my favourite things..

i think my emailed top fives of the year should, matt-like, also be recorded here..for prosperity's sake...or something...
ok, my top five moments, memories and well, favourite things of the year that was 2005..just as its about to end..

1...edinburgh on july 2nd, the white bands, the silent marching, the shame of finding oneself on said silent march holding a starbucks frappucino and wondering if the police themselves might turn on me for my traitorship to the cause..hanging out in the big dress, and winding up at the cottage..good times..
2...the cold of this winter...i am loving loving loving the cold. my purpose-made, ridiculously long scarf is doing me proud.
3...the first manchester family holiday in wales, in may, at the house with the scary lady, the barbeques, the beers, the "blast-furnace"(sal, 05/05) tans we earned, bh monday lunch, gettinglost EVERYTIME i tried to find my room, praying for the teachers, the drive there with sal, the drive home with russell, and especially tom's now much-used idea of "see you monday", watching garden state with our duvets, singing on the last morning to mrs p's legendary "let my people go" with more five-syllable words than even ric could get into song lyrics..with fin playing the drum..and emma with her purple ribbons..! all good..
4..my shire summer...lazy afternoons and evenings of heading straight from work to the lovely cafe rene, assured of company, cold beer, sunshine, crosswords and laughs...haven't had the early and best part of summer in the glos since i was 18 and hated the place, so it was a whole new time..
5..learning that loving means something like..being nicer to people than they are to you and not waiting to be liked before i like first.or something similar but with more order. or not...in fact, also learning that love isn't patterned or formluable, but earthy and vital, springy and terribly hard work sometimes. i think it laughs though: that satisfied, at-ease laugh that you only really let out when you're shot of fear. am enjoying seeing it at work in me and in my life and knowing its all straight from jesus and that he'll never run out, so neither will i....wowzers! how amazing is that!!
cheating
..6...claire and george's wedding..never did a girl look so at home inher wedding dress, or a boy look so unashamedly but quietly inlove..the rest of us had big fun on the bridge too..

it really was a good year. nothing spectacular, and not all that much real excitement or change. but god did say at its beginning that i was about to be divested of all my dreams. i can honestly say that it has taken him more or less the full twelve-month to accmmplish that. so now i have none. not a one. except of more snow.....

sitting on the toolbox..

so i am a fan of the jcb song..
i spent the last 24 hours out and about in the countryside of ours and a neighbouring shire..i saw tractors, watched a cat fight with a crazy fox, heard the rooster crow in the wee small hours as we were outside still drinking wine, playing in the snow and sneaking cigarettes..we practised our shire accents (owl: one syllable or two...?!), watched the chickens and listened to the quiet..
i do like it round here..
went out tonight for a bit of a warm-up beverage with my accomplices for tomorrow night.we've placed our bets on who may be found first crying in a corner somewhere, who might get up to no good, and have fully-laid plans for where to proceed to after crackers..
whochester? can't hear ya...

lola..

is my favourite kinks song..
the music-history syllabus is coming along nicely, although i am struggling to see how i can let the 80's in on the act..as ever..this really means that i am struggling to find the ways in which 80's music had an impact or influence on any subsequent music...surely, surely it was just a phase that ended as abruptly as it had begun, and was best quickly forgotten!? surely it was the mid-life crisis in the life of rock music..? surely its welcome termination was evidenced by the warmth with which the world received happy hardcore and take that, in the very early 90''s...?! we were all so tired of the bizarre and exhausting combination of melancholic drama and the intense "we must have fun, even if it kills us" attitude of the hideous 80's, that we had arms wide open waiting for something shit to appear, just so that so we could move on...i mean really, and i know this following quote has been used in part on this blog at least once before, but the 80's even proved the undoing of musicians that were once great...mighty, even...and jack black's barry in high fideilty once more find the words for me, as he asks...
"Top 5 musical crimes perpetutated by Stevie Wonder in the 80s and 90s? Go .... is it in fact fair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins? Is it better to burn out ... or fade away?"
some people should have just slept through the 80's and then they might have been alright. elton john: rocket man, tiny dancer, saturday night's alright...etc etc...then he hits the 80's..nightmare....
aretha franklin: oh my god.........all i need to get by, respect, think........pure anthems of the once-caged bird....and then......duets with george michael and something about who is zooming who.....
who let it happen?!
in fact, duets in general were an ongoing crime of the whole decade..janet jackson and cliff richard....!! please.
...so if anyone has any sensible suggestions that may help me fill an entire decade's worth of musical education, that won't wound my ears in the burning process, they would be much appreciated.
fyi u2 are a given, so don't think you're being smart there..

ride a white swan..

is my favourite t-rex song..
my mum loves t-rex
so things are calmer today. we fetched granny home from gloucester royal..she is well, drinking gin, commandeering and generally back at the helm.
i don't think i've ever been at the helm of anything..
she is well, and thanks for concerned phone calls etc.
i am still at a loss as to what happens on new years eve. i guess i want something vaguely new. so maybe a new place, or new people, or both, but i'm not sure how its gonna happen.
i watched the great escape today, and other than eddie's version, it was actually the first time i'd seen it. i know the comedy version pretty much off by heart, so this was new and exciting. i loved it...especially danny and poor colin.
brilliant
so, ok, i know i don't have that many regular commentors these days, but i am about to spend a day or two making some cds for a friend who is entirely uneducated in music history, and i would like any suggestions of bands or singers who in a collection of music representing somethings of the last forty or fifty years, cannot be overlooked...go crazy..
i also watched goodnight mister tom today, with inspector morse in it, and i was struck by what a bizarre concept the evacuation of children is. i also wept..like, properly cried. its been a while.
i also heard from cate, yesterday..!! she made it to south africa, in case any of you were still left wondering if she remained stranded in seattle....she made it, and got my present...hurrah!!!!!! i'm off to make real irish coffees now, in the fun proper glasses and all...and have a cigarette....its that strange weather round here tonight though, where its almost too cold to smoke...now i know this sounds about as stupid an idea as it being too cold to snow, but believe me, there's no evidence for it but it is scientific fact..sorry once more for a dull post, but being as i am in a house with broadband and a lovely laptop, it would be rude not to..x

none for the usual..

well what a to-do..
we've had a bit more than your average turkey, mince pies and what-not in our house today..my grandmother, not to be outdone by the lord jesus and his birthday, had some sort of bizarre attack of something in the late morning, and later the doctor came round, followed by hospital people, and now she's gone in there for the night..madness i tell you...you don't realise how routined your christmas day has become until things happen that change it and as soon as that happens it doesn't feel like christmas anymore...we're ok now, and the two ronnies are on tv so its all gonna be alright...kind of a wierd scary day though..made me think, as i realised that she had in fact lost a fair amount of counsciousness and had kind of stopped breathing, that i didn't want her to die without us liking each other a bit more than we do, cos we don't really, very much, and that's horrid. an old man collapsed in church this morning too, we thought he had died but he hadn't but i was praying in tongues before i knew it, which isn't easy in a catholic church, and the thought wa crossing my mind of, if it came to it, would i actually walk over there in front of 400 people and command him to live in the name of jesus...!?! the rest would have been ministering the last rights and praying for his safe passage through pergatory, and i figured i may well have been the only person there to march over there and pray the unthinkable. that was odd enough, without the same thoughts then running through my head sitting in the lounge on my second gin and it of the day, wondering which of the parcels for me would have a douglas coupland book in it...
i got my bag though....green corduroy with daisies and weeds on it...its so pretty..so that was good. it has actually been surprisingly fun, given everything..especially hearing from cate, getting a lush new jacket, giving my family presents that made them cry!! (in a good way..i think..!?) getting to pray with my family...listening to the jcb song a lot, and anticipating seeing my friends over the next couple of days who i love and who love me...and the bubble and squeak of tomorrow morning..and my new green earrings from my grandad and perfume and slippers and two yes two radios....what joy...sadie will be fine, we are quite sure of that...poor grandad though, her being in gloucester royal..it means we get to give him all the sweets and whiskeys and chocolates and cake and stuff that he wants though this evening, cos she's not here to tell him off! right the two ronnies have been spurned in favour of blogger, which cannot be right, i'm off to catch the end...its goodnight from me, and well, love you and happy christmas...!

