happy silly (magic) fun blog

happy silly (magic) fun

2010-02-21T22:53:00.004Z

I found out about a month ago that my old 'Ace High' blog had been deleted. I didn't know blogger deleted blogs. I found a few posts on the internet archive, but most of it was gone and I'm so sad that I'll never get that back. That made me think about my blogging history, I felt bad about abandoning this one so suddenly. Bloggers have that selfish thing going on, they're not getting paid, they can do what they please, but I am disappointed in myself for leaving it this way.

In that first Ace High blog I talked myself into leaving my partner, in this blog I tried to get happy on my own. My very favourite post is still in draft mode, it's called 'Reasons I love my boyfriend' and I love him today just as happy silly (magically) as I did then.* I stopped writing this when I was pregnant, my new baby was my 'project' I didn't need my blog any more.

He's called Lucas. We live in Whitstable now. I still miss Tooting Bec.

I've settled on a new blog, after a few mis-fires, and I think this one's a stayer. My latest post on my new blog is called, 'Stalking Tooting Bec' though whether I'll publish it I don't know. I've started to look for magic again, that was always such a hobby of mine and I miss that too.

My new blog is called 'not writing' which is a bit daft, but you know my blogs are magic things, and that includes their titles. They seem to sum up all kinds of stages in my life and somehow define me. I think 'not writing' might just be my new magic blog.

I'm sorry for leaving this one without a goodbye, but my, 'Hello, I'm still here' is http://notwriting.wordpress.com/ if you're interested in my what happened next.

* I read this through and just noticed that I missed out the word fun. That's kind of interesting, and in a magic way.

Happy New Year?

2007-01-04T12:34:00.000Z

If you get pregnant and have an IUD in place you're a freak. You ask the doctor questions and they say, 'I don't know, I haven't seen this before.'

There was a moment that I almost enjoyed, where the doctor looked shamefaced, and kind of apologised on behalf of the medical profession. She was sympathetic and said, 'An unexpected pregnancy is extra hard if you did nothing wrong.' Then she said, 'No form of contraceptive is 100%. We doctors forget that sometimes, we never warn people.'

Then she removed my IUD, and she told me I was likely to miscarry. She knew that much.

She also wanted me to have a scan at the Early Pregnancy Clinic to see if it was an Ectopic Pregnancy. That's a pregnancy in a 'tube' not the womb. If an IUD is stopping eggs settling in the womb, there's a danger the pregnancy could be in the wrong place. Apparently that could be life threatening. But I wasn't scared, I felt healthy-pregnant. I felt just fine. Just very pregnant. And very confused.

I found it amusing that all the doctors carefully called it 'a pregnancy' not 'a baby'. They were understanding about the big decision we faced. Abortion was the obvious choice for an early, unplanned, pregnancy.

Steve and I also assumed abortion was the answer, second-guessing each other into thinking this was what we each wanted. It was the sensible thing to do.

In Steve's red car, outside my Tooting Bec house, the idea that we could keep the baby was discussed...

Every inch of my body 'felt' pregnant. Denying that 'life inside' feeling to choose abortion took a lot of strength. I didn't expect it to feel so hard. I tried not to let my mind run away with the idea that getting rid of the 'pregnancy' felt a bit like bashing all the magic out of my body. It was the sensible thing to do. There's a time and a place for 'silly' and emotional, and romantic... And this wasn't it.

I'm in no way anti-abortion. I had no idea I'd find the idea of it so difficult. Pregnancy termination is very easily done at this stage, just a few pills and then a heavy period. I felt like I should do it, but... but... Magic, is magic! And I knew I'd cry for days if I did it.

That didn't mean I'd decided!

Why does 'sensible' seem to equal 'grim'?

And, while I'm at it...

This isn't fair!

Why me?

And, why did I keep smiling when I thought of a baby..?

And... Must Be Sensible!

The Early Pregnancy Centre test was just fine. I saw my 'pregnancy' on a screen. Just a little circle, a tiny egg. 5 weeks old.

I left Steve outside the treatment room. That felt a little cruel, I knew he wanted to be a part of this, wanted to help... I didn't want him to see that little egg. Even though it wasn't much, it was our baby. The doctor said that egg was in the right place. It was 'a normal pregnancy'. It was just a tiny dot, and I knew that with a pill or two it could be gone. That was still an option.

Then it seemed I might not need the pills...

Maybe it was because I'd had the IUD in place for 6 years? Maybe it was removing the IUD while I was pregnant? Maybe it was just one of those things? I started bleeding. Hardly any blood, but blood just the same. Spots of dark brown. And my tummy hurt too. I spent a few days bleeding, with my tummy feeling like it was churning around like a washing machine on a slow spin. It was uncomfortable, and worrying. I told myself a miscarriage would be a good thing...

It didn't feel like a good thing.

It made us both realise we wanted that baby.

If there could be a baby...

And while we're on the subject of 'sensible.'

Steve doesn't live with me. The idea of him moving in is completely terrifying.

We've been together just 10 months. I've spent many of those months threatening to dump him.

I'm happy with Amy, I'd decided I didn't really want more children.

And while we're on the subject of 'silly'...?

We want a baby. We want to be some magical couple with our happy baby story. We're in love. We're as much in love as can be. I want Steve's baby!

And the washing machine churn, and spots of blood have gone away for now. And I hope we'll have our magic, miracle baby and live happily ever after.

There's just one thing Steve and I can't agree on. I want this baby to have ginger hair... Steve doesn't.

Happy Christmas?

2006-12-31T16:52:00.000Z

I stuck 23 stickers for 'The Advent Calendar Inside Steve's Head especially for Jo' on Christmas Eve. At Tooting Bec, the magic tube station.

I'd been keeping up with my stickering plan despite the removal of my tube station poster after 5 days. But on the 20th the poster was replaced again - and this time I only had one replacement sticker in my bag to get started with again. So I stuck my sticker of 'a piece of sellotape on the edge of something,' then felt daunted by the thought of making 23 more stickers in the busy days leading up to Christmas.

I also noticed graffiti on the special poster (two from the end on the Northbound platform,) but it didn't make much sense to me. It just said, 'WAKEUPORDIE.COM(!)'

Even when I briefly glanced at the website it made little sense. And I didn't like that it was on my poster for Steve, so I decided to ignore it.

I somehow found the time to make the stickers, to make Steve's advent calendar real. As I quickly drew I cursed Steve's complex images like, 'Santa on the top of the London Eye having a cigarette' and, 'Boy refusing the offer of more food.' But it felt very good when I'd done it. Steve appreciated it, and he loudly told me he loved me, when he met me in Bennett's non-corner corner shop after he'd seen the advent calendar poster for the first time. Special Christmas Magic!

Hmm, perhaps I should tell you about more Christmas magic?

Well... My period was late.

On Christmas Eve (look away now if you embarrass easily) my breasts did a strange nipple-ache thing, a feeling exactly the same as one I'd had when I'd been pregnant with Amy.

By Christmas Day the funny feeling was still there. All my alternative explanations for this funny feeling had relied on it going away...

After putting Amy to bed on Boxing Day Steve drove me to a 24 hour Chemist in Streatham. We bought a pregnancy test - whilst watched by a gang of cuddly toy tigers, on the other side of the aisle...

I said we 'drove' to Streatham? Well, Steve has a new car! Must tell him to update his blog so you know this important stuff... The car is red. We were a bit disappointed about the colour. His Grandad was getting rid of it, it was very cheap. It's good having a car. Although we spent an entire Amy-free night stuck in traffic when we'd hoped to go Christmas shopping in Bluewater.

So... Pregnancy test?

We went back to Steve's Streatham room, and I did the peeing on the stick thing. And then we waited 3 minutes...

I think I need to explain that I do use reliable birth control. That's why I was convinced that it was impossible that there'd be 2 lines for, 'Yes, you're pregnant!' Even though my body seemed to scream, 'You're pregnant' at me all day long. I simply felt pregnant. Being pregnant is a magic thing. And I like to think I know magic.

Do you know anybody who's ever got pregnant while taking the pill? Someone who's on the contraceptive pill, and taking it very carefully every day?

Well, I don't take the pill. Instead I have an IUD. It used to be called, 'the coil.' I remember my Sex Ed teacher calling it that, and thinking, 'That sounds painful!'

An IUD is like a bit of copper barbed wire that sits inside your womb and repels sperm and eggs that might want to settle there. It's one of the safest and best forms of contraception available. If 100 women use it for a year then just 0.5 women will get pregnant. (I won't make any jokes debating how half a woman could get pregnant, or even a whole woman getting 'half pregnant'?) That kind of statistic means it is equaled (but not bested) by the pill for reliability.

So of course I couldn't be pregnant!

Of course we looked at the little white stick and there were two lines! Two lines equaled pregnant.

'Fuck!' Steve and I both shouted together. (And Steve doesn't swear much!)

We both burst out laughing next. I suppose it was comical that our life had just taken such a bizarre twist.

And there I'll leave you for now. I watched too many soaps over Christmas. My Mum likes soaps. My life feels like a soap opera sometimes.. So this can be the cliffhanger ending. What happens next...?

Do yourself Eastenders or Coronation Street music. I don't mind.

I call this soap, 'Tooting Bec.'

Magic 5s

2006-12-15T12:02:00.000Z

I blogged about the 15th being a bad day, but the thing is, what do you do if your Feeling Bad Anniversary thing was in the early hours? It was just after midight on the 14th, so 'officially' that's the 15th, but I can almost convince myself that it was actually the 14th. It felt like that day because it was before bed time of the 14th.

So if I think like that it makes the 15th a non-event. Which means the worst is over with. So today I can feel ok, by using the magic of the number 5 to tell myself that I needed to feel bad yesterday, and not today. And on the 14th I could try to feel better by telling myself it was the 15th. And I had an early night to prevent the freakiness of those 'exact hour' anniversary horrors.

Of course, it was only because I believed in the power of the number 5 that I remembered it as the 15th at all. I do know it's all daft, and the important thing is to look forward to tomorrow, and lots of tomorrows, some days with the number 5 in them, some days without. And any of them can be happy.

The 5 tube stations with the silliest names (zones 1-3)

2006-12-10T21:08:00.000Z

I haven't looked at the tube map yet. I'm delaying the pleasure. It's part of the adventure...

There's a time soon where I know I'm going to feel bad, so I came up with a plan to help me to avoid this.

Here's the plan for distraction-from-feeling-bad, on likely-to-feel-bad night.

Find the 5 tube stations with the silliest names. These will have to be in zones 1-3, for practical and financial reasons. To visit the 5 silliest-named places on one night, it's best if they're not too far away. The main reason is that I have a zone 1-3 monthly travel card. I don't want to be bothered with zone extensions.

When I've located the 5 silliest named tube stations, I will plan a route, deciding the best order to get to them all. This will not be a silly order, it will be sensible.

When I reach the silly-named destination I'll explore until I find a pub, or else a cafe, and once there I'll have a drink, and make a sticker. The sticker can be anything. This can (and probably will) be silly.

Then I'll stick the sticker somewhere at the silly-named tube station, and move on to the next. When 5 silly destinations have been visited, and 5 silly stickers stuck I'll go home to Tooting Bec.

I've realised that this game is likely to involve me drinking 5 pints. That's ok.

I expect Steve will come too, but he doesn't have to. And I told him he can make stickers too if he likes, I'm not sure he will.

There's a chance that this stickering adventure will take place tomorrow night, but I hope not, as that's the office Christmas party. It will most likely be on the 15th.

Hmm, I've never been to Pudding Mill Lane...

Numbers

2006-12-07T11:24:00.000Z

I'm not superstitious at all, but I do like the number 5. It's my 'favourite number' not a 'lucky number'. Although I do believe in it's magic.

I suppose it's magic like tigers on tube posters, and stickers, and Tooting Bec itself. I realise that I'm always looking for magic, and wanting to believe in it, rather than that it being actually real. But then again I think that looking for the magic might be the magic. I don't know. And it's right that I don't know. If you could pin down and define magic, then it wouldn't be magic, would it?

So I look for meaning in things sometimes. Like the number 5. And other numbers have meaning's too don't they?

Do you know that if you look at a random pattern of anything, it's human nature to try to see a face? So perhaps it's something like that...

So I have this special date. It's 15/12/05. Or in the american style 12/15/05? It doesn't matter which. It was a bad day. And I try to find some meaning in it's numbers, as if that will help me make more sense of it. So I decide 1 means alone, or else single. 5 means magical significance. 1 again (explained) then 2, meaning a couple. 0 meaning nothing, zero, just a blankness. 5 again for that special magic. And somehow that makes sense in my head. More than if the number was 21/08/06 or 9/14/03. Because I do believe in magic. Not always happy magic. And thinking 15/12/05 might mean something doesn't help me to deal with it any better than if I believed in Jesus and saw his likeness in a slice of toast.

'The Advent Calendar Inside Steve's Head especially for Jo'

2006-12-07T08:55:00.000Z

It's a secret, so don't tell Steve, but I've been making stickers for all the pictures of the 'Advent Calendar Inside Steve's Head.'

There's a special poster that I always sticker on. It's two from the end on the Northbound platform at Tooting Bec. Of course the stickers would have to go there.

I love this imaginary advent calendar game. I'm only hoping Steve won't suggest something that's too hard to draw.

So far Steve's given me:

Dec 1st - A tangerine
Dec 2nd - A camp bed
Dec 3rd - A small blue plastic elephant with a hoop on its back
Dec 4th - A TV remote control
Dec 5th - A small piece of sellotape stuck to something
Dec 6th - Two Duracell batteries

So I made all these stickers, and I stuck them on my special poster. I hadn't stickered for ages, so this felt good. But as I stuck my stickers I saw something surprising. Someone else had stickered on my special poster! There were two tiny biro drawn figures on white sticker paper. They looked a bit like aliens, basic body shapes, but one had a heart shaped head. The poster that was two from the end on the Northbound platform at Tooting Bec was an Oasis poster this time, and this had lots of detail, bits and bobs... So I had to feel one of the stickers, just to be sure it was someone else's sticker and not part of the poster design. Yes, there were two little stickers there, so I wondered who'd stuck them and why?

I wasn't sure how I felt about it, I'd stuck my stickers already, and if I'd seen the stickers before I might have chosen a different poster. Now I'd have to share with the other stickerer.

I did like the idea that someone else had been stickering while I'd abandoned this game. It just felt like this was supposed to be a poster full of stickers, a Christmas present for Steve. I wasn't sure how Steve would feel about someone else's stickering on his advent calendar poster? I knew he wasn't always happy about the idea of other people reading my blog when he doesn't.

The train arrived, so I had no time for further thought. But as the days passed I got used to the idea of sharing my poster, and I even hoped more stickers might appear, but there were just those two.

So I drew Steve's imaginary advent calendar pictures secretly, carefully, each day, and stickered for 5 days. And then something happened...

I headed to work as usual, a new sticker ready to stick, but I saw that the Oasis poster had been replaced. Instead there was a bright red poster advertising some dance music album. So all my stickers were gone..!

But it was ok. You see, I'd made 2 advent calendar stickers each day, just in case this happened. I know what stickering's like by now. So I took my 5 replacement stickers out of my bag and stuck these on the poster, two from the end on the Northbound Tooting Bec platform... I just managed to stick all 5 stickers before my train arrived. I stuck the 'small piece of sellotape stuck to something' sticker and then ran for the train, just as the doors were about to close.

Steve was with me last night, and at one minute past midnight he told me that Day 7 of the 'Advent Calendar Inside Steve's Head especially for Jo' was 'Grandad asleep'.

He's funny. I love him. And I think I'm going to draw a Grandad asleep with a Radio Times across his chest. We talked about Grandads, and neither of us had one who'd fall asleep at Christmas. But that wasn't the point..!

I've been playing a 'Guess the Advent Calendar picture' game with Amy since December 1st. Every day so far I've said, 'It's going to be holly!' And today it actually was! I knew it would be when Amy said, 'Yes, I think holly too!' Amy's guessed every day accurately so far, despite my warning that Santa only gives presents to good children, and cheating with advent calendar doors is not good.

The thing I like best about the 'Advent Calendar Inside Steve's Head especially for Jo' is that I can't guess what it will be tomorrow. But if you're passing the special poster, two from the end on the Northbound platform at Tooting Bec you can find out.

God and Aftershave

2006-12-05T19:28:00.000Z

I don't believe in God, I believe in tigers on tube station posters.

I finished work early and had a few hours to kill before Steve came home. I decided I ought to do some Christmas shopping. I'm not very good at shopping. I look at stuff and think 'almost', 'maybe', 'if only...' and walk away and look at something else that's 'almost', 'maybe,' but never quite right. I often think about the thing I looked at first, which by now has become 'just right' in my head. Only it's there, and I'm here. And I know if I go back to it I'll probably see the reason I dismissed it in the first place.

Steve asked me to choose some aftershave for him.

I like the way he smells. He doesn't smell of anything much. He doesn't usually wear aftershave. He must have decided he wants to.

I saw bottles of tacky shapes, with garish labels, and with overpowering names like 'Happy' or 'Unforgiveable.' I smelled a few but knew this was hopeless shopping. I could never find a bottle that smelled of nothing much. That smelled as special as he did.

I wasn't in the mood for Christmas shopping any more.

Christmas isn't always a happy time, is it?

It would be the first Christmas I'd spent without Amy's Dad. Christmas is supposed to be about children. For children Christmas is about toys. I knew Amy would be happy with plenty of those. I'd miss her Dad, she wouldn't. I'd miss that he wouldn't see her enjoying her Christmas presents.

I felt sad, and decided I'd save the shopping for another day. I shop better when I'm desperate, when I must buy, without any time for 'maybes' or 'not quite rights'.

I wondered what I'd do when I got home, while I waited for Steve? Would I have a drink or two, because I could? Because this was my 'me time,' my turn to be alone while Amy enjoyed her toys with another parent.

A song played on my iPod - and it was a good tune. It was positive. It was lively. I've a feeling it was about faith. It felt like the way I would be if I could write myself into a story. I looked at a tube poster and saw a tiger. That was the second tiger I'd seen on a tube poster ad just recently. I used to believe that tigers were magic. Because of the tiger man at Tooting Bec station.

And I wanted to write a story, as lively and positive as that song, as magical as the tigers on the tube posters... But I didn't. I scribbled this blog post in a notebook instead. And I couldn't get a seat on the train. So I couldn't write in my little laptop. It didn't really matter.

I saw magic, and it saved me, and maybe baby Jesus was born on a special day and everyone will have a happy Christmas?

Will you drink to that?

Bovril

2006-12-03T20:54:00.000Z

Done mustard. Here's a post about another jar of stuff.

Did you know that Bovril used to made from boiled up cows? But due to BSE the Bovril bigwigs deciding not to boil up any more cow-bits that might make it's customers go mental. So they made Bovril with yeast extracts instead.

Only Bovril have now decided to boil up cows again.

I really like Cup a Soup (or Soup-a Cup! as I like to call it) but I've recently started drinking Bovril, which with it's yeast extract is full of B vitamins, and is a heathy low fat snack-drink. Unlike Cream of Mushroom Soup-a-Cup which is certainly soup-a, but has a high fat content and I imagine all the mushroomy goodness is destroyed in the mushroom dehyydrating and dessication stages. I don't really know how they make Cup a Soup, but I'm imagining you don't either. You'll probably believe me if I sound like I know about mushroom dessication...

Cup a Soup is for the most part vegetarian. As is Pot Noodle. Even Chicken and Mushroom. But that's another post. However I really do like these vegetarian-yet meaty tasting snacks. Bacon crisps too. No piggies are crisped in the making!

Bovril Bigwig's have now decided cow brain's are safe again, so they've taken to distilling these into savoury black paste again. This is Bad News for vegetarians. Bovril will henceforth be meaty, and as a vegetarian I can no longer enjoy it's savoury B vitamin goodness.

Of course there is Marmite. But everyone knows Marmite is a spread and not a spread/drink. Plus who's ever heard of 'M vitamins'?

As this is a very recent decision by the spread/drink manufacturers I thought it would still be possible to buy the vegetarian jars of Bovril. Like mustard, Bovril has a long shelf life, so I decided next time I saw it in Sainsbury's I'd stock up.

And do you know you can use Bovril as a stock too? All the more reason to stock up - or even 'Bovril up'?

I've considered that I'm not likely to be the only vegetarian to feel this way. So when I saw jars of vegetarian Bovril in Sainsbury's I decided to buy the lot and sell it to fellow Bovril-addict vegetarians on Ebay. Vegetarians are middle class, they have disposable income, nice home computers with broadband, and they don't worry about using their credit cards for online shopping... Perfect! I was sure that a 'black market' in Bovril would soon develop - and make me as rich as it's meaty-licious flavour!

Only when I got to Sainsbury's in Balham did I hit a problem. Every jar on the shelf was 'Beefy Bovril'. I looked on Ebay and it's not there. I have only half a jar left... Then it's Minestrone Cup a Soup. What is a minestrone anyway? I hope they didn't kill any to make my soup...

55555

2006-12-01T20:54:00.000Z

Did you know that 5's my favourite number?

At 10.50pm yesterday, one hour ten minutes before the NaNoWriMo deadline, I finished my novel, and it had 55,555 words. Five fives.... To get the word tally exactly right I had an expandable/contractable paragraph, where a goblin hijacked a computer keyboard and typed the word 'fuck' a lot.

It must be something to do with the blogging..? I didn't really know where my story was going when I started NaNoWriMo, but it ended up being about 'me me me'. It involved Tooting Bec magic, stickers, stalkers, adventures, and not enjoying being in love as much as you'd expect. My plot involved a heroine who was writing a novel in a month - in an attempt to solve a problem and get happy, or else to make it her 50,000 word suicide note. But don't worry, it was all fiction! Yes, completely... I didn't really have obsessive stalker tendencies towards a minor celeb, did I?

Steve and I bought two bottles of champagne, one for each of our books. The champagne could only be opened if we managed 50,000 words by midnight on 30th November. We added a new twist to the NaNoWriMo challenge - the champagne was ours only if we gave each story a happy ending.

The happy ending might have proved the hardest challenge. Steve didn't tell me much about his story, but it seemed to have a character dying every ten pages. I imagined his hero drinking, smoking, and hating himself, as he moodily contemplating the messy decapitation of a beautiful woman.

My heroine spent her time comically looking for reasons to rule out self destructive methods. She'd dismissed knife, gun, gas, poison and Tooting Bec tube train. At the 53,000 word point she'd dumped her boyfriend intending to make herself even more miserable. Only a desperate push to write the magic 55,555 words gave my book any hope of a happy ever after. The book finished on 55,556 words. And still a happy-ish ending.

Steve worked all night covering a poker tournament on Wednesday, so woke up late on the final NaNoWriMo day with 5000 words to write. As an incentive for him to get words written I told him I'd rather delete words from my novel than finish on my own. We decided we had to type 'The End' simultaneously.

We drank Steve's Moet when we'd finished those final words, accompanied by cream cheese bagels. We were both starving as we hadn't had time to get tea.

I scraped a happy ending into my last 230 words, thanks to magic stickers. But my heroine's ambition to change her life by writing a novel might need to be accomplished in a rewrite.

So now it's back to normal life rather than bashing out words in every spare moment. I complained to Steve for suggesting the 'stupid' word bashing exercise, but now I think I'll miss it. We've both realised we like nights in my living room, on the red sofa, my legs on his lap, gherkins on the coffee table, beer poured in glasses, iTunes playlists playing, and laptops for two. So tonight I'm starting my screenplay, and Steve's going to finish a journalism course he started a while ago.

I want to forget projects that last a month, but Steve seems to have found a new one. He just emailed me this...

'In the 'imaginary advent calendar carried around in Steve's head' advent calendar, today's picture is a tangerine. Don't ask me, I don't choose these things you know? :oP'

In the chaos of finishing my book I forgot to make my heroine return to stickering. So I think I might do that for her, and start with an orange tangerine.

And if I was like her, and continued a kind of writing quest to find a happy ending, I might do it in replies to emails from Steve, and happy blog posts, and opening imaginary advent calendar doors in an imaginary advent calendar carried in my wonderful boyfriend's head.

I don't have an advent calendar for Steve, but atthe end of December I hope I can show him a tube poster full of stickers. That thought is part of my happily ever after.

Mustard - Part 2

2006-11-23T19:04:00.000Z

I must admit I was concerned, I got home and reached straight for the mustard. I took my mustard jar out of the fridge (should mustard be kept in a fridge?) and I studied the yellow Colman's jar.

The best before date was October '07. 'Aha!' I thought, not too far off my 'End of 'O7' blog post guess..!

But as I studied the packaging I was still concerned. I'd blogged about mustard losing it's spice without warning to it's purchasers, but perhaps it did have a 'Best consumed within x weeks of opening' statement? This would have rendered my last post meaningless... I might have had to delete the post... But, no! Simply a, 'Store in a dry cool place,' statement. (Should mustard be kept in a fridge?)

Hmm, 'interesting phrasing' I thought, 'Store in a dry cool place' and not the more usual, 'Store in a cool dry place...' But actually I'm not going to blog about that. No.

I saw a far more interesting line on the jar... 'If you have any questions or comments please phone FREE on 0800 281026 (UK only) Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.

Of course I had a question AND a comment! (Was that allowed, or would this have to be two phone calls?)

I decided I wanted to ask the experts at Colmans, 'Why did mustard lose it's hotness after it's opened?' And my comment was going to be a bit cross (sorry) it was, 'Why don't you tell us the mustard flavour spoils after a few weeks!?'

I must admit I was quite intrigued by the existence of this special phone line for Mustard questions. And I thought I'd try to get my money's worth from the service. (Which is free.)

Here's a few questions I thought I could ask. If you can think of more please let me know.

-- What do people normally ask a Mustard Hotline?

-- How do you get a job as a Colman's Mustard Hotline operator? Are you busy or do you have long (mustard sandwich) lunch breaks?

-- Do you prefer the flavour of hot newly opened mustard, or mild few-weeks old (spoiled) mustard?

-- Should mustard be kept in a fridge?

-- Was it important to use a 'dry cool' place, or would a 'cool dry' one do just as well?

I'll let you know what the Colman's mustard people say.

Mustard

2006-11-22T16:20:00.000Z

I had a pretend ham and mustard bagel for lunch today. I'd used a newly opened jar of Colmans English Mustard to make my bagel, and I was surprised by the spicy-hot strength of the mustard in my sandwich. Then I remembered that new mustard is always stronger than mustard from a jar that's been open a bit.

I've been trying to understand the science of this dramatic change in mustard strength. The only conclusion I can reach is that there's some kind of food spoilage going on. It has to be that spicy-hot mustard seed particles are degrading over time, and that possibly bacteria in the air, or else photosynthesis is responsible for this loss of hot-mustard flavour? I didn't really know, I only got a 'C' for GSCE Science.

I didn't like the thought, as I munched my bagel. Even though my mustard bagel was very tasty I was concerned that by next week I would be eating a pretend ham and mustard bagel with inferior, and even spoiled, mustard.

I was confused, because I was fairly sure that Colman's English Mustard had a very long shelf life. I suspected my mustard jar would have a 'best before' of late 2007, perhaps even 2008? But something was happening to my mustard, changing its flavour, well before the date of 'so called' best-ness.

I suppose you could argue that people might prefer the milder taste of a few-weeks-open jar of mustard? Even if it is (scientifically speaking) slightly rotten and spoiled. But I thought that Colmans should at least have a 'Less Hot by' date on the jar. Of course they could still have their, 'Best Before December 2007' but alongside this they should also have a notification someting like, 'Less hot after 2 weeks opened.' They could reassure people with 'But it never goes mouldy' even though the mustard seed particles were clearly degrading to make the taste change.

Fascinating stuff... And if you like the strong flavour of newly opened mustard then I'd suggest you adopt a plan of finding a local cafe and stealing individual sachets of mustard. Then you can always have mustard as hot and fresh as the day it was opened.

But if you like the milder mustard flavour of slightly spolied mustard seed particles? Well, then you should buy the very biggest jar that you can find of Colmans English Mustard. After a few months it won't taste very mustardy at all, but it will still be bright yellow and look like mustard. And don't worry, it won't go mouldy.

Unless... (New theory!) Perhaps the yellow of the mustard seed particles is simply dying mould so you can't see it? Perhaps the mustard taste is so strong it takes a while for the mustard taste to be overcome by the de-strengthening mouldy spores (less 'hot') flavour. Or else it is something to do with photosynthesis..?

I'd Google, but I'm too busy eating my lunch.

Ho hum

2006-11-13T09:09:00.000Z

I'm writing this this morning instead of replying to Steve's Late Night Long Email. We've debated whether 'loved up' should be spelled 'lovved up' or even 'luvved up' but found no real conclusion, we just know how those words feel. We watched 'The Village' in bed late last night, on Steve's laptop. Good film. Although I upset Steve when I told him that I'd guessed the twist. He'd told me there was a twist, that meant I was bound to try to guess it! So we had a lazy, lovved up, minor falling out. We followed this with me waving my arms high in the air, demonstrating how much in love with him I was. Typical me, I found something to worry about even in that.

I said, "If you're..." Arms drawing line high in air... "That Much in love... Where does love go?"

I couldn't imagine my love line, high in the air, getting any higher, or the feeling that inspired it becoming any stronger. So if your arms are as high as they can go in the air, what happens next? Where does love go?

Typical me, I suggested the love had to go down. Steve suggested it might become a wavy line, sometimes up, sometimes down, but always high.

Another theory was that we'd find a new stage of love. if this was stage 1 of love, we'd reach stage 2. We'd remember the time the line was high up in the air, but become so comfortable with this feeling that we'd enjoy new benefits. Steve pointed out that we were now lying comfortably in bed, he was wearing his tacky, 'Gutshot - only real name in poker' T-shirt, I had no make up and my wonky glasses. We both looked crap. We didn't notice. If we did notcice we wouldn't care.

So we came to that classic conclusion, 'No point worrying about things you have no control over.' Instead it's see what happens next, 'Lets just enjoy things'. Steve said you can handle a lot when you decide not to worry about it.

This blog post is a diversion from chores. I have another diversion planned soon, a lovved up reply to Steve's loved up email. Then I need to bash out NaNoWriMo words.

I'm on 17,995 words when I should be on 20,004. And it should be 21,671 by the end of the day... I haven't once been ahead of the average word count. I'm finding this hard. But I haven't given up.

Steve was on 17,000 by day 7. He won't tell me how many words he's written now, but I expect it must be nearly 25,000.

I'm competetive. Which is not a good thing. Steve's not like that at all. But he knows I'm a bitter jealous fool, so he doesn't boast about his word count in case it upsets me. Which it probably would. I wonder how it would be if I was on 25,000 and he was struggling? I don't know... But I feel sure that I'd be happy if Steve finished the challenge, even if I didn't. Maybe that's the next stage of lovved up-ness? Forget arms waving in the air demonstrating personal feelings, think arms high in the air, celebrating victory for someone you love, or arms holding someone who needs a hug. Perhaps the next stage of lovved up-ness is forgetting to wonder, 'What is love?' Instead using those feelings to change for the better, using them to stop being a bitter, jealous, fool of a girlfriend.

Robot Pig Man Mouse Catcher

2006-11-09T10:42:00.000Z

I love Steve's blog, I told him that I believed in Tooting Bec magic, but to be honest my faith in this has faded a little. It's as if Steve has picked up where I left off. He seems to be the new protector of the magic, perhaps guarding it until my magic-seeking spirit is restored?

He seems to see Tooting Bec as a place of mystery and enchantment too, and often blogs about the adventures he finds on his trips home. I like that his blog fills me in on the part of his day I miss when he leaves my side, and each morning it reassures me that he got home safely. So much happens on his journeys home that I sometimes wonder if the magic might have left the tube station, and relocated to the bus stops and taxi offices, that he uses in his early hours trips home to Streatham?

Steve once saw off a fox in my living room, with only a cardboard roll sword, and a towel shield. Yesterday he dealt with a mouse that left me, Amy, and Agi screaming, and looking for chairs to jump on. With a glass cup, a page of Time Out, a trip down the road, and manly bravery, the tiny rodent was soon gone. Amy decided he'd left it outside number 16 where schoolfriend, George, lives.

So Steve's my hero. A hero who on one heroic Wednesday can catch mice, hang wall mirrors, cook tea, write cheery-uppy emails, work on his novel, and all this whilst having his heart checked out with wires and a black box. The wires made Amy decide he's a robot.

Steve doesn't read my blog, so he won't know I'm writing about him today. His last email's subject was 'Robot Pig Man - Mouse Catcher'. I don't like the 'pig man' bit, Amy's wrong about his greed at the tea table.... But let me explain the subject heading of his last blog post. My romantic hero boyfriend often uses secret code phrases in his blog, that only I will ever get. Like, 'Big Elephants Always Understand Small Elephants' and also 'Magazines Need More Dogs and Balls'.

As well as the mouse catching, mirror hanging, tea cooking, novel writing, and robotics, yesterday my wonderful boyfriend helped Amy make a collage from old issues of Time Out. Amy insisted on making a picture of dogs and balls. There aren't many dogs in Time Out, yet Steve gamely found a few. And put up with her whining when the dogs were too big, too small, or the same dog as before.

I wish I could write a love letter of a blog to Steve. I wish that he could read this post... But my romantic hero boyfriend, loves me enough to know that I prefer to blog without the complication of him reading this.

So I'm writing a novel in a month, and I think this will be a 50,000 word love story inspired by him. I'm only on 12,471 words. I should be on 15,003 as it's day 9! Keeping to 1,667 words a day is hard work. So far my novel is sad, Steve says his is too. The only thing we agreed about our NaNoWriMo novel plots is that our stories must have a happy ending.

So, I'd better go bash out more words. I want to get closer to the happy 40,000's. I'm especially looking forward to word 49,999, 'The' and word 50,000, 'End'. A happy ending should be easy if it's inspired by my Robot Pig Man Mouse Catcher. At the end of the 30 days I hope we'll be able to celebrating writing some kind of a novel, but if not I hope we can celebrate eight happy months of Tooting Bec magic together.

Borat vs Robert Kennedy

2006-11-08T09:54:00.000Z

Steve says I'm more laddish than he is. But I don't think he minds that I like a pint and a game of poker, a little bit more than he does. I think he minds that I sometimes chat on MSN with my colleagues in a 'nudge nudge wink wink' style. Maybe I am more laddish than ladylike? I was quite proud to have used Tit and Arse shots on the PokerStars.com official blog. Steve used James Joyce quotes on the Gutshot one.

I like laughing at piss-poor countries, so of course I'm eager to see the Borat film. Whereas Steve's excited to see a new film about Robert Kennedy. All I know about 'Robert Kennedy' is politics. Steve knows lots about politics. Well... I know a fair bit about the history of early computer games.

Steve told me why he likes Robert Kennedy, and said, 'He made speeches that would make their hair on your neck stand up. That kind of stuff. So yes. Kiss me and send me to the cinema on my own. I’ll get a curry on the way home. :o)'

I do like curry.

Steve likes salad. He knows how to make a very nice balsamic vinegar dressing.

And of course I want to see his Robert Kennedy film!

I wonder what Steve will think of Borat?

Diversion

2006-11-06T22:33:00.000Z

8,865 words now. We said we'd write till 10.15pm. I thought I'd blog less when I was doing this noveling challenge, instead writing blog posts seems easier than bashing out the next novel plot twist. It is 'bashing out words' not writing, and that's the idea - 50,000 words in 30 days, no thoughtful editing allowed. The rules state, 'Turn off your Inner Editor.' I do love the freedom of this seat-of-your-pants approach to writing. Not-even-knowing-which-pants-you're-wearing is justifiable. My personal target tonight is 9,000 words. And it should be reachable because I do have some plot in mind. I just don't know how to get there from the bit of the plot I've stopped at now.

Steve is typing away. I can see his dense paragraphs. We're not looking at each others work at all, except in a squinting at it, blurry kind of way. I can see he has dense paragraphs, and he's commented a few times on the sparse text he sees when squinting at mine. "Ooh, double spacing!" He just said.

