Friday 26th January

Here we are at Friday already. It's been a funny day actually, because half of it has been lost to sleep - the medication the doctor has given me for the pain left by the fall leaves me very drowsy, and I feel like I've slept half of the day away, although actually I haven't. I did my exercise today by taking a short walk to my nearest Boots in search of strapping for my knee. And it was totally pointless, because they didn't have the size of strapping I need, only the silly little rounds of tape that you use to secure a bandage. I bought some, 'cos I'm out of the bigger roll that I had, but the little rolls are useless because to get the effect of the larger size I need to use virtually the whole roll. And I will not spend 17 pounds on a neoprene knee support - I have no idea whether it would work, the odds are that it wouldn't, and it would be a total waste of money. So at some point, I need to go to a centre of town type Boots and buy several rolls of the larger size strapping to tape up my knee. Life is nothing but a pain at the moment.
So ok, I haven't written much about this fall. To be honest, that's because, well, it was a fall, and a fall's a fall right? But it was wet, raining and I was hurrying home from a night shift. I hit a very slippy part of pavement and my foot went out from under me, and I ended up flat on the back on the pavement, very comedy pratfall, with my knee and calf at about 45 degrees from my thigh, my spine twisted right around (it felt like, but I didn't actually break my back!) and the agonising sensation that I had also ripped my ligament in my hip again. I damaged it about 20 years ago, and frankly, I mad as hell about it, 'cos it's been a good two years since it ripped, and I just know I'm back to square one with this thing. For those of you who have never torn a ligament, it's very painful, and takes months if not years to heal.

So, the current book. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. I dare say there'll be a fair few of you who will have seen the film, Capote, and will have a good idea of what this is about. Other's of you may have read the book. I have read it before - I couldn't get to see the film when it came out (although I've seen it since) and I got interested in it, and I bought a biography of Capote. As a consequence of that, I bought the book.
I don't want to give you the impression that I read nothing but murder mysteries, or heaven forfend, true crime. The only other book that I have that comes anywhere near to true crime is Gita Sereny's books on Albert Speer, and I think I've read the Mary Bell book.

In Cold Blood is very far from a standard 'true crime' book. To judge by the biography I've read (and I've only read the one, so I can't give any type of accurate impression) this particular book may well be the original of the 'true crime' style. Basically (PLOT) there was a horrendous murder of an entire family in the depths of the American farmland, and following this, Capote went to the town, talked to pretty well everyone who lived there, and then, following the capture of the murderers, attended the trial, and got to talk to them following the trial. I say following, because I haven't reached that part yet, so I can't remember if he talked to them whilst they were actually on trial. Capote became very invested into this book - I haven't read anything else of his, but by and large, it seems to be referred to as his masterpeice. Because of the appeals system that they have in the states, he had to wait about seven years before the death sentance was carried out, and he became deeply emotionally involved with one of the two men who had committed this terrible crime.

So far, I've got as far as the immediate investigation following the discovery of the family's bodies. A huge part of the beginning of this book is given over to a description of the community in which they lived, and the roles they played in that community, as well as a description of the earlier life of the two crims, and the journey to the farm. There's a clever peice of pacing in spacing the journey to the farm in between the description of the place, and the speed of this journey is matched by the slow sense of life in this place. His description is lyrical - Capote grew up in different places, but he had a fine sense of small town life. I came away from this book initially with the sense that Capote created a large part of the media image of smalltown American life. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's Waltonish, but a lot of what he wrote here has been utilised in things that are presented to the rest of the world as stereotypical American life. The book's in the bedroom and I'm still not up to staggering in there to check on the date of it, but from what I remember I think it's late 40s, possibly 50s, and written in the 60s. At least, he would have edited his drafts in the 60s I think.

