Sitting on the bus on the way home I thought of all the things I should have said, all the words that had eluded me while I was grappling to express myself. And then the sun shone on my knee, the sea came into view and a teenage boy swore in a brilliant and hilarious way at the bus driver. Then I didn't mind so much anymore.

It is good living by the seaside. I highly recommend it.

There is no coherency to this post.

2008-05-13T12:19:00.003+01:00

We've only gone and got a bloody flat.

We are waiting for the references to go through so it's not, like, totally definite, but it is, like, some definite which I think is better than no definite at all.

So woo! And stuff.

It is just down the road from where we are now, and it has a little front garden and a little back patio and it allows the Weird Cat, which is obviously serenely important.

On the down side it doesn't have a freezer (we shall buy one!) or a bath.

(It does have a shower.)

So we just thought that whenever we go somewhere that has a bath, we'll just have one. And that way it will be like a special treat for every now and then.

Beware if we come to dinner.

ALSO, this morning there was a man on the radio talking about the earthquake, and he talked about its "epic-centre".

I think this is glorious (not the earthquake, that would be dreadful) and we should all immediately start a campaign to replace the original, vastly inferior word.

Who's with me?

Insuring the Weird Cat

2008-05-09T11:47:00.002+01:00

Our pet insurance automatically renews itself every year, like an alien being (or some alien beings I suspect). This year, we noticed, not only did it renew itself, but it also cleverly doubled itself.

So I went out into the wilds of the interweb hunting for new and better insurance.

And primarily, y'know, cheaper.

I found some, you'll be pleased to know. But in the course of getting it, I had to answer these three questions:

Has your pet been used for commercial guard, security or racing? Yes No
Has your pet previously shown aggressive tendencies? Yes No
Has your pet any pending third party prosecution(s)? Yes No

And now I can't stop thinking about the possibility of racing the Weird Cat.

I think the idea has legs.

Which was not intended as a terrible nearly-pun.

I would like to buy her a sweatband. And train her. Lord knows she could do with losing a few pounds (I am thinking of changing her name to "The Big Fatty" or just "Lard".)

Cat-racing. It could be a thing.

LOLcat. I have one.

2008-05-02T12:13:00.011+01:00

And she is weird. (But good. Obviously.)

Stupid fucking angry.

2008-05-01T09:50:00.003+01:00

I feel angry.

Really properly fucking angry.

We waited for two days for an estate agent to get back to us about whether a landlord would allow the weird cat or not.

TWO DAYS.

And the answer was no. Which I found out at two minutes to six yesterday evening.

So I phoned the other estate agents straight away about the second flat we liked - the one we said we would take if the first one didn't allow cats. They were closed. I left a message saying we wanted to take it and could someone ring me in the morning to tell me how much we needed to put down as a holding deposit and I would come straight there.

I called them again at nine this morning and she said a woman had put a deposit down this morning. She said it was first come first serve.

I left a fucking message!

I am angry with them, angry with the first agent for not getting back to us sooner, and really bloody angry with myself for not being clever enough to just go to the estate agent first thing this morning and JUST FUCKING DO IT.

I have had enough of this stupid trying to find somewhere to live business.

But no choice about stopping.

I wish I could just stop and be sorted and settled and know what the fuck is going on in my life.

Stupid bloody everything.

GRRRRRRRRRR.

Flats, cats and bats. (There aren't really any bats. Which is a shame.)

2008-04-29T14:31:00.003+01:00

I am boring myself with this whole flat business. Boring myself, and also sort of gnawing away at myself, like a child on an ice lolly.

Where I am both the ice lolly and the child. Just to keep my metaphors, like the flat hunting, complicated.

Bottoms!

The thing is that every flat is just not quite as perfect as this flat. And I am trying to do all that beginner's mind shenanigans, but my mind is now so completely befuddled that it doesn't even know what's going on anymore, and is just stuck on the "worry" setting.

Is it better to have lots more space inside, but a garden that the cat can't get into (a lovely garden, but one which entails leaving by the front door to go round the side, a journey that maybe the cat would learn to enjoy being carried on?) or a smaller flat with direct access to a not-so-lovely garden, but one that is on the same road where we already live?

There are many and varied ramifications of one kind and another. Including, for example, the purchasing of freezers or the lack of requirement that a van be hired.

And always, always, there is another couple viewing the flat just after you looking perky and flush with holding deposits ready to be laid down the moment you are out of sight.

Big bottoms.

And poor Miss Tickle's brain.

It is important to understand your wee.

2008-04-27T13:37:00.003+01:00

Hub is a diabetic.

I think I have mentioned this before.

He is Type 1, which is Very Different to Type 2. Type 1 is the one you get from being jolly unlucky. And it means you must inject yourself with insulin because your body no longer produces it. And we need it for important stuff. Important body stuff.

(I am very scientific.)

