and now it is september... and I have spent the last few weeks hobbling around with a broken ankle.... did it mid july just as summer was really getting underway... and I am struggling with everything.... at first I was in denial and tried walking on it which only made it worse so since mid aug I have been wearing a cast and using crutches... and am now at the point of crying and feeling very sorry for myself... the weather has been crap too so I haven't been lounging around in the sun doing some reading but sitting inside with a caged cat and now j is back too so the beach hut is messy, full and proving to be wayyyyyyy tooooooo small for three imprisoned creatures... j is imprisoned by his lack of money.... I by the inability to drive and the cat hates the rain.... going mad

and have gone for an extension for my upgrade.... could not work in these conditions and am wondering how to get started....???

Just sent an email this morning and haven't had a reply.... have wanted one but nothing has turned up in my inbox... maybe I have blown it again.... hmmmmm

and now J has got a job and has moved out! well part-time at least... so he's now working in a beautiful National Trust House just outside Newquay... bought him a bike... a very sweet looking 1980's early mountain bike, steel frame but lightweight... hmmm I was quite jealous of it.. and the man that ran the bike shop was ummmmm very interesting!!! ha ha hah like buses.... all quiet for ages then 3 come along at once... but was only window shopping which is allowed surely... feel quite happy with the way things have turned out with jon... well so far anyway... feel it will slowly become public... which is quite funny.... and he thinks I'm 49.. and so far I haven't put that right... 33 -49 is possibly far preferable to 33 -51!! that's a lot of years difference... think my neighbours are confused... between josh and jon... they are not quite sure just who is who and ummmmmmmmmm well.... hey!

also wondering if this will jinx everything.... be really pissed off if next week I am writing about being single ..... crossing fingers, looking for 4 leaved clovers, rabbits feet... the works!!!!!

ahhhhh the joys of spring!!

will be spending my first night this year in my tent tonight... really excited by it... have been running, bodyboarding, cycling and surfing in the last couple of weeks ... feeling sooo much fitter! Living in Cornwall is like living in a giant playground! it's truely wonderful

and and and the love life is running full steam ahead... we have talked, argued, been just friends and then had a clean break... for a day... and since then it has been so much easier.. neither wanted a clean break.. so we are simply seeing what happens... did i say 'we'???? hahahahahaha aha haha hah a manic laughter... it's been awhile since I have said 'we'

somethings just keep repeating... again I find myself, after enjoying a short time of living alone, living with my eldest... circumstances are not ideal and I am hoping it is for a short period until he finds work.... now I just have to stop myself from returning to the naggy woman of his teenage years and remind myself he is no longer that messy teenager ..... that things are different.....

and the phd... made a delightful little connection yesterday .... and feel good about it... archival work can be exciting!!!!!!!!!

and the love life ... pah! harrrumph!

went down to the beach in Porthcurno yesterday though and had words with mother earth... said a few mahalo's and made an offering or two... out loud .... and felt good about it... the old hippy in me is really coming out! and I dont care!! magical mystery tour 2009 has started.... there are many many serendipidous things happen if one opens oneself up to them... so I am going out tonight and well who knows what could happen, who I could meet and where I could end up... heading into Penryn which is alittle town on the river Fal, it has a harbour that has an excellent fishmongers and we are going to have a meal in a place called something like Aqualibra.. then head to a pub called No 20!
Surfers against sewage are doing a beach clean in Porthtowan on sunday so Josh and I will help out there, getting free coffees from the blue bar as a reward... might go climbing tomorrow somewhere near Lands End... and end the weekend off with the pub quiz on sunday night.... all rather splendid really!

there was snow, quite a lot of it in fact. All over the country and it stayed put for a while so made everything white and pure, pristine.... then there were floods... had one night of fighting torrents of water pouring from the cliff into my backdoor... drains were blocked and guttering collapsed so had to fix guttering and unblock drains and then sweep water from one blocked drain towards one higher up the side path.... it worked though ... the following week the backdoor was replaced and so now I have one without draughts! but that was then, seemingly already distant past... now we are nearing the end of feb anad flowers are blooming, temperatures are rising and there is the possibility of spring just around the corner...

the man got funding here in this dept and so is staying... so we are planning climbing trips, kayaking, camping adventures .... but oh well will just have to see what happens... I am hopeful though that eventually maybe we can try again and this time his head might be in a better place.... who knows... it might work...

