The local Co-op has been refurbished. Not terribly mind-blowing as news goes, is it? But wait! You’ve only got half the story.  On Thursday, there was an official opening. You know, one of those swanky openings that have a superstar celebrity. Sadly, the Co-op being the Co-op, Jude Law was mysteriously unavailable so they got they next best thing: Keith Chegwin. Gawd. I don’t know who was more desperate, Cheggers or the Co-op.

The music burst through my office window as the off-duty local deejay shouted into his microphone at the collection of local primary school children and smattering of dusty old dears.

‘Let’s make some noize,’ he yelled at their bewildered faces.

The music was pumping as the posse of pensioners body-popped through gritted dentures to Steps and the Macarena. Cheggers appeared in time to count down excitedly to the 10am opening. I could hear him smiling inanely through my window but, no matter how hard I watched, I didn’t spot his limo. I think he may have come on the bus?

Once the automatic doors were opened, the marauding grannies flooded in, one at a time. The Co-op had been shut for three days, you see, and they’d run out of Rich Tea and Stork margarine.

Cheggers gamely tried a bit of pork pie* before checking he had his bus pass and shuffling off home.

I actually felt a bit sorry for old Keith. Oh, hang on, no I didn’t. Sorry about that.

* I made this bit up. I am quite sad. The body-popping pensioners rocked though. Hip displacement as entertainment. Mesmerising. It’ll be on Britain’s Got Talent before you know it. **

** You know I’m just joking, right? Being nice can be terribly dull sometimes.

Why I ever thought I would be brave enough to meet 16 strangers all in one go, I’ll never know. The Novel Racers, as a group, has been oomphing along for 18 months or so now. As an online writing group, it’s brilliant for helping those of along who are hesitantly groping our way along this writing lark in the dark. Without its encouragement I would probably have abandoned The Novel, given up writing and adopted a general air of misery.

So, online writing group = fab. Actually meeting and having to talk to real, proper writers who, unlike me, actually write stuff = absolutely terrifying. I woke in the morning with my tummy feeling proper scared. It was a washing machine, churning and gurgling away on stain-buster mode. If it wasn’t a blind date, it was a blind blogging orgy. What to wear? Which book to take in case anyone sneaked a peek? Should I sport a carnation waxed moustache for the purposes of identification?

‘So will you be taking one of those clever books you put on your blog or one of the cheesey ones you actually read?’ asked lovely bf. He can be quite cutting you know.

I took Mike Gayle’s Wish You Were Here. I hid it in my pyjamas though. No one will ever know.

Sitting on the train, I decided to jot, scribble and write my fears away.

Do not sit by Cal, it says. She is too clever, glamorous and tall and I will not be able to speak or stand up until she goes for a wee. Oh yes. When my notebooks are found after my death, I will be hailed a literary genius. Sigh.

My fears were unfounded. We managed to talk about bums and sex just like normal people do after drinking our own body weight in wine. Or was that just me? Oh.

So. Some lucky clever-clogs will get to peruse, amongst others, a ghostly, aging, sepia-toned local cottage, mainly obscured by a hedge; my new music stand; some honeysuckle wot I squirted wiv a squirter; some bits of deckchair in the dark. Oh yes, I bet they can’t wait.

My one example of being experimental, however, got the best feedback from No. 2 Son.

“Oh dear, Mitzy, what have you done to it?”

So, back the writing. Thank goodness for that eh? I’m feeling cheery that it’s done despite the fact that, now that I no longer need to be sellotaped the PC or coursework, the outside world appears to have become some film set for the re-making of Noah’s Ark.

To celebrate my joy, I am singing Ronan Keating songs in the style of Pavarotti. This sounds rather like Pavarotti with a peg on his nose, singing quite crap songs. I knew you were wondering.

Here, have yesterday’s example.

Wise boss: ‘The important thing is to always be one step ahead of others.’

I nod sagely, full of gravitas, before adding my own salient point. ‘Of course, being one step behind them means you can look at their bum.’

Bugger. I suspect it’s not Teletubbies that got me where I am today. It’s my inability to stop saying stuff with my mouth before it has been filtered through my Brian. It’s a puzzle because I never waste my Brian power on anything less than intellectual and stimulating. Sigh.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Buy a house somewhere near where I live already… nothing flashy. Something like this perhaps. A round kitchen and round library would be coolio. And a house in France, around the La Rochelle area because I love their diddy airport. Buy a house in Jersey for Mum (great investment too - the house, not my mother) and give a bit to those I love who would make the most of it. And I’d write and take photographs and open a little gallery so that talented people who haven’t got money/contacts/the opportunity to go to college could have a chance.

