Cats.

This is probably Graham's fault. The one of Cleo's less good, but I quite like the shapes. Too dark and too far away.

Tolly in a bag

Tolly in a bag 1
Originally uploaded by hazelsheard

One extra-large, extra-sharp kitten, sir? Here you are then.

rats

rats 10
Originally uploaded by hazelsheard

Either Ivy or Briar with Apple or Berry. Hard to tell.

Never rains but

I'm fed up now. I'm ill, and on killer antibiotics that make me feel sick. In fact, I just managed to put them through the washing machine, but they appear to have survived. I've had a mare of a week anyway, with moving house and trying to organise Christmas and see everyone and everything - half of Christian's present got lost in the post, so I had to chase up the people I ordered it from and get a refund, and I had to chase up O2 who appeared to have over-charged me, for them to tell me that in fact they hadn't and they were reclaiming money I owe them because of some mistake they made. I've just been out to replace the rest of Christian's present, and discovered I've lost my wallet. I know I had it yesterday, but it could be ANYWHERE. I've just rung work and got them to look for it in the cupboard where I put my bag - it's not there. I'm really, REALLY hoping it's in St Albans somewhere or I'm screwed - Fish is going to look for me later. We like Fish. I've got money to tide me over, thanks to being paid in cash which wasn't in it, but there are some things in that wallet that will be bloody difficult, and bloody expensive, to replace. Fuck fuck fuck. :-( So I'm fed up now. And the arguing's already started at home and I've been here 17 hours.

Kitten's grown, but has essentially grown bigger claws.

Not Briar, Ivy, Apple or Berry.

See here.

Been a while.

Things have happened. I just haven't updated, for several reasons, none of which I'm going into. I'm sad about several of them, but they had to happen.

I have rats now. The black baby (with ordinary ears, not dumbo ones) in the last post is actually one of them - now called Briar and considerably larger. I also have Ivy, who's a bit older and also black, Berry, who's agouti (ordinary wild rat colour - imagine the colour of wild rabbits), and Apple, who's chocolate agouti (that's the same, pretty much, but a bit lighter - the technical definition is apparently that she has brown rather than black hairs in her coat).

Ivy's definitely the most sedate, quite happy just to sit in the hood of the hoodie and watch the world go by. Having said that, I just had to extract her from the bowels of my printer, from whence I didn't manage to prevent her entry. She was very good, and didn't chew anything. Good rat. Berry is slightly more irritating to hold, in that she wants to be INSIDE your clothes...she climbs up my arm to my neck and then struggles down it. This can involve a lot of sharp claws. Once inside, she'll crawl about for as long as you can stand. This is quite a while if she ends up between clothing layers, but if she's against the skin involves sharp feet and INCREDIBLY tickly whiskers. Silly rat. Apple's berserk. Won't sit still at all. Holding her requires the most attention of all of them, since she's desperately keen to be everywhere at once. Briar's a bit of everybody. She tends to be the most scaredyrat - everything makes her jump and run and hide in the tube, which is about the one place I can't catch her from, as she's well aware. I haven't managed to teach them their names yet. I have only had them a week though. I'm not sure quite how to go about it is part of the problem. Dogs have an eagerness to please, which makes them very easy to train - you're just teaching them that you'll reward their attention, to start with. I don't think rats really pay you attention like a dog does. A reward system hasn't yet been set up. I need to teach them the word 'nuts' I think. They LOVE nuts. Hmm.

Other news, I got a Real Job (tm). I'm moving back to Cambridge, though. Stumo pointed out I made 6 months in the Real World before chickening out and moving back to the Bubble. *sigh*. To be honest, if this job had been in London, I'd have still taken it. It's essentially data analysis, as far as I can tell - the job title's 'research and admin assistant'...which doesn't mean anything. It's for a company called Baker Richards, who do arts marketing consultancy. Means I should get a look in at pricing and business strategy in the arts - which ought to bode well for theatre management type jobs, if not producing ones. It also bodes well for marketing in a lot of other businesses, which should mean I have a reasonable chance of career progression of some sort in some direction. Theatre is a bit more one dimensional than that. Essentially, I'm putting off decisions, while doing something that combines maths, presentations and reports with the arts. All boxes I'll quite happily tick in an ideal job.

Fyi, I'm moving back into the Victoria Road flat. Will's living in it these days, and my old room's vacant. The only problem's the rats. Need to pester the landlord, and move.

Rat-tat-tat-tat...

