Archie wote this...

... and it deserves its own spot here, not hidden in a comment box. Lovely.
Thank you Archie.

 

Just the boring half of me
lives in the real world
The part you see is not all
For I hide my other life

It is mine and includes
the love and fear and hope

You may share what
I choose to show yet
I will not share
The reality of my hidden life.


And Alicia Suskin Ostriker wrote this below. I love it too...

The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God's love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it

Alicia Suskin Ostriker

 Wall Poems

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/08/opinion/08berlinpoems.html

Too beautiful.
Justin Sullivan, he of New Model Army.

Batteries

My dad, is a genius. I love my dad. In our family, we call him Inspector Gadget. If you need anything fixing - car, washing machine, TV, my dad is your man. He is pissed off with his mp3 player. It is old, small, and fiddly, but it works, so will not be replaced. My dad likes to fall asleep listening to the radio - he has mild tinnitus, and he has discovered that listening to something masks it while he drifts off (It used to be audio books, but he got into a flap the next morning trying to scan back to the bits he fell asleep at, so now its 5Live or Talkradio). Mum doesn't really like this habit, she wakes up in the night to tinny tsktskshhshh noises, and has to unravel the headphone wires from around dad's neck (she says) while he lies there snoring, one earphone wedged inside a nostril. So, back to the batteries. The worst thing is, they last a night only. This enrages my dad, having to recharge or do without, so, he has rigged up this which is pictured below. One hopes he doesn't attempt jogging with it in his pocket. He came into the kitchen earlier, and saw me snapping away. If this appears on the interweb... he said, threateningly.

Heh. Sorry dad. I love you.

Bewildered Befuddled and Me.

 

I had a day off yesterday. This is unusual on a weekday, and I spent the entire week anticipating it with glee. Maybe a little shopping, some cake eating whilst blog browsing, some feet up, some settee based snooze.

But no.

Instead, I get a frantic call from my daughter to say that my father, has sat on a stanley knife and gone to hospital. In an ambulance.

SAT on it? I say.

Yes! She says. It won't stop bleeding, and I can't get hold of Gran, so I called an ambulance.

I have visions of a suddenly castration fixated elderly mother, surreptiously placing a stanley knife between two sofa cushions before skipping off into the distance, spotted hanky on a stick over her shoulder.

Seems that daughter has been taking notice of my laminated sheets of the heart and its functions, which I have pinned to the wall over the kettle in an attempt to assist my revision study. (I don't revise. I don't even revise my opinions, never mind the functions of the heart.)

I think it has penetrated his femoral artery! she says, confidently.

I marvel at this for a second, then call my sister to get her to drive to the hospital and see what has happened. I am panicking a little of course.

My sister phones ten minutes later to inform that she has seen our father, clutching his arse and standing folornly in A&E reception. "They've GLUED the bugger!" he shouts. Admirably, my sister doesn't walk briskly past as though she doesn't know him, she packages him into the car and drives home.

Mother calls later, and laughs about father. Oh the duffer! she says. He left a stanley blade on his car seat and then sat on it! I was out buying one of those new mobile phones with a big screen, she says.
She can't see the other one properly. A big screen phone. This makes my heart sink a little, as I know big screen phones will have too many functions. My mother is the type that should only hold a phone which has giant black handset and a twirly cord attached to it.

Even later she calls again, to tell me that the phone is far too quiet, and although she can SEE the numbers and letters, she can't hear it ring. So, she takes it off to Phones4u, and demands her money back. Its a dysfunctional phone, she says.

Imagine this, and I swear it is true.

The young man in Phones4u unwinds the cling film that my mother has wound around the upper part of the handset (which is where the speaker is) "to protect the screen" and hands it back to her. Try this madam, he says.

Dysfunctional phone? Dysfunctional family.

I was so looking forward to my day off. Now I am consumed with questions.

Which one of them do I disown first?

How People see us...

A post pops up on my facebook homepage. A friend has taken one of those silly interview quizzes that are so damned addictive.

It has made me feel so warm.

Aly S******

SocialInterview.com asked me "If you could have any two friends as parents who would they be and why?"