phd trugging along... handed in a paper yesterday that was a little thin on theory so today I am reading about agency and objects.... great stuff!

ha! god how subliminal!! just noticed at the bottom of the doodle is a heart, dripping and broken!!! completely unintentional!! bloody pathetic will have to fill in that bit... if you click on image you can see it in original size I do believe xx

off today to try out jamie oliver's 15!! they are doing lunchtime specials on offer

I am presuming there is no snow here in cornwall as there's none on the beach... will have to see what happens when I head over the cliffs!! all comments of friends on facebook are refering to snow... so imagine the whole country is covered but cornwall

you might have guessed from thursdays post that I got dumped and yes you would be right... bit of a bugger really as I was really enjoying it all and thought he was too... although was mightily aware that the timing was a bit difficult for him... he is a post doc and his contract runs out in feb... so he has been applying all over the world for suitable funding... on butterfly research!! plus and this is what made it all a bit dodgy was he was quite recently dumped from an 8 year relationship... that's longer than I was married .. he didn't really talk about it too much so I suppose from that I made all the wrong assumptions... and a week before he dumped me he and she had been communicating quite a bit again.... he says he's just not in a place to start a relationship right now... trouble is what actually happened was he started a relationship anyway and now... has ended it... just as i was starting to think hey this is really really interesting! pah! so have tried to keep myself busy this weekend to stop myself from feeling sorry for myself....so drew this today... its the view from my window ... sort of

Alone is default

Wave perfect moment
became fleeting ephemera
once embedded once embodied
feelings denied
Desires that to the other mean nothing
suddenly emerge
to whiz and flit and fly
unaided unabashed
Yet having finally to settle
in the dust of fugged relationships
the mire of the once loved
and the ashes of the blown away

Alone is default
Always alone

god it's been ages!!!

but I feel the need to write... so much going on I don't think I can keep it all in my head at the same time...

and so ... I am no longer in Exeter working on a masters... I have moved on, or time has moved on and I am now in Cornwall (the place of dreams) and working on a Phd wooo hooo indeed....

it gets better...

I have found a little place to live that is all wooden floors, pale limed pine, lapiz blue paintwork and white walls... and out of the windows is ..... a beach complete with waves, sand, marham grass, and a plethora of surfers... particularly in the summer as the lifeguards station is right outside... I even have a cat and a lover... life is good so good that maybe I just haven't had the need to write.. that contentment has overflowed and I have no words left for blogs, private or otherwise....

my phd is interesting,
in a way,
not something I am absolutely passionate about though

and I think this is the nub, the crux of why I am returning to delilah.. I do have a little nugget of angst.... I can make it interesting, I can view it as a job to do, research for someone else... but it is not my own research!!! that is the key..

I am feeling less and less personal involvement... the reason I am back here is because I have just read a blog from someone who is due to do a seminar here in a couple of weeks...ecology without nature and I want to be spending my time researching something like ecology/nature/phenomenolgy/soundscapes/liminal places and that is so where I want to be yet I find myself reading historical documents about whether the Post Office should take over the running of the telegraph industry.. doh! do I care????

I am taking one of the new collaborative doctoral awards that have been set up and funded by the AHRC and the Porthcurno Museum... and University of Exeter... the research proposal was already confirmed and finalised by the time I came along to make my application and I have had to fit in with too many other people's agendas.... and none of them match my own... I had my doubts about this phd when I applied as historical geography was not a favoured arena... it had seemed quite plodding and quite frankly dull! I decided to play the interview my way and just describe how I saw the thing and how my theoretical background was more cultural and material and so I prattled on mentioning merleau ponty's reflexivity, spinozan ethics, chucked in a reference to deleuzian lines of drift... waved my hands around a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself... I had the idea that if they offered me the place it would be because of my approach and implicit within this is the approval of my approach...

so what has happened since starting?? I have had all sides banging on about the visual, the corporate identity... all words that were in the original title and that a number of colleagues in exeter assured my was only a working title and that I could wrangle it around to something applicable to me.. that, in fact, all I had to do was get the phd funding and then I would be away.. doing my own thing..... this has not worked out so simply

