watching loved ones disappear

There's a big issue these days with drugs. Its an insidious creeping up of the awareness of what various 'recreational' drugs do to a person. Since being back in the fens i have given up alcohol and i like the consistency of me that non drinking has provided. But in others i now watch in horror as what was an occasional pastime has become more of a daily need. The drugs start to mask the real person and the mask gets harder and thicker and more inpenetrable. Glimpses of the loved one are still there but this selfish striving little monster emerges. Life decisions made are based  not on a quest for improvement or betterment but on fèeding that little monster. Watching a loved one disappear is agonising and seeing the repurcussions of their life choices unbearable and shocking. 

a need to reassess

Am sitting at the Mill Pond in Cambridge. It is March the daffodils are out and it is finally warm enough to be outside without a coat! And so I am sitting on the grass sans coat. Waiting for jake and the Deacon to join me and then we can head off for food and company. I think I need company.

Discovered a lump. A golfball sized thing emerged below my ear. It has gone down slightly but I am waiting for tests. Once the tests are done I can then deal with it. Until then its limbo. Put perversely I have been in limbo for about 2 years. Way too long for anything remotely limboish. 

1- long covid remains steadfast 

2- cant sell the house

So now I can add this short little interlude of  limbo waiting for medical tests to reveal my future. But the future is soooo elastic! Might not be too much of it if my worst fears are realised. Or I might have a good 30 more years to toddle this earth. But what that reality might bring is almost as scary as my first possibility. The world has gone .....

 hideous! 

Russia has attacked Ukraine and unlike when we attacked Iran or they attacked the Syrian population this one is creating global tension and discord. Talk of nuclear weapons is more than whispered. Ww3 has become a common hashtag. Somehow this seems bigger. Whilst of course our imperfect PM who has been jolly good friends with putin and his mob in the last 15 years is now trying to position himself to weather the storm and suffer the least possible damage to his very dodgy position. 

The Labour party's  incompetent leader is rather remarkably given the pms failures is going down in the polls. The green party are trying to say this is a good thing as we can stop using fossil fuels although no-one is listening to them! And all the while the Corona virus pandemic trundles along infecting people and just not going away as all of us now want. 

And so my limbo of lump/long covid/unsaleable house mixes in with a general global melee of war and destruction. Fun for us all hey! 

the fens

A return no less. Despite the gorgeous ness of penzance I made a post pandemic decision to return to the family home, which I did in sept 2020. It has taken the winter and spring to start to feel a sort of recovery from long covid. Still not completely back to the me I knew and liked but getting there. 

The plan is to sell the house and maybe buy a houseboat and get a mooring somewhere in cambs to remain close to family. Maybe it took a pandemic to make me realise that proximity is important! 

I am restructuring my lifelong dreams and plan to stay in the east!! Gosh that's a sentence I never expected to see me write. I think maybe being a permanent resident in cornwall will never quite be when I have people I love living here in the fens. I always feel dislocated when I am living so far away. Never completely at home  in one place. I have longed to live in the west for most of my life and yet when I am there I am pulled back every time. So I am giving up thoughts of cornwall  and seeingif I can settle. 

happy new year

Well it turns out that Penzance is a lovely place to live. Lots going on, friendly people, gorgeous swimming spots, great walks oh yes it is a little gem of a place! 

Everyday the sea is different and always delightful

Back in Cornwall

Sitting in an MIU. I have been here before. This time a broken rib. Painful indeed.

So I am back in the west recently moved to Penzance and have my usual east west conflict going on!!

Feel that I am perhaps becoming a little agoraphobic.. obviously not a bad case as I threw myself into the melee that is Glastonbury festival last week. That's where I got the injury. And after the injury I didnt do much as crowds seemed scary and I was tired of it all. Just wanted to be home. Trouble was home is an unfurnished flat in penzance with no furniture and I dont know anyone. So the return was not remotely comforting.

Hmmm making my usual crappy choices I guess. And now I am getting the rib checked out and I dont know why I have chosen to sit in a stuffy waiting room waiting and waiting to be told there is nothing they can do. That I am ok really and to just go home and wait out the 6 weeks until the rib is mended. Oh yes and get back to work too. Feel like a shirker... but am full of tiredness and ennui...

Pottery

Back in Cambridge

Sitting on a train heading in to the centre of Cambridge ready for my third day working for the university. I feel the circle is complete!