Went to the hopera on Friday, with Christian, Joy, Michael Nabarro and Anna, whom I didn't know beforehand - very exciting! Was Carmen at the Coliseum, which is a good sort of thing to start with if, like me, you're not that familiar with the genre. It was in English, which I hadn't been expecting, but which was actually fine apart from the occasional cringe-worthy pieces of translation. I did slightly object to having it in English AND with subtitles, though - entirely unnecessary, given that the diction was superb. I found them rather distracting, truth be told, though that was probably partly to do with the fact that they were set at the top of the pros, and we because we were in the cheap seats were looking down, with them effectively between us and the show.

The performance itself was sung very well, and there were some lovely design touches, like the bar scene that Fish blogged about, however there were a lot of things that didn't quite hang together. There were random touches like a couple of girls in flamenco dresses stuck in that bar for no apparent reason. It felt like they'd suddenly remembered it was supposed to be in Spain and wanted to remind us - it felt awkward and director-ish and silly. The other thing that made it a bit frustrating to watch was the sheer lack of energy in the physical performances - there wasn't any electricity between the lead performers. I wanted passion and power and to feel the love and the tragedy and I just didn't. It's possible that that's perennial failure of the genre, but if so it bothers me, especially as this company represents the cream of the talent in this country. I don't know. Maybe we were just too far away - right in the very back row at the top of the theatre. We could hear beautifully, and had full stage view, but it was just a bit far away.

I had Hugh and Lara and Carl round on Sunday to have food and watch a film and stuff. Was fantastic to see everyone, it really was. I felt afterwards that it might actually begin to turn this place into home, if I can have my friends around and make it feel like a location in our lives, then I'll feel less cut off from everyone. I don't know. If I get the job I went for an interview for today (internship at the Gate in Nottinghill - nice, but unpaid...), I won't be moving to Cambridge. I hope I get it, because it's the answer to my job worries, even if I'm going to be very poor by the end of it, but I really would like to be able to go back to my friends in Cambridge if I can.

I went to see some rats today. They're awesome - behave like mini dogs, loving to explore and playing with their humans and everything. I'd love to have some. Parents aren't keen though at the moment. I'm trying to persuade them. My mum's gone so far as to suggest I get a CAT, which she was really against before. Apparently she's said that I could get a cat and lend it to them if I have to live somewhere I cannot have a cat. This would be awesome, though it would make life difficult in other ways. I do live in a flat, for a start. It's odd, because getting a cat would mean I'd have to have a litter tray, which would be smelly to a certain extent, which is currently the worry about rats, as far as I can tell. The thing about rats, pragmatically, is that they only live a couple of years and therefore the commitment is that much less than a cat. I'm not sure what to do now. I'm going to talk to my mum and see what it really is she doesn't like about them. I really don't want gerbils or anything - the rats have personalities and everything in the way that other small animals just haven't. Bah. Decisions. Anyway. It appears that today has been a good day. :-).

There's a book about Morris Minors under the counter.

And I saw someone writing a real letter.

This really is about the extent of today's news.

Actually a reasonable day, for all that. Managed not to get snapped at or to ignore it if I did. And I was in a good mood until just now. Couldn't tell you why it changed. I'm not really used to living on my own again is part of it...I just feel lonely. Meh. I keep dreaming about possibly maybe maybe moving back to Cambridge. There are people (you: please read that properly - I'm not talking about that, I really mean everyone up there whom I go up to talk to; of course there's that person, but they aren't in any way the be all and end all...I could even see you, if we could ever cope with that.) I could see all the time, and I could live in a shared flat again, and frankly while I'm doing what I'm doing, i.e. filling time and writing job applications, why NOT do it in the town where all my friends live? Because of rent, is why, but I'm wondering if that's really a good enough reason. I COULD get better temping than this, even down here, and I could probably get enough up in Cambridge to make it nearly feasible. Would require more effort job hunting wise, but I COULD.

People keep pointing out that if I've left, I should leave, but the amount of time I'm up there, I clearly haven't left. I'm told not to become one of those people hanging on to their student days with all their effort. I don't feel I'm doing that, and frankly I've always liked being around the old Sods, so I'm a bit torn about that, really. I've ALWAYS hated moving house, with an absolute passion. And no matter how many times I've done it, and in the last 5 years alone that's been a hefty number, I don't get any better at dealing with it. I hate the displacement, and I hate the losing people and the not knowing the place and the sense of trying to break into a community that's already formed. I know I KNOW St Albans, but it doesn't know me any more. It's weird the way it's so the same but that absolutely everything in my world has changed.

There are many many reasons why it wouldn't be a clever idea, of which the most pragmatic is money. Currently, I'm going to try and stick this out for a few more weeks and see where I get to. It's only about 7 weeks to Christmas, which is scary in itself. Maybe I'll get that far.

