Limping

This week has gone swoosh, like weeks do sometimes. I began work on something that had to be put aside on Monday as another book needed a good purging in no time at all. I delivered it earlier today, a full day ahead of my schedule, which means I should be able to rest my back now. I find it so annoying to have to regulate what I do and how much I do it for, lest my discs will make every other single activity, no matter how insignificant, impossible. In fact, I believe not to have recovered completely from the last bout of acute pain that crushed me sometimes at the end of September. Gosh, that feels like such a long time ago.

My physical ineptitude stroke again only a month ago as I sprained a toe for no particular reason. Yes, you read that right. I was changing my trousers and hit a dog’s bed. I wouldn’t call that a cause for A&E concern but it bloody was. I soldiered on instead and this stupid toe is still sore, still swollen and still high-heel unsuitable, even though I persist, oh, how much do I persist! I limp from car to Starbee to shops back to car because I haven’t got flat shows anyway, not unless I want to go out in a pair of wooden clogs. And I don’t. I’ll tell you what, there are ridiculous people around in plastic flip-flops in November but I am not one of those. On we shall limp.

The best thing about this week so far has been this pic I took the other day:



Note how gigantic and lean I look, my shadow stretching ahead forever. That’s another fab thing about autumn and winter around these parts: the light hangs so low that you can find Dahl-esque proportions at every corner. You just have to keep your eyes peeled to the possibilities and it is easier to find stuff when you limp along instead of rushing, which often makes me wonder... why is everyone always rushing? Where are they all rushing to? The same place maybe? I don’t have anywhere to rush to and it’s the best time of my life (after the uni, of course).

Frosty

The smell of winter hadn't been in the air until this morning, when I run out with my phone for a couple of frozen garden shots. Man, how great is it to get up and find a pink sky and the light slicing low, kissing aged grass and late roses? The leaves are very nearly all on the ground and in no time at all, the whole of nature will be asleep for months. Well, I like it, as I told you many times. I like it because winter to me means regeneration and a flurry of activity, even when it all looks dark and still. In fact, I am one of those people whose bio clock ticks along with difficulty between April and August. But I needn’t worry about it now. We’re in the depths of autumn and it's just fab.

End Of Weekend

I spent the weekend doing middle-aged things. I swear, sometimes I think that I am getting prematurely middle-aged by a good twenty years. Spending a raining Saturday under the duvet, gushing over a calendar and then doing some of my crochet blanket with lots of tea by the side seems like a very decent way to while away the day.

Actually, I did have a bit of a zip around on Saturday morning as I needed a few more things for that advent calendar I want to make, but other than that, it was just down to doing nothing. Same on Sunday. I highly recommend doing nothing and if you can do nothing more often than just once, or twice a week, well then, good for you.

Ignoring Everybody

Today I found another piece of inspirational writing, although this one is hilarious too. I am reading Hugh MacLeod's very excellent Ignore Everybody, a little book about the creative process. Part of it is on Hugh's own website, and I urge you to go and take a gander, but I would like to reproduce a snippet right here, so that you don't have to scroll all the way when you're there. This is one of the truest oblique descriptions of corporate life I've ever had the pleasure to come across. Thank you Hugh; you're, once again, spot-on.

Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with com­panies that champion creativity. Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the “Team Player”.

Fair enough. There was more money in doing it that way; that’s why they did it.

There’s only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own. They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist.

So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

And so on.

Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewar­ded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that’s exactly what’s been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creati­vity of others.

What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?

The ecology dies.

If you’re creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn’t the case.

So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.

However if you’re not paricularly creative, then you’re in real trouble. And there’s no buzz word or “new paradigm” that can help you. They may not have mentioned this in business school, but… people like watching dinosaurs die.

The Pursuit Of Being Well-Rounded

I don't often use my diary as a publicity vehicle for others' writings. Yet, when I do, I know it is because these writings are going straight into my scrapbook under the Things Worth Re-Reading heading. I have done it in the past with Twyla Tharp, Danny Gregory and others and today I am doing it with Danielle LaPorte, whom I have been following since her Style Statement days and whom I think is one of the most inspirational female entrepreneurs around. So go and read Danielle's excellent piece on being well-rounded. I nodded in appreciation and chuckled in recognition. I mean... who wouldn't?

