It's all done

Two years of planning and scheming to get on to a post grad in London, how to arrange finances to live/study in one of the world's most expensive cities

Two years of books and lectures and arguing and writing and exams and papers

The chef d'oeuvre was handed in on Monday -  the rest of this week I've been like one of those astronauts who falls out of a rocket and has to spend the rest of his life slowly spinning round in space.

It's my birthday next week, I'm heading off to a Spanish beach for a few days for perspective readjustment therapy

beach art by Jamie Harkins

Since Meeting Space Lady

my dread of being buried by things has increased. Over the winter a lot of jumpers were needed to feed my  jumper unknitting fetish - my cupboards are bulging. Today I collected up lots of sad-but-might-be-useful t-shirts, impractical dresses and over-optimistic-trousers when I'd filled a sack I took it to the charity shop.

I have come back with a wild flame-coloured mohair cardigan, it's too long and has a collar that needs un-ridiculousing. When I've fixed it, it will be magnificent.

Visited Space Lady ..

.. this morning she is on the sofa under a duvet exactly as I left her two weeks ago but smellier. The space that was cleared in front of the sofa is now full of new-looking but slightly damaged books - she gestures triumphantly

Christmas presents!

I turn my head to catch a few titles; Canal-Building in the Midlands, Walking Your Dog... Looming above them are three unattractively presented volumes of fairy tales 

That's a bit late, who sent these to you?

No silly I've just bought them - for next  Christmas



The lump of overcooked rice lies untouched by marauding wildlife apart from the large snake of cat poo that has been laid near it.

The smell of burning is lingering persistently I'm chasing it off with an oven stuffed with beetroot and sweet potato packed with bay leaves and my biggest pot is filled with enough chicken in rosemary to feed me for the rest of the year.

Lacy Flaps

Space Lady was wearing her biggest woolly diving suit today, we waded around her house to see if we could find the ironing board - the furniture and floor are obscured by mounds of things so it's standing room only.

I tried to call to say that there is no water so there's no point in you coming

I won't stay long then

Will you iron this impossible thing

OK

The impossible thing was laundered but the cats had been sitting on it so I ironed over a lot of cat hair and footprints and other fluff from the floor, there were a lot of lacy flaps and the thing took an hour to make more or less flat - it would have taken half that but Space Lady stood very close and told me about the squatters who have moved into the church next door and I was trying not to burn her.

The estate agent rang to say that it's my fault the squatters are there she says that she has been and looked through the keyhole and can see them taking the organ apart and setting fire to it but there is no keyhole and you couldn't see into the church from the door even if there was

Bottom-Banging Squatters

I couldn't remember if I was supposed to visit Space Lady today so I phoned her to find out:

Well yes but no can you come next week instead we've got squatters

How exciting!

No not really they're banging their bottoms on the window when they try and get in and that wakes me up

Have you tried talking to them?

No they haven't shown themselves to be spoken to yet

Well maybe if you speak to them then you can find out what sort of people they are

Oh I can see what sort of people they are - they're the middle class sort

Wet Wet Wet

Image 1953 Peter Stackpole

Harsh loud hail waking me at night    rainy monotony during the day   cold weather coming

Space Lady day today: we sit opposite each other at the dining table and polish arcane silverware, she tells me complicated stories while Cellar Man fusses in the kitchen – long ago, to reduce frivolous water consumption, he removed one of the tap tops, today he  has removed the other one so water can only be obtained by means of a monkey wrench.

My charity shop unknittings have yielded about a jumperful of wool, all of it slightly different shades of cream, they make each other look dirty so I have been saving my used teabags to dye the skeins.  Some has turned a beautiful golden colour but the larger part of it looks like old meat. I have re-dyed the old meat wool with aubergine colour and it is now divine.

Silver-tongued

Space Lady was wearing clothes today and an entire room had been made visible. I took a broom and swept the ceiling then we both sat down. A  small beige plastic telly on a mountain of beta tapes showed a silent rerun of Heartbeat. I cleaned silver while Space Lady kept up a running commentary. The wideness of the pickle forks and the smallness of the cake forks provoked pictures in my head. The Man-in-the-cellar was out stealing wood.

Leave Space Here

Today Space Lady booked me to work for her, she is wearing her giant romper suit and gravity boots which is a bad sign. We navigated her crowded house with difficulty, trying to decide where to clear space so that she could have a visitor and as many as two people could sit. There was the usual failure of nerve - it was decided that I should spend the rest of the session listening to the Goon Show with her instead.

Space Lady has a large house and it is impossible to get through the door of most of the rooms. There was a room full of dead fridges and microwaves which I cleared last year, but this drew attention to the bay window which is peeling off the front of the house and the window panes which are zigzagged with lightening cracks stuck over with electrical tape.

Space Lady has a husband who has chosen to live in the cellar.