I answered ''Liana as my Mum cos she has the most amazing ability to make anyone feel safe and Simon N as my dad cos he's so damn funny when he's been on the scrumpy!!''

6 minutes ago via Social Interview · Comment · Like / Unlike · Interview Me

So, me, the one out of all my friends, who veers around all over the place? I make my friend feel like this?

I must be doing something right then. 


Amazing.

Jollies.

Such a day...

Got my new tattoo. HERE!

Yes, I love it. No, it's not the 'Hermit's Speech'. Back to google you go.

Tattoo and pic provided by The Mad Tatter. Thanks Beth...

In other news, Harriet McFlap, aka Bane of my Life, aka My Pillock of a Dog, seized the opportunity to eat a pound of best butter while I was at Beths being inked. I came home to find something resembling a large yellow party blancmange on the kitchen floor. Mostly butter, it contained bits of her daily banana treat, several chunks of dog biscuit and (inexplicably) a sponge eyeshadow applicator. No carrot though. It resisted all attempts from me to clear it up with kitchen roll, slithering round the kitchen tiles like an evasive and wobbly Dr. Who villain. I had to take my wounded wrist to the coal bunker and get the shovel to scoop it up in the end.

In other news - Wibs tells me that Callum shat himself in French today. She was doubled with giggles relating this. Oh! I said, How awful! Poor Callum! Not really, says Wibs. He was having a farting competition with James, and had managed 17 farts until that point. The eighteenth proved a squeeze too far. Mon Dieu! Or Mon Poo!, perhaps. Epic fail, as the kids say.

My life is so great.

Turning Back Time

Apologies for the lack of entries (if anyone cares). I've been slogging away at an essay which proved to be the most difficult thing I have written in many a year. It appears that after an extended holiday, I returned to find that my academic ability now resembles that of a five year old Patagonian child. Who has sesquipedalophobia. Not great in academic, medical essays. So, for the last three weeks I have been onto it. Or, supposedly onto it, but avoiding it like mad. By cleaning the house top to bottom, writing letters of complaint to Kellogs (don't ask), sorting a winter wardrobe, playing bejewelled, walking the now pawsore dog,  browsing book and junk shops and sleeping. I even decorated a room. There's avoidance. I have distanced myself from friends, failed to pay bills. answer the phone, open MSword.

Yesterday was the deadline, and by ten pm Sunday, it was done. Dreadful, dreadful essay. I am embarrassed by it, and console myself with the fact that it's worth little in the credit accumulation. Bleurgh.

Caz, I'm onto that mail, with pictures.

Hants, I'm onto you too.

Red.

Red hair is a sign that I am feeling. I have new red hair. Very very red.

Rawr, as the kids say.

Snow White.

Look how pale Elle is. And there I am behind her, looking for all the world like I am whispering in her ear about the lovely red apple I want to give her...

I'm sure I used to be the fairest damnit. Where is that huntsman?

I Sleep Alone.

Today, I have eaten half a litre of pea soup, and a 175g bag of liqorice.


Thank you, and goodnight boys.

Victoria Meldrew

My friend F says she loves how excessively affronted I am about things. I reflected on this for a wee while, and it is true. I really AM. The accusation came as we were discussing the fact that she has run out of sherry and I have run out of tea bags. My dilemma is much worse I feel. I only have some nettle tea bags. Why I keep them, I don't know. I bought them when I had a bad bout of prickly heat, and L told me that nettle tea would calm it down. Nettle tea for prickly heat sounds like a double whammy, but I bought them anyway, and my giddy good god. The foulest of foulness. Like drinking water in which dock leaves previously peed on by a manky old mongrel have steeped for six months.
"I would rather" I said, "be covered in seeping pustules from head to foot for 12 months of the year than drink One More Thimbleful of nettle tea". Plus, should I taste it again I might turn into one of those nimby pillocks that flap about by the tea pot when visitors arrive, twittering "Oooh I'm sorry I only have jasmine and essence of flipflop caj, and sugar! oh, no sugar, only raw cane sugar chewed by a fairtrade farmeress and spat into a hemp sack"

Give me Tetleys. Or Yorkshire. Two bags, with proper white sugar, and a dash of milk. In a mug. Thanks.

