good evening pals....

and hello from the sunny west country!

so, my new town is as fun and funner than i hoped it would be......there is a cider bar on a boat, a lovely cathedral with a seat in it dedicated to my great-grandparents, a very cute old-town section of the city centre which i had never seen before i arrived, and a general feeling of a city full of all-age working-holidaymakers! i'm not sure if its the amount of water in the city or just the slightly higher average temperature than life in the north, but it really does feel like living in a holiday town......on my first weekend here i went roaming round town on the saturday, and got pleasantly lost.....weirdly feeling very at home and not at all daunted.....and i have continued to feel that way.......the early evening i a particularly nice time to be out on the little high street that is the centre of my neighbourhood....its like a whalley-range, hulme kind of high street with one of everything and lots of people out and about, alot of whom are from alot of different countries and seem to add their own ingredients to the general feel of ease and slow-walking.....no-one seems to be in a hurry here.......haven't found my coffee place yet, but that's ok, these things sometimes take time.....the cider boat is enough to be going on with for now! i love it.....and me and roz went out for tea one night and wound up in a place that looked, felt and tasted like it should have been on the sea-front in barcelona, which cannily enough is where we were the last time we had dinner together!

as for the job, well......can you imagine a happier anna than one who gets to study maps of iraq, learn about the kurdish people, study unhcr statistics and send letters to the home office and various embassies all in one morning's work?! i imagine not......last week i was mainly learning about what happens to people who find themselves in the Uk as victims of human trafficking, and what if anything can be done to assist them once they escape their captors...turns out that by law we can't do all that much, which makes me hopping mad to say the least...victims of trafficking do not automatically qualify for refugee status or other forms of national protection, since they still have to prove a well-founded fear of persecution on their return home, to gain such a status......i would say that having been sold by your own family would be grounds for a pretty huge amount of fear, but actually its fear of having nothing to go back to, much more often than it is fear of persecution...........anyway i have a job now which allows me to help see the system circumvented, one case at a time, seeing the rules navigated round and the rule makers confounded by how flimsy their own rationales are shown in public to be......i love it.......and they all drink real coffee....i have never seen such a frequently-used cafetiere...this makes me happy....

as for the man, well, i can honestly say that i am embarrassingly in love...lately its all got much, much worse, as i think we are both starting to allow ourselves to dream a future together into being and its pretty darn fun i can tell you.....

....my new housemates are still getting to know each-other, one only having been born of the other two weeks ago....they are doing well, especially when one isn't howling and the other has got some sleep.....

come visit me....! as my friend joe said to me when we met for a pint or two last week, 'it's a hip-happy-town, you're gonna love it!'

how did it take me so long

to realise that what a i need is a jolly good blog session...

this evening shall be dedicated to just that...

no joke - again

today, at work...i read a referral form which said

Country of Origin:- Dominican Republic of Congo

honestly!!
people need to stay in school, this is disgraceful!!

no joke...

today at work, someone honestly, literally wrote on a referral form

Country of Origin: Stockport

the uncertain triumph of a talented young baker...

"i freakin rocked that cake...well i think...."

- cate thornton, on her lime and coconut cake of yesterday...

see...?

see what percentage of women hate ironing, but do it anyway?

all for the love...

me, i love ironing!!

 

j'adore the ons...

testing, testing...

would you pass?

i failed, dismally...

 

some nights..

...only 'you split the earth' by delirious will do for my ears
it truly is one of the most beautiful songs i have ever heard

seriously

this is a genuine conversation i just had with someone at my work...


me: bbrrr its cold!

other person (OP): i'm going to get us all some get chips at lunch-time, that'll warm us all up

me: oh, no chips for me thanks, i'm having soup

OP: oh, i thought you liked chips, i've seen you eating chips!

me: yes, but I'm putting a stop to chip-eating

OP: why, are you going on a diet?

me: not exactly, just trying to make better lunch-time choices!

OP: well, i tell you what, i wish i was as big as you, wouldn't be so cold then would i..?

me: no, i suppose not


seriously....

anna's top fifty smiling songs...