all apologies..

so i guess i could do the sneaky back-dating-blogger thing..
but i think that would give too much undue attention to the last few weeks..
its been good, but not that good...!
went to cardiff...sold some drums, stayed with ben and jules, had some snow, watched harry potter, hung out with my sister, laughed a lot, saw the pienaars, discovered brandy in coffee and got very cold. and was denied a trip to the winter wonderland. loved cardiff.
came back to manchester. loved it. left again, went to lincoln, sold some more drums, worked the longest three days i've ever worked, drank beer and came back again.
loved manchester. going away is good but coming back, as they say, is better.
have been spending a good amount of time at the christmas markets, have been spending a better amount of time in my house, which now although less populated, feels more chilled and more pray-in-able.
and next week i'm going home for christmas. i'm excited about that.
before then, i want to see sal, see t and a, have my last day at my job, find another job, watch the polar express in 3d at the movies, make some fun thing to go on the wall in our kitchen, sing more carols, make tiffin, make more soup, see halen dc, get a massage, laugh, take photos at the christmas market..
i'll check in with you on thursday upon my departure for the holidays to see how many i have achieved
sorry that after such a pause this is such a shit post. i'm tired,
many loves to you all
cate if you're there i miss you!

consecrate

god is good.
see, i think i'd forgotten.
but amazingly, he's been reminding me...more to come, but for now, enough..

the markets are up..

Tonight I am listening to Amsterdam by coldplay.
Just thought you might like to know.
Work was better today, in that I laughed more, and also I got to tell the tractor joke when we were having a bad joke telling time this afternoon, and it turns out it really is still funny. I thought it was just me.
The secret also got out of my now legendary – if not in quantity, but daily consistency – tardiness in the mornings. I let it slip that on non-rainy days I take a turn through the lovely park en route to the office. They found it rather sweet that their very own shire-girl needs her daily fix of trees and leafy walking, so I think from now on they will just smile at me at ten past nine and know that I have arrived happier for my detour than had I walked on the pavement and got there sooner.
So I spent this evening mainly on the terrace at trof with rusty discussing the latest money-making schemes of world tribal and how I might get to spend several of the weeks between now and Christmas working on the stall at various markets round the country freezing my ass off, drinking coffee, wearing mittens and selling drums. It really could work, since there are many weeks in the next two months that my work don’t need me at all, but they don’t want me to leave entirely as there are some weeks when I will be needed and so on and so on.
I love the idea of working outdoors in what is set to be the coldest winter for decades. We’ll see..
I need to spend some time in the castle with jesus and teresa now..coldplay are coming too..
Night x
Ps liv why can’t you comment anymore..?! who will write the essays now..? cate..? no, too busy with volcanoes and the like..the cheek! Miss you girls x

forays..

I have had my five portions of fruit and vegetables today for sure.
I love days when that happens.
Started my day with a kiwi, a banana and apple.
Smug smug smug.
So I went to work and didn’t enjoy most of the day at all as there are now three of us doing the work and its all complex and I am not competitive enough to snatch it as it comes in, so I ended up with pretty much nothing all day. Bizarre woman who has taken over the office must go.
Or I must go, find gainful employment elsewhere. Talking to john last night made me glad again to realise that being overwhelmed by potential ideas for work and hopes and stuff isn’t something I have the monopoly on. Its such a confusing thing to see so many things around you that you would love to see change, and to have no idea where you play your part in it. I should probably also add into that whole scene, the things that I just would love to do, that aren’t at all to do with changing the world but are small wee dreams that I keep in my pocket, like being a make-up artist and a hairdresser. I thought tonight though, what a wonderful thing, to be not tied, not set on a course, yet to have ideas, however castle-in-the-air-like they may seem. Living here, where potential and possibility are two fairly contraband substances, it feels oddly defiant to maintain the pipe dreams, update and review them, and let god in on them. I get in such a pickle when I try and pin down one idea of what to do, it must make him laugh I think, but I know he is building in me one thing at a time, all working towards work that will be in turn working towards the working out of me and him. And the ultimate working out of his own pipe dreams…what a thought heh..the very pipe dreams of god.
Wonderous.
Tim came round this evening, I think he had heard about the bake-off yesterday and wanted to see what remained. His inquisition brought him the last and biggest share of coffee cake and lots of tea. It brought me his tales from the temple, which as I kept asking him to describe it, I got such a picture of it in my head I could almost smell the place. See I know he loves jesus, and I’m glad, but I can kind of see why his field trips to these strange and unknown places are making him wonder..we talked about how other ways of living and expressing faith seem to have a way better concept of and respect for the scared, the holy, the mighty aspects of god. We in living rooms and without much regard for rules have, I’ve been thinking lately, perhaps taken the buddy jesus thing a bit too far and lost the fear somewhat. Maybe just me. Weird though heh..tim told me a book I should read. I love it when conversations with tim end at the point when he’s succeeded in recommending a you a book on the subject in question, and therefore feels he can do no more for you.

the joy of baking..

So the clocks went back and I woke up and got up at seven something in the morning. I just don’t get how it means you’re meant to get more sleep!
Anyway so I decided I’d quite like to go to mass. I know, I know, the obvious comments about reading stuff by one of the greats of catholic mysticism one day then wanting to head off to mass the next are anticipated, I don’t know, I just wanted the familiar routine, mass, in nice clothes and big coat, coming home, coffee, toast, papers, home truths on radio 4, that whole scene. So I walked to church, had the absolute joy of whitworth park all to myself at 8.30 on a lovely autumnly morning, talked to a squirrel and generally enjoyed the fresh air of doing what I wanted and not really needing a reason.
They’d had mass at 7, and the big slackers weren’t having another til 11, so I just went in and prayed among the all too familiar smells and sounds of a church..the organ man was practising his scales, the nuns were praying and some crazy lady was talking out loud to a statue of mary at the back.
I left soon though and had the bizarre experience of being the second customer of the day in caffe nero. The book came out and I moved onto reading of the second mansion. There was a page where she described the transition from the first to the second, and why it is necessary. She described what she was shown to be the state of people in this transition time. I nearly choked on my tepid Americano as I read..
Those who have already begun to practice prayer, and who realise the importance of not remaining in the first mansion, but who are not yet resolute enough to leave..they can understand the lord when he calls them, for as they gradually get nearer to the place where his majesty dwells, he becomes a very good neighbour to them. And such are his his mecy and goodness that, even when we are even when we are engaged in our worldly pastimes and businesses, and pleasures and hagglings, when we are falling into sins and rising from them again, this lord of ours is so anxious that we shoud desire him and strive after his companionship that he calls un ceaselessly, time after time, to approach him, and this voice of his is so sweet that the poor soul is consumed with grief at being unable to do his bidding immediately.
See…?
I really think I’ve started something..
i made lots of cakes, and a crumble, my best ever i think, and generally made the best kind of mess in the kitchen..then went to a gathering for watto prayer time at burdith..was good, everyone had cake and crumble and suddenly i missed being the hostess at maine road with cate..
went to big hands with matt and watto..then john hughes came too..the evening was lovely. generally a good weekend all round, feel as though i am finding feet here..wasn't expecting it would take time, but that was just dumb. i guess i have to find my feet with god though first right, then all else will follow...as the saying goes..x
ps i went to one of our local grocery stores on great western street to buy flour and baking powder. the lady in the shop disappeared out back when i told her i wanted some of the latter, and brought me some of her own from her kitchen, in a small bag that she gave me for free...sometimes m14 really is good to me..

so today I think I started something.

