I require your assistance

Dear Lucy, Lottie, Linnet and other friends of mine who stumble across this occasionally (whose names perhaps also begin with 'L' (not yours, Rachel Rose)),


Re. Point 1 in the post below.


I have concocted a plan. It is not really thought through at all, and probably simultaneously a bit pitiful and perhaps a bit difficult. The plan is basically as follows:

"I am not going to buy any more items of superfluous clothing, jewellery or shoes for the remainder of 2011."

(I've slipped the 'superfluous' in there, just in case there's a massive accident with an invaluable item, such as underwear or my Good(-ish) Work Trousers or whatever)


The help I need from you is really simply to be aware that this is my plan, and so to pour scorn on me if I break it, and to whisper little words of encouragement as the year progresses.


(I'm aware there are only 2 months left of 2011, and Not Buying Any More Clothes I Don't Need Anyway is hardly the most noble of gestures a person can make, but still...)


I should probably also decide to give the superfluous (is that even spelt correctly?) clothes I already own away, or to have a 'one in - one out' policy (hey, maybe I will start that... in the new year, of course...), and other nobler things, but this is a start, right?


Anyway. Is that ok? Scorn pouring and whispering all right with you?


Thanks.

Half Term Observations

Things I have observed this week:

1. I have absolutely plenty of clothes, yet I seem to keep buying them, without really knowing why I do it.

2. Petrol gets gradually more expensive the further along the A43/M1 you travel (from Market Harborough to Woburn Sands)

3. The nurse who didn't give me antibiotics for my clogged up sinuses was doing her job, and doing it well, despite my irritation at her apparent disregard for my achey face.

4. Paintballing makes people really tired.

5. Profusely eating lots of cake and drinking copious teas and coffees causes an expansion of waistline.

6. Changing the clocks back makes me want to hibernate.

Beauty Sleep

"U.G.L.Y. You ain't got no alibi, you ugly (hey hey) you ugly!"


This song has been floating round my head for a while now. Probably something to do with the fact I am having to sleep with a strip of plastic across my nose, and antiseptic cream on my face while my bunged up face refuses to de-bung and continues to get sore-er in the process. Yeugh.

I've been on the brink of feeling sorry for myself the last couple of days (I nearly cried when Jamie Oliver made a "pie to propose over" this eve) but I've had so many moments of loveliness that I've managed not to.

For example:
- the red-orange leaves on the trees at the moment are completely beautiful
- my nephews and nieces and their eagerness for reading and chess playing, and their willingness to let me hug them
- Marvel comic pyjama bottoms
- folk singers and past teachers who remembered me
- my (ex-)housemate's washing powder on their spare duvet

Lots more besides. Absolutely no ugly thoughts allowed. (or is that 'no ugly thoughts aloud'?)

Anyway, I'm off to catch me an extra hour's beauty sleep. Yes!

Back to Life

So last weekend, two of my most wonderful friends came to stay for the weekend. We meandered round sunny hills and dales, ate (a lot of) cake, drank (obscene amounts of) tea and generally mooched.

Before they arrived, I had, without really realising it, been feeling generally quite cross and unsettled. No real reason why, as far as I can remember, but I was only really aware of it once it had subsided - one of those "you don't know what you've got til it's gone" moments (apparently, it works both ways).

When the weekend was over, I realised how relaxed I felt and how much I had missed them.

This week is half term, and I have so far mostly spent it flitting between Northampton and Market Harborough. Today was a Most Marvellous day, with two of my most excellent friends, and a friend of a friend I am slowly getting to know. We spent it walking through woods, strolling through tree tops, eating (a rather restrained amount of) cake and drinking (a respectable amount of) tea/coffee. It was a day of sunshine and jumpers and photos and non-pretentiousness.


I have missed you!


I'm realising that being on the same wavelength is mightily important.

Mutual understanding and shared enjoyment make life so much more enjoyable.



"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" John 10:10

Subtext

Wowzers.

I am tired.


So at the moment, there are no free lunchtimes, I am in school til late o'clock far more often than I ever have been, and today was Open Evening.

I missed it last year, due to being ill. That was convenient.


Still, it was good tonight.


You know what, though - it's a bit (a lot) like a slightly misleading sales pitch, whereby you big up all the good stuff, and gloss over the less good stuff. Like, "there are loads of instruments you can have a go on, like these drums over here, and the guitars next door, and the keyboards along here" (subtext: "you'll have a go on the drums for approx. 2 mins during your entire time here, and later if you touch them, you'll probably be told to leave them alone; the guitars look pretty good hanging up in the other room and because they're in the other room, it means you probably won't get to play them much, if at all, and if they break, we never really fix them. Keyboards, however... learn to love em.")

Like the GCSE, when you hear about salsa and club and disco and African a capella and all the good stuff... and then you spend your days sitting staring at a screen, writing down facts about all these interesting music styles that we are hardly equipped to perform.

Still, I'm trying to rectify that one by doing less staring and more doing. (which I don't know why I didn't do before, anyway... far more interesting that way)



Anyway, I need to plan some lessons for tomorrow.


I am TIRED and my head is spinning. Not literally. That would be weird.



Goodnight.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

So the joys of re-teaching the same lessons that I taught last year means I have a lot more spare time in my evenings than I'm used to.

This means I have spent most of my time over the last few evenings watching my housemate's friend's box set of Friends.

It's also meant that I've spent the last few days being simultaneously grateful for having a housemate, and missing having a close group of friends who live near by.


That is all.

The Pursuit of Love

I found this that I'd written a few months ago. I think I might have posted it before, and then deleted it. Anyway, I thought I'd share it again, especially in the light of another friend's wedding tomorrow.


"What I don't understand is that in novels and films, it all seems so easy...

So, I'm currently reading a novel by Nancy Mitford. It's really quite good - I like her style, and she makes me smile wryly every now and again, which is nice. What I don't get, however, is the fact that although her protagonists are in "The Pursuit of Love", she only dedicates about a paragraph to the "two years of agony" between 16 and 18, which is from the age her characters become preoccupied with falling in love, to the age they are 'out' and allowed to get engaged.

How can the 'pursuit of love' be condensed into so brief a paragraph...?

Oh and every now and then she slips in things like an "oh, by this point I (the narrator) had met so-and-so and now we're married", and a nonchalant "oh yeah, this sister of mine has now got 2 children"... like it's of no consequence at all.

Isn't it supposed to be life changing? Isn't it supposed to make an impact?

It's like when I talk to people who have been married for ages, and it's so matter-of-fact and understated, that I get confused.

I feel like my whole life has been building up to The Event. And you know how when someone promises you something, and says "it's on its way, promise!", and you get excited about it, but then it keeps not coming, despite reassurances of "it's still on its way!", and it gets harder and harder to be excited about it...?

I just don't really know what to do differently.

I mean, I want it to make an impact, I want it to be worth waiting for, and I also suppose I don't really want to miss out. But if all that's asking too much, I might even rather nothing than a lukewarm non-life-changing "oh, and then we got married" type thing.


I sometimes feel like there's a secret code that you need to understand before you're even allowed close to contemplating The Event.

It's like a club I've not been invited into.




In other news, I just ate an entire tube of Maltesers. Yum!



"We walk by faith, not by sight"
2 Corinthians 5:7"



(I found it - it was originally posted on January 19th. The day after my 25th birthday.)