a while ago a friend asked for a list of happy songs, that she could download...i just found it! for your itunes treat-yourself perusal... artist	song
morcheeba	rome wasn't built in a day
nitin sahwney	promise
bjork	more to life than this
guillemots	made up lovesong
the killers	mr brightside
get cape, wear cape, fly	call me ishmael
the hippos	wasting my life
feist	mushaboom
kathryn williams	no-one takes you home
elbow	station approach
the kooks	matchbox
john mayer	clarity
jason mraz	no stopping us (live, from the tonight, not again album)
blur	there's no other way
the feeling	fill my little world
frou frou	its good to be in love
india arie	wonderful
julia harris	ha ha
busted	britney
simon and garfunkel	keep the customer satisfied
t-rex	ride a white swan
ben harper	oppression
counting crows	hanging around
otis redding	try a little tenderness
james	laid
new radicals	you get what you give
jamiroquai	return of the space cowboy
sheryl crowe	love is a good thing
feist	secret heart
five iron frenzy	dandelions
g love and special sauce	baby's got sauce
feeder	buck rogers
john mayer	83 (live from the any given thursday album)
lamb	angelica
stoney	hands hold the stars
lemon jelly	spacewalk
magic numbers	forever lost
neil mcsweeney	long way round
nina simone	I got life
the police	so lonely
counting crows	murder of one (live acoustic)
simon and garfunkel	baby driver
stevie wonder	as
ryan adams	New york
van morrisson	bright side of the road
cornershop	brimful of asha
john mayer	sucker
elvis presley	suspicious minds
blur	tracey jacks
simon and garfunkel	feelin groovy

brisk

i had a bit of rage earlier
i had to do some pretty fierce negotiating with some people at work, i also got cross about something that made me cross, and i was also feeling harrangued. and frustrated. and a bit caged. and, well, you know....its february....
so as lunch time drew near i knew that i needed the air of outside rather than the air of inside.

and so i went for a small walk and admired once more my favourite building in manchester.....
isn't she a beauty?

i was calmed, and aired and breezed and therefore simply alright again.

ps: journal update: maybe i just need a nice new pen.......

manchester evening views

i took this photo shortly before the aformentioned idiocy occurred this evening....
as i left work for the walk to town, this was what greeted me...

ps: journal update: not sure what's going on, but.....well, maybe in my head, i went too far....maybe the bok is just too nice to write in....?!

all out of character

so today i walked into a door
i am the woman who walked into doors.

seriously, i was about to go into pop cafe, which i actually don't like all that much because i think its up its bum, but i wanted a nice new/old purse, so i thought i'd chance it.
bad idea. literally there was not a sticker, not a sign, not a smear on the full-glass door.......and so how was i to know that before me was a fairly impenetrable object. particularly impenetrable to an unsuspecting, un-shielded, -unprepared forehead.
.....swearing ensued, and severe, pain-diminishing shame took me to a whole new place of embarrassment...

and then i thought - well, that was out of character!
and then i thought - what a stupid thing to think!
but its actually true..i generally don't drop things or fall down or trip over. i rely on our sal for that sort of entertainment....
anyway it felt weird to do something that i don't normally do
but then, who does normally walk into doors?

ps: journal update: NOPE! nothing! zip! zilch! nada!

am now purely six word thinker

so this morning on the -today- programme they featured a book/a thought/a movement concerning -six word memoirs-

it began with hemingway....if you don't know the tale, it is thus:
our pal ernesto once made a bet, probably with some other literary, bar-propping-up type, that he could write a story in just six words.
-surely not?!- i hear you cry -it can't be done!-
well, it was done, and his story was this:
For Sale: Baby shoes - Never worn

he won the bet
it also nearly reduced me to tears!

the idea has translated into a book, via a us magazine invitiation extended to the public to write one's life-story in just six words. or a six word representation of you and your full story. and basically, throughout the course of the day, my mind has to one extent or another (depending on what else i am supposed to be doing at the time!) been somewhat consumed with the notion.

all i have come up with so far are the following, neither of which fully satisfies me but which i will own to you just now for the sake of learning to air one's ideas when not yet perfected!!

raised catholic - found the escape hatch!
and
the art of pottering: pleasurable utility

i challenge you, my friends, to look upon this and feed your six-word imagination!

ps: journal update: all out of literary juices today (six words, see...?!)

literary incentives..

so i bought a new journal today

i spent £15.99 on it

i can't possibly justify this amount of money, except to say this: i need the motivation. i bought a paperblanks one, because they are the best (none of this moleskin molery!!) and within the paperblanks range, i bought the most beautiful one available. why? because i need the motivation...am not sure at what point i began to need motivation to write....it worries me slightly....

anyway, i am going to endeavour to journal, and for £15.99, it had better be good!