That time of year again...

 

Hurrah, shout the children. Sprouts!

I'm sure that we should've had salad and cous cous and barbequed yellow peppers in the garden and so on this year at some point.

There may be a lie in this post.

Lovesong

I went to Lincoln last night. I am often there, work there  a few days a week, and I was at university there several years ago. I have loved Lincoln ever since I studied there, and for a few years before - it was always the exciting place close to our dull town. Architecturally it is similar to York, the cathedral, lit at night by a golden haze raises high above the city and is accessed by a death defying climb along a street dotted with tiny buildings which house crystal jewellery, exotic chocolate and second hand books. Since I studied there, the city has grown. Not outwardly, though this is perhaps true, but within itself. It is amazed with itself, it says "Look at me! Am I not beautiful?". It is like the city equivalent of a madeover woman on Ten Years Younger. It is peering at itself in astonishment, turning this way and that, grinning. It IS beautiful. People there ARE amazed with it. When did Lincoln transform? When the university grew so fast I expect. Built around the wharf, when I studied there the university held some award winning buildings, a couple of bars and a gym. Nothing too unusual, a city like any. Now, the university istelf houses a performing arts centre, a club or two, and a massive brand new library built in an old warehouse. The wharf is amazed at itself too and has grown in tandem with the university, strung with millions and millions of fairy lights, bars jostle for prominence, the water glistens and the swans swim slowly along with a cocky look in their eyes. The barges seem to be the most brightly painted, the people sit by the water with pints of beer and glasses of wine, and everywhere is permeated with a sense of luck. 

I am so moving here. Give me 18 months.

Beautiful Kristina on Steep Hill.

Don't be a hero

There are two little boys outside doing jobs for me. One of them is the neighbourhood tough guy (aged 12) and he is washing my car. He has been nodding at the bird shit for a couple of weeks now and telling me I need to wash it. I take it to the jet wash, I tell him. I love standing there, spraying the car with the high speed ice cold water and having it blow back at me in a fine mist. On a sunny day you can stare up at rainbows if you angle it right. But you have to pay for that, he tells me. The rainbows and the instant cool are worth £3.00 of anyones cash, but I dont tell him that. I don't think he'd get it. I give in as winter approaches and the thought of washing it myself beomes less appealing.

Billy, is the other little boy aged 7, and he is cutting away at the swathes of ivy that run along the fence and threaten to strangle passers by. I dream of this actually happening some days. Billy is my odd job boy. I met him last year when I rescued him from a crowd of kids that were throwing rocks at him. I have grown inordinately fond of Billy, his bright blue eyes with long dark lashes, his eager determination that he can do anything I want to throw at him - walk my dog, clean my car, fetch my shopping. I just ask him to clip the ivy. Billy doesnt want money, I give him cans of coke and chocolate biscuits and he talks to me as I sit on the doorstep smoking while he trims and clips away, Biily Titchmarsh. I'd pay for this time too, his funny insistance that I must know his aunty because she is a nurse too... where? Rotherham. Bless him. If I'd've had a son, I would've liked it to be Billy. My ex Husband used to say there was no way I could birth a boy, what with me being unable to tolerate a male for more than 9 minutes let alone 9 months.

He might have a point. Still, Billy. Awww...

The Education of Maggots.



Posh lecture hall today. A woman is employed to hide in an office just outside and sniff out any snuck in food and drinks. Bless her. The first swallowchomp and she's in, leaping through the door like a hoody at a jewellers. 
"No food! No food, and NO drink! Under ANY circumstances! There are signs on the door, LOOK!" she yells, stabbing a pointy finger at the laminated sign no one takes heed of. 
Why do they called them notices? They clearly aren't. Nobody does.