"I think I understand the double-wees," he announced. This morning. (I was still a bit snoozy.)

Sometimes, in the night, he gets up to go to the toilet, comes back to bed, and two minutes later gets up and goes to the toilet again.

A double-wee.

It is a phenomenon, and only makes me love him more. It is possibly his superpower. (I do not know to what use it can be put. Yet.)

Some years ago, hub did the Tour de Mont Blanc, which is a difficult and long and arduous walky-climby adventure. And when he did it, he had to monitor everything that he ate and drank, and everything that came out too. Apparently there was some surprise among the group that nobody ever weeed more than a pint (I do not find this so surprising, but I am quite small.)

Anyway.

He postulated this morning a theory that our muscles only allow us to wee a pint, and after that they say, "That's your lot thank you."

But with his high blood sugar, he has more than a pint to wee.

But his muscles do not understand this.

So in between the double-wee he goes into the kitchen and picks things up and puts them down again.

To waste time.

To fool the muscles.

He informed me.

This morning.

Mere minutes after I woke up.

I am still a little confused.

If I am honest.

Endings.

2008-04-20T19:21:00.002+01:00

It was bright and gusty and full of sunshine.

With walks and sea and dogs.

And cake.

And I am a little sad to be back. If I am honest.

As we flew in the tiny-slightly-like-it-might-fall-apart plane back towards the mainland, away from the islands that somehow seem to be safekeeping a big bit of my happy, my shiny memories, a large slice of all the good that has happened to me, I did snuffle a little bit, my eyes did leak slightly.

And sitting by my hometown sea today with the rain falling softly on my head, my eyes again went a little wibbly, a little wobbly and I let them. No one looked. It might have just been the rain.

Over the past three months I have been doing an introduction to counselling course. The last session was before we went on our glorious weather-beaten holiday. And it was about endings.

And what they mean to us.

They mean quite a lot to me at the moment. They seem to worm their way in to a little place somewhere inside my little being. And once they are there, they turn on a little tap.

Which is connected to a small hose.

Which is connected to my eyes.

I didn't want my pregnancy to end. I didn't want our holiday to end. I don't want our time in this flat, my home, to end.

But it all blooming ends.

Doesn't it.

Grr.

Oh GOSH it was lovely.

2008-04-19T19:13:00.000+01:00

Ritual

2008-04-08T14:29:00.003+01:00

I wonder if crying an hour a week will help.

If setting a timer, an alarm, packaging a snippet of time to mourn purposefully.

Will help.

Because I have been trapped by patterns, by conditioning and echoes of generations that taught: Do Not Feel.

For God's sake, whatever you do, don't do that.

And no matter how much I thought I was conscious of the forces that shaped me, that I was my own person, that I had broken those shackles, still, at unbidden moments, the loss of a thing that never was threatens to flatten me with its force.

The moments are unbidden.

I have tried to flatten them.

I have worked and I have planned and I have travelled and I have emailed and I have created and I have edited and I have engaged and I have researched and I have written and I have done and done and done.

I have kept busy.

Just like the good girl was taught.

I am a good girl.

But.

Maybe I should set aside an hour a week to cry.

Tiddly-pom

2008-04-07T09:31:00.005+01:00

It snowed.

By the sea.

Which to be honest was a little weird.

And made me feel glum. I really wanted to feel excited, and I was excited for about ten minutes.

Until I got glum.

(Because mostly I was wondering where Spring is.)

If you are prone to the wintry blues then snow in April is not strictly A Good.

Also, I am drowning in work.

DROWNING I say!

Also, I went to a conference!

This is only exciting because I haven't been to one before. And because it was in Exeter. Where it is sunny.

And I talked to academics from everywhere in the world about how theatre is, like, totally a force for good man.

Then we went to the pub.

Conferences are quite good. Innit.

PS. I know I am not being a very sociable blogger at the moment. I am sorry for my lack of presence on your lovely pages. It is simply the drowning you see. The drowning.

Drama queen

2008-04-01T17:07:00.002+01:00

If work were a body of water, my feet would not be able to touch the bottom.

And also it would be a glacial lake of some kind.

And also it would be raining.

Blood. Raining blood.

With the occasional toad.

Conversations with my husband.

2008-03-23T21:41:00.001Z

"I like your smell. It is reminiscent of babies. Apart from your armpits, which occasionally smell a bit like curry."

I am a lucky woman.

Legs, breaths and other unconscious functionings.

2008-03-19T21:33:00.003Z

Good lord.

I am rubbish.

I have not blogged and by gum I am rubbish.

I have no excuse. None at all. I have been a bit busy, but really that is it.

Last week I spent most of my time in a sort of tizz of bonkers - the whole moving out thing frankly made me go a bit freaky in the head.

I spent a while mulling over why exactly that should be. In between managing the breaths. The ones that were stuck in my chest and stuff.

