coming clean

I am busy wearing grooves into my fingers with a newly acquired ukulele. One of the many excellent things about this instrument is that it is possible to play it (I use the term loosely) whilst lying on the sofa, a position of which I am very fond. I also discovered only this evening that it is possible to fall asleep whilst laying on the sofa holding an Ukulele.

However (I am pretty sure one should never begin a sentence with however but I am going to throw grammatical convention to the wind) I have interrupted my important groove-wearing and sleeping in order to impart breaking roof news. Mr Damp Man has just been around and applied his instrument in my front bedroom thoroughly, and although his careful poking revealed that my damp place is even wider than initially anticipated, his final conclusion was that 'you have already cured the problem'.

Mr Damp Man will, therefore, always have a very special place in my heart. He also said some very technical stuff about the wet and the inches, which being a girl I understood completely but cannot be bothered to inflict upon innocent passers-by. You should thank me for this, as it was less than interesting, I assure you.

Also, I am in a very Excellent mood as I am going on holiday on Saturday. I am not entirely sure how I shall survive the intervening days but I am fairly sure that laying down on the sofa wearing grooves into my fingertips will feature.

seasons

I am sore in lots of unexpected places.

I am not sure if I want to be a blogger any more, though my forthcoming holiday and some time to breathe might change that. Perhaps I am just too busy with real life at the moment.

I planted a kerria in the garden the day before yesterday. It waves at me every time I look out of the kitchen window.

comic release

I am late for work, but this is after all, charidee.

Shaggy Blog Stories

Buy this book, OK? It's funny and stuff, and the proceeds go to Comic Relief. Bloggers are in it, and everything.

we're all just pushing along

It must be nearly the end of term; I've seen two of my colleagues cry this week, and virtually everywhere you go there are huddles of people muttering angrily to one another and looking hastily over their shoulders to check who might be eavesdropping. Not a happy school, mine.

There's an end of term play on at the moment; performed by one of our more psychopathic year groups. This means that apart from all the normal entertainments such as small children dressed up as dwarves and rabbits and the occasional fudging of lines we have extra added interest such as the trumpet which wouldn't play because someone had shoved a blue wig inside it, one of the kids sitting at the front of the stage calmly destroying part of his costume in the middle of a song, and a girl wearing long grey socks with her sparkly leotard because she point blank refuses to take them off, possibly because she is worried that someone will steal them for further trumpet muffling duty. I've spent a bit of time over the past few weeks helping to rehearse them, and it's been an uphill struggle of the hair pulling description all of the way. Despite (or perhaps because of) all this I was reduced to hormonal rubble yesterday by the sight of one of the more combative boys singing solo in a sweet albeit deeply embarrassed soprano. You can't help but love the little fuckers sometimes.

it's simple but in front of me and back of me

You want achievement? I'll give you achievement:

1) I went next door and spoke to my neighbours about their roof and my damp. I didn't die, or anything.
2) I went to the gym and kicked the cross-trainer's arse. Tomorrow I suspect that my arse will also feel kicked.
3) I didn't shout, scream or even throw things during tonight's staff meeting. Not much, anyhow.

I look out to my left and I look to my right

Small competencies welcome me back: ripping paper, inking a roller, slowing the press wheel with my hip. Muscle memories. The quality of work at this point is irrelevant; a state I hope I can maintain for a while at least. The light is lovely, the studio is airy (though heady with the scent of white spirit and meths) and the kettle boils quickly. There are of course no teaspoons.

I think it might be going to be OK.

you and me and the devil makes three

This week is going on for ever.

the blues they sent to meet me

When I wasn't having a lovely time at the seaside this weekend, I was mostly up a ladder stripping the plaster off my bedroom walls in a blister-inducing rage.

I found some more damp, in the top front left hand corner of the room.. I am at a bit of a loss, as the guttering, the soffit and the fascia have been done, the flashing has been done, and I've lain flat on my face in the loft with a torch pointing at a lovely dry mouse nest (empty).

Where can this damp be coming from? The right hand side is now as dry as dry can be. The ceiling is dry, the front wall appears dry, but the place where the wall meets the ceiling on the left hand side is damp. I am very puzzled, and ever so slightly fed up (I'd be much more fed up were I to allow myself to think about it too much, and am therefore assiduously avoiding this). It's possible I suppose that next door's flashing is leaking, and there are some very eroded-looking bricks on the front of the house which I suppose could be the cause of the damp. I have spent a lot of time looking out of my bedroom windows at the rooves of my neighbours, and wondering if their houses are leaky like mine too. They'd better be, I'm a nice girl and I didn't do anything to deserve this trial. All I want is a bedroom with nice flat walls and no wet corners. This can't be so unusual a thing in a terraced house, can it?

This post is mostly all about not ringing the roofer or going next door to speak to the neighbours.

Frankly, I liked it better at the seaside.

Edit: I have rung the roofer. He is coming over tomorrow with his ladders. He is very cheerful. Bastard.

a bit of come and share it

wonky beach hut
Originally uploaded by etcher67.

Some days are just too good to blog about.

not for all the jewels in the crown

When I was little, the aim was always to stay up as late as possible. Some evenings if you sat really quietly watching the TV without moving then no-one would notice you were there and it was possible to make it to 9 o'clock. Sometimes it was possible to sneak downstairs again; though mainly that was my brother's trick: anyone would think he couldn't get a word in while I was awake. As I got older one of the attractions of leaving home was the possibility of choosing my own late bedtime, and I clearly remember the first time I stayed up all night, watching the boxing with my saxophonist friend and listening to BB King when the TV ran out. It became a regular wander up the road to his house, sitting on the sofa knowing that there was someone to talk to as late as I wanted.

When I began to teach regularly I would at first fall into bed as early as 8.30, exhausted by the demands of my job and frustrated by its power to push me back to a bedtime earlier than most of the children I was teaching. As the years went on my stamina and therefore my hours awake after work increased, until I am now capable of staying up with other adults; and socialising, even.

Last night I crawled up the stairs at 9pm, excited by the prospect of a couple of hours of extra sleep. When did this happen?