the day got worse... almost didn't go to London as I was feeling rather negative but thought it would cheer me up a bit, and it did. Had a very pleasant drink in the Barleymow on Curtain Road and an excellent meal in Brick Lane, maybe I was a little too relaxed as I ambled to Liverpool St as I missed the last train but undaunted I jumped on the tube to get to King's Cross thinking I had loads of time... of course that was without the inordinate wait in a tunnel somewhere under Old Street... got to King's Cross only to see an empty platform! really couldn't face a 4 and a half hour wait at King's x so caught the train to Peterborough and dozed the journey arriving there sometime after two thirty... slept on Jake's sofa and returned to Cambridge feeling very tired... went to get the bike and all that was left was my lock, unlocked. My beautiful little Giant was gone........ feel very very .....bereft....

Everything seemed to go wrong this morning! woke ridiculously early as Josh's alarm starts sounding at 5.30... it wakes me not him, it continues until I get up to remind him it is morning ... I usually offer to give him a lift to work, he has to be there at 7.30 so at 7.15 he emerges complaining that he is tired, and yet he has been sleeping for the previous two hours!!!!!!!!!! (you can tell cant you that I am getting a little fed up with this particular morning routine)

this morning all went as usual and I returned home, got out of my car and walked towards my flat only to realise at that point that I had no keys. Last night the ex was round, he is collecting a sofa I have purchased from ebay this morning and so I gave him my keys so he could simply drop the sofa in in the daytime.... so there I was semi-pyjama'd hair tied in last nights scrunchy, unable to get in... so had to drive back into town, park the car and walk across the backs, into Queens College, walking all around in search of Josh, luckily I found him before he climbed on to the roof, where he has been working recently!!!!

Got to work late only to receive an email from sofa people that there would be no-one in as their son had to go to hospital... so had to phone Jake and his dad to say sofa collection was off, god knows when this sofa will actually arrive!!! ... all before 9.00 this morning! Now at work and totally unable to concentrate... and that has nothing to do with meeting an old flame this evening in my old haunt The Foundry.....

had another ridiculous guardian soulmates date on Saturday.... oh and yes by now I should have learned... I should know better!!!

the chappie involved lives in Exeter and despite his absolute adoration of jazz (I utterly hate it) for some reason I thought I might be able to put such massive differences aside .... and so I thought Avebury would be a good half way point to meet... haven't been there in a while and I do love the place so I reasoned that I could cope with an afternoon there even if the date was none too exciting!! Am I cracking up or what, I totally went into this totally not expecting to like the bloke... and guess what........ the date was not noted for the flying sparks!!! It was quiet and sort of muted... I chatted away inanely of course, I can do the verbal diarrhea thing with ease but it was sort of non-consequential stuff... I felt uninvolved... the stones were beautiful the sky a gorgeous blue the sun was beating down, the site is magical... perfect setting heh!!!

and I drove for 5 and a half hours! for a pleasant cup of coffee????????? no hope really.... the 2and a half hour drive back tho' was splendid as I dove passed nearly every town's firework display... catching glimpses of exploding colour all the way home

rushed out of work yesterday to catch a bus to London, it seemed a better (cheaper) thing to do than catch th etrain but as soon as I got on the bus I became aware of a distinctly unpleasant odour emitting from the loo at the back of the bus.... 2 hours of breathing in the foul fetid air... and the bus was running late... not a good start to the evening at all... but as soon as I had escaped the nauseousness of the bus into the fresh London air (?) it got vastly better... went to S's new place and we headded off to Brixton, which was simply a short bus ride away

running late we queued for the obligatory 2 pints, the band came on and we headed into the crowd .... it was full but we managed to get pretty near the front, on the Ladies side, and as the floor is so slopey even I got to see The Raconteurs!!! The set was loud and rocking, very reminiscent of something that was happening in the 70's but with an edge of today there too.... They were good, very very good! It was lovely to be back at a gig with S, particularly Brixton which is easily my favourite gig place

Sometimes I think I am making this up!!! Tell me if you agree...