I started off by saying goodbye to Olivia in trof, goodbye for another half a term anyway.
That turned into coffee and rolling lessons with laura gribbon, a rare treat of me and birdie time, hadn’t realised how much I’d been missing that..
Had the shock of perhaps not my life but at least the month when Benjamin o’rourke appeared, one of the most genuinely funny and charming people I know. Bird and I were shortly joined by ben lehmann (sp?) and so we stayed a while longer. The plan of the day was book reading and coffee drinking, but since not one of us had brought our books we instead took a turn about the park, looked at the ducks and went to the secret garden. We eventually ben and I gor our books and repaired to battery park, a different kind of park altogether from the platt fields variety, and began to read. Now, it has been a while, a long while, since I started a book and within minutes have thought, this is ezakly what I need right now, but even without my former prophetic librarian hdc, it turned out I had indeed made that timely choice. The interior castle by teresa of avila is about 400 years old, written while most of her other writings had been confiscated by the inquisitors (wouldn’t that be a good name for a band….!?) and is about a vision she had of a castle of the soul, made up of several mansions, and the passage that the soul must take with god in order to be able to be with him where he dwells….she was asked to write about prayer, for a group of nuns who were kind of struggling..at times its odd because she talks directly to them as a group and one feels slightly like one is intruding..but the idea of charting your course with this specific image in mind kind of appeals to me at the moment, when I feel pretty stuck, neither doing particularly well or badly, just subsisting..so I read, had the best chocolate cake I may have ever had, then I went home. I cooked, had wine, read a bit more, then realised I was a bit in the weeds, and given that I was technically drinking alone, figured then would be a good time to stop and pray. So I did, and it was good.

that i would be good..

So I’m in my room, I’ve got my playlist for my quiet time, starting at lets see..0110 hours..well done na.
I wish this was direct blogging but unfortunately I have no internet to call my own. Problem with blogging then posting at a later time, even if it is only tomorrow morning, is the risk that it will never get as far as the internet café but will stay safe here with me.
Ok so where were we, yes..today’s Things That Are True
I have realised I am a bitch. This lady at my work, I really dislike her, and she me. This scenario has nothing to do with jesus and what he has done for me and who he asks me in response to try with him to be. Its just been about being horrid. I’ve more or less despised her since we met on Tuesday. She has done very little to warrant this other than be dreadfully common, coarse, loud and have awful annunciation. None of these things are, I think, conscious or chosen, its just who she is and that’s fine. But I haven’t let it be fine and I in turn have been snappy with her and not shown her kindness or respect at all really. So I finished my week at work today walking to the pub, ready for a beer and glad that I was beginning a whole weekend of days pottering around and seeing people who do not provoke such unsolicited snobbery and meanness from me. But she will still be there on Monday and since my victorious I-survived-the-week beer at 1605 hours today, I have realised that I would very much like Monday to see a few changes in my attitude towards the lady. Or The Monster as most of the people in the office call her. I want to see her differently…but its hard when she’s one of those people that if she were in a cartoon the flowers would wither as she walked past.
Today, Oswald was basically saying that we’re not saved because we repented, but saved because of what jesus did on the cross. He says we put too much emphasis on the effects of the part we play in our salvation instead of just letting ourselves be affected by what has already been done for us. I was relieved to hear this idea on my cigarette break today, because if it were down to me to, as ms “dale” would say, get my shit together, then with all the shit I’ve figured out this week that needs to be got together, I’d sure be too busy to work…and work is so good for me. I may be finding the dark, early grey mornings rather hard, but I am starting to see that if the narrow gate means the path of most resistance then I guess that’s where we get to learn about how to be more like him, and that means learning to love the lady and learning to concentrate and work hard and still be alive somehow at the same time. Its just a lot to think about isn’t it…?!weekend now though….time to read..

neon..

so i'm having some strange but good moments of realising Things That Are True during my walks to work in the mornings.
a couple of days ago, i realised that nothing that i'm doing these days has, or just doesn't feel like it has, any spirit in it. spirit with a small s or with a big one either (Spirit). its a hard thing to explain but i guess i feel like the opposite of the girl in the song neon by john mayer. which is also the opoosite of this:
- it was as if she had set lighted candles in all the windows of her house of life-
this is my favourite book quote of all time.
it is kind of my not motto but a thing in my head like a standard for living life to the full, in a visible and obvious way, in a way that the fullness of life is coming from inside and not from the light of the people that are around you, or the things that entertain or inspire you, but from god within and his fullness etc etc
the bottom line is that i'm not in a place of devotion with jesus. this is the word watto dropped into a sentence the other day that made me catch my breath and slightly skipped a beat on the inside because it is a concept and a discipline that i gave been aspiring to and thinking about for years and it both intrigues and excites me.
and i have lost the desire for it.
i want it back,
my room is my retreat house. i abdndon it every morning and often spend no time in it until bed, and this is the opposite of what i want and need to be doing,.
same old same old, doing what i don't want to do not doing the things i do want to do. but the options i choose are always fun and somehow easier.
yesterday the Thing I Realised Was True was..
that since barcelona i've stopped asking god for things. i can pray for other people, and on my better days i can spend time praising jesus and telling him how fond i am of him. but i have given up offering petitions for my own part. the root of disappointment is sod a dog still deeper in me than i had any idea. it has slammed the brakes on my increasing faith, and scuppered my desire to dream.
ok rambling now but this is helping so if you don't mind awfully i'll continue..
the things i want have taken second place to just kind of getting by and not getting my heart broken. its kind of like being on prozac. can't feel the bad but can't really feel the good either. i'm in a balanced state where no great weeping ever overcomes me anymore, and no rending of my heart ever happens in order to pray better or love more. and i can't get that excited about anything, or giddy or hopeful.
no buzzing, no neon, no lighted candles.
i thought at one point today like my life is rather ordinary.
and i was kind of ok with it.
scary stuff.

bites you on the ass..

so i've always had this philosophy that home is where your cds are.
last night, i freaked out when i was alone and in my room and felt like...shit, i really do live in manchester now, and where's the going back and how did this happen? and why am i living in a house where my friends all once lived and have all since moved on?
and so i realised that the temporarily stopping somewhere til decisions get made, has turned into actually living somewhere
because all yes all my cds are now in my room. with all my handbags too.
scary stuff

i don't even know where i live now..

i went to stonehenge today
it wasn't solstace, wasn't sunny, wasn't sunset, wasn't beautiful weather or situation or anything
and i flippin loved it
it was cold and grey and not even nice enough to be winterly and it didn't matter
i loved it

so paul got married. and we had so much fun at the wedding.
the furtados sure are a beautiful family.

i also did my favourite all-time round of top-fives..i asked paul during the party in the evening what top five songs he would like to hear during the rest of his wedding reception...they were as follows
sweet child of mine: guns and roses
want you back: jackson five
must be love: madness
friday i'm in love: the cure
he also wanted jenny doesn't like me anymore by less than jake, the only one - not surprisingly - that the disco dj didn't have..

well done me i say

the cheesey cheeses did a wonderful rendition of the sandman song with a paul and jenny wedding-day slant, which was hilarious and finely tuned

and now i am back in manchester with nearly all my things. my room feels more like mine as a result.
which is good

take two...

