Ten Years Younger

Recently, when I look in the mirror, I have been caught off-guard by the drab spinster glowering back at me.

I have spent the last year mentally pushing a big, yellow, gelatinous jelly '30'. Like many things, it's been getting softer and gloopier, so the more I push, the further my hand slips into it, and eventually I will be totally engulfed.

So, it was with some surprise that I realised, on 7th October 2007, that it was actually my 29th birthday, and that I have still another year to push.

However, it would seem that, for the moment at least, the drab spinster lives only in the mirror. In the three days before my last non-thirty birthday (until I hit forty...), a different random stranger on each day was deluded enough to mistake me for, quite specifically, a nineteen year old.
The most alarming element of this, however, was that instead of this filling me with the usual indignant anger (generally involving a great deal of ranting on about how people must therefore think I am a silly teenager, with no life experience, and are not giving me credit for the limitless wisdom I have amassed during all my many decades of traipsing through life's rich tapestry etc etc), I was actually secretly rather pleased! People always said that one day it would be a compliment, and it would seem that that day has finally arrived. I really must be getting old.

I must also be going through some sort of pre-mid-life-crisis. On a recent shopping trip, it was all about bringing back the '90's "style" as I expressed it back then.

"Out!" with the poker straight hair of my girlhood fantasies, and, "Welcome back!" kinky-kinks!

"Off!" with the twenty-somethings, working-girls, cropped jacket, and, "Long time no see!" to the second-hand, velvet jacket with the star on the lapel!

"Farewell!" to the London-look booties, and, "Aloha!" to the Doc Martins of which dreams were once made!

It is possible that people have been mistaking my age because I have started dressing in a near-identical fashion to that of my mid teens. The only differences are that, this time, the DM's are bronze, not green, and that I have made the executive decision to leave the velveteen hat with appliquéd stars festering in my parent's loft alongside the tye-dye t-shirts. There are some levels to which one really should not stoop the second time around.

Who needs Nicky Hambleton-Patent-High-Waisted-Belt-Wearing-Jones? I have given myself a step back in time, and the public's verdict is that I am ten years younger!!

I am.

Battle to the Bitter End

Waiting for the coach to London...

• A girl-next-door looking girl with a grey puppy ambles by, complete with an affected dreamy gait, under the Sainsbury's sign that is adorned with pigeon feces. She is looking to see whether anyone is looking at her, especially the greased-up young men in the silver people carrier (I would guess that they have rented a New Forest cottage for a stag weekend. Booze and porn in a picturesque location, away from "The Citee"). But she is distracted when her cutesy, accessory puppy stops to eat something revolting and goopy from the gutter. She yoinks him away promptly. But it would appear that her chat-up ruse has worked, in a sense. Someone has finally noticed her and tries to strike up conversation! An elderly couple gab over her and the dog, as she wistfully watches the people carrier drive out of sight.




• A woman of about sixty in a long blue skirt, sandals, a white blouse under a pink cardi and greying blond hair tied in a low ponytail. She could be the mother of the puppy girl. She is carrying a wicker basket full of ye olde country flowers, and looks rather too quintessentially countrified. Much like a vicars wife in a Miss Marple novel, the flowers conjure the image of her rustically gathering her blooms in the garden of a thatched cottage. I should think it's more likely that she bought them in ye olde Waitrose. The whole effect, however, is somewhat ruined by the fact that she is engrossed in conversation with what looks alarmingly like a drunken tramp.




• A gaggle of cauliflower heads waiting for the coach. All bedecked in beige chinos and elasticated skirts, clutching their tickets and clucking in a frenzy. When the coach arrives, they surge forward and join ranks to strengthen their collective position in the queue. I loiter at the back of this gathering. It's the safest position for someone of my status, if there is one thing that cauliflower heads hate more than youth, it's a youth they suspect of trying to push in front of them in a queue. However, my careful positioning backfires. As the coach pulls up to park, it totally by-passes the queue and draws to a halt with the door directly in front of me. All the bobbly heads swivel in my direction, and I dare not turn around to witness the steely eyes I can feel boring through to my brain. Quick as a flash, a lady sporting a pair of very new looking, beige Birkenstocks and her daughter (who had previously bumped into me whilst hoiking up her bra) bustle around me to the side nearer the coach door, and stand so close to it that they are forced to move out of it's way as it opens. They cleverly manoeuvre this so as to push me behind them, into a definite second place. A freckly woman appears on my other side and feigns anxiety about where the coach is going (even though it is emblazoned, perfectly clearly, with the word "LONDON"). After she waggles her ticket in the air and asks the driver if he is going to "LONDON", she appears to believe that, having established personal relations with the driver (who replied "Yes" to her question), she is now far superior to everyone else, and pushes past Birkenstock-Lady, Bra-Daughter and myself, pipping us all to first place! Bravo! Well done you, Freckly Lady!




• As the coach makes it's way out of Ringwood, and the driver informs us that the toilet, located at the back of the coach, "...is for liquid purposes only."
  