What are some snacks you enjoy?
Wine. That’s a snack, right?
Green & Blacks Butterscotch Chocolate
Tyrells salt and vinegar crisps

What were the last five books you read?
Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie (dipping in and out. Too good for half asleep reading)
Your’re Not the Only One (did I mention that I’m in this?)
Teenagers - What Every Parent Has to Know by Rob Parsons
The Book of Digital Photography by Chris George
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (haven’t decided whether I’m gong to get into this or not. Four sentences a night before I nod off doesn’t help)

What are five jobs you have had?
Chamber maid at hotel for disabled in Jersey. How many wet beds did I change as a 16-year-old?
Dental nurse (top line: “you might feel a bit of a prick”)
Robot type person at merchant bank in Jersey. Boring as anything. Abandoned good job with money to be
Director’s Assistant at Jersey Arts Centre - pretty cool until I got sacked for being pregnant
PA/Secretary type person at chickens/llamas/rural wotsit (current)

Five places that you have lived?
Jersey
Norf of Engerland (too young to remember and no remnant accent)
Jersey again (am a bit boring really)
Crouch End in North London (known as Couch End as full of psychotherapists)
Jersey again (a pattern? You think so?)
Teeny tiny village in East Sussex which I love and where I will stay until I run away to France (when I am a billionaire and respected writer and also not too bad at taking photos)

Who hasn’t done this then? Hullaballooooo? Jumbly? Nez?

Right… it’s nearly lunchtime. Shopping done. Rest of list to tackle. Luckily I didn’t write down any domestic duties so I won’t be able to do those now. The Power of The List cannot be ignored.

I went to The London on Saturday to see the Queen. Sadly, she was out at her weekly darts match. Shame really, I’ve heard she has Rich Tea and everything.

Luckily, all was not lost. We had tickets to see Joseph and plans for a pre-theatre grub-up at a carefully selected but unbooked restaurant. I was a little bit excited. I absolutely love going into London; despite it only being an hour or so away on the choo-choo, it’s a million miles from this sleepy village and the workplace chickens and agricultural oddities which make up my life.

Now, I am not very organised. I was also sadly born without any sense of direction whatsoever. Luckily, lovely bf has grandiose ideas now and again of being a Proper Man and Looks at Things on Maps.

We marched about for an hour or so, him looking at The Map and me randomly stopping to exercise my camera and making people tut.

Love bf started to grumble. ‘It’ll be closed down by the time we get there,’ he growled.

Hmmm.

I know I’m a sap for those telly programmes that can turn you into a West End star, celebrity chef or brain surgeon in 10 weeks. But when Lee Mead floated majestically onto the stage, I couldn’t help but cry. Look at me, I’m living my dream, his smile beamed. Tears burst out of my eyes even now, just thinking about it.

Writing is my dream. In France, with just enough money for food, books and wine without worrying.  It’s good to have something to strive for, no matter what it is or how impossible it seems. Any Dream Will Do, as Andrew Lloyd Wurlitzer would say. I guess it’s time to pull my finger out. Still miffed about the Queen’s biscuits though. Don’t worry, by the way. I’m not going to start boring you to death with photos (much).

So what’s your dream? Your real ‘if I had one wish’ dream? I’ve been Thinking Things and feel something fascinating happening. I’m intrigued to know what you think you would really change your life and make it perfect for you. You can leave a comment anonymously. I feel a project coming on…

You see, around three years ago, I had a different life to the one I have now. I didn’t live in a cul de sac. I lived in a nice house that I owned with a bridge and a river. I had all day to myself and went running, did yoga, flounced about in clothes from Jigsaw and generally had a very nice time.

But I wasn’t happy. I took a few packets of St John’s Wort and drank quite a lot of Merlot. I chuntered on (isn’t ‘chuntered’ a good word? It really does what it says on the tin.) about having to separate the strands of my life to see which bits were wrong because I really didn’t know. And no one else had the foggiest what I was talking about and just thought I was a miserable cow. And then, everything else crashed around me. It happens that way – the Universe likes to get its laughs where it can.

But I’d started writing. Hallelujah. I was saved by the power of the pen. Ugh, not really, I just thought I’d see if I could make you vomit. I have to get my fun where I can too. If it’s good enough for the Universe, it’s good enough for me.

