In our flat we measure the start of winter from the day the mice move in. It’s like Tom and Jerry here at the moment, but with three really inept Toms (one human and two dogs) and a Ninja-Jerry who can magic the food (snickers, mostly) off the traps without setting them off, but occasionally sets off a trap anyway for the fun of letting it slam down onto thin air. Continue reading “Of mice and men”
Category: writing
Hello? Is there anybody home?
Eesh. Look at all the dust in this place! The weeds have grown up through the floor, the air is damp, the pipes are cold. ‘Scuse me while I turn on the heat and light and try to figure out how to bring this poor, neglected blog back to life.
I make it over a month since I’ve put anything out here for you lot to read – I hope some of you have stuck around, despite all the broken promises that litter the previous entry. It’s two months, really, since I’ve felt inclined to post at all. I’ve been out of sorts since the beginning of September. I made it as far as putting the key in the lock of this place a couple of times, and then I wimped out and hared off back to the relative safety of made-up-stuff and not-writing (which extended to failing to post cards and write emails, actually). Time to get back to it.
Next time, Gadget
The problem with failing to write anything for a while is that occasionally I do actually have things to write about. And I really, really do – a load of things including the Bare Fiction launch, Manx Lit Fest and the incredible talks and performances I saw, and the Furies launch.
But I’ve just tried writing that post and I’m too tired and distracted to do any of it justice. Also, putting it all in one post is like trying to pack too many marshmallows into a mouth – uncomfortable amounts of goodness exploding all over the place and not actually being much fun – so please bear with and I think I’ll have to try and get each section up in parts. Continue reading “Next time, Gadget”
Launches, pretty things and anti-romance
I’ve been endlessly playing catch-up with my home and work life, never quite catching the will-o-the-wisp that is a completed To Do list and a clear mind. There have been brief respites (swimming at Brockwell Lido, no wetsuit, determined to develop into one of those double-hard winter swimmers (even as the sun continues to shine). Meeting up with friends. Meeting Sophie the sheep in Herne Hill – a woolly cutie who’s in training to be a movie star and wears a tiara) – but mostly it’s all been do do do, not sleeping, not writing, just about getting through the day. There’s been the odd purple day (that’s a day when the blues and the mean reds get together and throw a party just outside the blanket that I hide under when they come visiting). It’s been wearing. Continue reading “Launches, pretty things and anti-romance”
The unreal week
I have never relied on the kindness of strangers, but this week the kindness of strangers was what kept me and my parents going. I tried to make a joke just then, but that’s a bit beyond me at the moment. It’s been a tough one. Continue reading “The unreal week”
This is my voice
I have had my knuckles rapped by a couple of people for not updating on here for a couple of weeks – and I’m sorry! I am! But I was swept up doing things and writing sentences of the entirely fictional and occasionally poetic sort, and also the world as a whole appears to be going through a period of being worse than usual. I find it difficult, sometimes, to add to the noise of the internet with my own petty past-times when there’s so much more going on. It’s been that sort of month.
On the tip of my tongue
A week or so ago a person who’s known me for a very, very long time – knows my background and my family and how filled with books the house I grew up in is and how I talk – but had not read anything I’ve written until I started blogging, told me that she was quite surprised by my writing style. She thought it would be more flowery. More long words, I guess, and poetic and perhaps more philosophical?
I was a bit surprised, anyway, because at the other end of the scale Coffee Monster finds it funny and frustrating that, when talking, I have the barest grasp of nouns and can spend five minutes searching for the correct adjective. Not out of artistic temperament – I just forget words easily when I’m on the spot. I used to have a speech impediment Continue reading “On the tip of my tongue”
Friday night with Frankie and Johnny
Friday night and I’m at home alone watching Frankie and Johnny – a film, appropriately, mostly about a couple of lonely people who have no one to spend the evenings with. It might be my new favourite film. Also I’m being unnecessarily dramatic about being at home alone – I was invited for cocktails, but didn’t notice the message until I was already home and settled, and the Coffee Monster is out watching Black Sabbath. We would have been seeing Neil Gaiman at the Barbican this evening, but did some ticket juggling and are going tomorrow instead. Continue reading “Friday night with Frankie and Johnny”
Mangled and messy
This week started out with panicky 12-hour days at work, not much sleep and, when sleeping, stress dreams, and ended with a more relaxed drinking-prosecco-at-desk, Tom Cruise on motorbike, wander down the Thames path day. Apart from the fact that my body is currently splurging out the results of the stress (all the spots, all the aches, all the yawns), it’s all pretty good at the moment. Continue reading “Mangled and messy”
Water, water everywhere
It’s lunchtime on a Wednesday, and as I write this I’m sat in the tiny bit of shade at the edge of the gloriously sunny courtyard of Somerset House. The fountains are splashing away and drowning out any conversations I might have been distracted by. It’s lovely. It feels like being on holiday.*
*When I post this, I will actually be doing it from home, mind. After work. Continue reading “Water, water everywhere”
Bookworms and Coffee Monsters 