Muddy Plums

Now that I have washed the mud, goop and fellow-festival-goer's piss from the hem of my Pirate skirt, and have returned to the begrudged bosom of employment, I can gaze through nicotine-addled eyeballs back upon the glory of an otter-ridden festival in deepest, darkest Dorset.

With wet wipes squeezed amongst the glittery trousers of yore in my boasting rucksack, bacon-rind and poppy seeds firmly wedged in between my teeth, I was ready for anything Saint Mary and her pet otters could hurl at me.

And hurl at me they did.
In no particular order...

• The delights of the washboard-backed, be-beaked girls of Gogol Bordello, although the lead singer appeared to have gone a.w.ol, you know, the lady with the blonde hair and a gap in her teeth.


• The flouncing hair of Bill Bailey with his unprepared, triple encore, complete with army-tank sized child bulldozing his way to the front.


• Raucous, mud-flinging dancing as a side effect of the disease they call "Bellowhead".


• The Tiny-Tea-Tent groupie and his unfortunate attempts to be gallant, despite forgetting the number 1 thing one does not ask a lady.


• Almost wretching whilst doing the ass-dance to honkin' Annie Lennox, although my luridly coloured bustle compels me to carry on.


• Joining The M in their weird trip around the world... "BELFAST!!" I hear you cry!


• Toilets, which at certain times of day can only be described as, as I commented to some random ladies, "HEAPED".


• A childish dream coming true: waiting an hour to be hoisted out of the mud by a tractor (The car! Not me!).


• Spectacular feelings of insecurity as girls consistently ask to borrow lighters (also in the aptly named "Pussy ParLURE" and magical mystery land at the bottom of the hill).


• Indulging in the truly British tradition of barbecuing cheap meat in the pissing-down rain.


• Opening my tent in the morning to be confronted by two looming twins, in full, surreal, fancy-dress, proffering stale mini-muffins and beer.


• Being constantly reminded of India, as the interesting aromas, heavy traffic and unconvincing sales-patter envelops me. And the monsoon.


• A cheapo silver top hat, bedecked with a stolen garland of flowers.


• Girls wearing LED-flashing braces in their mouths, only to later find them flashing in the twilight mud. (Again, the braces, the girls weren't flashing in the mud. At least, not where I could see them.)


• The discovery of the true worth of novelty wellies. God bless Priceless Shoes in Bournemouth!


• A medley of weirdos. Guessing which ones were in fancy-dress, and which look like that all the time was, for me, a never ending source of fascination.


• A distinct lack of The Aston's Fizz.


• Horror caused as my long awaited sausage is smothered in spinach, as requested, but looks strangely similar to the goop I have been trudging through all weekend.


• Forgetting how to walk on flat, dry surfaces, as discovered at the toilet-stop on the way home.


• Having an otter-tastic time!

This half-arsed, cop-out, listed blog was brought to you by the inexplicable need to record more about this event than simply a muddy girl in pants.

Fallen Goddess

It has been raining in a Devonshire field all night long, onto, and into, the tents of grubby festival-lovers slumbering in their canvas cathedrals below. They arise to find the grassy slopes transformed into mud pits. With only a sausage and an otter to comfort them, they think "Fuck it!" and skip their way to the front of the main-stage, where the clay-like mud has been whipped into a thick, creamy substance that bubbles and explodes under the rabble of be-wellied feet,stomping to regurgitated jigs.

Everyone looks rough. The revellers all sport sleep encrusted, baggy eyes, greasy, tent-hair, and grimy, sweaty skin, all swathed in the aroma of other people's faeces.

But amongst them, is a Goddess.

With low slung trousers that emphasise womanly curves, cascades of curls, a top that strategically reveals an ornate tattoo upon a bronzed back and a bottle of rum in one hand, all men's eyes are drawn towards her. She unconvincingly pretends not to notice, and giggles with glee as a soldier-type tries to engage her in a mud-wrestle. His friend wants a piece of the action too, and joins in. Soon, there is a whole group of men trying to wrestle the Goddess into the mud. She continues to swig her rum whilst giving as good as she gets, and smiles alluringly at each of her suitors as she pushes them to the bubbling, orange-brown depths below.

Now the centre of attention, she half-heartedly tries to invite her previously unseen friends into the fray. One boasts glitter-daubed eyeballs, blonde pigtails, a leopard-print fur-coat and a bottle of rum in one hand. The other is rather nondescript, with no bottle of rum in either hand. Leopard Girl laughs and slugs back more rum, Nondescript Girl does something nondescript, but neither opt to join the Goddess and her cluster of men.

Sometime later, and the heady music continues to swirl into the drizzly afternoon. The serious music lovers, standing back from the maniacal dancing contingent, have to dive for cover as the Goddess is dragged by her ankles through the crowd by a group of her admirers. Still clutching the now empty bottle of rum, head thrown back in drunken abandon, curls and ass leaving grooves in the orange-brown goop beneath her nubile body, she is oblivious to all. She does not even notice Leopard Girl stumbling through the crowd, heavily supported by Nondescript Girl, presumably tent-ward to vomit.