In other news, Nationwide put a stop on my card because of a random fraudulent transaction. Which was good of them, in that I didn't lose any money, but distinctly awkward just the same. I currently have no cash card with any money I can use (I need to shovel some money into my other account or sort out an overdraft on it in case this ever happens again) on it, and this weekend needed to pay an overdue council tax bill (for the last month of residence in Victoria Road when I wasn't a student) and a SoD dinner cheque. Fish paid the latter, and I had to get Andy to pay the former, and I had to borrow some money to see me through until I got paid (in cash) yesterday. That money hasn't been paid in. I was going to go to the supermarket tonight - slightly glad I didn't now because I wouldn't have remembered to pick it up and thus could have had a very embarrassing moment at the till.

Other slight worry re wages: I got paid the full £200 for last week's work. Which is all very nice and all, but I really ought to be missing a fair amount for tax. I also didn't have a payslip. I mentioned this to the manager, Lawrence, today, who told me that we apparently never GET payslips, and to talk to the owner Götz about it. This worries me a little - surely I should get a payslip every time I get paid? It's like a receipt, and you'd always get a receipt for something when you spend that amount of money. Also, it makes me wonder if he's fiddling the tax a bit. If he pays everyone the full £200 every week, and paying the tax properly, we're actually being paid more like £7 an hour, which is nice, but distinctly lots for the work we do. I'd EXPECT us to be paid minimum wage, which is what £200, properly taxed, works out to. I can deal with cash in hand for once in a blue moon, and because it'll all come out in the wash, but I'm going to be slightly worried if it goes on. I haven't asked the other girls, because you don't do that kind of thing, but the envelopes I saw were lacking in coins, which would be necessary to make up random numbers. I haven't filled in the relevant forms yet, which might explain any perceived irregularities, and if I'm not being properly paid by next week I'm not going to have much choice beyond making a fuss. Meh. Might be my excuse to leave...shouldn't leave.

shifts: 6
rejection to interview ratio: 6:1 Gah.

...ditching school staff served. I get the impression it's all going to be the same ones until I happen to work an early Wednesday shift, when they're ALL in during house assembly.

IGNORE THIS MESSAGE.

Sheer and completely irrational fury. No, it really isn't about you. Or you. Or that. It's COMPLETELY irrational.

ARSEARSEARSEARSEARSEARSEARSE

WHYTHEF*CK

CANISTOPYET

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGG.

Found this again. Wrote it AGES ago, and I'd forgotten what was exactly the reason for it, but I've just been going back through stuff, and currently it's my favourite thing I've ever written. I think it was when we were studying sonnets in my first year, but I can't remember beyond that. Not sure it's really any good, but I'm actually quite pleased with it.

I have written myself into the sand
Of a thousand thousand uncaring souls;
But always it seems sea eternal rolls,
Smoothing the ground on which I try to stand,
Till I might find no purchase to hold hand
Or heart outstretching, and make some bell toll -
Which might alert you to the starving role
That here I play, but may not here extend.
So now I return to the drugging sea
To better con my part for future tries;
And here, alone, play out what might have been,
Had you chosen to hold me in your eyes.
Yet I treasure still the sand still in my pen -
Which you do not miss, though will not see again.

Funnies.

The BBC should not rely on spell checkers.

"...The route is lined with restaurants and at every brassiere door I would hear the metallic sound of Edward's solid silver name tag jangling against his Tiffany collar as he turned his head to sniff the kitchen's aroma before trotting on..."

From here, which is entertaining in its own right.

I should be an unfulfilled poet.

I've got all the right experience. It traditionally involves waiting on tables, working behind a bar, or working in a Salon de The, or in this case, Cafe. (I know there should be accents, but I'm tired.) I don't know whether unfulfilled producers gather the same romantic angst, really. I need a brooding coffee shop with walls lined with books. Maybe I should move back to Cambridge and get CB2 to give me a job - it's just the right sort of place.

On my day off, I went to Cambridge to feed Hugh sausage sandwiches. I was beginning to feel like I hadn't spoken to him in ages, which was because I hadn't, and I missed him a lot. He's currently my bastion of sanity, and I'm leaning on him more than usual. He's wonderful, and I love him very much.