I think another huge contributor to the success of this book - and it is a masterpeice - is that Capote was absolutely an outsider looking in. It's almost anthropological at times, almost an ethnographical study of a community under crisis. Capote was for his times an extraordinary figure, a gay man living at a time when it was not yet politic to come out, yet he made no attempt to hide what he was. I think he must have been one of those people for whom it is not possible to hide what he was, and also not have been able to hide from himself. To the people of Holcombe, (the little town where this happened) one can only wonder what they made of him. He arrived there essentially as a journalist, which he wasn't. He had pitched the idea of writing the book after reading about the murders in the papers, and even though his idea had received considerable support (to the extent of being more or less commissioned), he was still an outsider - not a part of the mass of journalists who had descended on the town. He was also already a known figure, a writer of some repute, so he was doubly that outsider. Not a part of the mob, not a part of the town, not a part of the officials tracking the suspects. Being that outsider gave him an opportunity to view it all, from the physical country itself to the people involved in all aspects of the incident. It could have been a disaster, he could have been so ostracised as to be unable to gather the information that he needed to write, but his ace in the hole so to speak was taking his old childhood friend Harper Lee with him. Incredible as it is, Capote grew up with Harper Lee, the writer of To Kill a Mockingbird - what an extraordinary thing that two writers of such ability grew up knowing each other. Undoubtedly she gave him his in, made him acceptable to the locals. Capote was charming and a skilled raconteur no doubt, but she made him acceptable. She would have talked to these people in their own language, the language of a small town. As a woman, she removed the fear he would have initially caused. (You get the impression that he was very camp.) And then, they made friends with the local sherrif.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me read some more, and I'll come back to you to carry this on. It's a fascinating story, made much better by knowing some of the surrounding lifeline of the people involved. It's been quite a while since I read this, and I'm very interested by it.

Thursday 25th January

Hello there!

Just thought I'd post to say that I'm currently reading In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. It's not exactly what I meant when I said I felt like a classic, but when I looked at what I'd got I didn't fancy anything, and this was just along the shelf. So I picked it up and I'm fairly well into it. But I'll write about it later on.

So I'm still stuck at home with my back acting up, and will be for a few days to come. I've managed to get a bit of food in, so I'm not starving or anything. But I'm missing being able to go and do the regular shop.

I've been doing a bit of work on the keycharms etc. I'm trying to broaden my range, because I'm convinced that keycharms are a fashion thing that will pass eventually, the way all these things do, and I don't want to be left high and dry when they do. But I'm pretty pleased with what I've been making - have a look at these.

Both of these keycharms have now been sold.

This is a silvertone green keycharm, currently on sale on Ebay.





And this is a nice gold tone charm - very stylish I reckon! It's got double headed charms hung inside of gold tone rings. The charms have a sun face on one side, and moon and stars on the other. It's also currently on sale on Ebay.





So that's what I've been up to. I'll be back later on in the weekend, when I'm ready to write about the Capote book.

Monday 22nd January

Hmm, I think I'm supposed to be saying more about Black and Blue. I finished it yesterday - at the moment, I'm so damaged by my fall that I can't get out and about, or go to work, so I'm sort of stuck at home. Reading is one of the few things that I can do without pain!
Anyhow, Black and Blue. As I mentioned, its a detective story, where the imaginary tale of Johny Bible is the object of Rebus' investigation, but its mixed in with an investigation into his past - where a tv documentary sparks off a corruption investigation, and on top of all this are the connections between the Johny Bible investigation and the old Bible John killings of the 60s. It's a very multi-layered story! Like all of Rankin's books, it starts slowly and builds up to the point where you can't put it down.
It's very hard to 'review' it, because it's an old book - ten years or so old (it's in the bedroom and I can't just zip up and check out the publication date right now!) And exactly how do I tell you what it's like without giving away any of the plot? I think I've pretty well said all I can say about it.

But I do have something different to talk about. There's been an anthropology series on Beeb 4. It's been a long time since anthropology took it's place on your everyday tv! And the cool thing about these programmes is how they've chosen to look at the theoretical figures - no Evans Pritchard as yet, but right now there's a programme on Malinowski's ground breaking work in the Trobriands. I did a bit of anthropology at university, and in particular I studied the Trobriands, so it's really good to see the old yam huts, and the canoes. Anthropology was great, all those old cool films to watch. Theories of gift exchange. Utilisation of magic as a means of explaining the universe. Brill.
But what I really wanted to talk about was the programme that was on the other day about Desmond Morris. It struck me as such an odd programme to be stuck in an anthropology series. Firstly, Desmond Morris isn't what I would call a major name in anthropology, certainly not in the way that Malinowski was, or even EP (as mentioned above.) But it was such an odd programme! It started off trying to posit him as this major figure, but then at the end it became really hyper critical, almost as if they were trying to tell him off for not going back to a university and finishing a major work. Morris himself sort of came across as rather a jolly chap, if such a thing could be said to exist in this day and age, the sort of person one would love to have at that mythical dinner party. And they did credit his earlier texts with a real respect. It was just that from this sort of huge build up they gave him in the beginning of the programme, they really did knock him down at the end. I felt quite sorry for him at the end of it.