Not long after, an innocent young lad, enjoying his first festival, is sitting on a precarious bench outside the otter tent. He self-consciously rolls a cigarette and tries to look like he is comfortable in his surroundings. The effect is somewhat ruined as a mud-monster, wearing only a pair of orange-brown knickers and an orange-brown top revealing an ornate tattoo on it's orange-brown back, lurches from the nearby crowd towards him. The monster stumbles in his direction and grabs his face. Orange-brown hands smear goop all over his cheeks as the monster thrusts its mouth to his, ramming a rum-infested tongue down his throat.

The lad tries to retain his cool by fumbling with his tobacco and blushing furiously, the monster cackles with rabid glee and trudges up the hill presumably tent-ward to vomit.

Gazpacho Gripe

Balls to summer then. I don't even care if it wants to chuck it down with God's gushing tears just days before I go camping with Morris dancers.


During the minor flirtation with sunshine last weekend (as mentioned in a previous, hilarious blog), I went on the hunt for summery, refreshing foodstuff for my Saturday, garden-drenched luncheon. A carton of Gazpacho soup enticed me and I merrily purchased it. However, due to a rather late breakfast of bacon and wobbly eggs (provided by the chickens that live down the road), I did not get round to eating it and looked forward to having it on the following day. The Lord's Day, if you will.


But Sunday dawned, rather grey and undecided, and I passed up the opportunity of sitting in a garden, as it would have resulted in my taking all my clothes off, then having to put them all back on again, and then taking them all off again and then... You get the idea.


Obviously, I could still have partaken in the afore-mentioned carton of soup. However, the thing that makes gazpacho stand out from the others is that it is to be served cold. This is why it was the perfect choice for a sunny, summery day. I know that it is supposed to be cold for two reasons:

1. It says so on the carton
2. Back in my youth, when I dabbled in geekdom, I was a fan of the Red Dwarf novels. These were far more comical and in-depth books of the television series (starring Chris Barrie, the darling of Ringwood Recreation Centre). In one particular chapter, Rimmer has been trying to schmooze with the hierarchy of the ship, and finally gets an invite to dine at the Captain's table. He is already making a fool of himself, but is under the impression he is charming those around him, when gazpacho soup is served. Horrified at its chilly temperature, he haughtily sends it back, creating a scene with regards to the inefficiency of the kitchen staff. Millions of years later, he still blames this social faux pas as the reason he never was able to make it as an officer. This is a pretty dry account what I remember to be a very funny story in the book...

Anyway. I thought I would be able to have it for lunch yesterday, which, although not a scorcher, was relatively pleasant. But I was whisked of to the pub for some greasy bacon. So I have had it today, and it feels as cold and wet and damp in my stomach as the goddamn day is outside.


This shit-blog was posted for your perusal against my better judgement.

Dirty Weekend

I have tried so hard to get over him. I have been with other, more minty lovers and enjoyed the refreshing, peppery tang they left in my mouth.

I thought I was strong. But I was wrong. I should not have underestimated his cunning whiles.

He waited until I was at my most weak and vulnerable, then he gazed at me from an unexpected position under the coffee table with those 'spark me up' eyes.

I thought I would give in to his charm after a few glasses of wine, or a fine meal. I thought he would seduce me as he did back when we were lovers. But he was cleverer than that. He waited until my friends were not there to protect me.

I was alone and confused. He said he just wanted to talk, no strings attached. It seemed reasonable, maybe I had been cruel, cutting him out of my life like that. What about his feelings, surely he had them too?

We gazed at each other from across the room, I could feel my desire for him welling up inside me. Then, like lovers in a film, I ran towards him as he stoically waited for my forgiving embrace. I took my dirty lover and lead him outside to the star-spangled alleyway and took him into me with sordid glee!

Oh! The pleasure of those naughty moments we shared that night. How could something so wrong feel so right? In my lonely moment of need, there he was, my temptation, holding out his smoky hand and pleading "Come, join me", and Oh! How we fused together that night!

The next day, I felt dirty, but alarmed myself by relishing the sensation and counting the hours until I could be reunited with my dirty pleasure. Finally I ran home, into his welcoming arms and although we clung together, our absence having made my heart fonder, something was amiss. Something of the fire had died. Yet I refused to believe it was so, and had him twice on the stairs.

We quarrelled later that night. I was heart- broken. All my weeks of trying to get over him were shattered in the space of two lonely nights, and I was back where I started. Stuck in a rut with someone who would ultimately only hurt me and bring me pain. Yet despite knowing this, I still wanted him so much.

Tonight we went for a few drinks, we always get on better when we are drunk. I know this is not a good basis for a relationship, but what can I do? He is in my bed, waiting for me now. I can't bring myself to tell him that it is over, I know he will get angry and try to force himself into me.

