... she doesn't like much and has always been astonished at the sort of things other people are interested in. When the media was abuzz about a partial eclipse, she'd announce to whoever might be listening.
'I'm not interested in cullipses - it's so far up in the air'
I cancelled solstice, xmas and hogmanay but the lure of Chinese new year was too much, I make the appropriate animal gods and send them out to people who may enjoy them. We are now in the year of the snake - its all about transformation and flexibility so I knitted a batch of neck snakes, people are sending me photos of themselves wearing their mini-scarves - HUZZAH!
A few years in London, I noticed an intriguing shop front and had no idea what one might expect within
Turns out that it was an extraordinary immersive theatre event, it's very very top secret, everyone is under oath not to disclose anything about it -You Me Bum Bum Train is now so famous that more people apply for tickets to this show than to Glastonbury.
There is no possibility that I will ever get a ticket to see the show - BUT anyone can sign up to be part of the crew/cast for as many or few nights as they wish - I will be doing this next week, I have been sent a list of instructions which I must keep secret, I am beside myself ...
We stayed in a stone barn in the middle of olive groves, the view out over the blue blue sea and the islands beyond made us forget about the mattresses and too-much cheese. Also a lovely dog called Susie adopted us. Susie slept outside our bedroom on the balcony and accompanied our morning walks (past the wayside mattresses and toilets) to the beach and the bakery.
Also there were chickens, we cooked with their eggs and they offered endless entertainment, best was the evening show as they climbed or tried to fly into their roosting tree, then jostle and do that happy chicken noise as they found the right branch suitable for them all to settle down side by side for the night.
It's a startlingly sunny day, I'm on my lunch break and take a seat to enjoy the unusual warmth and the sight of dazed-looking freshers just arrived from Planet Zog, trying to figure out how doors work and what a potato is for.
A young man joins me on the bench and after a while asks if he can ask a question, he's careful with his words, he's trying out a whole new vocabulary
Where do I get wash tabs?
For clothes - laundry? (he nods) Any supermarket will have them
He looks puzzled and I can't quite get his accent, I'm guessing he's from eastern europe - or maybe further afield
If you go to the top of this street you'll see a Sainsburys, big orange sign, they will have a range of laundry products including tablets.
I went on to explain about supermarkets as he didn't seem familiar with the concept, then I asked where he'd come from ...
Wales
Too fast that's where it went...
The month featured a tale of two cats, one of them - an old friend - died, we will have her wake tomorrow. The other started visiting us at Gin O' Clock every evening, she accepts a piece of salami and then uses our garden as her personal bathroom.
My father is very ill I have been visiting as often as I can. He's actually very calm and comfortable, clearly at peace with the prospect of an ending but we are all in fear at the idea of a world without him in it.
My work involves me spending time with people in a waiting room, sometimes they're quiet, other times they really want to chat. I've got PTSD from some of the things people tell me, yesterday I was just confused.
A woman arrived, accepted a cup of coffee and told me how furious she is at the government's announcement about stopping the £500 winter fuel payment to pensioners, she told me how her mother found it difficult to cope. I sympathized, then she moved on to the joys of a clothing resales app called 'Vinted'.
Mum's a shopoholic, she just won't stop, her house is full of bags of clothes still with all the labels on. Every now again to make room for the next lot she'll take a load to the charity shop and I said - Mum! look you could make money on this stuff. I put some of it up on Vinted last week, 6 dresses, 10 pairs of jeans - all brand new, never worn - I got £35 for it !
July is the month for horse-cleaning. I join in with the annual re-whitening of the Uffington horse in Oxfordshire. The horse was created possibly three thousand years ago by digging a 2 metre deep trench and then filling it with chalk. It's hard to express my wonderment at this monument, how did they dig those trenches (probably slaves). How was it designed, the horse is so big that when you're working on it it's hard to remember which bit of the body you're on.
