Journeying

"If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad"

- (Jane Austen)

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams"

- (Dr Seuss)




I never usually bother to search for a seat on the train. I like sitting in the little compartment between carriages. No bustle. No passing victims of obesity to squeeze back against the window in respect of. No reproachful stares when "Gloria" loudly and unexpectedly drum-rolls into climax, and you hastily lower the volume feeling like a martyr to musical fulfillment. Plus it's fun painting nails in solitary, crouching unobtrusively in the rumbling joints of the train, watching the world flash by like milestones to placate my impatience. There's a certain satisfaction in letting open pots of varnish fumigate my own little plot while my speakers set to work dispersing invisible double-quaver symbols over the click-clack-crash of the wheels&tracks mash-up.

Of course,when seatlessness is complusory due to an overly full quota of irritated passengers, it is a less enjoyable experience. Especially when you're pressed up against the toilet doors opposite a balding businessman spread-eagled against the wall and a grubby-fingered youth playing packman by your left elbow. Especially when you don't really want to be going home at all.

But it'll be a whole week of GP next time. And this weekend i've got a fair few things to keep me distracted; shopping, mother's (aka being a good daughter) day, and coursework with a capital C. Holly and I are planning an end-of-term gathering/break-up bash. We're writing proper invitations, for keepsakes, no frivolous fast-forgotten facebook groups for us!... I've been writing letters to people recently too, for the same reason. When I'm old - say, 40, eh mother?;) - I want to leaf through bundles of envelopes, addresses and inkstains that stamp the journey of my life. Not browse through briefly-typed sentiments long faded into the virtual landfill site of ancient e-debris. I want my now-nearest-and-dearest to chuckle, giggle, smile or grin to their kids as they bore them with my clumsy stream-of-consciousness correspondence...
Oh how pretentious of me!
It's acceptable now and then...

tomorrow

Post-Equinox Post

I like traditions. With friends, they're fun, light-hearted bond-forming, but our family ones are best... Like tribal rituals,, but disparate enough that they dont become An Institution, or annoying.

Every equinox, mum sparks up some kind of bonfire and we let loose a chinese lantern or two. This year, my genius mother produced a bin with holes in it, proudly referring to as "The Incinerator" as it sneezed flames erratically over my machete of a marshmallow-stick.

I did have to admit that an oversized turquoise cableknit and very litte else may not have been the best choice for such an event, especially after I was mockingly informed by my fire-prodding youth of a sibling; "You do know you can't get tanned from this don't you?"
At which point my answering sheepish murmur provoked a familiar outburst of isn't-Beth-a-fool! communal hysterics. Not a tradition I hold dear :P ...

In the summer, Mum and I vw-golfed it up to Priddy. Our mission was twofold: 1. to make a nice memory, and 2. to cold-bloodedly confuse any astrologists that might have happened to be looking into space and marveling at the existence of two new stars flickering inexplicably over the Mendips.

                                        We succeeded in the first. 

Here's the resulting poem,,

Mum's Solstice

Watching the pretty lights across a solstice sky,

Night-visions, tripping on a vivid, sunset high...

We shiver, goosebump-frosted as we watch and wait.

A dot-to-dusk, a star-struck slate

Whose age-old pinpricks, ancient relics, tell

A myriad of moments past, immortalized in shells

Of burnished gold.

The night, a parasol of black and blue, unfolds

Its purple shadow-thumbs, to numb

The last impassioned glances of that Cassonova, Sun!

Aglow with grateful lust, he winks "goodbye"

To cloud-smudged lover, mesmerizing Sky!

Ablush with pink, her fingers cling

To melting memoirs of their sweet, midsummer fling...

And as the pastel pigments blend

We cast our lonely lantern to its distant, dancing friends.

It stumbles, trips-and-tumbles onto life-inflating breeze

A single splutter, but inhales the hit with ease;

Our fizzing jelly-fish

Our true light-hearted vessel lifts

Our hearts, our souls; its dizzy, drunken drift

To cold, pathetic fate will come,

But in our minds, our poem, glimmers on, and on, and on...

I've got time to kill...

Consuming sunshine, peaches and coffee on the patio. From moon-waxing climax to golden Morning Glory... after months of gloomy 4 o'clock  sunsets, the gods are making-light like sex-starved mortals.



I sent HW off to work this morning with a full flask and a sugar mouse, after a lovely buttered-toast filled evening in. We watched Princess Bride, perfected our smoke-ring skills. Chatted///

Buttercup: "You can die too for all I care"

 (Pushes him down a hill)

Man in black: "AS...YOU...WISH" 

(As he rolls down hill)

Buttercup: "Oh my dear Westley, what have I done?!"