But I have my secret defence mechanism, I will tell him:

"I should have changed that stupid lock I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second you'd be back to bother me
Go on now, go, walk out the door
just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome any more
weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
did ya think I'd crumble
did ya think I'd lay down and die
oh no! not I!
I will survive
as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive I will survive
(hey-hey)"

Déjà Vu

Today feels like this time last year. That is to say, that after months of pissing-down rain, the sun is finally blistering outside, whilst I am stuck in an office. Only, whereas last year's office included a chandelier, the current building boasts un-opening windows and dodgy air conditioning.

(*May I interrupt at this point to say I have just spent about an hour illegally scripting a, frankly, genius blog, only for none of it except for the first, warm-up paragraph to save. This pretty much sums up the day, and I apologise for the sub-standard re-enactment that follows...)

However, in the words of Terry Wogan, I mustn't grumble. Back in those days, it was positively traumatic to have to drag myself onto a bus at the crack of my dawn to traipse into a whole different county, only to sit with the now-legendary Tiny & Jabbering Jane in their plush, yet pointless office suite. I am now so busy determining if the purple plums should be categorized as A or Z, I have no time to gaze lazily out of the frozen-shut window and daydream about the daydreams I could be dreaming next to my mother's stupendous frog-pond.

Which is why today has been so difficult. Having finished all my tree-shits by 10:30 this morning, I was more than tempted to claim the remainder of the fat, juicy day as my own. But maybe my nemesis (as she shall now be known, "Perky" is just too amicable) and her martyrs have been rubbing on me, or maybe (even worse) I have developed some horrible sense of responsibility. Either way, I stayed.

But the stinger (unfortunately not the organic, Hugh-Whirly-Girly variety) was as follows: I was in the midst of introducing our new lamb-to-the-tree-slaughter to the wondrous world of binding pleasure, when she was whipped, whipped, I tell you, from under my oddly formed nose. Out! Out went she! Out into the glorious sunbursts of fun. A tree expert swept her away to avenge (or condemn) trees in some far-flung, exotic location. Possibly Winchester.

But, wait, my avid reader! Wait! For what is already a terrible tale of sunless woe now takes an even darker plunge in to dark depths of dark. Nemesis came waddling over to me, in her cheap, wooden heels and drawled in her inimitable fashion that she would also be trailing off into the sunset, in the wake of her beloved tree-man. So flinging some overly-complicated-but-not-actually-that-complicated-if she-just-explained-it properly bit of her work in my direction, off she wobbled.

Bitch.

Curse of the Sticky Bun

Sitting at her desk, the rumbling of her stomach echoed around the deserted office. All her colleagues were ill at home with flu, and she was alone, with no lunch to keep her company. Outside, the wind lashed at the windows through greedy clouds. It seemed to her as though pounding drums could be heard in the distance. Perhaps she was just getting a headache.

The food van arrived. She rarely inflicted herself with it's culinary delights, but today she needed something to quash her hunger. The van was always stuffed with a confusing array of discontinued flavoured crisps, bizarre chocolate bars, gloopy mulch that rather ambiguously described itself as salad, sandwiches made with bread whiter than milk, tepid foot-long wieners or cremated bacon served in a loaf of artery-clogging bread and sluggish onions, pasties complete with meat-like lumps, and the occasional bruised banana. She did not hold much hope of finding something satisfying to eat, but she needed something.

She took her life into her own hands and ventured out into the storm to peruse the wares on offer. Her appetite wained at the sight of such fare, until, something caught her eye.

A bun.

Large, round, bready and smothered in sticky white icing, it also boasted a meagre sprinkling of flaky almonds and a smattering of cinnamon-flavoured dust. But it's crowning glory, was the glacé cherry balancing proudly on top, the colour of danger.

Seeing it was the only one, she grappled with her coins and paid the price for this tempting morsel, and scurried back to her desk.

The pounding noise seemed closer and faster now.

She unwrapped the bun. As the cellophane split, a crack of lightning illuminated the office surroundings. The room was thrown into sudden darkness, illuminated only by the eerie green glow of the emergency exit signs. The sound of computers whirring to a shutdown, and then silence, lead her to realise that was all she could hear.

Silence.

Where was thumping march she had heard before buying the bun?

She gazed out of the window, into the gloom, straining her ears to hear any sign of life.

Another flash of light, crack of thunder, and SCREAM!!

She cried out in terror, for she had seen, directly in front of her on the other side of the window, what looked remarkably like an enormous, angry elephant!

Another flash of light, and, yes! She was right! There was an elephant staring at her in an alarmingly derisive manner. She could not understand how it could possibly be there. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. It was still there, glowering at her through the glass.

She was very unsure of what to do next. She was loath to call anybody and tell them about the elephant situation, who would possibly believe her? Because of the power-cut, she could not continue with her work,so she sat for a while and studiously tried to avoid eye-contact with the African beast loitering outside the window.

This proved somewhat difficult. The elephant was directly at eye-level with her, and she could sense it's beady eyes analysing her every, nervous movement.

"This is just silly" she thought to herself, and wondered if she was coming down with the flu too, and was hallucinating. Or maybe it was because she was so hungry.

The bun!