Ticking Off

I have a love-hate relationship with lists. Part of me thinks that lists look so pretty, especially if you write them down in a spanking new notebook with a spanking new pink pen. Equally, I think that they can soon become monuments to your own ineptitude and inability to stick to a set of tasks. All in all, I think it is vastly better to get on with your stuff, rather than listing it all out (a bit like that plan thing you know...).

As per usual, there isn’t very much on my list, if not a few, very vague entries which read a bit like new year’s resolutions. Talking of which, only the other day I was reviewing my resolutions for the year 2006. At that point I wrote ‘to swear less’. Whatever possessed me to write down such a thing, I really do not know. Quite frankly, swearwords are to me what dreadlocks are to Bob Marley; a fucking-free life is too grim even to contemplate. I shan’t write that one down again.

So yeah, I was saying that there is nothing on the list, or pretty much nothing, but I should also add that today I ticked something off it, even though it wasn’t written down to begin with (are you following? This is sounding like an absurdist piece of experimental writing. If you don’t get Beckett, stop reading right now). This something is book number two, which I finished late in the afternoon and whose demise to the land of the fully edited I toasted with a bastardised Irish coffee which was really a latte with Bailey’s and Tia Maria. But that’s fine anyway.

Now I am sitting in the bedroom with my mouth watering at the smell wafting from the kitchen: parsnips, potato and carrot crispies crackling away under the grill. It’s time to be over and out.

Peculiar

It’s a fact of life that pets are a bit like little people; their quirkiness, behaviours and peculiarities mean that each single owner can associate specific qualities to family members long after their departure for Rainbow Bridge. I remember visiting someone in San Francisco years ago; her eyes filled with tears as she pointed at the faded picture of one of her dogs still stuck to the fridge door. I am telling you, that dog had departed before I was born, but his specific memory, and the melancholy associated with it, was pungent still.



My dog William is one of those particular characters, and I mean this with a capital PARTICULAR. I have never known an animal as chilled out as William. William lives in his own world, a world of which I only see glimpses sometimes, for he mostly keeps himself to himself. What I say and how I say it doesn’t matter to William one iota. When he goes out in the garden while it rains, he does his stuff as quickly as possible so that he can rush back inside to towel-dry himself against the soft sides of my duvet.

And, mind you, this happens regardless the towel-drying I give him on the back step and regardless the blast of hair-drying that I go through the trouble to administer once he is inside. Crucially, whether I say anything to him or not, and more often than not I do, and at full vocal blast to boot, William doesn’t care. He shuffles along to his bed until he thinks I am not looking and then returns with a vengeance, damp sides pressed hard against the fabric, swishing back and forth like a snake slithering someplace.

Sometimes he seems to take notice; that’s when he walks away, stops wagging his tail and looks up at me with a frown corrugating his one black eyebrow. On a few occasions I have seen a thought bubble condensing above his head, the words: ‘What was that?’ spelt out in glossy gravy bones.

Treating my bed as a bathrobe isn’t his only peculiarity, as he also likes to mess about as a general rule. Most mornings I go to the office (Starbucks) where I work for three hours straight, at which stage I up sticks and come home for lunch. Upon my return, I am greeted by sleepy eyes and wagging tails, as I reward well-behaved dogs with a treat or two. There’s nothing like returning to an immaculate home that makes you appreciate dogs that don’t like to exercise when it’s cold and/or wet and/or autumn and/or winter and/or humid and/or warm and/or hot. I know what they do when I am not in; they sleep. Victoria gets up to check the post and I can tell by a little flurry of white hairs scattered on the dark wooden floor in a straight line, bed-front door. William doesn’t move.

After that treat or two, I take them to the toilet. Victoria does all she needs in one go, including having a drink on the way back, while William starts off with a wee. I close the back door and return inside. By the time I’ve sat down at the computer to resume work, he by my side, emitting low-volume sounds not unlike those of a creaking door. This continues until I say: ‘Drink?’. Ok, so he didn’t dare disturbing Victoria while she was at the bowl and I understand that he may feel safer on his own. After all, he almost lost an ear once. I go back and let him out again.