Exit Amanda, 40 years old and blushing, carrying her paper cup of coffee to the bin in the corridor. 
Ten minutes later, additional bonus shrieking as L spies several maggots under her chair. R, apologising for his earlier mistake of bringing his looselidded bait box instead of his lunchbox, shuffles round on bended knee trying to pick them up while ten women scatter.
The lecturer looks weary. Minutes later he trips on the flip chart.  I laugh. Izz laughs. K laughs, and D at the front, looks round and frowns. Izz and I think the lecturer has the hots for D, so I waggle my eyes when she asks for a pen and he says "I'll give you one". She texts me one minute later. I surreptiously check the phone as I am hyper text alert. 

"Pathetic" It says. "D xxx", it adds, lest I take offence.
I know. 

Wolf



I love this boy.

Adequate Warning

Beware, for I will take him.
There will be no fight;
he will come to me
willing though wary
As child to stranger. He will come.

The nearer to me he gets
the faster you will vanish.
Your shared history
your acres of secret smiles
I am afraid to say,
will count for nothing.

I will scent my body and I will
bring him in with my eyes
while you keep looking the other way.
I shall create fresh memories.

I strongly suspect that you
will barely witness the vanishing.
I shall suck away his skin
and when I am through
you may take him back.


He will be as bones.


You will consider this a gift.

Perfect

You know those moments when you get a sense that absolutely everything right at that point is just sheer perfection? They are fleeting normally, but that doesn't matter because you can sniff them for hours, sometimes days afterwards by recalling them. Today I was driving to pick up my eldest, the sun was the fierce gleaming ball of energy that late September flings on you like a gift, no one was ahead of me driving badly and making me shriek "nobber!". Long straight road, warmth, window down, foot down, Weller playing this on the cd.



I have a feeling today. Everything I am doing is with an energy I havent felt for months and months.
I am alert. I feel like some kind of wild animal, all heightened senses I am sprung inside, waiting for the world to come and have a go.

I love it.

Change.

There is something afoot. Not sure what it is yet. Mark my words.

Carbooty

I love junk shops, carboot sales, charity shops. When I was 16 myself and my friends used to get up early on a Saturday morning and trawl through church jumble sales, coming away with fabulous 40's and 50's dresses,  austere or garish, nipped in, fabulous. Add a pair of black or white long suede gloves with dozens of tiny buttons running from wrist to elbow, a pair of seamed stockings for 50p from Woolworths and a £1 a pair of impossibly high stilettoes from the back room of the ancient cobblers shop on Lumley Road where my boyfriend worked as an apprentice, we would dress to the nines for less than a fiver. During lunchtime at college, we would walk to Dead Mans Alley (or Ball Pit Lane - our name was more apt) near the church, and rifle through old suits that a shop there held in dusty piles, remnants of house clearances. Poor mum would get the job of taking them in, taking them up and generally feminizing them. Bees knees indeed.
You can still get bargains these days, but jumble sales seem to be a thing of the past. People realised you could make cash from unwanted belongings, and so the humble jumble drifted away into past tense. Shame.
Still, I love to hunt for a bargain anyway, and though the days of 40's dresses are long gone (not to mention the tiny waist that slid so easily inside the post war clobber. That's what I need, a bit of cake rationing) I still wander round car boots and my eldest daughter and I regularly haunt the charity shops for unusual clothes or ornaments.

I found last week, a set of three buddha faces designed, I imagine to go on a garden wall  - painted dark green with gold smeared on the eyes and lips, they were awful.. but... a can of matt cream spray paint, and they look fab on my wall. £3! For them all! Barg.
I also picked up a set of two long wooden frames with three cut out mounts inside - £1.50 for both.. They each held 3 cartoon postcards of winnie the pooh (dont go there) but then I found a book of 1950 film posters for 75p, clipped out six of my favourite kitchen sink and polanski favourite films, sprayed the frames cream too, and voila.


Proper chuffed with the results.

And the patio... oops.

Conversational Nonsense.

I don't think my friends actually understand me much. *Huff*

21:29 Pesk
I am starting to have little patience with men

21:29 Fish 

Is that an improvement on your previous position of Fucking None?

He's behind you... 

(apologies to the Americans for a probably nonsensical entry)



"Look" I shouted to the girls. "Look at my new boots!"

I'm standing at the top of the stairs in my black knickers and jumper and boots. (I was trying them on after partially disrobing ok?)