(Jumps down hill after him)

What I'd give to have either of these moments in real life!

*******

The shocking disappointment of England's Grand Slam shambles didn't stop us beating our sheep-loving neighbours by 42 points to win the 6-Nations Championship.  True, my love for the team was rather narrowed down to the number 16 Hooker, and Johnny (<3 forever) But Rugby has the power to wrest a number of passionate expletives from me that no other sport has even the vaguest ability to match. Except maybe Curling. And Thumb-War.

So, what's so good about rugby? And, to broaden out the question, what's so fucking irritating about football? It never fails to amaze me, for example, that my 12 year old brother can absorb match after match of what looks to me like second division Spanish league kick-arounds in various sunny Mediterranean rec's, then go on to devour a double-dose of Match of the Day Highlights before his nightly fifa session. Meanwhile the sight of a hair-slicked olive-skinned youth diving - no, rather plunging into the penalty area like a five year old having a tantrum - is enough to make me switch over to Antiques Roadshow for something that's a bit more of a thrill.

Yet the answer isn't as simple as "Rugby players don't dive." Respect for the forwards' Man Up and Carry On attitude certainly contributes towards my admiration, but I'm pretty sure it's got more to do with the definition of their leg muscles as they brace against the scrum. I'm faintly ashamed to admit, that whenever the ref shouts "Crouch, Touch, Engage" and the camera-man angles up the shorts, I appreciatively add that's what she said. Rugby players wear straps to hold their thighs together, for crying out loud! They fight, they launch headfirst against forces equivalent to a car-crash - literally, they put their necks on the line to push their team towards victory. And despite the second-rowers' penchant for thrusting, and the general tightness of the lads' kit, they play a damn straight sport.  

Gracing the Bath ground recently, my mum and I displayed a disgraceful amount of sexist favoritism; deciding who were the most talented wingers/fly-half's and cheering them on enthusiastically throughout the match... regardless of which team they were on. As they lined up to sing the anthem, facing blissfully away from us, the girls in our stand took a Unanimous Sigh at the Great Sight. The average Prop may weigh 20st, and you may spot more Cauliflower ears in a single Scrum than there are in Alan Titchmarsh's vegetable patch, but if the lovely Zara Phillips can resist looking down her royal nose at Mike Tindall's own wonky honker, it goes to prove my point that theres something about Rugby Players which attracts.

Perhaps it's that same age-old something that pushed pre-historic ladies' buttons... The something that has endured evolution, regardless of the relationship revolution brought about by selective dating-sites, long-distance love, and a wave of empowered women bearing briefcases and ball-breaking stilettos.

Take Bridget Jones, who secured her Mr Darcy by vowing not to take any more shit from lousy Thai-ladyboy-shaggers. Yet her post-Darcy diary delights in the deliciousness of seeing him come to her rescue re: bailing her out of jail and saving her career. I am sure there were stone and bronze age Bridgets, to whom the thrill of seeing their man go thundering into action, confident that he'd bring something dead and Bambi-like back to the cave for the midnight post-sex snack, was the strongest aphrodesiac they knew.
I quite like the fact that I have some link, some remnant in me of the girls who got away with skipping around in a leopard-print bikini number all day long, eating mammoth steak and shooing sabre-tooths away from the cave.
(Which also explains the compulsory half-time Pasty)

That's my latest theory, anyway///

Crazy Frogs

Parents evening. 'Nuff said.

After 12 years in education, I have come to realize that some teachers are crazy. Either they think its their divine right to have your complete and unquestionable respect, despite doing nothing to earn it, or they want to be your best friend and do everything to uphold their reputation as the caring teacher. 

My passion for learning French is slowly trickling away; a shame considering I want to end my days in a stonewashed chateau in the South surrounded by wine and cheese and baguettes and croissants and Vincent Clercs (to provide my French Kicks.)

Ah well.
C'est la vie!

 

A heavy dose of atmosphere

The Traveling Bug that scuttled back and forth across my brain last week, making it impossible to concentrate on the silly amount of essays I had to do, has crept under a twig to hibernate. And in its place, that familiar homecoming feeling: the tiredness; the train-carriage cling; the unquestionable need for beans-on-toast; the longing for a bath, pyjamas, my own mattress.