So far a side effect of this novel writing challenge is drinking lots, and listening to iPod playlists. I've discovered I like Steve's music, and he seems to like mine. And we both like bashing words out on a keyboard, whilst drinking and listening to iPod music. When we finish the night with a good quota of words it feels great to hug and chat about it all. So I'd better bash at my novel, not my blog some more. I want to earn a hug.

I'm not blogging...

2006-11-04T23:37:00.000Z

50,000 words in 30 days is hard. I'm behind everyone I know who's doing this NaNoWriMo challenge. I'm on around 6,000 words. I suspect Steve is on 10,000 plus, he's not telling me any more because he knows I could take it badly. His friend Barron is on 7,500 words. And I feel competitive with Steve's friend Barron, just because he was rude to Steve a couple of times, and seems like an arrogant prick.

I am enjoying writing the novel. The book about NaNoWriMo is called, 'No plot? No problem!' This promotes a helter-skelter, don't-give-a-fuck, off-the-top-of-your-head approach to writing. I'm enjoying this style of Noveling so far. I've had fun with plot twists involving Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree book, pretentious 1950's style greasy spoons, and green and yellow paper pants.

Amy loves the Faraway Tree books, they were first published by Enid Blyton in 1939. My Mum read it to me as a kid, I'm sure she read it when she was little too. If I had time to blog I'd tell you about it. I'd tell you all about pop biscuits, and the different magical land at the top of the tree each day, and Fanny and her cousin Dick and their visits to 'queer lands' where they always find a 'gay adventure.'

But I'm on 5,833 words. I said I wouldn't quit until I've done 6,000. Fuck.

Steve keeps threatening to throw in flying monkeys when he gets stuck. I think it's a bit too early to get that flying monkeys kind of desperate. Ah, my notes say, 'Sick. Trying to be sick.' Might get to 6,000 words yet... Fuck.

I've written a few paragraphs of, 'Fuck fuck fuck's just to boost the word count.

Fuck.

Sorry, this is the blog. Word counts don't matter.

NaNoWriMo

2006-10-31T21:53:00.000Z

The first time I met Steve was at the Dublin EPT in 2005, and I don't remember too much about that. He had a girlfriend then and I had a boyfriend, we spoke only once, I asked a stupid question and was embarrassed. He swears he didn't think I was stupid at the time. And I recognise Andy Black now.

The second time I met him was at the Gutshot card club. I think this story will always make me smile, it's almost certainly the most romantic thing that anyone has ever done for me. As I was leaving Steve said he was going my way, and asked to share my cab, even though he lived nowhere near Tooting. It cost him £30 to get to Blackheath from Tooting Bec.

He says he spent the cab journey wishing the driver would slow down, so we could chat longer. In the back of that cab we talked about writing. Steve said I was the first person he'd ever met who felt the way that he did about writing. He told me about National Novel Writing Month, with its challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. He joked about getting to 23,000 words without anything happening in his novel, or finding anything resembling plot.

He and I have been together seven months now, and lots has happened. I tease Steve about his habit of speeding up time whenever we're together. We sit on the sofa to cuddle and chat, we put the TV on then always ignore it (neither of us like TV very much) then suddenly it's 1am, and 5 minutes later it's 2am. And I need to go to bed, to be up for work at 6am... And if I were in a taxi I'd be willing the driver to slow down.

National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow. It's a fun writing challenge... Hang on while I do a quick cut and paste from their website...

'Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing.'

It's November tomorrow. So Steve and I are going to sit in front of the sofa and cuddle, but there'll be no TV (neither of us like TV very much) instead we'll have our laptops, and rivalry to see which of us will hammer out the most words for Day 1 of the NaNoWriMo challenge.

Steve's the first person I've ever met who feels the way I do about writing. I'm not sure what my novel will be about. It could be Tooting Bec tube station magic, or stickers on tube posters? It could be about willing taxi drivers to slow down... It could be about love.

Halloween Party - To Do List

2006-10-19T09:56:00.000Z

I used to regularly throw Halloween Parties when I lived with my Ex. We had a big house and a dark-walled dining room. We'd put our poker tables down, and decorate the room to make it into a 'spooky room' for Amy and her friends. I didn't feel like coping with the work of a party on my own last October, but this year I've told Amy she can have her Halloween fun. Halloween parties are the best - they make me wish I was six. However some enjoyment can still be found as organiser of a spookfest.

Here's my 'To Do' list for our November 5th 'Forget Fawkes just show us the Zombie Spittle' Party...

Buy Toilet Paper
Plenty of cheap toilet paper is needed for the 'Wrap The Mummy' game. The best plan is to pick the naughtiest child then get all the other children to wrap them as tightly as possible in toilet paper bandaging, for as long as possible. Steve used to be a Green Party candidate, I hope he doesn't tell me off for the destroying half the rain forest with this game.

Find Cardboard Box
A box must be decorated and filled for the 'Yucky Dip.' 'Will you be Lucky, or will it be Yucky?' is written on the side of the box. You can guess the rest. Creative fun with wet rice krispies, mud, and empty snail shells! You have to throw in a few sweets too. That's the dull bit.

Mow Lawn
Steve's said he'll 'have a go' at setting off roman candles, and help to supervise the kid's sparkler sword fights. Unfortunately my back lawn grass is about a foot high, due to an ongoing dispute with my landlord about the provision of a shed. I'm embarrassed about the state of this jungle-garden. I know I can't really rely on Steve setting fire to himself as a distraction from the state of the lawn. So I need to get my hands on a mower. Unless a few strategically placed Crackling Inferno Fountains will burn the grass short?

Ring Up Old Friends
I have some friends who I only ever seem to see at birthday parties, Amy's parties, or else their kids. Yes, must ring Natasha. I hope a new baby wailing in the background will mean I can avoid asking, 'When's the baby due?' I've a feeling it was July. I know I've asked her several times already. Need to think of a general purpose question that will hide my crap-friend-ness and usefully reveal whether the baby's pending or now hatched.

Chop Carrot
I need to persuade Amy that making fake sick is a much better party activity than colouring in monster feet. You know the party game, 'Pin the tail on the donkey?' When we've mixed the sick I thought we might play a version of this called, 'Pour the sick on the witches face!'

Devise Game Rules
Amy insists we must play a game called, 'Follow the Monsters Feet.' Her idea seems to be that you make monsters feet, and then follow them... That's it. I prefer the making sick game. A compromise might be reached by following trails of fake sick?

Olives = Warts. Or else!
I need to plan the party food. Ideally the food should look spooky and taste nice. Cream cheese ghosts with raisin eyes do look creepy, but kids won't eat them. So then you get a different kind of horror story, it goes, 'Once upon a time there were squished bread bits under the sofa cushions...' Another idea is to make food that actually tastes nice, like pizza, but then scatter this with chopped olives and tell the kids to squint at it, and use their imaginations. Badly chopped green olives are troll's warts. Yes they are. Or else!

Buy Plenty of Wine
I told Steve that I'd 'think about' his plan to invite his friend Kate. He misunderstood and he's invited her and her family already. Which is fine. I would very much like to meet her. It was going to be a party involving 10 dressed-up 6 year olds. Now it's 10 dressed-up 6 year olds and a few grown-ups. I wonder if they like cream cheese ghosts, or making fake sick?

Use Imagination Whilst Exploring Sainsbury's Exotic Vegetables
We play a game where you get the kids to close their eyes and put their hands into a bag to feel something yucky. It's usually food, but I don't tell the kids this. If no one cries you're not playing this game right. A cut open passion fruit can be a squished eyeball. A knobbly gherkin might be a goblin finger. Wet spaghetti's good too. Worms. If you think of anything yukky whilst you're cooking tea, let me know.

Rottenize Tomatoes
I thought we might play a game where the kids can draw something they don't like and then throw squishy tomatoes at it. My only worry is that Steve will join in. We might be there all night while he throws tomatoes at his pictures. He'll have to stop when it's time to light the fireworks.

Rubber Gloves Aren't Just for Washing Up
Did you know that if you fill a rubber glove with green water and then put it in the freezer you can make a zombie hand? This is a, 'Read it on some web page' idea that you wish you'd never Googled. Don't try this at home. The most horrifying effect of this is the blood curdling screams you emit when you're trying to get icy hand out of frozen glove. My zombie's must be very undead, they always have lots of fallen off fingers. Still this is one idea that won't die... I'll be trying again this year. I'll get this right if those zombie hands kill me..!

Talk to Ex
A horrifying thought. But he has the 'Creepy Music' MP3 collection..

Get Sponsor
I like Innocent Smoothies. So I'm going to ask Innocent to sponsor my Halloween Party. They'll get their name on the invites, and they'll be the talk of Fircroft School! A case of smoothies should do it. Red ones, so I can say they're vampire's blood. How to get kids to enjoy 5 a day? Fruiful blood-juice! I don't know if Innocent will help. Even a couple of money-off vouchers will do me. Mmmm, smoothies...

Magnetic Hair

2006-10-18T09:56:00.000Z

I pulled out 2 white hairs yesterday. So that's 5 I've found now. Yes, I am counting, although I don't keep these silvery hair rarities. But I could, couldn't I?

I love those museums created by whiskery Victorian adventurous, who put everything that they might file under 'Hmm, interesting' into a glass case. Then they'd feel good about themselves when poor people visited and gaped at the exotic masks and fossilised dinosaur poo they showed them. I'm poor and I hope old Mr.Horniman knows how much I love his dinosaur poo!

Mr.Horniman's dead now, which leads me nicely to what this post was supposed to be about. I'm a bit worried about getting old. Steve is too, though he's 7 years behind me in the old-ness stakes. He's doing his best to catch up by lots of smoking, drinking, eating bad food, and working unhealthy hours. Unfortunately he's still 30. He worries about his hair. Although he has a theory that ginger blokes go grey later in life than people with normal coloured hair. Life is cruel, isn't it?

I found a white hair in Steve's beard today, but I couldn't bring myself to pull it out in case that hurt him.

If I did collect my grey hairs and had a 'Me Museum' containing these 5 fascinating hair oddities, I should pull out Steve's white hair because it would be a valuable addition to the collection.

I'm not sure what else I'd put in a 'Me Museum' glass case? Right now I can only think of the first sanitary towel I ever used. That would surely have some 'me' historical significance? Unfortunately I don't have this any more.

Is Time Team still on TV? Maybe I could get Tony Robinson and his gang to dig in Harrogate Borough Council's landfill site looking for this? Their DNA experts could analyse all the soggy 'female products' they found. But would dating technology be sophisticated enough to pinpoint a towel from March 3rd 1983? Surely an interesting challenge for the Channel 4 show.

Anyway, back to Steve's hair. He's worried about this receding. Of course he is. Most men are. Wigs look stupid. With ginger wigs even stupider than most. However, today I thought of a solution to men's baldy-ness problem. Male Pattern Baldness to give it's trying-to-keep-a-straight-face name.

Scientists need to magnetize men's scalps. And you know when you get iron filings and sprinkle them on a magnet they go sort of random, and fuzzy when you mess with them? Well if clever scientists could make soft, hair-coloured, iron filings they could sprinkle these onto men's magnetized heads. It would be a great hair-substitute. For Steve some nice shiny bronze hair-metal would be great.

I thought of something else for my 'Me' museum. My first ever earrings. Sadly I lost one of these some years ago, at a house in Tooting Bec road. It won't be as much trouble as the first sanitary towel to locate. If Steve's head is magnetized I'm sure he'd be able to help me find it.

Siamese Cat Magic

2006-10-17T10:11:00.000Z

An old lady came to the door. She had a round face covered with warts and a few hairy moles for good measure. Her hair was grey and short, she looked like a well-fed, smartly dressed witch. She showed me a Siamese cat. She said it was lost, and asked was it mine? I said, 'No', but I told her I'd look after it.

The cat was old. It's eyes were dark with no pupils visible. It had to be blind, or near-blind... It's legs were crooked and it's belly sagged, but she purred when I stroked her. Her breathing was wheezy, but she was confident when I picked her up, and her purr was strong.

She had a tatty red collar around her neck, she had to have an owner somewhere. Only I didn't want her to have an owner. I wanted to keep her.

I have Siamese cat magic going on.

On my 14th birthday my Grandpa gave me a long haired Siamese. This first cat of my own, Barney, was thin with a grey head and legs, a white body, and a bushy grey squirrel tail. He loved to jump on my shoulder unexpectedly. My Grandpa would give me everything I ever wanted. (I didn't go to his funeral.)

Ten years ago I visited my Mum in York, leaving Alex at home in our St.John's Wood flat. My mum helped a cat rescue charity, so one evening a lady turned up on my Mum's doorway carrying two smart green-blue cat baskets. She left the basket's in my Mum's hall, then disappeared into the night in tears. I left for London the next day carrying the two blue-green carriers, and two Siamese cat brothers. They wailed all the way to London.

Alex didn't want cats. Siamese cats are extrovert cats, you can't ignore them. They demand love - or hate. Alex soon loved them fiercely, whilst hating me for forcing him to do that.

I saw his point. Those cats were trouble. Peter soon got stuck on the roof of a four story building. Charlie nearly died of pancreatitis. Neighbours often rang us to report that our cats visited. They sometimes peed on their antiques. Our cats were the talk of the neighborhood. They were loved by many, and hated by anyone who valued their antique furniture.

When Alex's mum was ill with cancer he visited York a lot. And I felt stuck in London, I had no job, no friends, and I would have followed him to live in York, but how could I? I had my two needy cats.

When Charlie died our world changed. Of course he was 'only a cat' but to say that is not to know how much he wanted to be more than 'only'. He took over our lives as much as any child, making his presence felt with loud Siamese cries that made him sound like a peculiarly expressive baby. I got the blame for all the grief Alex felt when our cats died. All because of a decision to carry those two blue-green cat boxes on the train from York to London that day.

I've always had cats, but after Peter and Charlie died they were 'my cats,' Alex kept his distance. I sometimes wonder how much part those cats had to play in ending our thirteen year relationship. Their cheery purrs were always accompanied by my lover's resentment.

So the Tooting Bec smart-witch gave me a blind, crippled Siamese, and I felt she cast a spell on me as she did. I stroked the little cat, with a stoke that was all she needed to make her whole world happy.

And my head flipped. It was obviously a head-flip Siamese cat magic spell. You see, I feel I owe the world some happiness. I could list the reasons, but...

I deleted that. What point does it serve? Everyone has regrets. The thing is how much I want to make up for these. And stroking a lost, old, cat and making it happy felt like some small way to set the world to rights.

It felt like this Siamese stray had to mean something. So I searched for the meaning. I looked to the past, I looked to a dream future, and I loved that little cat for a little while. I wanted her to be mine.

But I knew that I should ring the vets to see if anyone had lost her.

Cats can be microchipped, a tiny identification number placed under their skin. I took the cat to the vets to check for this. They looked and shook their heads, there was nothing to show who she belonged to. I said I'd take her home, I'd look after her until her owner was found. Hoping her owner would never be traced.

The vets assistant said she needed treatment, she'd been lost for a while, she might need fluids, or help with her wheezy breathing.

The cat looked strong to me, and I knew she'd been happy in my arms.

I thought of invoking the law of, 'finders keepers'.

Then I realised I was being crazy.

So I left the blind blue Siamese at the vets. I thought I'd ring up today, to see if her owner's been found.

I decided not to. It was a strange magic that messed with my head. I have Dolly. I wanted that needy Siamese, for lots of reasons, but perhaps it's some kind of penance that she made me hurt, and that I didn't get my own way for once.

Faith

2006-10-16T14:57:00.001Z

Steve sent me a list of song's he liked. His comment on the song, 'Monsieur' by Thomas Fersen was, 'You don't have to like this guy. And I've built it up a lot haven't I?' He went on to desribe this story of the servant of an assasin, who murders people when he feels miserable. The servant tidies up after him, and tends the roses. Steve said about this French singer, 'He writes really great stories that I wish I could do, and think you probably do already.'

Of course I love Steve for liking good music, and for his thoughtful reasons for liking these. And I like his faith in me, that one day maybe I could write something as good as a story about the servant of an assasin, and roses, and bees...

Il étrangle son semblable dans le Bois de Meudon,
Quand il est inconsolable, quand il a le bourdon...
A la barbe des voisins,
Qui le trouvent sympathique,
Monsieur est un assassin, je suis son domestique.

I don't speak French, so Steve had to translate for me. I have the week off work, and I decided I'd try to write a novel when Amy's at school. We'll see. I have big ideas, but so far I've just written lots of emails, several unpublished blog posts, and I've turned the monkey in my title the right way up. That monkey's been annoying me for ages. I'm trying to convince myself that a right way up monkey will put me in a positive frame of mind for creative writing.

We'll see...

A dress

2006-10-12T09:52:00.000Z

I own the prettiest party dress. It cost £140, I've never spent that kind of money on a dress before. I've worn it three times, but although it's just as good as new, I'll never wear it again.

The dress has been at the bottom of my laundry basket since December. I'm not sure what to do with it. It probably needs cleaning, but what's the point in paying for dry cleaning if I'm never going to wear it again? Yesterday Steve suggested we burn the dress, and my best pair of shoes too. He said we could do it on the barbecue.

I don't think the dress has done anything wrong. I do believe in magic, but I don't believe that dress is cursed. Or the shoes. I know I shouldn't just keep the dress in the bottom of my laundry basket, but burning it doesn't feel right.

Steve said he'd take it away, get rid of it. I didn't want that either. And I don't understand why not. It just feels like something I should do myself. Only I'm stuck, I don't seem able to find a plan for this myself.

Steve once said something funny to me, about a feeling that, 'The cavalry are on the way.' That phrase came into my head today. And an image of men on horses, waving flags and swords, and charging. That idea made me smile.

I have an appointment on the 24th. It's something I should have done months and months ago. It's an appointment with the right sort of people, who are used to helping with the kind of problem you wouldn't want to blog about, or ring help lines about because they have the initial of this in the name. But when you finally do, you find instant hope and reassurance.

And it feels like the cavalry might be about to charge, with flags and swords waving boldly, and maybe they'll attack the laundry basket and deal with the party dress? Or better yet someone kindly could get down off a horse, and patiently explain how I can deal better with dresses, and other things too.

Songs NOT for Steve

2006-10-12T08:37:00.000Z

Sharing the music I liked with Steve seemed like a good idea. Listening to the songs I liked, and wondering whether he'd like them too, that was fun. Then I decided to write about this as a blog post. Bad idea.

I've never written about music before. I like writing a lot, so writing about my favourite songs as they played was a jolly little writing exercise. So I wrote about 22 songs. That's quite a lot, isn't it? Actually I wrote about even more. Some I didn't even like so much. I was just having fun.

Evil - Interpol

It's a mean song. Grrr... Yes. It's angry. It's bitter. It's nasty. Well what do you expect with a title like that? Music to stomp along in the rain too, muttering obscenities under your breath optional. By the end of it you'll feel better. Or you'll have clubbed someone to death for looking at you a bit funny.

I liked that one. No, not the song. Just the writing about the song. And somehow the 'Steve' bit of the whole song list process got lost. I realised this when I saw that I'd written, 'I just picked this one so you'll go, 'Who the fuck are Dios Malos?' Note the word, 'you' there - not the word 'Steve'.

And on the day I typed all this I was grumpy with Steve. He was in Baden, and we had a kind of email row. So I didn't send him my song list. I published it as a blog post instead. And then I confessed to him that I'd done that. So now I'm a bit stuck. How do I send him a blog post of my song list, for a blog he isn't even allowed to read? And what does this say about my priorities, that I'll share my musical tastes with you lot, but not with him?

We talked about this last night. We had a bad night and nearly split up. (We didn't.) He says he doesn't want to see my song list anyway. Not now. Right. So, not sure what to do. He probably wouldn't like Dios Malos anyway.

Fighting Talk

2006-10-12T08:30:00.000Z

I love PokerStars.

Songs for Steve

2006-10-09T12:36:00.000Z

Steve and I have so far avoided sharing music with each other. What can I say? We're shy, and music is personal. I think both of us feel like we have nothing to win, but everything to lose. I like my music and chances are Steve won't like it in the same way, chances are he won't like any of it very much at all. Of course this doesn't mean much, I'll just shrug and plug my iPod headphones in, listen on my own. And cry.

Not really.

I do know some of the songs Steve likes, he goes for rock classics, Bob Dylan or The Doors. He knows some songs I like too, a couple I've mentioned in my emails, and he's heard me whistling loudly when we've worked together at my place. I feel like it's time to bolder, so I've come up with some songs from my music collection that I like, and that he may like too. I hope he'll like them, I don't know if he will like any of them. And if he doesn't, that's ok. We'll still be happy. iPods have headphones. I can whistle quietly.

Stick a fiver into our favourite 'KGB approved' illegal download site and you can get this whole lot too!

Fill My Little World - The Feeling

The chipperest of bouncy, happy, silly, (magic,) fun songs! It'll stick in your head, and buzz around, like a buzzy 'Fill my little world right up!' bee. You'll tip your head on one side, tap the side of your head, hope to knock the stupid thing out of your ear, but it won't go. Instead it'll relentlessly buzz at your brain, occasionally escaping as a hum or an involuntary rhythmic tap of fingers or foot. 'Come fill my little world right up! Right up!'

Above The Clouds - Turin Brakes

My song of the moment. 'Up above the clouds, it is always a blue sky.' Ah, it's about being happy, and how hard that can sometimes be. And it's a love song too. It's sad and romantic. A bit like me? And it has a bit about rain - that's Steve's favourite weather. 'The rain came again, Cleaning the dream and it always makes me cry, oh my... Something about the rain, it sends memories through my veins...' Ah...

Girls - Nizlopi

Another moody song, he's just muttering a load of meaningful stuff. Not sure what he's singing to be honest, but it sounds good. And I imagine it's about being in love. Well that's probably a good guess, most songs are. It feels like a split up from a girlfriend song. It feels like it hurts. It's sad, but by the end you hope he'll make it on his own and be happy again with someone new. Rather like I did.

Handshake Drugs - Wilco

I like Wilco a lot, although they have that annoying, 'We're rock stars' thing of stupid wild, waily guitar for ages at the end of every song they make. I like this song because it's moody. Drugs and mean streets. Ooh! Cool! I'm not, but I can pretend when I listen to this.

Papa Was a Rodeo - The Magnetic Fields

I love this gibberish! 'Papa was a Rodeo' It means nothing - and everything! It's a song to think about. It's sad. How come I like so many sad songs? And it's a cowboy song. 'Never stuck around long enough for a one night stand..! Before you kiss me you should know... Papa was a Rodeo.' It's a Western in song. I don't need to visit Wyoming, I feel like I've been there when I listen to this.

Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day

Ooh, a single! And a band you'll have heard of! I just like this song. It's just a good song. It mentions rain again too. That's a good emotive weather for a song. Or a film. It's less good in books - makes the paper go soggy. It's an emotive song. Although I don't like the crashing drums bit. You know, when it gets loud? I like the quiet bits best. Yeah, just a good song. Nice memorable tune, all that. It's a 'feeling stuff' song too. Love as a big, fat, overpowering emotion. Perhaps you need the loud guitars to do that justice? Perhaps you need hard to listen to bits, to make you long for the easy happy quiet bits? Perhaps that's what it's trying to say?

I will Follow You into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie

A song about being rescued by love. It's a bit over-wordy, but a fine tune. 'In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black...' I listen and muse on the fact that sad childhoods can fuck you up, but this song tells us there's faint hope of getting over all that. Just faint mind.

Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros

Rain again. I never understood how Steve could like rain so much... This music is dramatic, meaningful, like a walk in rain with a head too full of thoughts. It goes quiet, like those thoughts have calmed, then it goes loud like the thoughts won't go away. The rain showers, then pours, and by the end I'm praying for sunshine and a smile, but there's something about the rain and anger and pain that's beautiful anyway. And when it ends you don't know what happens, whether the sun comes out, or stays behind the clouds? You only miss the rain. Maybe I do understand why Steve likes the rain.

Buttons and Zips - Elbow

A few Elbow songs nearly made it to this list, this surprised me, I didn't notice that I liked Elbow. This song has great guitar squeaks and amazing muttery bits. More songs should have muttery bits. 'Will you ever get this song off my lips is what she said...' It's plodding, but it's still always moving along. I'd describe it as a calm practical attempt to undo buttons and zips, not a frantic, 'I can't get your fucking top off!' I love that. It's like a nice easy shag with a trusted boyfriend, once the passion has died down, but at least you're still undoing buttons and zips for each other. That's a happy thought.

Still Fighting It - Ben Folds

Probably my favourite Ben Folds song, although I like a lot of this band's stuff. 'Everybody knows it hurts to grow up'. It's a moving on from the past song, revisiting a home, memories overwhelming, 'You'll try and try, and one day you'll find a way...'

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel

I wanted to say it sounds like 'something' on acid, inserting the name of some famous classic rock band for the 'something'. Only there are loads of problems with describing it this way, there's the fact that loads of classic rock bands were on acid anyway, and there's also the fact that I've never done acid. There's also the thing that I don't listen to classic rock bands. Then there's the thing of losing track of what the fuck I'm going on about here, like there's a long whiney distracting instrument blowing through my musically-musing head. Is that like being on acid? I don't know. I just know it's a bit like listening to this song.

That's Me Trying - William Shatner

A sad-clever song, with Ben Folds and also Captain Kirk. I told you I like Ben Folds, right? Nice chorus. And it feels clever like poetry, because it's not a song, it's a monologue with a tune for a background. How arty art moi..?

Winning Days - The Vines

Ooh swoopy bits! Aren't swoopy whoopy bits in songs just the best? And harmonies too. Whooooo-oooo! I wish I knew the words so I could sing along. Dar dar dar dar dar dar (guitar bit now) Oooh, diddle-diddle-dar-dar - you get a fiddly with knobs on guitar bits there - and then you think it's ended with another swoooooopy bit..!

But NO!

Wait... There's more! It starts up again. Quick, I'm Googling the lyrics. Need to sing..!

Cause I know where there's gold
I didn't know when I was flying
I'm sinking like a stone
I can dream
I've been trying...

Crap lyrics. But I still enjoyed that!

Grrl - Dios Malos

Really I just picked this one so you'll go, 'Who the fuck are Dios Malos?' I haven't got a fucking clue, but this song is alright. It's about 2 minutes long, and I get to look like I know about obscure music. And it's kind of jolly. Can't think of much more to say than that. It's only short, you can't hate two minutes of poppy jollity, from a 'who the fuck are they?' Indie band, can you?

White Houses - Vanessa Carlton

Great squeaky little girl voice. It's about excited teenage girls, it's gossipy, gushy, girls, thinking non-stop about crushes at surburban school. It's Pretty in Pink. It's first love, it's fumbling with training bras and hoping your mum won't ever find out. It's talking non stop about him at school, then going back home to parents, and suburbia, to white houses where you'll think your first dirty thoughts.

Fishing for a Dream - Turin Breaks

I think this is the first song I liked that I mentioned to Steve. It was playing as I typed an email, and I wasn't scared to mention it. It's a laid-back cool song. And of course he downloaded it, as I downloaded any music he ever mentioned. He said he liked it too.

Mardy Bum - Arctic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys are great! Sheffield accent, lyrics that about life, just ordinary life, described in a way that makes you want to know more. This is a song about someone 'argumentative who's got the face on'. And yes, it's some Sheffield slapper girl, but still I want to know more. It's a Ken Loach film in song, they're just a couple and they just have a row, but here it's working class life as art. And I think he loves her, and I want them to be happy... But I'm middle class so I'm also thinking, 'She's probably a bit common.' So I think I'm better than them, and I frown - a frown that's like looking down the barrel of a gun.

Sad Eyes - Josh Rouse

Ouch, this song hurts. So I can't write about it. It's a song I wish someone would write for me. It's a song for everyone who's loved someone sad and tried to help. It's 'Everybody hurts' sung by your lover to cheer you up when you think there's no hope. It might just work.

Turtle and the Flightless Bird - Devin Davies

'Awake to the sound of the sad city sleeping, I turned out around to find out who was speaking, but there was no one there...' It's a dark twisted fairtyale. It's a silly nonsense fantasy myth. I love the creepy madness of it. There's a logic there. A crazed logic. It's tells you you can lose it and still be happy. A terrific foolish guilty pleasure of a mad song. Sometimes I think it makes sense. And that's the crazy thing.

I see you, you see me - The Magic Numbers

A duet. There's something especially romantic about pop songs duets. I'd use 'Fairytale of New York' on my list if it wasn't such a very 'Christmasy song'. It's smoochy coupley, it feels like more than just a love song, mmm a song about love. It's sharing an Innocent Smoothie with a lover on the beach.

But it's flawed, and goes nowhere... I don't like it once it gets onto the speedier bit. Oh well. Nearly hit 'delete'. It's only still here because 22 seems like a good number of songs. And because I like Innocent Smoothies.

Portions for Foxes - Rilo Kiley

Feels like a bit of an odd inclusion this. I just think this is a good pop song, and there are good rude bits, and some great wailey, 'This Is What It's Like To Be A Woman' bits too. And I like that I haven't got a clue what the name of the song means, or has to do with the waily, woman, sex talk bits.

'It's bad news! Baby I'm bad news! I'm just bad news. Bad news. Bad news!' Great chorus too! 'Cos we'll all be portions for foxes!' Yes, of course we will dear. And it sounds like bad news to me.

'And the talking leads to touching and the touching leads to sex!' And there's a heavy breathing section! wooohooooo! '..Baby I'm bad news. Mmmm bad news... You're bad news..! I don't care, I like you, I like you. ' Yeah it's all about shagging. It's shaggerrific!

Don't get the fox thing though.

Hey Man (Now You're Really Living) - Eels

I added this because it's the chipperest-est-est song off of the latest Eels offering. (Look, I used the word 'offering' there, did you see?) And it's bubbly, kick drum, shout 'hey', clap-a-long, gratuitous-key-change, wooohoooo! music. And because I wanted to share this gossip with you about the lead singer. Did you know that since his last album his mother has died of cancer, his sister committed suicide, and his cousin was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. Hey Man (Now They're Really Dying) That's sick sick sick... But listen to this and you'll be chipperfied, 'all better'. Ah.

Well those are songs. If you want any of these e-mail me, I might send an MP3 your way.

Pink Cake 'ya berk!

2006-10-08T21:08:00.000Z

Please look away now if other people being happy and in love isn't to your taste.

Today Steve and I were both very happy, even though we're apart. These feelings were based on a couple of emails where we laid bare our hearts and souls, and talked about writing, drinking, and pink puddings. Steve also sent me some photos of his very-bad hotel room.

In a park as Amy played on the swings I mused about some of the things that make me love my boyfriend.

They're in no particular order and I know there are many more. Only I had to help Amy on the monkey bars, which meant my thoughts were interrupted.

Stickers

When I was feeling down Steve drew a sticker of two balloons and he stuck this beside the escalator at Tooting Bec. Balloons floating together is one of our magic things - I saw that once and wrote to him about it. Steve's balloon sticker had two balloons and an arrow pointing at the tie that held them; this said, 'Knot tied very tightly.'

Couple-Age Database

I'm 37 and Steve is just 30. Sometimes the age difference bothers me. Which means that every time Steve hears about any couple where the girl is older than the guy he'll tell me about it. He has quite a list now, I think he keeps this in an Excel spreadsheet. I don't pay much attention... Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin is the only one of these I remember. Oh, and Steve's Gran's pensioner friend who lives in Knaresborough. She's 80 and her boyfriend's 70. That's nice. I usually just think, 'So what?' But still I like that he tries to reassure me in this way.

Squirrel Man

Steve makes a big effort with Amy. He makes this seem natural and not like he's making any effort at all. For a while Amy called Steve, 'Squirrel Man'. He played along good naturedly, drawing squirrel man cartoons for her. She often asks for him to read her bed time story to her. Steve thinks of me feeling left out, so the last few times he and I have both read the story to her, taking it in turns to read a page of 'Horrid Henry' whilst trying to outdo each other with the silly voices.

On nights when Amy's unwilling to go to bed Steve will sometimes take requests for drawings as a clever bribe. As I put Amy to bed he'll have to Google image search Sonic the Hedgehog or some other cartoon character, in order to fulfill his promise that she'll have a picture waiting for her in the morning.

Our Magic

I'm sure all couples have couple 'magic,' little things that have a secret meaning to them. Steve and I have bucketloads of 'couple stuff'. Balloons, pink cake, muffins, Innocent smoothies, 'der doop', 'ya berk'... Some come and go, and some have been around for a long while. If we find something that makes us smile, we'll use it again and again - it'll make us smile again, with the smile just a little stronger because it reminds us of happy times when it's worked magic before. So we have - silly places names, the word 'chipper', 'FD', mushroom hunting, :-) :o), cowboy boots, crisps & cup a soup, adventures on night buses, rain... And finding ever-more adds to the fun.

Late Night Long Emails

I never thought I'd find anyone who liked writing as much as I do. I've written long, happy, emails to a couple of boyfriend's in the past but Steve's the only person I've ever known who can match me for email vigour, and perhaps even outdo me... I start work at 7.15am each morning, he's used to 'Poker playing' hours, so often when I fall asleep on his shoulder, he'll persuade me to go to bed, and then go home and email me, just so I have a happy email to start my day. The night bus from Tooting Bec to Streatham is often the subject, and I joke about the adventures he has on the short late night journey. It' one of our 'couple things' - see above.

Other Stuff
I jotted down some other things - Not reading my blog, pouring me beers, Pants, Soldier things, Cooking... but then I wonder whether revealing all the special-ness of my love will make it seem less mysterious? Or maybe I don't have time to blog about all this, because I want to email him in a minute..?

Teasing
Steve has a funny view of the world, and I suppose I do too. The most important thing in our relationship is probably that we chuckle at the same kind of stuff. We have our 'secret code' that I mentioned, our couple magic, but none of it is ever very serious, all of it works simply, as a queue for a joke. We ordered chocolate cake once in a cafe, and got pink cake instead. This was at the Streatham cafe who's pretty pink cake is pictured above. So today I mentioned this, and we joked about pink pudding, and Steve sent me a photo of the pink pudding he ate for tea. Of course I told him this wasn't pink at all... And I know tomorrow he'll look for pinker pudding, and then we'll laugh about it some more...

Robot Fish

2006-10-08T08:09:00.000Z

I'm a hunter of things. I like looking, and hoping, and finding's good too. But mainly I like the looking and hoping. It's just the kind of person I am.

I'm wondering about my childhood, why did I become a hopeful seeker of treasure? Wouldn't it have been better to be an enjoyer of treasures found? Or a muser on past treasures loved? I don't know.

I can only think it might be to do with day-long Dungeons and Dragons sessions when I was 10. I was the clever thief, always first to search the monster's backpack hoping for a broadsword +3 or a potion of invisibility (6 sips.)

Now I'm going to hunt mushrooms. Steve was surprised that Border's had a book called, 'Mushroom Hunting.' I wanted a mushroom hunting book with recipes. I hunted the vegetable bookshelf, then 'Mushroom Hunting' was found and bought. It was perfect. Of course I enjoyed looking for it more than the finding it, and buying it, and reading it. The anticipation on the walk to Borders... Ooh..!

I really wanted to catch fish. Imagine that. Sitting beside a river all day long, waiting for a fish to bite. Waiting and wondering, would I catch one, what sort of fish would it be? Would I catch an old boot - just like they do in cartoons?

I'd love to fish. But I can't. I'm a vegetarian.

I know you can throw the fish back, but I'd worry that the hook would hurt the fishes mouth.

I wish someone would invent robot fish for vegetarians to catch. So I could sit by a river with a magnet on the end of my fishing rod, and there could be big robot fish in the river, programmed to be wily and smart, a challenge to catch. And robot fish tiddlers too - some of which could play the Nokia ring tone when you catch them. Or even a blast of Crazy Frog? And there'd be robot old boots too, to make it an authentic fishing experience. Just like on Tom and Jerry.