Back in the study I can hear him lapping away. By the time I’ve blocked all noise I see him passing by, oscillating right and left like a watermelon on legs. He has, once again, drank the bowl dry. At this point he places a paw on my leg, with another squeaking request. He has realised he now needs to poo. So I go back, re-open the door and take him to the garden where, on lead, else he will eat all the pears, he performs.

Back in the study I say: ‘Enough now, go and play with Victoria!’. My word is now gospel. I hear him trotting away and soon after the bark-off begins, as Victoria has taken over his bed and he doesn’t want to lay down next to her. This goes on and on and on until I can bear it; eventually I make it to the bedroom, shuffle Victoria to the opposite side of his bed (William won’t take the right side, he only takes the left) and eventually he throws himself in growling, I am not sure at who. Could be her, as she is always in the way, but it could be me too because why the fuck did it take so long to come and assist?

William is the reason why certain people, especially those who have never had dogs, make me smile when they dismiss their behaviours this way and that. You just don’t realise how much of a character animals can have (and how much of a character they can be), until you meet one with a personality bigger than your own. That’s when you become forever enslaved to your heart and that’s why your eyes go liquid even thirty years after they have departed.

In The Middle

In the middle of many things today. For a start, in the middle of Autumn, which has truly crash-landed in the back-yard, taken all the leaves off the pear tree (I swear, they were all there only yesterday) and tinged every corner in mellow light. Fabulous.



In the middle of lots of work as you can see. I must have about a ream of paper worth of editing and corrections and more reading. But this too is fabulous, beats any other work I've ever had to do ever.

In the middle of day-dreaming too, like I haven't done in ages.

In the middle of preparing a tasty soup. Parsnips, carrots, potatoes, leeks, red lentils, onions... super-thick and very easy, I really ought to give you the recipe.

In the middle of thinking about Christmas. I am going to do everything silver and white this year, with the tree in the hall instead of the lounge.

In the middle of the crochet blanket. I swear my hook was frigging smoking the other day...

In the middle of writing something completely new. A bit weird after the whole PhD thing, but exciting all the same.

Shouldn't Have Been It

Back in June I was really sad. Now I am so pissed off you cannot even imagine. And being pissed off is not a sentiment usually associated with death, is it? November went off with a watery bang (oxymoron there) which is just as well as both September and October were extraordinarily dry and bright in my neck of the woods. The September-to-February stretch is my favourite half of the year as I’ve said many times but in truth... I cannot wait for this disgusting year to go away for ever, taking disappointment, emotional upheaval and sadness with it. If only it could also take the memories... if only!

Not-So-Spooky

Work With A Capital W

Only yesterday I was thinking that, should no other project fall out of the sky, I’d go back to being even more skint than I already am and, lo and behold, here is the answer to my worries and my little faith, if I can call it such: as I was sitting glassy-eyed and preoccupied, cradling the Starbee I managed to buy with the last £ 2 in my purse, a flurry of emails flash up on screen and a string of attachments reveal plays, pictures, short stories, essays and another book to work on. I am, again, saved.

This time though, we are not just talking about two books to edit; there are plays to formalise in style, essays with references to sort out, images to identify and another book that has been described as ‘the most miserable hellish experience ever’. But, surely, it can’t be worse than what I was doing two weeks ago, right? Apparently, yes, and I should perhaps consider myself flattered by the publisher’s belief that he will not feel so awful at the thought of tackling it again once I have intervened. This guy has some great expectations and I’d be damned if I disappoint him.

This unexpected, but prayed for, avalanche of work (paid work, dare I say it) has left me ever so slightly dazed, almost unable to figure out the path ahead. And let’s be clear on this one, I am racking up so many requests and things to be looked into that quite some plotting out will have to be involved. I resist the term plan because, although I am a planner by nature and birth (an anal Virgo), planning doesn’t go hand-in-hand with creative individuals. I am not over-stating when I tell you that 50,000 words of my PhD (that is, three quarters of it) were written off the cuff, not really knowing what I wanted to say, why or indeed how I was going to say it.