No matter how fleeting the stay away or how amazing the getaway: Toss your keys on the side, flick the light-switch to regret the chaotic debris of last-minute packing panic, and The Feeling is upon you, its lethargic arms wrapping you in an oh-so comfortingly safe embrace. It is The Feeling that makes me sure of my own sense of Home. I know for sure, that wherever I end up in the next few years, when the Urban Edge starts to cut and my retinas pave over with concrete, there'll be nowhere better to escape to than a country walk, complete with real mud, trees, and a full flask of coffee.

It gets sadder to leave GP every time.
(I read that sentence again and noticed that it sounded rather like the diary entry of a raving hypochondriac; therefore to clarify GP=Boyfriend rather than General Practitioner)

Indulging my sentimental g-spot by sulking and sighing and glancing back five times to catch his last last look, is no doubt self-destructive. But I've watched too many rom-coms not to appreciate a good, heavy dose of atmosphere; the spring sunshine and brilliant sky beaming down on a university setting - with all its connotations of education, of independence, of new beginnings - and students passing by indifferent to these two loved-up souls entwined in a mutual moment of Goodbye.

Saturday was chilled. Smoking on a pair of rusted metal containers floating on a trippily, prettily rippling canal in Manchester. (It was even better it the dark, when you couldn't see the shit drifting along on the tide.) Honestly, being out at night is one of my favourite things. Single-filed lamp posts shining on flickering black water,  headlight snail-trails on a far off motorway, and meagre moonlight spilling over cobbled pavements; these are wonders in their own right. The geese were fucking annoying though.

To end this post I will leave you with something Professor Brian Cox told me today via the miracle of television. Apparently, all the atoms in our bodies were originally formed in the heart of a dying Red Giant.
Which means one thing...

We are all made of stardust.

***************************

Sweet dreams,,

Quiche 'n' Shisha Night

Six sarong-ed sixth-formers in a room swirling with smoke and rippling reggae. Snapshots of familiar faces cover every inch of wall, with scraps of NME articles and stubs of tickets stuck to the ceiling,,, Noel Fielding smirking as I blow smoke-rings up at him. Peering glumly through a tank of murky water, Holly's two remaining fish look slightly disapproving as the evening's antics unfold...

After a week of working like some sort of essay-churning android, last night was just what I needed. A few gathered friends, chilling with Francis Hookah, a couple bottles of Cava and a few Co-op quiches. As Patrick said, pouring bubbly into a smily-face mug whilst switching Bob Marley to Bare-naked Ladies and adjusting his Leprechaun hat, "Its like the 90's again. Or is this what they did in the 80's?... (Pause for thought) Well, I feel fucking retro anyway."
I don't know about retro. But it felt right.
So jealous of Holly having a balcony. Must have been a classic sight; Six of us, clambering out the window one by one to huddle together in the three-man tent, just enough of the flap open to see the stars; trippy, high up, spaced.

Waking up this morning to the thought of a half hour walk home and three hours of babysitting wasn't so great. But I'm feeling mellow and happy, and this weekend should be the chance to catch up on much needed sleep. I also need to finish the whole of To Kill A Mockingbird for our bookclub on Tuesday,,, a soiree on spark-notes will be the end of this endeavor, I foresee. Though a long, hot bubblebath and a full-on book-absorption is tempting...
 

British piss-take standup = excellent for comedy munchies

 

Ps. I miss my One Love. And I'm not just talking about Mr. Marley.

Life is a giant pro-con list

So when we were, you know, just chilling in DC, Holly bought a book. It was a good book. Showing it to me on the Mettro - (which, before I forget, is a much less socially awkward experience than the Tube; with its timeless truth that catching the eye of the guy opposite as he looks up over his Times to blink his contact lense into obedience, results in the urgent and immediate desire to get off at the next station, whether it be Ealing Broadway or Cockfosters. In fact, eye-contact on the US underground has in my experience even led to fairly absorbing small talk incorporating subjects such as: my accent (foriegn? european?) my taste in rugby players (did you say soccer is gay?) and Jeremy Clarkson (I've never been to England but I've watched every episode of Top Gear so it feels like I have.) --- Anyway, showing this book to me on the Mettro, Holly boasted that her King's Mile treasure find was sure to be the best bargain anyone bagged all holiday; "14,000 reasons to be happy" for under 3dollars.

Some of them were pretty surreal. Wet T-Shirt Competitions? The arms race? Humble-pie?

But others lingered in my inner sentimental sponge. Cinnamon Sugar. Second-hand complements. Tiddliwinks. 