Best of all, if you ever caught the biggest, baddest, smartest robot fish, you could open a little metal door on it's side.... And inside you would find..? Oooh...

A plate of delicious fried cod and chips! Linda McCartney cod and chips, of course.

Or a little door that leads to a walk to Borders, to buy a book about mushroom hunting...

Or a Broadsword +3?

Or a potion of anticipation - 6 sips... That you swallow to enjoy looking and hoping, that leads you to find the treasure of more looking and hoping... And then you find the best treasure yet, even more looking and hoping...

Ok, enough dreaming. Got to go. It's conker season!

A hire car named 'der doop'!

2006-10-07T21:26:00.000Z

"What colour is the car? I hope it's blue."

A text. 'Blue-ish.'

Silver-blue.

"Does the car key thing say 'der-doop'?"

No.

"Der doop!" I have to say it. And I have to say it again, because the magic's always better the next time around.

Amy, "Chessington!"

Jo "Legoland?"

Steve, "Safari park?"

Amy, "Chessington! Chessington! Chessington! Chessington! Chessington!"

Chessington. Rain.

"Bubbleworks is best!" A boat ride. Silvery fountains. Giant plastic ducks.

Rain.

"Who can ride the rollercoaster without screaming!"

Not me. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Rain, rain, rain.

"Der doop."

Home. Wet clothes off. Hot tea. Warm hugs.

I pack my clothes in Steve's orange suitcase.

"Der doop!"

We don't need maps. If we get lost we'll laugh our way out of trouble.

We find Blackheath. Steve lived here with his ex. Blackheath is very nice. "And now you're in Streatham. Don't you miss this?" "Don't you miss money?" One second thinking about my rich ex. An easy smile, "No!"

Cambridge! Our car the only car in the hotel car park. ("Der doop!")

Serious brown-pattered bedding, it feels too grown-up. Giggly fun, it feels too teenage.

Students on bikes. Colleges. Goats with spots. Spot the silly street name - 'Pety Cury', 'Trumpington Street', 'Jesus Green.'

Border's 3 for 2. We buy '3 for 2' for two.

Cambridge shops. "I'll choose something for you. You choose something for me?"

Next Mens. A pink and orange stripy jumper. I carry it through to Steve in Ladies, trying to keep a straight face. Failing. Giggling.

"Don't be stupid!" says fat red faced woman. "You're so stupid! Don't laugh," she snarls. "You're just being so stupid!"

I want to run. Steve shouts. I just cry.

A pint. A pint for Steve too. Didn't Steve stop drinking 6 years ago?

Another pub. We agree about the wooden tables. I like the curved bench held together with a metal strap. We like a picture of a sad person in the street.

We play a game.

"Coldplay or Travis?"

"Daffodils or roses?"

"Mushy peas or baked beans?"

"Monkeys or elephants?"

A Croatian Italian restaurant, or going back to bed?

It's 10pm, can we still get food?

Turkish vegetarain moussaka in an olde world cafe. Lumpy bumpy toffee for pudding.

Will the hotel bar be open still? Taxi! "The bar is shut." No apology. A discussion of Cambridge rudeness...

Bed. Serious sheets, we're un-serious under them.

Breakfast before 9 - too early. A Guardian outside our bedroom door. Fruit and croissant for me. Sausage and bacon for Steve. The newspaper. The news says, 'Online poker is fucked!'

A phone call from my boss. Reassurance that I still have a job.

"You knew? Why didn't you tell me?"

Crossness. Sulks. A grumpy walk by the river. Our first ever row.

We discuss fishing and mushrooms. We go to Borders, 'How to be a mushroom hunter'.

Mocha ('Choffee' Steve calls it.) Thai Chai latte ('Remind me to get that next time')

A silly Cambridge name again. The Whipple Museum. Old oak cases filled with Mr.Whipple's telescopes and scientific gadgets.

Shopping. I want a bra and pants. Too fancy. Too plain. Too sexy. Not sexy enough. Anne Summers for giggles. Debenhams for, 'any customer in household and kitchen will be given a free kitchen knife.'

A demonstrator cutting a hammer with a kitchen knife.

"For only £23 you'll get 6 knives, and I'll throw in 2 lemon juicers!"

I reach for £23 before realising I'm doing it for the lemon juicers. We escape with a free gift, and lots of free laughter about this.

No bra and pants. "We're not good at shopping, are we?"

Pubs. Bed. "I've never had tapas." Sangria. Why is he drinking again after 6 years? The hotel bar. More beer. More bed. More tears. "A girl asked me out on Friday." Oh. "I said no." More "Fuck offs" than there should ever be between a couple in love.

Fruit and croissants. Prunes for me. Alpen for Steve. Prunes for Steve too.

We pack.

"Der doop."

Imperial War Museum Duxford. Planes. Tanks. Soldier-boy Steve. I'm more interested than I thought. "Is there a book called the Battle of Britain for Girls?"

Lunch. A country pub. "I want chips!" "We don't have any chips."

We smile.

We drive. We're happy. We're home.

"Der doop."

Viennese Whirls (PS I love you)

2006-10-06T21:25:00.000Z

I'm chipper today, even though Steve's away. He's gone away to write about the Baden EPT. Although he's not in Baden. He's in Vienna. He doesn't seem to think this is a problem.

He sent me a song to Listen to. The Doors, 'Touch Me.' It's not rude,' Steve said. It's so typical of Steve that he'd say this. It's so typical of me that I just think, 'shame.'

I told him not to worry about being in Vienna not Baden. Vienna is more famous. Because there's a Mr.Kipling cake named after Vienna. Did you know that?

Steve's chatting to me on G-mail now. Worrying because some PokerStars marketing person reads his blog. I told him not to worry. I told him I got away with writing about marketing people's fat bottoms for ages. I suggested his next post should be called, 'Conrad is a bit posh and has a lot of kids.'

I suppose Mr.Kipling must have been to Vienna. If he'd stayed in the next town then maybe Baden would be famous instead of Vienna? We'd all have Badenese Whirls for tea...

One of the reason's I'm in a good mood is work stuff. I work for a very good company, and even though there's lots of grim stuff going on to do with work right now, I'm confident that it'll have a happily ever after. But I can't write about any of that stuff, due to the fat bottom thing.

My bottom is fat too. Just in case you think I'm being 'slimmer-bottomed than thou' about colleagues. I know the bottom thing because I've been trying on lots of new dresses. I need a frock for some E-Gaming awards dinner-thing on Monday night. I came back from my lunch break with my jumper on inside out. I didn't mind about the jumper. I minded that I didn't get a dress. And I'm wondering why I ever said I'd go to this awards thing? But if PokerStars win anything I'll cheer louder than anyone!

I doubt that Steve's company, Gutshot, will be up for any gaming awards at this dinner, but I wish they were. I feel lots of goodwill towards Gutshot right now. I met Steve's boss David at the London EPT, he didn't seem quite how I expected (he wasn't nuts like I thought he'd be) and I would have liked to have chatted to him more. I know Steve's other-boss Derek, who's just treated Steve very well with pay rises, and share offer type things. So all that's good.

And I'd better talk to Steve now. In the 'PS I love you' title, the PS was supposed to stand for 'PokerStars' but really, even though PokerStars and Gutshot are both Very Good Things. I just want to talk to Steve and forget this blog post nonsense...

PS. I love him.

Vicky Coren Lite

2006-10-01T07:37:00.000Z

When I started playing poker many years ago hardly any women played. These were days when it was possible to imagine every London poker player gathering in one room to play a tournament. It sometimes felt like they did this, on Wednesday's beginner nights at Russell Square. Most people who played watched Late Night Poker on Channel 4, and Vicky Coren was this show's star. It's fair to say that this was based on the fact that she was a pretty blonde who knew a flush beat a straight. That's not to say she was a bad player, but there were almost certainly better players who knew that a flush beat a straight, but got less attention because they weren't pretty and blonde. (Dave Colclough excepted.) As another female 'poker freak', I sometimes felt the 'Vicky Coren' factor. I felt like Vicky Coren Lite. Here's why...

Late Night Poker -
Vicky played in every series of Late Night Poker. I was asked to play, but couldn't afford the buy in.

Poker Places -
Vicky played big buy in cash games at the Victoria Casino. I played in Gutshot's barely-legal tournaments. In a room above a pub.

Home Games -
Vicky lives in Hampstead, her home game is attended by London's poker celebrities. My home game was in Bermondsey, attended by people who couldn't go to a casino because they couldn't afford nice shoes. They had their own dress code - they only played in lucky T-shirts.

Writing -
Vicky writes for the Guardian and has a weekly column in the Observer. She's had several novels published. I have a blog, I've written a few novels too. They're on A4 printer paper in my wardrobe upstairs.

Rude stuff -
Vicky tried to make the best hardcore porn film ever and wrote a book about this. I once had a sly wank in a jacuzzi at Centre Parcs, I wrote a blog post about this.

Beauty -
Vicky's a classic English Rose. I'm a mouse with a crooked nose.

Posh Factor -
Vicky went to Oxford. I went to Bournemouth. Vicky's the member of a smart West End Private Member's club. I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member. Which makes me a member of the, 'Wouldn't want to join any club...' club. Yes, I am a member of the Loser Society.

Family -
Vicky's Dad is humorist Alan Coren, her brother is journalist Giles Coren. My Mum's called Joan. She lives in York and has 3 cats. My brother's work in IT. They don't have interesting names like 'Giles'. Hi Rob and Jon!

Tournament Winnings -
Last Sunday Vicky won the London EPT at the Victoria casino and the prize was £500,000. Last Friday I won the Vic's £10 rebuy tournament. I won £750. That'll do me. I'm happy. Haven't played for ages... Well, poker's not that good, is it?

Cambridgety

2006-09-29T12:49:00.000Z

Steve and I are going to have a few days together, just the two of us. With Steve's work, my work, and Amy responsibilities, time away together isn't easy to organise. So our two and a half days of 'just the two of us' feels like as much to celebrate as any fortnight in the Caribbean. We once managed to go away together, we took a train and had a night away at Whitstable. This time we're hiring a car and going to Cambridgety. Not Cambridge.

Cambridgety.

I told Steve that I was worried that Cambridge wasn't a very magical place, because our magic places always have silly names. Like Whitstable. Like Tooting Bec. Like, um... Like Steve's team is Trannmere Rovers?

So Cambridgety it is. And Steve tells me, 'If it's not magic enough I know there's a village nearby called 'Shuddy Crumps'. We can always drive there as fast as we can.'

We've been together six months now. I think we'll find some kind of magic in Cambridgety.

There must be some kind of magic at work that I feel happier to be with him with every month that passes. Cambridgety, Cambridgety, Cambridgety, Cambridgety.... Can't wait!

Taking money from strangers...

2006-09-29T12:28:00.000Z

I got an email from someone who wanted to give me money. That's very nice, I thought. And it was a friendly email from a nice chap called Michael, so all well and good... So I replied to Michael, and a mildly flirtatious email exchange ensued. Michael was ok, his emails made me smile, he seemed nice, even though he was in Marketing. And I think I'd have liked him even if he wasn't trying to give me money.

I told him my Paypal details, so he could send me the cash. Well, he seemed keen... So I put the bit of text he requested by the side of my blog. He asked me very nicely. The text said 'For quotes on your motor
insurance visit www.yourmotorinsurance.co.uk.'

So there you go, nice money, nice emails, nice chap. I don't know anything about the insurance though. If I were you I'd shop around...

Multi-purpose, Multi-Cultural

2006-09-28T19:51:00.000Z

Tayba called around a few days ago, she was carrying a plastic plate, covered with another plastic plate.

"We're fasting," she said. Then she uncovered the plate to reveal a selection of bhajis and other golden indian snacks. "My Mum cooked these for you," she said.

I took the plate. I felt really touched. Tayba's Mum had never said a word to me before, and now she was giving us homemade indian treats. I told Tayba to thank her.

Well, what I really said was, "Tell your Mum that's really, really, really, really, really, really, really nice of her. Only you can leave out some of the 'really's if you like."

Tayba smiled, like the gift was no big deal, and then she went home. She left me to feel guilty that Social Services were now investigating her family because I'd heard some child having a tantrum.

The snacks were great. Really, really, really, really, really great... As we ate them Amy piped up, "Tayba's Mum has won prizes for her cooking."

I know Tayba's family is Muslim, and Diwali is a Hindu festival, but on the 'multi-cultural Tooting' theme, here are Tooting Bec's Diwali street lights. I photographed these this morning. I like that these decorations are multi-purpose as they're always left up for Christmas.

Tooting Bec Christmas lights have Hindu lamps and nothing special to do with Jesus. I don't mind. Christmas doesn't have much to do with Jesus for most English people, does it?

Blogging the EPT

2006-09-25T11:36:00.000Z

You'd think I'd be sick of blogging, after working 14 hour days writing about poker for PokerStars blog. It was an intense experience in lots of ways, my first time blogging about a major poker tournament. There were 400 players, and I was thinking -I don't know the names of the people I need to know, and I can't count chips, and how do you keep track of who's gone out, and how do you write about poker hands and make it seem interesting?

I spent quite a bit of time worrying, and hating it, and writing stuff quickly and wishing I could go back and write it better - but always there'd be something else I needed to write. And being tired didn't help. Amy has a getting up at 6am habit, this doesn't really suit getting to sleep at 5am after working all day.

I muddled through, and there was some blog posts I regretted, and some I thought were ok. And it was sort of lonely, I didn't have a lot of help, and the camera was a nightmare, everyone looked at it to try to advise on why the pictures were coming out blurry, but no one could properly figure it out... But none of that mattered, despite the bits of it I hated (it all got a bit much sometimes) I feel proud that I got a blog written that almost made sense. It was a great feeling on Sunday night when it was all over. Good or bad, I was happy to have done it. Funny that I could hate bits of it so much, but by the end I'd just think, 'I loved that! So when can I do it all again?'

It's because it's writing. I've always been happiest when I'm writing. 14 hours of high pressure writing about a fairly dull subject, when you're a bit of a perfectionist, isn't ideal. But the same principle applies as anything else, it's still weaving something out of nothing with words on the page.

There were 50 stairs from the press room to the casino, I was constantly running back and forth trying to make something interesting out of players sitting in a room with some chips and cards. When you write a line you like, that's special magic...

Steve and I were worried about working together. How odd that we should end up doing the same job? Do you think we're the only poker blogger couple in the world?

We snatched a few dinner breaks together, Steve showed me the ropes, we shared chipcounts and hand stories... We both care about our work a lot so we didn't let the boyfriend/girlfriend thing distract us. There were just a few secret kisses in the casino corridors.

And now, back to answering emails from players who don't think their chat should be banned.

I would love to write for PokerStars blog again, to get right the things I did wrong, to beat that damn camera and take decent photos this time, to get to know the players I'm going to see again and again, to write a better blog next time...

We'll see.

Allah!

2006-09-17T17:14:00.000Z

Amy is friends with Tayba, aged 10, who lives next door. They sat for about an hour in front of the TV yesterday, wearing giant 3D glasses. Tayba has never seen a 3D film before so she and Amy tried every DVD Amy owns, and cartoon kid shows too, looking for the magic of 3D.

There were many excited exclamations, 'I think that bit was 3D!' 'That bit was 3D but really fast!' 'Should we try Shrek? I'm sure Shrek's 3D!'

It was one of those times where as an an adult I could easily spoil their fun. I knew that none of the films in Amy's collection were 3D, but telling them would be cruel, so I kept out of it.

Tayba doesn't have many toys, I know this because her eyes are wide every time she opens Amy's toy cupboard. She says things like, 'How do you play dominoes?' And, 'I played Operation once.' As a 'holiday present' Amy's Gran bought her a Nintendo DS. Tayba was given the board game Ludo on her birthday. Amy asked when Tayba's birthday party was, she wasn't having one. But Tayba's already excited about coming to Amy's Halloween party.

Tayba never goes to the cinema. She boasted once, 'We used to have a DVD player, but we had to give it to someone.' Amy's seen every recent kids cinema release, a box of popcorn on her lap every time. Her DVD collection is bigger than mine.

Tayba doesn't know where the local playgrounds are, she's never visited them. I long to take her, as much as Amy would love her friend to come along as a companion, but every time I've suggested this, Tayba's said matter of factly 'I have homework.' I know that's not the real reason. She lies instinctively with, 'I can't', as if it's easier not to let herself consider the idea at all.

I meet her parents sometimes, they come to the door and smile. I call Tayba and she goes home, or occasionally she gabbles at them in their own language and stays a little longer. Her parents don't speak any English.

Tayba is a happy child, if reading my description of no toys or playground outings you're thinking 'deprived' that would be wrong. I think it's Amy, and most of the middle class children I know who are spoiled and pampered. Tayba simply comes from a different background, one that doesn't involve 3D films and Ninendo games. I tried not to smirk when Amy and I were discussing which theme park to visit and Tayba interrupted, 'I've been to Poundland. Have you been?' She didn't even get a £1 plastic toy when her family visited this shop.

Tayba regularly calls round, and helps herself to our biscuits, and I like that she makes herself at home. Thinking of her makes me understand how fostering and adoption works, if she were to move in to our home to live tomorrow, I'd be quite happy. I suppose it goes to prove that children and animals are easy to love.

Tayba, and a couple of her cousins were just having a 'party' in Amy's room just now. They blew up some balloons they found and were all singing along loudly to music on Amy's CD player. The only CD they could find was Christmas Carols. These four little girls (three of them Muslim) were singing 'Away in a manger' and 'Silent Night' at the top of their voices in September. One of the little girls apologised to me for making a noise. How could she not understand that I loved that noise? I just wished I could join in. So I found them a CD of kids pop music and they danced to Amarillo and Bob the Builder.

Then an Asian lady came to the door, and I guessed she wanted them home, although she didn't say a word. I called the girls and they all obediently left. But it wasn't their bed time, or tea time, it was that their Mum didn't want them to play at our house. So the game could continue, but outside now. Amy put her shoes on and went outside, and the party relocated to the front of the house. No music or balloons, but the girls were determined the party spirit would live on. I made them a bowl of microwave popcorn and Amy asked for juice. I gave them a jug of it, and paper cups left over from Amy's birthday party.

Tayba's often called home by a silent visitor at our door, and sometimes it seems to be on a whim. Although perhaps I'm being unfair on her parents. I never know what they say to her. Perhaps it's a happy, 'Make sure you say 'Thank you for having me.' And not, 'Muslim girls shouldn't mix with their kind.'

Yesterday Amy found a walkie-talkie, she has so many toys that she's barely played with this before. Tayba picked up the walkie-talkie today and was excited to try it. When Tayba's Mum called round, Tayba went home with the walkie talkie. Soon I heard Amy shouting, 'Hello!' And from next door I heard Tayba's voice, 'This works! This can be our top secret!'.

It's a happy friendship, despite Amy and Tayba's different backgrounds. But I heard a noise from Tayba's house this morning, and it didn't come from the walkie-talkie.

There was a child screaming. The child was shouting so loud that we could hear it in our living room. The screams went on and on, and after several minutes when the noise didn't stop I looked out of the window. An old man from over the road had come out of his house to see what this noise was too. We exchanged worried glances, neither of us knowing what to do. It sounded like a frightened child wailing and crying, the wailing went on and on.

I went upstairs, and the noise seemed to be coming from the room beside my bedroom. I could hear it clearly there, it sounded like a little boy saying, 'Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!' There were grown up voices too, then a brief shout, then maybe the sound of a scuffle. Then just, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' more. I looked out of the window to see that old man, in his vest, standing beneath Tayba's house, he shouted up, 'What's going on?' and then 'I'm calling the police!'

I didn't know what to do. I hoped the police would come, then hoped they wouldn't. It was probably just a child having a tantrum, wasn't it?

I don't even know who this boy could be. I've never seen a boy playing with Tayba, although I know she has lots of cousins visiting. I've only see her play with girl cousins. Just a few times I'd heard a boy shouting from an upstairs window next door. Strange shouts of, 'Amy's mum!' or 'Amy!' I wondered if this unknown boy was responsible for the strange notes on our front door. I've never seen this boy, so I don't know who he is, or why he shouts our names. I asked Tayba about her brother, he's 15 and he called to collect her once. I know it isn't him.

When she visited to play today I asked Tayba about the crying, she said. 'Oh yes, that was me. I was crying because my brother wouldn't let me watch TV.'

The voice didn't sound like Taybas at all, although it was muffled by the wall, so perhaps I was mistaken..? Tayba and Amy played, and I found it hard to imagine this happy westernised girl, with a south london accent shouting 'Allah!' for over twenty minutes.

Amy told me later that the police had come to Tayba's house, 'They told them off for making too much noise.'

Stickering the EPT

2006-09-16T10:02:00.000Z

I'm blogging for PokerStars at the London European Poker Tour event next week. Last time I wrote on the PokerStars official blog, about the World Cup of Poker I was stupid nervous.

That's a Steve phrase, 'stupid' this and 'stupid' that.

I like it.

Anyway...

This time I'm not exactly nervous, it is daunting writing for lots of readers, but it will be a lot of fun too.

The hardest thing is to keep it interesting when it's just a lot of 'this player has chips', and 'this hand happened'. I have a few ideas...

I want it to be fun and a 'me' thing, and the best thing is that PokerStars can't sack me as their blogger. You see, chances are I won't be able to write another one. If I was young free and single I'd love nothing better than to go around the world writing blogs about poker, but I have Amy. If Amy's dad wasn't already employed by the EPT TV people, if my boyfriend wasn't at all the EPT poker tournaments already, maybe I could... As it is, Amy has to come first. There's only so many times I can ask my Mum to stay the best part of a week caring for her, and anyway Amy would miss me, and I'd miss her.

The advantage of all this is that the pressure's off. I can write what I like about this London poker tournament. I can enjoy it, knowing that this is my 'one time blog' so I'm not going to feel bored about trotting out chip counts, or finding new ways of saying, 'there was an unlucky card on the river.'

And as I don't mind if I get sacked as PokerStars blogger, I'm going to be able to mess about a bit. Expect a photo of Tooting Bec tube station, an unnecessary use of the word 'frock' and also a few stickers stuck on players backs when they're not looking.

Hmm, stickering Phil Ivey...

A friend remarked that I had an unusual fascination with Isabelle Mercier's bottom last time I blogged about poker. Only this wasn't 'messing' about at all, it was an accurate report of this star poker player. Isabelle started it - she had the bottom fascination..! It was simply good journalism to write about it.

I hope she's there again. I was too scared to interview her last time. In fact the first few days I barely dared say 'Hi' to anyone I didn't know. By the end of the event, and desperate for something to write, I was chatting to anyone who'd stand still for a minute, who might be able to tell me how a hand went. It was just the 'celeb' players who scared me still... This time I'm going to stick a camera in the famous poker player's faces, tell them I'm writing the PokerStars blog, and demand that they say something interesting. They can have a sticker if they do!

It'll be strange working with Steve. He'll be reporting on the tournament for the Gutshot site. I don't think I've ever spent more than five minutes in the same room without hugging him. The toughest bit of the whole event will be resisting the urge to kiss him when he shares chip counts, or tells me who some famous player is that I don't recognise.

It will be weird, yes. He takes his work very seriously, and so do I. If you see me writing expect nothing but a 'grunt' if you try to interrupt. I've seen Steve with his 'writing head' on too and he's the same. If we get through the four days without a row I'll be surprised. We haven't had a row yet. Five months without a 'first row' do you think that's some kind of record? I don't think either of us are 'row' types. But if we do have a row expect to read all the action here on the happy, silly, (magic), fun blog. And if you want to hear how many chips a PokerStars FPP qualifier from Georgia has you need to go to PokerStarsblog.com... Anyone from Georgia will now be stickered. Need to get busy preparing for this event, where are my pens..?

Wanking in the bath - Part 2

2006-09-15T21:52:00.000Z

I write about the things I like. My boyfriend, my daughter, my work (although I'm not allowed to any more, got told off) about sticking stickers, about magic stuff like Tooting Bec tube, and sex too, I've written about that. Well, I'm enjoying sex at the moment, and I've written a few blog posts about that, but they're unpublished. I don't really like holding back, I like writing about the things I like, but I didn't hit 'publish' because I know I'm not supposed to talk about sex. Even though it's one of my favourite subjects.

I think about my boyfriend. He's a sensitive guy, and he doesn't read this. It wouldn't seem fair to him to talk about rude stuff that might turn on other guys.

Although I'm confused about the whole issue. I have talked about the time I wanked in public view in a jacuzzi, and there was the anal sex thing the other day. It's odd, because they feel like just a part of life like shopping on Ebay or cornish pasties in June. It's just life, isn't it? And it's one of the best bits too...

And if you're reading this blog in the hopes of a few sex references you really don't know how to Google right...

So tonight Steve told me he'd got upset, about something someone had said to him about this blog, that he doesn't read. And I was upset because I felt bad that I'd told you lot (blog readers) that I quite like anal sex, but not him.

That is quite fucked up, isn't it?

This blog has made me really happy, it's just me wittering, and I like wittering, and when I don't have anyone to talk to I can witter here. Note how many posts there are whenever Steve is away.

So yeah, I like to witter, and I suppose I like to entertain to. About Amy, about Steve, about Ebay, and cornish pasties, and about sex too.

I suppose I know that talking about sex is interesting. I like it, it's interesting to me too. But I'm not supposed to talk about it, am I? Nice girls don't!

But excluding one night, I've had 6 boyfriends in 37 years, I've been in love with every one of them before we... 'ahem', errr.. um.... err... 'you know'. I think I am a 'nice girl'. I'm just an ordinary girl who likes sex. With my boyfriend, who I love, and means everything to me.

So if you're reading this for a cheap thrill, I suggest you try Google and type in the rudest phrase you can think of. You'll have more fun that way. I'm going to talk about Yorkshire Pudding recipes tomorrow.

And while Steve's away I'll entertain myself, by writing about four ounces of flour and an egg.

Fuck that, I'm glad I have my faithful pink battery powered friend upstairs. It has 3 way action....

Oooh, my head!

2006-09-14T21:00:00.000Z

I didn't get as much money as I wanted for my sofa on Ebay, and it was generally a day of annoying niggles. I felt crappy.

'Feeling crappy is normal.' Steve said. I did see his point of view. But I felt really crappy.

'I feel crappy.' Steve's email continued. 'I have a headache, I'm tired, my back hurts and my feet too.'

I felt bad for bothering him with my, 'I feel crappy' email then. But I felt really crappy.

I read on. Hoping Steve's emailed words of wisdom would help.

'It's called having a bad day. We all have them,' he said.

Wise words indeed.

But I felt really crappy.

I opened a beer. I checked the BBC website, West Ham were losing against Palermo in their UEFA Cup match.

I felt really crappy, and I knew that Steve's concern was that I'd take this to heart and use this to think myself into trouble. I was worried about that too.

I wrote back to tell him to take paracetamol, and to drink lots of water.

He soon replied, to say he was fine. 'I was saying all that stuff in a fun kind of way.'

I was relieved. But I still felt really crappy. The problem was that this bad day had started to make me think. Thinking was dangerous. I turned to Steve for help again.

His email said, 'I just wanted to tell you to write this off as a bad day, and the fact that it was a normal bad day was better.'

But I felt really crappy.

'Don't worry. Have a beer. I have £2.01 riding on West Ham to win. And regardless of that I'll send over nice thoughts again.'

I had a beer. I tried to switch off my head. And West Ham win would make a nice end to this post, but I never thought that was going to happen. Just a bad day. I felt less crappy at the thought. Just a bad day.

'I'll write later regardless and tell you how i got locked in the toilet. :o)

Love,

Steve'

Everyone has bad days. :-)

The Battle of The School Run

2006-09-14T20:27:00.000Z

I'm onto au pair number four now. I suspect I've told you that having an au pair doesn't automatically make me 'posh'. People seem to think that it does, which means I have a chip on my shoulder about it all. So I'll quickly run through it once again, just so we're clear. I'm a single mum with a job that means I leave at 6am, and there's no childcare available that early in the morning. Plus at £60 a week an au pair is affordable. I pay mine £75 admittedly, but I'm just like that. So it's all good. Except it means I need a 3 bedroom place, which in Tooting starts at £1300 a month. So you see not only am I not posh, I'm poor. Glad you understand now. I wouldn't want you to think I'm posh. I don't mind you knowing I'm poor.

My au pairs childcare skills have varied a lot. I've had one sullen swedish teenager who barely took her ipod headphones out to hear what Amy wanted for breakfast, and I've had a loud Australian nanny who terrified me, and now I have Agi, the best au pair I've found. She's 28, and was a primary school teacher back in Poland, she told me her class cried when she told them she was leaving.

I'm used to au pair's playing with Amy when they're needed, then leaving me to do my Mum thing. With Agi it's different. I'll happily suggest to Amy that we draw, then Agi will sit down beside Amy and say, 'Or perhaps you want to play maths games on my laptop?'

At first I was glad that Agi took Amy out, or played with her on the computer, she even joined in and made teddy bears talk when Amy played 'schools.' Even though Amy was already happily playing teddybears with her schoolfriend.

With Agi taking good care of Amy I've had lots of extra 'me' time lately, to relax, to email Steve, to read, or write, or cook, or do the things I want to do... But you see, all I really want to do when I'm at home with Amy is to be with her.

It feels like Amy is a tug-of-love child. I'll say, 'Do you want to paint?' and Agi will step in, 'Or shall I take you to the playground?' I offer Amy a snack, 'Do you want a biscuit?' Agi will stand up, 'I'll get it. And would you like a drink too?'

Of course I can't complain, Amy must feel pampered and loved, and enjoy all this attention... Yeah, there's going to be a 'but'

If I have a day off and it's a school day I want to take Amy to school. Amy likes this too. Only Agi insists on taking Amy to school. I mean really insists. She seems like a meek, quiet, person, for most of the time, but when it comes to the school run she is determined to be the one to march Amy to the classroom door.

So I tell her, 'I like taking Amy to school.'

Agi tells me, 'I really want to take her. I must take her.'

Amy says, 'I want Mum to take me.'

Agi puts her coat on and says, 'Oh look, Matthew's coming down the road, if we go now we'll meet him.'

And somehow she hurries Amy out the door. And I take my shoes off and sit down with a coffee.

She's won.

But I had a plan for this morning, 'I'll take Amy to school this morning,' I told her.

'No, I'll take her.' Agi said.

'I want to take her,' I say to her. 'I have to go to the school office to pay the dinner money.' I have no intention of paying any dinner money, I'm broke right now, I'll have to ask Alex.

'I can do that for you,' Agi says. She puts on her coat.

'I need to go to the supermarket,' I say. I don't really, but I will if this is what it takes. 'I can take Amy to school, then go to the shops after that.' I put my coat on too.

'Can I go to school on my scooter?' Amy asks.

'No,' I tell her, 'I can't carry a scooter when I go to the shops.'

Agi has her shoes on. She picks up the scooter. 'I can take Amy to school on her scooter, so you can go to the shops,' she says.

Agi talks to Amy, 'I can take you to school on your scooter,' she tells her, and she puts Amy's coat on.

'Where's my PE kit?' Amy asks.

The PE kit is lost. I know this. Hurray! I say, 'I need to go to school, to ask if the PE Kit's at the office.' Victory is within sight...

Agi looks flustered, but she's grabbing the scooter now. 'I'll bring the scooter home, so you can go to the shops after school,' she says.

So off we go, all three of us. Plus the scooter too. I collect the PE kit from Lost Property box in the office, I don't pay any dinner money. I suppose I have to go to the shops.

I kiss Amy goodbe.

'Who's picking me up?' Amy asks.

I look at Agi. 'I'm picking you up, and Ruby's coming home with us.'

Agi says, 'I can collect both girls. I'd like to.'

'It's ok, I can do it.'

Agi goes to Amy, 'Can't I pick you up today?'

Amy says, 'I want Mum.'

'But I really want to,' Agi says. 'And if I don't I'll cry.'

Amy looks at me, 'Like Mum did last time?'

I hope Agi didn't hear that. I've been a bit fragile lately. Like last Monday when Agi took Amy to school, though Amy wanted me, and I felt like I was letting her down.

'So I pick you up from school?' Agi asks Amy.

Amy nods, 'Ok.'

And I go to the supermarket. And I don't cry this time. I needed shopping anyway.

:0) Love, Steve :-) Love, Jo

2006-09-13T20:37:00.000Z

The world does you no favours if you're a short, ginger male, of a thoughtful disposition. There isn't a cure for the curse of being someone who'll stand out in a crowd when you'd rather disappear, or being deemed 'sensitive' by a world that decides this is another word for weakness.

I love my poor dear boyfriend for a long list of reasons, and I wrote these down in the first ever post I ever wrote for this blog*1. I didn't hit 'publish.' Not sure why - I don't usually hold back. I think I decided the list was unfinished. If I'd thought to update the list it would be five times as long now.

I know Steve would shy away from the 'sensitive' label, and that he'd rather be six foot tall than just five foot something. I expect he'd want pink skin not freckly white, and of course he'd choose mouse brown not orange hair, who wouldn't? But I love everything he is, and everything that's made him this way. And orange is my favourite colour.

As for 'sensitive' meaning 'weak'?' Well, I don't think there's a braver way to be than being the sort of person who notices things, and considers the way other people think and feel, and uses this to take on the world, in a single handed battle against all things taken to heart.

When you have to deal with abuse for your bright hair, or the worry that every girl you like tells you you're 'nice' but 'no thank you', you're supposed to get a thick skin. But if this doesn't work, and your skin stays thin, thin enough that it nearly bleeds? What then? Maybe it means your special, maybe it means your skin is so thin your heart's on open view. Girls aren't supposed to want nice guys? Well I do. I'm lucky I've found the nicest.

So surely everything should be in place for my happily ever after? That's how it feels when I look at it all logically. I have the perfect boyfriend, a wonderful daughter, a job for a company who never cease to impress me, and who seem to like me almost as much as I like them. But yeah, there's a 'but...' Of course there is. But... But for once I want to forget that unhappy 'but' I just want to 'think chipper thoughts' as Steve would say.

We had a silly messenger conversation last night, Steve's in Barcelona now until Sunday. He sent me some funny photos of his hotel room*2, with stripy zebra bedding. And I told him about a long 'shortlist' I'd made, of music*3 I decided to share with him.*4 And from talking about this 'shortlist' we soon 'laugh out louded' ourselves into making shortbread together soon.

This morning I started my day with Steve's traditional 'late night long email' about Barcelona thunder*5 and a spaghetti meal for a fiver in a spanish cafe with formica tables*6.

And I love him. More than anyone could know. And I love that he would say, "I know you’re sad but I just love you."

He's back on Sunday and I feel the same way that he describes, stuff about hearts stretched from London to Spain.... And I agree with his remark, "for me it’s the basic ‘missing you’ stuff. I never get used to it. It’s got a point where it feels unnatural to be away from you now, like it’s not fair."*7

He always signs ':o) Love, Steve'. And I always sign ':-) Love, Jo'. The important thing is the smile. We can do that, through partings, through any sad stuff, I know the thought of him will always be my best hope of a smile, and perhaps one day a happily ever after.

Yes.

Love,

:-)

*1 A blog that was nearly called 'Not sure about fairy tales'

*2 On one photo there was a picture of his laptop, so I got a preview of his half written blog post.

*3 Steve's colleague Ed told him about http://allofmp3.com. An amazing Russian site where if you turn a blind eye to the ethics and legality of it all, you can download any song you can think of for just $0.10. And as Ed told Steve, 'It's KGB approved!'

*4 We've avoided sharing our music until now, even though we've been together 5 months. Now we're dealing with the music issue, so the last 'too shy to share' secret will now be Steve's salary. As it's the only thing he keeps from me, I know it must be really bad! :-P

*5 "The rain was that really heavy stuff - the type that drenches you in seconds. And the ligthning was good too. The whole sky went white."

