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.