So.. what's next? I don't know. I shall find something interesting! But right now, I'm severely curtailed movement-wise. Perhaps I shall order something over the net, but it'll take a day or two to arrive. If I get seriously into something old, then I shall blog on that. But I've a yen for the really old, perhaps a classic. I haven't read Wuthering Heights for yonks, perhaps because my copy of it has disappeared somewhere. So that's out, until I acquire a new one. I do have to make my way over to the family at some point in the next few days, and perhaps I shall feel well enough to make a quick trip to a bookshop. But frankly I doubt it, at least not until I've made it to the doctors on Wednesday. So I probably won't blog again for a few days.

Friday 19th Jan

Well, I made it to the doctor having fallen flat on my back on Wednesday morning. Battered and bruised, and with a few torn ligaments, but at least I got up there and home again.
So.. Black and Blue. I'm a good way into it, and it's always been the Rebus book that I rated. Maybe I'm very ignorent of scandalous Scottish crime, but I've always thought that the mix of real historical mystery in the book, with the new murders works incredibly well here. The real crime case here is the Bible John murders - which as I said the other day, happened in Scotland in the 60s. Whoever Bible John was, he ended his activities and the crime remains unsolved to this day. A few years ago a body was exhumed, and new DNA testing was done, but the crimes still remain unsolved, so clearly this person was not Bible John. But this must be what Rebus refers to when early on in the story he says that some people 'knew' who Bible John was. I would expect Rankin to have some fairly extensive contacts with his local force, and I dare say they would have told him of the suspicions of the officers who worked the case.
Anyhow it's things of that type that make this book so good. It stinks of reality, with all the grit and grime that that entails. One of the most interesting things about it from my point of view is that at one point, Rebus visits Partick Police Station in Glasgow. I lived in Partick when I lived in Glasgow, and I know this station pretty well, 'cos it was right across the road from the bottom of the road that I lived on. It's a somehow squat looking modern building, but this is probably an optical illusion because Thornwood Avenue (where I lived) was a pretty nigh on vertical hill - hike up the first bit, then you get a flat break to catch your breath on, then gird your loins for the summit, which was really very heavy going on foot. So as you came down the road you would be looking down on to the roof of the police station. Looking straight out, you had a view of the expressway going in to the centre of Glasgow, but far more dominating than that was the view of one of the last ship yards on the Clyde. You could hear the horns of the ships as they came and went - it was a most interesting place to live.
Anyhow, Rebus goes to Partick Police Station, and ends up sharing a coffee with the officer he's come to see out of a vending machine. I can't swear that Ian Rankin ever stood on Thornwood Avenue looking at Partick Police Station, but I'd swear blind I saw the back of those vending machines on the odd occasion! I think it gives a bit of added edge when you know the places that a books' setting is in. You can visualise it that bit more vividly. But let's be honest here, Partick Police Station could be any modern police station, and you aren't going to loose anything from the story.
They did make a tv adaptation of this a while back - I think it was one of the John Hannah Rebus' versions. I'm not entirely sure that Ken Stott is the perfect Rebus, but he's one hell of a lot better than John Hannah. Talk about miscasting. Now if he'd been Brian Holmes, who is the first of Rebus's long term sergeants, that might have worked. And again, in this book there's a secondary plot revolving around an old case that Rebus was involved in, when he was a DS, that may or may not have involved corruption on the part of the senior officer. Holmes himself is loosing his grip on the job, and lost it in person with a suspect Mental Minto, so for saving Holmes from potential prosecution, Holmes reviews the old case. In tandem with this, Bible John himself, back from an American oil job in the States has returned to his old stamping ground to review the work of his disciple, the serial killer that Rebus is chasing. There's another Rebus book, Knots and Crosses, the title of which really should be sitting on this book in a way (although, it's entirely appropriate to the book which it does indeed title) because of the fine interweaving of story lines - and you've got to hand it to Rankin, 'cos they hang together perfectly and you can really keep them mentally straight and all your ducks in a row as you read. You can always tell a poorly written book when you find yourself saying 'Huh? Hang on, where was X supposed to be three days ago when Y was found head down in the cistern..'