I felt very much better after talking to Hugh, but went and bought strawberries, chocolate and a book anyway. These are the things I buy when feeling miserable. I did dip the strawberries in the chocolate, too. This helped enormously. Weird thing - when you've done that, they're SO much more filling. I could easily polish off a whole box of strawberries, or a whole bar of chocolate or even both, if they were separate, but wrap one around the other and leave it to set, so that when you bite into it you get crunchy, creamy chocolate and gorgeous juicy berry, I could only manage about four. It was white chocolate, with a drizzle of milk chocolate over the top, because by the time I got to making them I'd already eaten the rest of the milk chocolate. (Sainsburys own Fairtrade stuff - as my baby brother put it, The Shit. And he ought to know, he's currently getting up at 5am every day to stack the shelves...)

Trestle rejected me without an interview. I was pretty upset by that, because it's a £14k/year job, which is barely more than minimum wage, in my town, whose arts scene I've known well since I was 14, in a building I've known since it was built and have used often. Meh. I wasn't necessarily expecting to GET the job, but I didn't think an interview was too much to hope for. Who else WANTS that job, apart from a graduate wanting to start at the bottom? What experience do graduates HAVE that I don't? I suspect I need to do an internship and stuff, and I'm hoping to hear soon enough about the BAC one or the Gate one, but even if I get one of those (they're as competitive as the jobs, if not more so), am I STILL going to be fighting for the pocket money type roles? It's slightly depressing. What else should I try for, folks? I need a back up plan. And since I'm not going to be so keen on it as I am on theatre, it would be nice if it had better prospects. Theatre, you hit a ceiling pretty damn quick, so if I'm doing something else, I'd like to be able at least to keep climbing. I'm miserable about this.

They let me loose on the espresso machine today. I can make coffee; I'm crap at frothing milk. Ah well. I'll probably learn sometime. I also had a conversation in French with the French girl, who told me my verbs were shit. Which is true. I'm really out of practice. I should go and spend a couple of months there sometime. I don't doubt that I'd learn properly quite quickly, because I've always picked up languages quickly, and French is just something I have an instinct for somehow. It just fades when I don't use it, unsurprisingly.

Shifts worked: 3
Number of teachers served coffee to personally: 2 (Mr McGuinness, who keeps doing double takes when he sees me, but hasn't yet actually recognised me, and Mrs Edwards, who teased me about what I'd come to. I did sit and chat with Mrs Douglas (Miss Wright as was) and Mrs Wright on Tuesday, too.)
Job interview to rejection ratio: 1:5

Cafe culture.

Arg. Someone very earnestly taught me how to mop the floor today. I couldn't quite believe it. And then told me I'd done very well for my first day. Oh how dull. Meh. I hope I can work busy shifts, or I'm going to go spare. It's money and it's near home. Hopefully the dullness will spur me into getting a real job. I don't think I actually said I got the job, but clearly I did. It was funny today - at least two people walked in asking for work to be told 'the position has been filled' (a line which always makes me think of a snooty lady telling a dog that...way to tell if you watched Mary Poppins too many times as a child). It made me suspect I should be a little more grateful for the job.

I only had a few 'I'm WAY more qualified than this' moments. I did already know that the manager has a psychology degree, though I don't know from where or anything more about him. I suspect he's almost exactly my age, though looking at him I'd say younger. The owner is German and about 50 and cool, and everyone else is a teenage girl or a foreign girl, but nice enough for all that.

Other than that, the weekend had a lot of housewarmings in it. The first one, for John and Fish, was more than a little debauched, and I tried to get hammered, which I've been needing to do for AGES. Didn't succeed, really, though I did have a lot of really strange things to drink and an enduring hangover. It was just one of those long and slightly high nights instead of one of those reckless crazy ones that I wanted it to be. Good fun though. It was a night involving semi-nudity AND cheesecake. What more could be required?

I've got Wednesday off. Sadly I have nothing to do in it other than try and find some jobs to apply for. And then I have Saturday, when I'm watching James and the Giant Peach in Cambridge and pondering trying to get myself some Cam producing work.

Shifts worked: 1
Number of teachers served coffee to personally: 0 (though Mr McGuinness was in today, but he didn't recognise me)
Job interview to rejection ratio: 1:4

I'm missing people - if you suspect I mean you, I do. No more than that, but I thought you'd want to know. xxx

Colin

Colin 1
Originally uploaded by hazelsheard

This is (a bad photo of) Colin. He's Azrael, Boris and the snails' newest friend. I wanted to call him Simon, because he has amazing whiskers and is equally difficult to find, but Colin fitted better with my naming scheme (guess my naming scheme). He's decided the back of the filter's a good home, and has gone black because that's a good colour to be on the filter. He can CHANGE COLOUR though. Yay. He's one of these, specifically Ancistrus spinosus or a bristle or bush nosed ancistrus. Mostly, he's awesome. There's a picture of an albino version on wikipedia.