"I could be in the panto!" I say, grinning as I raised one leg and slapped my thigh, principal boy style.

"As a dame" said Wibs.

Thanks Wibs.


My boots.

Not me.

Birthday Girl

Had absolutely the nicest birthday for years yesterday. Rabes came over, straight from Phoenix, which started it off well... totally spoiled. Presents coming out of my ears.. how lovely. Not had such a sweet time for years. He even bought perfume for the children to give me, which really choked me. Not the perfume, that was gorgeous, but the act. Kind. Went to Lincoln for the day and sat on the wharf with juice and wine, wandered up steep hill. Felt a little odd, but the day was so gorgeous and warm... home, tacos for dinner. Early night.

Happy day. Found myself overwhelmed with it... A really happy day. 

Apropos of Nothing


Bonny and her rabid feminism.



























Dad with an apple on his head. Mum's out of shot, with an arrow.










Tiny snail. Not my nose, my finger.

Girls are Messy

Ok, I'm not perfect. My dad bought me a painting once. A sofa, draped with books, cushions and a teacup on the floor: "Dull Women", the painting proclaims, "Have Immaculate Houses."
Thanks Dad! Such a compliment... at least I think it is.

My children are messy too. They put ME to shame. Today is the annual Massive Cleaning of Bedrooms. Wibs can do her own she announced. Ten minutes later it was finished,TEN MINUTES? Where was the washing? Hrmm. I checked to see, and couldn't open the door for a flip flop wedged under it. Purposely. "Itttttt ISSS DONNNNE!" Wibs yells. I leave he to it, and attack Bonny's room.

I can't begin to describe how appalling it is... Bonny cannot throw ANYTHING away. We used a whole roll of bin bags. Cans, plastic bottles, and an entire Bolivian rainforest worth of paper (lots of drawings and notes for friends - Heidi you are my BBF!) Packets of glitter on the rugs, boxes of beads popped open and emptied under the bed, half of M&S knicker dept stuffed down against the wall. Cd's, DVD's, Bratz dolls with their spooky missing feet, all jumbled together.

Wibs wanders in snootily later, wet haired and smudgy eyed from her bath in her silky pyjamas. "Poo" she says. "It smells." No sodding shit Sherlock.

Perhaps the scent was me, eau de non stop frigging toil. We put on an audio book so that we didnt have to talk to each other. I was ready to spiflicate the child.

I'm sat now, listening to the washing machine which was on its last legs anyway, groaning away as it spins its 7th load of the day. The clothes aren't dirty mostly ... they are clothes I have washed and ironed once, and left by her door "for hanging". Hanging! Ha, ha haaaa.

So, you get the children you make. I leave the dusting, I really can't be arsed. Better to read a book, play a game, paint a picture. It's my own fault.

I go out later for cigarettes. Driving home, its Vaughn Williams on the radio, and a MASSIVE moon, like a mother of pearl disc sliced precisely in half hangs over the estate. I can feel my frustration dissipating, then when I get in, Wibs has made me tea and Bonny kisses me a sorry.

Tomorrow I think, we'll get cracking on having fun instead.

BonnyLogic

Shopping today for school uniform. Most children pass the time spent on a long journey by playing the red car blue car game... not Bonny. She uses the time it takes to get to the next big town, by musing on inventions. Past inventions have included a tube that goes up ones bottom to enable poop to emerge stripey and rainbow coloured, a la Aquafresh toothpaste. This is, apparently, to cheer us up. We have had to draft a letter to Ford Motors which suggests a single top mounted windscreen wiper (like a train has?) instead of two which sweep in arcs across the screen. No reply.
Today, after discussing the swine flu epidemic (down nationally, way way up locally) Bonny suggests that someone needs to design an outfit to keep swine flu at bay. This outfit will consist of trousers, hat and jumper. These items are peppered with valves which puff out sprays of disinfectant, and should be worn in all public places. A letter to Versace may do the trick.