(aside: oh crikey i'd better not spell things wrong! you can't scribble things out in a £15.99 journal, can you? are there rules? yiesh.....where's that tippex...?!)

sensory memory..

in cat's eye, which we read for english a-level, she has this whole theory that we remember through smells...

when chez vino a few nights back, i had a cup of chai...i haven't had one since heald place...and before i knew it, as i stood outside their barn door, having a little smoke and enjoying my chai, i was transported, after a split-second of shutting my eyes, to that big, dirty, roomy, draughty, cluttered, newspaper-strewn, love-filled kitchen.....and to iain, and kates, and a thousand crosswords not finished, and to experimental cooking, and library books everywhere, and reluctant jazz and it was so, so vivid....

the smell of tents does the exact same thing to me.......i remember such vivid things of summers spent in tents....strong feelings, wordless ones, at that........fancing a boy, fearing my fat, being told about periods, being bored out of my mind with hanging out with my family, stuff of endless twelve-year-old summers....

in microserfs, when dan and karla are a few months into their fledgling relationship, and they start practising their shiatsu skills on each other, karla tells him about her theory, of how we store memories in different parts of our bodies....she'd go for his lower back, and suddenly he'd be crying...unconsciously re-living some childhood sadness....the left foot, and out of nowhere he'd feel about seven years old....

me, i wear my lovely new boots and walk along, en route to work, and am cast back to three years ago.....when i had similar boots (they turned out to be rubbish..these, however, shall be lovely for a long time...) but they make a similar sound, the inner-lining feels the same as that other pair...and so i'm cast back....a split-second of closed-eyes and i'm in cheltenham, walking from the turkish lunch place back to work, another stamp on my card, another box of falafel and salad ready for eating, another tedious afternoon of working for fat george and the mindless aims of the facilities department...a snapshot of the time i first had those boots........

the other day i had a cherry muffin, and i was memoretically moved instantly back to the same sort of time, those nine months of taking the 94 bus over from gloucester to cheltenham, stopping off at this horrid but hilarious (minging-)-coffee place on the way from the bus to work, even though it invariably made me even more late than the A40 had already done, and the really fat, very camp old guy who worked the counter there, where they sold the exact same muffins made by the same company, same packaging, as i found in one of the shops on oldham street the other morning......and i tasted the cold springtime of 2005 in one bite......

and when i hear even a few seconds of any song from the takk.. album by sigur ros, i am thrown into a momentary seizure of excitement/fear/purpose/waiting/lusting/and eventual resultant sadness, as it takes me to this time last year, the jt/valentine/history of love saga.......


and with none of these examples is it a slight or inconsequential meeting of then and now, it stirs me everytime, i guess its what the word -evocative- is for....but when one sense recalls the memory, the other four, plus heart = a second or a minute of almost being there, then, almost being who i was then, almost wanting what i wanted then, or almost dreading what i then dreaded.....bodies are amazing things, but memory...man, that's something else...

history repeating..

so i was given a book for christmas, which i know for a fact sat on a shelf,  a vivid and terrible temptation to the giver, for about six weeks before the day of its giving...for it is a tantalizing prospect...the history of britain in 'impartial' narrative..the impartiality is brought about by the cunning means of sarcasm and childish humour. it really does nearly work! its awesome. the guy wrote the book for people who weren't paying attention in history class at school. it turns out there really isn't another time in your life that you can readily get a history education, if you didn't happen to be listening in in second-year juniors when they were harping on about tudors, vikings and whatnot.....and so this book takes you through whatever's been going on in this fabled isle whether you've known about it or not...and its ace!! 

so, an impartial history of britain..read it..get an education..laugh...hop on!!

gone away is the bluebird..

what a lovely christmastime i had.

possibly my favourite ever....no-one died, no-one had an ambulance to the house on christmas day, no-one argued with anyone, the grandparent unit only stayed for four days in place of the usual two weeks..there was much merriment, much game-playing...alo-o-t of laughing...steam trains, presents and pubs, word-up..........one thing was missing....i didn't do my usual -slope off on my own for a while most days to feel a bit sad-.........none of that......i just enjoyed...and laughed and felt content....i smile as i type this.....i feel less scrambly. i feel almost never sad.......christmas, for most of my grown-up years, has been tinged with a slight but very conscious sadness...i think due to singleness and christmas being a bit of a nightmare combination, and so for me to experience my first christmas as another's beloved...was pretty wonderful.



i love my family. have i mentioned that as we stroll these hallowed halls together before?! i really do just love them. my dad is such a dote. i catch him looking at me now and there relief and blessing and approval in his smile....he feels that i am happy. he is so aware of it. he comments on it, but only quietly...however, when i'm not around, he continues to tell the whole town about me and steve. i find this very funny.........my mother has never been more relaxed at christmas than she was this year, which makes life automatically funner for the rest of us....she was overjoyed to have 'all those boys' around the place - all those boys being steve, jimmy williams an of course her very own nicholas patrick. she is never happier than when the chickens are all under one roof..........and as for the rest of them, they are lovely.