In her initial terror and the following uncomfortable silence with the elephant, she had forgotten all about it. That would give her something to do and take her mind off all this nasty elephant business. Her hand reached out towards where she had left it on the desk. What she didn't see, was the flash of burning rage in the eyes of her companion outside the window.

As she picked up the bready bun, a low, ominous whine emanated from the elephant. She did not hear it, and raised it, as if in slow motion, to her mouth.

As she closed her eyes to take the first bite, the elephant lifted it's trunk in flash, smashed it through the glass, snatched the juicy bun, whipped it out of the window and into it's mouth before disappearing from sight all together.

This happened so quickly, that she bit down on her own tongue, cried out in agony and opened her eyes to see the smashed, elephant-less, bun-less window.

She jumped up to look outside.The thief had vanished. The only clue that any of this had happened, was the smashed window, and a glacé cherry rolling in the wind.

Syllabub Symptoms

A belated response to suggestions from "Bog-U-Like", 21 December 2006

The residents at number 36a were enjoying a spot of their favourite seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century dessert/punch, lemon syllabub. The whipped, creamy EGGs slipped down their throats with the greatest of ease, the lemony zest making their taste-buds stand to attention.

They had been at the syllabub for quite some time, when a strange miasma crept in through the window, They began to feel dizzy, lightheaded, nauseous, drowsy, euphoric, constipated, change in mood, mentally foggy, anxious, spasms in the ureter, depressed of respiration and experienced a nasty rash.

"Gosh!" said syllabub lover number one. "I feel feel dizzy, lightheaded, nauseous, drowsy, euphoric, constipated, change in mood, mentally foggy, anxious, spasms in the ureter, depressed of respiration and am experiencing a nasty rash!"

"That's odd!" cried syllabub lover number two, "I am also experiencing dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, drowsiness, euphoria, constipation, change in mood, mental fogginess, anxiety, spasms in the ureter, depressed respiration and a nasty rash!"

'Surely this could not get any odder' they thought, but this was just the beginning. Their friend, syllabub lover number three also claimed to be suffering from dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, drowsiness, euphoria, constipation, change in mood, mental fogginess, anxiety, spasms in the ureter, depressed respiration and a nasty rash.

Try as they might, they just could not understand what was making them all feel this way, until number one said: "It must be that nasty miasma that crept through the window that is causing these awful feelings".

But number two shook his head. "That wasn't Miasma, that was Gorehead, the vocalist of the Austrian death metal band from the 90's, that went by the name of Miasma. I don't know what he was doing crawling through our window when we were trying to enjoy a spot of syllabub."

They thought it would be wise to locate Mr Gorehead, and found him collapsed on the floor of the kitchen, with the tell-tale thick white mustache that always gives away a lover of syllabub. He rolled around on the kitchen floor and groaned that he was experiencing dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, drowsiness, euphoria, constipation, change in mood, mental fogginess, anxiety, spasms in the ureter, depressed respiration and a nasty rash.

A piece of paper was clasped in his hand, it appeared to be the information commonly included in boxes of medicine. Number three took it from the death metal vocalist's hand.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed number three, whose turn it had been to make the syllabub on this occasion, "We must all be experiencing the symptoms of the hydrocodone lozenges I put into the syllabub! I thought it would mix well with the white wine that is a central ingredient in this beloved dessert of ours! However, reading this information, I can see what a sorry mistake I have made, it would appear that the combination of alcohol and hydrocodone causes symptoms of dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, drowsiness, euphoria, constipation, change in mood, mental fogginess, anxiety, spasms in the ureter, depressed respiration and a nasty rash."

And, thus, with the help of the vocalist from 90's Austrian band, Miasma, did they learn the error of their ways. But after the syllabub symptoms passed, and they no longer felt dizzy, lightheaded, nauseous, drowsy, euphoric, constipated, change in mood, mentally foggy, anxious, spasms in the ureter, depressed respiration or a nasty rash, they relayed the story at many a virgin-syllabub party, laughing about it heartily with their new-found friend, Gorehead.

This blog was brought to you with more than a little help from Wikepedia, and some slightly brain-addled poetic-licence.

Off Your Trolley!

Having been stripped of my innocence by our stand-up comedian landlord, I happily bounded in the direction of splishy-splashy, and looked forward to saying "hello" to Trolly. Trolly lives betwixt pub and Steven (Stephen? i am not sure), and has often played a part in post public house mayhem. Although he does has a tendancy to inflict blood, as Jon's Knees and Chloe's elbows can testify.

Well, I craned my neck around the corner in anticipation of seeing Trolley, but instead my eye fell on a large glob of foam.

Where was Trolley?

He had been replaced by a verminous young man and his lady friend. Said couple were looking rather worse for wear, what with his foaming mouth and her wandering eye. It was rather a surprise, for my companions and I, to find ourselves looking at this, frankly, unattractive pair, and not at Trolley.

But fret not dear reader! This hardly stopped our splishy-splashy, blood-spilling fun that we hold so dear of a Friday!