Is the creature actually a horse? there's whiskers on it's face - referred to as the 'beak' which only makes sense when you hear that an excavation in the '90s revealed that the whiskers had originally been a metre longer. The 'horse' has changed over the millenia by encroaching turf which is why the beak isn't very beaky. It had been noted that the rate of turf-encroament meant that the lines around it's head would disappear completely in a few years. Which is why this year we helped an archeological team to restore the lines to an earlier width.
One of the team brought along horsey tattoos for us all - I might make mine permanent.
I've not been dead these last few months, just lumpen, and waiting for something nice to happen but here's a recap
February - worked all month at a foot-scraping clinic: part of my job involved helping clinicians remove moldy toenails, the other parts seemed to involve being abused and not being paid much so I didn't stay.
March - interviewed by two adult schoolboys for a clerical job at the eye hospital, they couldn't remember what questions to ask me and had to keep nudging each other and pointing at bits of paper.
April - mainly rain
January has been a bit draggy, scraggy and irritating... a bit like me
At the beginning of the month I started a conversation with a very beautiful woman, I asked her what she was expecting for this coming year. She said that after more than 40 years of marriage to a beautiful but awful man - who'd made her feel worthless and ugly, she'd just finished divorcing him. She'd walked away from the beautiful house and beautiful garden, the beautiful cars and she was quite detailed about the beautiful furniture she'd left behind. Interestingly the one thing she'd kept was his beautiful name, which had been the thing that had made me start talking to her.
for me in 2023 there was
rather too much dampness
sad intervals
and toothache
a weirdly hot 1st week of September
a new king
the nice bits involved swimming and Christmas cake
I learned about the Japanese expression Kuuki wo yomu - 'reading the air'
This is not simply an ability to 'read the room'
In Japan this is an extreme and excruciating mind game, mainly used to establish and maintain hierarchical structures, the underling must become telepathic.
Kanako illustrated the concept with a story about when she worked for a small fashion company - her boss liked to perform the idea that his employers (the women) were his equals. Every day they would all go out for lunch together. Every day he would ask one of the women to say where they should go to eat. Each woman dreaded her turn to say because it was all about guessing correctly where the boss wanted to go - the inability to 'read the air' has it's own specific and derogatory term - KY (like being called 'backward') and is apparently a career-killer
Hadn't noticed the silent, secret river seeping though the house - has been for several years
Didn't notice til November - going to write something on the calendar, talking on the phone at the time, not really looking what I was doing but could feel pen slipping rather than writing so paid attention - water dripping through the ceiling, onto weird art calendar, making it even more grotequesly baroque
Several days progressively tearing the house apart - moving heavy furniture, dismantling shelving, sawing through plasterboard
Found rogue section of bathroom plumbing, sealing tape eroded, steadily weeping into wall of bedroom.
Weeks later less wet - still damp
Removing storage though - lovely spacious room.
Embracing dampness
Our house is situated on a crossroads, halfway down a hill. A wonky street light outside our gate is where people gather to sing songs, gossip and plan criminal activity. Over the road is patch of grass where general noise-makers like to set up shop and opposite our house is a big high wall - last year, a car of pink balaclava'd drug-stealers drove a stolen car into it and smashed it all down.*
There's a squeaky front gate then a little patch of concrete before the steps up to our front door, by the side of the steps is a little nook to get to the side gate, Here's an inaccurate picture of our house
Dogs and people like using the little side nook as a toilet, to do drugs and have sex. The wall by the nook has a thick thatch of ivy where burglars like to park the tools of their trade, best scores so far are several bolt cutters and a heavy duty iron trolley.
Outside our squeaky gate the ivy rampages up the street light sending out prongs of vegetation to attack people walking by. Last week while giving the ivy a trim my shears hit tinny metal, I pulled out a brass candle holder, like the one Wee Willie Winkie used, it had a candle stump in it. I've bought it in and cleaned it off - it's a cheap, scarred little thing, it doesn't look like the spoils of a heist so I'm wondering if it's another burglary tool - maybe an old-school cat-burglar who hasn't heard about modern torches yet.