paul f is getting married tomorrow...
mother
now is almost certainly the time to stop referring to him as the boy that was supposed to marry me..!!
in manchester the wedding scene, kicked off brilliantly by t and a five, yes five years ago, has become very much the done thing, but this is school friends,the first wedding of a good school friend..this is friends who in my head most of the time are still 17 and stoned, now in suits and making speeches and buying gifts from gift-lists and doing the grown-up thing....this is boys i've kissed, this is...well, its brilliant.
i'm so excited.
i got the best haircut of my life today. and no, not because i have to look good at paul's wedding, just because i have a great hairdresser who i have to go 200 miles to see. i love her.
i also got a message from claire today saying my one-day a week job at carisma is a-go-go...mid november, and by then i need to find two more jobs....hurrah.
i am about to go out to rob and amy's, with a few others, for wine and cheese and games. hopefully not monopoly, but games like travel go, who no-one but my family seems ever to have heard of even though ITS THE BEST BOARD GAME EVER and cards and hopefully crib and things like that. my offering to the games pile is to be, yes, you've guessed it, scrabble without a board, its the christian action work-evosion method of choice, and entirely philip gribbon's fault...take two...
oh..you should see my hair..

i miss this..

internet i mean. i hate having to scramble round for any given opportunity to get a hold of some. and when i do its almost invariably when i feel i have nothing to blog. but i'm learning from sal that virtually everything is bloggable, so here goes..
i am living at heald place. this is wierd,but good. wierd because my friends used to live there, in a time wheni lived down the road...a time that i thought was more or less done for good. turns out it was less done. but good because the room used to belong to emma cowan and its lovely. and now partly green. and the people living there are really nice and it just feels like a nice place to be with them or on my own and both are good. last night i accidentally slept for about 10 hours. haven't done that in a very long time.
work is still good. the people in my office are hilarious, and the accents mean i spend most of the time feeling like i'm watching dinnerladies or something equally northern.
tonight is my first friday night back here and instead of going out and being young i have come to blair road to see ben and watto and eat food.
garden state is on now in the background. i'm a bit concerned i may have over-watched it, it seems a bit lost on me.
oh no wait..there it is....don't tease me about my hobbies, i don't tease you about being an asshole...yeah, still funny...

been talking about work a lot tonight. why to work, what to work as or for..i'm finding it really hard to figure this stuff out just now. i need to get some space tomorrow i think and buy a notebook. here is good but sometimes a girl just needs a pen and a new jotter. here, you see, there are people that know what they do, they love it they're good at it. their work is a part of who they are as oppose to an aside that passes the time and pays the rent. and while its kind of hard to be around those people, just because jealousy and feeling small can creep in, its also exactly what i need. its pushing me to think about it all again. and so i am grateful for it and to them. i love watching my friends give so much of their time and energy and love to their jobs. i think i just don't get it for my own part. yet.
the winter is coming. the rain has arrived. its the kind of all-day-long rain too, that makes you feel like it'll be wet all the time from now on, til may or something.
i think tomorrow i'm going to go to the northern quarter and find me some coffee. notepad in hand. or maybe a book to read. or both.
yes i think i better had.
btw ben is about to make a blog. be nice to him.

oh..

i'm in mallowdale mansions..
i've just finished another good day at work
i've just had my post-work cup of coffee
and tim is playing the guitar.
we've sung some great ben harper covers this afternoon. all surpassed by sucker by john mayer though
he's on walkaway now and i'm leaving him to it. high notes and all. its the only one he remembers all the words to. and the only one i still can't sing without having a small tear in my eye.
days like these heh..
working, laughing, loving. be loved. last night was a very very fun evening. we had supper at 17 blair with lovely people and drago's cooking and wine.
i think manchester is going to be good for me. i'm glad we're back together.
still a lot of things i don't know, about why i'm back here, what job i want etc etc..but sometimes tim and coffee and a guitar is a good enough rationale for me.

manchester

i am here.
returned to the north. with hardly any of my possessions, no house to call my own and a job that i am growing to hate less everyday.
i am missing home slightly, the simple times of life with only a few friends, most of whom never ask questions that really involve thinking too much and certainly no verbal processing.
i am enjoying being with the friends i have here again, but it sure is a readjustment. they are lovely to me and they love god and teach me alot and i do laugh with them often
i am struggling to see how this is different to before though, or how i have aimed higher. i haven't, to be honest, and i am now here and trying still to find out how to do that. the job is tedious, the people there are really fun and kind but i don't want to spend the next years of my life being the one to send blood out to hospitals all over manchester
i miss fiona and nick and mum and dad
and fiona is sick which makes it all worse
i had a lovely time at claire and george;s wedding, i never saw someone look so at home in her wedding dress. the whole day was just pure fun, i laughed so much. we went up to the brdige when we finally got back to hope in the evening, and drank our wine and laughed really really hard and all talked at once and had to think of hawaiian words and cigars smell BAD and we just all enjoyed being together and being young too i think.
one of my favourite tiimes of the weekend was sitting with cate with our wine and cigarettes outside hope before the bridge. we played a superb round of hawaii-based top fives (or hawaii 5-ohs if you will) and i really think it was one of my most memorable rounds of the game ever. can;t believe she'll be gone in a week.
also loved having them all to stay at my house on friday night
i should go i'm rambling my way through the story of my last week without a care for structure of any kind
i'm glad i heard from the mallowdale gang that pride and prej is shit i shan't bother i suspected it would be awful. for scathing criticism see miss sal.
i'm off to bed. work at 8. lord above
manchester is good though, am enjoying it. so much more coffee here
loveanna x x x x

1997, without the madness

quote of the evening:

Rhett Butler: you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.

and i was. and by someone who knows how.

my sister informed me when we got home, that i will never be as good a christian as the types that i consort with, but that she's glad about that, because my life still is real and still makes sense. not sure how much that is true, or how much i would want it to be true. she is adamant that i can't rule out a future with The Boy. i beg to differ little lady. he likes me in so many of the right ways. he's good for me in alot of the right ways. if only he loved jesus....but then, who can honestly say that jesus himself isn't sitting there thinking..if only she (na) loved me...i can't judge how much someone loves him or wants to follow his ways. but i do hope that he will make my own way clear.

dear reader, please forgive the forray into the rude and vaguely lustful tones of the last two posts. it seems somewhat out of blog-character. i feel its important though. and aside from the recent random and unwelcome automated comments, this remains after all, my last bastion of honesty and processing.

i'm not sorry for it, i'm glad its happened, and i truly feel like that is it now, for me and The Boy. goodbyes said, wished granted, imaginings put to rest.

the queen bee is off to hibernate in manchester..

shire fridays..

are for me unlike any other friday.
i was granted an honorary slacker-seat at the post-work, friday evening drinks table.
the boy was also back from his holidays, tanned and taller than ever.
i haven't really blogged about him before. but then for months there hasn't been anything to say. last night he kind of said it all though, and was honest and i liked hearing it. i'm not swept off my feet but, well, i guess you could say it was one of those times when it makes being a girl worth it.
he is on the blog rounds now because he seems to be a nice conclusion in a bit of a quest that god seems to have forced me to go on lately.
its a tricky conclusion though, and one that will finish the intrigue that has been na+luke for the last couple of years.
there's just something about being valued for your brain as well as your boobs. and something about not being viewed as some kind of part-time emotional retard. and something about being admired. its not about crushes anymore. this about years of wondering if this could work.
the truth is i know its still not going to.
so what is it with me and boys at the moment...?
its like i'm having some kind of mid-life crisis. hdc says its all about narrowing the odds. (see prev. post of same title). allegedly what is happening is a refining of the idea of him. that its ok to like someone apart from one or two things, and then to realise that, for you, they are indeferable things, that you don't want to go without. with this one, its jesus.
you could say (if you were emma) that the boy is not a follower of the way.
my new word, indeferable, pretty much applies here.
as much as i can at times kid myself into thinking that i could make that work with someone, it just means that god would have little or nothing to do with it. and i love jesus for how he loves to be in our love.
if you know what i mean.
so in effect i am answering all my own questions here. well done me.
there have been others, who meet the jesus criteria, but who don't make as much sense to me as this boy does.
see...?
swings and roundabouts
pain in my ass