The unusual young man wanted to have fun at the end of his hard-working week too, and obliged one of my companions with a swift fist in the face. But the ladies were not to be left out either, oh no! There was something for everyone on this night! The gentleman's companion invited a lady member of our happy party to a touch of feminine hair-pulling and throat-grabbing.

After this, the evening was a blur of abandon, everyone taking their turn at this delightful pass-time. The lovely couple were even so generous as to invite along some of their well-rounded friends and family members, to prolong all the fun. There was so many people to kick, shove, haul across curbstones and punch in the face, we could have gone on all night!

However, sadly, all good things must come to an end, and, Trolley (thankfully) forgotten, we skipped off home to drink tea and relax in the falsetto voices of mice.

Anamalistic

Friday:

• Wore pig-tails to the pub.
• Pigglyfish website is born into the farmyard, amidst much sqeaking and splishy-splashing.
  

Saturday:

• Regretted wearing pig-tails to pub, due to Landlord's beastial love of "pulling" pig's tails.
• Primitive side explores rat-face's girlfriend's hair, blood, bruises, sweat and tears.
• Enjoy singing mice.

Sunday:

• Cart Moo, minus Cow, around a pet shop.
• Fall in love with a rabbit or three.
• Wonder if it is feasible to keep afore-mentioned rabbits and a velvety turtle in the bath.
• Learn how sheep, chickens, cows and pigs make their way from the farm to the after-life of my belly.

Monday:

• Have pig-balls in my belly.
  

Oozing Dental Worms

The streets are paved with the oozing worms of spring. Pushing their way through roadside mulch, can they see the shit they are squirming through?

Forced by some predetermined law and forgoing the comfort offered by the moist goop on the little strips of grass that litter our highways and byways, they strive forward. Ripping the fragile membrane they call a belly on the gritty tarmac in a futile bid for... what?

It is as if they are bravely sacrificing themselves in order to seek their destiny. And just what is a worm's idea of destiny? Meeting a nice lady worm and raising little wormlings together? Are there career worms? Perhaps they search for enlightenment and inner peace, or the cure for incurable diseases?

What ever the hopes and dreams of these rather unsightly creatures (I'm not even sure if one can go so far as to call them anything as substantial as a "creature"), it all seems depressingly futile.

Ultimately, after braving the outside world, they can expect any of the following:

1. To be ripped apart like an uncooked, flaccid sausage by the beak of an evil bird. Yes, I said BIRD.
2. To find themselves smeared unceremoniously across the pavement as the result of someones big, cheap boots crushing their delicate frame in to the tarmac. (The aforementioned person may well have been late for work and have little time to tip-toe in between the numerous, freedom-seeking worms that had sprawled themselves, like whores in a brothel, all over the pavements.)
3. To blindly stumble into a puddle and drown before their insides blossom out from their own orifices into the murky water. (Do worms stumble?)
4. To become the play-thing of a small, careless child.
5. To be eaten by an infamously curious cat. Only to be vomited back up again. And then be eaten by a dog.
   

If all this is not revolting and depressing enough, the final option is something we all may be metaphorically familiar with ourselves...

6. To wonder aimlessly for the rest of their short little lives in the barren wasteland created by mankind, wondering if they will ever see the sweet, green grass of home again.

Crap of a Soul Sucking Vampire

What the hell am I supposed to think, when things are the same, yet so horribly different. Ghosts lurk upstairs, either it's me or something else. Maybe I smell of garlic so I keep the vampires away. They'd rather hide away in the foul stench of a dusty attic than have anything to do with me... Can I blame them really????


I stink. Just like anyone else, and maybe I am getting more pungent as the years drag on.


Spirits of the past are making themselves known to me, and I fear I can not escape them. They live where I live, know my parents and place of work. They make me feel like shite when I'd like never to think of them again. I dont know what to think about anything, and this is not the place to discuss it.

What am I doing,
What have I done?
I've no idea...

As The Cuckoo Flies

The cuckoo has flown the nest, spread her wings and soared 10 minutes along the well-trodden road. She has been welcomed to "paradise" (whose name is Stephen), and raised her piratical bEAD curtain as salute.


She has experienced the highs and lows of tupperware friction and Woolworths home-wares in a spotted and striped abandon.

Boris the pinguin watches her flailing antics with suprise and a knowing gleam in his eye. He gazes out at proceedings atop Russell Brand's bird-nest hair and considers his 412 ways.

Is this one of His methods?
Is this part of His plan?
Does Cow miss her at ALL?

Peppermint tea slices through the cuckoo's mossy teeth, and, combined with the aftertaste of acidic pasta, reminds her of the lonley days of yore.

But the fullness of time has achieved nothing if it has not proved that things can change.

Blog-U-Like

I suppose it's about time I got back in the blogging game. There seems to be too many, and yet too few things about which to blog. Here are my options...