But, actually, it’s sort of true. I’d always told people ‘I like to write’ though never actually wrote anything except lists of things that I might have forgotten due to aforementioned gulping of Merlot. I need to be creative, to write, to photographise things. Being creative from time to time also means I can make better use of the misery I secretly quite like. Can’t go round be jolly all the time, that really would be puke-inducing.

But I haven’t written anything for months; between the coursework, full time job and very slow editing of The Novel (now called Still Life I think - apt, too, given the speed I’m going) I can feel those feelings of dissatisfaction bubbling up again. But amongst those bubbles were a head-poppingly good idea that draws together the bits of The Novel together that were stranded. And like my own strands of life a few years back, just that one thing has made all the difference. Means a massive re-write before the August RNA critique deadline but hey ho.

So. There you go. Blimey, that was a bit boring, wasn’t it?

I’ll summarise, in case you nodded off. Have Had Idea. Will re-write or die. Will also write more new stuff before I go funny.

Will try to figure out why I woke up with the Jim’ll Fix It theme tune in my head and secretly hope that you, dear reader, will end up humming it too. Mwah ha ha, the power of brain bamboozlement is mine.

Every minute of every day, three children die as a result of war. That’s quite a lot, even if you can’t do maths. Children, fighting. Dying. Children just like ours.

What can you do? You can help raise the funds they desperately need. You can buy a book, here, where half the cost (or 10 Great British pounds if you buy the download) will go direct to War Child. You’ll be Doing Good and you also get an ace book to read.

You’re Not the Only One is a collection of previously unpublished intimate and personal stories from bloggers all over the world, reflecting the camaraderie of blogging and promoting great writing.

You even get to read a major misery-fest by me. But there are pieces by all sorts of fab and groovy writers so don’t let that put you off. (I’m in a book! I’m in a book! Oh dear, sorry about that.)

Peach has tackled a mountain of a job and produced something warm and worthwhile. Not only that, but it’s boosted my confidence when everything I had was sagging. I’m in a book! Wow! Maybe I really can write.

So what are you waiting for? Get your credit card out.  Click HERE. Oh go on, it might make you feel nice.

]]> http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F06%2F09%2Fwar-child-and-a-lack-of-alliteration-almost%2F&seed_title=War+Child+-+and+a+lack+of+alliteration+%28almost%29/feed/ http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F06%2F04%2Fof-reluctant-realisation%2F&seed_title=Of+Reluctant+Realisation http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F06%2F04%2Fof-reluctant-realisation%2F&seed_title=Of+Reluctant+Realisation#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:05:53 +0000 Jen http://www.spiralskies.com/?p=582 Awake at the crack of dawn as usual, I lay in bed listening to the Jurassic squeaks of the baby swallows in their mud huts outside the window. 5am and my mind lurched into action: had I remembered to edit the photos for work? Did I have anything clean to wear? Had No 2 Son emptied his lunchbox? Should I do photography coursework, edit the novel or actually do some writing before I clamber into my parachute harness of a bra and go for a run?

Ok. I admit it. I’m really tired. I know, I know. When you’re really passionate about something, there’s always time to fit it into your day. But what happens when you’re passionate about everything?

I don’t want to go to work today. It’s not that I don’t like my job; the work is interesting, I’m never bored, I get on great with the four other people in the office. It’s good. Really.

But I don’t want that to be my life. I can feel all my creative impulses slowly being tap-tap-tapped out of my soul. I miss writing; I want to pack up a bag and head down to Bexhill and take stark black and white photos of the pavilion or flounce around Brighton, searching for inspiration amongst the oddly pierced people in the twisting lanes, writing in coffee shops as salt and vinegar drifts into the sea air. But I’m not doing anything of those things.

And now I’ve wasted an hour of my life just sitting here, thinking that I can’t, just can’t, do everything. I haven’t studied or written or edited because it just all seems so hopeless.

I think I might need to have a little cry now. Best to get it over with early, don’t you think?

]]> http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F06%2F04%2Fof-reluctant-realisation%2F&seed_title=Of+Reluctant+Realisation/feed/ http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F05%2F28%2Fof-shameful-shopping%2F&seed_title=Of+Shambolic+Shopping http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F05%2F28%2Fof-shameful-shopping%2F&seed_title=Of+Shambolic+Shopping#comments Wed, 28 May 2008 20:44:12 +0000 Jen http://www.spiralskies.com/?p=579 I don’t even know why I thought it a good idea. Last time lovely bf and me ventured to Ikea, we didn’t speak for an entire week.

Now and again though, I get this urge. I think I’m bored with the chickens and fields and wellies. I think I want to be a bit metropolitan. Reader, I don’t know what came over me but yesterday I went to Bluewater. Gawd.