My birthday was lovely, though a little stressful what with one thing and another, and being ill. Thanks for all the good wishes though! I had curry on Brick Lane, and went to the theatre. Was nice.

I had second birthday in Cambridge on Sunday night - sang in Robinson and then went for dinner in Pizza Express. Robinson Choir is now HUGE - it's expanded way beyond anyone's wildest dreams of last year. Granted it's got a lot of non-Binsonites in it, but it's THIRTY odd strong, and just sounding great. We went expecting to be singing stuff in two parts that bored us stupid, but we sang Rachmaninov (Bogoroditsye Dyevo, or Hail Mary to you and me), and Locus Iste (by Bruckner). AND all the graduation hymns. It was fantastic. Came out on a complete high, augmented by the new organ scholar saying nice things after the service. He's someone drafted in from Sidney because we didn't have one. He's a composition student, and is clearly very musical and has a great rapport with the choir, but his conducting's a bit crap. That, though, he can learn. All in all, things look great for them this year, and I definitely intend to be singing up there plenty.

I came home to a heap of job rejections. Pleasant. Meh. Ah well. Hanna and I had a good bitch about job stuff at the weekend. Today I went into Cafe Roma and handed them a CV. Advantages to working there: I can fall out of bed and into work. Disadvantages: Chance of serving a former teacher = pretty damn high. Bah. I really had better get that job. I'm likely to feel myself utterly and completely without hope or point if I don't. Will mean that I don't have to feel so desperate for a job though.

It's my birthday tomorrow.

Well. If there are any lingering veggies and I didn't scare them off with the previous meaty offering, the following is something loosely adapted from a Delia recipe, which I decided was infinitely more like chilli than any pasta sauce I'd ever seen.

Easy Pepper Chilli

Ingredients
(I do per person, because I'm all on my own these days. Test those basic maths skills...)
1 red pepper, de-seeded and cut into 5mm strips
2 smallish cloves of garlic, finely sliced
1 quite large tomato, roughly chopped
0.5-1 tsp cumin seeds (I like cumin - go for half if you're not me, you can always add a bit more!)
Dried chilli flakes or chilli powder to taste. Again, start with a few and add more.
1 tsp tomato puree
10ml or so of olive oil. Enough to fry things in to start with.

To serve:
Plain rice, lots of grated cheese (story: I wrote 'greater' instead of 'grated' the first time round...and there's no auto-correct involved, here. There must be something Freudian there.)


Method

• Heat the cumin seeds in a dry pan until fragrant, then add the oil, pepper, garlic and chilli. Stir it all around to coat, then put a lid on it, put it on the lowest heat possible and go away and do something else for 20 minutes - nipping in now and again to stir it. Don't worry if everything looks a bit dark, this is part of the flavour. Having said that, don't let it ACTUALLY burn - dark brown gooey is fine, black and dry is not. Take it off the heat for a few minutes if you need to.
• At the end of 20 minutes, the peppers should be pretty soft. This is the point to start cooking rice. Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan and stir it a few times, then add the tomato puree about a tablespoon of boiling water. Put the lid back on and leave it to simmer for about 5 minutes, until the tomato collapses and you have a very thick sauce.
• Serve, over rice, with cheese over the top to melt, and some black pepper. Garlic bread and salad would be good, too. And some sport to watch and a beer to drink if you're so inclined. Watching other people play with the Wii and drinking cider is probably my choice, but whatever tickles your fancy.
  

Cheat's Greekish meatballs.

I had a craving when I got in from my mad weekend yesterday evening. I wanted meat, probably because I have a cold and that's the kind of thing my body does when it's ill. The following is based on something I had an actual recipe for once, but I've no idea where it went. Anyway - that one was a bit fiddlier.

Prep time: about 10 minutes
Cooking time: about 40 minutes, but you can leave it alone once you're sure it's at the right temperature.

Ingredients

Per person:
3 good quality sausages
Half an aubergine
1 large or 2 smaller tomatoes
Half a clove of garlic
Olive oil

You will also need a pan, ideally non-stick, big enough to fit all the meatballs in a single layer. Ideally, they should fit quite snugly, but it's not the end of the world if you haven't got a pan EXACTLY the right size. It does need a lid of some sort, even if the lid consists of a piece of foil and a tin plate.

Method

• Squeeze the sausagemeat out of the sausages. Rather yukky operation. Roll it into rough balls about the size of walnuts. There will probably be about 6. (The original recipe called for a mixture of lamb and possibly pork, with mint, I think - I don't entirely remember, and anyway it was more complicated. This works fine, and you don't have to faff with anything.)
  