And I thought some things. Like how this flat is where I was pregnant, and if I move from here it will be like leaving that behind and I don't know if I'm ready. And how my parents are moving too, from the house in which I grew up. And about home and hub and our new seaside life.

I don't know if any of that, or rather, being aware of any of that is good or helpful or a way to make a perfect flat materialise onto the compulsively refreshable pages of rightmove.

But I feel a bit better this week.

(Also, we booked our holiday. We are going to Scilly. Which for me is a bit like saying we are going to the land of dreams and gorgeousness.)

Also, I have cramp in my leg.

I do not know if that is related.

Tig

2008-03-06T18:58:00.003Z

Well. Just as I was wondering about what on the face of this wide and encompassing earth I could blog, along comes Cliff in a most helpful fashion and tags me.

Like in the playground with kiss chase.

But no actual kissing.

Or in fact virtual kissing.

Which is probably for the best since Cliff and I are only newly acquainted and I have learnt my lesson about scaring boys away by snogging them too soon.

Or at all.

And now I'm married anyway.

Which is great!

So.

The meme.

(If any of you are still with me.)

I take a book I am reading, turn to page 123 and then tippety type the next three sentences. For your amusement and delictation.

Now I want you to ensure that you take my current reading list as a measure of me doing my homework, and not as a measure of my mental health.

Please.

1. Mad Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi

Doctor's, in Alice's experience, were the only men who ever laid hands on her body. The touch could be restorative, but it was also humiliating as she made clear in a letter of 1886 to William when she once more needed help:

It may seem supine to you that I don't descend into the medical arena, but I must confess my spirit quails before any more gladiatorial encounters.

- Ten points for anyone who can a) pronounce her surname or b) explain to me the meaning of supine as used in this sentence.

2. Carl Rogers: A Critical Biography by David Cohen

He had no intention of cutting back on therapy, for he saw the counselling room as his laboratory, and said that his seven to ten clients a week gave him most of his new ideas.

More stress on empathy.

In the negotiations before he was appointed, Rogers had asked for the university to provide some backing for reseach - and help in raising money.

- Is "more stress on empathy" strictly a sentence being as it has no verb?

3. The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen

So competition in systemizing could lead a person to be the best at making a plough or a spear, a musical instrument or a home, thus achieving a higher social rank. Some tasks that require good systemizing, such as tracking animals or inventing a new tool, take a long time. They might take days, months or years.

- Mostly I am just wondering if Simon Baron-Cohen is in any way related to Sasha Baron-Cohen. Ten points for anyone who can clear this up. And tell me exactly how long it would take to invent a new tool.

So, who shall my victims be?

In a totally non-kissing way (I am COMPLETELY professional) I tag Caroline, Chasing Sheep (all of you, there's no escape!) and Bedside Crow (Ha ha! He is a bookseller, he will be reading LOADS of books!)

And also, just as we had decided we could afford to go on holiday.

2008-03-04T10:48:00.002Z

Now listen.

If I were not such a well brought-up young lady, this post would be full of the most terrible language you can imagine. Full I tell you!

Just as it felt like things were finally getting back to normal.

Just as we felt like, yes, we moved by the seaside and now we can enjoy it and not be worrying about hurty things.

And just as we made the garden look really pretty. (Like, really, actually.)

We get a letter from the landlord giving us two month's notice because he is going to sell the flat.

In many ways, fucking cunty-arse cock-monkeys.

You know?

So does anyone happen to have a flat in Brighton with a garden they want to let to us for not very much money at all?

We are nice and not weird in many ways.

If that helps.

Whispers

2008-03-03T20:54:00.003Z

The husband has built a computer.

I love him very, very dearly, but my goodness it is boring.

And I am one of these digital age types.

(He is currently swearing a lot and saying "it'll be the voltages because there's nothing wrong with the components, I'm trying to access the hard drive.")

Dearly I love him, but honestly.

Why can we not talk about cake?

Whiskers on weird cats.

2008-02-28T17:21:00.003Z

I had a thing to say.

But I have forgotten it.

As is often my wont.

(The process of signing into Blogger can do that to a small girl's brain.)

(Particularly when being closely watched by a weird cat. In a fashion that makes me suspect that later she will be a) filing a report on it or b) logging into Blogger herself for her own catty purposes.)

THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE!

Do not panic, it is now over.

Being in Brighton, I felt it not at all. However, my mother reported that the sides of her gate-leg table flapped against the legs, my sister's friend's cosmetics fell off her dressing table, and hub woke up in an overly purple, lonely hotel in Nottingham and thought "Oh for goodness sake, I am trying to get some sleep."

Heady stuff.

Now while I, as I have very recently mentioned, did not sense even a whisper of a tremor, both the weird cat and the seagulls it seems, did. And they all went mad at stupid-o'clock-whenever-it-was.

And that was rather confusing.

And resulted in the weird cat having two breakfasts.