+/-

is how things feel just now
some good (+), some bad (-)
sorry, you're pretty smart, you could have figured that out without the key
patronisation is not a word. it ought to be
so i went to wales and manchester.
i lost a tent, a phone and some socks.
i gained a better tan, and some comfort that moving back to manchester is not as bizarre an idea as i had been shaping it into.
ok do you know what, i thought blogging would be good just now. turns out i can't think or write.
i do like the +/- thing though so i'm going to post anyway

"oops"

in the words of tom goode..

the fecundity of my mind is quite terrifying sometimes

psalm 31:08-05

you opened my eyes to your wonders anew
you captured my heart with this love
nothing on earth is as beautiful as you

hurrumph

this is merely to register my astonichment and dismay, about a simple fact.
two years i've blogged
sal, two months
this is my 91st post
she has just done her 100th
so either she just blogs one word per post, or has more noteworthy things to say than me!
it makes me feel neglectful, like i'm a part-timer who's always being inconsistent to my poor readers
i never intended it to be so, dear readers, please forgive..

george, get set for a mind-blowing afternoon..

my boss is called george.
he's actually not even here. i think he couldn't bear the thought of the inevitable emotional farewell at 5 this afternoon, so he took the day off
he's pretty much hated me the whole time i've been here. he shouts at me for asking too many questions, and is still bearing grudges from the couple of times about six months ago that i pointed out things that made him look stupid. i've paid for them dearly. he's mean and grumpy and a bit tyrannical. he used to be in the navy. i think the military does that to you, lets you just talk to pople in a way that in the rest of the world would be called plain rude. anyway he never got over it. poor guy. he really loves his wife though, and she him..its just him at work..don't get that..
this afternoon i have straightened out all my wonderous spreadsheets that i've been working on for months, and got my stuff in order, thrown alot alot of paper in the recycling and thanked my lucky stars and my lovely lord that its nearly done....
to be honest, the agency seems to me to be one of the most pointless areas of government you can imagine. its not going to last very much longer though, so all the people that work here shan't have jobs in a year or so, which is sad. good for the treasury though. 20, 000 pounds every quarter on 400 mobile phones. 10, 000 pounds every quarter on first class train travel.
madness. and they do fuck all.
however, in the last seven months i have learned...
how to be a top-class rceptionista..
how to get excel to be your absolute bitch and do whatever you want it to do
(except how to make the values in a column into the values in a row instead, or vice versa..still not managed that one..)
how to do extreme filing
how to manage george so that i only get shouted at maybe once a week
that lotus notes is the single most irritating, time-wasting pain the ass ever
how to zip files and why it helps
lots of things about changing and editing phone extensions and how to set up phone groups so people in one room can answer eachother's phones without having to leave their own desk..
how to sudoku
how to use a franking machine without breaking it
how to break a laminator
how to befriend the one lady in the building that everyone else either hates or is scared of but who seems to want to adpot me
how to get the director to help you with the crossword
what an imei number is
that coronation chicken is my most consistently favourite sandwich
that i can still laugh..alot...even when i'm at a job i hate..

i really have laughed alot. i've moaned and grumbled and slagged the place but it has been good for me in many and unanticipated ways
agency, its been a blast
over and out

wise words..

so this guy at my work just said to me while we were each smoking our cutters outside..
"you need a kick up the ass girl"
i think he's right
i want to write, he wants me to write, we've both been doing the magazine stuff, and he thinks it something i need to be looking into actually doing instead of just whittering on about
i like people like that

time is running out..

is a song which, excuse me my musically-minded peers, i have only this week discovered. a song by muse, that got into my head a few days ago and has not yet left it.
its also a statement that is rather pertinent to me right now.
i have approximately 24.5 working hours left at my current place of employment. as of friday at 5pm, i'm gonne....the agency will mourn, but it will move on. me, on the other hand, i shan't mourn for the agency, but moving on might be the problem..
to where, for what, with what and for why.....?
answers, one more time, on a postcard. i'm serious, i need counsel!
oh yeah i went back to soul survivor...! just thought i'd sneak that one in...
btw can someone please start commenting...there's a bloody commenting frenzy going on on certain blogs of note these days and i feel so left out

do you come from a land down under

again, a great song
i just wanted to note, here, even though i only just blogged, that one of the little things i'm excited about about this weekend is that i met this really cool girl last weekend who is from australia and is trying to get soul survivor and just more prayer/loving jesus stuff happening generally down there..she was super cool and made clothes and badges to sell to make money to get it off the ground there and i wanted to buy everything. i just bought two green badges.
i promise you, that was the first time, walking away from chatting to her, that i've ever wanted to go ot australia. they are having their first soul survivor hopefully in jan 2006...i think i'd like to go.
imagine, faith is so young in that nation..real vibrant fiath is virtually foetal. we are so lucky to live here where so much has gone before, where so many have already made mistakes we can learn from, or have sowed into what we can now walk as our land or created things that have become established places for god to come and infiltrate and work through.
it strikes me that the problems i have with the theology of all that stuff, with finding stuff of good or bad in the land itself, and with carrying on, spiritually, with the baton that older generations have passed down to us....well this is my problem with it all
what do you do in a land where faith in jesus has no real family tree? we can hear preach after preach on wesley or howells or tolkein and lewis and we can watch 24/7 unravel over the last five years and can go to soul survivor as grumpy teenagers and hate it but go home having pulled and having learnt something new of god that he will use in us when we're 25 and willing to listen..
a breathing, living serving church is going to emerge in australia sometime..but it has nothing to emulate..no history to either shrug off or perpetuate. (and no, hillsongs doesn't count...!)

i'm hoping to hang out with her again this weekend.

summer camp..

seems i can't get enough of the tent-life this summer
i'd wager i've actually spent more time in a tent this summer than oria, who had at its start expressed a wish to inhabit hers for the whole season.
camping while still going into work everyday was brilliant. it probably wouldn't have worked out quite so well if i hadn't have honed such amazing skills of make-up application while in a car....but thankfully i have..many years ago
anyway i am curious as to why camping is so great...when it rained last week, mid-way through the five days of camping, i had that minute-long decision maker of - how is this going to wreck the time here...? - it wasn't a hard decision...in all fairness, mud and rain at glastonbury without working showers or the potential to ever be dry again is one thing..camping with your own patio heater is quite another.
the rain doesn't have to ruin anything, in fact i love the noise of the rain pouring down when i'm tucked up in bed in my tent...its lovely.
this is quite possibly one of the most pointless posts i've ever made on here....
but when i leave work in a few hours i'm off, for another few sleeps under some plastic sticks and some canvas. the west country is in for a stormy few days, so i'm partly steeling myself here, and partly revelling in the fact that i am off, again, making the most of the summer, my youth and the three day weekend i've bagged myself...
one more week left at work and all's well. i'm learning how, in my head, to say no, so that when the end of next week comes and they ask me if i can in anyway stay one more week, i'm ready with an answer. the right answer.