Friday, after having a Thursday night which involved far too many beers for a woman of my age!, I arrived at work to find my main task of the morning was to go to the bus station, meet a bus arriving from Bedford and help a blind Imam get to the railway station and on his train to Norwich!!! So off I went having been advised I would have no problem recognising him! So the bus arrived, I was totally in the wrong place so ran round to the bay and had no doubt that the hatted suited chap with white stick was my man! The next two hours were full of conversation...he was very pleasant if a little odd company! He liked to be known as the rhyming Imam and certainly had his favourite rhymes... such as 'never fear the Imam is here', which he threw into the conversation more times than you would have thought possible! But despite this we had a conversation about Islamophobia and Jack Straw's recent pronouncements and remarkably we agreed rather a lot. He was totally in favour of Imam's learning and speaking English, he felt that at times even he had found it difficult to communicate with a heavily veiled woman and made the point that it was a cultural choice and not actually a religious requirement......

The afternoon found me in the Old Schools



having a glass or two of wine at someone's leaving do...

Saturday I got up reasonably early and cycled into town, to the museum of Arch and Anth to go to a drawing workshop...didn't really know what to expect but got there in a hurry to find about 20 people in a side room having coffee and biscuits... it was all very friendly... the guy who was leading the workshop explained what was happening... they had covered the floor in newspapers and we were free to draw all over them... we went up to the gallery initially to see what it all looked like, I so wish I'd taken my camera! The floor was liberally covered- all around the exhibits, which, seeing as it was the main room were cultural artifacts from all over the world.... I noticed the newspapers were also from all over the world... when we went in the room I was fascinated by the newspapers as the museum staff had even tried to match the exhibits with their respective newspapers! At one point I realised I was drawing over both El Mundo and the US Times... anyway we were given three felt tip pens and told to go for it! It was odd at first, I started drawing a little Maori boat and got quite carried away with the beautiful patterns... spent ages on it... it was sort of isolating, I had totally switched off from everyone else there.. but after finishing my bit I started wandering and saw other doodles, gorgeous patterns and larger creations and found the whole exercise really rather free... started having fun.... drawing a little Inuit kayak over an advert for a car and an African woman with child on her back over the careers pages of the SA Times... really enjoyed myself ... and so it seems did everyone else!

The afternoon found me in a snooker hall playing snooker with my ex and younger J... very odd... watched the England game there and sadly left disappointed as not a goal was scored! The evening went to the climbing wall which was really quiet and for the first time climbed a 25 ft wall without the aid of a rope and it didn't scare me!! Must be getting better!

So although no new dancing partner has presented himself, I have my exhibition to prepare for and would love to make my job a little more permanent.... it's all good stuff!

it's not often that any asks me if I am a Mathematics student but today it happened... new job took me to the Fresher's Fair here in Cambridge and I was amazed as I walked around as I was not the oldest person in the room and many of today's undergraduates were happy to ask me to join their societies. I was there actually to offer them money which was a pleasant little role to have!!!

Nice job, pity it's just for 4 weeks

Watched a new version of Jane Eyre on TV this week...


the good old BBC has really followed the boook really really well, some of the scenes are just right... the character playing Helen Burns was undoubtably perfect! Thought the actor that played Mr Rochester was very familiar and today realised that he was the same chappy that played the male lead in Tennant of Wildfell Hall which didn't follow the actual plot at all. Oddly the woman that played the female lead in that is also playing the evil aunt in Jane Eyre, makes me wonder ... that a guy is able to continue playing lead roles for lots longer than a woman can??? or maybe it's just me struggling with my age old ageism..... it's a bit shitty to be a massive ageist person getting old... cant happen to racists... they dont get black!!!.. more's the pity

another thing that spoils my enjoyment of Jane Eyre is Jane's massive overbite... she does at times have a distinctly Marge Simpson look about her....

Another day, another new job... at least it's sort of how life feels at the moment! Actually got headhunted, or should I say temp hunted last week. Had an email from someone I worked with in the press office last year. They are now working for a different but connected dept and she wondered if I wanted to help out for the next four weeks. There was no reason no to jump at the chance. I had become a little tired of working solely on one project and this job is all over the place. There's events to organise, meetings to go to and yesterday I even found myself trying to secure unpaid work experience for a few local ex-homeless ex drug addicts ! Much more interesting indeed

The other weekend I had a moment of pure jealousy and it was not pleasant at all! Bit of a shock really... S had sent a text on the saturday night that I didn't actually see until sunday lunchtime.... and it made me turn completely green... S was at the Scissor sister gig in Trafalgar sq and I sooooo wanted to be there... it's a few years since we first saw the sisters and they were always an enjoyable gig. Think my favourite was the dance tent at Glastonbury! That was amazing and as I had managed t osqueeze my way right to the front it felt a very personal little show!! In fact that's what they have always felt like, somehow the sisters have made it feel like an intimate little gathering and you were a special part of it regardless of how many people are actually in the audience... so I was jealous and there was nothing I could do but get over it...