There are several reasons I should not go to such places:

1. I am very crap at driving on motorways. When I learnt to drive in Jersey, there was none of this multiple choice of lane. No lurching, heaving lorries to squish my scaredyness until squeaks pop out of my mouth. If you drive too far or too fast in Jersey, you drop off the edge. Infinitely preferable method of dying to motorways.

2. I don’t like shopping. I am no good at it. I get bored after 20 minutes and decide that I will do the shopping after a jolly good lunch and some fortification of the vino-related type.

3. I am quite easily swayed. Self-control, in my book, is something to do with choosing to wear concrete pants and steel bras.

But, I had a foolproof plan. Ikea first, for the compulsory purchase of bookshelves and shoe racks. Then Bluewater, where I would single-mindedly hunt down a new pair of glasses as my lenses have mysteriously become so scratched that I can barely see. And no, it’s not like when I picked my Clarks school shoes apart with a compass point because I’d wanted some from FreemanHardyWillis. I honestly don’t know how they became scraped just as I’d gone off them. No, really.

Lovely bf had somehow been persuaded that this would be tolerable, if not fun.

‘Maybe we should just go to Bluewater,’ I ventured en route. ‘We can order the furniture online.’

Lovely bf mumbled something at the hard shoulder. It sounded a bit like ‘oh, for fuck’s sake’ but he’d been instructed to wear his happy face and the words weren’t coming out clearly through his gritted teeth.

I’ll cut a long story short. I still can’t see; the joy of specs was shortlived. Lunch at Loch Fyne was good though. Somehow or other, I came home with a fruit bowl and an SLR camera, having become a little overexcited about an idea for a book: a photo and haiku to mark every day for a year. Lovely bf was a trifle disappointed with his purchase of some headache tablets.

Four hours of driving, four hundred quid and eight hours of my life later I was broke and still blind. Oh dear. Perhaps I need more practice?

]]> http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F05%2F28%2Fof-shameful-shopping%2F&seed_title=Of+Shambolic+Shopping/feed/ http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F05%2F23%2Fof-extraordinary-employment%2F&seed_title=Of+Extraordinary+Employment http://www.spiralskies.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiralskies.com%2F2008%2F05%2F23%2Fof-extraordinary-employment%2F&seed_title=Of+Extraordinary+Employment#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 06:00:30 +0000 Jen http://www.spiralskies.com/2008/05/23/of-extraordinary-employment/ I don’t talk about my job much, mainly due to having had my blog rumbled before I even started there. Trying to explain to your new potential boss via mobile phone through a mouth of egg sarnie in a Waitrose car park what you meant by describing him as ‘indecipherably posh’ is not a lunchtime pursuit I recommend.

But. How can I ignore it? It consumes a huge part of my day. It will also be consuming my Saturday.

While my usual working week usually contains a mix of old boys with farms and swathes of agricultural legal head-popping typing, there is the occasional glimmer of glamour. 70s rock stars, bullion dealers and llamas have featured briefly in the past week, amongst the chickens and silage. And tomorrow will be in a class of its own: I will largely be found making cups of tea on a Calor Gas stove aboard a double decker bus to which will be attached a marquee for our clients’ drinking pleasure. If it rains today, as forecast, I’ll be performing this clever routine in wellies.

I have always wanted to be outstanding in my field. Tomorrow, I shall simply be out, standing in a field. Loitering within tent, as it were.

Fodder for the next novel? You really think so?

It’s hideously hard, pouring so much time and emotional energy into something that will almost certainly sink without trace. I could hardly remember how I managed to sit there last summer, trying to wrench out at least a hundred words so I wouldn’t have to lie when asked how I was getting on at the end of the day.

Never. Again.

But I had an idea last week. I don’t think it’s even a new idea – it’s just one that keeps bubbling up and getting stronger each time. A bit like the smell of a blocked drain really. The Idea came while I was driving to work and I dashed up the stairs to my office, scribbling frantically to get it down before it evaporated for another few months.

And. I had another idea this morning. Well, it was a dream actually which became An Idea when I woke up properly. Bursting bladders have a lot to answer for. It wasn’t even just The Idea for a story – it had the characters and lines of dialogue and everything, fizzling and sizzling and spitting hot fat at me. I had to get up, despite it being 5.20am, to write it all down before I made a mess. Hmm, great image there; my new story is clearly a sausage.