The outstanding thing is that three-quarters of this PhD were written in one-tenth of the time since the my registration so... that’s quite telling. By contrast, while working in ‘management’, whatever that is, we spent all of our time planning what we would do and doing very little of what was on the plan. Once I was asked to draft a plan on how to update the revised plan in order to get back in line with the original plan. Do you know how that one ended? With the client getting pissed off and scrapping the project, quelle surprise. That’s why I like to plan the very bare minimum and then I prefer to get on with it.

Much else lies ahead. The course I’ve been taking is spear-heading towards completion, many ideas have originated and two are already hatching as I type. I’ve met a great group of people that are not just friends but actual important resources and that I am sure will help me in the process of formalisation of those ideas I speak of. It all takes time and now I need to re-group, mentally but especially emotionally, and figure out what ground-work is necessary. But I’ll tell you what I really need to come to terms with: being finally able to work by myself and for myself. I’ve wanted this for a very long time and now that it is happening, and now that the work I am doing is intellectually rewarding and is what I always wanted to do, I am so fucking drained I almost do not feel like celebrating. But that has got to change because from now on I am going to be happy.

Pondering

Today has been One Of Those Days. You start off all vibrant and on top of things, ticking items off the list, humming to yourself that the best way is the focused way and then... And then something as insignificant as £ 1.64 places itself between you and your feeling, if not happy, at least serene and everything changes. £ 1.64 is the amount of money in my bank account today. It wouldn’t be too bad if I knew that a nice, fat salary (or even an ugly, thin one) would materialise itself on Friday but you know what my situation is like, I now get paid by project, and not that much at that, and so I live on the proverbial shoestring. Why am I telling you this? Am I fishing for empathy? No. Actually, this is a post about editing, not about the state of my bank account.



Like so: the first book I proof-read was dire. And I mean FUCKING DIRE. In fact, I did not proof-read it, I edited it. No problem with that, right? Absolutely no problem, as I know what I am doing. However, a few days after I sent it forth to prosper, I started thinking about the general editor of this book, someone I do not know personally but whom I know is a full-time academic and who, crucially my friends, had already edited the book. Did he really? Why could I possibly have found stuff such as I might have caught the figure of a clown when I jerked off my mental recapitulations in it then?

Surely, an editor would have at least flagged that abomination as a bit of an odd sentence, right? I am asking you now: what do you think it means? Let me say that again: I might have caught the figure of a clown when I jerked off my mental recapitulations. Because I don’t know what it means. I couldn’t even figure it out by the convoluted context either (and I spare you the context, for the rest of the page is itself stomach-churning). It makes no sense. Yet the general editor of that stuff thought it was ok. I’ll tell you more, he also thinks that regrettable and regretful are interchangeable. He doesn’t know the difference between incidence and incident. He scatters commas over the page as pigeons shit over everything that moves and doesn’t move. But he is a lecturer in English, let’s be clear on this one, and a general editor of the stuff I had to edit with a pick and an axe.

While I was chipping away at these 214 pages, I did not think much of it. Sure, I was shaking my head in disbelief as I had never known a ‘writer’ capable to use four different tenses within a two-and-a-half line sentence, but even less likely did I think an editor capable to read that sentence, nod in approval and move on. It’s shocking and even more shocking (and pernicious, as an erudite friend of mine says) is knowing that this person is a lecturer in English. Oh my God, Jesus, Mary and all the saints.

I told you before that I know of lecturers that consistently (and that’s key my friends, consistently, for it indicates ingrained belief) mix up palette with palate with pallet. I think that only an idiot could do so but I also wouldn’t be likely to rant about it if that person were a plumber or a builder or a footballer. When it’s a senior lecturer in English that makes the mistake over and over and over and over and over... well, I lose the will to live. The same senior lecturer also uses it’s and its interchangeably. Others I’ve had the misfortune to come across do not know the difference between a semi-colon and a colon or between use and usage or license and licence.