• Slice the aubergine quite thinly (no thicker than half centimetre pieces) and fry off the slices until they have a little bit of colour on them on both sides. Unless feeling extravagant, don't keep feeding them oil every time they soak up what's in the pan - they will quite happily have a whole bottle. Remove them from the pan when done - if you're making this for more than one person you'll have to do them in batches anyway.
  
• While that's happening, slice the tomatoes to a similar thickness, and chop the garlic finely.
• Oil your selected pan for cooking the meatballs lightly, then cover the bottom with the sliced tomatoes in a single layer, as fully as possible. Sprinkle over the garlic, and then place the balls of sausagemeat on top of the tomatoes and garlic. Put the aubergine slices on the top, overlapping them in scallop fashion to make an attractive lid.
• Cover tightly with a lid or foil and a plate - the meatballs need to steam. Put the pan on the lowest heat you can manage for about 40 minutes. All the vegetables will release their juices and the meatballs will release their fat, and then that will steam the meat. When it's all evaporated and the tomatoes are forming a sticky dark layer at the bottom, the dish is done. Probably worth testing a meatball with a fork to check that it's changed colour all the way through.
• Serve with boiled potatoes and a green vegetable - peas, for instance.

Mists and mellow fruitfulness?

Well, maybe fruitful in the very tentative sense that I remembered today that I had £250 of cheques to pay in, and discovered that I had £100 in another account I'd forgotten about. Necessary, that. It's misty in that there is mist. And if you want to metaphorical about it, in the sense that I still have NO CLUE what I'm doing and anything. Not sure about the mellow, really. Of the £250, only about £5 is new money, which I subsequently spent on the new Radiohead album, deciding that a fiver was a sensible price to pay for a recording that they weren't paying the record company for, weren't really publicising, and weren't pressing CDs for. Sal still owes me petrol money from last weekend, but when that's in, I'm going to be back to sinking into the overdraught. Meh. I know I should get some temping, but I know if I do that I'm really not very likely to apply for real jobs, and anyway I frankly don't want to do it. I've done my fair share of shoddy little jobs, and I'm bored of them. I want to get paid to do something I'm actually interested in now. I've done enough working for the money. I appreciate that I'm young and naive and that that's never, in reality, going to happen, but I want to TRY at least. Even if the job's not difficult, I want to be involved in something that I can be vaguely entertained by. I do not want to be responsible for paying other people's bills, serving customers food I don't like and they complain about, or filing exam papers, to name but a few.

I appreciate it's not a position I can keep up for long, but probably another month won't destroy me utterly. Meh. Probably not that long, really. In two weeks time, I will go back to the agencies and get some proper work. No actually genuinely I will. I suppose it might not be agencies - shop work, part-time/shift would do me. In some ways that'd be better, except I'd probably find myself working Saturdays. It also works if I get the job I had the interview for yesterday, actually - that's part-time, so I could keep the two jobs going together in a way that would make one full-time job. Perfect. Yesterday did actually go quite well - I came out on a high, and then recalled I'd not mentioned ANYTHING about PGP, which is one of the biggest parts of my work experience. Dumb. Meh. Anyway. I got on quite well with the two women interviewing me, and I didn't feel it went too badly. It was first round interview, anyway, so if I get a second round one I can make up for that. And if I don't, well, I know what to think about next time around and I'll be better prepared. It's a really very pretty job. I'd really like to do it. It's SUCH a shame it's part-time, but I think that's mostly to do with money on their end. I did mention that the part-time bothered me, but they also said there was potential for it to expand to a full-time job of for me to be able to get some more part-time stuff through their partners. Yay. I should hear how they thought it went sometime today if I'm lucky.

I went to Oxford on Wednesday to see Eleanor. She's in a pretty bad way because her Dad, who is almost exactly one year younger than my Dad, had a stroke 10 days ago. It's a funny type of stroke, in that it was a bleed into the space between two of the membranes between the brain and the skull, rather than a more conventional clot inside the brain tissue itself. I think she almost knows too much for her own good at the moment, as a medical student. She knows what all the consequences are and the likelihoods and so on. I can't work out whether it's helpful to her to be that well prepared or more painful than not knowing. Anyway, she's understandably jumpy, nervous, and unable to concentrate. They've let her postpone the latest set of exams, which is definitely a good thing, but she's flitting between Oxford, the Royal Free Hospital in London, and her home in Knebworth. We went walking somewhere west of Oxford on Wednesday because she needed to get out of town and out of the familiar for a bit. I'm trying to persuade her that she should come and stay with me for a while, too. There's a vague (very vague) possibility that I'll head to Cornwall for a weekend at some stage in the next while and if I do I'll take her with me if I can, for both our sanities. But it was nice out. There was mist and greyness and all sorts, and completely no wind, so I could take pictures like the ones in this post (although not like them, because I've been playing with these...). Lots of cows and labradors and that kind of thing. Then we headed back to her house in the evening for dinner, and then I came back down to St Albans so I could be here in time to faff about what I was going to wear to this interview all of yesterday.