Maybe she was observing me so keenly so that later she could log in to Earthquake Checker.

(I think I have cracked it.)

The long dark night of the soul

2008-02-23T05:01:00.002Z

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

It hurts.

Willy's pants.

2008-02-21T19:44:00.003Z

Having spent a little while over at the ever-ready Non-WorkingMonkey's place, a small wonderance has been provoked in my little mind.

My mother often said:

"This won't get the pants on Willy"

As an expression of "we really should get on with Important and Productive Stuff.

I do not know from whence it came.

Do you?

Motherf***in' P.I.M.P.

2008-02-18T12:05:00.005Z

That's me.

So. Here are two marvellous things! On a Monday no less!

It is extraordinary.

Love them!

Love them both!

(That is an order.)

For this cleverness, go here...

And for this cleverness, go here...

PS. Do not think I am "street". "Street" people do not carefully count the asterisks they use to make rude words safe. In a "1...2...3..." fashion. I assume.

An Important Question

2008-02-14T12:02:00.001Z

At what time of day is it alright to eat the rest of last night's takeaway?

If one has had breakfast?

Also, and secondly, what are you feelings on the drinking of port?

ALSO!

2008-02-11T14:54:00.000Z

I have been tagged by a dog!

It is exciting.

So a very special Six Random Things About Me Meme (which I like because it looks like you are really self-obsessed at the end of the sentence.)

Ahem.

1). I have started reading Don Quixote four times and have never finished. Or even got past page 30. Ish.

2). I am strangely and a little freakily good at a game called Set which is a card game in which one must spot visual patterns. I am so good at it that hub told me he no longer fancied me.

3). I pronounce "tooth" "tuth".

4). My eyes change colour depending on external factors like light and stuff.

5). I have never seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. For I am a big scaredy pants.

6). I do not like parsnips. At all. Not even a bit. Yesterday one snuck into my pie and I spat it out onto my plate even though I am a lady.

Woo woo woo!

Memememememememememe!

Now I must tag people. Like all good taggy games. I am on. And I must pass it on. So:

Angie, John, Meesha, Cheerful, Anx and Katy.

Ow.

2008-02-11T14:40:00.000Z

I am grateful for all your views on Fruit Which Does/Doesn't Go With Tea. You are kind and thoughtful readers.

If I were to ask you what does go with tea really well, what would you say?

(I would say my mouth. Not that I eat my mouth while I drink tea. Just that tea goes well inside my mouth. Wellest of all I think. Also, chelsea buns.)

But my point is that Orange Liveboxes are BOLLOCKS.

That is what I really was hoping to say.

I like to do my work while reclining on my settee, laptop on lap, as god intended. Every now and then I can check a thought, or an amusing idea which has occurred in my little mind by browsing on the interweb.

However.

My lovely beautiful free-with-my-job Macbook Pro and the BOLLOCKS Orange Livebox have fallen out of love. They had a honeymoon period of about three months (which is, I believe, the norm) and then they just stopped communicating. We managed quite a good intervention with the help of a lady in India and they patched things up for about a week or so. But since then, they talk only sporadically, and they fall out at the drop of a hat. The drop of a hat, I say!

It is tragic.

And it means that right now I am sitting on the floor, with my lovely beautiful free-with-my-job Macbook Pro balanced on a chair while simultaneously being plugged into the PC. The laptop that is, not me.

My knees hurt.

Grapes

2008-01-28T13:08:00.000Z

Do not go with tea.

Important questions

2008-01-22T09:48:00.000Z

The whole horrible thing has had a good. (Just the one so far, but frankly, I think even one is pretty impressive).

Being pregnant meant that I had to come off the little pills which have helped to keep me cheery (I say little, one of them was fucking enormous and like swallowing a sausage every night. That came out a lot ruder than I was going for.)

Now I am no longer pregnant, I am still off the little pills. Even though not being pregnant has made me sad, I have remained firm. In a weepy sort of a way.

Anyway. They had a sedative effect. The pills. And now, I am considerably less sleepy. This is generally good, apart from when hub is trying to go to sleep. At night. Like people do.

My point is, if you could have only one of the following for you life, which would it be?

Falkor

Gizmo

or

Ludo?

Hub would rather have Ludo. At least I think that's what he said. Although it could have been "Shut the fuck up and go to sleep."

MMMMMMMMMMMM

2008-01-16T21:49:00.000Z

Oh Good Lord.

John Barrowman and James Marsters snogging.

And then fighting.

I do not know if I shall ever recover.

Or if I ever want to.

Wiicriminations.

2008-01-15T18:49:00.000Z

Today, mostly, it rained.

I need new boots. Mine have large holes. The rain got in and I got wet feet. And soggy socks.

It was not much fun.

But that is not what I am here to talk about.

No!

It was like a fooling-you-tangent thing!

Ha!

I am sneaky.

