Sunday Reading

A few weeks ago I was tidying the kids table at work and picked up a book called Stoneheart. Now I'd been picking this up and looking at it for a while. I liked the cover and loved the first part of the back cover blurb...

Deep in the City something had been woken, something so old and so ordinary that people had been walking past it for centuries without giving it a second look...

So I opened it up and read the first couple of pages. Then I walked over to the shelf and picked up the second book Iron Hand. Then I put them on our reservations shelf until lunchtime when I bought them both (as well as the new Sarah Dessen book, Lock and Key).
I read all of Stoneheart in my lunch break then I polished off Iron Hand at home that evening. Then I read them both again a week later.

Now I read a lot of kids books, I read a lot of books full-stop, but these... It was like the first time I read The Hobbit/Howl's Moving Castle/Saffy's Angel/I Capture The Castle. Just oh-my-god-that's-so-good!

Someone else loves them too.

I now have to wait until September for the third book Silvertongue - I may just explode with impatience before then.

One of the reasons I found these books so amazing was the way that while I was reading I was in London. There is a wonderful passage where the Raven has been sent to fetch the Minotaur...

In a direct line between him and the gherkin, about half a mile in front of it, was the eastern edge of a massive complex of concrete and glass, like a fortress assembled from ziggurats and thin spiky towers. Inside the boundaries of this futuristic urban citadel there were fountains and walkways on different levels, and there was more concrete. The Raven knew that below the surface of the southern end of this sprawl had once run the ancient city wall. And he could remember when the dwarfed white church marooned in a startling patch of green within the cement bastion had been the tallest building in the area.

Now as soon as I read that, I knew it was the Barbican. I've been there enough times to know it, I'd just not necessarily have described it like that, but it's a perfect description.

These books have meant that my much wanted trip to London will now be featuring a tour of the statues mentioned in the books. I've managed to find some photos of a couple of them, The Sphinx and The Royal Artillery Memorial, but I want to see all of them. I want to see the Grid Man, the clock where they hide, the statue of Icarus and the lair of the Minotaur.

If these books had been published twenty years ago, I would have been taking that tour with my dad as he'd have loved these books. Instead I shall take my camera and Anthony (bribed with a visit to the F1 shop and the Imperial War Museum) and make it my third reason for my trip to London.

Drinking and Random Dad Fact #3

It was Jo's leaving do on Saturday night, and after a quick stop in The Litten Tree (packed full of Wolves fans watching their team get thrashed, Man U fans watching their team win and various chavs) we dashed through the rain to The Combermere Arms.
Matt had randomly appeared at work during the day (the new Lee Child book is out) and so he was there too.
Poor Matt felt a little young for once I think (makes a change from me feeling old) since the next youngest person was Jo, and she's only five days younger than me.
But we chatted and gossiped and nattered and talked about porn so it was really the same old kind of work do, rude and fun.

We were in the front room with the jukebox and quiz machine (on the right as you go in, bear in mind this pub was a house and is weeny small indoors) so of course I had to put music on, and Liz very kindly covered for my evil cunning plan by asking to hear the David Hasselhoff song that was on there!

A very good night was had by all really, and I'm glad that although Jo has finished working with us (*sob*) she hasn't actually taken off for the other side of the world yet and so we can go to the pub with her again!

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Random Dad Fact #3

While I was putting bad music on the jukebox, Anthony had a go on the quiz machine. Now he's rather good at these things and only occasionally asks me for an answer.

This time it was a good one.

Anthony - Ohhhh...do you know this one babe?

I look at the machine...

Q: Which instrument was Bix Beiderbecke famous for playing?

1. Trumpet.
2. Saxophone.
3. Double Bass.

In the interests of being a pedantic bitch I would like to point out that none of these is right, he actually played the cornet, but for the purposes of the machine trumpet was the correct answer.

I know this because of watching The Beiderbecke Affair and its sequels far too many times after being introduced to them by Dad.

It's not the only "Jazz Fact" that I know, but it comes close...

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Much like Posy the publication of the Radio Times Christmas issue is something that makes Christmas suddenly happening and actually real (and not the result of me watching too many Christmassy films in June).

I got mine this morning and have just spent a happy half hour or so (might well have been longer) going through it circling all the things I want to see/hear. It's a family tradition, Dad used to give us all different coloured pens to mark our programmes off with, and we weren't allowed to mark anything that we already had on tape - Mary Poppins, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang etc.

