Last night I got home to three bits of post from you! One of which is that gorgeous photo that made me remember how warm it was in Morocco and what a lovely place we stayed. I have pinned it to my desk and it makes me smile too.

It’s been a quiet week really. I saw Katie on Wednesday night and she made lamb tagine. I had Henry and Natalie over for dinner last night to eat steak and watched some of Godzilla with Paul. He made a very tasty banana and carrot cake and we had some apple and blackberry pie from Waitrose.

Tonic had lots and lots of love from Natalie and is looking very well and the moment. Steve needs her very expensive booster injection. Might have to take her to the vet in December. Nice Christmas present for her!!

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much has changed and how much more is going to change. I don’t like change very much. I guess I’m one of those people who is bored by routine, pretends to be spontaneous and then abhors change and is vicious towards anything that disrupts the routine I made while no one was looking. Being a control freak can be exhausting.

I feel quite isolated at the moment. Plenty of people around to play with but it’s just not quite the same. I very much need my own kind and it’s a bit like being ship-wrecked at the moment. I have written a poem – nothing special, but it came to me after reading Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy again.

Sometimes I wish I lived in the Jane Austen Book Club. Sometimes I wish I lived in Mary Poppins. Mostly I’m glad I don’t live in Apocalypse Now.


Poem

If you are a sailor,
then I am a boat.

If I am a castle,
then you are my moat.

If you had a party
I’d rain on the parade

If this is my future,
then I am afraid.

If you were a wheel
then I’d be the spokes

You deliver the punch line
but I am the joke.

Shooting The Dead . . .

So I spent my weekend rejuvenating my romance with Brighton. We walked, we talked, we drank coffee together and ate a lot of cake (I felt ill for days). I got very wet and a little bit drunk on cocktails. I realised why not having a car sucks even in Brighton (it costs a fortune in taxi fare to arrive anywhere dry).

I also discovered this: BRITAIN's Biggest Photo Biennial - BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL.

I had to see this. I had to add this to my falling in love all over again and what did I get? An exhibition of graphic exhibit of Dead People. Yes. I know. What the hell do you do with that experience?
There I was minding my own business, wandering into a disused church/art space with my friend to discuss in an artistic manner the lighting in whatever pleasant, symbolic shoot of rural France was about to greet us and instead . . . someone has been motivated by the lack of the portrayal of death in the coverage of the Iraq War to actually seek out gruesome, disturbing shots of very dead/hideously disfigurered.dismembered people and stick them on a massive banner.
I am not a lover of horror films. I do not have an appreciation of gore but I was strangely compelled to (at a distance) stare at death. A very real, already passed, nothing-I-can-do-about-it death. And it sickened me. There is a very good reason why that stuff I have seen is NOT on the news.

Pickle, you would have been very upset. But perhaps we would have talked about it and discussed it’s usefulness as a demonstration of reality. Perhaps not. We may have cried together.

This experience has reinforced my total belief that if there was any kind of disaster/war/outbreak of zombies that I would be one of those people who very insignificantly and gruesomely dies at the beginning of the film for effect.

Only a few weeks ago Rob asked me how I’d get from Calfornia to Hawaii if there was no one left on earth, it was my only chance of survival and I only had one month to do it in. Initially my response was simple enough; I’d sail. I can’t fly a plane obviously and I don’t fancy my chances swimming (I have a very serious fear of sharks). I gave myself a 50% chance of living.

Then I did some research. Was I mad? Have I really no idea how difficult it would be to navigate that? Let alone survive the weather? Please see the links to the left and read about some people who tried (Ican’t be held responsible for how unattractive they are). I have reconsidered my options and I now give myself a 0% chance of survival and therefore decided that should this occurance ever arise I would stay on land and wait for my inevitable death in style. There’s be no one to stop me moving into a very nice hotel and sleeping in a different room everynight for a month would there?

Oh and by the way, looks like G might be working in Qatar. Joy.