You know how I told you a little while ago that with my job I got a number of shiny toys including a marvellous Macbook Pro (on which I tippity-tap even now this very second would you believe)?

Well.

For the new term, I have been given a new shiny toy.

Y'know, to use with the yoof.

For totally improvement-based purposes. Obviously.

It is a Wii.

Woo.

(I am doing a project with them on the performative nature of gaming and why they like it, innit.)

It is VEER shiny.

But there is a problem.

A problem named Husband.

I have not spoken to him for days. He claims he cannot hear me and that I speak too quietly. Really it is because of the tinkly-spinkly Mario music playing in his ears.

And he keeps shouting at me, whenever he cannot fly like a bee or surf on a manta ray or fight a big dragon thing.

Which honestly, is not my fault.

I am no dragon-supporter.

(This is not strictly true, I think dragons are ace and would be one if I could.)

Anyway.

*sigh*

It is proper boring.

And I do not know if the yoof will ever get their little teenage hands on it.

Poor underprivileged yoof.

PS. I accidentally missed the year anniversary of starting my little bloglette. Blow out a candle for me dear readers. And make sure it is stuck in a cake that you can eat afterwards. With some tea.
PPS. For clarification, do not eat the tea, eat the cake. Drink the tea. Just like a normal person.

Jean

2008-01-06T21:38:00.000Z

When things were very dark a few years ago.

When I was tangled in an giant web of knotty despair and bleakness.

When I was alone one evening, gently rocking in a corner of the kitchenette and weeping until I thought I might accidentally drown the weird cat with my tears.

I rang the emergency number from my GP's surgery.

A lady answered.

I explained my predicament.

My fears for the weird cat.

That I wasn't entirely sure that I should strictly be living anymore, and I thought, at that moment, that maybe a doctor would be a good person to talk to.

The lady.

She was an introductory type person.

The person you tell what is wrong to and then she directs your call.

("Mad! I'm sure of it! Straight to the loony-bonkers dealer-withs!")

Anyway.

The lady.

I shall call her Jean.

(She sounded like a Jean.)

Jean.

I think she might have had short, curly, sandy-blonde hair.

She was about 45.

About.

Jean said to me a thing.

And whenever I accidentally get tangled in the knotty web and the big spider of doom is approaching, I think of the thing Jean said.

"Life is a great commodity."

(She had a slightly cockney accent.)

(And sounded like she smoked between twenty and thirty cigarettes a day.)

I have been mulling over Jean's assertion during the past week.

I think that largely, she is right.

And I am glad that one dark, weepy, hopeless evening, Jean was my receptionist.

2007-12-29T11:53:00.000Z

So.

I have been trying to decide whether to tell you all the things or none of them.

(I know this does not shed much light for you, but it is possible that I need to warm up to this.)

(Quite a lot.)

Things have been not only horrid but also hard and rubbish with a sprinkling of completely shit.

Dear readers, I was pregnant.

I am not any longer.

Through no decision or choice or action of my own.

Just nature.

Y'know.

It has been a strange few months.

Finding out I was we were having a mini-us was a bit of a surprise. You could say. And we panicked a bit and did not know what to do and thought of how poor we are and all the Things that are like big pointy barriers.

Then we thought, fuck it.

And also, hooray.

Then I was sick. A lot. Really loads. I cannot really explain how much I was sick. I am pretty sure, however, that you will get over the lack of explanation and possibly even be grateful for it.

We went home for Christmas. We told people. They were pleased.

Then we went for a scan.

"I'm afraid I can't see a heart beat," she said.

And that was that.

But with weeping.

So I have been in hospital having operations and fainting on commodes and listening to nurses telling me that I should sniff things that really noone should ever have to sniff.

And now I am back home.

Feeling a bit empty.

Being overly affectionate towards the weird cat.

And wondering.

Y'know.

At life.

But with weeping.

A Lovely

2007-12-16T18:48:00.000Z

Meg has done a lovely.

She's been doing it a while, but you know me, I'm new round these parts.

Or at least I was earlier this year.

ANYWAY.

My point is do this.

I think it's good.

Obviously I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

You know, once I've done it.

A cut above the rest.

2007-12-14T18:15:00.000Z

So if, for example, one is doing some kind of supply teaching and is abandoned by the teacher without them explaining the disciplinary procedures.

If, let's say, one is in a primary school doing drama.

And if, let's conjecture, a child approaches you and claims another child has threatened to stab them with some scissors.

On examining the accused child, one finds them standing on a chair brandishing a pair of, indeed, scissors, waving them about over the heads of some other slightly less on-a-chair-scissors-brandishy children.

What exactly would you recommend in this sort of scenario?

Y'know, if it were to happen?

Morning

2007-12-11T16:55:00.000Z

"Stupid cars," he says, "They're not even real."

He snuggles into my shoulder.

"They're virtual cars. So you don't need to worry."

"I see," I reply, smoothing down his sleep-rumpled hair.