I need to see more London theatre, like shows at some of the places I've been applying. Should really do that. I'm going to see something on my birthday now (more because it's the only day possible than specifically because it's my birthday), and I really ought to organise that Royal Court trip to see The Arsonists that I mentioned on the DVD list. I'm feeling poor and lazy, so haven't done it. Bah. I am in the process of organising a viewing of the Return to the Forbidden Planet DVD that I haven't seen yet. Sadly, this doesn't really count. Bah.

My weekend is filling up - I'm meeting Pete McDonald at the Tate Modern on Saturday afternoon, then watching a film and eating with Melissa on Saturday night at hers and Kate's new flat, and going out with Mel, Kate and Graham on Sunday to do something. Don't think we've worked out what yet. Back here Sunday night to feed the cat. I like having a cat, she's lovely. And pleased to see me when I come in and EVERYTHING. The only downside is cleaning out the litter tray, but I suppose nothing's perfect.

Sad.

Andy and I broke up last week. I haven't blogged about it because I haven't known really what to say. It seemed to have become a bit of a shell, and I was feeling like I made life harder rather than better for him, and that his feelings about me were lukewarm. He tells me now that this wasn't the case, but I didn't feel that at the time. I could probably have gone on living with the frustrations I had for quite a while, but it would have ended up with a more bitter break up than the one we've had. Stuff happened with someone else while I was in Cornwall, and I suddenly realised how many things had been missing from me and Andy for so long.

This all sounds horrendously callous, and all the worst possible reasons for ending things, but I've cried enough in the last 2 weeks, and right now I don't want to go into real details. I've agonised over it, and tried to work out the right ways of doing things and do them as much as possible. I'm not sure I succeeded though. Meh. I really, really hope he and I will stay friends, because I think if we can get past this we'll still have an awful lot to offer each other. I'm massively sorry for what's happened between us. There were amazing bits of our relationship, and it's sad that it's over.

I spent my weekend singing for Salvador's ordination in Portsmouth. Dramatic. Had good fun on Saturday rehearsing the Byrd Mass for 4 Voices and some motets. I ended up singing soprano with Sarah Lambie, which was actually really nice. I had been intending to sing alto, but the girl singing alto was really good and I was more use singing sop. We headed down to London on Saturday night. At 6am on Sunday morning, we discovered our tenor wasn't coming. GRRR. VERY rude of him. So I ended up singing tenor, typically. And we had to cut the Byrd Mass and just do the motets. Very annoying. I got paid to sing though! Yay! And proved to myself that my sightreading isn't as bad as it might be. The place was very weird though - Traditional Anglican Communion. Scary lot of people. I've never been to a mroe formal service, and the last mass I think I went to was a Catholic one in Milan, of all places. There were more clergy than congregation, for a start, and all of the clergy had lace on. And there were TWO bishops, for one ordinand. Madness. Lots of bells and incense - and about 5 small boys to do it. I had fun afterwards baiting the priest in charge. Very odd.

Drove them all back to Cam on Sunday night, and then helped Will catch some fish for his tank from Fish's tank. I eventually stayed in Fish's empty house, because I was KNACKERED by this point. Headed back here yesterday in time to clean the house for my dad.

OOOO - someone's given me a job interview! Not for a job I massively want, though. Well, the job itself is nice enough, but it's part time. Grr. 2.5 days a week isn't enough for me. My dad was looking at the description last night and saying he thought it must be a job share, looking at the duties. Bah. How irritating. Anyway. Whatever I decide, it's my first interview, so it doesn't matter too much.

My literary leanings.

Something I found while I was drifting through the books on a coffee table. In the form I found it in, it was presented just as a paragraph, which gave it an air of simplicity and unpretentiousness which made it nicer I think. No idea what the original format was, and, right now, don't think I want to research it. It's interesting to think that this was written inter-war, though inter-war in America which is a bit different to Europe I guess. Anyway. I've been wanting someone to tell me what to do for a while, and since I ditched religion for anything other than the music and a chance to spar with people, art will have to do. Divide it from philosophy at your peril.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrman (1927)

The dude does appear to be a one poem wonder, though. It's not really poetry, anyway. There isn't much in the way of artifice of language in there - the thoughts are good though.