Some say that native speakers are usually sloppy, but this is an excuse that holds about as much water as 'Hitler hated the Jews because they killed Jesus'. If native speakers were always sloppy, then a native speaker that knows grammar and uses it well would be a freak occurrance. Luckily, this isn't the case, as there are as many competent native speakers as there are incompetent ones.

I, in any case, and allow me to blow my own trumpet for a second here, can recognise conceits, hyperbatons, hyperboles, paratactic vs. hypotactic constructions; fables, fabliaux, fabula, fabulation, fancy and fantasy (and there I’ve just given you some alliterative examples too). But all of this is normal in my book. I’ve got a PhD for God's sake, I would expect no less. Yet, here I am correcting a lecturer in English and general editor that doesn’t know the difference between commas and full-stops, irrelevance and irreverent, kinesis and kinectic, nose and ass. Shite like this by the fucking truckload my friends. And here I am, with £ 1.64 in the bank. There you go.

Hooked Up

A few weeks ago I started a crochet blanket. Not that I can afford enough wool for a blanket, but the reality is that I bought the materials over a year ago and then toyed with them for many months. Projects often work out like this; they have to go through a period of gestation that is completely incomprehensible to people whose idea of ‘creating’ is confined to following one of Nigella’s recipes, or reading Genesis from the Bible. Now the gestation is over and the blanket is coming along nicely.



I was at it all weekend and managed to add a very respectable three inches to it, which is a lot, really, if you consider that I started with twenty-seven little chains and I now have three hundred. It takes me ages to do one row. As the clocks went back last night and we stayed holed up both yesterday and today, autumn and light closing in outside, it seemed only natural to speed along with hook and yarn and tea and sweeties. I have also made a start on the second book I need to work on. This is in vastly better shape and, dare I say it, gripping stuff too. In fact, I am as hooked on that as I am on the blankie.

Blooming Mahvellous

Can you guess what this is? Not the jar of lemon curd, the thing on top?



You can't? Well, it is Blooming Tea by QuinTEAssential. Brew for a few minutes and then fish out the beautiful flower that has blossomed in the hot water!



I came across QuinTEAssential teas a few months back, trailing through the Alderley Edge farmers' market. I spotted little jars of tea blends, a smart-looking logo and... I followed, like the proverbial moth to the flame. I am so glad I did, because I hit it off with Bernadine right away. She really knows and loves tea, is very enthusiastic, has great interpersonal skills and her gourmet teas are right high up there with the best of them, such as Mariage Frères, Kusmi, Ladurée and Fortnum and Mason. In fact, the tea I am showing you here is one of the rarest teas around as the leaves are hand-rolled and stitched together as you can see for some on show on Fortnum's page.

Bernadine is about to launch her website and has already sent me the catalogue which showcases her special blends of green, white, black, red, oolong and rooibos and with names as catchy as Three Gods of Fortune, Garden of Eden and Parisian Morning. I've already tried a few and they are all equally incredible, with heady, mouth-watering scents which, unlike many other teas, do not die out the moment you add hot water. These are fragrant and remain so throughout the brewing process. I hope she does really well as these are teas to rival Kusmi's spectacular Prince Vladimir and Mariage Frères' super classic Marco Polo.

That Time Of Year...

...and I looooove it!

Another Year

This month has gone by with a swoosh. Perplexing really, as I went through such TRAUMA last week that should have ensured time would pass with the same speed of a clock of doom. But no, it hasn’t. I went through a work (or better, lack of work) - related crisis and within six hours, crash boom bang, there is a job materialised for me. I am booked on three publishing projects right now and getting paid for the first time in one year. I am still in shock, if truth be told, and the three days after my appointment as proofreader/editor of these works, depending on the state they are in, I couldn’t do much at all, as my nerves were shot to pieces and my mind was elsewhere. Not that I know where exactly. Maybe just taking time off.



Today I started the day with a triple-layered slice of chocolate cake, as it was Richie’s birthday. In fact, you can even spot him in the background of his slice, blue pj and ready to pounce on the cake and cup of tea. I didn’t go through the trouble of making the cake myself, as I normally do, because I just wanted to enjoy the choosing. I cannot say that anything off-the-shelf comes any close to what I make myself, not even when that something is from M&S, but this one was nice enough and will stick around for a few days, depending on how Rick wants to wing it. Cheers to Richie and to another year for him! He thinks I should do really well at my work so that he can retire soon and, really, who can blame him for thinking this way? When I received my latest pension statement, with a date thirty-five years into the future, I felt a bit queasy myself.