"And what use is that toothbrush?" he mutters.

"Bloody Victorian chemists."

It is my birthday!

2007-12-07T13:06:00.000Z

Shower me with birthday wishes!

I am not one of these "don't make a fuss" types. Make a fuss! A big fuss! I was born on this day some years ago! It is a cause for celebration!

The day thus far has brought a slightly concerning lack of enormous presents. I am aware, however, that there are still some hours left to go.

My hope continues to burn like a little bright birthday candle.

The sort that people blow out on birthday cakes.

When it is their birthday.

Like it is mine today!

Gosh, I do not know if I can cope with all the excitement.

Sheepish.

2007-12-05T16:19:00.000Z

So.

I went all melodramatic on you.

Exciting wasn't it.

I've had a rough few weeks, uppy and downy and uppy again.

I will explain all.

But not yet.

If that's okay.

Suffice it to say that now I am at least back.

Mostly.

Able to write.

In as much as I ever was.

And, y'know, okay.

Just thought I'd let you know.

I am back!

2007-11-30T14:17:00.000Z

Because today I received this email and I needed to share it with you.

I not entirely sure about the wisdom of sharing work-type (and especially school-based) emails, but frankly, bollocks.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THERE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FIGHT AT BREAK WITH THE EMUS AND THE YEAR 8s. MIGHT BE RUBBISH BUT BEST BE AWARE.

It is so important for teachers to be down with the kids, don't you think?

I'm out in the cold snow not in a cosy tent. Yes.

2007-11-08T18:10:00.000Z

Boys and girls.

I am having a mini-life-sort-of-a-problem.

I may be some time.

Thought I'd just let you know.

In the meantime, here is a mildly sarcastic notice from the South Bank of London.

Do you see what they did there?

Back soon.

Things that have happened: 2

2007-11-03T17:30:00.000Z

Lady things. Really annoying lady things. I am not un-self-aware and I have some compunction about sharing ickyness with others so I will not go into detail, but I cannot emphasise too clearly REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING.

I painted an ark.

I shouted at yoof.

I became addicted to, of all things, a computer game. When wandering the streets of Brighton I am now scrutinising everyone whose path I cross and considering if they are hungry, need to go to the toilet or could do with a slightly more pumping social life.

I bought a banjo. A banjo ukulele. For my father's 60th birthday. My father looks like John Peel crossed with a garden gnome. It is going to be brilliant.

That is all. Life has not been totally thrilling. Tomorrow I may cause some kind of public hoo-hah to keep me interested. Any ideas, as always, gratefully received and thoughtfully considered.

Small talk.

2007-10-26T19:49:00.000+01:00

We are in the kitchen.

I am cooking potatoes and admiring the reflection of my new haircut in the window.

I see a strobe type effect in a window of the building opposite.

"Look, they are having a discotheque," I say to hub.

He looks.

"There's a man in that building," replies hub.

"Yes," I say (encouragingly).

"And he watches me while I am out the back having a cigarette."

"Strangely."

"How exactly are you smoking?" I enquire (I am quite the wit).

"It could be because once, when I was a bit drunk, I did something," he continues, ignoring my hilarious joke.

There is a pause.

"You did something," I say, encouragingly again. (He can be a bit reticent.)

"Yes," he says.

"Right," I say.

"This," he says.

And he entirely pulls his trousers down and shows me his bottom.

"Yes," I say, "That would account for it."

Google

2007-10-25T11:19:00.000+01:00

So.

For a while I have been keeping a slightly obsessive eye on what brings you, dear readers, to this bloglette (it's, like, a girl innit).

And here is a select selection of search terms from yesterday.

1. tickle drawings
2. stutennis
3. tickle hell
4. is it ok to tickle your sister
5. tea porn
6. tickle porn
7. girls tsking
8. panic attacks and microlite
9. i love john barrowman
10. weird cats

No matter how I wish it weren't, it is the case that many people end up here looking for ticklish kinky stuff. To those of you, I am very sorry. It must be a hellish disappointment.

But what I think we should really address is the question of number 4.

Dear readers, is it okay to tickle your sister?

Let's take that as a general question rather than relating specifically to your own sister. I have two sisters, both of whom I believe I have tickled in my time. I like to think this was youthful exuberance rather than morally wrong, but that's just me.

Dear readers, only you can help this poor quester, in their mire of moral flailing.

Help them. Please.

PS. I am sorry about the enormous gap between text and table. I am incompetent.

Tiny girl having tiny crisis.

2007-10-24T16:30:00.000+01:00

It seems I am growing up.

I fought hard and sometimes with teeth to follow the path of theatre. I fought my school, I fought my parents, I sometimes fought lovers. (I did not always win. But I did always live to fight another day.)

Over the last year or so, something strange has happened to me.

I have very gradually given up.

I don't want to fight anymore.