Other fantastic news - whilst standing outside Asda to receive an important phone call, a sudden gust of mean spiteful wind resulted in my skirt whipping up around my chin. There were no wolfwhistles, however a surge in the purchase of over the counter anti emetics was reported at the pharmacy counter in store.

Email.

You want me? Come get me.

pesnikinja'at'gmail.com

Dreamy.

The Measure of a Man

When a man tells you you who he is, believe him. Maya Angelou, apparently (and unfortunately) but it is a fabulous quote anyhow... I was reminded of this recently by The Fish, and she is right. So why do we not do this? Trust your instincts, we remind others, with a sage nod of the head, yet we are SO shit at managing to do this for ourselves. We meet someone, we like them. We pluck out the fabulous things about them and wave them in the air gleefully, like a prized nugget of gold. What we should do, is remember to take note of the stinky silt that surrounds the gold. (Not that we dont have stinky silt of our own of course)

Once, I dated a man a couple of times. The first time we met each other with mutual friends and much wine was drunk, rendering the evening hazily pleasant. The second time, we met with just our own selves, and went to a popular and by all accounts excellent Turkish restaurant in Islington. I am going back several years here, the name of the restaurant but alas not the details of the date, elude me. The service was shocking. The food was borderline edible, being barely warm and rather overcooked. This was compensated for by a liberal use spices and herbs. My mouth was cold yet hot. The courses were half an hour apart, allowing the diner to drink too much and not mind the shocking service, the surly waitress and the crappy food. Top marks for distraction techniques Islington Turkish Restaurant. Anyway anyway anyway, the end of the meal and the bored and tetchy waitress clears the table (with her hands, though she could've blown the pots to the kitchen with her sighs of irritation and boredom).
"Please give the chef my finest compliments!" beamed my date. I searched for a hint of irony. None. "The meal was fabulous!" he gushed, oil of a million shish kebabs oozing through his every pore. The waitress stared at him as though he was mental. She knew it was crap. I knew it was crap. He was mental, I think. I wanted to slide under the table. She walked away, without even answering.

After the meal, he walked me to the train station, and attempted to kiss me. I got on the train. Yet, I STILL met this man again. Why? Because I couldn't quite believe my instinct. I didn't believe how he was, though he'd shown me.
Some years later I met a man who made me laugh. In a pub on our first date, he shocked me with his intensity. We sat outside in the snow so he could smoke, which he did angrily. On our second date, he belittled a Polish guy, who (whilst being a bit of a tosser and a bit of a pillock) was pretty harmless. In a manner designed to confuse the polish guy, he was over friendly (whilst accepting his whiskey and beer) and gave him his phone number, whilst all the time poking fun, dragging me into it by the very dint of me being there. Nudge nudge eh Pesk?
He rarely spoke to people who served him in shops. Just took his change and walked, leaving me to smile and say thanks. He shouted at a train clerk sarcastically and rudely. Vile. Did I believe the man he showed me he was? No. I ploughed on regardless for at least four more dates. What a prize pillock I am.

A man I used to know, planned everything, and if I didn't fall in with his plans, or fancied doing something else, he drove over me like a tractor in springtime, a man on a mission to get his work done. Eventually I always concurred. Did I spot this? Nope. Klaxon HOOTED at me on one particular occasion, but no, my ears were stuffed with the Cotton Wool of Hope and Admiration. In restaurants he was polite without being oily which was good, but generally distant. And with me too. Didnt see that either.

I date someone now who is gentle. In restaurants, he sets himself up to become the butt of a joke between the waitress and myself. I like this. This is sweet. This is a man who sets others at ease. Will there be something I am not seeing? Stay posted.

Happenings and Holidays

I finished my work today. I have Five Weeks Off. Five whole weeks! Now all we need, is for the rain to finish.

Three patients saw a ghost on Sunday night. Hmm. The fact that two of the patients were in one bay, and one in a side room a few yards away makes it a little more interesting, but meh, as my younger friends say. During shift handover, staff nurse was matter of fact, describing the ghost as though it were a new patient admitted to the ward at 4am... "Mid forties, female, shortish brown hair".

"It's me, I said. "This place has sucked all spirit out of me"

Glances were cast. Ah well.