I started this blog many many years ago whilst working for a journal in Cambridge feeling desperate to leave. There have been so many adventures, house moves, lovers, friends festivals books read, courses completed, broken bones and hearts in that time, much of them written here but oh I have been negligent! This blog has been abandoned forgotten returned to briefly and only received maybe a yearly update for way too long.

I will try to return and fill in a few gaps

Starting with why I am on this train. I started work last week for the accommodation office. I have a bicycle to ride and am certain my fitness will be incredible very soon!! Just now its a bit of a shock to the system!! Thanks goodness Cambridge is flat!! Ok i am 3 days into the job but so far it seems quite lovely! I have met people from all over the world, cycled miles and had great long meandering conversations with work colleagues! All I need now is to be paid and  life will be vastly improved. This is a temp job.

As I am now 60 I am completely unemployable and despite completing a vast number of job applications I haven't even had a whisper.of an interview! So it's back to temping and if it's what I have to do for the next 6 years then fair enough!!
Right the train is pulling in to C must put my phone away and wander in to town.

vestiges of memory...

I grew up in the Fens, although you wouldn't really have known it was fenny. Yes, there were the long drains and dykes but fenland and marshes are now rare little pockets hidden and small. All has been drained but alongside rivers and drains sometimes along the flood plains are the reeds and sedges of the marshland, here and there a boggy fen now mainly tucked away within a woodland often within a 'nature reserve' marked, separate and 'other'

But I am from this place, it holds the bones of my ancestors, I am indigenous and within my ontological self I hold a few brief, barely tangible, hard to hold memories....

always always without thinking why whenever i think of a house i would like to own I always imagine one running alongside a stream or drain or gote or dyke, one with a little bridge to enable egress to shelter and safety. This to me since childhood began has seemed the natural way of a home, the right way to live. There are many of these homes still; linear stretches of street or drove... I have lived in a terrace once in the far distant westlands of Cornwall. A new build a little eco-terrace with a man-made brook in front of the houses and a grate to walk over to reach home. It seemed exactly the right thing to have! Perhaps my fen memory led me to that little space and although I wasn't to live in it for long i loved that little shelter and felt safe and secure behind my mote

i have devised a plan too... for my end of life when i am still a little able... a plan of kayaking west.... heading out in my own little boat when all my power has almost dwindled... perhaps this too is a vestige of fen memory that I carry on some gene whim, an idea that is far from original but echoes the boatman of old... carrying away across the waters... and I unthinking plan such an end as it seems fitting and apt...

we carry our past with us on our journeys forward

Swimming a little

The secret I am slowly discovering; rediscovering as of course I have been in this well of ennui before, is to do. To be active, to stretch the body a bit and awaken the muscles.

Sadly I haven't been as almighty dynamic as I would wish. This seems to be a slow sloth like crawl away from drowning in a sticky tar like mud. But I am crawling.

My first action after restarting this blog was to create two copper pendants. They simply say 'swim' and 'climb'

The Secret to Not Drowning

well it's now the summer of 2016 and Oh G what a mixed up mess of a time it is!

I am now living in a run down house in a run down town on the forgotten northern tip end of Cambridgeshire. it's fenny and there is a constant pungent odour around; be it of the pet food factory, of the chip factory or of that tight noxious nip at the roof of the mouth when they spray chemicals over the fields all around.

I have just returned from a brief sojourn into the town centre, rubbish strewn and replete with charity shops and 'international stores' and as I walked passed the library I saw a sign on a poster in the window that claimed "How to stop yourself from drowning" yes that is what i need I thought to myself I am drowning in apathy and ennui. I have lost physical strength and emotional strength.. I am depleted and yes i feel I am drowning. I then read the following sentence.... "one way is to ensure you do not swim when you are too tired.... the poster hadn't been a metaphor!!! There was no course i could take for my depleted sense of self-worth!!! I need really need to stop drowning I laughed to myself and then I thought I would see if this blog still works and maybe" I could chart my rise from the depths of fug and chart a course back to land.

So that is the new project, a self rescue.

Cambs has been hard hard work, although well yes admittedly there have been one or two adventures along the way but I now realise I once again need a repository for my internal chatter... a place I can chatter away

and maybe in doing just that I might be able to stop myself from drowning

well it's now the summer of 2016 and Oh G what a mixed up mess of a time it is!

I am now living in a run down house in a run down town on the forgotten northern tip end of Cambridgeshire. it's fenny and there is a constant pungent odour around; be it of the pet food factory, of the chip factory or of that tight noxious nip at the roof of the mouth when they spray chemicals over the fields all around.