It was quite sad this year, discovering things like Humph in Wonderland and realising I wouldn't be listening to it with Dad. But I am slowly getting used to things like that.

One thing that did actually make me cry was the feature on the adaptation of Ballet Shoes. I was worrying it would spoil it but the pictures are just perfect and after reading the cast list I know that this is going to be a Christmas TV highlight.

I have circled everything that I want to see (including Mary Poppins and Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang) in purple ink, even though I probably won't get to see many of the things. As in so many previous years I shall probably watch the first of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and then end up missing the rest...

London Town

When I was on the phone to mum the other day we were talking about how much holiday I had left and she suggested that if Anthony and I came to stay we could go into London on a couple of day trips. When I mentioned this to Anthony I said it would be quite cool as he's never been to London to visit (only driving with work) and that I "haven't done a real trip to London for ages".

Except...I've never lived in London so really all my trips there have been as a visitor/tourist.

Now I probably used to go into London at least once a month when growing up. We'd visit my grandparents (mothers side) who lived in Leyton (where both my parents are from) every few months, there would be visits to Frank and Teresa (parents friends from Libya) who lived in Battersea and to Ceri (mums old flatmate) and her family in Harrow, and pretty much every school holiday mum would take us in to visit a museum with friends - usually Ceri and her daughter Emily when we'd do swap visits (her to us, me to them).

With all of this I never really felt like a tourist. I've always felt Tube-savvy, checking out my route before hand and knowing alternate routes in case of problems and I always carry a little A-Z with me in case I have to walk somewhere (rather than meandering around shops). I've never really got the hang of the buses, mum never used to take us on them but on the times I went into London with dad (just me and him as a treat for me and break for mum) we would catch them as he always knew exactly which ones went where.
The only time I ever really felt touristy and like a visitor was the time I went in with a boyfriend and he really acted like a tourist, all gawpyness and asking loudly which station we needed for Downing Street or Buckingham Palace. In vain did I point out that it was pretty damn easy to walk from one t'other, we had to go to the tube station mentioned in his guidebook. Never again.

I can remember clearly the three times I went into London with friends from school. (I know, only three)

• Carmen, after we got our GCSE results and we walked between Bank and St Pauls rather than get the tube. We wandered round various shops and parks and she managed to get sand in her shoes when we walked across Rotten Row.
• Jo, when she met me at Liverpool Street and we went shopping in Covent Garden avoiding all the trendy shops and wandering through the back streets and nattering.
• Laura, after our last 'A' Level Biology exam when she went to a very posh hairdressers, we had lunch out and bought perfume in Harrods.

They were all times when I felt grown-up and in control of my own trip into the city, probably why I hated being dictated to by guidebook. My last trip into London was when I saw the lovely Mark, a very nice day of wandering round and spending no money.

Even though I feel a bit like a fraud, I can't wait to "show" Anthony around. Silly but true. I want to go and see all the museums and galleries again, I want to go round the conservatory at the Barbican, I want to wander round the shops with someone who won't act like a tourist and will hopefully feel relatively at home there, even if he does think that Birmingham should be the capital city instead.

The saving grace of solitaire.

I'm playing lots of solitaire. It means I'm doing something, while at the same time I'm not. My mind is busy on one level but free to think on others.

Today I have been playing solitaire and listening to this and crying a bit (ok, a lot).

I had stopped crying. It was like my body had dried out. The main problem is that my brain is still not convinced that all of this is real. As my mum said this morning, it's like it happened two days ago but also two months ago.

Dad is going to be buried in the fabulously lovely Herongate Wood next week. He'd left no instructions about wheres and hows (bloody typical) so we've got him a plot by the pond where there are moorhens in spring. As the homepage says there's no need for hearses and limos and very rushed half-hour slots at the crem all of which he hated. The funny thing is until mum found the place, we had no idea it was there although we've driven along that road hundreds of times. That's rather the point I think.

We're also probably going to get him a bench in the local park. On our Saturday library trips to Chelmsford we'd park near Chelmsford Park and then walk through (therefore avoiding the multi-storey car parks which he disliked). There is a bench that we'd walk past with a plaque on it that says "In Loving Memory of Ted and Cis". Now we have no idea who Ted and Cis were, but every time we'd walk past it he'd go "Oh, I remember!". So a bench for other people to make that joke about is sodding perfect.

Everything seems to happening very fast but also very slowly. Presumably time will return itself to normal at some point. Probably when I get back to work and have just five minutes to go before my lunch break...

Darkness

I'm rather confused at the moment.