Bonny however is terrified by and interested in this hospital ghost. Wibs seizes on this interest and tells her that she has seen a ghost in OUR house, sitting in an empty bath. "I see it when I clean my teeth" she nods, evilly and seriously.

"Rubbish", I tell Bonny "As if Wibs EVER cleans her teeth". Bonny nods, but she has wide eyes, threatening to spill fat tears. Wibs, encouraged, adds further details to her spook. "He has a beard" she says, "and he opens his mouth WIIIIIIIIDE like he is screaming in agony..."

Bonny begins to cry. I thank Wibs, who is delighted with herself and cackling away like the worst witch herself. I glare at her.

Wibs apologises and says that she was only joking. Bonny is not convinced and is still boohooing in the way only an 11 year old with a vivid imagination can do.

"Come onnnnn" says Wibs. "What could a ghost do to you ANYWAY?"

"Punch you with it's misty fists?" I offer.

Wibs looks at me. "Misty Fists?" she says.

Bonny looks at me. "Misty fists?"

"Yes. It could run at you and start punching you. With its fists, made of mist." I say solemnly.

"Misty fists...." muses Bonny, offering a ghost of her own, that of a smile.

I grin.

Wibs grins.

"Misty Fists!" we all shout, and soon we are rolling around, hooting and shrieking with laughter, punctuating our mirth with breathless "misty fists!"

Maybe you had to be there. I think its holiday madness. Five weeks off!

I say.

Ted.

Bonny is once again obsessed with Sylvia Plath. At the age of four she took to reading various Plath / Hughes biographies and collections whenever she had a poo - the top shelf of the lav bookshelf used to house a Hughes and Plath collection. I moved it because she began to obsess over Ariel (true) and also because I fancied a little lighter browsing myself on occasion. Currently - Dear Fatty, by Dawn French. Oh how the mighty reader has fallen...

Yesterday I painted and varnished the mahoosive bookshelf in the living room. This entailed hauling many many books off, and doing a fresh sort out. Bonny helped me to reinstall, and as she passed them across, we had a running commentary.

Bonny - ... hmmm. I might read this.."The Journals of Sylvia Plath"

Pesk - (silently) Oh no. (Aloud) It's VERY big.

Bonny - (pause) She put her head in the oven didnt she?

Pesk - Aha.

Bonny - And that second wife, Asha Weevil. She killed herself too didnt she?

Pesk - Assia Wevill, yes, she did.

Bonny - Did he get married again, Ted?

Pesk - Yes.

Bonny - Hmm. I wonder if he went out on dates in one of those false moustache/nose/ glasses things to find another wife. *I* wouldn't marry him, would you? Men. Huh.

I don't know so much. I have always been a little in awe of Big Proper Men who stroll around in big tweed overcoats with serious frowns, a trout in each pocket and a well thumbed copy of a book called "I can build owt wi' three lengths of wood & a mouthful of nails" in one hand. Add to that his poetry magnet of a soul in torment and I think I might've definitely given him the glad eye.

There is no gas in my village.

Safe.

Old Bag.

I am awake. It is 6.30am, and I am in bed, listening to BBC Radio 2, and drinking a large mug of tea.
In my pyjamas.

I am old, suddenly. Oh my God.


At least it wasn't made with a teasmade. I can't help thinking I'd like one though.

Ho hum. Last day at uni today for a while. All tasks and essays done, all exams sat.

Dear Mrs Blackbird

I am remarkably patient with you. I am not whinging when you wake me at daybreak as you fly in and out of the eaves under my roof, and then flap around in the loft space above the bedroom where every morning I lay and listen. I know you are being a Very Good Mother, feeding your babies. I do not grumble, even when I think of the blobs and globules of bird shit that will no doubt be spattering my water tank (not to mention my Christmas tree), or hear the flapping and rustling that you make. I marvel, you sound like a whole flock of seagulls, how do you manage that? Do you have tap shoes I wonder? Anyway. I do not call someone to block up your entrance to my house. I know that to do so, would ensure certain death for your little lovelies, being the featherless little gannets that they are at this time in their lives. I sympathise. I have myself mothered three graceless, ungrateful, feeding/pooing,pooing/feeding machines for what feels like years. I do feel your pain.