I have just returned from a brief sojourn into the town centre, rubbish strewn and replete with charity shops and 'international stores' and as I walked passed the library I saw a sign on a poster in the window that claimed "How to stop yourself from drowning" yes that is what i need I thought to myself I am drowning in apathy and ennui. I have lost physical strength and emotional strength.. I am depleted and yes i feel I am drowning. I then read the following sentence.... "one way is to ensure you do not swim when you are too tired.... the poster hadn't been a metaphor!!! There was no course i could take for my depleted sense of self-worth!!! I need really need to stop drowning I laughed to myself and then I thought I would see if this blog still works and maybe" I could chart my rise from the depths of fug and chart a course back to land.

So that is the new project, a self rescue.

Cambs has been hard hard work, although well yes admittedly there have been one or two adventures along the way but I now realise I once again need a repository for my internal chatter... a place I can chatter away

and maybe in doing just that I might be able to stop myself from drowning

rediscovered Delilah's Palaver... and what a place to stop! the paragraph below was written 2 and a half yrs ago and never published and it's too long ago to remember the memory that i mentioned.... so I will publish this today and get back on that horse and see if I can still ride







sitting here at my desk in cornwall with my sons preapring to leave the county and return home I felt compelled to listen to Leonard Cohen's Coming home... it's been my earworm for days now and listening to it just hasn't helped. I simply want to listen again and again

will probably drive J&J mad ... had a lovely moment last night going to sleep... because this is a small flat now full of packing cases they were camped out in the lounge and my room next door had the door blocked open... so i heard them chattering away in the background as i fell asleep.. i swear i actually fell asleep giggling to their inane prattle

but reason for post is that a glimmer of a past memory returned... and it was

oh and I am leaving cornwall

next week

back to cambs

and family




hmmmmm yes ....weird?

Yes I know it's a day late

but attention was brought to this poem by a girl called jack

and it has stayed and started to haunt

so the best place for haunting is this blog

these words are powerful and if ever a lover could be as truthful and as honest i would be a happy woman....



Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy
Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

was browsing through facebook yesterday and came across a newsfeed that described an event on Saturday that I immediately wanted to join

the artist hamish fulton is conducting one of his walks in Penzance and so I registered straight away

I would even consider myself to be a walking artist too although of the non-professional sort... I wrote my master's thesis about long distance walking.. and so I am very excited indeed

will it be a slow silent walk? will there be political overtones? It would be amazingly great if it was in solidarity for the #FreetheArctic30 greenpeace activists

and so I await the new adventure

with baited breath

in and of itself

Grayson Perry in today’s BBC news online states that art has to address history.. yes I agree.. it has to do more than represent.. more than merely to picture or to replicate, unless that replication in itself addresses history, culture or nature in a way that questions and adds to. It is more than an image- in itself and of itself, it is what it addresses and how it addresses. Take Duchamps The Fountain for instance... a toilet in other words but when it was first presented as a piece for an exhibition it addressed the issue of what art is.. that big thorny issue of what art is.... and it challenged prevailing thought and so became art in and of itself

how can the word 'migration' just disappear from my vocabulary? only to reappear as it has done hours later unconnected, unsought... just there in my thoughts as I try to concentrate on reading a lovely little book called 'findings' by Kathleen Jamie

earlier today i was excitedly contemplating the possibility of a few days on scilly! A set of islands i haven't visited for nearly 30 years but I am certain they remain as beautiful in that clear, light, blue way that they have retained in my memory.... and i was saying that maybe october might be full of bird watchers as... and there i became stuck.... i struggled for a word... lost it and described how birds head south at this time of year because it becomes too cold... and so the islands might be full of birders hopeful to spot certain species...

it sounded convoluted and a clumsy way of talking as i could sense the loss but was unable to grasp at the word .... migration or migratory or even migrate... these words had gone

and now they have all returned

and i wonder at the loss and gain

and worry

a little

what happened to me when I was between 12 and 16 stopped me growing up.... it replaced my exploration of the world and where i stood within it with a notion that i didn't count. That I was nothing and unimportant, that how i felt about anything was immaterial. That no-one could love me as i was unloveable, that I would not do well as i was stupid, klutzy and just crap.... and that is what i carried with me on my adventures... and rather unsurprisingly they were pretty futile and crappy little adventures....