So as you can tell, I'm enjoying re-reading this. I'd reccomend it to anyone, as I would any of the Rebus books. But if you're going to read them, best to read them in the order in which they were writtten, so you can follow the development of Rebus's life. There are back references that you'd miss out on in later books. Well, I daresay I'll be writing more as I go along, but my knee is getting pretty sore sitting so still as I type this. So I'm going to go stretch it!

New year etc part two!!!

So what do you think of the new look? I thought I'd go for a new style, and I quite like it. Odds are I'll change it again at some point, but for the time being I quite like this.

I guess the story of the Bronte sister's is pretty well known, but I would definitely reccomend this particular biography of the sisters. It's way more rounded than the average 'walk around the table with the girls' biog - huge chunks of this are devoted to Patrick, the Bronte's father. Its interesting to read about this and gauge the effect of his opinions on the life of the sisters. There's also a comprehensive account of the fall of Branwell, not to mention the life of Branwell. There's a historical conundrum for you, what did we loose by Branwells descent into addiction and early death? Nine times out of ten, people think about Anne and Emily's early deaths and say oh what masterpeices were unwritten, but what about Branwell? If ever there was a wasted life it was Branwell Brontes. You read what's available of the juvenilia (these are the tiny books the Brontes wrote as children, when they created their own kingdoms, and wrote the histories of said countries) and you read the few bits of poetry that was left behind and you think, why did this man not convert such precocious talent into the books his sisters were able to write? On a personal level, I think Branwell was unable to come to terms with the extent of the talent he must have known that he had. He must never have been able to produce work that measured up to the internal sense of what it should be, and he must have discarded or even destroyed a great deal of it. And given the unchallenged nature of male/female stereotypes at the time, it must have been incredibly galling for him to have to cope with his sisters success. How could he have born to have published something, that was then critisised as 'not being up to the standard of Acton or Ellis' (the sister's published their earliest works under the psuedonym Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell, rather than Charlotte, Anne and Emily Bronte.) As the son of the family, so much must have been vested in his potential for success by Patrick (his wife had died when the children were very young.) And then, Branwell slipped away into a haze of opiate addiction and alcoholism. As the girls did, he went out as a tutor, where he appears to have had an affair with his employer's wife (frankly, never a good idea, now as then!) , but rather than use this doomed affair as a spur to his creative faculty, Branwell appears to have fallen in to despair, and consequent addiction.
Genetically it would appear that the family weren't strong - of the four of them, two die from consumption (which we now call tuberculosis), Branwell dies of - well, frankly, it appears that he drank/drugged himself to death, and Charlotte dies of the complications of her pregnancy. You could not say that this was a strong robust family. After all, there were plenty of survivors in Haworth, the apalling public health situation didn't kill off the entire population. Charlotte is the longest survivor of the children, for many years it was just her and her Dad. Amazingly, did you know Patrick had his cateracts operated on? What a brave old man he must have been! His reputation was greatly besmirched by Mrs Gaskell's biography of Charlotte, written after her death. She appears to have encountered him in (presumably) a wild mood, because she describes an overbearing tyrant prone to firing off guns in the air in the morning. Juliet Barker spends a fair bit of time on his early life and his experiences with Luddite gangs that roamed the area. I can absolutely understand why Patrick would choose to keep a loaded pistol ready in the night, and discharge it in the morning! I would think it next to impossible to 'unload' a pistol of that age, and I wouldn't particularly want my young children to perhaps play with it - what that woman can have been thinking off, it seems an entirely reasonable thing to do to me. You take your loaded pistol and fire it to clear the chamber and protect your family - as I fully expect Mrs Gaskell would have done had she been in the same position. Anyway it's a very cool book, packed with loads of information. But it leaves you with this overwhelming sadness, that despite all of their gifts, they couldn't overcome the disadvantages of the life they had been born to. Of all of them, Charlotte got the closest to doing so - her visits to London, her mixing with the literary elite of the day. But she still went home to Haworth, and she ended up marrying her father's curate, and dying of childbirth. So she fell victim to the biggest killer of her day.