Pretty Girl

Pattering Of Not-So-Tiny Feet

I find feet perplexing and, generally, uninteresting. Is it because mine are ugly? I don’t know what it is, I just know that I don’t enjoy knowing that they even exist. And so it was with fear that I wielded the camera in the direction of my feet this week, as I am taking a course that had FEET as its first week’s task. I am sharing some of these snaps here today, my favourite one being the one with cobblestones taken at Dunham Massey today. I go so often and yet never take pics of anything below my waist. Lesson learnt I think... isn’t that ground really fetchy?

Expectations

When I built my little photo-mosaic yesterday, my trip to Oslo of a few years back bypassed me completely. It was only this morning, for no particular reason, that I found myself thinking of it, as I realised that I didn't include it in my little bird's eye view of places I've been to. And that's a shame because I remember this city as exceptionally white, blue, sunny and cool, how could I have possibly forgotten I've been there?

This sent me off on an over-drive of memories, thinking about how we tend to forget about people, places, events, unless we keep a record of them. I can assure you that the past two years or so are almost perfectly clear in my mind, and all because I vouched to keep a record of most things on here. And then I keep photographic records as well and receipt records and postcard records and lots of other records that will help me to remember, one day.

This is the reason why it is even more vital that I write a few lines today, as I have no image to post and I am seething over it. It was, and still is, the most fantastic autumnal day, with a near-clear blue sky, crinkling leaves underfoot and a cool breeze that signals the new season is well underway. I felt so at peace with myself today that my heart was jumping up and down in my chest with excitement, as if, I presume, it would do in case of winning the lottery perhaps. But no, I didn't win last night (I put a line in for real) and yet today was still a thrilling day spent in contemplation of where I am at and where I am going.

That's the clincher: where am I going? I don't know and I don't care. I realised not long ago that I resent this continuous forward-planning. I always used to forward-plan when I was younger and did it actually get me somewhere special? No, it didn't, and so now I've stopped doing it, I go with the flow, one day at a time. The post-PhD early days seemed weird. I think I was in mourning in some respects. Now I'm embracing the new and the unexpected and do you know something? When you expect nothing, you get loads.

Places

As I am camera-less, or indeed I am until Rick comes home in the evening and I can get hold of his phone, I thought I'd have a play at that age-old online favourite known as mosaic-making. I can't believe I've been keeping track of things on here for almost two years and I haven't done a mosaic yet... And so today I picked some images off Flickr and put together this pic. How many cities do you recognise? These are all places where I've had the good fortune to live and/or work and/or vacation in over the years.


From top-left: Paris, San Fran, Cannes, Milan, London, New York, Manchester, Nice, York, Chicago, Lancaster, Dublin.

Relief

See this?



That's the iPhone, otherwise referred to as 'eye pee', attempting recovery in that rice-filled hyperbaric chamber I spoke of. It's been over two days and it shows no signs of life. It was therefore with a heavy heart that I went to my local O2 shop this morning and asked them whether there are any options available to me, anything other than paying £ 35 per month for the foreseeable future while not having the actual item or using the actual service I am paying for. They played the tune I knew they would play; Apple doesn't repair water-damaged eye pees because it costs them more than selling you a new one. Of course, that makes sense, but a repair would cost me less than buying a new one, wouldn't it? I left struggling to keep the latte down. One thing is to think that the new phone 'will probably cost me £ 400' and quite another one is being told that 'the new one will cost you £ 400'. Damn blast. It really brought it home I am telling you.