However Mrs. Blackbird, I must point out that my patience has a limit. When I go outside to stand on my patio for a rare 5 minutes peace with a mug of tea, I do not expect to be shrieked at as though I am an expenses heavy MP strolling round Lidls in the Wirral, waving my rolex and flashing my Amex. I do expect to be able to hang my washing out without you perching on the clothes prop giving me the evils and hopping up and down, bellowing your miserable beak off in an impersonation of a mid rage Rumpelstiltskin.

My life, Mrs. Blackbird, is not peaceful often.

Do me a favour and shut the fuck up for five minutes.

Thanks,

Pesk.
xxx

Procrastination

I bought a new radio yesterday. A pink one, with a CD player and a usb port to allow hook up to my MP3 player. If only I hadn't dropped my ipod shuffle into a vat of oil.

Bonny - oh no will it still work?
Pesk - *glare*

I cleared the old non functioning DAB radio off the shelf in the kitchen which is also home to a clock the size of one you might find at Crewe station, 12 cookery books, various powders, herbs and spices,a blackbird pie funnel,pickled garlic and chilis and a string of neon blue fairy lights. And a huge metal hand mincer (for mincing potatoes a la bramborak, not hands). All this when I should've been finishing an essay on the importance of the family in the nursing process. Did I say finishing? Starting, finishing, whatever. Anyway, I found two pennies. Not tiny bright coppery pennies you might find in your purse, but dull oak brown birthday badge sized pennies.

I lay them on the table later and the three of us stare at them as we listen to the radio and wait for the tacos to be ready. The most noticable thing is how the design is worn away. Wibs offers that a million people have probably rubbed the Queens face. 1887! says Bonny, picking up the oldest one. 1887! That's like 130 years ago (she had her SATS maths exam today, so she's confident).
Wibs drops one on top of the other and remarks how they sound different to pennies.More serious. Like the Victorians, she says, as though they manufactured the coins to resonate with the mood of the era. They sound like when Scrooge counts his money in A Christmas Carol, she says.
Well, Dickens could've handled these coins, I say, (exaggerating slightly for effect, yes, I know he died in 1870 thanks) eliciting a goggle eyed look from each child as they pick them up and weigh them in their hands.

Or Hitler? says Bonny, who is hideously obsessed with all things Nazi presently.
Wibs (scoffing)- Hitler was GERMAN
Bonny - So? He might've been here on holiday.
Wibs - *considering*
Bonny - And brought an ice cream with it.
Wibs - silly. You could've bought like 50 ice creams for a penny then.
(inflation eh? tsk)
Bonny - I wonder how many murderers have touched this coin?

The penny is now worth 49p on ebay it seems. The conversation is priceless.

Books, Books.

Had a gorgeous day. Yesterday I bought a shameful book on a whim in a chazza shop. Julian Clary's autobiog, A Young Man's Passage. I started it last night, fell asleep reading it and continued reading it at 6am when I woke. It is deliciously bitchy yet so incredibly touching. So many autobiographies skim the surface of truth - this was was painful it was so honest - and you can never trust the biogs written by others (even worse than this, the life stories as imagined by novelists. I once read one of these about Plath and Hughes that made me actually do a small scream of horror, so bad was it).

Had to take Wibs to work at 12, Bonny expressed a wish to visit her gran, and the sun today was intense. Drove to Halton and had an hour in the pub with a friend - or rather outside the pub. Talking about books over a Batemans in a sunny garden - this IS the life. Took the mutt too, she's a happy Hats. Drove home listening to The White Lies which my friend had copied for me - so thoughtful. Liked it well enough, but it needs more listens. Another cd which needs listening to, I've had for three or four years now - Kate Bush's Ariel. I cant get enough of it right now, it's perfect for driving in sun, its perfect for feeling happy to, its perfect for feeling sad to. Yum.

Got home, picked the young ones up, went and bought three more books, and then finished Julian. Tried not to race to the end, couldn't help it. Loved it, recommend it.