There are times....

...when life gets about as tough as it gets and you just have to hide away for a while.


I'll be back.

Postcardland

Sometimes I forget that there is life beyond my window...
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Gwithian village with Godrevy lighthouse in the background. The sea fog receded but will roll in again late afternoon.
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Gwithian church
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parts of the church date from the 13thC
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I wouldn't mind resting here
.Around the corner to Fisherman's Cove
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Just before Hells Mouth. The warm air was full of the coconut smell of the yellow gorse.
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Shades of blue - no wonder artists flock here.
.Jealous (for once) of that bloody seagull.
Can you smell the salt?
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It's the weekend....

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...the sun is shining. I should be happy.
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...but I have to cut the cut the grass - it's a jungle out there.
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Maybe I'll just lie down a while and talk rubbish in my comments box.

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Spam fritters and meme soup

I love the caring, sharing world of the interweb. Every morning I have a plate of spam for breakfast.
This morning Eleanor Pook enquired if I would like 3 months supply of viagra. No doubt she was in cahoots with Barnabus Ribble who kindly asked if I would like a bigger dick (apparently I can make the ladies moan if I am adjusted accordingly).



In the old days spam came in the form of revolting fritters, packed full of dodgy bits of meat(?). Today it means that you get all sorts of offers from kindly people who are selling a multitude of 'must have' things - so exciting.
Many of these wonderful salespeople have not only been concerned with the size of my wedding tackle but they are also worried that I might not have a genuine fake watch. The worrying thing is that I appear to be sending myself some spam from my website - how did I do that, it's a miracle?

Now, some memish soup.....


Lee Lowe, bless her mortal soul, had tagged me. I should be spitting on her blog but I will do it, just this once because it's bookish (did I say that last time?). So...

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells is my nearest book to hand (research, okay?). The 5th sentence falls under the title Papyrus Hieroglyph Spell...

Crocodiles, like snakes, are simultaneously fearsome, dangerous creatures and potent symbols of psychic protection. Pregnant Isis, after all, hid in the crocodile infested swamps of the Nile Delta. In ancient days the papyrus plant was a hieroglyphic emblem for Lower Egypt. It also served as a protective emblem from crocodiles, lending new meaning to Moses' cradle on the Nile, made from papyrus.

So now you know. A piece of swampy weed will keep you from losing a valuable limb, or two, and may allow you to grow up to be able to part more than just your hair.

Tag victims. Oh poot, I hate this bit.

Roberta - because I am just checking that she is awake.

JohnG - to test if he reads more that just dirty jokes.

Soubriquet - bound to be interesting

G&G - ditto, and he gives me some good reading tips.

Leslie - because she likes crocs and dragons

and the rest of you can spill your reading secrets in the box.

Conditioner

"Ladies and gentlemen, the train now standing at platform 1 is just having a little snooze and will be leaving just as soon as it is ready. We apologise for the inconvenience."

I would like to be more inconvenient but my head conditioner thinks that waking up at 6.30 every morning is the thing to do. I have tried giving myself a good talking to, turning the foul alarm off and staying awake until the wee small hours - but my mind is a temple to the Holy Timetable and suggests that Saturday morning should be savoured from the start.

Grrrr.


Before children (B.C) my body overruled my work ethic, leaving me to catch up on the missing sleep and make the repairs necessary for a line-free face. What happened?

The Holy Timetable is responsible, of course. That inner git who can't remember that it is Saturday and that the worky constraints of the week have been lifted. It thinks I want to get up and do a spot of home work.
Big Fecker has no trouble sleeping through a number of meals (hoovering, house demolition, end of the world etc) and rising just in time to enjoy the sunset. When exactly did I lose this talent? When did I kick this wonderful habit and replace it with a need to experience the dawn of a Saturday morning?

I am therefore placing a hex, an embargo, a giant sized fatwa on Saturday mornings - any suggestions, apart from the use of illegal drugs (well...) will be gratefully received.

Granny Annie

It was only in later life that I realised that Annie was a little potty. As a young child her slightly unconventional ways went over my head and straight to my heart. I loved my grandmother.

She was born in a place called Inner Hope and her family were a 'bunch of theivin' rascals', merchant seamen who made a career of dying early in unchartered waters. Inner Hope lacked any hopeful males so she moved away and married Stanley (whose family were never spoken about) and had four children. My mum was the youngest until Annie embarrassed the whole town by getting pregnant at 49. Maybe the madness set in then.