Well I didn't exactly mean to write so much about this particular book. I meant to say that I picked the book I was going to write about, and I have. I'm re-reading Ian Rankin's Black and Blue, possibly the best of his Rebus series. I first came across Rebus when I was living in Glasgow, in the late lamented John Smith's Bookshop in Byars Road next to the underground station. It must have been a holiday, because I was strict with myself when I was at uni, and didn't buy any fiction whilst term was on. I loved it so much I bought the whole family a Rankin book for Christmas that year I remember, and they loved them too, and we've been buying each other Ian Rankin books ever since. I got the latest one as a total bargain in the new year, (yep, I've read it, more of that in due course) and when I told my sister I'd got it she screeched 'Don't tell me anything about it, I've got it for Xmas and I haven't read it yet, don't tell me...!!!' and I knew exactly what she meant. Got no idea whether she's read it yet.
But.. Black and Blue. It sort of revolves around the Bible John killings in Glasgow in the 60s. I was kind of trying to figure out what it is that makes Rebus so popular, I mean hugely popular. I think he's an everyman figure, there's a real sense of reality around him. You absolutely share his life when you read one of the books, and the life he lives is terribly real. He's failed at so much in his life - his marriage didn't work, when he was living with his doctor friend it failed to work out - there's a real blow by blow account as you go through the books of the things that Rebus fails at. And maybe it's those failures that make him human, the constant battle with the drink - but you never get the sense that he's an absolute alcoholic. He's a functioning alcoholic, still able to function in the world, but separated from the successes of the world by his work and the drink. I sort of understand this, because of the work that I've done, and there are times when it hammers down at you, the pain of all these people needing help. And god knows, I've never had to go look at a dead body. So I can understand his need to forget, and the forgetting that comes with drink.
The other thing that particularly stands out about the Rebus books is their sense of period. The time. They are perfect evocations of Edinburgh, I can almost smell the city when I read a Rebus. You somehow recognise the bars Rebus haunts, if your Scottish or have ever lived in Scotland, and you're living in England or anywhere, then these books will take you home. The language - I hear it as I read, and it takes me back. To read about the weather being dreich, (excuse my spelling, it's not in front of me as I write this) or the haar coming in, is like - well, it's taking me back ten years to living in Scotland, which I totally loved in a way that I don't love living in Bristol. When Rebus nips in to the corner shop, for his morning rolls, pint of milk and bottle of Irn Bru, it lives. Rankin is an incredibly gifted writer who hits on the small things that speak to the heart of what Scotland is. Yes he writes about the underworld, but it's an underworld that exists in every city. The fact that city is Edinburgh is irrelevant, almost. I can see the trays of rolls and crates of milk outside the corner shop on the street that I lived on. Rolls don't seem very much in the scheme of things, but Rankin manages to remember that dry dusty surface, the taste of the rolls is actually there in the words. So it's no wonder that he sells the way that he does, or that he's so highly rated among our current crop of crime writers, because he manages to move outside of mere crime writing into some other category entirely. So yes, you could say that I like these books!
And I shall write more about Black and Blue as I go.

New Year, New Thing!

Well, I've been blogging for a while now, and it's an ok sort of thing to do. But let's face it, my blog is not exactly rivetting now, is it?! My life is pretty ordinary, and so is my blog.
So I've been thinking about what to do to make it a bit more - well, interesting actually. And as it happens I've also been doing a bit of surfing recently, largely looking at fanfic. For those who don't know, fanfic is writing done by people who are really into a particular story, or tv show, or whatever - they use the characters or worlds that other's have created, and make their own stories. The reason I bring this up is that in looking at this stuff, (and I'm not going in to whether or not I think it's any good...) a lot of people who do this sort of thing tend to blog about books. They talk about what they've read, whether they think it's any good, and I kind of like that.
Also I came across this group who agree to read 50 books a year, and as they're doing this, they write reviews of what they're reading. So that other people can then think, hey, I'd like to read that too. I have to say I think I probably read more than 50 books a year, but I really like the idea of telling people about those books. I think I have things to say about them, and I think it will perk my blog up a bit.
So that's what I'm adding to the blog. I think I probably have talked about wanting to write more about what I'm reading before, but this time, I'm even setting myself some ground rules!