i fear i may be losing the ability to blog. or at least the ability to blog to inform or entertain in anyway
dear and loyal reader, i apologise...
camping-focused prose is, i am sure, not what you signed up for.
i'm just happy about it that's all

all these things that i've done

is such a song by the killers
such a song
everytime i listen to it i'm scared, at the start, that i'll find out i'm bored of it, but it still does it for me everytime
so yeah i went to soul survivor
i had anticipated feeling awkward and cross, and out of place and frustrated with chrisitans and all the usual baggage that goes along with me at a christian event. but something happened which i think involved god teaching me how to love his people more...i am usually so enraged by the mediocrity of the songs, the blandness of the words being spoken, and irritated by the characters themselves.
i think it had a lot to do with the fact that i was with rusty, who seems to manage his own similar frustrations and its like they just help him want god more, instead of just settling for wanting church less...
it was also something to do with the fact that i was such a free agent there, not attached to any one church, denomination, group or idea..and do you know, i never once had to have the conversation of - oh so what church do you go to then - oh, well, i don't, i just love god, hang out and live my life...
not once
i enjoyed that unique feeling of being able to just talk to people - primarily the others of the smokers, not many, granted, but still fun - and not feel like a freak for making conversation with strangers, and letting yourself love them quickly..i also found something new - or actually, old, but buried - in me, while i was working on the world tribal stall in the market place..
i've secretly always wanted to be a market trader person..a bit like i've always quietly wanted to be a real gypsy..its amazing how it brings your life to a new and necessary level of interaction. yeah, granted, you're talking to people in the hope that they'll buy a drum and make someone you love richer..! but behind it all there's also the love of being amused, the sheer joy or being fully yourself with someone you met a minute ago and in a minute's time will be out of your life forever..well, til heaven..
the pesky kids who just wanted to come and play the drums everyday were hilarious. there was one that we called hawk eyes who was about 18, but devilishly attractive, and who i thought, lord, if i was quite a lot younger....and they fascinated me, these kids that just wanted to play the drums..it made them so happy, and having spent years practising together, it was always one of those rare glimpses at how well boys can really love and know eachother when they let themselves.
spending time with emily dunnett was very high up in the fun and love stakes for me too. she inspires me so much to love god and love the bible and eat it up like its all that's ever going to do her any good. which is true, and that's what i want..seeing her with jono was amazing, seeing how god can really knit two people together in ties that they enjoy, believe in, but can't explain and can only marvel at.
i bought some books about god for the first time in years..in fact, i think i generally just loved god more than i have in years..singing to him along with onehundredhours was really lush..shit word to attempt to describe it with, but there you go..there really aren't any..
having said all that, campfire times every night were the sweetest part...the illegal alcohol, the heater, the fags and the wet grass...every now and again hearing a recently-bought djembe being practised on in the distance..learning new words..making up new words..talking about prayer like its real and not just a lord of the rings-esque fantasy..wanting to know it as real..you know, those kind of campfire times..
again, who would have thought...? not me
spare me my cynicism god please

who would have thought...

i'm at soul survivor
and i don't want to leave
strange times we live in...
xxxxxxxxxx

and the five gold stars go to..

do you know, i was good at my job today..
this week has been so busy at work...moving people and all their possesions from floor to floor, in the great Rebrigading, as it has been bizarrely termed...people have been nearly rioting, and so i've been helping them pack up all their stuff, handing out name tags..counselling them that their world really isn't going to fall apart because they now have to hotdesk..
i don't know, i never wanted to be a good administrator, but now that i am, its actually strangely satisfying.
i like haring around and sorting stuff out for people and showing them how to do stuff or answering questions and fixing things that are broken
its two minutes to five, and i just wanted to register with you, that it has, against all odds, been a good week
loveanna x x

world domination..

i feel like i should have a big map and be sticking pins in it...
today has been gmail Invitation Day..have sent out loads
and all afternoon i've been getting gmail team emails saying *so and so has accepted your invitation to gmail*....hooray!!
anyone want one...?!

or maybe a week..

so i went to manchester
actually no, first, can i just say, i'm so glad its wednesday. i've been ready for this week to be over since it started, and wednesday is sure-fire evidence that the week is trying hard to be done.
i have fourteen days left at my job.
and a trip with rusty to an unnamable location before the fourteen days are up.
so yes i went to manchester and had an odd but good time. remembered just how involved life there can get, and at the same time how fun, pure fun, laughing and laughing kind of fun. friday night was brilliant, we were farewelling olivia - still can't believe that on her last night, at about 4 am, i realised for the first time that her two names could be made into bolivia....what a waste of five years
and so we had a dance and some fun chats and some useful chats and some great tops five....as it became..and then kebabs...and sang danny boy on the bus which i only remembered about yesterday...and then i realised i was glad to be moving back. at the table in ponana just towards the end we realised that in six weeks i'd be the only one of us at the table living in manchester. (not sure of the grammatical soundness of that last sentence...ought it to be *we realised that in six weeks i'll be the only one that lives...*any takers..)
i spent saturday in a pleasant succession of appointments, breakfast with claire, then with george and claire, a four hours all-told stint in the opposite bbc nero's...then patrick waite - who, since looking at his blog yesterday properly...turns out his name might actually be patrick - all confirmation or denial glad welcome..the chicken and pesto something in revolution now comes highly recommended.
now, i'd like to talk about a film which i then proceeded to watch with some friends at blair road...the day had been designated Duvet Day, although I do not recall any duvets actually being present in the end. i did have, however, a hangover, which is a horrible substitute for a duvet.
so we watched something french and i was so tired and weak that i cried because i could not read the subtitles.
so i carried on crocheting instead and i was fine.
then we watched something which, dear reader, i should like very much to discuss with you
before sunset
now, i love ethan hawke. don't get me wrong, i don't like or admire the guy, i love him, and he has held my regard for longer than any other man of my acquaintance. however this particular film was not to my liking. the wierd thing was that i should have liked it. in theory, it would be a top five contender even. nothing happens, and its visually beautiful, therefore i should love it. but no
now, either my heart has continued its steady shutdown towards and in readiness for the barren spinster life that awaits me, to the point where i cannot even enjoy the notion of others being in love any more. or it was full of predictable lines and events that my wizened cynical mind was just glad it didn't pay money to see. i don't know, but when some of the people you love most in the world are in raptures over a movie that you yourself know you should, by rights, be squealing with joy over, something's wrong isn't it?
so when the movie was done and the joy of my friends was complete. i felt i should be elsewhere. so went to see phil and laura. and what an evening. lovely, is all i want to say.
and now i am taking for my lunch a poppy- and sesame-seed bagel with slices of apple and banana
again, healthy and smug
oh still reading pride and prejudice...so cross yesterday..reading it on reception...left to go home, at the point where he's about to ask her to marry him - the first time....realised on the bus that i'd left it in work...drats.
i should go, i'm rambling again

breakfasting at one's desk...again

turns out i like bringing my breakfast to work with me.
today its nice orange juice with bits and a muffin
problam is, what with avoiding my boss, eating, checking emails and doing the morning blog round, i actually only start work right about now..10.24...
slacker
so, what news from the mark?
well, it seems i have lost all ability to type, just had to re-do this very sentence about six times.
can't believe its august

starbucks breakfast and blogging..at my desk..

granola bars are good, is my conclusion..
its the way they make you feel, man...all healthy and smug..
there's no way you could have a brownie or bit of rocky road with you misto for breakfast and feel this good about yourself.
ok have now finished both eating and one-handed typing
so harry potter six came and went...
i was done in a few days, and then cried..and cried..still don't believe its true.
ok, also i've..ooh watched pirates of the caribbean for the first time..whatever is meant to be wrong with jonny depp in that film, he plays it so well, i've never seen him funny really before...horribly attractive as ever...at one point with him and orlando bloom fighting it was all i could do to keep on looking at the screen, too much beauty at once can be overwhelming..
y, que mas...?
went to london..saw friends..felt funny...not quite at home
and now decisions must be made, about august, about september, about greenbelt and dublin and devon and santiago and manchester....and i just want someone else to decide for me...i frankly can't be bothered...but i know i'lll regret it come mid-september if wherever i am, i haven't actively chosen to be there...ie, if i just end up still being here, or if i just end up in manchester with an ill-thought-through plan and an ill-fitting job...
i need to work now..more in a minute..

a strange thing, when at last it happens..

i don't quite know what to say. i really don't want to exaggerate, it is, after all, a good thing..
but i feel odd..i've just sent my article off to the magazine....and now i feel a bit ill..! such exposure...
anyway i haven't all that much more to say on the matter, i just felt i should share..and also to thank sal, my editor-in-cheif...

narrowing the odds..