Apart from the weird hats she used to wear, Annie looked like anyone else's granny (twinset and pearls, two underskirts and a pair of long drawers). It was only when she opened her mouth that you got some inkling of the 40-a-day, card sharp that she was.
I loved staying with her, sleeping in an iron bedstead that hugged me all night and sitting with her on the spin drier to stop it walking around the kitchen by itself. I once helped her liberate some pigs from the field at the end of the garden but I never helped her bury the yappy dog from next door that had strangely died by flinging itself under a plant pot.

Her winter years were an excuse to wear her dressing gown in public and to help herself to mars bars from the shop down the road (my dad paid her chocolate bill every week). There are many stories about my grandmother that make me smile but 'Annie goes missing' is my favourite.
We arrived at her flat to find it empty. We could hear a radio blaring somewhere but she was nowhere to be found. After checking all the local shops in case she was on a thieving expedition we noticed that her bedroom window was open. At 85 she had climbed out onto the flat roof with her deck chair and was happily listening to music.
"The old biddies next door were making a noise so I came out here for some peace".
(It should be noted that the 'old biddies next door' were only in their sixties!)

Granny Annie definitely wore purple - I hope I shall do the same.



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Warning: Do not attempt to get out of bed

It started out all right, but I am easily fooled these days.

A food hygiene course doesn't exactly tickle my excitable bits but it could have been worse.
"Do we know where we are going?" my colleague asked.
I assured her that although we hadn't been sent a map I had (albeit vague) directions. Penzance is a small town, how difficult would it be to conceal a chapel? Very, apparently. Someone had moved the chapel and replaced it with a a housing estate.

I was calm. We weren't late and had time to ask a few people. The people we asked seemed reluctant to tell us (language was obviously a problem in a foreign town) or sent us off everywhere but there. We accosted some bin men (Umm, rubbish technicians, I meant) but they didn't know and neither did the police (worrying). To cut a really long 'now we're half an hour late' story short we rang home and after five phone calls we found the chapel hall, sneaked in commando style, got caught, apologised, won over the tutor with a winning smile and resigned ourselves to having missed coffee.

While trying to focus on what was being said and not thinking up a hundred hex's on everyone I knew, I realised that the table was juddering. The guy sat next to me was shaking. I looked around and saw that everyone in the room was wearing five layers of clothes (except shakey boy next to me). Within ten minutes frost bite had set in. I rarely dress appropriately for any occasion and today was no exception. The Victorian hall was at least -30 and it would be foolish to say that I am exquisitely happy when I am cold. I sulked all morning and only brightened a little when lunch was announced. Ooooh, I imagined hot soup, hot bread, hot, hot, hot, but it came disguised as a soggy sandwich and a piece of cake that required a pneumatic drill. Hygienic it may have been but they gave us about ten minutes to eat it and then I had to run two miles to feed the car park meter (again).

The afternoon lurched between feeling my toes and not. I learned about serving hot food at the right temperature but could barely keep my own above arctic conditions. With my brain in danger of freezing completely and the thought of a hefty fine if the meter was not fed I announced to the tutor that we had to go.
"You have to do your exam in order to pass the course" the smug bastard said.

I have probably failed, miserably. Getting killed by staphylococcus aureus (fuck, I learned something) was preferable to dying coldly in a foreign town.
The day was a disaster, I really shouldn't have got out of bed and I should be looking forward to staying in mine tomorrow. Unfortunately today was only Part 1 and tomorrow I have to do it all again!

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Captionaction

Did you fart, Muriel?


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Vegetating

The other day, while tucking into a mixed salad for lunch, one of the children I work with pointed at a red pepper and said 'Ugh, I hate them'. As he stuffed another chocolate biscuit in his mouth he went on to list a hate of most vegetables. 'Does your mum cook them at home?' I asked.
'No.' he said 'She doesn't like them.'

(caulisheep)

So how much do we influence our children's eating habits? I looked to my own family. With two meat-eaters and two veggies I suppose we are exposed to a variety of foods everyday. I have only consciously deprived them of parsnips and prunes (I blame that one on school dinners). Other than that, between us, we eat most of the world's garden.
I am not righteous about food, my vegetarian habits come from a stomach that cannot cope with meat rather than moral issues. I do, however, try and provide a healthy balance. I steer clear of meat that doesn't look like meat, preservatives, enhancers, colours, or stuff that makes yer bread last for a month (Saint Minx!).

(cabfish)

The Feckers made their own names for veg - trees = broccoli, naked trees = cauliflower, fart bombs = sprouts, grass = cress. They didn't like mushrooms until they were in their teens but I never told them that they didn't like them, only that they hadn't grown into them yet. I also assured them that they liked everything (I had no time for fads) and that chocolate was a vegetable!

So my theory of a healthy eating regime for your children is... tell them lies.

Now, shut up, sit up, and eat your pepperfrogs.