When the world ends everything's supposed to stop right? Things aren't supposed to just carry on. At the very least there should be a moment when everything stops.

All I got was the TV blowing up.

Spain was lovely, got sunburnt and relaxed a lot and then got back to England at 3am yesterday morning. Crashed at Anthony's for a few hours, went to Tesco for food, went to Waterstone's for the new Pratchett and then came home just as the phone rang.

It was my mother ringing to tell me that my dad was in hospital. That he'd gone in on Thurs/Fri with a bit of a pain and that then all of a sudden she had a phonecall on Sunday to say that instead of thinking about him coming home on Monday, she should get there as soon as possible.

Unfortunately there was no point in me trying to get there as soon as possible. Instead we did sensible things like putting the food in the freezer and putting a load of washing on and feeding the cats treats.

Then we put the British Superbikes on to distract me. Then the TV went "buh-dooooooo" and stopped working. Then mum phoned about ten minutes later to say that dad had died about ten minutes before.

Bastard took my TV with him.

I think we are going to have to be careful with the family sense of humour. It is dark at the best of times but at the moment is very very black and leads to hysterical laughter followed by flooding.

Like the fact that my mother can now watch exactly what she wants on TV and has claimed possession of the "preciouses" (remotes) but then got all shaky when thinking about the copy of the Radio Times next to his chair with all the programmes he wanted to watch this week circled.

We are all over the place at the moment, literally. I'm in Wolves and Emily is in Cardiff. She went back yesterday morning when everything was still ok.

Anthony has had to go to work which is one of the reasons I'm up so bloody early. I don't have to even think about work until I have to ring RichieFingers towards the end of the week. Poor Richie, he was so very unintentionally funny on the phone yesterday when I phoned to say I probably would not be in today. He was all "Oh. What? No! What? What? No! WHAT?" Darling boy.

I spoke to my cousin Richard last night as mum couldn't face ringing my Aunt Sylv and so I rang Richard to ask him for her number. But he was also a star and said he would tell her (and his dad) and then pass on my number.

No one even knew he was in hospital cos everything happened so fast. But fast is good in a way as I wouldn't have wanted him hanging on and on for days. He would have hated it too, partly cos it's £3.50 a day for the TVs in Basildon Hospital. He was whinging about this, but then enjoying watching the football results.

Bloody Orient lost their first game of the season too. And he never got his birthday present - the programme for Leyton Orient.v.Arsenal in the FA Cup Semi-Final game from Saturday 8th April 1978. The game prior to this was the one that led to me being born.

I will be here for a few days and then will go home. Mum wants to be on her own for a little bit as it will make things easier afterwards. Emily is stuck in Cardiff until Thursday as she has to enrol on Wednesday (essential for student loan). I am worried about my baby sister. I am ALWAYS worried about my baby sister, but I am extra worried at the moment. Being worried about her is helpful cos then I am not thinking.

I will be spending a lot of time on the computer trying not to think. Thinking's overrated.

It also means I shall be doing lots of work on the cross-stitch for my mother.

And contributing to global warming by using acres of tissues.

More holiday

My second holiday week was just as relaxing as the first, but had the added bonus of Anthony.

We went shopping a couple of times, including buying some heavenly choc drops in Hotel Chocolat, and also went and looked at fish tanks. We saw some lovely ones that doubled up as coffee tables, which we could actually picture in my front room...with Foley doing her best to get into them! So the fish plan is on hold for the moment.

We stayed at Anthony's house a couple of nights, and he made himself very happy by managing to get WoW on both computers so we could both play. This was part of his cunning plan to get me to level 70 before the end of the week, cos otherwise I'd tell him to play while I worked on finishing my cross-stitch.





Both of these tasks were achieved!






I've also picked out and started a new cross-stitch project. So far it looks like this ---->
Obviously it's a work in progress, but it has a deadline so I plan to photograph it each week to encourage me to work on it!


I loved both Grand Prixs during my holiday, not just because Kimi won both of them...honest! Although it was a little scary when I phoned home yesterday to natter about them, to have my dad say "I hear you have a kitten blog" (!!!) I think my sister has been talking about me behind my back (which isn't hard when she's in Essex and I'm up here!).

I'm back to work tomorrow which I am actually looking forward to. I have a few things to sort out that I can't wait to get my teeth into now I'm all refreshed, plus it's less than two weeks until Potter!!! (I have been practicing staying up to read it, at least that's one of the excuses I used when I went out for a night on the town and didn't get home until 4am).