1. A drivelsome diary-style entry about the neurotic waning of my mind during past months
   
2. A factual account of things during past months
   
3. A completion of part one of my over-hyped autumnal entry, dated on my birthday (this seems rather inappropriate what with winter and Christmas freezing themselves silly outside)
4. A completion of the Pumpkin Witch saga, that was left somewhat hanging in the air
5. More mindless drivelling which is unfathomable even to myself
6. Slagging off of co-workers in an amusing style, but would indicate my downright unpleasant nature (although this has not been very well disguised of late. It's like pus seeping through the pores of my being, which must escape lest it poison me. Much safer to vent it and let it poison other people)
7. Something else

It would seem from that list, that option no. 6 seems to have riled me up the most, so maybe I should go for that. But I have a suspicion that all that poisoned mind talk may actually relate to option no. 1. It could all go horribly wrong, and instead of viciously attacking certain individuals, I'll end up turning the knife upon myself and spilling out my inner-most workings on the web. Or perhaps the seeping pus imagery would send me off along option no.5. The inane warpings of a crazed harpie. Or, how they really read, the pretentious twaddle of a college drop-out with self-delusions of originality! As it happens, I have chosen option no.7, and have been waffling about something else. So I call to you, my avid and unforgotten readers, to help me out. Random, one-word suggestions will be considered as possible future topics, so I can re-learn how to stretch my warbling wings.

31 October

On the night where the moon is sliced in half, and purple clouds chase the stars, she rises.

The Pumpkin Witch lifts her weary head and blinks into the night. Spluttering slightly, she picks pumpkin seeds from her dried-up lips and flicks them at an unsuspecting slug. She cricks her neck and begins to draw herself to her full height, stretching out of the turgid mud in which she has been sleeping.

A hacking cough produces another stream of seeds, and buries the already startled slug into an early grave. Oblivious, she lifts one of her bestockinged feet into her first footstep after a year of hibernation, and steps on it. Bubbling from under her, it's mucus catches the moonlight, and her eye.

Looking down at it's moist carcass, her stomach rumbles. "Sleeping with the pumpkins for twelve months makes a gal hungry!" she mutters to herself as she scoops up the innards into her mouth.

After picking out the entrails from her jagged teeth, she begins to clamber over the swollen orange gourds that have been her bed-fellows. Her eyes take on a phosphorescent glow as she begins her annual search.

She knows just what she is looking for. For one thousand years she has disturbed her sweaty slumber on this night alone. Maybe she will find it this year. She mumbles, "A nice juicy one" whilst lazily plucking a moth mid-flight and squeezing it against the roof of her mouth.

"Pop!" She screeches with glee. An on-lookng toad wonders if she is referring to the moth, or the object her tangerine eyes have become transfixed by.

She has found it.

Right in the middle of the patch, is a pumpkin the size of an elephant. Squealing with ribald delight, and spitting seeds with frenzy, she leaps over the lesser fruits towards it. Her talon-like nails extend infront of her as she runs, whirring and twitching in anticipation.

When she reaches it, the nails continue their strange dance, but no longer through the crisp, night air. Instead they tango over the thick rind of the enormous pumpkin, cutting and slicing through to the spongy flesh beneath. Thin slivers of orange grow at the witches feet, and slowly a pattern emerges on the body of her treasure. Strange, unitelligible words tumble from her husky lips, and echo the strange, unintelligible symbols that appear at her nails on the pumpkin.

The toad looks on, perplexed.

Light starts to gleam from within the pumpkin, as her writings become clearer. Her strange song becomes louder, and her scribblings more crazed. The dark sky becomes full of this pumpkin light and crows in the trees screech. The toad begins to worry about his health.

She becomes aware of him now, and abruptly turns, leaps, and catches him in her clammy hands. Turning back to the pumpkin, she falls to her knees in front of it, proffering forth the nausesous toad. He can't help but stare at the monstrous, glowing thing in front of him, and is alarmed to notice that the carvings gouged into it's skin by the orange witch, resemble...toads.

He gulps audibly.

Part One

She sees the sun leaking from the sky as she gazes out of the window. It pierces her eyes with prisms of dust particles, whilst she squints at exoskeletons dancing in the web on the glass. They beam light from empty centers, a glowing mockery of life. Blue smoke engulfs their crumbling demise before drifting with the aroma of hops.

In the gradual twilight, she sees last signs of life. Caught in no-man's land is a late bee, lethargically heaving itself around the dying buds of spring and flowers of summer. Those not yet succumbed gleam a cold white amongst the deathbed of leaves.

She moves into a different room.
Staring into her own eyeballs, she is distracted by the dawning realization that her surroundings are not as pristine as the off-white tiles suggest. Three tipulidae dance upon her back. One from before, one for now, and save one for later. Their wings tickle her with Time, as the glitz bleeds from the tips of her split ends.

She can feel the mud on their leatherjackets, smell the decay on their breath. Her fragile limbs spin her around, away from her reflection.

But then there are spiders. Big and intricate as the lines on her palms. They survived a tedious journey through dark places and scum, but they cannot touch the light. They have seen it looming above them in the fan-tailed, outer bliss, but they are trapped in the slippery slope of an insipid-grey purgatory.

The daddy longlegs are in her mind now, although she can still just smell the hops. They clatter and batter against the membranes in her skull, breaking their legs in search of light. But the vapid sun has abandoned the day.


