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.