Went surfing in Newquay last week...



well I say surfing but............. it just didn't quite happen. Arrived wednesday all excited, the waves looked enormous and fairly choppy but standing at the top of Fistral beach they never look too big until.... got up thursday morning donned the rash vest wetsuit outfit that I had not needed in Hawaii and selecting a different board to try out ( a mini mal Bic 6'10) did my excited trot wavewards... the water was cold but not breathtakingly so and it was so clear it was stunningly beautiful. I stood for a moment looking out feel calm and excited at the same time. There was a slight problem in that there was no discernible channel to use to swim out as the waves were breaking all over the place but I walked and jumped through the baby stuff, jumped on my board and started paddling. Then hit brick wall after brick wall, at one point I didn't know whether I was up or down, swimming or simply drowning. Wave after wave pounded me. I tried walking holding the tip of my board but got bashed to pieces, I tried a dive through the waves but got upended and swatted unmercifully. My arms very soon became like dead weights and utterly useless so I retreated to the waters edge and watched others, whilst actually gasping for air.... I wasn't the only one having the same problems but I've never been a particularly strong swimmer and I knew that my arms were actually knackered... so that was it for the first day......... I couldn't even get out to try the board or see if I could still do the standing up thing.

next morning the air was still. It was beautifully warm, there was clear blue sky and it had a balmy summer's day sort of feel.... trouble is that presaged something I didn't even want to consider a possibility... drove down to fistral and stood watching the water...yes it was water.. there were no waves at all, barely a discernible ripple! Had to stand with the surfer's chill and accept it was not to be... so decided that friday night had to be hitting the town night and had a marvellous bop in a place called the Walkabout... felt recognisably female and got chatted up and danced with and one little chap even asked for the slow dance thingy at the end of the night... I had felt I was in my element! No longer the invisible woman at all....

Saturday no waves

Sunday long clean breaks so got on the shorter board and promptly fell off it... turns out it was much too small for me and I didn't do much more that play in the white stuff... then I got a stomach bug, haven't felt so ill since... I cant remember ever feeling so ill... spent most of the night in the camp site loos as the tent seemed like miles away!! So finally monday I had the right size board, the waves were probably the best I've ever seen in the UK.. and I was rubbish... gave up, got my camera out and took loads of pictures of sand...



it's remarkable how similar sand shaped by water is to mountains shaped by rivers... so my surfing in Newquay turned in to a bit of a non surfing trip but hey it was good to get away and it was sunny... drove non-stop home just to see if I could do it.. took 6 hours... have felt completely knackered all week since my return....

it's saturday and I'm in Cambridge, the computer is connected and I have a new job...

so once again a new start a new beginning... I wonder if I should be getting tired of it but so far I'm finding it new and exciting

the oddest realisation is that by doing this I am really putting myself first as when working at Mepal I have been pretty tired in the evenings and although I have a climbing wall at hand I just haven't felt up to using it...now I'm sitting at a desk all day I have bundles of energy left over for me! So am cycling to work, climbing with Jake on a regular basis and now looking out a yoga class and will swim a couple of times a week too... I have actually put on weight this summer too, have quite a bit of a belly so am not eating cakes, biscuits or any chocolatey stuff for a least a month.... and next week I go surfing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

watched Riding giants last night and oddly it made me want to jetski again! There's a sequence at the end with Laird Hamilton



talking about how they surfed Peahi (Jaws) and just seeing them play on the surf reminded me of how I used to love zipping around on one of those things... will have to check out somewhere next weekend maybe

it's my last day here at Mepal.... odd in that I found a job I love and I am leaving it early in the season??????????? trouble is I can see myself getting less and less enthusiastic.... it's the repetetive nature of the role really.... I feel in need of some sort of progression and however good an instuctor I am that's it.... and I want to change things, to try out my own ideas and see if other systems are better... this place is on the way out anyway... either there is a massive input very soon to update everything and move it forward, i.e. make it a caving and climbing centre with new walls, new activities...if not it is going under and I don't really want to watch that....