* two weeks ago - exactly a year after that the wall was smashed down - a bobble-hatted man and a skinny lad, turned up and built the wall back up. It was finished yesterday, a shiny big car pulled up next to it and a spivvy character in a suit and dark glasses got out, inspected the wall and signed it off as satisfactory.
After the Great Flood I needed help - mainly to fix the electrics and the roof. The electrician offered to send some Brazilians my way, they had just finished working on a big building project and were looking for employment.
My current Brazilian is very attractive, last week he was making things nice up inworking on the roof, he speaks barely any English and we both have enough Spanish to ensure a continuous stream of misunderstandings. He arrives in the morning, I suggest 'Te o Cafe?' and he beams nodding enthusiastically 'Chocolat - si si si!!!'
At midday Alejandra brings down his packed lunch and I make myself a sandwich then we sit in the garden looking at all the apples and slugs and he tells me about the numerous offspring he has seeded around the world, he sees my face and beams 'I can't help, I Brazilian...'
it came right into the house like the roof didn't even exist
the stairs became a waterfall
what couldn't wait to come down the stairs squirted itself through the light fittings
I had that look on my face like Carrie after the buckets of blood dropped on her at the prom
Apart from that August hasn't been my favourite month this year.
She tried swimming in the murky chilly water of the Bristol Channel, we also did Art and Musical Theatre but the main event for Kanako was a thorough investigation of England's cafes, cakes and charity shops.
Accumulating pretty plates, tea sets that look like cottages and royal souvenir mugs during her visit - Kanako's homeward flight to Japan included a hefty clankage of ceramic goods.
I miss her!
I've not posted this month because I've been waiting to ungrump but it's clearly not going to happen before tomorrow.
I had a tooth out, then attended a dear person's funeral and then someone was horrid to me, then I spent a day in a hot traffic jam and all year my hormones haven't been working nicely.
I'm attempting to keep to at least one post a month so here it is.
Here's an employment opportunity
Battlefield Architect
Join our Future Battlefield Capability team ... You'll be developing new concepts such as Battlefield Effects Management and next generation open fire control systems in the context of large scale Digitised Battlefield Infrastructures.
You will be responsible for ensuring the integration of MBDA products into the wider battlespace. By interfacing with our customers directly, you'll identify their future capability needs, conduct investigation on potential solutions, and assess their feasibility as future products.
'Battlefield Effects Management' sounds like it'll be basically working on something Star Wars or Marvel, it's all sounds Huge Fun doesn't it?
These public notices are short stories, often poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes sad - they are an illustration of our society, describing loneliness and need. They show us who is vulnerable, and how labour is valued .
There's a lot of everyday sexism in these places. I've not yet seen an ad where a woman offers a man a place to sleep in return for managing her home maintenance and social needs.
I've done an exhibition about this
it is on in London at postROOM,
41 Ecclesbourne rd N1 3AF
open from Thurs 25th May - 17 June
open thurs - sat 2-6pm
more about this project can be found on my other website
My mother paid a visit. She noticed the cat scratching at the 'naughty' door
What's in there?
Nothing much but the cat loves it and her fur gets very smelly in there.
Mum opened the door and took an investigative sniff - ah - cannabis - she's getting high in there
I've recently been keeping company with Belcher, a fat snorey old cat who lives in Cornwall
Cornwall is a land of diverse residents. On leaving the main road to Lands End I follow signs to Gnome World then Screech Owl Sanctuary then Indian Queens, I drive on past these delights - my destination is a pretend old village built by our newly Kinged Charles III.
Belcher is not impressed by the amount I feed him and is highly suspicious of me - if he's not giving me hard stares from his food bowl he stands sentry under a plant-festooned coffee table. On the rare occasions that I do feed him, I'm rewarded by an extensive and close-up washing ritual, his plumpness makes this difficult so it takes a while.
Yesterday I drew a circle around a 'situations vacant' ad for a 'Senior Odour Consultant'
Then I went to our local pub and overheard someone explaining about biometrics, that her sister has a car that she can open without a key because the door handle can read her fingerprints, the person listening looked puzzled - So how does she start it up, does she have to lick the steering wheel?
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