I'm not technically sophisticated enough to hid spoilers. You know the sort of thing I mean - highlight here to read the spoiler. A spoiler incidentally is a crucial bit of a story or plot that you may want not to know since it's generally the twist on which all mystery hangs. So since I can't hide them, I'll highlight them in someway - asterisk them, or write 'Spoiler Alert' and you can choose to skip the next few lines. I can't promise to always remember this, but I will try.
It's my intention to try and talk about the experience of reading something. What I think is a spoiler, may not be your idea of what a spoiler is, so it's up to you to choose to read what I'm saying - or not, as the case may be.
The opinions I'm giving are purely mine. I have no special qualifications that make my opinion any better, or any worse than anyone elses. No one is paying me to do this, I'm doing it because I fancy the idea of doing it. I've got no intentions of including entire plots, or using quotes.
The kind of books I read are both fiction and non fiction. I read crappy detective books that some people may feel are only fit to be read on a beach - I read science fiction and fantasy, and yes, on occasion that does mean dragons. Not very often though. But I also read biographies, I read history, psychology, sociology, anthropology - and PG Wodehouse. I read classical, I read stuff. Just the same as everyone else does.
I like to read "around" - that is, I read multiple biographies of people I find interesting. I'll read multiple accounts of a particular event or period in history. If I read something that I like by an author I haven't read before, then I'll read other stuff by that person.
I'm afraid I don't read romances. Well, not one's that have been written in the last 100 or so years at least - I do read classical novels, that certainly are romances - Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Woman in White, for example. But I don't read this modern chic lit stuff, it does not reach out and scream read me when I pass it in the supermarket. But I do read Harry Potter, so there's nothing elitist about this. I'll feel I'm achieving my aims if I'm talking about say the latest HP and the whatever sitting next to a paragraph on the latest biography of Byron.
One other thing - I passionately re-read my favourite books. One would only have to look at my bookshelves to see this. One of my biggest problems when I moved to Glasgow to go to uni all those years ago was what to do about my books. At that point I had several thousand. Literally. I threw out tons, and was left with several hundreds that I dutifully packed into cardboard boxes, books that remained in those boxes for several years after I moved there. (No shelves in my flat!) I just couldn't bear to part with them. Many of them lived in my parents garage for a few years after I came back to Bristol. Many of those books are with me still, happily on shelves these days, and many of them are re-read incredibly often. I'd say I re-read more than I buy, but I try to buy myself a new book every month or so. So a lot of what you'll read here will be of old books, they'll be the things I pick up just before I go to bed because I need something to read. Books are part of the architecture of my life, and I'm happy for them to form one of my constants in life.

I also fully intent to blog just as I have been doing. Just 'cos I'm going to do this, doesn't mean I'm going to not do what I've been doing. And for those of you who're reading this, and who know me, yep, I can't sleep, and I'm in quite a bit of pain from the fall I had this morning getting home from my night shift. This is one of my diversion tactics, and it's been quite a good one.
So what am I reading right now? What will I be reviewing? The cool thing about this is I just finished a book, so I have to find a new one. I have no idea at the moment what that book will be, 'cos I haven't chosen it yet, but I'm about to go to bed, and hence about to pick something up. I'll let you know what it is in my next blog...