*6 "Not sure about the spainish pop music... It was one of those places with formica tables, wooden chairs, fruit machines and old men with stubble smoking Pall Mall cigarettes down to their fingers."

*7 Yes, it probably is wrong using his emails in blog posts, he doesn't read this, but if he did I'd tell him that I used his words because I want to remember them forever. This them public, but it also feels like it makes them permanent. I think maybe this blog will be my fairy tale book, and one day I'll write of my happily ever after. And then, 'The End.'

A mug of Horlicks and a razor blade

2006-09-12T18:11:00.000Z

I sometimes feel a bit like my life is on hold, my slightly weird head operating on a reduced service, awaiting repairs. Repairs unscheduled, as yet.

Tonight there was an office poker game, and my colleagues were going to the pub for a few drinks before this, there was no good reason not to join them for these things. Normally I enjoy pub drinking and poker. Bearing in mind that I'm not sure whether to define 'normal' as the me of the past few months, or the months before that. Right now 'normal' is 'getting by', at work, at home, enjoying the happy spots where everything seems ok, amongst the feeling-a-little-bit-mental spots, and there's a large cloudy grey area where I feel like I shouldn't feel mental, but don't feel happy either. And if I don't feel happy isn't that mental? I get scared about feeling bad, and I tell myself I shouldn't feel like that, and I wish I could just relax, and calm down, and be happy. But how do you make your head do what it's told? I shout, 'Get happy!' loudly at my head. And it just whimpers and says, 'I'm doing my best, but I can't... I'm rubbish...' Stupid head. I hate it.

Last night was a very-mental blip, just when I'd decided I was on my way to happy. Have you read Steve's blog post about his drug experiences? It was so funny, but he told me last night that he was pleased that I was upset about it at the time. I love him for being this safe, and for being brave and fighting his way to 'happy'. after the sad stuff I know he started out with.

Alcohol is my drug of choice, it isn't any help. It promises a different me. But the difference is usually just that I don't care about crying, or hurting, oh and I was going to say 'getting angry.' But I don't do angry. Unless Steve says the wrong thing, like some kindly trying-to-help thing, and then it's just 'Fuck off!' and he's forced to forget help, instead he tries to make me forget, and sometimes it works and the sad stuff is buried, and we continue to enjoy our evening.

He's in Barcelona now until Sunday. That's ok. No hugs, but plenty of emails, texts, and messenger too maybe. Phone calls even. Although I don't like phones.

Last night I fell asleep in Steve's arms on the sofa, our converstation so intense we didn't even notice that we hadn't put the TV on as background noise.

I didn't want to go to bed, that meant goodbye.

And I was drinking and the sad stuff had crept up on me, because it's loosened by alcohol. For some reason I decided drinking more was the best way to shake it off. Drunk, tired, scared of missing Steve like I had the last week he was in Vegas, these were the ingredients simmering in the witches cauldron of my head. Sometimes it hurts so much I think stupid. I think desperate. I think anything outside of my head must be better than what's inside it. I've often tried drinking so much my head goes fuzzy. I've also wished for pills and powders or scary chemicals, like those the cool nutters take, those with the sad-fucker contacts. And I've thought of cutting.

I would never have thought of hurting myself if someone I knew hadn't done this before. It's as if this might make me closer to him. And I know it will fucking hurt! I might be desperate and stupid, and mental, yet still the thought of pain scares me. But physical pain feels like the biggest distraction you can find. Distraction is the Big Plan. I think I want to point and say, 'look behind you' and lose my weird head, as it goes one way whilst I go another.

If you can't get an injection to shake your head out of it, or drink enough to numb it, then why not scare it off with a sharp knife?

It's all about doing anything but thinking.

Which was daft, at least yesterday, as I drowsed in my boyfriends arms. Sleep is a friendly route to oblivion. Even if it comes with the danger of bad dreams.

Of course I didn't do anything daft with any razor blade, and I don't think I ever will. I hope not. And I promised Steve I wouldn't while he was away, and that I'd get help. Although the route to this help doesn't seem easy. I have a doctor's appointment next week - but I have a minor ailment to mention, a cover story if I run scared of bigger problems. And I also have the phone number of an organisation with too many letter's in its name, one of which stands for something I can't say, and I hate phone calls anyway. Can't imagine ringing this place, but I may.

So tonight, instead of going out to the pub, and to the poker game, I came home. Too much drink, not enough sleep, and too much head-mess, had taken out of me. I sloped off quietly as others chatted, to go home, to drift off to sleep. No razor blades tonight, just a mug of Horlicks as my drug of choice. And I hope that friendship and poker will be there for me, to be enjoyed one day when I wake up.

Do looks matter? 'Sometimes'

2006-09-12T15:29:00.000Z

A friend/colleague recently filled out one of those personal questionnaires on his blog. I was trying to remember the name for them. I asked IT Drew because he knows internet cultural type stuff, and he said it was a 'meme' - before threatening to nullroute all my email if I didn't stop bothering him.

Anyway, people fill these surveys in and pass them on, and they're designed to reveal all sorts of personal bits and bobs about your life, only usually they seem to provide information that no one would ever want to know, like, 'What did you have for breakfast?' Or,'Do you prefer Sprite or 7UP?'

This morning my friend/colleague or, acquaintance/colleague, and I were debating whether it's possible to properly get to know someone who lives a long way away, someone you only ever chat to online. I think it is possible, and I like 'meeting' people on messenger or by email. So I wondered about filling out his meme questionnaire to help him, and others, get to know me better.

I know the idea is to answer the same questions, but I decided to make my own up.

Time Started: 1.46pm

Full Name: Joanne... Do I have to tell you my middle name?

Is there anything you don't want to reveal in this questionnaire? Yes, my middle name. I hate it. People will laugh.

Do you keep many secrets? No. I just don't want to reveal my middle name at the whim of some silly questionnaire.

Do you like taking surveys like this? No. They're all rubbish.

Ok, and what's that subject heading about? I was looking at other meme surveys online and saw that. It's typical of the type of evasive non-answer people use when filling out these things. Dull people.

Are you an interesting person then? No, not particularly, but these surveys make everyone seem dull because people have to answer 'yes' or 'no' to silly questions about bunjee jumping and eating dog biscuits. It's bound to be 'no' for anything exciting, then we get on to, 'Have you had chicken pox?'

Would you describe yourself as a sneery, snobbish, or dismissive person? Yes, of course I am! I look down on crass, forced, dull questions in online meme surveys. And I feel I must be better than the sort of people who fill them in.

Have you ever filled in a survey revealing personal details about your life before? No. I just said. I hate them.

Do you hate them because you feel forced to reply to their un-flexible set of questions, and struggle with the lack of control this implies, and also have further issues with your desperate attempts to be funny being thwarted because the answer requested is just a simple 'yes' or 'no'? Yes.

If there was one question you'd want to be asked by a survey like this what would it be? If there was something I wanted to say I wouldn't need a stupid question, I'd just blog about it. I don't need any fucking personality questionnaire to tell me what to write about!

So weren't any of your friend/colleague's replies interesting? Not particularly. His last blog post about having anal sex with a girl before they'd been on their first date was much better.

Well what about if one of these personality questionnaires asked you about anal sex? Wouldn't that be interesting? I suppose it might be... Ok, fair point.

Have you ever had anal sex? Yes.

And? You see that's just one of the problems with this type of stupid questionnaire, that's not allowed! You have to reply briefly and move on, there's no follow up questions, even if someone says something interesting. (Unlikely.)

So you're not going to say any more about the anal sex? No. And you have to move onto the next question now. That's how these things work.

Ok, What did you have for breakfast? Sainsbury's Blueberry Muffin.

Have you ever eaten a dog biscuit? No.

Been bungee jumping? No.

Chicken pox? What do you think?

Ok, I get your point. These online questionnaire things are really crap, aren't they? Yes.

So you had a muffin for breakfast? Very nice. Yes. Almost as nice as anal sex.

Hang on, that wasn't a proper question... I'm thinking of a better one now... Check the ones on my colleague's blog?

Ok. Vanilla or chocolate ice cream? He said chocolate. I remember that.

Oh, chocolate? Yes. Not vanilla.

Why are you laughing? I don't know.

Would you say you have a juvenile sense of humour, and enjoy shocking people by talking about sex? Fuck off! Can I just blog properly about my anal experiences now?

Ok. Or maybe finish the au pair lesbian lust post? Yeah, maybe. See, these questionnaires reveal nothing. No one can know about anyone they only know online, you have to meet them face to face. So my colleague will just remain a colleague. I might blog about him, he might blog about me, but... Friends or acquaintances? Yes, no, sometimes...

Not the Lesbian Lust Post...

2006-09-11T08:29:00.000Z

I did write most of a post about au pair lesbian lust, as I do like to please my loyal readers, but decided to finish this one instead, which isn't rude at all, just a wittery muse about my collector mentality.

I wanted to find a poem to type out to share with you, from that magazine I found in the oddballs and freaks section of Borders. I looked but couldn't find a poem that was just right. As I browsed my magazine for this purpose I realised I like looking for stuff more than the finding. This made me realise that it's why I like collections, I like looking and finding something to brighten the day, be it a new cactus, or a poem, or something that no one else would want to see on a pavement.

I'll find it and the finding will feel special. That's why I've always been at my happiest when collecting something. So what's sparked my collecting need in the past? Cacti, singles from unknown indie bands, 'Warez' (illegal software downloads) new signings in Championship manager, 'vintage' Ebay tat, the perfect hand at poker... I'm sure there are many more.

Have I told you I love my new camera? I think it actually might be magic. Strangely the tiny red dot I stuck on my favourite platform poster at Tooting Bec vanished, although a rainbow and a Humpty Dumpty remained. I don't know why. It bothered me when the tiny dot was removed. I meant to replace it, but stuck a tiny turtle I had handy in it's place.

The red dot on my phone screen has gone too. Taking photos seems to be another collecting thing. It makes me look around for things I like. And here's a few 'things I like' photos I've taken.

I'm not allowed to blog about work now, but this is our office fruit. I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to say this? But I can't imagine a better company to work for than PokerStars. And with fruit like this, how can you disagree?

And here's a sign I like at a local curry house. 'Eat all you can', might be good business for my new sick website.

I bought Steve an espresso maker in my lunch hour today, because his went rusty, and I saw these banana keepers. They protect your bananas from bruising and keep them fresh. I thought, 'How stupid', but Steve is very jealous of our free office fruit and keeps trying to persuade me to steal him some. I don't think this would be right, and I'm not sure how I'd get it home in my handbag anyway. The banana keeper might work...

I told him there were fresh figs, and he went, 'Ooooh!' He likes fresh figs. So I picked a couple of these to eat on my way home, only then I wasn't very hungry.

On a side note, I'm not sure about PokerStars policy on eating their free fruit outside the office? I'm not sure of the plan behind this fruit provision. Is the idea to provide free fruit to keep their staff healthy? Maybe it reduces their premiums on our Bupa health insurance. It could be they get a questionnaire, 'Do your staff eat fruit? Yes/No' A bit like 'Do you keep your car in a garage?'

If this is my boss's plan then eating fruit day and night would be ok, and I could justifiably steal it for consumption at home. However it could be that the fruit is not allowed to be removed from the premises, except in your tummy, and that the plan is to make us happy by letting us munch fruit at our desks. The uncertainty about all of this has meant I've never dared eat the fruit on the way home before.

As I say, I didn't eat the figs on the way home. And I'm not going to publicy say that the PokerStars fruit was taken off the office premises and given to my boyfriend. No, I'm not... I could easily have returned it to the office next day, to eat it in company time, on office premises, in line with company fruit policy.

But did you know that figs are rude? Steve told me. It took him about an hour to explain it to me, without using any rude words at all - well he's very shy. It was a very funny hour though. With lots of nods of heads, and gestures, and many 'errs' and 'you knows' in his explanation. I think I now understand how figs are rude. And if I did get it right, then perhaps my lesbian au pair would enjoy the figs more than me?

I'm not sure I like thinking about 'err' (imagine me nodding my head now) and, 'you know,' as I get my 5 a day. This put me off figs a bit. And I would like to assure everyone that I will not be consuming any more fruit away from the PokerStars premises, and neither will Steve. He says he prefers the real thi - I didn't buy that banana keeper either.

Although looking at it, I wonder if...

See, this wasn't a rude post at all!

If it was I'd probably tell you that I suspect Steve's fig eating teqnique might be responsible for me coming three times last night.

Front Door Note Sticking Update

2006-09-06T11:00:00.000Z

No new nasty notes have appeared on our front door recently, so I'm hoping the nasty note stickerer has stopped. Amy talks about it a lot still. She went back to school today, and she's convinced that two of her schoolfriends are responsible. As part of her plan to catch these wrongdoers she told me, 'I have to cry at school today.' She said this with a smile, and wouldn't tell me any more than that.

Today a letter arrived, from 'Tower Investigations' Private Investigators. 'We act on behalf of a client and would be obliged if you could telephone us in order to assist our enquiry.'

I don't know if they're investigating the note sticker, but I suspect it's more likely they're trying to catch the monster I saw in my living room the other night...

Jesus Paperclips

2006-09-06T08:22:00.000Z

I used to love using Ebay to buy myself bargain tat. Unfortunately I'm very competetive, which means Ebay becomes an expensive habit for me. They call it 'winning' an auction don't they? Well, I don't like to be called a 'loser,' so whenever I got outbid by 10p on a deco vase, I'd go all out to claim the 'winning bid' tag as mine. If I saw another Ebay name beside an item in a frenzy of greed and hostility I'd outbid the current buyer, deciding 'I don't care how much it costs me - I want revenge!'

Did you know that if you write £1,000,000 as your maximum bid you can win any auction? I should write a book, 'Winning at all costs - the Secrets of Ebay revealed.'

I'm very proud of my Ebay #76 100% rating. I little care that I can barely remember which 76 bits of tat I purchased, I'm satisfied to know that these purchases earned me 76 'positive feedback' comments.

On a low day I can sign in to Ebay and read my reviews, and it does wonders for my self esteem. 'Very good buyer with excellent communications & payment!' - jessica2605. 'A superb Ebayer and friendly customer. Recommended! A++++++' - collectorman9. And I particularly like, maypolechamp's remark, 'Very easy to sell to.'

I can no longer afford the pleasure of outbidding fellow Ebayers to increase my Ebay scores, but I've discovered a cheaper way to continue my Ebay addiction. You can sell stuff on there too you know!

When my Ex sold his house he wanted rid of a tatty Victorian sofa (bought on Ebay, of course) he was going to give this to house clearance people which seemed wrong, but I didn't have room for it, so I thought, 'I'll get it reupholstered' as a stalling move, to get it out of the way until I decided which of of the four sofas I owned I'd keep. I couldn't really afford the upholsterer's £500 fee at the time, but I figured I might be richer by the time it was finished.

I wasn't at all concerned when five months later the upholstery guy still hadn't got in touch about the Victorian sofa. Did he know I couldn't afford it? It felt like the nice chap was doing me a favour, storing the sofa until I had a lottery win. Eventually I decided I should ring him. When I did he told me he hadn't started work on the sofa. Which was just fine by me - plus it was a rollover week... Unfortunately he took the phone call as a sign that I wanted action. Three days later I had a smart Victorian Chesterfield blocking my back door, and a bill for £500.

I now have four sofas in my house, so I decided to sell this smart Victorian one. I stuck it on Ebay, hoping to get the £500 back. The day it was listed 4 people wrote to me asking if I could add a 'Buy it now' button so they could get it quicker. One guy offered me £800! My sofa's now been added to 14 'watch lists'! Decisions, decisions... Should I take £800 or let the auction run and gamble on more? It's very exciting!

So I've been looking around the house for other stuff to sell on Ebay. I have a Simpson's cell picture, I think that could be quite 'collectible.' From my days spent searching market stall singles for new indie bands I have a Coldplay Promo from 1999, their 'limited edition first release on Parlophone'. I like that the promoter's label talks about the band 'finishing their exams.'

I was telling Steve about these potential Ebay treasures. He spends lots of time Ebaying 1940s fountain pens and typewriters. He decided he should sell stuff on Ebay too, and wrote a funny email about this, 'I’m looking around my room trying to work out what there is to sell on eBay. So far I’ve come up with the following old stuff…

A box of multi-coloured paper clips (hardly used)
A pair of blue converse boots (still being used)
A packet of 1999 aspirin (all used)
A small bottle of vintage cough syrup (half used)'

We decided he ought to sell the paperclips. He suspected they might be antique, but we decided they were more likely 'retro'. On Ebay 'retro' is better than 'antique'.

Steve decided he should list these paperclips as 'collectible retro paperclips', selling each one individually to maximise his profits. Eg. 'Limited edition paperclip 4 of 123, from a limited total run of 100 million.'

I still don't feel I have enough to list. I know that Jesus toast always sells on Ebay, so when I found the face of the Christ Child in something I owned I was happy to Praise The Lord that I could make a shitload flogging it on Ebay!

I thought carefully about the listing. I decided to show my 'Christ Child face' next to an old master painting of Christ, I thought this would better show the uncanny resemblance in my item to the 'liddle baby Jesus'. It felt like easy money becase I had lots of these 'just like the Holy One' goodies available to list. At Snappy Snaps I could get Amy's baby photos printed at only 8p each...

Of Mice and Monsters (and knights with cardboard paper roll swords)

2006-09-05T09:59:00.000Z

Dolly brought a mouse into the living room a few weeks ago, I jumped, and screamed, and my heartbeat went from a steady 'hmm hmm hmm' to sudden 'eek!!! eek!!! argh!!!' This state of 'argh' came upon me as fast as my eyes saw something grey in her mouth and my brain could register 'mouse!' All my fuss scared Dolly and she dropped the mouse and I saw it scurry under the coffee table.

What do you do when you have a mouse hiding in your living room, and a cat pawing under the table trying to get it? I grabbed Dolly, took her out of the room and firmly shut the door.

I'd used a 'humane mouse trap' before, a box that can catch a mouse so you can release it outside. So I visited a DIY shop that had a range of traps designed to poison, bash, splat, and messily glue mice to death, thankfully it also had a 'poison free' trap amongst these weapons of mass mouse destruction.

So I set this trap in the living room and Amy and I resigned ourself to a day spent living in the kitchen. Amy wanted me to check the trap every ten minutes, but I thought it best to let the mouse be, so I checked the trap every few hours. It was no good, Amy's bedtime came and still there was nothing in the trap. Steve came round and I told him why the living room door was shut. He volunteered to look for the mouse so I could have my house back.

He looked under the coffee table and behind the sofas, but there was no sign of any mouse. Dolly came into the room, she wanted to play with her favourite toy, and showed no interest in hunting or pouncing on hidden rodents. I was starting to wish I hadn't tried to save the mouse from Dolly, deciding I'd rather have a firmly dead mouse on my hands, than a mysteriously hidden living one that might suddenly scurry past me and make me go 'eek!!! eek!!! argh!!!' at any time.

My head was a bit weird around this time, and even though I'm not usually scared of mice I'd start to jump every time I saw Dolly, always checking her mouth for signs of grey fur, and screaming every time I saw her carrying her grey cat toy. It was as if everything, and nothing, could trigger 'eek!!! eek!!! argh!!!' panic. I couldn't explain it, I couldn't control it. I just felt edgy and odd all the time, like there was a permanent state of unknown threat.

The non-appearance of the mouse made me feel even stranger, at a time when I was feeling strange already. Of course I wondered if I'd imagined the whole thing. The mouse was never found. I thought it was real, but how could I be sure if every time I saw Dolly with her toy I was sure this was a reason to panic too? I screamed at a mere toy just as if it were a real mouse. I wasn't quite myself at the time.

Organisations with strange letters in their name finally wrote back with an apology for website failure, and, 'that sounds like post traumatic stress my dear' but their email made me go 'eek!!!' so I just closed it quick. And I feel better now in any case.

Steve believes in monsters. If you read his blog you'll know that he keeps hearing monsters at the bottom of the garden and getting scared. I'm open minded about this, I believe in Tooting Bec magic, but my poor boyfriend lives down the road in Streatham, is it possible that monsters lurk there instead of Tooting's happier magic things?

Last night I woke up when I heard a crash downstairs. Then I heard the sound of a scuffle. My first thought was 'burglars!' Then I heard Dolly growling. I sleepily thought, 'Dolly's fighting the burglars'.

Then as the strange row of tackles and cat screeches continued I decided 'Oh, a cat fight' deciding a stray moggy had got in the house and Dolly was seeing it off.

I nearly turned over and went back to sleep, but the noises didn't stop. They was loud, strange, noises, there were Dolly's screams and bashes and thuds and strange panting, and... I can only describe it as (don't laugh) 'snickering'.

Snicckkkker snikkker snkkk went this inhuman noise. It didn't sound at all like a cat.

I'd fallen asleep with no clothes on when Steve left that night, so I had to find my nighty, then my dressing gown. I was getting dressed quickly in a fluster as the weird noises continued. Dolly was quiet, all I could hear was the odd heavy breathing, and the weird 'snic snick snicckkker' now and then.

I tried to stay calm as I headed downstairs to investigate. Dolly ran up the stairs to greet me, her fur and tail all puffed up with fear. I stroked her for a few minutes, to calm myself as much as her, and then I slowly moved, from half way up the stairs I could peer into the dark living room. The 'pant pant snickker' noise continued. And as I looked I saw a large grey shape slink behind the sofa. It was larger than a cat... Maybe dog size. Was it a fox?

The noises worried me, well of course they did... But foxes aren't supposed to come in houses, are they? And this fox had just sat there long after Dolly had stopped fighting it, that wasn't right... It had sat there making very weird and scary noises. I wondered if it was injured? And soon I was jumping to all sorts of conclusions about crazed and dangerous foxes, I even thought 'Rabies!'

This shadowy beast was behind my sofa, deep in my house, with no obvious exit. What was I going to do?

I'd left the office door open, so that must have been how the creature had got in, but it was in a different room now, hiding and cornered. And how was I going to get it out of the living room? That 'humane mouse trap' wouldn't do it.

I decided to open the front door, so it had two ways out. And I sat on the stairs, waiting and watching, and hoping I'd see this mystery creature run out.

I don't know how long I waited. I heard movement briefly from the living room, then it all went quiet again. I guess I sat there an hour, wondering what to do. I thought about calling the police, but I knew this didn't justify a 999 call. Of course I thought about going into the living room and chasing it out, but I couldn't I was just too scared. So I rang Steve.

Steve was still up, blogging about the journey home that night, and when I explained the situation he said he'd get a taxi and be right there. He turned up carrying a long cardboard roll in one hand and with a green towel draped over his arm.

I'd expected him to provide nervous morale support as the terrified two of us tackled the scary thing in the living room together. Instead he had a plan, he was decisive, he was brave. He gave me a job to do, holding a towel to block the stairs so the fox didn't run that way, then armed with a cardboard paper roll sword and green towel shield, he entered the room, and looked for the beast.

He moved the sofa, and we both jumped when we heard a noise. But Steve was valiant, prodding behind the sofa with his cardboard paper roll. He found nothing so we decided the creature must have gone under the table, maybe that was the noise we'd just heard?

My laptop and Ipod docking station were on the floor. I guessed the bang that woke me had been these falling. I could see that the wireless reciever bit of the laptop was broken. Not that I cared much at the time.

Steve peered under the table, then prodded with his cardboard roll, and picked up the bin to look behind there.

'There's nothing here' he said.

But that was where I'd seen the shadowy shape go...

He looked behind the other sofa, and then behind the curtains, and the TV.

'There's nothing here, I'm sure.' he said.

And I suddenly felt worse than if he'd found a mean and cowering rabid fox. It was like the mouse thing all over again... Had I just imagined a large, shadowy, snickering monster in the living room? And was it a goblin, or even a troll?

I'd brought Steve in the middle of the night in a taxi from Streatham for no good reason, was I mad and only imagined a beast in my living room?

I made Steve check the room again, and then I nervously joined him and looked everywhere too. There really was nothing in the living room.

Steve mended the broken laptop, and reassured me, he said whatever it was must have got out while I'd gone in the other room to call him. I suppose that was possible.

And I'll never know. I'll never know whether I had fox in the house, or a monster snick snick snickkkkering in my living room that could mysteriously vanish at will in the night. I wonder if the monster ate the mouse that never turned up?

Will a bigger monster come one night to eat the snick snick snickkker monster?

Jelly Bean Man, Tottenham Court Road

2006-08-31T15:54:00.000Z

I used to collect cacti when I was 9 or 10. I'm not sure why. Although I still like cacti, and I stole one from my last rented house. I decided the landlord couldn't prosecute me, you see I had a plan. I know a lot about cacti. And if my ex-landlord tried to hold back my deposit or get the police involved, claiming, 'There's a missing cactus.' I would simply say. 'I did my best, but the poor plant had a fatal mealy bug infestation.'

They'd never know that the cactus is still in fine health and sits on my kitchen window sill. I could even make it sound more plausible by discussing the merits of methylated spirits dabs or spraying with soapy water. My Mammillaria were my pride and joy, and when they got the bug and died I cried.

I looked around Borders magazine section yesterday, I was feeling a little bit sad, I thought Steve was meeting me for lunch but then he couldn't. He likes Rolling Stone magazine so I decided to buy him that, and buy myself a magazine too. Only I felt like an oddball and a freak, because I couldn't find a magazine on any of the racks that I wanted to read. I have no obvious hobbies or interests, I didn't feel like reading about football, or poker, or music, or knitting. Unfortunately they didn't have a magazine section called 'oddballs and freaks'.

I stuck a jelly bean man sticker on a Platform for Art poster today, so I suppose I have my stickering hobby. But I couldn't see any Stickerers magazines.

I've been thinking today, and realised I do actually have some hobbies and interests. I am a collecter still. Not Stamps, or Dolls Houses, or anything you can buy magazines for at Borders. But I now have 3 collections.

Two of these collections are work related, it helps to keep me interested.

I collect funny emails from players, I don't have any great plan for what to do with these, but sometimes I look and laugh. One day I might even compose these into sections like, 'Vagueness', 'A bit foreign' or 'Overcomplicated ways to say something simple.'

I've also recently started collecting the photos of people who write in to say 'Can I change my picture, someone told me I look ugly.' We get lots of emails like this each day. I'm saving these player's photos and then I'm going to make all these ugly people pictures into a montage to put on my living room wall. The funny thing is that most of these people aren't even ugly. Thee'll be a nice little section of the montage of men with beards. There'll be many ugly babies too. Actually most of the babies really are ugly.

The last collection you may think is strange. I've been thinking about this plan for quite a while, but it's only since I got my new phone that I've begun my new hobby. I take photos of pavement sick.

I'm very pleased with the ones I've found so far. The first was bright red, and next to a tree in Clapham. The second was spilling out of a bucket outside the Plaza shopping center. I can't wait to find some more!

I'm going to put these on a new blog, called 'Art Is Sick' Or maybe that doesn't quite work? artisick? May need to think of a new name. Anyway, that's supposed to sound like 'Artistic' because the blog will be my collection of pavement sick pictures, discussing my theory that public spew can be a form of artistic expression.

I'll put these pictures up, each with a little summary of their artistic worth to the world.

So you see, I do have hobbies.

And even though I didn't think I 'fitted' because I couldn't find a magazine to suit, I bought one that looked interesting anyway. I liked that it fitted nicely in my handbag, and that it wasn't glossy with adverts, and that it was first published in 1733. And I really liked the name, because I like London. It was 'The London Magazine.' On the tube home yesterday I read it's poetry and short stories, and a very interesting review of the Kandinsky exhibition.

I know it sounds a bit pretentious, but I really enjoyed it.

So now I've found a magazine I like, and know I'm not an oddball and a freak . I feel like a normal person, who sometimes likes drawing jellybean people to stick on tube station posters, and who constantly keeps her eyes peeled for pavement sick to photo for a website.

Not black and white, but rainbow

2006-08-30T15:48:00.000Z

At tea time yesterday the rain poured down outside the window. I looked up and saw the glow of the sun and a hint of blue amongst the grey, and said 'There might be a rainbow.'

Aggi (our new au pair) told us about a beautiful rainbow she'd seen the day she arrived in England, and asked Amy if she'd ever seen one.

'When I was 3' Amy said, and we got on with our tea.

The doorbell rang. I expected it to be Amy's friend Tayba, she's a frequent visitor, although she had just gone home because I'd told her we were eating.

It was Tayba again. 'I wanted you to see that,' she said, and pointed.

At the end of our road was a rainbow. We all left our pasta and went to see it. The base was the darkest colour, but it wasn't perfect because in the middle it was blank, it was white not coloured, it just stopped, then suddenly continued again, as a hazy blur of every colour that it was easier to view as one interesting shade.

This morning Amy discussed favourite colours, as she often does.

'What's your favourite colour?'

She knows I always answer orange. I told her, 'Blue.'

She said, 'Are you just saying that to make me happy?' Blue is her favourite colour you see.

'No,' I said.

I was just really tired of saying orange. I'd said it so often that I wasn't even sure if it was my favourite colour any more. I heard the question but no longer thought when I gave the answer. Only now I was thinking of a blue sky. And I thought of something else too, I thought of questions and answers that you think you know, but don't. So I told Amy that nothing lasts, nothing's real forever, I told her that the way I feel is fickle; only I said, 'wibbly wobbly' because I didn't think she'd know what 'fickle' meant.

I told her I was the sort of person who have to be asked, 'What's your favourite colour today?'

Because I couldn't be sure of anything lasting forever.

Amy liked this idea. I could see her thinking this meant endless possibilities with her 'favourites' game. I felt like I somehow taught Amy a valuable lesson. And me too.

Amy asked me to ask her what her favourite colour 'today' was. So of course I did.

She said, 'Rainbow. I saw one yesterday, and it was good.'

I like blue again today. It's my favourite colour today. I'll think of blue skies while I can.

Good luck and bad luck

2006-08-28T12:50:00.000Z

I had a good day yesterday at the FunQuay beach, and a happy evening, nothing special, just MOTD and an exchange of brief cheerful emails with Steve as he worked. In Steve's late night long email, that he's made into his own special art form, he commented that I'd seemed happy that day, and that this had made him happy. Then he had doubts about the wisdom of those words, and by the time he'd got his taxi home he'd convinced himself he needed to email again to reassure me that he'd be happy to be with me whether I was feeling happy or sad.

I feel so lucky. The thing is, he didn't need to send the second email. I know by now, that on good days or bad he's thinking of me and loving me, just like I constantly think of and love him too. I've considered how few truly happy couples I know. This still doesn't stop me believing that a few people are just made to be together. I used to read crappy Georgette Heyer's Regency romance novels when I was a teenager, and the phrase 'Grand passion' pops into my head now, and with it the idea of couples so much in love they can barely bear to be apart. Some special love that it's hard not to shout about, two people who are so very good for each other, love that means so much, feels so magic.

So I want to celebrate my love for my boyfriend every day. We've been together for 5 months now, but in emails today we talked about 5 years. Right now it feels like the most likely reason for us being apart in 5 years if if one of us gets run over by a bus.

And I have loads of good things in my life, it's not just Steve. I'm exceptionally lucky in so many ways. I wrote a list, but I won't share it as it would make dull reading. But, yes, most of my life is great. But I still think of myself as an unlucky person.

In some ways, yes, I think you might say I'm unlucky. 2 Really Bad Things have effected me. I scrabbled around in my head to make it 3. Funny that... Because 3 is a more meaningful number? Yes, 2 seems somehow incomplete. It can't be 2, can it? But it is. Well there was one other thing... No, that was a Fairly Bad Thing, not really in the same league. So, it really is 2. So does that mean another Really Bad Thing will happen? Sometimes I do think that, think that I'm cursed.

But this is stupid. I'm not cursed at all, and bad things happen to lots of people. I'm not trying to say I'm special. It's just that when I was 20 I crashed my car, I gave a friend brain damage and scarred her face. So that was Really Bad Thing number 1. And that took a lot of getting over. And then that I'd allowed myself to get over it, that took even more getting over...

And recently Really Bad Thing number 2 has been bothering me. And I'm not listing it here, because I'm still working on dealing with this, and because... Well, just because. And you can't say I don't share with you, can you?

But back to the satisfaction of reaching the number 3, perhaps a better way to look at it, to satisfy that superstition, is to say that I've had extreme luck 3 times. Extreme bad luck twice, but in the love thing with Steve I've found extreme good luck.

I like to think of him as this number 3, he can be a completion to my run with Good/Bad life experiences. Now I can have a boring life. Now we can both have a boring life. Steve and I talk about this a lot. Our dream as a couple is to lead a boring life.

My only worry is that I might be wrong, what if extreme bad luck number 3 is still waiting? The worst that this could be would be Steve getting run over by a bus before we've been together 5 years.

Oh well, I suppose I'd better make he most of things now and just be happy. And I'll tell Steve to look both ways when he crosses the road.

Notes stuck on our front door

2006-08-27T21:37:00.000Z

The nasty notes continue to be stuck on our front door. They usually just say, 'Bog off' or 'Get lost'. There's only been one with a letter on the back, 'Dear Amy... You bitch. You smell in the sun, you smell under the moon.' Just weird rubbish, just kids...

I expected Amy to be upset, instead she seems to be caught up in it all, this is her summer holiday adventure. She and her friend Tayba, who lives next door, are investigating spies. When a new note is stuck she's told me not to put it in the bin because she needs to check for clues.

When one came yesterday she said, 'I need to see that, let me check for brass rubbings. Can I have a coin?'

So I gave her a coin, unfortunately she didn't find the vital brass rubbing to pinpoint the evil note stickerer.

She and Tayba have linked these nasty notes to the disappearance of Tayba's scooter from her front garden a week ago, and also the loss of Amy's Tamagotchi from Amy's school bag in June. They fear it may be linked to the 'person who did kidnappings,' he was in the paper. They spend a lot of time discussing how to catch the thief, note-writer, and potential kidnapper, and bring him to justice.

The thing is I'm caught up in it too. The last note was stuck with glue instead of white tac, why was that? And the weirdest mystery is that Amy knows Tayba and Matthew on her road, but no one else, yet the note used her name. Who else could know her name? And who could want to be mean to her?

It can't be Matthew, who's only 5 and would never be allowed out unsupervised. This means the prime suspect has to be Tayba, but she's a nice girl, and Amy's new best friend. It doesn't seem likely, but who else could it be?

Yesterday Amy screamed as a handwritten letter was posted through the door. She shouted, 'Mum, quick!' So we both ran to the window to see if we could see who'd posted it.

Tayba was in the street, she saw us and gave a sheepish wave. I picked up the letter, and opened it nervously. It was an invite to the sale of some toys. And now I had another clue... A sample of Tayba's handwriting!

But I didn't even need to hold her letter near one of the nasty notes, her writing was obviously different, her writing was neat, the notes were messy scrawls.

So it obviously wasn't Tayba. But as I was putting Amy to bed, she told me, 'Tayba told me she used to be friends with Matthew, but she stopped being friends when Matthew stuck rude notes on her door.'

TO BE CONTINUED...

Is that what they say in Columbo or Murder She Wrote? I wish it wasn't still going on, but as it is I'm going to solve this. I'm thinking sand on the doorstep, we'll get footprints. Amy knows what kind of trainers Matthew wears. Or we might get lucky and find a brass rubbing on the next note...

Tooting Special-Day

2006-08-27T21:02:00.000Z

It was a special day in Tooting today. A few days ago a leaflet came through the door to proclaim that August 26th and 27th were 'Discover Tooting Days.' I'd noted that there were going to be 10% discounts in local restarants, and free samples to taste in the Indian sweet shop. I put the leaflet in the recycling bin, and decided to go with a friend to the FunQuay floating beach at Canary wharf. This promised Punch and Judy, funfair rides, live music and a floating pontoon in the Thames, holding 30 tonnes of sand. I wondered if the sand might fall through the head hole? Then realised I was thinking 'poncho'.

So we set off for Tooting Bec tube station, and on the way I saw balloons tied to every lamp-post. When I looked over the road there was Bart Simpson - he was sitting at a table, and he waved at us. A little further down the road there was a man hanging upside down, he was playing a guitar.