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More cute veg can be found HERE


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Shopping in style

It bothers me sometimes that our supermarkets and shops do not look like this any more. I can more than imagine the smells that emanated from this establishment - tea in proper tea chests, tins of powdered Colman's mustard, loose biscuits and slabs of ham squatting on cold marble.
And when exactly did our shopkeepers stop wearing sheets?


Did it become so terribly old fashioned to hang dead bodies in the street?Meat waving about in the wind is surely more healthy that being double wrapped in plastic?


When did we stop giving our shops interesting names and was it so politically incorrect to have men's and women's outfitters?


Even the sellers of boots for public benefit wore sheets and hung their lighting with style.



When did we stop being able to buy a quarter of sherbert oranges from a glass sweet jar and ten Player's (Only Player's please so much!) at the same time?



And even petrol was served from interesting looking gizmo's (these are local pumps and are about to be restored).


Memories please.....

Yes, but who the fuck is driving?

Bugger.
This is book number six and why has no one thought to tell me the rules? I am once again flying by the seat of me drawers (stops for a minute to examine very stupid last statement and carries on regardless) and have been taken over by the mysterious hands which obviously don't belong to me.
I suppose it is not cool to admit that one is taken over by unseen forces but the fact of the matter is that my ghostly writer often writes crap and I have to start all over again. The hands are also not terribly good at spelling, much less editing anything as we (we?) go along but I have been wondering if I could pop off on holiday and leave them to it.

I have romantic thoughts that my 'ghost writer' might be Daphne. My solid reasoning tells me that Ms Du Maurier only lived a few miles away, she's dead, and she probably misses writing. Unfortunately my solid reasoning also informs me that I have not ever, to my knowledge cobbled together a sentence like "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again". I may have touched on "Last night I went down the chip shop" or possibly "Last night I dreamt of chocolate again" so maybe Daffers is resting in peace and has no interest in how my next chapter is going to shape up.

The fact is that my writing is increasingly becoming an out of body experience. Somewhere along the line I have got the engineers in and made a bypass around the headland. I should be embracing this thing but it scares me sometimes; traffic moves at an incredible speed and only just misses the road works and blocks. Without the head police in control I turn into a boy racer with a hatchback and an ear bursting stereo. It also bothers me that I never know where the current writing road is going much less who the fuck is driving.

Oh well, the next signpost says Chapter 13 - unlucky for some. Suppose I'll go and make some tea and wait until it's finished.

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The yeah, yeah sisterhood

At 4pm the days work will be done. The house cleaned, shopping stashed and all the other ghastly Saturday jobs will have been accomplished for another week. At 4pm this Saturday the door knocker will announce the beginning of another Gin Club meeting. The girls are coming!

Me girls. We have seen each other through births and deaths, fatness and thinness, beginnings, ends and all the mucky bits in between. For nearly thirty years these exceptional women have held my head above water on many occasions. Lending their love and support through the horror of my parents quick deaths and the nights when my children refused to do what the book said.

Our Saturday afternoon Gin Co-operative evolved from our men deserting us in favour of some windswept pitch and a pair of disgustingly muddy football boots. We whiled away the hours adding gin to a pot of tea until we had solved the problems of the week.
They are friends who listen as much as they talk, never judge or disapprove and have an uncanny ability to turn up when I need them most. They are my unpaid therapists, my miserable bitches, my lovely, lovely girls. I am lucky to have friends like this.
I wonder what the nursing home will make of us?


"And when there is mischief in the world, will you turn your back and tut disapprovingly, or will you pour and gin and put the world to rights with the best women in the universe."

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Weight

A weighty weight
of polished sand,
sits upon
my thoughtful hand.
The light refracts,
slips and slides
distorting bubbles
deep inside.
No fairy liquid,
or snowfall shakes,
just a coloured sphere
that paper waits.

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There is this book.....

....that is begging to be written.

So I am.

And I will.

For a while.

Hepworth

Having a friend to stay from out of town often means a lovely excuse to dip into local culture. Apart from showing Linda every sheep on the southern peninsula we also found time to have lunch in St Ives and wander around the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden.


It's not often that I rave about sculpture, or any art for that matter, but this is something special and every time I visit the garden there is always something new to see, some new angle to discover.
Barbara Hepworth was unique. A close friend of Picasso, Henry Moore and married to the artist Ben Nicholson, Hepworth became part of the close knit St Ives set producing some of her finest work.


Trewyn Studio was both home and studio. The large garden became a canvas for her work, showing the natural form and fluidity that reflects the 'pagan' coast that surrounded her home.



The installations in the garden change with light and season.Barbara died in 1975 but her amazing art goes on and is a delight. It is well worth a visit if you are down this way.