The Nightmare

So ok, here we are, mid January. I feel like "how did we get here, it's the 11th already?" And actually it's way too late tonight to be doing this. It's not really been a good day. I broke one of my alarm clocks last night (I need 2 to get out of bed at the right time for an early shift) and of course, overslept this morning despite all of that "oh God I mustn't oversleep tomorrow" last thing before I dropped off last night.
And then I had a nightmare. I'd actually forgotten about this, until someone said something at work - something totally insignificant - but it brought it all back. It was the wierdest sort of nightmare too, one of those not overtly frightening ones until you wake up and you think oh god what was that all about?
I was in some place that I thought of as home. Yet it was an odd mix of the place where I live now, and places that I've lived in in the past. My cat was with me, sweet little Portia who's long gone now. That was nice, it was like having her back again, curled up next to me. She was always a rather standoff-ish sort of cat, until it came time to curl up at night. Then she would sleep in the crook in my legs. Anyhow, she was there. I don't actually remember seeing her until it came time to leave the living room, but her presence was distinctly registered with me for the whole time.
But of course this is where it gets weird. He was in it, this person from the past of my life, this real presence sitting next to me on the sofa - my old sofa, and he was so nice. He was totally different, not him at all, he was nice and quiet, and being - just different. I can't, and frankly shouldn't explain it here, but he was there.
Then we were going to bed, and he pulled his shirt up and he was covered with these healing cuts on his back. All these scabs, scratches, all over his lower back, buttocks and thighs. I was touching them, and saying how did you get these, and then I saw Portia walking out of the room into the bedroom, and he followed her - I knew she was going out of the window and that he would follow her. And I woke up. Just suddenly wide awake, and creeped out, and thinking God what the hell bought that on, why suddenly to dream of him again, so vividly I could smell him. I could actually smell the scent of him, I have no idea why. I haven't been missing him, and I'm not missing him now. I have no sense of him being missing from my life, without anything other than a pretty strong sense of relief.
But this is where it gets a little strange. We've often in the past had periods when we've been apart, rows arguments and all of that stuff, and we've dreamed of each other and for that reason got in touch because of a sense something is wrong in the other's life. And I do have a slight pull to say you should ring him, check on how he is. But I'm not going to. This is the first time I've had one of these dream events and been sure its right not to check. I cannot go back there now. I will not go back there now. It would be such a negative thing to do. I just rather get the feeling I'm going to be spending the rest of my life experiencing these dreams from time to time, and maybe waking up in the middle of the night with that smell in my head. And yes, I'll be sad, and feel a sense of loss for the things that might have been if my life had been different.
But, but there's a huge but. No sense of loss will ever again be able to overcome the sense that I'm where I'm meant to be, and remove the memory of the incredible struggle it took to reach this place. And that's got to be worth all of the dreams for the entire totality of my life. The dreams are fragmentary, and very, very occasional. The triumph of overcoming that struggle is permanent, and one of the strands of my life that makes me me.

Yippee the first week back to work is over...

I'm just so tired... I know like we've just had Christmas and all the time off that that brings with it, but then all my time off's been taken up with cooking and having a cold - and then I had a migraine earlier this week, real full spectrum deal, flashing bits and all. So I'm looking forward to this weekend.
I'm visiting Mum - which I hadn't really expected to do initially, but then I looked at my rota and thought if I don't go this weekend, I won't be able to go over for a good two weeks. And I have cheese for my brother who wasn't able to get his favorite kind before Xmas. Rather astonishingly, he went to the good cheese shop in Bath to get it - he's into the Ementals and Jarlsbergs of this world, and the assistant apparently didn't even know that Jarlsberg is a cheese.

On a totally different matter, I could not believe this business about what the parents have done to that poor child in America. I dare say you'll know what I'm talking about, the disabled child who has had all this surgery to keep her child sized. I can't believe the monstrosity of this. It is so unbelievably wrong, no amount of explanation on their part could ever make this right. Suppose this child has a normal life span, what sort of freak is she going to be at fifty? It doesn't make it any better that the child herself will never understand what's been done to her. Given that there is so much that went wrong with this child, what right do these people have to make her even more wrong? And how come people who appear to care for their child can actually be allowed to mutilate her even more than nature/god has already done? What doctor could allow anyone to do something like this? Apparently there is some sort of cost implication on their website explaining that it was necessary because of the care costs involved - which is yet a further indictment of the American system of healthcare. This was just so utterly wrong, and these people apparently could just not see this.

So.. I'm for an early night. I am just so tired...!!