And I started to think about it. Can life be written as an infinite list of pros and cons? A time-trail of happy moments and down-lows?(Infinite until "Tin can opener/mule-kick/jumper-realted-incident, copped-it", of course)

Perhaps nostalgia is simply a fight between the words near the beginning of the sentence, and those nearer the end. (The ones with a better vocabulary and more references to alcohol)

Here are a few incentives for happiness of my own. Enjoy.

New beginnings, checkered tablecloths, tealights, icing, midnight snacks, midnight chats, toasted things, campfires, petrol fumes, rustic decor, dancefloors, dragon-breath, sale-signs, bonjela, nutella straight from the jar, movie nights, tired feet, endorphin highs, infectious smiles, welly-socks, match-boxes, balmy evenings, palm-trees, the night air, zebra-crossings, Orion's belt, vending-machines, vintage shops, bubblewrap, bubble-baths, being "eye-fucked the hell out of", being looked-after, cobbled-streets, 6-inch heels, letters in the post, lamp-post lines, having all four monopoly stations, inspiration, ambience, swirly straws, Your Own Mug, toothpaste, exhaling, body-boarding, puns, wittiness, pointless arguments, reggae, good lyrics, country pubs, swanky bars, tapas, sporks, untouched snow, the opened-can-sound, tummy-rumbles, wikipedia, romantic reunions, underwear, hammocks, tree houses, real coffee, hipflasks, irish accents, wrapping-paper tubes, juice cartons, seeing-someone-do-their-hair-on-the-other-side-of-the-window, duvet days, being someone's anchor, being someone's confidante, the original pooh bear illustrations, inset days, yoga, vw capervans, holidays, happy endings.

Add some more of your own folks. Comment. Make me smile:)xx

Cat Empire = Ultimate spirit lifter

If it was homework-is-cool week,, id be Kurt Cobain.

Fashionably late, and Somerset's got in the clear, cold, sunny weather that I love.
Not crisp, as it is in autumn, like cold cider, like fools gold --- But fresh, as it is in spring, like a smooth hit, whitewash with green veneer. For the first time in a while, I'm looking forward to the evening walk with our dog.

The only downside is that lessons have no hold on my interest whatsoever. No more falling asleep in class today, but much gazing out of the window. Half of my brain on plu-perfect and past conditional french/ and the other half - the half that makes dreams - wandering forward to pancake flipping and easter hunts and crumpled crop tops and bluebell pools and chilled rosé and picnics and parties and even festival season>> (Greenman?/Big Chill?)

What's the difference between addiction, obsession, and infatuation?
Are they one and the same?...

(Brainstorm)
Coffee. Hot, bitter, tangy, rich and steaming. Buzzes.
Smoke. Acrid, ashen, velvet smooth and fuzzy.
Love. Pulse-raising, heart-racing. dizzy.

(But then again... House/HughLaurie - pulse-raising, heart raising giddiness also ;P)

Needs further thought,,,

To the cafe. Then the gift shop.

I've never been to so many museums in my whole life as I have in seven days spent striding the streets of  the USA's Capital and Capitol, Washington D.C. I've soaked up so much concentrated culture that if I so much looked at the Eiffel Tower or took a step on the millennium bridge,, tiny little effigies of past American presidents would surely come seeping out of every pore.  

They weren't bad museums, to be fair, as museums go. As well as a decent standard of gift shops and cafes (spicy/faintly ticklish hot chocolate at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian,,, an area dedicated to Star Wars merchandise at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum) 

...and there was a lot of cool stuff on show. The sight of Lincoln's slanted signature at the bottom of his Emancipation Proclamation was strangely surreal. Visiting the backstreet theatre where he was shot made me shiver. (An effect slightly lessened by the view of "Lincoln's Waffle Shop" across the road.)

Its unreal how many Gilmore Girls/Friends references are scattered around for the anecdote opportunist to seize. Spot an unfortunate naked gentleman in the opposite hotel room and excitedly call all your mates in to debate the best way in which to fashion a giant poking device.  Wander into the one of the Universities of Georgetown, have lunch its its canteen, and feel like Rory and Lorelai breaking into Harvard, (although admittedly legally and therefore with less of the thrill.) 

It was a good trip. The free cookies, soda refills and "Go Large" possibilities are much missed,,, But when your feet ache as soon as they hit the floor in the morning, when you can't face another abercrombie store, when you start to get cravings for a crate of raw veg and all the monuments start to blur into one (to quote a kid we passed by The Washington Monument "Mummy, can we go to the giant pencil?") you know its time to go home.