On the way back, however, I resolved to call my insurance broker and friend Paul, who has always advised me against purchasing further insurance of any kind (not that AppleCare would have made a difference in this instance), because I've got a comprehensive house cover, or so he tells me. Still, I was seeing doom, and even went through the disastrous mental scenario that saw me shouting down the line: 'That's it! We're over! Don't call me!'. I am smiling as I write it, as Paul greeted the re-telling of the sob-story with a: 'I bet you were ready to threaten our relationship over a phone'. And so I was, but I needen't have worried because I can get a straight replacement through the house insurance. Thank you God! And thank you Paul for having me sign good stuff I never really read! I feel a little lost without the ability to go snap happy whenever I am around, but it shouldn't be long before I am back online and able to contact everyone on the currently lost address book. Relief doesn't come close to it.

Killer Cake

I spent the morning doing domestic things and you know how much I dislike to fritter weekends, and Sundays in particular, dealing with washing, ironing et al... And yet, sometimes, needs must, right? Righty-ho and so, at around about 2 pm, I decide that I may as well do something rewarding while the floors are drying, such as baking a cake. Now I wish I hadn't thought that one up, even though the resulting cake looks good.



My £ 400 slab of pleasure, otherwise known as the iPhone, skidded along the kitchen side as it was jostling for space with the scales and the kitchen towel and the steel bowls and the cracked eggs and the wooden spoon. It skid and skid and skid like a graceful black figure skater on ice, eventually jumping the sink lip and lodging itself right underneath the crockery drainer, into the tray that collects barely a quarter of an inch of water. And so it glugged itself into oblivion, as I watched, handheld beaters whirring away, a little bemused by the screen lighting itself up upon contact with water. For a moment I thought it costs so much because it works in water. Now it is in a hyperbaric recovery chamber filled with dry rice but it ain't looking good. So if you are one of my friends, I suggest you call me at home and leave me a message if I am not in. And don't forget your name and number because, quite frankly, I won't really know who you are, nor how to get back to you.

Leaves

Good grief, you spend what feels like two minutes off the radar because you are ill, and next thing you know it is the end of the week, and you haven't done half of what you wanted to do at the beginning, and there are another three loads to put in, and the other two still to iron and, suddenly, it is autumn.



When I went out on Monday, I didn't see half as many dead leaves as I did today, neither were most of the trees sprayed with tentative muted hues of reds, coppers and bronzes. Today it was everywhere and it stirred inexplicable feelings deep inside. One second I was feeling like fist-pumping the air, yes, autumn is here, how grand, how fab, and the next the weightlessness of sadness crept upon me like November fog on a lake. I do not even know what I am sad about. Maybe that's because I am not sad at all, just anxious about many things. I must admit that walking, or trying to walk, as if a lump of lead was strapped at the base of my spine did not help proceedings. As time went by the strain took over, in that familiar pain-becomes-anxiety-becomes-more-pain way that eventually landed me on my doorstep with a clammy veil of cold sweat upon my face, as if wet chiffon had been stretched over it.

I wish I too could shed the old leaves, could peel off all of the crinckling layers like an onion. A year ago I thought that crossing the finishing line of my PhD would have been the best day in my life and now I cannot even tell you when that day was. When you can fly in each and every direction, you may well end up flapping your wings on the spot like a hummingbird forever poised by the same flower. Not that a big girl like me could successfully compare herself to a dainty, insect-like bird but if you allow me this artistic licence, then I am sure you understand what I mean.

Magic

Who knows, maybe last week I wasn’t feeling too great because my back was about to give in to a bout of acute pain. Deep down I believe that The Body Knows Best and even though only on Sunday I was bending over backwards doing a camel, yesterday morning I was struck down by such a stabbing that I have been unable to walk straight ever since.

This is no news. I have a number of prolapsed discs and sometimes they make themselves felt, especially when I think that, hey, I am not doing too badly, am I, when was the last time that I couldn’t move, I cannot even remember. Yes, every time I think that maybe the little blighters have fixed themselves, they return with a vengeance, making me drop whatever I am doing in favour of a number of days spent crawling from door-frame to door-frame. But I am telling you, I am doing better than years ago. At some point I couldn’t even grab the door-frame; I was trying to reach the bathroom by crawling like an insect, I kid you not.