I travel to the museum, last term I went once a week, I read stuff, look at images, feel flippant and peripheral.... this term I am planning to try out staying for longer and 'fully immersing' myself in the archive.... what I realise now is that I dont care enough... it just doesn't mean that much to me.. that I cant be bothered to explain to museum people just what I want to do , because they wont 'get' it and will begrudge my funding... and what I really want to do is explore soundscapes at modern music festivals, to work out just what is going on when the whole crowd at glasto sing along to leonard cohen's halelujah, or what is happen to people at the front in a moshpit when they experience the full physicality of the music's power from the vibrations of the bass coming up through the feet to the fish-like school of moshers moving as one.... or to explore the search for a non-dualistic approach to life, how dualistic hierarchies seem unsurmountable....

unfortunately it's not really anything to do with telegraph cables or historical geography...

oh yes.... and a Happy New Year!!x

feeling unsettled.... with itchy feet.. like it's time to do..... what? something is stirring in the bones and I cant put my finger on just what it is... generally life is going ok.... it is pressured and living in the small post grad mostly female community is a bit like the boiling house of a girls boarding school.... and yes I have my enemies!!! (though find it weird but there's one or maybe even two that send daggerish looks and I seem completely unable to have a civil conversation with them... ie one had sent by email a paper for a group, the ethnography reading group, to read.... it had one of my old favourite inuit stories of the skeleton woman analysed within it's pages... so I went up to her and said.. oh I loved seeing the skeleton woman again... she looked at me aghast and said 'look I do eat, I have a voracious appetite and I'm getting fed up with remarks about my skinniness'...... it took a couple of sentences about inuit fairytales to make her realise I wasn't being bitchy.... and frankly I am a bit fed up with it... there's another an american, who is also applying for a phd so we are in direct competition... and she seems to misunderstand everything I say to her to the point I have given up.... and actually I feel better for getting that out of my system here... if I'd had a moan to fellow masters students then I just seem to come across as moany...maybe I am... what I find weird though is having to deal with this.... other than that- I have had an offer of a place, now I just have to get funding... so I will be here for another 3 years at least....

I am writing my dissertation on walking to glastonbury festival and the lovely thing is we are all going.... J& J and both partners and some of J's friends too...and s from uni and maybe others too..... you'd have thought I would be looking forward to it, and I thought I was looking forward to it but the other night I awoke from a terrifying dream, a dream where I was walking along a pleasant hillside path.... it became fenced off and then barb wire entangled it to the point where I had to turn back, but I saw another path lower down the hillside, headed back to a stile that led to this path and as as I was climbing the stile a massive pack of snarling wild dogs came running up, it's leader the size of an irish wolfhound and sporting a massive lions mane!!!!! I woke terrified!

have just set up a new blog... it's sort of for my masters dissertation but will have to see if anything happens on it... comments would be helpful if only to give the impression that its a vibrant and dynamic blog that is perused by the masses!! the link to it is below


journey to glastonbury festival

faced the demons and did my talk yesterday... and actually enjoyed it, found I had lots to say, could answer questions and, even if I say so myself, it went well... spent yesterday evening on cloud nine and think I'm still there..... all is good with the world (in the academic sense anyway) now feeling so positive about stuff that I'm ready to write a phd proposal!!!

a strange thing is happening to my 50 years of very healthy body.. my liver is complaining!!! hmmmm this is not good tho' perhaps not surprising... and so it's a month of detox for the liver!!! Started this morning with some alarmingly coloured dandelion tea... yes it looked like pee!!!! and no alcohol for a month!!! shouldn't be a problem I thought and then realised it is 'Fair Trade week' and a friend at uni is doing her phd on fair trade wine and yes you've guessed it, today she's doing a tasting session.... my first challenge will be not to listen to the little voice in my head that will politely but smoothly suggest that as it's simply a 'tasting' it's not really 'drinking'.... maybe I'll go to the soporific data analysis lecture instead just to avoid 'the voice'..

it's getting rather intense!! am trying to read a paper but my head is off all over the place.... yesterday one of our group (the youngest a 21 yr old who has just finished her degree) presented a paper ... the module is entitled 'contemporary debates in human geography' and this term each masters student has to select a paper and present it to the rest of the group... K was the first to do this and its me next week... she is meticulous in her work and she arrived yesterday with handouts and a 9 page script!!!! and my god did she know her stuff!!! I am in awe and now consequently in a tearful, depressed state as I know that I have to follow perfection... she was able not only to handle the discussion afterwards but she so obviously knew, on a deep and meaningful level, what she was talking about.... and I feel so fluffy!!!!!!!!! my understanding is barely scratching the surface, and I tend towards flippancy when put on the spot! Next week is going to be terrifying... already I am terrified... my choice of paper... is probably bonkers... but the problem is I dont even know.... oh god oh god oh god.....