Went to see A Scanner Darkly last weekend... eminently watchable film, Linklater has filmed so many different films... from A school of Rock(sucky) to Before Sunset/ Before Sunrise (excellent) to Waking Life (utterly mesmerising)... that I was keen to see how this one would work out as it was using the same animating techniques of Waking life.... it worked really well, mostly, Robert Downey jr was fascinatingly brilliant (what were those pink shoes about???) and Woody Harrelson very funny (loved the mountain bike scene) although the animation neither added to their parts nor took anything away. With Keannu it was slightly different as he has always been rather woooden in his performances and somehow?? that woodenness translated into the animation?? god knows how but Keannu animated was still indescribably 2d??? maybe he is an animation in real life??? mmmm maybe it's time for me to go to bed...!

Love the weather at the moment! Spent the morning yesterday with four 11 year olds snorkeling! Actually had two solid hours in the water without getting cold, although my lips did turn blue! The lake here has miraculously clear water as the ground is mainly sand and gravel so the water is continuously filtered. It means that you can actually see whatever is swimming around... and we have some enormous carp, a shoal of about 20 rudd, a couple of pike and loads of smaller perch...and they are happy for us to swim with them... in the afternoon a large group didn't turn up and as it was so nice we simply played in the lake all afternoon. Paddled a surfski thing around most of the time, it's a large flattish floaty thing that is perfect for floating on the lake slowly pootling around, lying in the sun..... aaahhhhh!

This morning up really early and glanced out of my window to see a few rabbits hopping about, accompanied by a greenwoodpecker also hopping around with them, usually see them in the air, was odd to see it so close up.... my reactions are just not too good,I should have got my camera out!

I am a woman in love. and I am happy!

No it's not another 'dancing partner' think I've given up there......... the object of my happiness is quite simply my new ipod!



I bought it in hawaii and have been ploddingly downloading all my music on to it's itunes since and adding gradually to it's memory over the last few weeks....

and now it travels everywhere with me and the shuffle selection brings me surprises all the time. Aamzing how I just don't know my own music! and now I am adding to it by making up some playlists.. oh the pure and simple pleasure of it all.... but one thing I have noticed and time is confirming my suspicions.... i think it has a mind of it's own.... you see it seems to be able to reflect my mood! There are many times that, rather than a random selection chucked out by the shuffle thingy, it selects by moods.... it can play really loud, Nirvana, Foo fighters, Razorlight etc etc just when I am in a very loud and busy mood...othertimes the gentle jack johnson, rufus wainwright, sufjan stevens and the like get played... ??? Does it make sense?

The funniest sight tho' was when I showed my father my photo's from Maui, all now stashed on to the photo's bit, and set up to show as a slideshow... he just didn't get it... he wasn't impressed at all... don't think he realised that these were pictures I had actually taken?

Spent the weekend in the sun on the Isle of Wight at what was a little festival but has pretensions for something much bigger.... and it was good!!! The weather was utterly incredible, for the first time ever at a festival there was no rain, not only no rain but not a threat of rain, nor even barely a cloud in the sky... for the whole four days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soooooooooooo new discoveries were 'Delays' and Dirty Pretty Things, though I was expecting much from DPT's I had never heard of the Delays at all...they were a bit hippydippy and definitely a summer festival sound, the lead singer had the most amazing falsetto that sounded actually more choirboy than adult man... it was good- honest!... and Carl Barat from DPT's was solidly good, Bang Bang... their new single, decidedly aimed at the demise of Pete Doherty, came across really strongly. Think they are glad to leave his antics behind and just get on with the music. Lou Reed was a bit grumpy, but then he was Lou Reed and well what do you expect. He did a quick version of 'Waiting for your man' which I rather liked.... Foo Fighters were a very professional top class sort of band, there was a lovely moment when Dave Grohl returned to the drums and Taylor Hawkins took on the vocals...didn't like The Editors at all as they just seemed Morrisey clones... Prodigy got everyone jumping, Placebo and Primal Scream both did solid sets and Coldplay did their most excellent live performance... I find it really odd that a band I never was impressed with in the slightest can be so different live... they really come to life and actually rock, and rock loud! Somehow their songs have meaning and they rock!!??I find it all rather inexplicable....??