It’s funny how people always sigh when you speak of back pain. Oh yes, I get it too. Oh no, I am thinking, like this you do not. How can I tell? Only once have I met a person in whose eyes I recognised that well-known sudden mix of terror and helplessness at the mere mention of acute back pain. All the others are just normal people that try to empathise with you but who do not really know what it is like to need assistance for a wee or to brush one’s teeth or to get a glass of water. When I am like this, I cannot even turn in bed without yelping like a little dog.

When it started I forced myself through normal life but it is evident, judging by the nail-like pain that is puncturing my lower spine, that I should have just surrendered to the nerves and huddled on my side in bed, waiting for it to subside. This morning has been a disaster; I do not even feel hungry, which, really, tells a story of its own. I find it amazing that only two days ago I was stretching down with my legs plank-straight, my nose almost on my knees and my palms very nearly flat on the floor and right now my hands hang like skinny marionettes by my shins, as if a crane were holding me back. It’s a kind of an unpredictable black magic really.

Minute Weekend Update

I felt a little under the weather over the last couple of days and so I skipped the picnic yesterday in favour of one today. All the better for it, as the sky was then gray and low, while today it was clear and happiness-inducing and very autumn-like. Dunham Massey was positively heaving with people and when that is the case, deer are usually nowhere to be found. But once we set up our camp under a tree by the pond, one lone little darling wandered over and seemed to enjoy all of the ooohing and aaahing that ensued. And apart from the ghastly spider that I caught crawling up my shoulder and that I flicked into nothingness after I burst its eardrums with an earth-opening shriek, I really enjoyed myself too.

Occupational Hazards From The THE

This article, published by The THE last week, talks of the same job-seeking woes that sometimes I let seep in here. The interesting thing is that Nicholas Tesla isn’t fresh out of the uni or fresh out of his PhD; no sir, he is applying for high-end management roles within the academia (and must therefore have... twenty-five years worth of relevant experience perhaps?) and is being treated with the same contempt usually reserved for us, scum at the lower end of the research spectrum. Naturally, his piece isn't just about his own interviews, for it raises questions about the role of leaders and the one of managers, but even if you have no interest in higher education, I urge you to have a read, if only to rejoice in knowing that no, it is not just you at the mercy of HR androids everywhere.

I particularly love his reference to those institutions that do not even have the decency to acknowledge one’s application (cue, ‘superlicious silence’). I am telling you, when I read that, I felt like laughing and crying at the same time, if at all possible. Was I crying with laughter? Was I laughing while crying? I’ll never know and, let me tell you, it’s better that way.

Patrick Swayze Dies

I will remember him for being with his wife since they were teenagers and I will also remember his great love of animals, particularly horses and dogs. But of course he had millions and millions of girls and grown-up women alike swoon over him. After his turn as Johnny, each one of them dreamt of becoming a dancer that could effortlessly twirl in his arms eventually lifting off like a graceful bird. Absolute, utter, dreamy movie magic even for those of us who cannot tap a foot in tune with anything.

View From The Sofa

There is never a moment of privacy in this place. And I mean, never.

Picnicking It

I woke up to a vomiting dog and so the first three hours of my Saturday were frittered washing floors, bedding, dealing with long, sad faces and, eventually, preparing the picnic I had been planning. William eventually looked up for it and off we went into autumn and it was yet another fabulous day at Tatton Park. Sorry if this is boring people but now that the light is slicing low and that greens are mutating into golds... well, I’d be crazy to miss it.

One For The Girls

Today was the best day ever. I drove to Tatton Park with Victoria after we dropped Rick off at work and the weather was fabulous and the sky was super-blue and the water was crystal-clear and the leaves were turning, it was cold, peaceful, beautiful, argh, I am running out of sugary-sweet things to say. Magnificent I am telling you. We had a five-mile walk, enjoyed the sights, the deer and having the whole park pretty much to ourselves. I had never seen it so quiet but then we always love to go at the weekend, so it’s obvious that there was nobody around today. We then returned to William with a chewing cigar and he forgave us for the private girlie time. Anyway I later took him for a spin to the garden centre to meet another friend so he really doesn’t have anything to complain about if you ask me. What dog wouldn’t love to look at plants and paving stones and flowers and gravel I am asking? Isn’t that what dogs do? Shop at garden centres?