It's monday, it's february, it's cold....

yesterday I learnt how to deal with getting arrested, how to conduct a 'no comment' interview and how to go all floppy when police people try to move me... very effective indeed!!! and no its not part of my masters in human geography but another course entirely.... and slightly secretive!!!

and last week I bought a very small mountain bike, I need a very small one because I have very small legs... but as soon as I started riding it I became exhausted... had totally not taken the actual size of the hills around here into account!!! my legs/body/lungs just weren't up to it!!!!

other catch up news.... still doing the going out drinking copious amounts of wine and saying stupid things to lecturers... ended up arm wrestling one of them last week in a club... now what was that about I wonder????... it's as if I have this other life, a secret life that even I do not know about, just have vague and dodgy memories that sometimes seep into consciousness???? hmmmm no not good for the brain cells at all and at my age I should be preserving them!!!!!

that's it really, lots of reading... nt sure what I will do my dissertation on... maybe the journey to glasto, maybe magical realism and cyborgs.... maybe something more politcal.... the auto-ethnography of an eco warrior!!!!

my computer seems to dislike the letter 'o' so I apologise if any are missing

bloody hell... it's been ages.. and this is a mere note of a post! the sun is shining and I'm heading off to the north coast again... W has bought a house in Barnstaple and so I'm heading over to say hello!!

getting essays back with marks and comments! and it's not too bad.... and getting better... the first essay that I knew was crap got a crap mark, yesterday an essay I thought was better got a better mark.... so it all makes sense!!!

it's that time of year again... think I've had loads of rants about it before now.... but this year will be different.. I'll be able to go for a walk along a beach... maybe a surf if I am foolhardy enough..

thought it would be chilled...

I thought wrong....

now i have essay deadlines, sons who need a lift, one with a young cat who is also visiting!!?? food to collect/gather store/plus accompanying pots and pans that the cottage might not possess.... bugger this ...I should just provide egg and chips... if they want more they can get it themselves...

hmmmmmmmmm are the words ... bah humbug... coming to mind???

would anyone believe it if I claimed to be chilled and very happy in my new little life I wonder???

week ten has been and gone... it's now the holiday and still i sit and read... read as if my life depended on it... but sadly by now i should be writing!! last week I set myself a word target of 300 per day... no problem I thought... so.... how's it gone? well up to this evening i have the total of ... ummmm 273.... out of 4000.... but hey the deadline is ages away, absolutely ages!

I am writing on the rather appropriate topic of ageing bodies!!! ha! they said pick something you are interested in!! so i am looking at the philosophical conundrum of being a confident woman, happy with her body size (well mostly) suddenly walking passed a mirror and seeing ..... an older, dare i say it, middle aged woman.... and naked well!!!!!!! the word .... matronly comes to mind.... and this ageing process leads to social invisibility... I am tired of how many young students seem to feel the need to tell me about their mothers as if I had some clear cut connection with them!! they see me and think... mother.. I suppose if they started talking grannies I would get really worried... so you lose your personality... people don't care who you are or what you think they just see you in terms of their mothers??? and so what do loads of women my age do?? .... that's it.... plastic surgery!!!! we don't mind being 50 as long as we don't actually have to look 50....

visited London last weekend and it was quite lovely to be back on familiar streets, walking down known pathways and exploring the already explored.... went to see S & R and their lovely new baby Z... what struck me about the visit was the happiness of the household, it was truely delicious to hear two new parents singing to their cherished offspring and just being so obviously overjoyed by it all!!

But on the saturday I headed off to have a look at what was going on in the Turbine Hall at the tate modern.... it's floor was cracked



and that's about all i can say about it... sort of hmmm it's cracked, so what....then as I was a little disappointed I wandered around seeing what else was on offer.... there was an exhibition by Louise Bourgeois which was stunning in it's forms and textures, it was challenging and playful.... it blew away the genderisation of paintings and sculptures and what struck me was that here was a woman born in 1911 and being braver in challenging stereotypes, gender roles than anyone from my generation... it was quite marvelous


and as i left the building was faced with this ....