It also occurred to me today, completely unrelated to the above, that I don't think I ever told anyone why this blog and indeed the old blog have the titles they do. One person (that I can think of) will know as soon as I say and may well know anyway, and some of the others may do, too. Who knows. Depends how much twentieth century poetry you've all read. Anyway. This is why:

The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Ted Hughes (1957)

Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters was one of my earliest collections of poetry, and I adored it absolutely. I think my copy's in Cornwall. When I named my blog, I just remember liking the idea of a page becoming written without the volition of the author, and a blog is a bit like that. A place to dump thoughts and words and pictures which come without conscious composing and which result in entries where when you read back you find you've written something different from what you intended but which is nonetheless more accurate. I also like the threatening, almost violent undertones of the poem - there's a feeling that the thing which controls that writing is sinister, uncivilised, beastly. Hughes had a thing about the underlying nature of man, reaching out to the primal instinct that we share with beasts, and that's visible here, I think. It's not a nice idea, really, but it sums up the way I often feel about my life - that it's beyond the control of conscious will.

I'll have to get my dad to bring that and my Sylvia Plath books up with him when he next comes up with any space to carry such things. I still know chunks of the Ariel poems by heart after a friend introduced them to me when I was 17. They date from my Sarah Kane phase, but have slightly (slightly!) less of the teenage angst about them. Not that I count Kane as less than art myself, but people perceive her that way. (Incidentally, the quotation in my profile is from Kane's play 4.48 Psychosis.) Plath never wanted to write poetry, but did in a sort of manic, unwilling way, which fits so well with the emotions of the Hughes poem I've posted here. Well. I think. Anyway. I could go on forever with poems than mean things to me, but it's really not very interesting to read, so I shall leave you with those two to think about.

Lazy or hard work?

Firstly, Nick Fyson's posted some vastly better Minack pictures than mine...well worth a look.

This week I have mostly been: applying for jobs, repeatedly. I was a bit fed up to begin with because the only things I could really find to apply for were unpaid internships. They're likely to be great fun, actually, and will nearly cover travel, which is something. Only trouble is I can't really afford to do that for very long. There have been a few good ones - particularly a job at the Writers' Centre bit of the Soho theatre, which is really nice. I'll be disappointed I think if I don't get an interview for that one, but we'll see. Half way through another application for a Real Job for a company called PHA which does panto management. The fact that it's panto interests me slightly less, but it is a great job mostly because it's a really small company and I'd probably get the chance to have a finger in all sorts of thing. It's also the sort of place where I'd really feel I was making a difference. And it's in Herts - not St Albans, unfortunately, but smaller local venues than most of what we have here. So we'll see. I need to finish that app today.

I went to Cambridge at the weekend to help Andy move house and to get out of St Albans while my dad and my brother sorted my brother's stuff out to go back to Durham. I stayed at Hugh's, because Andy was packing HIS stuff too, to move BACK into our flat in Victoria Road with Will Wykeham and one or two others. Moving Andy's stuff didn't take us long, since his parents had removed most of it the day before. We then wandered into town and sat on Jesus Green with a pile of newspapers, magazines and crosswords. Carl and Heather (in top pic) showed up too, so we had a convivial afternoon that culminated in me chivvying everyone to the Pickerel when it got cold and started to rain, and thence to the curry house. Carl had his camera, so I was playing with that - not that the set on Flickr are from that; they're from my camera. I took them for the playing potential, and I'm actually quite pleased with the results. Would like to see the ones I took on Carl's camera sometime, too. A 50mm lens makes for pretty.

I had a bit of a panic at the curry house. I COULDN'T FINISH MY CURRY. This never happens. EVER. I think I shrunk my appetite a bit in Cornwall, which was a good thing, and also that the more exercise I do, the less I actually want to eat...my body's just better when I do exercise. All in all, I'm feeling quite good about that. My running has been of the order of something like 2.25 miles a day, in just over 15 minutes most of the time, which is pretty damn good. My fitness hasn't sunk very far at all despite a more or less inactive summer.

I went to the (Abbey) theatre on Tuesday to a play reading thing. It's SO weird going back. Literally nothing has changed apart from my going to uni. Even the odd new person is the same as the old people. I know that it's mostly because all the people are real grownups with real lives, but it's still weird.

Anyway. Today I'm going to ring Faber Maunsell because they haven't got back to me about some temping, and finish the PHA app pretty much now.

And also, I'm listening to the Planet cast recording at the moment. WOW. I really need to watch the DVD. Perhaps I shall arrange a Planet DVD watching evening. Takers?