and so i left home, married, had babies, got jobs and all the while carried my crappy baggage along with me.... and so relationships floundered because if something went wrong i would immediately think it was something i had done... blamed myself... then got cross with myself and so blamed the other as i couldnt work out what i had done wrong.. then got cross with myself as that wasn't right.. so ended the relationship... neither liking myself nor my lover/partner as how could they be a person to respect when they were actually saying they loved me.. and i was obviously such a worthless waste of space.... and so it continued.. i applied for a job.... got it.. then got bored/was lazy.. as i had no expectations of myself and as i put in little effort the job became boring.... justifying my little effort in such a worthless job

at university i left things late, handed in first drafts as if they were complete essays and somehow scraped through... but because i was so lazy and hadn't revised/worked at it.. if i got a pass mark it immediately devalued the course as i had so not put in any effort and had still passed.... so it all became a bit pointless... and afterwards because i so undervalued the course i didn't apply for any worthwhile jobs.. or was unable to sell myself well in job applications.. so i didn't get/apply for anything that would hold my interest....

and all of this became cyclical and repetative... i didn't get a decent job so i went back to university.. got another course under my belt but was still unable to know how to make the appropriate effort in looking for work/finding interesting work...

relationships floundered again and again... i liked myself as a single person.. but as soon as someone became important to me i started trying to be the person i thought i 'should' be... ie someone they could possibly fall in love with but that wasn't me and then i started to not like me.. and how could i love someone who declared they loved this pretend creature and they would soon 'discover' the real me and leave....

and this has been going round and round and round... for over 30 years now.... i move house/leave a job/relationship/ never staying and building on something, always in search of the new... someway that would be different... but i was carrying such a negative self image...

and then i had some counselling.... and now all that has changed... immediatley... a light has been switched on in the dark murky self image basement... and i realise I'm not that bad.... that things could be worse.. that actually i am intelligent, can enthuse myself and others... can be hardworking.... am a reasonable being... weird really.... but have I left it too late?????

Recently I gave in! Capitulated to the Master of conformism, the deity of consummerism and went headlong into Marks and Spencer's in search of.... yes in search of a bra!

Now if anyone reading this wonders as to my age and is a little perplexed please remember I grew up with the instruction of 'burn your bra' being loudly sung all through my impressionable teenage years. I also found them to be particularly uncomfortable and so I have rarely worn one, preferring instead something more relaxed like a vest or t-shirt material teenbra!

But over the years I have ummmm put on a little weight and so thought that perhaps the time had come to sling up what had been unslung as maybe support was required. So Marks and Spencer's is the obvious choice of bra palace and I thought I would even request the services of one of their bra experts and get properly measured and sized up! I was accompanied in my endeavor by a twenty something friend who seemed to have no concept of the whole going braless thing as if somehow all women since history began have 'naturally' worn one of these weird garments. She led the way!

and so I followed got measured, selected two frightful pieces of lace and metal and paid money for the things. Admittedly one was a nice colour but that was a far as my fulfillment as a purchaser went.

and soooo a couple of months down the line am I wearing the dreaded things? Ha of course not! They are so uncomfortable that the only pleasure I get from them is when I take them off... they are now slowly making their way to the back of the drawer where they will eventually become hidden and unseen, deep in the dark recesses of unworn, unliked underwear!

and i am back to wearing an unsupportive cotton fabric vest! and am happy and very comfortable thank you!

What brought this to mind was an article today in the Guardian which actually states that the wearing of the bra actually means more sag rather than less sag so Pah! to wearing something that must have been designed by a man who would never have to wear the thing! and actually makes no sense at all... hoorah for those old burn your bra days! They have saved me from a lifetime of uncomfortable, expensive and completely unnecessary purchases!

hmmmmm just feel the need to write and wonder just who should i address a letter to?

You see I am an active supporter of Greenpeace and i think it's a great organisation! It not only highlights environmental issues but it comes up with ways to change wrongs and to suggest a new way forward.... for companies, for individuals for governments

but but but.. oh there is always a BUT!

internships! yes greenpeace has interns!

generally they are lovely people that take up these prestigious roles, they are happy, dynamic and intelligent people full of passion about the world

But but but!

internships are illegal.... no-one should be doing a full time job for NO pay! Nobody!

oh and it does also perpetuate a corrupt system, one that disadvantages so many!

It is wrong.. there is no other way to describe it.. and I am saddened that Greenpeace capitalises on such an illegal, unequal, elitist practice

saddened that they think it is ok