Now that my first cup of tea has gone down the hatch, the initial euphoria has worn off and I’m wondering whether I should knit the two Ideas together. Or whether they’re actually both crap and I should’ve stayed in bed. Sausages and blocked drains; perhaps that sums it up.

God. I hate writing.

***

On another note entirely, lovely bf has made an observation:

When Princess Diana was alive, she used to visit war-torn countries strewn with landmines. Fergie, God bless her, has been sent to Hull. The Royals aren’t what they were, are they?

Hmmm. I think I’m having a mini-mid-life crisis. I don’t like being 39. I blame the ‘life begins at 40′ thing: I somehow feel that the next 355 days or so are the end of an era somehow. Not in a bad way; just life being marked. A defining thing.

I want it all. I really do. Predictably, I’m on yet another ‘get thin’ regime. I’ve been running nearly every day and lovely bf hasn’t sniggered even once while trying to winch me out of bed the following day when my muscles and joints are seizing up. Needless to say, he doesn’t quite get the mid-life thing. I’m not sure it’s entirely fair that he’s only just turned 32. Perhaps I should trade him in for a doddery old duffer and then I’d be all spritely by comparison?

I haven’t done even an eeny weeny bit of editing; when the new sofas for the conservatory come, that will be the place to edit. No, really. I mean it. Honest Guv.

Yes, dear reader, living in The Cul de Sac means that I now have a conservatory from which to watch my life hobble past. It’s a beast of a room and will be separated into two areas: a chill-out zone with huge great big sofas for sprawling editing and the other end containing a new dining table at which we will hold dinner parties in a most middle class sort of way. It’s getting to me, The Cul de Sac. I’ve even bought new clothes. From Boden. Shhhhhh… you see what I mean? It’s all creeping insidiously into me; I even conformed and put the recycling bins out in a co-ordinated fashion on Tuesday. I didn’t mean to. But every other house had their bins lined up like soldiers by their beds. I couldn’t help myself.

Good Lord. 7am now, time for a run before I wriggle into my flippy skirt or hotchpotch top. Bloody hell. How on earth am I supposed to be a writer when I carry on like that, eh?

I’ve been neglecting you. You sat there, despondent, empty, waiting for my input and there was none. Zilch. Bugger all.

Soz.

I’ve been busy, Blog. I’ve cluttered up the new house with things I’ll never need and can’t find the essentials. My lady’s bathroom accoutrements are missing; I now go by the name of Olga and have been asked sweetly by lovely bf whether I will be taking up shot putting.

I have ripped brambles out of the garden with my bare hands and resemble a murder with cuts and bruises everywhere.

I have tried to catch up with my photography course. Mission, should you wish to accept it: Message in a Bottle.

‘Yes, I really feel you’ve found your level in academia,’ smiles lovely bf as I stumble about madly, clutching camera and half-empty wine bottle.

I’ve also had another birthday and have that sinking feeling that, during this last year of my 30s, I should be achieve something in the next 360 days.

But still, the sun’s shining and the swallows are a-swooping. What better day to start my shot putting career. I’ve got the frowning and grunting part mastered so far…

This morning, however, I woke up full of beans. Well, not actually ‘full of beans’, because I don’t really care for bean-related foodstuffs but you know what I mean.

I wandered down the stairs at 5.45, thinking about Extra-Strong Tetleys and perhaps a pre-work jaunt with the faithful canine. In the kitchen, a mountain of gross, greasy dishes peered lazily at me and I said a few more swear words. I said them quietly, of course. I live in a cul de sac now, you know.

So. Broken down dishwasher. Bugger. But things could be worse, I thought. Oh, hang on. I didn’t think it, I manifested it. Mwah ha ha ha, said the tap. I’ll run, run, as fast as I can. You can’t stop me, I’m the cul de sac tap. The water spurted and spattered. Then the dishes carefully unpacked and put away in the under-sink cupboard began to float away as H2o burst from every available pin prick of piping.

‘Gosh,’ I thought in a middle class sort of way. ‘How terribly inconvenient.’

I didn’t really think that. I thought something that rhymes with (bourgeois) frolics and begins with a ‘b’. I even said it out loud with my mouth. Quietly though, just in case.

I emailed Landlord. At 6am. When he called me back at 7 I grabbed at the biro to scribble down the emergency plumbing number. The biro I grabbed was having some sort of fit, oozing a tar-like substance all over my hands. No, I’ve no idea how I got it all over my face either.  But the black and white minstrels look is still very popular in the more rural parts of Sussex so that’s good.

Yes, it’s all going swimmingly, thanks very much for asking.