It feels a bit horrible. All those people who say you just have to believe enough, or want it enough or fight enough, it turns out they are not entirely right.

It hurts a bit.

I want to believe in dreams. I want to have ideals and I want to look cynicism squarely in the eye and sneakily stamp on its toes.

Maybe my dreams have changed.

Because it is not possible to have such things as houses or dogs or children if one is a starving artiste.

(Literally starving. Or at the very least entirely fed up with pasta.)

I have met a man who I want to have a whole life with. And that does sort of entail me being able to actually have it. Monetarily. Even though I hate that I have just typed that. GRR.

But I want to see things with him and do things with him and become, I don't know what, just not someone who is struggling and desperate and made frozen by lack of resource.

I do not think that is what life is about.

There are Things in life. Like other countries for example. And dogs. And children. I might have mentioned that before.

Do I seem superficial?

Oh, I am having a little tiny crisis.

(I am sure it will pass.)

I apologise.

It is not exactly articulate.

And also, I do not know what to do about it.

Below them was a 700 foot abyss.

2007-10-22T21:28:00.000+01:00

My husband is insisting on watching a programme about mountains.

He climbs mountains, I do not know if I have told you.

He is so manly.

*sigh*

Anyway. The bloody buggering point is that he wants me to pay attention.

To the variety of ways in which he could die while climbing a mountain. Could plummet to his snowy death. Could crash senselessly, bouncing off rocky protuberances down feet and metres and miles of mountainy meaness.

(By the way, we had plaice this evening, it was LOVELY. I do recommend plaice. It is a mighty fish.)

He described how one gentleman climber actually used the frozen dead body of another climber to help him get up a rock face. (I do not know how. I did not ask. Although I suspect it was not by asking for advice.)

"Everything is compressing into small moments of time. Every fibre of your body is concentrating on every tiny move. There is that moment when activity stops. You just know that you can't do this. And you have to accept that it's over."

Joe Simpson is a cock-monkey-head.

I do not mind saying.

PS. I do not tire of saying"my husband". I wonder if I shall.

The trappings of fame.

2007-10-19T10:50:00.000+01:00

I have an old friend who is a tiny bit famous. I will not tell you who he is because half of you will not have heard of him. It is not like, for example, having an old friend who is Sting. Then I would tell you all and you would ask me questions about tantric sex.

Which I could not answer.

Anyway. My friend. He is a musician. And the other night he was playing here in the Brighton (by the sea!) and we went to see him.

It was most odd.

He has been my friend since we were 11. At school he was a tiny little blonde thing, shorter even than me (and I think my regular readers - bless you - are aware of exactly how short that is). We were in school plays together. He is one of a group of very dear friends with whom I spent the summer following my A levels.

The band are good. They are really good. The music is original, catchy, and bouncy. Excellent qualities I think you'll agree.

There was a queue to get in. Lots of yoof waiting to see if they could get tickets.

I was on the guest list.

I felt like such a wanker.

"But what do I say?" I whispered to hub.

"You say you're on the guest list you twat," he replied.

He is harsh but fair.

I did not like it though. I stuttered like a girl. An embarrassed, slightly guilty and a tiny-bit-old-to-be-there girl.

But the free ticket bit was good.

I watched my friend be totally ace on stage and everyone in the audience was singing along to the songs and dancing and stuff.

I nearly burst with pride.

Afterwards, I went backstage to see him and say well done. I was stopped by a small weasley looking man.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm a friend of the singer, I just wanted to say well done..."

I felt like such a cock.

It was okay though, he let me through. After I had waited five minutes. Or so.

And when I was finally talking to my friend, a massive and extremely hard-looking man (I assume some kind of security chap) came up and said,

"So are you and the band alright for things?"

My friend answered that they were fine.

There was a pause, as the man glanced at me as if I was my friend's mother. Or aunt. Or babysitter.

"Yeah but, are you alright for .... things?"

He received the same answer.

I slunk into the night.

I am not cut out for the famous lark.

The Weird Cat

2007-10-18T17:10:00.000+01:00

Has become a spy!

I do not know for whom she is working. It could be the CIA. Or the KGB. Or perhaps PAWS.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I am so funny.

As you were.

Edition 2.

2007-10-15T11:04:00.000+01:00

Miss Tickle successfully predicts environmental awareness. One light bulb for all!

And more delightful maths!

And chiefs!

I sincerely do not know what more, dear readers, you could desire.

An announcement.

2007-10-13T11:14:00.000+01:00

I find my mother-in-law tricky.

End of announcement.

Edition 1.

2007-10-11T18:54:00.000+01:00

So.

When you move house, you find things.

I give you, dear readers, for your entertainment and delectation:

UNDERWATERWORLD.

A series.

By Miss Tickle, aged 9.

PS. I remember quite clearly drawing around my protractor.

PPS. I was always exact.