Canary Wharf's FunQuay was good. The sand was so clean it didn't seem real, no shells, no pebbles. The kids enjoyed their fair rides and their organic chocolate buttons. But I couldn't help prefering Tooting Bec's Special-day, where you could 'Discover Tooting' with Bart Simpson sitting at a desk, an upside-down man singing, and jolly balloons wherever you looked.

Scooby dooby doo

2006-08-27T20:59:00.000Z

How do I sing 'Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you?' and dance with Amy, and laugh, and still feel sad at the same time?

She was bouncing on the bed, and telling me off for singing, 'Ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner - don't hold back'.

She didn't like the 'ner ner ners' but I didn't know the words. So we laughed about this, and then I stopped laughing and thought too much, and the game soon ended.

Why does it feel like my idea of the world is now all wrong?

I still sing Scooby Doo and do silly stuff with Amy, so on the surface nothing has changed. It's under the surface where the problem lies.

I thought/think the world is a wonderful place and people are all nice. I know, it's embarassing admitting to such naivete, is it worse than confessing to visiting a therapist?

I do know there are wars and murders and things. I suppose I've never fully considered those. I rarely watch the news on TV, and avoid reading the serious stories in newspapers. And I'm sure that avoiding all that makes me a flawed person.

Maybe I thought bad things happened to other people, and even blamed them a little? Or at least gave the victim less sympathy by being unwilling to assign blame. Because I've realised that I had to think like this, just a little, to stick to my view that the world was all really happy and nice.

If something bad happens, but I don't believe in badness then I'd try to spread the nasty stuff around, like trying to hide it under the rug. A child is murdered? Well of course that's bad and sad... But the murderer couldn't help it, could he? He was badly brought up, he had a sad life too. But it wasn't his parents fault either. They had a hard time as kids. But his parents hard time was caused by unhappy circumstances, their parents had no money, so in the end it was all really the cause and effect of something insignificant. I turn it into a small thing that wasn't really anyone's fault. I dilute the idea of badness so much, that in my head it becomes, 'Just one of those things'. And I go on believing in a world that's a happy place full of nice people. I believe everyone's trying to do their best, believe when people get hurt it's only ever through the blameless failures of the misguided.

So Amy bounces on the bed as I sing to her, and I avoid the TV news and watch Teen Titans with her instead. And the world still looks happy and people seem nice. Isn't that true? Doing my best for Amy it seems easy to believe the world is a good place with good people doing their best to make it even better. Perhaps I was so caught up in my own happiness I didn't want to believe it could be any different for anyone else?

So it took something effecting me to make me see that it's not like that. And the problem is that I still want to believe that it is all good.

So I play with Amy and laugh, but I'm sad all at the same time. My head hurts. And who do I blame?

Help

2006-08-27T20:12:00.000Z

My second session with my therapist, the one that Jesus paid for, didn't go so well. Well, that's wrong, it made me think differently, and in many ways more usefully, it's just that it felt like I was bullied into a change of head. And I could see that accepting the truth and facing things was a positive step. It just wasn't a happy truth, and I left the session feeling like that was it. My therapist suggesting I was cured, and not making it easy for me to go back.

Only in many ways I felt worse than before, it felt like I had a head that had been mixed up with a big spoon, without even a, 'See you next week,' as reassurance that the mixture would turn into... well pick your own analogy. I was thinking cakes, but I don't really want a Victoria Sponge for a head. Anyway, you get the idea.

So I told Steve about the olden days. 'In the olden days they sorted things out for themselves. They didn't get help, they didn't need therapists.'

Steve wisely ignored me and found me the numbers of an organisation who might help. So on a bad day where my head was so weird I felt like cutting it off (that's an analogy too, in case you're wondering. Although if I had cut it I wonder if it was chocolate or jam in the middle..?) On a day I felt bad I got in touch with them. I didn't want to ring their numbers, but I sent an email. Writing I can do. Phones, no thank you.

So I sent an email to some organisation with a lot of letters, letters whose meaning I didn't want to know. And I clicked refresh on Hotmail a lot that day.

I clicked it a lot the next day too. Now five days later with no reply, I'm convincing myself of the olden days approach again. And wondering if Evening Primrose Oil is any good.

The thing is there were a lot of letters in that email address. Maybe I accidentily typed the wrong ones? I could have sent my cry for help to info@crasac.org.uk? And Croyden Rabbit And Squirrel Ambulance Center wouldn't know what had hit them. I would have panicked some old dear in the office who'd be worried about the mental wellbeing of a rabbit called Jo, before she realised rabbits can't type. Oh, ok then, back to the knitting, 'delete'. And all that wouldn't happen in the olden days, would it? They didn't have email.

Two balloons tied together

2006-08-26T14:06:00.000Z

I don't really understand it, but when I'm unhappy I tell Steve that he should leave me. Of course I don't want him to, I love him, and it's always, 'You should leave' and not,'I'm leaving.'

I have many theories about why I do this, but stil none of them feel right. You may think it's attention seeking, or wanting reassurance, but I don't think it's that, when I say it I mean it. It's almost like I want to hurt myself more, to hurt myself so much I won't feel any of it.

So Steve bats it away, he says the right thing, he won't go however hard I try to make him. He knows it's just my 'weird head' talking and that I love him and would hate him to go. Today Amy pointed out two balloons in the sky, tied together, floating high together, out of control, but never to be parted. Steve had just sent another reassuring email. I was already sure that we weren't going to split up, the balloons felt like magic proof.

Amy said, 'You can make a sticker about them.'

I probably will.

I told Steve in an email, 'I'm going to keep writing this crap until it wears you down, until you see the truth, get my point and it'll be over like it should be.'

He wrote back, answering all the points I made, patient and reassuring and loving. And he mentioned a 'crappy film' he'd seen. And said, 'I hate quoting films because they’re made up, but someone wrote it and they were probably thinking it themselves at some point so it must be real. If two people love each other but things keep getting in the way – at what point should they call it quits? And the answer is never.'

And I thought of his not-quite-real film quote, when I looked at those balloons in the sky. And I though that those balloons would always be together, however high and far the wind blew them. And Steve said, 'I’ll decide who I want to be with. I already have. Get that into your head and put a stone on it so it doesn’t keep blowing away. Write whatever crap you like. It won’t change a thing with me.'

Maybe one day we'll be two balloons, tied together, and weighted down with a stone so that we're still, so that we're safe. He makes me believe that might be possible. I want that so much.

'Bog Off', stuck on our front door.

2006-08-25T20:30:00.000Z

The doorbell rang the other day, and when I answered it there was just a note stuck with blue tac, it said 'Bog Off'. And there was a blue balloon with not much air in it on the doorstep.

It bothered me more than it should at the time, although I told myself I was just being silly and paranoid. It was kids messing about of course.

Today the doorbell rang again. A note stuck to the door, again it said, 'Bog Off'.

I was quite calm about it when I saw it this time, just pulled it off the door feeling strangely proud of myself for thinking, 'Just kids' instead of looney weird thoughts about blog reading stalkers, or that it was Steve's odd way of ending our relationship. I told you I'd been paranoid and weird..!

So I pulled the note off the door, and I saw that it had writing on the back. It said, 'Dear Amy...' And I'm not going to tell you the rest, because I don't want to think about it.

And I know it's only kids, but it was mean, and nasty, and she hasn't done anything to anyone, and she only knows 2 kids in the street and I know it wasn't either of them. But I'm not getting paranoid again. And she's only 6! And life feels crap again.

Squirrel with 'Ooooh!' banner, Up escalator Oxford Circus

2006-08-25T20:16:00.000Z

I haven't made any new stickers recently, but yesterday Steve gave me some he'd made. They were funny, silly red squirrels carrying placards. I've no idea how he came up with that idea, but it made me laugh.

I've been a bit, hmmm lately. Well you know I've got a therapist? If I lived in the states I could probably say, 'I've got a therapist' and it would be ok. Not here. Actually I ditched my therapist, or did he ditch me? Anyway, I had a therapist, and Steve thinks it would do me good to see someone else about hmmm stuff. I'm not sure. Although I now Steve thinks it, the squirrels with the banners didn't say 'Get Help!' instead they said 'Magic!' and 'Ooooh!'

So yeah, it's not really done to have a therapist, is it? Not in this country. It's considered fine to care for your mental wellbeing with Evening Primrose Oil or Omega 3 Fish Oil capsules.

Talking to a professional who has advice on how to get your mind to function at it's best is considered wacky, taking capsules made of the squeezed out juices of flowers picked at 8pm is considered normal.

It must be expensive to produce Evening Primrose Oil, as there are so few hours a day when the flowers can be harvested. I wonder, if you buy cheap Evening Primrose oil whether they cheat and use some flowers picked in the morning? They could make a documentary with hidden cameras about farmers hiring cheap foreign labour to shiftily pick the primroses in the early hours.

So yeah, I wouldn't trust in the purity of any Evening Primrose Oil capsule, I'd rather trust in the knowledge and experience of a trained head-shrinker. Although I think the best cure for a weird-head is a boyfriend who'll make stickers to try to cheer you up, and bosses at work who make you feel appreciated even when you're not giving work as much effort as you want to.

And as I headed to work, I stuck Steve's sticker. 'Ooooh!' Where did that come from? 'Ooooh!' 'Ooooh?' It didn't matter, it made me laugh. My boyfriend's very clever. I love him.

Look on the bright side. (Haven't got a sticker for this post. Maybe a cloud?)

2006-08-25T18:09:00.000Z

Some things are just bad, aren't they?

If you can't think of anything good about something it's natural to avoid thinking about it at all.

But if you don't think about it then you can't make sense of it, and so it will always hurt. I've got something like that going on now.

And it feels like now's the time to try to make sense of it, because of tried the not thinking approach, tried so hard with that it nearly drove me mad. So now I'm trying something different, and I do feel less mad, but much more sad.

My mind instinctively tries to look on the bright side, I suppose it's human nature. So it tries to find a silver lining to this cloud. It briefly toys with the idea of enjoying the sympathy of friends, but then recoils at the idea, hating the label that goes with all that. 'Victim' isn't a word I like.

Then it latches on the idea that bad things can make you stronger, that you can learn from them. This is a fragile hope, because as soon as your belief in this falters then it fails. How can feeling bad mean strength, when nothing feels weaker than feeling confused, sad, disappointed that these feelings overwhelm you?

So what else is there if you can't see any bright side at all? What do you think if something is just bad, and there's no other sense than that?

I suppose acceptance is all you can help for. Only I'm a perfectionist, and an optimist too, I've never wanted to accept less than 'good', I'm just not like that. I don't want to accept bad things. But if I don't, or can't, then where else do I go with this?

And it's funny, that one of the only 'bright sides' I could come up with in all this is the 'words on the page' thing. You're reading this, aren't you? But I don't think that's a good thing either. I hope not. I hope you're not enjoying this.

Self portrait, to be stuck at Tooting Bec

2006-08-24T21:29:00.000Z

I went to the BP Potrait Award exhibition after work today. I think I've been to this every year since I've lived in London. I'm not really an art lover. I just like that this exhibition's there, it runs for months, it's at a convenient location, it's free, it's one room with just enough paintings that you're neither bored of looking or left wanting more. I like that you can see the winning picture, and agree or disagree with the judges. And there's a 'Visitors Choice' prize, with a card to mark down your favourite, that's fun. Yes, I like this exhibition, it's an easy fix of amateur art appreciation.

So most years I've lived in London I've found a spare 20 minutes to enjoy this celebration of painted faces. One year I went with Alex, on an evening when we had a babysitter and didn't have a better plan. The gallery seemed unusually busy, and it was only when we noticed so many faces that looked like those staring from the canvas, next to the legend 'Self portrait' that we realised it was a special night with the artists in attendance to discuss their work with the public.

I didn't discuss anything. Just compared their painted faces with their real ones, and we went home after 20 minutes as usual.

I decided to visit the gallery today because I'm in a bit of a fug I suppose. You know, just stuff. Just a head playing tricks on me when it should know better. But when I tell it that it gets even fuggier. And no, I don't now what the fug I'm talking about either.

So I decided this fug might be lifted by looking at the painted faces of many people. I hoped I could find some sort of cure for self-obsession and introspection, and really rather pathetic 'me me me' nonsense that's suddenly, annoyingly, come upon me.

So I looked at the paintings. I'm not sure it helped my fugged up head get better, but I enjoyed looking at these pictures.

What to say? I noticed that few of the painted people were smiling, they looked thoughtful at best, and many looked sad. Most had a name listed on the card description beside them. Or else the artist's name and 'self portrait'. I admired the realism, or skill of the artist, or the emotion conveyed, or the style on show, but the thing that struck me most was that I didn't know these people, and couldn't however long I looked at them. Obviously you could speculate or assume about their lives, but there was no way of ever knowing what these people were thinking.

Well, I know that's obvious really. But it made the whole seem thing seem quite pointless, and it was quite a lonely feeling, to think we were all looking at faces of people we couldn't know, and considering them thoghtfully, without ever understanding if they were happy or sad, or what really mattered to them, whether they were madly in love, or merely wondering what to have for tea that day.

And I wondered if it was any more interesting to look around at the people visiting the gallery. Maybe in their real world, not painted, faces I would understand more about the world than in stylish, empty, portraits?

But of course I could learn little about any of them either. Any more than they could learn if they looked at this head in a fug woman, scribbling in a notebook, sitting on the bench of the gallery. They wouldn't look and know that I was trying to make sense of all this, and then scribbling the words, 'trying and failing.'

And another thing...

2006-08-24T20:30:00.000Z

When Steve writes this subject heading in an email I love it. It's like he's been thinking about me, even when he's finished writing to me. It's like he's always thinking about me. Which he tells me he is. And the funny thing is, I believe him. :-)

We use a lot of smilies in our emails too. :-) <-is my smiley. :o) <-is his. At first I felt self concious about this email punctuation, after all, he is a proper writer wouldn't he expect better? And I have enough interest in 'proper writing' to know that it's a lazy way to express yourself. But after a typical introspective, smiley-infested, email debate, we both decided not to worry about it. We're both comfortable with :-) and :o) we both know it's lazy and not proper writing, and neither of us cares one bit, we're too busy smiling. :-P <-he gets used a lot by both of us. Or :oP <- in Steve's case.

Anyway, the thing is, my therapist said that I might use writing to make order of the world, to make it tidy, to make sense of things. I'm not sure, but maybe. And maybe that's why I'm writing so much at this confusing time.

I'm not sure what that has to do with publishing thoughts on a blog though. So far I have only 'draft mode' posts. But if you see this, I must have made sense of that side of it. Either that, or I could drunk and hit 'Publish' in a wild who gives a fuck moment... :-P

:-)

Mr.Big Potato Daddy, Clapham South

2006-08-22T22:26:00.000Z

I wanted to call this post, 'Jesus paid for my therapist.' Only I have a system now for blog titles, so I didn't. This may change. Actually my therapist made me realise that this whole blog might be a bad idea. Partly because of the title.

I ran away from my old blog when it felt like it was all getting a bit too personal, a bit too revealing, a bit too sad. It felt like writing it was hurting me. So I decided to ditch all that and enjoy happy, silly, (magic), fun stuff. Only writing here has never felt good, it's strangely never felt like 'home', although I very much wanted it to be.

I thought it might be to do with the upside down monkey in the top banner. I actually decided that was the problem with this blog, on the day I decided I ought to see a therapist.

What did we discuss? Well that would be revealing and personal, wouldn't it? And this is a happy, silly, (magic), fun blog, of course.

We talked about my wittering. Steve and I call it 'wittering'. It's just that I'm the sort of person who likes to chatter about every little detail of the day, and I suppose I like to have a bit of a moan too. If something's on my mind I like to say it, and then it feels as if it's gone. Instant betterness.

Is betterness a word? I don't really know. I like it, so that's ok. And you'll think 'poor girl, she's got a therapist' and forgive me if it's a word plucked from nowhereland. Oh yes, and we talked about blogging as wittering. Blogging is just wittering with your fingers on a keyboard.

And what else did he say about blogging? I didn't ask him about the upside down monkey, as it happens. We talked about the fact that I was a bit obsessive about it. That I would often choose to blog or write rather than sit and watch TV, and that even in my lunch hour I would rather write than shop. Even though the office is off Oxford Street, what sort of a girl am I? So, it's witter, witter, witter, my busy mind talking to... you? Myself? I don't know... It didn't seem to matter who. It wasn't about that. Blogging was busy-ness, distraction, self absorbtion, but at the same time it meant I was too focused to really stop and think. To properly relax. Yeah, witter, witter, witther all about happy, silly, fun... Oh yes. Right. Like I'm trying to convince myself. And happy, silly, fun feels strangely like hard work after a while.

I could convince myself for only so long, before I could no longer believe that an upside down monkey was my only reason for unhappiness.

So off to see a therapist, who'll hopefully sort me out. He explained that if you're the sort of person who likes to witter, but someone were to put a piece of tape over your mouth so you couldn't talk, you'd probably feel weird, and unhappy, and almost like you might explode.

I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that, but the first session made me feel great. I wittered about something I didn't uually talk about, that it was hard to talk about, that was messing me up. He promised he wouldn't just tackle the problem, it wouldn't be that I was only fixed up like a car with an engine problem, he said he'd tackle the cause of the problem so I'd work better forever. I imagined being like a shiny new car, polished, gleaming, as good as it can be.

And I believed him. And I'd heard that he was good, and at £100 an hour you'd expect good.

I'd taken a lot of persuading to go at all, so the money had seemed the least important issue. I expected to be fixed up in one session. Then I decided it was worth many sessions in order to gleam, to run as well as I could...

Of course I wondered where I'd find the money, but the therapist was kind, and I think he knew I was desperate, so he offered to help for whatever I could afford.

And I'd just won £110 by having Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson in the WSOP last longer bet at work! So I told my therapist this, I told him, 'That's another session!' So I promised him £110 for the next session. And he called me a 'generous sprite' and we hugged as I left.

And I smiled all the way home, and especially when I saw my 'Mr.Big Potato Daddy' sticker. It had been made at Amy's insistance, when I'd felt very low and uninspired. It reminded me of doing my best to be a good Mum, even on days when I felt bad. And I hoped that if I stopped feeling bad, and shone, with the help of my therapist, and Jesus, then I could be a really great mum, and feel properly happy, instead of forced, unreal, pretend happy that was silly and not fun at all.

So I no longer like this blog, and especially it's OTT title, but I do still like the magic bit, that feels like the only real bit of this blog. Even my therapist could see that my blog was my magic, it was just the wrong sort of magic for a while, maybe if I could make it the right sort everything would be ok?

Question Mark, stuck or not stuck?

2006-08-22T20:05:00.000Z

Do you think some people think more than others? Question things more? Or even question things too much? I don't know.

Sometimes I think I write to try to make sense of things, to put things in order, to understand.

I have so many unfinished blog posts lately. Half hearted. Half finished. They feel failed.

This is the one I need to write now. My explanation of the 'question question'... I wonder if I'll actually get to the end?

What if something big that happens? Something that makes you mind buzz with so many questions?

What if you wonder... Is it a big thing, or a little thing? Is it my fault, or not my fault? Should I be worried, or not worried? Am I reacting right, or am I reacting wrong? Should I be sad, or not sad? Do I talk about it, or do I never talk about it? Is this normal, or is this not normal? Should it hurt, or should it not hurt? Am I coping, or am I not coping? Should I think of this, or should I not think of this? Do I need help, or do I not need help? Is it me, or is it not me? Is this something, is it nothing?

The worst you can think about it is, 'It's me!' The best you can think is, 'It's nothing...'

Somewhere in the failed logic of computing both these thoughts at once, there's a gap. It's bad and it's good, it's yes and it's no. It's impossible.

If you think 'It's all me!' and also, 'It's nothing' - that can't work. Sense can't survive. Your head fizzes, and it gives up. The question can no longer be computed, that bit of your head shuts down, it fails. But the question doesn't go away. It can't, because it isn't answered.

'It's nothing' is the easiest program to run, it practically runs itself. While 'It's me!' is so strong it won't ever end, it's powered by your soul.

So 'It's nothing' and 'It's me' run in tandem, neither works because each one prevents the other functioning. A little bit of your head is misfiring, but the rest tries to get by. Well, that broken bit isn't really needed. That question is still unanswered, but there are many more we can compute.

So life goes on. But that broken bit of head is sparking still. Sometimes you test it to see if it works yet. A reminder of that question, or else a look, or an act, anything that reminds you there might be sparks there. Sparks that might turn to flames.

And so the head fizz computer malfunction can spread... A question? Any question..? This is a question..? This is about questions isn't it? Now any question calls upon this bit of odd head. Any pressure can remind you that there's a pressure within that computes and provides confusion as an answer. And the flames take over. These flames are fuelled by too many unanswered questions, by uncertainty, by the unknown. By... argh.

'Argh' is a word I've written in many emails to Steve recently. It's a word that seems to sum up the bit of my head that doesn't work right. I don't even know how to spell it. 'Aargh' or arrggh? Another question to plague me. I don't even know how to spell the feeling I feel, let alone know what those letters might stand for...

And Dolly brings a mouse into the house. And I scream. That's normal, isn't it? And I see my pretty cat move from out of the corner of my eye. 'A mouse!' I think again, and I scream again. And as I know I over react, I know I can't help it. This is just me now, 'Is it a mouse?' I don't answer the question logically anymore, I don't think anymore, it's just that my question-answering-spark ready all the time, it's instantly ready with it's fucked up program of, 'It's me!', 'It's nothing...', and all the rest of that lunacy and fear. And so the program that isn't working takes over.

The, 'It's not working' part is strong. Sometimes it seems your head attempts to close for maintenance, with 'out of order' daydreams, or else to fix itself with 'this is the plan for today' super-busy-ness, or perhaps sometimes to explain itself with, 'Out for lunch, back soon' reassurances.

And when you think enough to question how and why your mind is behaving like this, you realise there's a problem, and so you decide you should get help. Help which will provide easy answers to all your questions. Answers which will put out the flames, and even convince you those sparks are necessary, like the sparks of any internal combustion engine. So you say 'Ok. Oh, that was it'. You see the answer. You decide - ok, I see that now.

You decide, that's the answer. Right. And then...

So what does that mean?

Red Spot, Tooting Bec platform poster

2006-08-10T23:03:00.000Z

Can mobile phones be magic?

My instinct says 'no'. I don't mean to exclude any bits of the world from magic-ness, or to emphasize any bit as being magic-er than the rest, but when I look back at all the things I've decided are magic I find that natural things predominate, with an apparent magical subsection for anything with a silly name.

Some natural magic things -

Monkeys
Caterpillars
Tigers
Snakes
5 leaved clovers
Magpies (haven't blogged about that yet)
The Wednesday Morning sky on Oxford Street
Innocent Smoothies (5 fruit in a bottle!)
The number 5
Fruit?

Some funnily named magic things -

Tooting Bec
Richard Herring
Muffins
Mr.Big Daddy Potato

I'm sure there's lots of magic stuff I've forgotten about too. Like, didn't I once have a brief magical fling with the power of Soho Square? I suppose that could fit both categories. Soho ho ha ha. And it's a green place too. Plus it was to do with Pret a Manger Avocado Salad wraps. Enough said.

Anyway. My point is that shiny plastic, microchip, man made, practical things, such as mobile phones haven't been magical for me before.

Maybe that's about to change?

I've had a Nokia pay-as-you-go mobile for 6 years. Make that 7 actually. I got it when I was pregnant with Amy. You know, just in case I went into labour in Sainsburys. I realise now that the time between going into labour and needing a partner is plenty to get you home to use a landline, but the guy at Carphone Warehouse didn't tell me that.

As you can imagine my 7 year old Nokia is rather basic. I've been persuaded to upgrade to a new phone because I've sent a lot of texts to Steve recently, and also because of the look of shame on his face every time I'd get this bottom-of the-range 7 year old phone out of my bag. So I've gone and found myself a new monthly contract phone. I got the Nokia N73.

Yes, I'm showing off. I know the name of my phone, and I know it's a good one. The Nokia N73? Oh? 3.2 megapixel camera. Out just last week. Yes, that's the one!

I'll be honest. A phone with a camera. A phone with a colour screen. A phone with more than one menu... That's going to feel special.

But is it magic?

I think it might be.

Well, maybe not the phone as such... But you see there's this tiny red dot..?

Red is my least favourite colour you know? I have a six year old. I have to give a great deal of thought to favourite and least favourite everythings, colours especially.

Yes. Favourite colour - orange. Second favourite - yellow. Third favourite - green.

Then Amy says crossly, "But green is one of my favourite colours!"

And I say...? My least favourite colour - Red.

I made a hole in my favourite T-shirt today. That was one of the many little things that I carefully haven't been writing to Steve about.

I feel quite down at the moment. I've been letting lots of really stupid little things get to me. Things at work, things at home. Mum staying things, Steve being away things. Things form the past, things now. Just things. Just everything.

I know it's silly. I know nothing is really bad. But knowing that only makes it worse, doesn't it? You scream at yourself, 'You're being silly!' Then hate yourself more for the silliness and screaming.

I wanted to go out tonight, I wanted to go and play poker at Gutshot. I haven't played poker for ages! I haven't been out for ages... And as it's the WSOP final tonight there's a free buffet. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. It's not the food. I'm a vegetarian so buffets are useless. No, it's the occasion. I like that events like the WSOP final tables are marked, noticed, made something of, by a buffet in London.

And Steve's there writing about this for Gutshot, so if I go I might get to talk about him. He is my favourite subject. I have a six year old so I know about favourite things. Favourite subject - Steve (by a mile.) Second favourite - Big Potato Daddy. Least favourite - work.

It was a boring set of circumstances that meant I didn't get to Gutshot. Instead I stayed in and shopped online at Sainsburys. And I forgot to buy muffins too.

As I online-shopped I also responded to one of Steve's very nice emails - without writing about a single one of the things on my great long list of things that are bothering me. Well, he's working, and I want him to be happy not worried. But I'm saving them up. He's back on Sunday. He won't know what's hit him!

One of the things on this 'bothering me' list was about my amazing new mobile phone. And I mean amazing... Nokia N73. It surely must be the best phone in the world? Do you know you can put your music on it too? So as I was playing with it, and taking photos, and videos of Amy pulling faces... I noticed a little red speck on the screen. Just a little red speck. Just a red bit where the proper colour didn't show. When I'd seen that speck it seemed like I couldn't see anything else about my amazing new phone.

I'm very bad at getting things done. Especially at the moment. I knew I was unlikely to kick up a fuss and get a new phone because of a tiny red dot, I knew I was unlikely to even have the get-up-and-go to read about what this red spot meant. It was just a tiny little speck. So I would convince myself that it was meaningless, and that no one else would even see any problem, all at the same time as hating my new phone and feeling like it was quite ruined now.

You see, red spots on mobile phones are magic. They're just a tiny little thing, but I let them spoil my enjoyment of the best phone in the world. (Nokia N73) That magic speck is just like all the stuff that makes me depressed right now. I see these, and not any of the super features of my Nokia N73, 3.2 Megapixel, life.

Unfortunately thinking like that won't stop me focusing on that tiny red speck (rather than enjoying the 1GB of storage for MP3s) but simply being aware that there's a whole phone there, and not just an ugly red speck..? Well, that's quite a helpful start.

And I now think the Nokia N73 product manual is more magic than any Tooting Bec tiger - with the 'Care and Maintenance section' the most magic-ked part.

It says, 'Some displays may contain pixels or dots that remain on or off. This is normal, not a fault.'

Which means I don't have to shout, 'You're being silly!'

This is normal. That's what it says. And it says so in this magic place.

So you see, I love my Nokia N73 with it's little magic red spot.

Kissing in a tree, to be stuck at Kings Cross station

2006-08-08T17:36:00.000Z

'Mum and Steve sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.'

Any used to chant this playground rhyme to me all the time, before I told her, 'Yes, Steve is my boyfriend.'

She's been unhappy and difficult lately. I thought it was just being 6. I thought me splitting up with her Dad had messed her up. I wanted to blame food additives, or the wrong sort of TV, or a phase of the moon, or some weird brain disease. All I know is that she told me she hated me and that I didn't love her. Of course this is infuriating and ridiculous, but the more I'd tell her how silly it all is, the more she'd stamp her feet and say, 'You don't even like me!'

My Mum is staying this week, to help with Amy as I still haven't found a new au pair. She commented that Amy seems happier than she'd been on our recent holiday, and I think this is true. She hasn't had one of these 'everyone hates me' strops for nearly a week now. The worst I've had to cope with is, "You don't love me. You like me but you don't love me." And she didn't even stamp her feet as she said it.

The day before Steve flew to Vegas, I was heading to York to see my family. I got to the station to buy tickets and filled out a form to buy a new Family Railcard. There was a long queue at the ticket office. I had heavy bags, I was leaving later than I'd planned, there was a train due and we'd be pushing it to make it. I was stressed by all of this, plus tired too. I'd stayed up till 4am enjoying my last chance to be with Steve for a few weeks, then Amy woke me at 6am.

I finally got to the front of the queue and asked for a Railcard and two Returns to York, when I tried to pay I couldn't find my bank card. On the way to the station I'd tried to take cash out, but the machine hadn't worked. I realised that heavy bags, hurrying, and most probably lack of sleep, had all conspired to make me leave my card in the machine. I didn't have another card. I didn't have cash. I couldn't get those tickets.

I was cross and upset. I wondered what to do. I thought of ringing my Ex first of all. Thirteen years of asking him for help when I was in trouble was a hard habit to break. Amy sat on my bag, patiently, always good when there's a crisis, and I tried not to cry and wondered what I could do. Of course I decided I had to phone Steve.

The thing is, this isn't the first time I've lost my bank card. I lost my purse in the ladies loo at Borders a few weeks before (don't ask). Steve had helped me then. He's always helping me..! I've lost track of the number of favours owed. I can't think of one that I've given in return. It's just worked out that way. Steve's been a babysitter for me when I've been stuck for childcare, he's looked after Dolly when I've been away. He's loaned me money loads of times when I ran out of cash and the bank were sending my card to number 22 not 22B. These are just the practical favours he's given, the tally with emotional support feels equally uneven.

I think we're a very happy boyfriend/girlfriend, but Steve recently pointed out that he doesn't feel we're a 'couple' as yet. I think that's true, and perhaps this is to do with my reluctance to call him from Kings Cross station when I need help?

I did call him in the end, because I couldn't think of any better plan. He said he'd be right there and buy the tickets. It felt like a big favour. Do you think the word 'favour' should be used between a couple?

I should know that Steve wants to help because he loves me. Just as I would want to help him if he ever needed it. Of course I would, I'd do anything to help him.

And if I thought like that, instead of getting miserable at yet another favour 'owed', then we might be a proper partnership, we might actually feel like a 'couple' not a boyfriend and girlfriend.

As I got on the train, with Steve helping with bags, and holding Amy's hand, I knew I wasn't going to see him again for three long weeks. I hadn't expected to see him at all that day, yet there he was, rescuing me when I needed him. Of course I had to kiss him goodbye...

As Amy might put it, 'Mum and Steve, saying goodbye. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.'

In York, Amy told my Mum and brother, 'My Mum has a boyfriend. I saw them kiss.' Everyone smiled about this, and reassured her that this was perfectly normal.

I think it must be very hard to be six, and to realise that your Mum is in love with someone else.

My Mum may be right that Amy is happier right now. I think I made many mistakes at first, she'd sing her kissing taunt, and then say, 'Steve is your boyfriend...' At first I'd always deny it. I was trying to protect her, to break it to her gently. So, 'He's a friend who's a boy.' I'd sometimes tell her.

Sometimes she'd ask, 'How much do you like Steve? Do you love him? Is he your best friend..?'

How do you tell your daughter that they're no longer the only one you love?

I told her slowly, badly, deceitfully... But she knows it all now. I finally got there, with a, 'Yes, he's my boyfriend.' In the end I even said, 'Yes I love him too.' She saw us kiss at Kings Cross station, so it surely must be clear?

On holiday she told us that no one loves her, and turned into an angry demanding monster whenever we wanted to go to the shops, or if I wanted to put sun cream on her, or if I used the wrong tone of voice for a Wednesday lunchtime.

My Mum told me that I shouldn't have kissed Steve in front of her. She's right I'm sure. No, actually I'm not sure at all...

It's not easy loving someone else when you want the best for your daughter, when all she wants is to be the most important person in your life. I kissed Steve, yes, and I love him, and I love Amy too, of course. It's simple for me, not so for her.

The last few days Amy and I have talked a lot. I've told her that Steve is my boyfriend, and that I love him, but that I her just as much as always.

She seems to be starting to understand. She seems more secure, we've been having fun once again, with Daddy Potato cartoons on the walls, and jokes about Yorkshire, and 'Pick On Gran Day.' And her new golf set, and laughing about Bratz being rubbish, and so many more happy, silly, (magic), fun, mother-daughter games.

I hope things will be ok, that the kissing song won't be used as a taunt anymore, that she'll accept that Steve and I are a boyfriend and girlfriend, who might one day even be a couple.

I was emailing Steve yesterday when she wanted me to play. I left the email and drew pictures with her.

"Who do you love the most, me or Steve?"

She's asked that question so many times lately... I told her I loved them both, that you couldn't measure love, that it wasn't like that.

I feel like I'm constantly trying to find the magic code words that will make her happy about all of this. Strangely, 'I love you most,' doesn't seem to be the right password for this question.

She seemed to accept what I'd said, and we happily played. After a moment she said, "It's ok that you love Steve, but I don't want to see you kiss."

I don't mind being creative in hiding this. I'm sure there are plenty of places we can still kiss.

Jo and Steve sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G..?

Rainbow, Tooting Bec platform poster

2006-08-07T21:23:00.000Z

I asked Amy's friend Ruby what her favourite colour was, she said, "Rainbow".

That's a funny coincidence I thought, that's Amy's favourite colour too.

In fact most of Amy's schoolfriends when asked for a favourite colour list 'Rainbow' amongst their carefully considered choices.

The girl next door is 10, when the favourite colour question came up recently she told Amy, "Rainbow isn't a proper colour".

Amy said, "Well, I like blue and green as well".

The 10 year old looked like she was considering continuing the debate.

"Do you like rainbow?" Amy asked.

Her friend nodded, "I like rainbow. Except for yellow."

Amy looked smugly at her, "You don't really like rainbow at all!"

Innocent Smoothie, not stuck (didn't use the tube today)

2006-08-06T20:44:00.000Z

Playgrounds on Sundays are grim places. I felt lonely at a playground today. Amy played with her plastic golf set, and two Polish children soon invited themselves to join her game. This plastic golf set looks like it could be the best pocket money toy I've ever bought her. She likes it so much she won't even let me take a turn, this means I have to read the Sunday papers undisturbed in the sun. I had plenty of time to read the 'Escape' section article, '50 Best Family Days Out'. Instead I read the magazine.

I don't like plastic toy golf, so I don't mind that Amy just wants to practise by herself; but if I had joined in perhaps I'd have had less time to feel lonely when the Observer grew dull?

There were no couples in the playground today. Just solitary carers with children. A a clear display of Sunday self-sacrifice; playgrounds are no place for grown ups, the benches are uncomfortable and you sit for hours with no prospect of a cuppa. There's a glazed look in the eyes of most parents as they provide juice, and a weary tone when voices are raised for tickings off. I saw plenty of 'going through the motions' parenting today. Well, Sunday is a day of rest, and a playground is a good place to switch to auto-pilot. Your kids will be far too busy on the swings and slides to notice that you sometimes wish you didn't have them.

Sunday playground parents don't strike up conversations. A weekday mum with pre-school children will chat to other mums and share playgroup or potty training tips. They need the company, they need any help they can get with a 7 day a week, 24 hour a day 'lifestyle choice'. Well, it's not a 'job', is it? Most new mums are still keen to consider the benefits of socialising their child.