Took time returning and sort of went via a beach in Shanklin... getting off the ferry though it would have been so easy to turn left instead of right, those signs saying "The West' were really calling out loud....

but headed back towards Cambridgeshire and am now back working at Mepal and I feel I just don't want to be here.....

Ok so here it is a picture of me riding a wave, hmmmmm yes it is small and I am studying my feet but ...............!

My role was pretty easy.. I had to drive the girls to the beach, unload the surfboards and then join in withthe surf lessons!! Tough heh! Must admit to not actually getting started with the yoga as I found I had gopher type things to do and it was better to get them done during the yoga than miss a surf lesson... we had other things of the agenda too... one afernoon a lady came to do a psychic reading!! I have never been to one of these before so I couldn't resist the tempation to sit in and see what happens. She was a forty something American lady, very pleasant and smiley and she explained that when she was channelling she would actually be 'taken over' by a member of the spirit world so would sound different... she did... she had an accent of a bombay gentleman!! which was a little disconcerting! So people started asking questions and the answers were seemingly very apt, felt the need to ask something as everyone was so I said

'I have sorted out the work thing but can you tell me about my relationships' I sort of left this open as I thought that maybe she/he would give some advice about my relationship with Josh!

A big beaming smile spread across her face and she laughed... she chuckled as she said to me ' Well I can see you have danced with many partners' !!!!!!!!!!!!!! a nice way of putting it I thought, she went on to tell me that I was going to the wrong dancing classes that it was as if I was an advanced salsa dancer looking for a partner in a beginners ballroom class, and that I should really think through the type of 'dancer' I was meeting and maybe change tactics a bit as I became disappointed quickly because I was making the wrong choices!!!!!!!!!hmmmmmmmmmm

The retreat was held on the east side of the island which was considerably warmer that the west and isn't so windy. The sun was shining most days and it had that balmy air of the tropics. Plant life was incredibly flamboyant ad I was walking round in a state of blissful amazement most of the time. In fact I don't think I have smiled so much ever before.

The women on the yoga/surf retreat were an interesting bunch of ladies to say the least and time was spent learning about their lives in a relaxed and beautiful setting. We had one of the larger cottages as HQ and we were dispersed around in a variety of cottages and hotel rooms, so you had your own space to escape to if needed. It was an ideal combination....

So spent a couple of days in Pa'ia wandering around, sitting on the beach at Baldwin, going to Mana foods which was a rather large and very friendly health food shop where all of Pa'ia seemed to come to socialise. Very soon I was starting to recognise people and everyone greeted one another with cheery Aloha's and big enveloping hugs... it was a very very warm atmosphere to be in after the chill of Cambridge

Stayrd with Me-Shell for a couple of days to help in the preparations of the retreat. Had my first driving lessons in a jeep carrying 8 surfboards! Driving for the first time ever in an automatic was excellently easy, driving for the first time everon the wrong side of the road took a little longer to get used to but after a couple of days I was able to negotiate junctions reasonably competantly! Iwas ready in time as I was the main driver and the person to collect everyone from the airport and to ferry them to the Royal Lahaina

Need to write before the trip to Maui becomes such a distant memory that the details get forgotten. This after all was one of the reasons for starting the blog way back when! I have fearful images of forgetting everything and sitting in an old and battered upright armchair in a home, dribble slowly escaping the corner of my mouth and my head empty of all the stuff of life. But stored away electronically here on Delilah are my memories... so better get writing!

Arrived exhausted and excited to be met by Me-Shell at the airport. It was a relief to see a blond haired woman carrying a placard saying Swellwoman as I was beginning to wonder just how I would cope if no-one turned up. Was being quite chilled by that point as I was already there and felt quite comfortable in finding a hostel and just chilling for three weeks. But anyway Me-Shell was there and she took me to a hostel in Pa'ia called Rainbow's End...

Back home, smiling