gosh look at the time.
i went out this evening, to crackers, which on a saturday night is like the shire's answer to jilly's rock world..
i love that place, no one gives a shit about what anyone thinks of them, which, round here is worse than a rarity. and people laugh, alot, and shout along with music that to most other people sounds just like people shouting..
i went with my sister and two friends..and we laughed, drank and danced
i saw some boys that were dear friends of mine at school..
and a boy was there, who last time i was there, months ago, i found myself with a big crush on and he liked me too and it was this whole thing
anyway i watched him tonight, dancing..i love watching boys dance...and with this guy, exuberant doesn't even get there..but unlike most energetic boy-dancers, he's good at it too..
and it was lost on me
i think i've learnt alot of things lately about what i desire in a man...and that guy there tonight used to embody it, but now..not so much
its being known, you see..fully known..and not just for who you are once you let out the girl within on a saturday night, but who you are when you can't sleep, and when your clothes don't fit like you want them to, and when you cry at the freakin oc, or at god because all of a sudden you remember how wonderful he is, and when you can get giddy about someone else's sunglasses..
i mean really, is there anything finer than a life of knowing god and being known by another..?
that's what i want...
so if any man can love god and simultaneously understand me and follow the guidelines found within annabegins and princes familiar then i'll know i'm somewhere close to it..

i've liked this guy for ages, and i now can confirm, that if i could write like anyone, i'd want to write like him
such powers of description and gifted storytelling
and what a story..

on behalf of the shire..

london, we love you...

nightmare..

man, trying to track down breaking news isn't as easy as you'd think
the tube seems to be a bit under siege
can't believe it, or how awful it would be to be in there
the national grid says there have been no power cuts or surges this morning, so the authorities have already been rumbled on that one
my lord, quelle nightmare..

challenge anita..

hey did you know, the maximum numbers of posts blogger will allow you in any given day, is 999....
this is my third, and that's already my personal best..
i wonder if anyone has ever done 999 and then been vetoed from further blogging until they jolly well went to bed and waited til tomorrow...
imagine..!

self-raising expectations..

contrived
affected
absurd
unnatural
dull
impersonal
cliched
predictable
uninquisitive
unoriginal
uninspiring
unanswerable
hard work
crap
can you guess what it is yet...?
that's right, folks, it s a job application form
why oh why are they all the same....!??
i started completing the form, typing away, thinking i'll go for it anyway, and try and make it to the post..then i lost all my typing
sometimes, i guess you just have to know when to quit!

i have a sensation that my next job, hopefully in manchester, is going to be really quite different (perhaps even better...?!) than the jobs i've had in the past...so today's contender wouldn't have really fit that bill anyway..
time to learn how not not just settle for the easy, dull ways of life..

i wonder how one goes about that...
i wonder how one goes about dreaming the dreams of god...?
answers on a postcard, s'il vous plait, mes amis..

a veces, la vida es mala..

which is wierd, because i guess i don't believe that life, by itself, can be cruel..but times like right now, you can't help but wonder who is..

i just found a great job...working for shelter, in manchester

the deadline is one pm tomorrow. in london.

the only way i can get it there on time is to sit at my desk all afternoon filling the form in and probably get yelled at by my boss when he catches me...
and then ask if i can leave early tonight to make it to the post office.
and then find some money on the path on the way to the post office, since i have none of my own right now and it will cost to get it there by one pm tomorrow.

see, la vida es malissima.

sod a dog........................................

five-sixteen and counting..

i am almost literally crawling my way to the end of this working day
being on reception in the afternoons sucks..you get to watch everyone else leave before you...really, everyone..
its taken me two days of this week so far to figure out that working with katie was the best thing about working here. and she's gone - after we agreed we'd leave on the same day! and then she did and i didn't...
its because i'm not brave, and i'm scared of going back to not having money.
well, something has simply got to be done..
manchester beckons, and i can't safely say it'll be no sooner than september...just need to find a job..
any ideas anyone?
wierd thing is, i sound like i'm miserable, and i'm not...or sure won't be in.......one minute!!
hurrah!
see you pals...x

the faithful dressed in white..

making poverty history is a seriously good passtime
as a hobby, i think it has lots of levels. extreme making poverty history took place in edinburgh en masse this saturday afternoon.
the splendour of seeing more people than you would ever sit and count wearing any old white clothes they owned, (or making them specially, you know..) was something i won't forget easily.
we had no bob, no bono, no bush no blair
eddie was there. as were some oddly chosen bands such as "who's this again..i recognise this" "texas" "oh of course" it was like that.
apparently merry or pippin was there too.
there was a big dress.
some riot police.
a march.
lots of kids.
yellow cranes.
too many whistles.
lots of placards kindly donated by the mirror...who's signature white writing on red background was hastily torn off every placard they had kindly donated..everywhere you went you could see their sponsorship scattered round..
hellicopters.
no drunk people.
some lovely old people.
lots of palestinian flags.
drumming.
always someone from the group missing.
lots of white sash plastic ribbon stuff that made everyone look like miss world.
and other measurements as well.
you will be hearing more about the matter from me, here

can you smell it...?!

there's something in the air....its anticipation i think, and the battle of cynicism vs idealism raging stronger than on most ordinary days..
i'm referring of course to the weekend that lies ahead, and the subsequent potential drama of just eight people sitting in a room for a few days talking about the poor countries of the world as if they were underacheiving schoolchidren.
i've been trying to figure out how that must feel..to be the premier of a small, poor but striving nation in the developing world..knowing that they are talking about you, weighing up the various merits and perils of giving you money that would save the lives of your citizens..but all the while looking at you and determining how far gone into seedy corruption you are..or maybe daydreaming about how corruptable you could be if you had something they wanted..imagine being talked about that way...
its rage isn't it..?

its time for the truth..

i know most of my (two) readers already know about this particular truth, but the notion of my moving back to manchester has retained a bizarre, dream-like quality for far too long now.
its time, i think, to just admit that it is actually what i want.
there, i've said it. and i'm excited, too.
i love the idea of loving the place i live in. and not waiting everyday for a chance to leave. i've lived thinking like that for quite a long time..except forty days in barcelona..but now that god has stormed my barricade of no ways, nevers and under no cicumstances, and brought to me the reality of him getting to choose, and me learning to love his ideas, its all looking rather new..

i don't want to be the kind of person who only agrees to something or gets excited about it if they think it was their idea first. some people would say that that sums up most of the world's men, but i say it is one of the cunningest ways that god has to get us on board. well, maybe its just me.
the fact is, i want it, now. and he wanted it first...but he has allowed me to swan around for the last two months dreaming tiny day dreams and thinking it was all my idea. these things never are though...there isn't a single heavenable dream on earth that he didn't dream first..

i was there this weekend...and oh how i laughed..i fear i may have been slightly raucous..a bit like tom p after four months of living in spain with no-one to think he was funny and then i turn up on his doorstep and he's saved up months' worth of showing off...i felt a bit like that..
..a bit like an uncaged bird..
there was cord, and beer, and old friends..and tefl friends..and rageful shopping..and new nero's..and a party full of new friends and add ben to that..kat's feet...kat being the most grand embodiment of all that kat always ought to have been but never quite was...and now she entirely is..and the sick mallowdale twins and emma and her capers and claire and her man..i lacked little...or nothing, in fact.
and then thought.....i want this, now..

la terra gallega..