Sunday parents should chat, we obviously have so much in common. We must all be bored, we're all having a bad day because no more imaginative way to spend a Sunday was planned. A playground visit is always a 'need to get out of the house' trip, not a 'wouldn't it be fun to go to..?' one. It's a place to go when something gets broken, a temper snaps, or when a partner needs a break. Sometimes it can be a replacement activity when a more elaborate plan feels like too much stress.

Sunday parents don't talk to each other, instead we sit and read, or send texts, or stare into space apparently relaxed and enjoying the sun. If we chatted we'd have to reveal something about ourselves and our lives on a Sunday. We decide privacy can't hurt.

So this Sunday it was Fruitstock, the Innocent Smoothie free festival, which meant kid's activities, music, and all manner of fruit inspired summer fun. This was in Regents Park. I spent my Sunday on Tooting Common, at the playground.

Amy was happy today, so I suppose that makes me a good mum. I'm sure all the mums in the playground were good mums. I'm not so sure they were happy ones.

Fairy Cake, York Station

2006-08-06T17:15:00.000Z

Did you know that Goblins like fairy cakes? Baby goblins love their food, their mothers despair of their constant demands for cakes and pies, pastries and sweet things.

Satisfying goblin appetites isn't easy, obviously mother goblins can't cook in a regular kitchen. And have you ever seen a goblin shop? Of course not. The way goblins make fairy cakes is with magic.

I know a mother goblin who loves to cook more than anything. To her there is no greater joy than making perfect goblin food.

She has a cave where she creates cakes, and stews, and elaborate layered pancake fruit creations. Sometimes she makes pretty iced sugary novelties that can make even the grumpiest toddler-goblin smile.

As she wonders what to make, her whiskery ears twitch in anticipation. She closes her bulbous eyes and concentrates. She conjures up spots and stripes, and tricky fluffy swirling clouds, pink marzipan pigs, the softest sand, baby boots and rhododendron petals; she tops it all off with an old rowing boat on the river. This is the kind of cooking she loves. Then she tests it, and tastes it, usually it needs more seasoning. Her fingers fiddle then, prodding, squeezing, preening, pampering to ensure her creation is the best that it can be, before she'll finally declare it 'done'. The eating of her handwork is the final stage, but it almost feels the least important. Sometimes she'd be serving to guests, sometimes she'll savour it all alone, or....

"More!" Her baby called, "More cake."

Her little goblin pulled on her apron, unravelling it's bow. She tied it quickly again, patted him on the head, and wondered what to make for him to eat.

Fairy Cakes were his favourite. And a different sort of concentration was needed to make these. Butter and sugar and flour, each the right quantity exactly. He liked these cakes fluffy and light, she had to beat the mixture well.

Two brown eggs, fine flower, sugar sweet...

"Can I stir?" She always let him.

"Can I lick the bowl now?"

She tried to interest him in making the icing. A fun finale.

"We could do pink with blue spots?" she suggested, "Or blue with pink?"

"Are they ready yet? I'm hungry!"

Snow stars?

"Cherries on top?"

Or crystal daisy petals, dusted with a bridge reflected in a moorland river?

"I want cherries. Cherries now!"

She popped one in his open mouth. She smiled proudly as he swallowed it without chewing, without even a pause for breath, "Plums! I like sugared plums. And can we have treacle pudding and custard?"

She could feel the magic tingling. Snow stars with a sprinkle of old snow wall? A ladle of love lost on a holiday in Spain?

"Treacle pudding! Can't you hurry up?" She loved the way his spiky tail swished with arrogance.

"I'll ice the cakes, just a minute."

"I'm hungry now! I want cake. Can I have crisps too?"

To Goblin's food is everything. You might not be aware that the phrase 'You are what you eat' is derived from Goblin lore. Magic food will make magic creatures, young Goblin's grow big and strong, and then metamorphosise into creatures that reflect the food they eat.

This process fascinated the Goblin mother of course, she wanted her own little monster to be the best that he could be, and to her he was as perfect as a bittersweet day in April. She loved his tummy, fat and round from eating her round pies, his teeth brown and sticky from so much sugar, his wrinkly skin, salty and rough as corn snacks. And she could see the spark of magic growing within him as he ate the special cakes she conjured.

They'd once made sausage cars with roast potato wheels, and raced these through the air until they crashed, then gobbled up chunks of the hot broken meat as it fell into their laughing mouths.

She cooked for him all day long, fairy cakes and sweet pastries; cinnamon toast was another of his favourites. She'd cook cinnamon toast under the grill, and as she waited for it's sugar to bubble she'd make swirling head picnics for herself to pass the time. Pretty feasts of oak forests, and summer sparkles, and the musty smell of libraries, a good hand lost in poker, with just a teensy pinch of Birthday surprise. Cinnamon toast burnt easily, and couldn't be neglected. So she'd finish her magic head picnic as she cut up her Gobling's food, and as she tried to persuade him to eat the charred toast. Busy with her own feast she'd sometimes have to force scorching hot sugary squares into his screaming mouth. He'd shoot caramel scented breath at her then, and she'd admire the power of his cinnamon flames.

As he grew bigger she became practised at dodging these flames. Standing well clear she could be impressed by his firey breath, as strong as the smell of burnt sugar that filled the cave. She'd put up with singed fingers as she fed him, admire his aim as he shot his flames beside her head. She loved him, even as he made her baby-
lamb, waterfall, Morocco, disintegrate in a puff of smoke, which she quickly and cleverly moulded into a steaming fry-pan of his favourite apple doughnuts.

The breath that shot towards her half-closed eyes seemed deliberate, she fondly contemplated that he was as feisty as she'd been at his age. 'Monsters do as monsters do', her Mother had always said. She felt a tinge of sadness, as she thought of her mother, and the enchanted feasts she'd once made.

As her Goblin boy grew bigger he needed more nourishment, she worked harder than ever to fill his fat belly and fuel his ever-hotter flames. She tried her best to please him, and cooked trays and trays of fairy cakes for him. Still sometimes he shouted that she was neglecting him, and as he did a blast of his scorching anger would sometimes burn the whole batch. Then she'd have to start again, as he screamed at her, and hot tears filled his eyes, blinding him to the fact that she was already mixing another bowl.

She spent the days cooking to please him. One long day she thought he'd never have his fill. She was near exhausted when finally he belched, then yawned, and she knew he was satisfied at last. He fell asleep with his head rested on an arm that ached from so much stirring.

She was hungry. She knew she should make herself something to eat. But would it wake him if she did? She thought briefly of blue sky and an empty ocean, a quick and easy snack. Then he stirred in his sleep. Her head was instantly full of eggs and flour again, 40 ounces, so 10 eggs... But she hadn't the energy to stir cakes now, even if he'd let her use her arm. So if he woke what would she feed him? She decided she needed sleep. Some said goblins could feast on dreams.

When he woke her baby seemed bigger than ever. He towered over her, almost filling the cave. She knew she must cook.

"Cake" he roared.

"How about pancakes, my dear?"

Pancakes. Yes. Perhaps with lion mane, fluffy white spittle, sawdust and a smudge of blood in a muddy forest floor... She felt better when she'd eaten, but she was still hungry. Smashed china doll, a fist at a throat, gasoline, a speck of hate in a shadowed courtyard.

Her baby was hungry.

"I want cake."

Her whiskery ears twitched, her bulbous eyes closed. Rotten eggs, lumpy sugar, mealworms in flour, nettle oil margarine.

He gobbled it up.

"More."

She conjured a giant furnace, intending to cook him a huge cake, perhaps if she made it big enough it would fill him forever? The heat from the furnace filled the cave, so hot she could scarely breathe. He didn't mind the heat, his blood burned with fire now. He was quite a magnificent creature, but restless, unhappy. She was his mother, she knew. She worried. If she could make the right cake she knew he'd be satisfied.

Goblin lore said, "You are what you eat." She wondered when her job as cook would ever end...

Her baby looked at her, a look reminded her of a misty mealtime in Spring. She was proud of what he'd become, so big, and stong, and mean. He opened his huge mouth, teeth brown and sticky from too much sugar, opened it wide as if to kiss her. But monsters don't kiss, of course. There was only one thing on his mind, as it always was on hers...

"Monsters do as Monsters do", her wise old Mother had told her on that bittersweet day in April.

"I'm hungry," were the last words she heard, as she finally fulfilled her wish to make perfect goblin food.

Platform for Art poster stickers. Dancing monkeys - Tooting Bec (4) and Oxford Circus (3) Tigers - Tooting Bec (5) Tooting Broadway (1)

2006-08-02T20:08:00.000Z

Alongside the escalators at Tooting Bec tube station there are many posters for 'Platform for Art' an initiative to bring art to tube travellers. I like this idea, and 'Poems on the Underground' too. Although I think it's a shame that all the Platform for Art posters are the same design, I've seen these same posters at Balham, Clapham, Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road stations too.

The poster shows a row of explorers in a snowy place, perhaps Antarctica? The walkers are in single file, and this line of people with their feet raised high look like they're dancing. The title of the photo is 'Walking Dance'. This poster has given me an idea for a stickering challenge. At the back of this line of explorers, there is surely room for one more...? I'm going to see how many dance-stickers I can add to these posters. I'll try to add one to every poster that I see, and I've seen lots of posters so I'll be busy! I'll keep count, and let you know how I do.

Branflakes, apple and toast, to be stuck in Vegas

2006-08-01T20:15:00.000Z

I noticed that in the North there are more old people on buses. Does this mean that people live longer in Yorkshire? I wondered why this could be. Perhaps a diet of fish and chips, and meat and Yorkshire pudding is healthier than any trying-too-hard Southern diet of Mediterranean food, and supermarket sushi? Perhaps the health giving benefits of eating fish and pasta are negated by the stresses of giving up all the yummy foods we've been brought up on? Northerners eat bacon sandwiches, stew and dumplings, and treacle tart and custard. The people in the North are fatter, but everyone knows fat people are jolly! I know it's supposed to be healthy to be thin, but scientific research has proved that happy people live longer. Yes, go stuff your smiling face with chocolate!

Of course the number of jolly pensioners on buses in the North might be nothing to do with old people being tubby fatsters. Something else I noticed was that the system of getting on buses is different in the North than in the South - they actually have a 'system' in the North. The Northerners even have a funny, quaint old fashioned word for this, they call it a 'queue'.

Obviously the pushing and shoving while using Southern public transport is stressful, the orderly way Northern pensioners board buses is bound to make them happier than the Southern oldies. And of course, scientific research has proven happy people live longer! It could even be that eating pasta and olive oil has led to Southerners developing a Mediterranean-style hot blooded nature; this means they're prepared to fight for the last seat on the bus, brandishing supermarket carrier's heavy with jars of Dolmio and packets of mixed peppers - also risking injury. If you eat a steak and kidney pie for lunch you won't cause that kind of trouble.

Of course like most things these days, musing about pensioners, makes me think of Steve. He's been away over a week now, but I haven't blogged about how much I miss him. I'm trying to show some restraint! He's busy and working long hours at the WSOP in Vegas, but we've been in touch every day, we've used texts, emails, phone calls, messenger, I sent him a post card from Whitby, even a letter containing some stickers to stick.

Steve's main concern in Vegas, aside from being shouted at for not reading his boss's mind, is the food. He says it's stodge. He hates stodge. He just wants toast and bran flakes for breakfast, instead he gets gigantic muffins topped with treacle, sugar-sprinkles and nuts. He found fruit (it wasn't easy) but said he expected to open the banana and find it chocolate coated. A recent email said 'we spent $198 on donner'. I thought he meant kebabs. It wasn't actually, but I like his funny spelling mistakes. He writes quickly and tired at the end of the day, when he can get his laptop off the other writer. Apparently his colleague, Barron sometimes, 'finds retty girls and stares at them.'

Every time I saw a pensioner couple on a York bus I'd decide that Steve and I would be like that one day. It doesn't sound very romantic does it? Yet being wrinkly and retired sometimes seems like our best hope of spending significant time together.

I'm glad Steve is eating the right sort of food, Vegas serves a Northern diet, lard sandwiches with stodge pie for dessert. He'll come home happy and fat. We'll wait at a bus stop together, queuing while everyone else pushes in. I like this, waiting at a bus stop means time to chat, and if we don't get a seat he might put his arms around me to support me as we stand. I think we'll catch buses like this until we both have bus passes and pensions. Steve might eat healthy bran flakes, apples and toast when he gets back to England, but I know we'll be jolly because we're together.

Blackcurrant Jelly, Clapham South platform poster

2006-07-30T20:04:00.000Z

Amy has invented a country, a magical land of skateboarders that can only be reached by rocket ship, speed boat or jet plane. There are no secret doors leading to this magical place, I know this because I asked. Amy looked at me like I was dense and said, "You have to get there by rocket, speed boat or jet plane."

The name of Amy's country is, 'The Magic of the Power'. She's spent a lot of time thinking about this place. She's designed the flag, made the castle from Whitby sand, drawn pictures of the town and the King and Queen, she's told me many stories and facts about this place where, 'Young people can't turn into things, only the grown ups.'

I invented Wobbletopia. I had to. Amy made me. I was trying to read a book when pressed to draw something, so I drew a blackcurrant jelly on a plate, and this became the Wobbletopia flag. I then had to draw the people of my land, and drew more blackcurrant jelly's on plates. Little did I know that I would soon have to invent a Wobbletopian national anthem - and sing this to Amy and Mum.

It was ok for my Mum, because when she was Amy's age she'd invented Barovania. I doubt my Mum has thought about Barovania for 60 years, but she remembered her flag, the King and Queen's names, and many other details of her imaginary medieval-esque land.

The Wobbletopian's seem like a dull bunch to me, they just pick blackcurrants, make some jelly and live in jelly houses which they love to eat. They say 'wobble' an awful lot, and have a funny accent. Amy loves this place, and wants to chat about it all day long. She likes to compare 'facts' about Wobbletopia and The Magic Of The Power. She can't get enough of the Wobbletopian's grunty language, she likes that my name is Jode, and her Gran becomes Grud. All this is fine by me, I can draw a blackcurrant jelly in less than 10 seconds, and make 'Wobble wobble wobble Grud' conversation without needing to look up from my Sunday paper.

Amy asked me if I went to The Magic Of The Power what I'd turn into? She thought I'd choose Beast Boy, who's my favourite character from Teen Titans. We often play Teen Titans, or Supergirl, or Pokemon. She though I might pick Pikachu, I have to be Pikachu whenever we play Pokemon games. Instead I told her I'd like to turn into a wobbly blackcurrant jelly on a plate.

Wobble wobble wobble blug raders.

Purple felt tip stain, Whitby bus station

2006-07-29T21:14:00.000Z

This is a proper family holiday, Mum, Amy and me at the seaside. I remember family holiday routines from my childhood, daily structures, conversational games, I think most families use these techniques to give a holiday a familiar, home from home feel. So each day we visit the beach and must take Amy's secret path, when we get there we have to say hello to the donkey we've adopted as holiday pet, and then it's time for sand castles, always stuck with flags.

It feels right to take Amy to stay in a seaside B&B. I visited Whitby when I was 6, and I expect the place has changed little since then. I made friends with a donkey called, 'Always First' - he never was. Amy's beach friend is called 'Polar Bear' - he isn't, he's a donkey too.

I haven't stayed in a B&B since I was a child, of course I view it differently now. With a cynical eye I decide Mums and Dads escape the 9-5 toil, to deal with 9-bedtime. A day at the beach is a good day's work. If it's rainy maybe they visit some castle or historic monument, and marvel at the olden days where whole families lived in one room with an open hearth, and survived on a limited diet of oats, and fish, when they could catch it. They'd laugh about all this over supper, at a place where finding something on the menu without chips would be a major challenge; then they'd return to their family room at the B&B, with a camp bed in one corner and a cot beside their double bed.

In the morning it's a 'Full English'. You can be proud of your heritage if you eat all this, and toast and cereal too. Mum and Dad will be happy if you can, knowing this means they can get away with a shared pack of sandwiches for lunch, or perhaps just an ice cream or two? Better yet the kids might fill up on their pocket money stick of rock.

At Full-English-Breakfast time there's always someone who tries to be fancy. You can order what you like, but there's never any need for a menu. So much to choose from, perhaps a sausage and bacon sandwich? Or bacon sandwich? Or egg on toast? Or bacon and eggs? Or to make a change why not try the eggs and bacon?

On the dining room wall there'll be a local print. There'll be pot pourri in a bowl (it's lost it's smell.) There'll be almost life-like flowers besides almost-antique china. If you pay more your evening meals are provided, prawn cocktail and melon starters guaranteed. Classier B&Bs have Games and TV rooms. Wise Mum's save up for B&B extras, they mean shorter working hours, 9-bedtime reduced to 9-tea, or 9-TV.

We stayed at an ordinary B&B, in a family room, with no evening meals provided, and no games or TV room. This meant drawing pictures while sitting on the double bed. I got purple felt tip on the duvet and Mum was horrified. Each day she'd dab at the purple stain I'd made, she'd fuss over it, seek advice on the progress she was making, and then hide it under a towel when we left for the beach.

I returned to our room on Friday because Amy had forgotten her bucket and spade. I found the B&B owner in our room, she told me about the shoddy work of the girl she'd hired to clean. She fussed about the girl not turning up that day, and said she'd have to clean herself. The purple felt tip pen stain was still tactfully concealed under a towel. I said goodbye to our B&B hostess, picked up the bucket and spade and left. I told my Mum about the incident - that was a mistake. I'm still not sure if it was just a coincidence, but 5 minutes after I'd told her this story she suggested leaving for York that day.

Everyone knows what to expect on an English seaside holiday, each happy routine mapped out from Full English breakfast, to sunny beach with donkeys, to family room bedtime. There's no place here for purple felt tip pen on the duvet. It would wash out - I didn't worry about it. But my Mum was used to proper seaside holidays, and so her Whitby holiday memories will be forever stained by purple felt tip pen.

Lidl catalogue collage stickers, Kings Cross

2006-07-23T10:18:00.000Z

Steve is soon heading to Vegas to cover the most exciting poker tournament there is. I'm visiting my Mum in York and we're going on holiday to Whitby, my favourite Yorkshire seaside town. Steve and I should both be happy about leaving London for a while, but we're not. We were enjoying our coupledom far too much, a three week interruption isn't welcome at all.

Hopefully I'll write some of my screenplay when I'm away, but I doubt I'll get chance to update my blog. More likely I won't write anything much at all, just spend time entertaining Amy. She's taken to whining every time she sees me use my laptop.

Today when she whined, she and I made collages. I picked pictures I liked from the Lidl catalogue, and some funny slogans about the products, and made silly mixed-up stickers. 'That's Cheap!' 'Egg Cream with Vanilla' 'Available in various cute designs'. Aw, hard to describe, you have to see them, they made me smile...

To prevent myself going bonkers with boredom as a Mum I have to get creative. Amy and I often make stickers, or invent games, or draw little books. The latest big hit is 'Mr.Polar Bear's Ice game'. Amy loves drawing the board game pictures, Steve came up with the idea of using coloured ice cubes, my contribution to the fun seems to be a habit of landing on the square that means I get an ice cube down my back. Future versions of this game will see this square abolished. We've already lost the cat litter sprinkling square. I'll miss drawing that picture of Dolly doing a poo...

It's all very well adapting the game in the developmental stages, but Amy seems to invent the rules half way through the game - depending on the size of her ice. If her ice cube is big, avoiding the salt trials and hot water dunkings, she claims last one to melt is the winner. If her ice cube is tiny, and then she lands on a square that means she can hold, shake, or blow her ice cube to death, she claims first cube to melt is victorious.

It's all good fun, I like making things and playing games with her. I just wish I didn't have to do it quite so much, and why does it always seem to be when I want to be doing something else? It's that timing again. Like trips to Vegas, and holidays on the beach, that would be fun, if only...

Perhaps Steve, and Amy and I will be happy when we're away anyway. I'll do my best. I wonder how many people pack ice cube bags alongside their toothbrush and bras when they go on holiday?

Girl on swing, Up escalator Oxford Circus

2006-07-21T16:59:00.000Z

"Push me on the swing," Amy said.

We were in the kitchen. There wasn't any swing.

"There isn't any swing," I said.

"You're stupid!" Amy said. She often gets cross for no real reason these days.

Like when we went to the shops yesterday. "You ask questions all the time! If you ask any more questions I'll get mad!"

I go quiet. I'm scared of asking questions, I know it might upset her. I should be scared of keeping quiet too, it turns out that might upset her as well.

"You're making me upset now! You're always making me upset!"

I don't know what to say.

"I know you're going to ask me questions. When we go to the shops you always ask me questions!"

I knew asking questions wasn't a real problem. Thinking that helped me stay calm. If I stay calm and remember that there's no real problem I'll see her anger attack through, and everything will be fine again. She starts accusing me of 'always' asking her what she likes, 'always' asking her what we should buy. I listen patiently.

"You ask questions all the time!"

I knew where it was going. It always leads to the same thing.

"You're not a good Mum! You don't even like me!"

How do you argue with that? You have to argue of course, and reassure, and do your best to prove it wrong. But you're reasoning with someone who's logic is so skewed, they'll see your breathing as a sign that you don't like them, because you're closer to the air in your lungs.

Back in the kitchen... The 'Push me on the swing' thing. I'm thinking, "What have I done now?"

Was I supposed to play some swing game with her?

"You have a rubbish memory!"

For once I could agree with her.

"You never remember anything!"

Well I didn't remember this, and obviously this mattered a lot.

"It's our secret code. Remember? You're so dumb!"

I didn't remember. Maybe I was dumb. I'd happily agree that I was dumb if that would calm her fury. I knew it wouldn't work. Nothing worked. Neither agreeing or arguing worked, I'd tried both. I'd tried different styles of both many times, calm silences or angry shouts.

Then I remembered!

Amy had had a friend to play when she'd had an attack of the 'I hate yous.' It was one of the first times it had happened, so I'd assumed it was caused by jealousy, because I'd played with another little girl too.

In an attempt to stop it happening on her friend's next vist I'd told Amy that we should have a secret code. A word for her to say in case she felt sad again, so I'd know if ever felt in need of my love or attention. I said, "How about if you say 'muffin.'"

She'd dismissed this idea grumpily, but she thought for a while. I could tell she was excited by this game. Eventually she came up with, "Push me on the swing."

This was a month ago, and she'd never used this secret code words. No wonder I'd forgotten this...

Maybe that she said it was progress? I hope that it was a hopeful sign, that she wants help to love me again, instead of trying to hang on to her strange hate for me.

It would hurt more if I thought I was at fault, if I believed I was doing much wrong. But I've thought and thought, and I can't see what it could be to make her feel like this. Her 'proof' of my badness is always random and ridiculous. So instead I'm just hurt that she's so unhappy, that I don't know why, that she doesn't believe me when I tell her all the time that I care.

Amy smiled as I understood her secret code. I made a game of loving her, hugging her, elaborately fussing as she laughed. Then I whispered to her about secrets understood, and it felt like we were a special gang of two again.

That day she used her special code three times, and each time I tried to show her how I felt. It wasn't even a game. I love her and want to hug her. I just do. So we had a good day, it was my day off. Yes, it was a good day off.

Then morning I rushed to work, late as usual, and Amy watched me from my bed, as I headed out the bedroom door...

"Push me on the swing!" She said.

I was ten minutes late.

"I don't have time!"

"Push me fast." She smiled. "Push me hard!"

I gave her a quick kiss, a tight squeeze. I had to go.

She'd have to swing her legs, push herself. I hoped that with a quick push on the swing she could keep it going on her own.

Get well soon card, Tooting Bec platform poster

2006-07-20T19:56:00.000Z

I wrote Steve a long email about the sun on Oxford Street on Wednesday morning. Only really it was about changes. I had one of those 'in a film' moments on Wednesday on the way to work. Oxford Street looked like it should be in a movie, the sun was low and bright, the street glowing like a golden Hollywood version of London. I felt like I should be in a film too. Only it wouldn't be any kind of interesting film, I've nothing exciting to report, things are merely chugging along; this is a month of many changes, but only small ones, mainly stressful ones too. The biggest change was that I've coped so well with all of that, and in this surprised myself. I felt happy the other day. The sunny Wednesday morning on Oxford Street felt like a turning point in my life. Even though it was obviously just a Wednesday morning where the sun was low and bright. And that was it, it really was. Yet enjoying this low-key moment of midweek happiness felt strange, felt like a very big deal.

I'd like to claim this as an Act 1 turning point, but as I turned 37 last week, the chances are it was the end of Act 2. Maybe Act 3 will be my happy ending?

I blogged about an accident on the tube. On Tuesday a poster appeared at Tooting Bec station. A woman had fallen under a train. The poster said, 'Did anyone see the accident' It said the woman had been 'seriously injured'. Do you know how relieved I was to read those words?

We mark significant events with cards, don't we? Birthdays, Weddings, Christenings, National Nettle Week, that sort of thing. It's my brother's 'English version' of his Wedding Reception this Tuesday, his actual wedding was in France a year ago, but many members of our family couldn't make it for this, so this is their second chance to celebrate. I'm looking forward to it, even though I have to go to Yorkshire for a week, even though I have to go to this without showing off my wonderful boyfriend.

Amy made a card for Tash, our au pair, because she's leaving on Saturday. I haven't found a new au pair yet, but I will... This is a big change, I won't find it easy living with someone new, but hopefully I'll find someone that I like. Amy claims she wants a 'boy au pair!'

And Steve is leaving for Vegas on Tuesday, it will be three weeks before we're together again. We've been a couple for 4 months now, and haven't gone a week without seeing each other as yet. I don't think there's been a day where we haven't both sent emails. Now I'm going to a Yorkshire village and I'll have no internet, and he's in Vegas with no time to himself, sharing a room with a boss who likes to find him endless tasks to do...

So the idea of this blog post was 'change' and the cards that I might send to do with this. 'Good Luck' to Tash the au pair? 'Bon Voyage' to Steve? 'Get Well Soon' to the woman injured at Tooting Bec? 'Happy Birthday' to me..? There's also thoughts of invitation cards for my recent 10 year college reunion. I must write about that, that was good. There's even 'Congratulations' with the potential of changes for me at work.

But you can't get cards celebrating, 'Happy Wednesday' can you? And that would be the best card for me... I want to celebrate the fact that I can be there, on an average day, and feel as good as that. That was special. I doubt it will happen in quite the same way again, but if you can't buy a card for it, does that mean it can happen any, or every, day? If so, Happy Tomorrow to me...

Badly drawn monkey mug, Tooting Bec platform poster

2006-07-20T08:28:00.000Z

I was wondering whether the Queen has matching mugs, and tries too hard with her childminder..?

I think anyone can judge their place in the world by the mugs in their kitchen cupboards. I blame the Queen.

I'd imagine the Queen has the best mugs the royal millions can buy. These might be solid gold mugs, with intricate designs in mother of pearl inlay - or they might be if coffee didn't taste better in china. I don't know exactly what the Queen's coffee mugs might look like. I just know they'd be classy coffee cups. Well, the Queen is a classy lady.

You can't judge people by the coffee they put in their coffee mugs. Coffee has too many variables, it's not just personal preference, for example time pressures might force you to drink good-quality instant when you'd rather use the coffee machine. And you can't judge people by the coffee making method they use either. People are often given coffee machines as gifts; you can't tell whether a coffee machine was bought by choice, or is a gift that's only called upon when needed to impress guests.

Of course many people don't like coffee and prefer tea. That's OK. Tea can be drunk in mugs too. Mugs still matter. Mugs are still key. Neither the drink you choose, or your coffee making facilities really matter, but your mug collection is a window to your soul.

I have friends from many kinds of backgrounds, and various mugs fill their kitchen cupboards. Some friends I class as 'Happy-Family friends'. Happy-Family friends all live in nice houses with their nice kids, they come home from their nice jobs and cook nice food, whilst they look out of their windows at their nice pets in their nice gardens. Without looking inside their kitchen cupboards I know exactly what their mugs are like. They have matching mugs, tasteful, practical, understated mugs, probably bought from John Lewis or Habitat. These mugs complete their pretty picture of happy family life; they drink good coffee, chat to the kids, stir the risotto, while the wife picks herbs or tidies weeds, and their contended cat lies on the grass in the sun.

I blame the Queen. As Head of State she sets standards to which we must all aspire. She has a fantastic house, a well brought up family, a good job... My Happy-Family friends all try to copy her. Buckingham Palace is smart and tidy with quality nick-nacks and impressive art, and of course there are plenty of servants to keep it ship-shape. My friends houses aren't so grand, but they try their best. They have thoughtfully chosen ornaments, and interesting art, and a cleaner once a week to dust and hoover.

The Queen has grown up kids now, but the pressures of her job meant she couldn't be a full time Mum when they were younger. So the little princes and princesses nannies would take them on picnics or to riding lessons. My Happy-Family friends have childminders who've been persuaded to take their charges to dance classes, or playgrounds after school.

My Happy-Family friends sometimes invite their childminders to their homes, and offer them coffee in the matching mugs.

The Queen would drink tea with her nannies too. It's part of the deal.

You present your mugs to others, hoping they'll like them, hoping they'll like you. Then you chat about the garden or the ornaments, art, cleaners, kids or pets. You drink from the matching mugs, knowing nothing else matches; but you don't care. Your childminder doesn't like your mugs. You don't like hers. You offer a mug to them, to feel better about leaving the house and earning money, coming home with shopping, to cook nice food, to drink good coffee, in these, your mugs. Then you washup, and put the mugs back in the cupboard.

"Bang Bang" speech bubble, camel poster Tottenham Court Road

2006-07-17T21:34:00.000Z

"Bang Bang!" She just thought it, instead of saying it. What do you do when your boyfriend is asleep when you want him awake?

You know you should want him to sleep. Sleep is necessary. To deprive someone you love of anything they need is very selfish.

She shouldn't mind that he slept, sleep was the simplest, least egocentric way to ever part.

"Bang Fucking Bang" She said it quietly. She knew that noise would rarely wake him. She'd often have to shake him. More often she'd move restlessly, brush against him, as if by accident.

Sometimes it didn't work, especially if he'd been drinking.

She turned onto her back. She stared at the ceiling without looking at the ceiling at all.

If she woke him up they could have sex. She smiled, was that why she'd thought of the word 'bang'? It was a jokey word for sex, wasn't it?

She didn't need him for sex, sadly it was sometimes better on her own.

Why would she want to wake him? What would they do if she did?

He'd want to talk about his stuff. She'd want to talk about hers. She'd mentally close her eyes as he talked about the War book he'd been reading. Then he'd smile solemnly, as she talked work gossip, or told him how she felt about her mum's new dog.

He liked gun things, so was that why the phrase 'Bang Bang' had come into her head? No, unlikely. She barely ever considered his interests at all. Only ever to wonder when his conversation would end, to judge when she could fire off a conversational topic of her own.

It wasn't the sex thing, no, that was for sure. The 80's sitcom meaning of the word still amused her. 80's or even 90's? It was when she'd been with her ex. When she hadn't needed to know the phrase, when it probably wouldn't have made her smile.

Bad times. She'd never thought to repeat them.

Old Sitcoms were repeated endlessly on cable channels. Times changed and made them meaningless to her. You'd see those old shows running through the night. Did anyone still watch and laugh, or were they just familiar friends to people who couldn't sleep?

"Bang Bang!" She felt quite angry now, as if her partner's lack of attention was callous, a deliberate act. She remembered when her love was a thunderous bang of all-consuming, life-fulfilling, love. No time for sleep. A shout of loud endless love. Endless? A shout couldn't last. Only 4 letters in 'Bang'. Repeating it barely helped. Feelings like these weren't meant to last forever. Days always ended, eyes closed at the day's close, then stillness, quiet.

Things had to be that way.

Didn't they?

Always.

Each night eyes closed, each morning eyes opened.

It had to be like that no matter what.

Didn't it?

Forever?

"Bang Bang"

You're dead.

Pink and yellow cake, Tooting Bec platform poster

2006-07-14T10:58:00.000Z

My birthday was good. The meal was yummy. Steve had some sort of beetroot tortilla thing. He pointed at the tortilla filling and smiled, but it was only later that I realised,'It was pink!' We have happy romantic magic things going on with pink food. This is all to do with the late night Streatham cake shop, where we once went after a giggle-inducing ice skating date. We ordered chocolate cake at the cake shop, but were given pink cake instead. And now Steve lives in Streatham and goes to the cake shop regularly because it serves good coffee. Yesterday I bought myself a new coffee maker, as a present to myself. I've talked about getting a coffee maker so much I was sure Steve would get me one as my birthday present, but that didn't happen.

I took my yellow sticker pen to Barcelona, but I was too busy to make a sticker with it. I lost the pen. But one of Steve's birthday presents to me was a new yellow pen. He was stressed about buying presents for me, just like I would be for him. And He got me a book about afternoon tea, a book about gardening, and some film about a talking rabbit, 'Harvey'. So he did just fine. As in, I don't care what he buys, and it means I don't have to buy him great presents in September! What a relief! I think his birthday is September? It might be October? He says he's told me 3 times already, so he's stopped reminding me.

I had birthday cake at the office yesterday, with a candle that played Happy Birthday to You' and my present from colleagues was the first series of Lost. That's good, Steve and I need things to watch together, we usually sit in front of the TV without much of a clue.

I like work things, and work people at the moment. There was an Office Poker League, and I only played 1 game and finished last in that. (I was exceptionally unlucky in a key hand in this only game I played!) I only got 1 point, and I expected to be bottom of the league, but I found out today I wasn't! Ellis only got 1 point too, and he was bottom! I like PokerStars, yes. Especially for the decision to use a non-alphabetical system when there's a tie in league placings in the office league. 17th feels so much better than 18th.

I used my new yellow pen yesterday, and draw a pink and yellow birthday cake. It was a couple of days after my birthday, but the day I stuck it was the day I got my birthday cake at work. I think this is proof that stickers are magic. It was a good day yesterday, for no special reason. Just things feel like they're on the up, a Waitrose muffin for breakfast, a coffee-maker present to myself, an excellent article by Steve to make him feel better about work-things, a sunny-yellow present pen to draw a pink cake sticker that reminded me of fun things, and especially the usual emails from Steve that make me smile and love him more. I wrote to him about expecting to love him less by now, but I don't. I suppose it's changed a bit, but it hasn't got any less intense, I just know him and like him more, and being his girlfriend only seems to get better and better.

I imagined Steve going pink as he read this email all about 'the L word' - as pink as the icing on that cake I drew. Pink doesn't suit his ginger hair at all. He emailed me back to say he was working late at the Gutshot card club, and the lights were low so no one would see that he was blushing.

We decided we should try to go away for a weekend together after his WSOP Vegas trip. Nothing fancy or ambitious, just a Saturday and Sunday - one night away together should be possible, even with his long work hours and my Amy responsibilities. We went to Whitstable together last Easter. It rained. We had a great time. And as I type this 'Singing in the Rain' is playing on my Ipod. A silly song that Steve sent me once to cheer me up when I was down. Rain is Steve's favourite weather. I still don't get that. I like sun best. But I love that he likes rain. I love him even more than pink cake and bright yellow sunshine.

Rainbow Tree, 'Be careful on the escalator' poster, Tottenham Court Road station

2006-07-11T11:49:00.000Z

It's my birthday today, so it's one of those 'time to reflect' kind of times, like New Year's Eve, and National Nettle Week. Did I tell you about National Nettle Week?

I'm happy today, not just because Steve has a proper night off and we're going to a place that serves Chipotle Glazed Artichokes. Although that is good! And I'll tell him to switch his mobile off, just in case his boss forgets it's his night off. Yes, I'm happy, because I've realised that the only problems I have right now are related to good things, like having a very nice boyfriend that I worry about, and wondering soppily how much I'll miss when he goes away for two and a half weeks... And, well, other problems are really just minor stresses. I feel better for having written about the Steve-work problem, even though I know that if he saw it he'd probably dump me. No, only joking... I think. He wouldn't do that on my birthday, would he?