Flailing down the worn staircase, she plunges out into a swelling of heavy, smoke-coloured clouds and a twinkling new sky that pulsates above her thought-ridden head. The door thuds behind her, rattling the dipteratic knocker as if she wished to get back inside.


She sees lightning, but she cannot hear the thunder.

With the eyes of a vampire, she sees life and death with startling clarity, as she wades through the excrement of spring. Stumbling along metallic pathways of ink, cobwebs swathe her face, rendering it mask-like. Only the smell of hops seems alive on a night when seven slashes of cloud scar the moon.

She can feel the longlegs implanting eggs in the rotting root of her brain. She knows their panic in the dark, she feels it too. Clumsily she continues on her way, trying to avoid the puddles of a season.

Time has escaped her. How long has she been out there, smelling the hops, with a mind full of tipulidatic cycles? It feels like years.

To be continued.

Daddy Longlegs

DADDY LONGLEGS (Crane Fly)

Diptera Tipulidae

*Diptera is the order which also encompasses flies

*Females posses an OVIPOSITOR

*Larvae pupate during winter in soil and emerge in spring, reaching maturity in early autumn

*Larvae are known as "Leatherjackets"

*Larvae feed on decaying vegetation, fungi and roots

*There is some debate as to whether adults feed at all. If they do, it seems as if they feed on nectar

*In 1968, renowned Tipulidae expert, B.E.Freeman studied the species at Matley Bog, in the New Forest

*Common Names for the species are:

• Daddy Longlegs
• Lollygaggers
• Gollywhoppers
• Gallinippers
• Doizabizzlers
• Chicken Flies
• Jimmy Spinners
• Skeeter Eaters
• Flipadoodles
  

Me & My Blog

Based on diary enty dated 24 September 2006



Mind-Dribbles and I never intended to have an audience. We found each other whilst playing solitaire and decided to get together to cease the echoing voice of Sue Barker.


We used to talk about mundane, unimportant things that were happening around us as we chatted; the fretting of Tiny and the warbling of Jane.

But now we don't get to spend any time together during the day, so when we talk, it's about things that matter to us.We don't have to play solitaire any more, because of our friendship. And we have both made other friends too. Some of our new friends listen in to our conversations, and although my Blog and I are extremely pleased for the company, it makes our chit-chat a little bit inhibited. We want to talk about how happy we are to have met such a lot of lovely people, but it's hard to say that when you know that they are listening.

This has meant that we sometimes disguise our discussions with lacy metaphors and strange, round-a-bout wording. Blog and I are actually rather grateful for this, because it gives us a bit of a challenge. We have both spent too much time in the past writing diaries, which, however you read them, sound like diaries. Now we feel like we are making progress, and we have our eavesdropping friends to thank.

An oracle told us recently that we should "consider the uses of adversity". We both puzzled over what it could mean for a while, and then forgot all about it. Then some of our friends were having a spot of bother, and to cut a long story short (where everyone's feet got rather wet), we understood what the oracle was talking about. All the bother meant that we got to know everyone a lot better, and that they got to know us better too. So although it's a shame about the troubles, Blog and I are secretly (or perhaps, not so secretly) rather chuffed it all happened, because now we like everyone even more!

When we think back to where we were a year ago, my only friends were Davina McCall and Simon Cowell, whilst Blog had not even been born. We are hugely thankful to have found both each other, and real people (who are far more interesting and entertaining than reality T.V people). They have made my return to the mother-town the happifying experience it is proving to be, and have made Blog's creative juices flow!

Now Blog and I have finally got all that off our chests, we can hopefully get back to the autumnal, daddy-long-legs chat we've been meaning to have for a while now...

Pirate Pickle

Thar be lonely souls a-wanderin' ye olde streets today, matey. Ghosts ye thought ye'd left behind creep up on yer shadow and scare an ol', souless, salty wreck such as meself 'alf witless.

What's a scurvy fool like me doin' dredging up that pot o' worms again? A pickled egg, a tot o' wine, an' forgotten treasure got me 'ead all addled wit barnacles, now din't it?

Aye, these be trecherous waters, an' no mistake. Me ol' map left me trove as bare as a blind man's eyeballs, if there be dubloons buried there, me eyes be too crusted up with ol' salt to see 'em.

Started thinkin' this new map aint so bad, run in to a few serpants on the way, no doubt, but aint nothin' I aint steered me vessel 'round afore. But then me old map reared up it's ancient 'ead again now, didn' it! The scurvy swine. I'd 'ad it locked away good an' proper in Davey Jone's locker afore now. But the sea be a fickle wench alright. She likes toyin' with yer. An' me peg leg an' parrot bein' givin' me jip O'late. I aint no cabin boy no more. Now I'm the ruddy cap'n. Gotta heave the crew into a port over-flowin' with gold and pineapples or they start grumblin'.

I can't take another mutiny on me rusty ship. Barely survived the las' one. Bitter fight almos' to me death, were that. An' Im too rusty meself for another skirmish.