well yes, happy birthday to me..
and what a birthday
i was in santiago de compostela, and you may see the feast o'photos for yourselves..
i laughed a lot, ate a lot, drank a fair bit and laid in the sunshine.
we were slightly at a loss to know what to do with our time in a rainless sdc....it struck the three of us one sunny afternoon that we'd bascially been forced into hibernation that year that we lived there...life became a daily series of scuttling from one place to the next, trying to keep the bottom of your trouser legs off the ground, avoiding getting swept along on rivers of rain, and cursing the lack of heating anywhere....
no such horror this time, the sun shone, alot alot...
i ate pulpo..still not convinced about it but i tried it. twice.
we went for another slightly less harrowing but still fun coastal drive..ended up at the naked beach..we always do, somehow it just happens...i just kept my head down, read my book and tried not to watch the overly-active strange beach tennis going on sin ropa..
my birthday was a day of being happy. i had cards over breakfast at the chicken sandwich place..then afternoon in the park..with sprinklers..and beer..
then sleeping..then eating - oh! that was the night forrest was going to arrive at midnight...just in time for the end of my birthday...so he made us swear we wouldn't be drunk when he got there. this meant we ended up having supper three times, because we ate, then went for wine, realised it was working a bit too well, had to go eat somewhere else...three times we did that..plus one time having birthday cake..and it still didn't work..we were in the weeds when the boy arrived. ah well. we went and danced in asbestos..particularly on the stage at one point, as i recall..meandered home at about six in the a.m..had a nice lie down on the ground outside..you know..
oh and timmo you will be pleased to hear i went in the cathedral
i thought it horrid. but i went.
when returning home via london i happened upon a spanish tapas place right next to where i had to wait for my bus home..happy coincidence...they served estrella galicia..and the old barmen were from galicia and they thought i was too and confusion ensued...
and i've now got that lovely feeling of knowing that the old place is still partly mine...
no rush.

makes you feel small..

stopped in starbucks on my way to work earlier for a misto and a spot of first corinthians.
look what i found..
"we speak of god's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that god has destined for our glory before time began."
what on earth...?!
sometimes the whole thing is just....baffling.....

the barfly and the scream..

ooh you just know, some days, don't you, that it'll be unlike any other..its the feeling you wish you had everyday, although if you did it would be lost on you..
anyway
yesterday hewo and i went on a ramble over to cardiff...enjoyed the *new* bridge, the car showed its low on fuel light for what claire assured me was the first time ever (imagine that catelin..!) and the signs telling you precisely when the speed cameras of the good old m4 were coming up were much appreciated..the reason for the very last minute and probably quite impractical trip was of course our dear stoney+....
and they did not disappoint..they were wonderful..
the fact was that claire and i both knew that god was about to finish us off this weekend..both had had a strange and often unpleasant six months, and both felt assuredly like it was to abruptly end, at least in its present form, but knew nothing more than that..
we dodged him most of the day today..ate good food chez mr+mrs hewo, slept, pottered about..then he cornered us.
we met with him on a hill, it - not surprisingly - was spitting, the day was grey and felt not at all like we were about to re-start 2005..
but we did, or rather he did, in a genius way. like only he can i suppose..i can't speak for hewo, but i know that for my part, i stood on a hill and he made me love him again...
and then we screamed.

today i fell in love, part two..

this evening i arrived home from work giddy, knowing that in my inbox would be a gift waiting for me..
it was a (yes, stealing, i know..) file packed full of magic numbers songs, all winzipped together like a bundle of joy
and i heard them, and it was exactly like i imagined it would be
thank you phil

unobtrusive tones..

do you know, sometimes i am struck by the way we talk to each other. this isn't negative. its just, spending time with people i know from manchester, there or somewhere else, i really notice now after six months away that there is a casual and easy manner in our voices and our words that the het-up and still relatively formal culture around us hasn't yet wholly made room for.
the life at home, with family and with friends, is somehow not as free, in vocabulary, tone or sentiment. but i received an email today which i think can highlight my meaning here. other than a greeting and ending, this was the email's entire content.
>>>>Thanks sweet pea. Come and hang out any time – knock on the door and sit your ass outside in the patio for a brew and some tunes when you’re next up.>>>>>
see? maybe you don't. this tone is normal, now, i know...but equally its not, we all like to think we are this unstructured and untempered now, but there are social codes and airs and graces that remain. i like to speak freely. that's why i like it here.

posts appear before your very eyes..

so i just went to wales. i'm always taken aback with how much i love wales, but its like the border is some kind of magic portal that absorbs some of the memories when you cross it and go back into england, so that every time you return its shocking how beautiful it is.
me and sal cleaned the house on saturday and then left, had the funnest drive we've had in years together, took a wrong turn at wrexham (ah well) and ended up going the slightly longer way to our holiday...but the hills, i daresay mountains, were wonderous..we sang like ginny, smoked like old women and were quiet when appropriate..see, sa is one of those few people whose appropriacy when it comes to silence so often coincides with my own. and when the two of us are silent, its not as surprising and outsiders would imagine. i can see their problem, two of the most chatty people they know, in a car, for hours, mostly quiet. never. but yeah, and it works and its good for us. i think it got me ready for the days ahead.

my favourite single minute of the holiday was the last morning, communion just ending, mrs p singing like it was 1965, about the united nations letting my people go, rusty playing his drum like he's heard the song a hundred times before, and people singing. just singing, making up their own words, no acetates around, just singing about people being let go.
and then after that the jollities of BH Monday ensued, monday lunch at the pub, laughs with dan cate mrs p me and rusty, then more beach with lying around.
the beach on saturday was so much fun. the deep well of a sand dune we found ourselves secluded in was perfect..we had enough space to be friends together or friends in corners or up hills on our own. the time on the very top with mrs p telling her life story, what an epic, then emma cowan telling hers and people sitting around suddenly realising they did understand her...is there anything finer than a life story told in an hour that is so honest that all it takes is an hour....well done indeed girls...
the first night i was hugged more than i can remember being hugged before.
garden state with duvets at 2am on the sunday night was such a treat.
midnight frisbee with sal in the middle was hilarious on the saturday night.
peeling potatoes with emma and claire in the kitchen was a definite highlight for me.
and finally the drive home with rusty and the tired beer drinking that followed in the shire was the nicest way to finish it all..more stories, alot more laughing, you know, following the general theme
friendship is marvellous.

a well-masked past..

last night my dad went up in the loft to find something, and came back down with boxes of things so familiar to me, it was as if a 13 year old na had been hidden up there, and he'd found her.
oh man, the hours that followed i spent reading, laughing, really laughing, viv-thornton laughing....
the box of letters, notes, secrets and epic sagas written and passed between myself and friends in class.....talking about what we'd do at lunch...or what we had done at lunch..mainly involved finding the best vantage point from which to stare at certain boys..naming not one name here..they had code names anyway...journals covered on one side with the beatles' picture and the other thom yorke's...mixed tapes...ballet shoes...dt coursework...school tie..earrings...oh lord..but there is one thing that has left me giggling inwardly all day..ok..i'm not sure how to tell this one..bear with me..it was primarily on the part of my sister (the box was half her stuff too) but i believe i had initially led her into it.....and the evidence was all uncovered in that one box.....we sat on my bed last night, in pyjamas, laughing until we felt sick......i can't believe i'm about to blog this..it was 1994 man, there's no excuse for it i know, but well it was a boyzone thing.
i hid it, really quite well, i think.....i loved blur, i was at mile end.....i screamed country house at anyone who was rooting for roll with it, i looked like the hippy my mother had been in '72...i wore my hair in two plaits and a doctor marten on each foot..(yeah yeah they were still cool then). and yet this secret lurked, all the while, threatening to expose me as a fraudulent 'alternative' type. i loved shane lynch, he was my favourite...fiona loved keith duffy....well, at least my one isn't now in coronation street..
so there you are, i could elaborate. i won't
it passed, by the end of fifth year...then sixth form came along with all the boys, cigarettes, essays on the cuban missile crisis and virginia woolf you can imagine...they were happier days, i had no musically-criminal secrets to keep guarded any longer. it was 1997 and we only knew good music. as miss w will attest, music has not been that good since, so i was safe from having to look elsewhere, i mean not only was the music good, those indie boys were lush.....man, hands up who's favourite year was 1997..