I used to think, 'Well at least life's not boring' when things went wrong. Lots of things have gone wrong in the last year - since last year's 'National Nettle Week' actually...

I wrote to Steve this morning and told him I had a carrot muffin for breakfast. I think we'd both like a simple life, and email exchanges discussing what we ate for breakfast, rather than emotional ups and downs, and other stressful stuff.

I made a muffin sticker once, quite a while ago. Maybe muffin magic is about a dull but happy life?

Amy asked me to draw some stickers the other day. I found myself in the strange situation of not knowing quite what to draw. I drew my first ever unhappy sticker. I drew an empty headed person, bald with a small forehead and an empty 'think bubble' drifting from his poor empty head. He was smiling, but he just couldn't think. So how could he be happy? And I wasn't thinking, 'I can't think' when I drew it. No, I was thinking... of someone else. Someone I think about an awful lot. When I looked in my sticker bag this morning, wondering which of my stickers to use on my birthday, I couldn't find this empty headed man sticker. That's probably a good thing.

Amy wanted me to draw another sticker after I'd finished the sad one. I suppose I was a bit empty headed myself. I couldn't think of anything to draw. My first experience of stickerer's block?

Amy decided to help, she gave me her 'magic pen' to hold. This is a garish, multicoloured, sparkly pen, with the word 'Flirt' written on the side. She showed me how to hold it properly to work the pen's magic.

I closed my eyes.

'You don't have to close your eyes!' She said.

I said I wanted to close my eyes.

I don't know if it was magic, I don't think it was, but I don't know what it was... I just knew what to draw.

'I'll draw a tree,' I told her.

She smiled. 'You see, the pen is magic!'

'A rainbow tree,' I told her.

I used every one of my special stickering pens. I drew spots, and stripes, and squares, to completely cover my cartoon rainbow tree with colour.

I don't know why I did that.

But then, I think the best magic is mysterious and unknowable. I hope it gives me a good birthday today. I think it has already.

Happy silly (magic) fun Birthday to me.

Spotty dog balloon, Up escalator Tooting Bec tube station

2006-07-09T22:42:00.000Z

Steve finally escaped work at 1.30pm on Saturday, so he could join me on a trip to meet old friends at Southwark Festival. I wasn't too bothered whether he came, it was just the usual thing of waiting around, neither of us knowing when he had to work, or how long his work would last. All the uncertainty and weekend work shit made us both grumpy. It's usually easier to assume Steve has to work all the time, unless he has special permission for the time off. I asked him to email his boss to ask for Tuesday night free, because that's my birthday. We're going to a nice vegetarian restaurant with 'chipotle-glazed artichoke' on the pretentious menu. Anywhere with a menu that can make me giggle has to be good.

Steve's boss wished us well, and we have permission to enjoy my birthday. The 'Cool. Have fun!' sentiment only slightly tarnished by Steve being told he's to make sure he's around on Wednesday and Thursday nights. We're both wondering whether that means Friday is his night off? Probably not, his boss just hasn't thought that far ahead.

Steve offered to work Sunday and Monday nights, as part of the bold plan to ask for Tuesday night free. But don't worry, it's not like he works a 9-5 day on top of all this night work. No, it's 10-6.

Steve's work can mean long and unpredictable hours, the positive spin on this is that it's exciting and important work. Johnny Chan makes a final table, with a chance of an 11th World Series bracelet? Of course our trip to see a comedy gig is jeopardised. Intimate hugs interrupted by post-midnight phone calls? Well his boss needs to moan about the tech department - a vital part of the important world of poker editorial.

So 'just an hour' of work on a Saturday, turns into four or five, and I find myself starting to hate someone I've never even met. And I can't even write about it here...

Steve can't talk about it either, he knows he just has to get on with his job, no thanks given, only ever criticism, accompanied by the nagging stress of never knowing when the next 3am work session, or 14 hour day, will be upon him. Oh, I said I wasn't going to write about it?

It's hard though. I love him. I just want him to be happy.

I don't like his boss at all, but of course I realise that that's not fair. I know it's wrong to feel like that about someone I've never even met. Steve respects him, but I just think that respect is part of the problem.

When I'm trying to be logical and understand all this I decide that Steve's boss is like me when I have my writing-head on. If I have a script or a novel in my blood - I think about nothing else. I want it done right, I turn into an obsessed perfectionist, a maniac writer, some weirdo, writing, control freak. I feel like Steve might be the typist hired by some maniac writer to take his dictation. The maniac writer has some grand vision in his head, and he can see little else. His poor typist is on 24 hour standby, dragged out of bed and expected to work in his pyjamas, whenever his boss finds 3am inspiration.

His typist is obviously expected to get up next morning and work a full day too, which he does, because his boss does this, because this sort of passion rubs off. The typist knows he has to stop whatever he's doing, whenever his master calls, and does so willingly, because he believes his master is creating something good.

Steve's respects his boss, and works hard without complaint. Don't tell him I'm writing this, ok? (He doesn't read my blog.) But just sometimes it feels like he's that typist tapping away for a genius boss until his fingers start to bleed. His boss would probably not notice the blood, or if he did keep him typing anyway, so wrapped up in the work that he wouldn't see how late it was, wouldn't realise they'd both work better for some sleep. Instead the boss would notice that the typist has made typos, and see that there's blood spilled on the paper. He'd demand the work repeated, he'd want his typist to go faster, to make up time lost through his mistakes, to catch up with the work he still has to do.

And my poor typist tries to type, and take notes too, and make plans to make the job easier (reading books about speed-typing), and also he needs to buy more ink for the machine, and correct those mistakes he's made with correction fluid, and soothe his boss with kind words, and make coffee for him, and tell him it's all going to be great - and then type some more. Just keep typing. But he's doing so much, he can barely remember how to type now. He just wants to rest, to slow his spinning head, to remind his mind of where each letter is placed on the keyboard, without always looking at his hands - he didn't used to look at his hands? But he can't stop. He has to just look at the keys and type slowly, worrying that more mistakes will be made, replacing the sticking plasters from his fingers when they fall off, doing all that he can to keep up with the constant flow of his master's dictation.

If he stopped it would end. His boss would be too caught up in his grand plan to notice his special efforts. If the typist ever stopped his boss would find a new one, quickly and without thought. Sometimes the typist thought that this would be a good thing.

There'd be no time in the day for the typist to remember he'd once punched his keyboard eagerly, dreaming that he'd one day have a head full of ideas too; even a typist of his own? He thought if this happened, he might try to know the typist's name. He hoped he'd give him a break some days, a short one. He was realistic, he couldn't give him a holiday.

It's ok, I do know I'm getting carried away... Steve's job is quite normal really. He's just a journalism student with his first ever writing job. Lots of people do anything to live a dream. Steve must be one of millions to take a job, full of idealism, live for the work, then realise life and work are better seperate. Unfortunately by then 'living for work' might be expected of them.

Last Tuesday Steve and I supposed to meet, but he was given an unexpected task to do by his boss. He was unhappy about that, but I persuaded him to come to my place anyway. I said I'd try to help him. I thought it might be fun. He had to come up with some interview questions for a couple of poker players. He researched, considered, then rattled off some great questions - while I stood there just thinking, 'Errrr....' They really were great questions. I couldn't have done what he did. He cared, he wanted them to be good - even though, with me there it would have been easy to do a half hearted job. I liked to see him work, even though it took his so long I read two magazines, and then wrote half a blog post.

The best thing about this was how much he wanted to be asking his questions. He wanted the chance to do a great interview, he knew that if he did the interview it would be good. Despite all the stress he still wants to do his job well. I love him for that. I want that too. I don't care if I see him just once a week, even see him once a week with him hugging me with one arm while he types a reply to his boss on Gmail. If I knew he was doing something he was good at, that made him feel good, then I'd be the happiest girl in Tooting Bec.

So we... ok, he... came up with a long list of excellent interview questions. Then he adapted them to better to fit the person who'd be asking them, and then he sent them to the interviewer, knowing full well he wouldn't get thanks, knowing full well he'd get no credit for his part in the interview. Then Gmail messenger pinged, and he looked so worried... Fuck that, he looked scared. Scared that he'd failed to please his boss in some minor way again, scared that he'd have to work some more - when he'd had far too much of work already. So instead of making him feel good, his job, that he's good at, that he wants to get better at, that he's trying to learn without anyone ever really teaching him, just made him feel bad. As it does far too often. And I hate that it does that. Of course I do, I love him.

And all we can ever say is 'fucking work' and try to make the best of things. So our on/off trip on Saturday to Southwark Park finally happened. We were both determined to enjoy it. And we laughed as we saw a spotty dog balloon flying high in the sky. And we both had a good afternoon, and I believed that we could be happy one day. It seems that Amy has fallen for Steve too. She talks about him all the time, asks every day, 'When is Steve coming?'

So yes, I think, we might be happy one day. When spotty dogs can fly.

Fruit, Innocent Smoothie and Chocolate Mini Roll, Up escalator Oxford Circus

2006-07-06T20:29:00.000Z

Steve and I like smoothies, and any smoothie fan knows that Innocent Smoothies are the best smoothies. All fruit, your full 5 a day in a single bottle, with added cheer-inducing amusing bits down the bottle side.

We both like muffins too. Steve is interested in good food, and has an impressive foody background. He once had a French Ex who was a really good cook. The fact that she was a good cook and French meant for a long time I had culinary low self esteem - I hardly dared make him a cup of tea. I still worry when I give him a biscuit. Is it the right sort of biscuit? Will Jaffa Cakes do? Are Jaffa Cakes biscuits or cakes?

He knows the difference between good and bad olive oils, he even does things with balsamic vinegar and salad. This love of good food is further proof that he isn't a proper Northerner. Unfortunately I am, I was brought up to believe that good food meant Vesta Chicken Supreme, Angel Delight, and, yes, Jaffa Cakes. I just smile when he talks about pain au raisin and aioli, and then rearrange my cupboards so he can't see my crappy food.

I used to want a fish tank in the office. This plan was nearly a success, my boss for a while contemplated installing a 17 foot fish tank across the back wall of the Support room. In the end it wasn't the £8,000 price tag that put him off, his Mum thinks it's cruel to keep fish in tanks.

The fish tank does have to do with the smoothies, be patient. You see my colleague Andrew goes to Tesco's mid-morning, and he always asks others in the office if they want him to buy them stuff. I usually ask for crisps, spicy ones. Crisps are my favourite food. Spicy is my favourite flavour. Usually there are other requests for fizzy drinks and crisps. Andrew is PokerStars top email answerer - fast, accurate, clever, and he doesn't show the players he hates them. On a busy shift if I'm in charge I'll contemplate the clear waste in resources of sending clever Andrew to the shops as 'crisp boy.' So a while ago I asked for a crisp machine to be installed in PokerStars office.

The only response was a debate amongst senior management in Canada and Costa Rica about the funny word 'crisps'. No 'Potato Chip Machine' ever materialised in PokerStars London office. I was disappointed yet again. It was just like the fish tank. Only I know there's no cruelty in keeping crisps in a tank!

On further reflection I decided that crisps were not healthy, it was good that PokerStars wouldn't help me stuff my face with them. I decided that PokerStars should provide their staff with fruit instead.

The PokerStars office always has 'fuck off' flowers on the front desk. You know, modern flower installations; never pretty, always stylish, attractive in a poke-your-eye-out kind of way. The company spends a fortune on some top florist to provide these pretentious blooms. I decided that if PokerStars wanted to spend money on natural-shit, why stick to flowers? Why not let us actually eat the nature-stuff instead? I thought they should give their staff free fruit.

Last night I told Steve I was going to start a campaign for free office fruit. I played around with the letters to try to give the campaign the acronym 'F. O.F.F.' Perhaps Free Office Fruit is Fantastic? But I gave up on that, deciding F OFF perhaps wasn't appropriate for a happy, positive, health-giving, campaign? If I told the boss F OFF he might not be inclined to be nice.

Did you know that Innocent Smoothies was awarded 'The Best Place to Work in the UK' by The Guardian? They're a warm, fuzzy, caring company with character, they give staff £1000 every time they have a baby, they have a cheese club, stuff like that.

I considered applying for a job at Innocent, but decided PokerStars are an excellent company too, and they would get even better if they gave staff fruity freebies.

Unfortunately the staff of 'Fruit Towers' (Innocent's head office) seem to be too busy enjoying their cheese club and benefits, to actually do any work. Gutshot, the company Steve works for, had made repeated efforts to stock Innocent smoothies at the bar, but 'Fruit Towers' had failed to deliver. Steve decided that he would have his own workplace campaign too. He would write to Innocent, and try to ensure that his favourite healthy drink was available at the poker club.

We decided there'd be a contest, a challenge, we said, 'First one to succeed before Christmas!' I've no idea how or why Christmas came into it, or what would happen at Christmas if either of us failed, or succeeded? No, I'm not sure, but it was one of those late night, snuggled up in bed, bit giggly conversations; yet also a serious mission for us both! I planned to beat Steve with my fruity mission, I was determined to bring free office fruit to PokerStars London office before Christmas!

I got up for work a couple of hours after my mission was decided, arrived at the office and started to make strong coffee as usual. I noticed that on the kitchen table were bowls of fruit. There were apples, pears, bananas, oranges, satsumas, nectarines - even a melon! I ate an apricot while the coffee brewed. Yes, there were apricots too.

Free fruit had strangely arrived without any fuss, there was just an email from our office manager, Lin, 'Enjoy the fruit!'

I was sure it was a one-off, we sometimes get gifts from players of the FPP Store. So I wrote back to our office manager and my boss, thinking this was an ideal way to start my FOF campaign. I wrote a long email extolling the virtues of office free fruit. I think I said that productivity increases if you eat a bananas. I explained why we must make the office free fruit a regular thing. I told them that I was ready to launch the campaign for office fruit, with a petition and everything!

Lin wrote back, it was just a short email, 'Yes, we plan to repeat the fruit order. We're having free office fruit from now on.'

So that was good. I won!

Steve was impressed at how fast I'd completed the challenge, and he wrote to Fruit Towers as soon as he heard. I won, he knew that, but he didn't want to be too far behind me crossing the finishing line.

I didn't tell Steve that I'd written to Innocent Smoothies myself, a few months ago about the Gutshot smoothie problem. I'd been disappointed with my favourite companies response.

I received this email from Tamsin at Fruit Towers.

'We must apologise for not having replied sooner. We have been absolutely snowed under over the last three weeks, even though its nearly summer. No excuse though, so slap on the wrists for us. It sounds like a problem with one of our stockists so I have Cc…’d in Meera who will chase it up for you.

Meera wrote back, to be fair. Only her email was dull, so I never bothered to send her the Gutshot telephone number she asked for.

But it must have been fruity magic day on Tuesday, just a few hours after sending his email, Steve received this reply -

Hello Stephen,

Thanks for your e-mail. We were really sorry to hear about what happened. I don't work on the sales team, but I've forwarded this to the lovely Mav who will be in touch to try and rearrange some more drinks to be sent and find out what has gone wrong in this instance. Hopefully we can make sure those poker plays are getting their intake of fruit whilst winning some money at the same time!

Take care,

Row

I bet Row and Tamsin and Mav are really nice people (not sure about Meera) I hope they all enjoy their cheese club, and I wonder if they get free fruit too, and have loads of babies at £1000 a pop?

So there you have it, I think this is a happy, magic, story. I think free fruit and Gutshot Smoothies will be a big success.

I also have some Cadbury's Chocolate Mini Rolls; actually a pack of 16 (they were 50% extra free) and these have a 'best before' July 7th. Another recent giggly bedtime chat involved cream cheese. Cream cheese says 'eat within 5 days' - this worries me because I can't get through a pack of cream cheese in 5 days. Steve told me cream cheese really lasts a month, and after that you can use it as glue. I'm not sure... I'm careful with food dates, whereas Steve was once sick after eating a quiche. So I'm not going to eat my 14 remaining Mini Rolls on July 7th, instead I have a better plan for them.

PokerStars gives us free office fruit, Gutshot give Steve smoothies on his bar tab. On July 7th I'm going to put the box of Mini Rolls outside my front door with a, 'Help yourself - these need eating' sign. Because it's July 7th do you think I should add the note, 'Don't worry, it isn't a bomb?'

Flowers tied with black ribbon, Tooting Bec platform poster

2006-07-03T20:24:00.000Z

Amy told me she didn't want to go to the Princess of Wales memorial park. This didn't surprise me, she's been upset and argumentative since I got back from Barcelona. She tells me I'm 'mean' a lot. I have to remind myself that this isn't true, that I'm no meaner than usual anyway; that I'm probably no meaner than is normal for a busy, working mum. Thick skins are supposed to be one of motherhood's essentials, like wearing practical shoes, carrying a comb and tissues, and having a constant awareness of where to quickly find food, drink or toilet facilities. I couldn't do the combs and tissues either.

I can't decide whether this change in Amy might be caused by me abandoning her to go to Barcelona when she was ill? Or whether it might be insecurities about Steve being on the scene? Perhaps it's even a normal stage of development? We have the famous terrible twos, I found there were also the tiresome threes, the feisty fours, the fitful fives, now it's constant six year old strops...

On the way to the 'Pirate Ship park' that Amy usually loves to visit she accused me of being a bad Mum, pointing out that it was my fault that she didn't have any friends to play with that day. I should have invited companions for her. She told me I was too shy to ring her friend's mums. She has a point. I am. I feel sensitive about joining in with my friends and their kids on a Sunday. Sunday is a family day, isn't it? I was recently given a last minute invite to a friend's family Sunday lunch. I didn't enjoy it, the smell of single mum sympathy overpowered the aroma of vegetarian gravy, it ruined my appetite, even though the roast potatoes were cooked to perfection.

Sunday is a day of Mums and Dads taking their kids on outings, enjoying rare weekend freedom. Why would they want me and Amy tagging along? I can organise after school friends to come for tea, a time when parents feel inconvenienced by hurrying home for the school run - I'm doing them a small childcare favour, but weekends? Yes, I am shy.

So Amy stood in the street and refused to move. 'I want to go home!' She yelled. 'I hate you!' 'You're mean!' I eventually persuaded her to walk with a few bribes and white lies, so we began to make slow progress towards Tooting Bec tube station.

It was a dramatic arrival at the station. We reached the tube station to be greeted by a fanfare of sirens, and action. A helicopter overhead, cars, and fire engines. Police, and firefighters, and ambulances, descended on the magic station. Three ambulances, four police cars, two fire engines. Uniformed men jogging or talking on radios, or carrying machinery. Strangely the tube station seemed to be still open. I thought I'd better ask before heading down the stairs...

A paramedic snapped, 'No, the station's closed.' And when I asked why, just gave me a pompous, 'I'm not at liberty to say.'

I saw a firefighter carrying a lump of machinery with a saw for cutting things. Another fireman was lifting a plastic stretcher down from the engine.

None of the uniformed people seemed in any particular rush, there was no sense of urgency or excitement just busy, businesslike action. A crowd had gathered, but there was a different mood amongst this crowd, lots of people were on their phones, showing off their involvement in this drama, pretending they needed to make calls to discus lateness or alternative travel plans.

Amy and I speculated about what it might mean. I didn't want to tell her what I thought it meant. I said it might be an 'accident,' a good, vague word. Although I was sure she must realise it was more serious than a cut knee and an elastoplast. I suggested it might be, 'Someone hurt on the tube.' She excitedly chattered about bombs, and people being dead, and 'trains being blown up.'

About a year ago her school had had an assembly to explain 7/7 to the kids. I didn't think this incident was as serious, so I tried to reassure her of that. I didn't think it was as bad as bombs, but I was still upset that anything bad could happen at the tube station I cared about.

There were my stickers on the platform posters... I wondered if someone, whoever it was, at the heart of this drama had noticed those? I hoped not. I didn't want anything to do with Tooting Bec station just then. I wanted to be anonymous, unconnected. It was just a tube station. That's how I wanted to feel.

Amy and I walked to Balham, I thought that Balham tube station might be open so we could still visit the pirate ship park. Amy had forgotten her moodiness, she was just excited, I think my serious mood had intrigued her.

Balham station was shut too. A station official used my word. He said, 'There was an accident at Tooting Bec.' He explained that some passengers on a train near Tooting Bec were forced to walk through the tube tunnel to Balham.

I considered that if Amy hadn't been cross with me we'd have reached Tooting Bec station a few minutes sooner. We might have known more clearly what the 'accident' meant.

We headed to Tooting Common, we played in the playground for a while, we ate our picnic, we decided to head home. Balham station had reopened by then, so we went to the Princess of Wales park as planned. Amy had a lovely afternoon in the sun, then we took the tube back to Tooting Bec.

At Tooting Bec there was no sign that anything had happened. No one would know that the emergency services had dealt with... the 'accident.' It bothered me that there was no sign of any of it, the word had to mean tragedy.

With a road accident you see flowers by the side of the road. It's sad, and no one likes to be reminded that that can happen. London transport don't want anyone reminded of sadness... It felt like I'd told six year old Amy more than station officials would ever tell me.

As I'd stood outside the tube station, I'd wanted to be uneffected, to have no part in the place's strangeness that day. But the tube station had banished it's strangeness so quickly, hidden it away just as if it had never happened. It was decided that no one needed to know. It was by chance that I knew anything at all, and what did I even know..? Everything was designed to make it easy to forget, Tooting Bec returning to 'normal', like any other busy station on the Northern Line. I didn't want to think like that. That didn't seem right at all. So I made a sticker and stuck it at the magic station.

Michael Owen in goal for Poland, Up escalator Oxford Circus

2006-07-01T21:45:00.001Z

I played football games with Amy today in Alex-The-Ex's new garden. Amy drew the pitch markings on the paving stones with chalk. The goal was clearly defined by two bars of her Dad's wooden fence.

We each had to decide who to pretend to be. I chose Michael Owen. Alex pointed out that Michael Owen was injured. Amy told me to pretend he wasn't injured. I was up for that, so I pretended to be Michael Owen not injured.

I was in goal as usual, and briefly whined that I was always the goalkeeper. Alex tried to help out, pointing out that Michael Owen didn't play as goalkeeper. Amy said that I could pretend Michael Owen was a goalkeeper. So there I was, pretending to be Michael Owen recovered from injury, playing in goal.

We had to pick which teams to be for our exciting World Cup penalty shootout competition. Amy chose England, of course. I decided to be Poland. Poland had won the World Cup of Poker in my recent poker blogging trip, and they were a very nice bunch of poker players. So there I was, pretending to be Michael Owen, recovered from injury, playing in goal, for Poland.

It was a very good contest. Following each spot kick Amy meticulously recorded the crosses and circles next to our team names. We had ENG, POL and BEL scrawled in chalk on the patio steps. Alex's Belgian Rio Ferdinand had a comically long run-up as he took each kick, and Amy insisted Rio had his eyes shut as he struck each goal. Belgium scored just one penalty in their five attempts, perhaps she was right? I screamed as I scored the crucial goal to take Poland to tie-break penalties vs. England.

An exciting five tie-break kicks, and the match was finally decided... My Polish team called on crucial saves from Belgium's goalie to ensure England won the contest. It was important that Amy-pretending-to-be-England's-Captain won, and was therefore in a good mood at 4pm to let us watch the genuine World Cup game.

Letting Amy win didn't work. Amy-pretending-to-be-David-Beckham was still in a lousy mood at 4pm. I'm not sure why..? Perhaps it's confusing for her to see me and her Dad together again? Perhaps my reluctance to define Steve clearly to her is confusing her more? I describe Steve as a 'friend', but she giggles and says, 'He's your boyfriend'. And sometimes she even sings, 'Mum and Steve sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.' I just blush. How do you do the 'Mum with a boyfriend' thing..? But I'm thrilled that Steve is so good with Amy, she really likes him.

I was stuck for a babysitter on the Sunday I returned from Barcelona so Steve offered to help. I returned to find the house decorated with drawings on nearly every wall, 'Welcome home from Squirrel Man and Amy' pictures everywhere. Amy loves the 'Squirrel Man' super-hero name she's given him. Steve knows this and good-naturedly plays along.

Amy doesn't like football at all, she refused to watch the England game with me and her Dad. We tried to ignore her constant whines that she was bored. I tried to get her interested in the match, but knew I was doomed when she asked, "So is there only one ball in football?"

Amy cried that she wanted to go home. Alex had just moved into his new home; toys were still in boxes, he had no internet to distract her, he didn't even have paper for her to draw on. Amy had a small point about it being boring for her, even though she was mostly being an annoying brat. It's only two quick stops on the tube from Alex's flat in Clapham south to Tooting Bec and we both live near the station, so I decided it would be perfectly possible us to get home during the half time break. A dull first half meant I decided to dash for home at 4.40pm, sure it was no more than a 20 minute journey, and that I'd be back in time for the second half.

Stuck in a tube tunnel between Clapham South and Balham I wondered if the train driver had suddenly remembered the football was on, abandoned his passengers to go watch the game? The train finally got going again, only to stop and start it's journey, making frustratingly slow progress towards Tooting Bec. The driver eventually announced that the delays were due to a signal problem. I wondered if the signal operators were busy watching the England match? How could I have expected them to concentrate on working their signals properly with the football on..?

I got home half way through the second half and wondered what had happened to Wayne Rooney. When I figured it out I had to explain the red and yellow card system to Amy. She was intrigued by this, and pointed out that at school you'd always get two warnings before any timeout on the 'naughty chair'. She thought Rooney's red was quite unfair. I wished the World Cup ref had used the same disciplinary procedure as Fircroft school.

As England's penalty kicks began I remembered our garden penalty game. Amy's England had won only because I'd kicked so many weak shots straight at Alex. I knew Portugal weren't going to aim easy shots at Paul Robinson's tummy. And they didn't. So that was that. Who did expect England to win on penalties? I felt strangely bitter towards the TV editors who'd already contemplated England's World Cup exit, pre-selecting the sad song to play at the end of the programme. The sad song bit always makes me feel like crying, emotive music, emotive images, defeat still sinking in...

As the sad song played, and Rio cried on the TV, Amy turned to me and said, "I'm going to support Italy now." She told me, "I can cover the England word on my top and write Italy instead. We get extra play time at school when Italy win."

It's easy being a football fan when you're just six. I blame the school. The teachers of Fircroft School are having a World Cup sweepstake, each class is allocated a team, and when their team win a match they get extra break time. The whole school was jealous of Class 2 for being given England. Not any more... I hope Italy do win, extra play time is a very good reason to support any team. Even if Italy lose Amy still gets the same break time as before. As a 'proper' England fan it feels like play time has been cancelled for another four years...

Sunshine & Balloons - to be stuck in Barcelona (too busy to stick)

2006-06-17T11:31:00.000Z

I haven't updated for a bit, have I? What's been going on, hmm? Well Amy has the worst case of chicken pox you could imagine. You know I once made spotty animals for the Tooting Bec tube poster? I did this for a whole month, and I kept having to replace the spotty animals. Well, imagine all the spots from those animals (only don't use the green and blue ones) then multiply all these spots by... hmm, about 1000. Then picture my pretty 6 year old covered with all these spots and saying, 'I'm itchy' and, 'Ouch, ouch, ouch' every 5 minutes. That's chicken pox at number 22B in sunny Tooting Bec.

I wondered how I could really leave her when she's like this? I have to go to Barcelona on Monday to blog about a poker tournament. Her Dad will be there too, he works for the TV company filming it. So my Mum is all set to look after Amy. But Amy was so ill yesterday, and my Mum isn't young, and is of a nervous disposition, I wasn't at all sure she could cope with 24 hour sessions of 'Ow, Ow, Ow' babysitting. I considered that the spots dramatically appeared in one day, so maybe they'd disappear just as fast? Well, it's a theory. Amy tells me hourly, 'I hate chicken pox'. I hate this poxy virus too. I hate it because I'll be too far away to see those spots fade and her smile again.

Today was a bit better, she hasn't said, 'I'm itchy!' once. Instead she just lies on the sofa not saying anything at all, neither smiling nor frowning. And even though she's still ill, I'm gratefully thinking, 'This is an easy to look after kind of ill.' It's still going to be hard to leave her...

I've been worrying too much about working in Barcelona. This has to be a professional blogging job, no mistakes, no silliness. To calm the nerves I've done plenty of preparation - this has effected my blogging output here. Yes, I've 'only' written 3 posts in 'draft mode', long ones I wish I'd finished, they're all about 3 stickers I stuck. From now on I've decided I want each post to be based around a sticker I stick. And I want to make stuff up too! I like the idea of writing fiction not fact. I may even do fictional blogging in Barcelona, if I can't count a poker player's chips properly, instead of saying 'a lot' I'll claim it's 25,007.

I doubt I'll post again until I'm back from Barcelona. Even then, I wonder, will I post as much as I'd like to? Will I ever finish those 'draft mode' posts? One important reason for the lack of recent updates is Steve. Lots of evenings where I might have blogged before, I've spent with him. He must be the best boyfriend in the world! I've missed him so much lately, he's been in Paris writing about the World Poker Tour. I'll see him for tonight, just one evening together, before I go to Barcelona. Then we have a few weeks as a couple, and then he goes to the WSOP for 2 and a half weeks. That's going to feel like the longest two and half weeks ever.

Imagine all the chicken pox spots on Amy's back - any colour you like this time - now times that by several million and six. You should now have a big number. And that's how much out of 10 I'm going to miss him.

Times that number again by another million or two, and that gives you how many points ahead of the competition I am, in the contest for romantic blog soppiness. I know, I just can't help it.

I hope I'll write lots more when I get back from this 'professional bloggers' job. You can read my witterings at www.pokerstarsblog.com, but I don't really want you to. I think it might be rubbish. I'll just be talking about poker and transcribing dull chip counts, I'm not sure that's my thing. But I am going to try my best, and I hope that I'll enjoy it. It should be good. So why am I so scared? I should listen to the best boyfriend in the world when he tells me not to worry so much.

And of course I'll be keeping to my new blogging rules and I'll be stickering in Spain. See post title.

Falafel. Up escalator, Tottenham Court Road tube station

2006-06-05T22:27:00.000Z

We went to Gaby's for falafel after a film. Steve said, 'That's Brian Cox!'

I regretted adding so much chilli sauce and thought, 'Brian who?'

I was wondering if he might be a football manager, or perhaps a poker player? I decided this after I glanced around and didn't see anyone glamorous sitting at any of Gaby's formica tables. Although I did notice that we were sat next to some photo of Matt Damon being clutched by Old Mr.Gaby like he didn't want to let him go. The picture wasn't signed, just clearly labelled in bold capitals - 'MATT DAMON'

Steve explained that Brian Cox was in lots of movies.

He's since sent me his complete Internet Movie Database biography, and photos too.

Match Point, The Bourne Identity, Troy, X-Men 2, The Ring, For Love of the Game, Kiss the Girls, Braveheart, Rob Roy, even Red Dwarf!

Also Smallpox 2002, Strictly Sinatra, and The Legend of Loch Lomond. Steve admitted to me that, 'These three sound crap.'

I'm still unimpressed. No wonder he was in Gaby's. Ok, so Braveheart won Oscars... But still...No.

The ghost of a long eaten falafel nugget piped up to say that he'd once been in a big film too, eaten by an extra in the background of a key scene in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He chatted to Vinnie Jones about the role. I listened to his story as I munched. I wondered if he had an IMDB entry too?

Even if he had I wouldn't have been impressed. If I'd seen that film actor falafel nugget walking down the street I don't think I'd stop and stare. You see he was just an ugly old falafel. He wasn't one of the beautiful falafel. He wasn't a glamorous film star falafel in a pitta bread limo, with his paparazzi salad entourage.

I couldn't see any fans eager to smother him with their chilli sauce, impatiently brushing his salad aside, to tenderly lick him clean of his hoummous with their tongues... No. This was just a talking, ghost, falafel nugget.

So I drew a falafel sticker to stick beside the magic Up escalator at Oxford Circus. I wondered if anyone would stop and stare? Or be impressed? I didn't think so.

If Brian Cox had noticed the sticker beside the Up escalator I knew he might smile. I thought this because I know he likes falafel. And he eats the pickled chilli peppers too.

Yet even if Brian Cox passed up the Up escalator eating movie-extra, talking ghost falafel, with extra chilli sauce and pickles, then saw my sticker, smiled, peeled the sticker off the poster and ate that too - I still don't think I'd be impressed.

Brian Cox? Oh..! Yeah. Yeah Yeah.

Wowowee!!!

I don't think.

Green and yellow stripy ladies pants. Hayward Gallery poster, Tooting Bec tube station platform

2006-06-05T21:49:00.000Z

Steve and I have a cute-thing we do. We laugh about pants. I have pants of different grades, best pants, and worst pants, all shades and styles of inbetween pants. Pants that were once best, now only worn when the laundry basket is bulging. Pants I bought cheap that can make me forget their humble status; understated plain pants, that'll-do pants, sexy enough but comfortable too pants. My pants range from multi-pack-modest everyday pants all the way up to expensive show-pants. Some pants make me feel over dressed; remind me of using the tube to go to a wedding. I know my pants, and I understand my pants grading system, but so far Steve has not been able to see me in my pants at all.

Don't worry, the naughty stuff is fine. It's not that. We just enjoy the coy-thing, the hiding and the peeking, and over anxious demands to, 'turn the lights out!' The laughing, as we cuddle up and joke about the, 'you can't see me in my pants' rule.

Of course I know that he can see quite well with the lights turned low, even low-lights and glasses-off. Of course I know that sometimes he's only pretending to hide under the covers as I dress or undress. It's a game, but it's a fun one. One day it will end and then we'll enjoy a comfortable nakedness, shyness conquered. I hope so. Or maybe I don't hope for that? Not yet. This in-between newness, this nervous excitement, this will-he won't-he see - it's fun!

Steve didn't know what colour my pants were last night. I told him blue, but he couldn't see the exact shade. I don't like my blue pants. These were C-grade, I forgot to change them. Blue is not a good colour for girls pants. I don't think.

We talked about pant colours. I told Steve that I need to buy some new underwear and suggested he choose the colour. He said he liked white or black. Of course he said he 'doesn't mind'. I know this matters more to me than him. But more important than a lunch hour trip to John Lewis lingerie, is that we laughed about the idea of green ladies pants last night. These can't be bought. Nor yellow either. Nor stripy ladies pants. No, not at all. I simply cannot imagine any lingerie shop that offered green and yellow stripy ladies Pants.

So I drew a sticker for this, and stuck it on a poster at Tooting Bec tube station, northbound platform.

I wondered if anyone would see this sticker, and what they might think..?

Perhaps a Portuguese lady... Who'd moved to Tooting Bec three months ago, and wasn't sure she liked the area. The strange little sticker wouldn't make her feel any more at home.

The Portuguese lady was bothered by the Asian shops, not that she was prejudiced. She was a stranger in London too. And she liked that the Asian shopkeepers were so polite, that they avoided talking unless words were necessary. They politely quoted the price with a 'please' and the rest was clearly signed directions - to pay, or to put the basket back. They always packed her bags; she liked that too. It was easier for her not to talk, not to need English in the English shops, not Tooting Bec shops. Her English was good, but she liked easy no thinking, liked to forget her strangeness here.

Sometimes she did feel strange. Sometimes it worried her that she'd come to London, and found it so unexpectedly foreign. In the Tooting Bec shops, run by Asian shopkeepers with reluctant English, there were aisles of Polish pickles and cans. Perogi or tinned borscht, the shopkeepers wouldn't know anything about these products she was sure. No wonder they pointed and smiled, to make things easy. To forget strangeness.

She wondered about the green and yellow underwear sticker. Was there was any significance to the poster it was stuck on? A poster for some modern art gallery. When she considered English art she thought of pretty landscapes or portraits of costumed ladies. This was a poster of a grotesque face, a white mask with a too-big nose. She couldn't tell if it was a man or woman underneath. She didn't want to know, and she wouldn't visit that gallery.

Her job was for a website translation service, adding to the database of words. The basics were there first, the bread, milk and butter words. Then came the more complex words, expressive phrases - like sliced, skimmed, semi-skimmed, spreadable...