PPPS. If you click on it, you can make it bigger, which will give you a fighting chance of reading the teeny-tiny writing, and, what's more, admiring my extremely good grasp of maths.

The Weird Cat

2007-10-09T20:52:00.001+01:00

Is eating pea soup.

And earning her title.

Also (and with swearing) those wildnerness cookery people are utter cunts.

I mean really.

Guy and Thomasina.

Misspent yoof

2007-10-07T13:17:00.000+01:00

The dancing child was called Angel.

And here are some more Names of Yoof I have recently stumbled upon in my new position as Drama Animateur (I do not understand this title. I do no drawing. I do theatre! Theatre, I say!) in a school near the seaside.

1) Paisley
2) Shelby
3) Harley
4) Jared
5) Jordan
6a) Taylor
6b) Tyler

I do not mind Jared, for I was once desperately in love with Jared Leto, although this was in the early nineties while he was the brooding and delicious Jordan Catalano, an angsty teenage girl's dream in My So Called Life, an excellent angsty and delicious teenage programme.

You would think that by association, I would not mind Jordan either. But this is not the case.

I will certainly add to this list as and when I come across more of the anthropological mysteries of East Sussex.

They do things differently here.

PS. I was delighted to discover last night that Robin Hood is back on our screens! It is a truly appalling programme. But the sweet joy of watching Jonas Armstrong far outweighs the crap acting, the thin narrative and the dire script. Not to mention the frequent and ditressing anachronisms. Two Ronnies quotes anyone?
PPS. It has just struck me that Jonas Armstrong and Jared Leto do not look dissimilar, and further, hub bears a passing resemblance to both! I have a type! A beardy type!

I cannot think of a title. So there.

2007-10-02T09:56:00.000+01:00

I am sorry for the radio silence. I am a Bad Blogger. Naughty Miss T.

It is all the new stuff, you see. Everywhere! New! It is very exciting. I am doing a lot of frolicking. And just as much chasing of the Bill People.

Damn the Bill People.

And also the Estate Agents.

Grr.

Have you heard tell of this song "I like all the girls"?

It is not a great masterpiece.

But yesterday, in a shop, a small girl was dancing to it.

She was very sweet.

Her father said, "Angel, stop that now."

I thought, "Angel. Blimey."

The little girl (Angel) stopped. And thought.

Then she started dancing again.

And singing.

"Daddy likes all the girls. Daddy likes all the girls."

I did a sort of a cross between a snigger and a chuckle.

I do not know what you would call it.

Snickle?

I liked it.

We move to the seaside.

2007-09-22T17:10:00.000+01:00

I drove this. At about forty miles an hour. All the way to Brighton. (The forty miles an hour bit was not by choice you understand. Oh no. If I could have sped like a speedy bullety thing, I certainly would have done. Oh yes I would.)

We put everything we own into one room. I did not like this bit. (Or the bit before if I am entirely honest with you.)

I was not the only one who did not like it. The Weird Cat was pretty unhappy too.

Coming soon: A Happy Ending.

Dos and Don'ts

2007-09-14T15:44:00.000+01:00

Dos and Don’ts For Parents (from a teenager’s point of view).

By Miss Tickle. Aged 13. (Truly.)

• DON'T laugh at your child/teenager, no matter what they’ve said or done, if they’re trying to be serious.
• DO give them a cuddle if they’re crying.
• DO give them their freedom.
• DON’T be too protective.
• DON’T just say things like: "Don’t be stupid", "What a silly thing to say", "Why did I bother?"
• DO let them spend up to half an hour on the phone.
• DON’T nag, if you say it more than twice, they’ll get annoyed.
• DO give them lifts.
• DO take notice of what they say.
• DO set out clear rules on almost everything, so as not to have too many arguments.
• DON’T be insensitive.
• DO try to get to know them.

(I think I might adopt this DO/DON’T attitude in my daily life. Especially with Hub: "DON’T answer “I don’t know, what do you want?” when I ask you what you’d like to eat, DO bring me tea in the morning." And so forth. Perhaps a list on the fridge.)

But really, it is all just quite boringly sensible.

Although I do not know what the yoof of today would say to being allowed up to half and hour on the phone.

Probably nothing, they would just go off and be interwebby.

I am also a little intrigued by what exactly I meant by “DON’T be insensitive”. I think it is excellent advice, but I do wish it were a little more specific.

And I know, obviously the time when your teenager is the most amusing is when they are trying to be serious, but really. Some of the things I loved got broken that way. And I do not mean that in a metaphorical sense.

PS. This is not, as I acknowledge that it might possibly seem, a damning indictment of my parents. They were hopeless and wonderful in equal measure, as I think most parents are.

How many jars of honey does a girl need?

2007-09-09T17:57:00.000+01:00

Four.

Apparently.

Is it okay to tickle your sister?
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Miss Tickle

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I had an interview

There is no coherency to this post.

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MMMMMMMMMMMM

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