and now its back to work and diets and giving up smoking (on weekdays) and feeling like a total cliche for trying to overhaul myself in the first two weeks of the year, knowing full-well that it won't last...so in order to avoid the full-on cliche i am maintaining my friendship with chocolate.



i feel strangely relaxed as the year begins. i think maybe because i actually have some idea about what i think may transpire for me this year, which is a sensation i've never once had before. it is also terrifying, as it all affects and is affected by the boy, and all concerns us making wise decisions about geography and jobs and schools and such......terrifying because, i am realising, it is trickier to relinquish one's independence that i had anticipated. not the giving of love and affection, but the remembering to tell the other that you have certain plans this week, or just the beginning of wanting to include them in your decision-making etc.......bizarrely i watched the penultimate episode of the west wing last night which concerns cj and danny and this very subject - the transition from lone wolf to inclusive partner....and i haven't exactly lived a solitary, bloody-minded existence for my grown-up life so far...some would say, looking in at our little corner of the world, that we have become mildly incapable of making decisions on our own! but....giving up what little Independence i do have is not hard, exactly, it just requires thought and attentiveness and mindfulness on a whole new scale.....so back to last night's episode....poor old danny, in the 'wing, he is trying to forge a future with our very own cj, while baffled daily by her seeming abject inability to consult him or even consider him as a major part of her life, all the while making her booty calls and secretly wishing she knew how to love him......they figure it out, obviously, and the guy who plays george mason in 24 makes her an offer that looks like its going to get her out of politics, so everyone's a winner.......so for me, watching that, it was quite heartening really, to see that i have not gone quite so far down the road towards emotional unilateralism as one might have suspected........however i do like my kitchen cupboards to be arranged in a certain way. and i do have very strict radio two and radio four schedules around which dances the rest of my day.....and i cannot understand why you wouldn't just pick the bath mat up off the floor and perch it over the corner of the bath, airing and drying all by itself...

but hey-ho, if you can't share your weird habits then what's it all about hey?
i gotta go
its nice to be back...love you xx

most wonderful time of the year?!?!

some might say so

and i am one of them

its the christmas markets as of today, people, and i am so excited. five pm today, watch me, i'm gone, down that oldham road, across town and then i shall delve into the christmassy, cosy, colourfully-lit wonderland of albert square...the smells and the laughing and the -I WANT THAT-s and the -ooooooh look at that brooch!just looks it it!-s and the bratwurst which i like the smell of and the idea of but not so much the eating.

saddle up friends, we are in for a glorious thirty-nine day sleigh ride to the fun and food of christmas...follow me, its going to be a good one!!

so..

tonight i am going here

(the cafe rene, gloucester..)

to drink some of this:

(several pints of draught weston's stowford press...west country in a glass..)

and hang out with the

(bear, the...lovely)

and then tomorrow, joy of joys, we are going here:

(westonbirt arboretum...in autumn...with a lovely man...also with nick+ang...day of fun....followed by fireworks at the docks in gloucester..and more stowfords...and then poker at rob and amy's.....can you imagine how giddy i'd be right now if i weren't so tired...?!)

not long now...

less=more

so right now the leaves are giving up on the trees. they're falling away, and leaving the tree behind..they gotta go...and they go so beautifully. there really wasn't any need for god to make it so, was there?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

LOOK!!!!!

whoop!!

steve is going to be here tomorrow.
can you believe it?!

ok these are some of the things i like about him

he is funny. in a way that i'm not sure other people find funny but in a way that i certainly find funny.
he has the greyest of grey eyes which i had never thought to be a good thing but am now converted.
he is very kind and thoughtful. not in a make-you-a-card girl way, just in a thoughtful-boy way
when he is next to me i feel tiny. and after a lifetime of feeling like a big fat giant, my joy at experiencing this delightful sensation cannot be overstated.
he is full of fun facts to know and tell......as many of you will know, while i appear to be quite bright, am in fact a dunce at knowing how things work etc. he's good in explaining hows and becauses.
he witters. almost as badly as me
he knows alot of words. it won't surprise you to know that i find a wide range of vocabulary a pleasing attribute in a man.
ok sorry you probably didn't need all that....i'm done now don't worry

so i keep doing this thing lately, where when i'm in work and walk past one of our many unsold mirrors, or am in the bathroom about to clean my teeth, or in my room about to straighten my hair..............i turn to the mirror and i'm smiling. before i get there, already smiling. its become a bit of a feature.

a strange thing, when at last it happens.....

happy happy birthday.....

to fiona jane ezra hayward....

twenty-two today...

and a beauty, to be sure....

love you fifi trixabelle!!xxxxxxx