Steve joked to me in a recent email that he was 'quite rude for a Northerner.'
He's from Chester, I'm from York. I tell him he's not Northern at all, that Chester's almost in Wales. I tell him that he's nearly Welsh.

He lived in Cardiff for a while, so he shows off a Welsh phrase in his reply. I didn't know what this means but I tell him that it sounds a bit like, 'I'll have a milky coffee'.

An email or two later and I write to him in Portuguese. Portuguese seemed like the most obscure language I could find at the online language translation website. I hoped he wouldn't decode my email. I tried to be funny, and Milky Ways got a mention... And believing he couldn't understand what I was saying I decided I could be bold. I said things I would never say in English.

The Portuguese lady thought about Tooting Bec shops. Bread and milk and butter were in the database, yes. Her job involved scanning long lists for words their customers used that weren't recognised - with the most commonly of these flagged for her attention.

Her sister was a fashion designer. Of course she was jealous of this interesting job. She imagined her sister creating better than bread, butter and milk clothes, even better than semi-skimmed and spreadable fashion. She thought of mentioning the yellow and green stripy pants to her? She'd never seen lingerie that colour. It would be different. Surely her sister would just laugh if she said this?

Her supervisor stood over her, he was Asian like the Tooting Bec shopkeepers. Only he never said please or thank you.

Green, and yellow were in the database already. Pants too. Stripy? Yes, of course that would be there.

Sometimes she liked to guess the words that she might add. She liked the game of adding a word she might use herself, a word that meant something to her. She'd been in the job long enough that such tedium relieving games were important. It was the nature of her job that the longer she spent at this game the harder it became.

I mentioned to Steve that 'rubbish' was 'rubbish' in Portuguese too. It's a word I use a lot, a friendly word that might mean anything unsatisfying. 'That's rubbish!' I declare most days about something or other. 'Rubbish' does for anything that bothers me. I like that I can be comically upset about life's problems in a Northern accent.

I knew that rubbish couldn't really be the word 'rubbish' in Portuguese. This had to be a failure of this web translation website. Their failure 'rubbish' in itself.

I thought of writing to the translation site about this? It was the sort of thing that Steve might do.

Steve had a fat folder of letters from companies and government offices, letters sent and replies received. He acted when something bothered or upset him. I loved him for this. I loved that 'waving, screaming, charging at things head on' attitude to life he had. That 'waving, screaming charge’ had led him to share my taxi to Tooting Bec on the night we met. A taxi that really wasn't 'going his way' at all - he lived miles away, in Blackheath.

As we shared the cab I remembered telling him what in life was sometimes brilliant, sometimes rubbish. As he smiled, he seemed to understand, and I think I started to fall in love.

The Portuguese lady read the strange email. It wasn't often that people wrote to her department. Some concerned customer was requested the addition of a word. Rubbish..? 'Lixo', meant garbage, trash, but in English she knew the word had a common usage meaning something unsatisfactory. It wasn't the same in her language. This made adding the word unsatisfying. Rubbish..? She could do it, but she couldn't be sure the translation would work in the sense this customer wanted.

Was she supposed to reply to this email? That wasn't part of her job... She'd just add the word, close the email. No 'thank you' sent for a reply, it wasn't her job. Some polite Tooting Bec shopkeeper would always say thank you, not her.

Back to her list of words, as she wondered what to cook tonight. She'd have to call at the shops on her way home. She'd buy English bread, square and sliced. She closed the email. She needed more milk too, always needed milk...

On the way home she noticed that the sticker was gone, only a torn remnant of paper remained. The strange big-nosed white mask still scared her.

As she passed the first Tooting Bec grocery shops she wondered about a delicatessen. She missed interesting food - olives, good cake, bread with uneven curves, not small-shop packaged food in plastic wrap, and cloned tins.

Steve found a translation website and translated my Portuguese email. He saw that my favourite word appeared in apparent Portuguese as 'rubbish' too. The rest of the email made sense to him now too...

The Portuguese lady mused about nuts, spices, good oil, roasted peppers - red and green and yellow. Green and yellow, like the underwear stuck on the poster. She imagined wearing this for her boyfriend. Standing in front of him semi-naked. But underwear like that couldn't be bought. Not even her sister would invent it.

She passed the last of the Tooting Bec shops before her turn off. She needed bread, square-sliced, and milk, semi-skimmed. All the shops had these, as well as strange jars and packets of Polish products. She didn't understand these things. She bought unsatisfactory bread. She knew her boyfriend wouldn't mind, he didn't complain. She musn't forget to ponha para fora o lixo...

I hurried home, smiling, thinking about my emails in Welsh and Portuguese. I was expecting Steve. I realised there was no bread and not much milk at home. Perhaps Steve and I could go to the shops? We might laugh at the funny jars of polish pickles, or tease about the poor lack of choice? I thought about my pants and which would Steve see? Blue or pink? White or black? Green and yellow stripy? Or perhaps none at all?

I checked my emails, saw that Steve had translated my Portuguese. I was glad that he had. I was smiling...

'Rubbish is rubbish in Portuguese.' That had been a very easy clue to help him guess which language I'd used.

I was glad he'd read it. Now I could tell him about writing to the web translation website. They hadn't replied yet - they were rubbish!

No... Nothing was rubbish. What was the opposite of rubbish? Would this be the same in English and Portuguese?

Plan Bee

2006-05-30T16:26:00.000Z

I haven't blogged for a while, have I? I haven't been especially busy, and I have the broadband back so that's not it. I think I've lost a bit of the old inspiration. I do wonder whether being happy is making me boring, I spend too much time looking in recipe books dreaming of baking bread, or finding an impressive use for beans. I feel houseproud and domestic, smug and contented, with my boyfriend, daughter, and new home.

It's not a bad thing for me at all if the blogging slows or stops. For over a year I would spend a little part of the day thinking 'could I blog about that?' 'Or maybe that?' It was a kind of challenge for me - and I think I got quite good at it. I'd usually find something in my day to write about, but maybe now I need a little rest from that? Maybe it became a bit too easy. Maybe I took the every day writing obsession too far? Where's the challenge if I can rattle off a post? Where's the fun if you're thinking - 'must update!' There's no point to it if it feels like a chore, there's no pleasure if you start to become a blogging hack. The sort of stuff I've been writing lately is starting to bore me, I'm getting tired of hearing myself go on, I'm not so interested in talking about myself, in endless 'me, me, me' posts. I do still want to write, I just want it to be different. I wondered what to do, and thought if plain old reality is getting dull, why don't I make stuff up?

We'll see.

I couldn't decide what stickers to make this week. I usually have a weekly theme for the on the magic Up escalator at Oxford Circus. Amy suggested, 'make stickers beginning with some letter.' That's because I did this once before, and she enjoyed helping me. Last time it was 'S' - for Steve.

I dismissed her idea at first. But yesterday we were heading home I was thinking about my new place. The house number is 22B. Amy and I sometimes laugh about the fact that there are lots of number 22's on my road. The 22 houses don't look any different from the rest of the houses on the street, but the numbering goes funny. It's 20, 22, 22A, 22B, 22C, 22D, 24, 26. I told Amy that our 22 was special because our road name begins with 'B' too. It was raining, so I thought of my boyfriend who likes the rain - and always remembers to carry a brolly. I thought too of the rain on my recent trip to Brighton with friends Pete B and Stevie B. I thought about my favourite stickers I'd made, balloons beside the Up escalator - at Tooting Bec not Broadway.

I thought about my house and how it was starting to get sorted out, with BT Broadband now and beds built. I thought about being busy, and feeling blessed to have time and money and friends to help with things. I thought about work giving me a chance to blog in Barcelona. I thought about butterfly stickers, and how hard it used to seem to imagine making stickers that were beautiful.

I remembered an advert Steve liked about bouncing balls and sticking a sticker when I a tube poster version of these. I remembered a recent conversation with him about silly horoscope stuff, and laughing that Libra's 'Balance' seemed to suit Steve so well. I'm thinking now of Bank Holiday trips, and how the blue fish at the aquarium was my favourite, and how we all laughed because the clown fish wasn't like Nemo as it was too brown. I thought of the first letter stickers I stuck - 'S' for Steve's first name, and realised that his surname starts with a 'B'. I thought of the first stickers I stuck on the Up escalator at Oxford Circus, I stuck them for no real reason, when blogging felt like the best thing in the world. I stuck sticker bees.

So today I stuck a bee again on the magic Up escalator at Oxford Circus. It might have looked the same as the first bee I stuck many months ago, but to me it's quite different. It's my special Plan Bee. For a new start. For being happy.

As I came home today I thought what should I blog? Should I blog at all? I thought about being broke, and bank trips in my break, and blubbing last night over something silly, and I realised I'd forgot to buy beer, and I felt busy, and in a bad mood. And I saw the estate agent's sign that's still outside the front door of my house. I thought, 'Bollocks! Do I have to nag them to remove that?' Bastards. And I looked at the sign for a moment, and smiled and then I sat down to write this post, there's a few bad things in my life right now, but mostly life is brilliant.

Where's the magic..?

2006-05-24T11:43:00.000Z

I went to see a heavy-handed documentary film with Steve last night, 'Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price'. Walmart is really bad. The problem is that most big companies are really bad. Steve knows all this because he stood for the Green Party, in the 2001 election. Cardiff Central. He got 661 votes. I'm proud of him!

He's lost his passion for politics these days, and seems to have come to the conclusion that there are so many big bad companies about that it's impossible to do very much about it at all.

The Walmart documentary made me think about Tooting Bec. Perhaps part of the Tooting Bec magic is that there is no supermarket or big-chain shops at all? There are no big businesses for about a 15 minute walk either side of the tube station. I think big companies may have anti-magic powers. I'm not completely sure... I know Steve believes in the special power of Waitrose muffins.

There are plenty of shabby small businesses at Tooting Bec. Lots of curry houses, a second hand shop, some drycleaners, and an excellent stationers shop - with a shopkeeper who'll do you a good deal on bubblewrap.

There are about 20 near identical 'corner shops' too. There are so many corner shops that there aren't enough corners to go around, these shops are forced to operate on the very-straight main road. It amazes me that all these corner shops thrive. Each has a 6 cans of Stella for £5 offer, milk, bread, and other basic provisions at much more than supermarket prices. In each you can buy toilet paper, Whiskas cat food, washing powder and toothpaste. In none can you buy brioches, tortellini or cayenne pepper. CostCutter is the biggest shop. This means it has more choice of toilet paper, cat food, and washing powder brands.

Steve asked me if there was a cafe where he could buy a coffee before going home. There's no Starbucks or Costa Coffee at Tooting Bec. I don't think there is anywhere where you can sit down and have a nice cup of coffee at breakfast time. I sympathise with Steve's desire for a coffee shop coffee, and maybe a nice danish?

Tooting Bec's failure worried me.

I haven't noticed any tube station magic for a while. The nearest I've come to seeing magic lately was when I saw the Tooting Bec tiger man. I saw him at Leicester Square tube station on Monday teatime.

I took Amy to the National Art Gallery after school. Actually that is kind of magic! To be admiring amazing art just 30 minutes after school finishes... Perhaps that's the magic of Tooting Bec tube? After the art gallery we saw the tiger man at Leicester Square. He had his big Tiger photo strapped to his chest, and a sign displaying the number of tigers left in the wild. I can't remember how many he said it was? 4020 I think.

He must have discovered the wonders of the Northern Line too - to find his way to the West End. Of course I put money in his collection tin. I last saw this special tiger man at Tooting Bec tube station, shortly after I'd blogged about the Green Party's commitment to 'Taming Local Tigers'.

All that's on my old blog, not linking there, sorry....

But perhaps that's interesting? Perhaps that's magic? Now I'm dating a former Green Party candidate and seeing tiger men at Leicester Square? I travelled to Leicester Square yesterday, for our first ever cinema trip. When I asked Steve out, in a very vague way, in my 3rd ever email I mentioned going to the cinema. Now 3 months later we've been to the cinema at last... To see a film that makes me think about Tooting Bec.

I've been thinking about where I was this time last year. June is my splitting up with long-term partner anniversary.

I've also been thinking a lot about my stickers...

I feel like my stickers might need to change. I wondered about butterflies and daisies..? But I think that's pushing things.

But, yes.. Stickers. Magic. Where does it go now I'm almost-nearly very happy?

So there isn't a coffee shop at Tooting Bec, but I still love the place and believe in it's magic.

I also told Steve that I didn't want to buy anything made in China by poorly treated workers. I know it's hard to avoid, but I'd like to try. I know there are catalogues full of organic cotton, ethically correct, clothes.

And I'd like to set up a practical charity, called 'The Practical Charity' maybe? I'd like to counteract the McDonalds effect by setting up friendly vege-burger shops with £1.99 tofu burger kids meals. And you get a wooden toy with it? Ok, maybe the wooden toy's going too far... A plastic toy, but it's made by handicapped people?

Hmm, not sure but perhaps the next stage of the magic is an attempt to change the world?

I think not. Probably the next stage of the magic is just dreaming about all of this. I dream about lots of things...

But isn't it better to believe in good stuff, and dream, and try just sometimes, even if it's just in a little way?

Maybe someone will see one of my stickers one day and smile? If that's the only good thing I can do to change the world it's not bad. It's much better than anything Walmart, or McDonalds or any company that treats it's workers like shit, ever did.

Tooting Bec shopkeepers often smile when I buy stuff, and I know it could be because they're glad I chose them and not a 'corner shop' competitor two doors down the road, but it's still nice that they make you feel welcome. People don't do that in big shops very often. I know a shopkeeper's smile is just a tiny little thing, but it is a very nice tiny thing...

'Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope...'

I can't believe something Steve in an email today has got me Googling political stuff...

I wonder what happens if you google Tooting Bec magic?

It led me here.

To the green of magic trees...

I need to find those trees. And I might pop to Asda on the way back, I need some brioche and tortellini...

BT still smell of poo (but I don't really care)

2006-05-22T14:45:00.000Z

I thought I'd get my internet set up today, instead some BT engineers came, plugged in their router and laptop and demonstrated that the internet worked perfectly for them. They wouldn't look at my internet set up, or consider why it wouldn't work for me. That was a different department.

I was left to self-diagnose my broadband problem. After spending £6 on a new DSL cable that made no difference to my no-green-light problem, I decided the router had to be faulty. It took me 45 minutes on the phone to India to persuade the help desk people of the same conclusion. I now have to wait 3-6 days to get my new router.

I miss the internet, but this is only a minor stress. I don't really care. Life is good. I feel as happy as I've ever been. This makes for dull blog posts I'm afraid. Things do still keep going wrong, I could write about the going-wrong stuff? I know I would have written about these in the past, but these days I don't feel as bothered by anything. When I get stressed or upset I simply talk to Steve, or else send him a sorry-for-myself text or email. He says reassuring stuff and always has the magic words to make me feel better. We soon end up laughing about Ikea ice cream, or Waitrose muffins, or any of our many other secret code words for being happy and in love.

Yes, my head has turned to mush, and my blog has become blog-mush too. And I don't particularly want to find a cure. Long live mush! I just wish everyone had mush in their lives. I like mush! I do realise how lucky I am.

I wrote a long blog post about Saturday at work, and how PokerStars should operate on some kind of communist system as my colleagues sometimes do a better job than I do. I might still post this, not sure... Steve thinks I might get a pay cut if I do..! I don't think I care, it was a mushy 'I love PokerStars' post. It's true. I do love PokerStars, I can't help it, any more than I can help my ginger writer boyfriend head-mush.

I was also going to write about my Ikea bed, and the way Ikea have the perfect number of silly names like 'Fardte' and 'Snotte' to make the shopping experience fun, yet not silly enough to distract you from your serious decisions. Their designers are very clever, don't you think?

And I feel like I should probably write something about Steve meeting Amy. This happened on our 2 month anniversary Ikea trip, and I cooked blue cheese pasta afterwards. The meal, and the meeting were uncomplicated, I wasn't even stressed by the thought that I'd never cooked for Steve before. Why was I worried? I liked when Amy said, 'Why are you smiling, Mum?' Then turned to Steve and said, 'He smiles all the time too.'

So, yes... there's stuff I would have been desperate to blog about in the past, but I have 25 minutes before I have to pick Amy up from school, and I have ideas for my new screenplay that I need to write down...

Mush-blog life is dull today. Perhaps it's because entertaining writing is about conflict? Perhaps happiness is doomed to make dull reading?

I don't know. And I don't care. I'm too busy being happy to debate all of this... Sorry readers. Maybe I'll get miserable or broken hearted and write a better post tomorrow?

Hello and a very warm welcome from Barcelona...

2006-05-19T10:19:00.000Z

Forty-six teams from around the world fought it out in online qualifiers, playing in their pyjamas at breakfast time in Brazil against opponents eating late night pizza in New Zealand. Now eight teams meet in the Spanish sunshine, and...

I don't know. Just the sort of thing I might need to write. Just practising... I need to practise...

I’ve been reading lots about Iceland! I know Iceland are through to the finals. I’ll learn who the other teams will be on Saturday.

It’s England vs Wales for a place in Barcelona. I kind of hope Wales win, because don’t proper poker reported types have to be impartial? If I write, ‘Go England! Yay! England spanked those Ice-people with a sweet two-outer...’ I guess that’s not going to go down too well?

It is exciting though! People from Iceland, and maybe Poland too, are going to be relying on me for news reports, following their country, dreaming that it will be their team that holds aloft the prized poker World Cup!

If you’re not excited about this then you surely must be dead? Or from a country that’s not playing? Or not much interested in poker?

There must be someone left still who might want to read my reports from Barcelona?

I think it's very exciting! And if you're not interested in this most prestigious poker event then you're probably going to have to stop reading my blog until the end of June. I think you do secretly want to develop an interest in the Icelandic poker scene - don't you?

It's ok, I don't have a 'hits counter', I'll happily talk to myself, makes no difference to me.

I’m not sure how much of my new Icelandic knowledge I’m actually going to use in the tournament coverage, but I do think it’s good to be prepared. I may just slip it into a hand story that 'the Great Geysir' in South West Iceland can spew a jet of water 200 feet into the air.

Or that there are twice as many sheep in Iceland as people?

That they have 13 Santa Clauses at Christmas?

To be honest I'm sitting here wondering how I'm going to write this thing without mentioning geysers. Most poker blogging seems to be 'x had this hand, the flop was y, and z won.' I can do geyser stuff, it's the xyz I might find tricky. I have a tendency to forget whether y comes after x. And I might get confused about whether it's x, y, or q at the end there? I might be expected to know how many chips q won in that hand too? That's numbers and letters at once! Can I just talk about the geysers, please?

Don't worry, I'm not really terrified. I just need to concentrate, and work hard, and write lots of notes, and tell Steve that he's far too big a distraction, so, no, he can't come too.

I decided that I could either spend the next few weeks being scared silly about this serious poker writing experience, or else be productively worried in finding out all about the teams and countries I'm going to follow.

So I decided I’m going to write to Bjork. Wouldn’t it be great if she sent a message of support to the Icelandic poker heroes?

I had an Iceland team poker joke planned too, but then I realised that US readers won’t have seen those ‘My Mum went to Iceland’ TV ads. I do like that frozen food store... It’s so true - Mum’s really are heroes. They heroically shop at Iceland in order to serve up oven chips and micro-sausages, because their heroically not bothered about spending ages cooking real and nutritious food for their sprogs. Good on them! I’m a hero too... I have better stuff to do with my time than peel carrots and chop garlic...

Like try to borrow the camera off Marketing Conrad..? I need to get used to it before this tournament, otherwise I might have a whole nation hating me because the only photo of their victorious team had arms cut off, and blurry faces with red eyes... I haven’t researched Polish culture yet, but it could be that all limbs have to be showing? I know some countries are funny about specific body parts. Like in Greece if you wave it's rude..? Or is it Spain with pointing fingers? I know some counties are funny about photos too. Is it Nicaragua where if you take a picture they think it captures your soul? Or Afghanistan and it breaks your heart? Anyway, the point is that if I research the culture and history of the teams I'm following I might be able to use this in a hand story too.

Yes, like...

Polish Helga and Icelandic Eric consider a flop of A 5 3. Helga bets out - Iclandic Eric re-raises. Helga calls, and so they see the turn. It's a 2. Erik points and laughs derisively at this card. Helga glares at Erik's culturally insulting finger (she has a Spanish background.) Helga goes all-in, perhaps on tilt? Erik calls, and turns over 33 for a set. Helga smiles as she shows her Ace 4 and the straight! Erik is openly weeping now, a torrent of tears resembling a geyser from his Icelandic homeland.

I take a photo of Helga's moment of victory - just as the river is dealt. Another 5! Helga's heart is broken! Erik has the full house and Helga sobs and slumps into her chair, as if my camera-click stole her very soul, as fabled in Nicaraguan legend... The river card has left Helga a mere poker ghost, as the Polish nation mourns the cruelty of that fateful final card... Erik joyfully lifts the cup, as Bjork steps forward to congratulate him. She'd received my email and been excited to see her nation's success.

As Bjork croons 'Human Behaviour' Conrad tells me that I'll never blog for PokerStars again.

Yes, could write stuff like that. I'm also getting some tips from other poker writers I know, everything from make up chip counts, to write in Word because it has grammar and spell check, and write bland, but fast, to impress marketing people.... And I have a long list of other ideas to help me become a proper poker journo by mid-June. I need to read every poker blog I can, that's top of the list. Because I don't really think you're supposed to mention geysers..? I did promise Simon from Greece I'd use the word 'frock' somewhere on the Barcelona blog. Maybe the story about the time I displayed the word 'Frock' in the lobby of our software, when there were 20,000 players online? Maybe not...

Anyway, the important thing is that I try my very best with this. I really don't want to let anyone down, or, much more importantly, look like an idiot. I still don't know if PokerStars know what they're doing. I guess we'll find out in June.

Shit! (But in a nice way)

2006-05-16T12:15:00.000Z

Please note that I didn't use the word 'fuck' as a subject heading. This is because I'm being a proper writer today, you know the sort that writes mainstream stuff for lots of people to read, you know on proper webpages and stuff. Eeeeeek! Nearly said 'fuck' again. Must try to tone down the 'fucks'.

Aaargh!

Maybe 'aargh' isn't proper-writer-english either?

Aaargh! I don't know...

I've just been told I'm going to Barcelona to write the PokerStars blog for the World Cup of Poker. Barcelona! ~~Fuck~~... Writing the official blog! No swearing allowed! ~~Fuck!~~ All on my own...! In June. Not long... Aaargh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

I have a few weeks to sort the fuck/aargh/crappy writing problem, and to practise counting chips, and taking photos, and whatever-the-fuck-else proper poker bloggers do. I'll have to ask the boyfriend, it's his job.

Don't worry! It will be fun! Of course it's a big responsibility. Yes, but most importantly it will be fun. I think if you write like you're having fun it makes a fun read? So that's the gameplan. Fuck accurrate chipcounts and proper poker shit like that. Yes. Some kind of special stickers might be needed to help with this..? I'll have to think. Yes. Need magic.

No I don't. I just need to write sensibly about poker. I can do that. And still have fun too!

It's a big resposibility, of course. It's a huge responsbility..! Yet it might also be happy, silly (magic) fun. Yes fuck it is! Do you think PokerStars know what the fuck they're doing?

BT smell of poo

2006-05-15T21:48:00.000Z

BT's broadband DVD makes it look so simple. A calming voice guides you through each stage of the installation process. There are animations to watch, and boxes to check. It's devised for people like my Mum, who know a computer is beige and has a plug. It's reassuringly based on colour-coded cables with matching slots, joining these together is described in simple language. 'Have you found the grey wire?' Yes/No? 'Ok, look for the grey wire in the brown box. Here's a diagram to show you where the grey wire is located in the brown box.'

Did you find the grey wire now?'' Good. Now look at the grey wire, it has 2 ends, can you see the two ends?'

'When you plug the grey wire into the grey hole the green light comes on.'

No it fucking doesn't!

'Please don't worry if the light doesn't come on, we can deal with this just a little later...'

Yeah, 12 days later!

I've got no internet until some BT technician can come to my house to sort out my phone line on the 22nd. And in case you're wondering, yes I did try both ends of the grey wire. Every BT broadband helpdesk fucker asked me to try both ends of the grey fucking wire. 'No 'fuckings' from those fuckers though, they were ever so polite. The apologies for keeping me on hold while they looked up the grey wire manual ('The grey wire has 2 ends? Ah, I'll ask...') went on almost as long as the tadadeddahdedompdedahdah music while I waited on numerous bored helpers. You know it's bad when they put you on hold to 'locate your case file'. I imagine my BT broadband case file will be a full, fat, file of information, yet still all members of BT staff neglected to add the important note, 'She tried swapping ends with the grey wire.'
It's a DSL cable you fuckers! The colour is irrelevant and both ends are exactly the same!

I bet BT switch batteries around to see if that works when their battery powered broadband machinery fails. No wonder the broadband connection to my house is screwy, maybe the technician will show up, dig up the road to find the cable, and then try swapping ends?

With no internet at home I've felt less inclined to blog. This has been excellent for the progress of the sceenplay I’ve started writing. I haven't been so excited about a screenplay idea since... Well, since the last one. No, but seriously it's good. Very good. In fact I think it's going to be brilliant. Great ending. Good beginning. I'm working on the middle, but there are bits I really like a lot.

I'm at that overly-optimistic stage. The trick is to keep writing when I'm 90% done and it's starting to bore me, and the next idea is enticing me with the thought that it's the best thing I've ever come up with...

No, but seriously, this screenplay is good. So with broadband problems and screenwriting love affairs I can't promise many blog updates. Probably just every lunch hour when I sit in Soho Square...

So if I had been blogging over the last few days I wonder what would I have blogged about? It feels like a lot's happened. Lots of ups and downs, and some downs and ups, but I've ended firmly up despite the downs. Thanks Steve.

And now I want to settle into my new house and be happy. I think that will be easy with someone nice to tell me the downs are very temporary.

Downs? Yes... I can't really talk about the GW, but the GW thing was bad. Steve gave me a pound to buy the GW. He said his Granddad did that whenever he had verucas. How very silly! But silly is very good. How can he even make me smile about the GW? I'll keep the pound somewhere special.

And there was Amy's bed. The removal men had to dismantle this to get it out of her room. When we came to build it last Friday we couldn't find the screws. The removal man had given Alex the Ex these screws. He thought these were for a bed that he was throwing out, so the screws ended up in the bin too.

Amy loves that high up bed, with its lilac tent-den underneath it. I spent 2 days in the week I left Alex building that bed, building it as if determined to prove some independent-woman point. I had blisters on my fingers, and cried when it defeated me. My brother visited a few days later, he built it for me, with blisters of his own, and I even heard a few muffled sobs.

So now I have that bed again, in pieces and with no screws. We tried to fix it on Friday, but it beat us then. Steve says he'll buy the right screws tomorrow. I don't feel worried about independence or blisters now, seeing Steve even a 'bed building' date will be fine. He mended Amy's bike, and we laughed about his manliness, and my insistence on calling pliers 'grabbers'. It can be fun dealing with a chore with someone eager to laugh about everything.

I have been an independent DIY superwoman at the weekend already. Amy wanted her bedroom blue. I said 'yes' so we spent Sunday afternoon decorating her bedroom. I spent most of it feeling crappy and mulling on the Steve-Amy dilemma, and wondering if I would be nuts to dump him.

The bedroom got painted. The painting was tricky, and of course it would have been easier if Amy hadn't been involved, but the room looked great in the end. I didn't dump anyone.

Amy's only comment about Steve was that he looked like xxx. And she laughed about him wanting to be a cowboy. I'd mentioned that he wanted to buy cowboy boots, and somehow she'd turned him into a ginger John Wayne in her head. I didn't put her right. I kind of agree with her. I notice a boyish enthusiasm in Steve sometimes, I think he has a 'playing cowboys' side to him, but thankfully he doesn't do serious gunfighting meanness. I still haven't found him the right sort of cowboy cactus as a housewarming present. I hope he gets his boots soon.

We're going to take Amy-Steve meetings cautiously now. I don't know when they'll meet again right now. I still find the idea of it difficult. My Mum never had a boyfriend after my Dad died. I think that was because of me and my brothers. If you put your children first it's easy to lose yourself in their welfare, to convince yourself you're doing the best thing by putting yourself last. I don't ever mind putting myself last for Amy, she's worth it. But Steve's here now, and I can't change that.

If I'd thought it through I might at least have been practical about whom I dated. One of my single mum friends had exactly the right idea when she joined an online dating site, smartly ticking the boxes for 'older man' and 'kids of his own'. I didn't think it through, and so somehow I've fallen in love with a 29 year old, who when asked what he knew about kids said, 'Well, I used to be one once.' Maybe he's young enough that his childhood memories aren't so far away..?

I care about Amy so much that it makes me a little crazy. I have lots of questions buzzing around about how it works when you love someone and also love your child? I have to keep telling myself that people make it work, but I don't have experience of it, and so I wonder 'how?'

Even something as simple as hugs. How do hugs work in these situations? I hug Amy lots, Steve too. Then I imagine being in the same room as both of them, and wanting to hug someone. How can I hug either? For now it seems easier to keep them in seperate rooms, and avoid complicated issues like hugs. They're both getting lots of hugs right now, and so am I. So that's good.

I do know it's not a long term solution. Steve, as usual, is being patient and kind about it all.

We'll have been dating two months on Sunday. And almost exactly a month before that we began emailing each other. Hundreds of intense email essays now fill up my inbox. I can't delete them.

I've decided my second favourite animal is a red squirrel. But that's another blog post...

Amy asked for a book about Jesus in the library today. She has a fascination with God stuff at the moment that I try neither to encourage nor discourage.

She would rather go to the National Gallery than the playground at a weekend, which suits me just fine. But she worried me the other day by a request to study Jesus pictures at the art gallery. Usually we look for dogs or friendly animals in the pictures, or else print out a tour and carefully give each picture a rating out of 10. Amy likes Jesus, and that's ok. I suppose... I went to Sunday school every week until my teens. Right, yes. Jesus, why not? I borrowed a book of children’s bible stories for her, I was happy that the one she chose at bedtime tonight was 'Jonah and the whale.'

I was happy because the very first story I ever tried to tell, in tiny scribbled handwriting in a little, lined, notebook, was a novel I decided to call, 'The Unwilling Prophet'. I was taken with the Jonah story and I'd decided to retell the bible story of Jonah. I wondered whether Amy would love the Jonah story in the same way I had?

'That was boring!' she declared. 'What did the whale have to do with anything?'

You know, she had a point. I never did finish my first attempt at a novel about that unwilling prophet. Instead I started writing episodes of the Professionals, with the emphasis on Doyle...

And now I write rambling blog posts, and overlong emails, and I'm a slave to my blogger.com and Hotmail bookmarks. I'm not sure why I was inspired by the story of Jonah so very long ago? I think I wanted to run away from stuff just like Jonah did. I think I still do, but there's never any escape, as Jonah found out. This week BT are the whale who've swallowed me up. On Monday they'll spit me out... Only I find the writing gods (or demons) can't be avoided, not even now. I'm finishing this up, and putting it on floppy disk to publish on another PC that has a grey wire in the right hole, and a green light that works as it's supposed to.

FA Cup Final

2006-05-14T21:45:00.000Z

Steve and I discussed the 'meeting Amy' thing last night. I asked him which of us was likely to be the most nervous about it. We weren't sure, but we both agreed that Amy was likely to be the only one not fazed at all by meeting 'Mum's new friend'. I asked Steve, 'on a scale of 1-10 how scared are you?' He said 15.

I told him I was a 15 too. Even though this annoyingly reminded me of my Granddad with his 110%'s for every slight effort. 110% and also 15 out of 10 simply aren't possible - but even knowing this was no defence against the ultra-scariness of boyfriend-daughter meetings.

I wanted to watch the FA Cup Final with Steve, and not Amy. Amy hates football, so if I watched with her the likelihood would be that she'd spend the whole match demanding to watch the Rugrats, or else asking for help with her drawing. I decided to ask a friend to look after her at 3pm on Saturday, so that I could watch the match in peace. The friend lived in Bermondsey, not perfect planning, but Amy was happy with the idea of seeing 2 old friends. So I met Steve to watch the match at 'The Old Kings Head' pub, in London bridge.

I don't know what to say about the game. I was so nervous. We scored early on, a lovely gift of an own goal, but I refused to be happy. I told Steve that I'd only relax if we scored 3 goals. Then 2 nil up, and Steve was counting on his West Ham karma bet coming good. I wasn't. I told him again that I wouldn't be happy until West Ham scored 3 goals. And of course Liverpool scored, and then equalised, and then West Ham were ahead again. At 3-2 I felt happy. I believed in West Ham karma, whether Steve's magic, or my own prediction that '3 goals and I could relax'. For a while I felt sure that West Ham would win, that this would be a good day... Until Liverpool equalised. Yeah, yeah, good goal etc. etc... I don't want to talk about the rest of it. It's probably best to just write 'aargh' or else 'fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck'.

Yeah, I was gutted. Fucking gutted. To lose on penalties is cruel of course. To be ahead on goals for the majority of the game, and to lose on penalties.... Fucking shite fucking aargh fuck grrr aargh fuck shite-wad fuck bastard.

So, I was upset after the game. As anyone would be who really cares about their team, and wants them to win, and thinks they may win. And they don't. Fucking penalties. Don't start me off with the fucking fuck fuck fucking penalties thing again...

Steve made the mistake of mentioning the past. My West Ham fan history is very much tied up with my Ex, and the best West Ham fan site on the net, and oh, other stuff I feel like I've lost, that still hurts a bit. I was upset that I'd lost hmm, stuff, and of course that we'd lost the FA Cup. I hadn't enjoyed a minute of the match of course, how can any match be enjoyable when so much is at stake? And I was watching it with Steve, not Alex. I wanted to be watching it with Steve, but it was just different. Steve pointed out that I didn't seem to be enjoying the football...

So yeah, stressful, sad afternoon. I was about 15 out of 10 on a tense scale all day. So after the match I'm not sure how it came about but Steve met Amy. In hindsight not the best timing. Amy looked cute in blue jeans and a blue tie-die T-shirt that made her eyes look even bluer than usual. Yes, she looked pretty that day. I'm sure Steve noticed that. As we travelled home Amy was happy, she gabbled engagingly and giggled a lot, I'm sure Steve noticed that too. Amy is a perfect 5 year old I think. I love her 110%, no fuck that 110000000000000000% on Grandpa's nonsense percentage scale. And I know that people do do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing when there is some other person's kid around, but I've never had to even think about that before. I don't know how that works.

It's not like Steve has ever had anything to do with kids before. So he's supposed to see me doing my Mum 11000000000000% in love with her kid thing, when he can't feel the same? He's supposed to take a back seat to my daughter, because I love him just about 10100000000000% but she needs me more than him? He's not supposed to be irritated by the fact that kids are work, and stress, and fucking annoying a large percentage of the time? So perhaps I'm being silly, and overreacting just a tad, but yesterday was an emotional day you know?

And though the first Amy-Steve meet thing went fine on the surface, and as far as those two were concerned. For me it was like another Cup final, a big occasion, just a little too soon after the last. So I decided the score was something like Amy 0, Steve 0, Jo 15 out of fucking 10. It ended up with Steve pouring a freshly made cup of tea down the sink to head home smartish, and me getting Amy to bed, then finishing off the fun I'd started with some Stella at the pub earlier.

So yeah, it was a bad day on Saturday. And I think only West Ham fans will be nodding along sympathetically and saying, 'Well after that match I'm surprised you didn't decide to take to Steve and Amy with your kitchen knife.' Pointing out that any jury of Hammer's fans would likely let me off.

So West Ham lost, and I turned into psycho-bitch, but it's because football matters - and I think for once I'll let myself off and just say fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking penalties. Like your fucking dreams they fucking fade and die, and all that crap.