I felt bad for not updating you all on my whereabouts in February and March, but then I remembered that you all know where to find me on Twitter so it wasn’t much of a problem really. In case you want a recap though, here’s what happened. Continue reading
It’s time for another film: please add your suggestions below. As promised, Asta gets to pick. Then we watch it. Then we post about it.
This is the view from the spa last week, before the snow and the river flooding and the return to deep freeze temperatures. Even without all those, it doesn’t look warm and hospitable. It’s not. It’s been bleak here since November.
I went to the spa to paddle about in the pool and get a pampering massage. I had the pool to myself. That was lovely because it meant I didn’t have to make polite smiles and then pretend other people didn’t exist. I am operating on reduced power for sociability.
After a year of physio treatments, I’m a big believer in the power of massage. Unfortunately on this day the masseuse was bored, tired and/or mentally distracted. You can tell in the hands. It was adequate. It was not transporting, blissful, soothing or any of the other words used in brochures to describe muscle manipulation but at least I left with less pain than I came in with.
That’s more than I can say for winter.
I am in St Ives.
Every holiday as a child, we trailed to St Ives. 9 hours in the back of the Maxi, past Stonehenge and through endless small villages, my sister vomiting away next to me. Indian Queens was the first sight of the sea (and still is, although it has a snazzy dual-carriageway bypass now). My mother lived here until she was 18, when she like so many others had to leave (no college, no jobs, no opportunities. Few men who were not blood relatives.) and my grandparents had a house with a spectacular view across St Ives Bay. I imagine it is worth A Lot of money these days and is probably owned by the Boden-clad who have moved in in the intervening years.
I felt a little cheated, as school friends went to Spain on Aeroplanes.
I lived here for the summer when I was 19. I stayed with granny (we moved that summer, she sold the family seat and bought something entirely more suitable) and had a little job running a spectacularly unsuccessful teashop for a lady with lots of pink lipstick and a prolapse she liked to describe. I didn’t know anybody (apart from eventually the boy who worked in the deli next door: he took me to the pictures in Penzance), but was quite happy sitting customer-less, reading tomes (clan of the cave bear, a brief history of time) and listening to pirate fm. Sometimes I was called upon to make a sundae or a cream tea, or bacon sandwiches for the taxi drivers. Once, a woman came and sat in the window and shaved her head.
I still like to come often. It is the best place in the world when the weather is kind. (When it is wet and vile and you have small children, there is absolutely nothing to do.) We haven’t been since I was pregnant with my youngest (now 4) but this week, my children have had a ball: rock pools and paddling and – well, you know what we do at the seaside.
Best place ever.
Today I was in Bridlington. You thought Skegness was tacky? You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen the grockle shops and harbour-front cafes of Brid. The steamed-up, fingerprinted windows. The bags of shells for £1.50. The toddlers with stars shaved into the back of their heads. [The really delicious fish and chips].
Then we went on a ten minute pirate ship ride out of the harbour, and it was ACE.
I’m in Oxford. First time.
I’m with Maria, Les (My Aunt on my mothers side), Zoë (my sister in law), and Jonathan (my brother). Daniel, Les’s son is taking the picture.
We’re in some college ground. I don’t recall which.
My brother landed that morning, we picked him up from Heathrow and drove to Oxford to meet Les and Daniel. Who live in Bristol.
So thats where I was then.
Oxford is pretty.
Yesterday I arrived in Armpit after a five hour train journey in the company of the Small Boy, dropped my bags and immediately went out for a run. I have been planning this for some time; in fact it’s my third visit to Armpit since I started running, but the first time I have brought my running shoes and not been suffering either illness or injury.
99% of you have no idea where I’m talking about, but I’ll tell you anyway. I set off from mum’s cottage towards the sea, then ran north along the prom all the way past the pub to the end that we used to visit when we first lived here. From there inland towards Cliff Road and uphill to the haunted house we lived in after the divorce. It’s still called Rhiannon. Crossed the road to the bus station, then ran through a back lane and up the road we first lived on. Continued up that way past my first boyfriend’s house, through the estate past the school, and round the corner to take me past mum’s first post-divorce house. Down the hill from there towards the house dad lived in with the stepmonster, round the back alongside the playground and behind the pubs, and then past mum’s house-before-this. Tried to get from there on to the disused railway line but the path was closed so headed back through the houses towards the police station, and took a little detour past the converted station cottages where granny lived for a few years before she died. Out of that road, past the amusements, and back to the prom. Turned inland towards mum’s and nearly back to her cottage made a precise 4 miles at a significantly faster pace than I could normally run for that distance. Was it the sea air, do you think, or the catharsis?
Also, and more impressively, Tom ran The Marathon.
Newborka! has been around for just over a year now. Every now and then I fall into the archives and remain lost for days. Today’s accidental trawl through the ancient dust-covered tomes of our history has raised the following questions:
What is the rest of the story about the Ross Noble audience in Stuart‘s flat?
Why aren’t there more pictures of waterfalls on uborka! these days?
Did we ever settle the question of who would be more likely to get off with Rufus Wainwright?
Do people still name their chillis?
And
Is ten years the upper limit for Dr Pockless to remain resident in one country? He’s off again.