Halloween

“Listen to them - children of the night. What music they make.” -Bram Stoker, Dracula 

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" - Edgar Allan Poe

Today I (my mother) bought a bucket of Halloween sweets. These, as I'm sure you are all aware, are to give to small children in superman or cat outfits for their creative dressing up skills. And to give to older children who don't bother dressing up but carry boxes of eggs and toilet rolls. Blackmail payment.
Frankly, I would prefer to park the cars not next to the house, close the curtains, turn off all the lights, pretend we're out and eat the sweets myself.
I never really got Halloween. I was never allowed to go trick or treating so I find it a bit weird that you can go knock on a stranger's door and demand sweets or money or I'll shoot you with this water pistol that is a cunning part of my cowboy outfit.
Bugger off you little sh*t. Cowboys are nothing to do with Halloween.
If in doubt, here are some costumes that I will accept:
Ugly witch, complete with warty nose;
Fully bandaged mummy giving off powerful reek of formaldehyde;
Woland;
Some kind of pagan god of harvest;
George W Bush;
Something that fits this description:

“Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred." - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

or something SUPER cute like this:

Now that is a good costume. Not particularly scary/at all, but look at the effort! And for a day that kid is just a child in a costume instead of a child in a wheelchair. He does have a whole truck of ice cream though...he probably doesn't need my Haribo.

My Grandfather tried to kill me.

I am lucky enough to have all of my Grandparents. In fact I have five of them and they have always seemed indestructible. Like Dumbledore or Gandalf: you know they are old but they just don't seem it.
Until recently that has always been the case. But suddenly and simultaneously, they all seem to be preparing for their apparently imminent death.
Well, I'm exaggerating. Grandad Bob still thinks he's 27, goes to the gym everyday and travels across the country on public buses just because he can. And Grandad Partridge really lives too far away to comment on, but I do know he goes electric-cycling and every time I see him he reminds me of that time I bit a chunk out of the glass I was drinking from. It was painful enough the first time, I don't really need reminding frankly.
But, as one must with Grandparents, I laugh along.
Apart from such anecdotes, and the constant and unavoidable questions like "Do you have a boyfriend?" and "So when are you getting married?" and "What happened to that builder?" (who I went on ONE date with!!) (do you see a theme emerging?), Grandparents are nice really. I mean I'm a lucky girl. They tell you interesting stories about Lord Kitchener and some Prime Minister they knew; they make yummy cake and teach you to make pastry; they tell you that you're pretty; and they smell like talcum powder and velvet.
But now all of a sudden, Nanna has started trying to give me books and fabric and paintbrushes every time I go over so that there is less to sort out when..."you know, I'm not young anymore."
Humph!! I disagree. And anyway, her Mum, my Great-Gran, lived until she was 96. Plenty of time to be young.
And then there is Nainy and Taidy who are throwing a lot of stuff away and selling their house. Downsizing so that my Auntie, who lives with them, has not got too big a place to manage.."you know when..."
And that makes me sad. I love that house; doing cartwheels on the lawn; climbing over the wall; finding apples and potatoes and roses and mushrooms and the occasional stray cat; popping over for a bath when our heating wasn't working; lemon curd sandwiches.
I guess there will still be lemon curd sandwiches in the new house, but I'm sure they won't taste the same.
I have in the last few weeks had some cause for concern on the oldness front though. Taidy (for anyone who isn't Welsh that is the word for Grandad) has been nice enough to drive me places twice and both time he definitely tried to kill me. The first time he forgot to put the brake on when I was getting out of the car and it rolled backwards, me clinging to the door for dear life. The second time I suddenly realised we were going incredibly fast down quite a short hill. He had accelerated instead of braking. Never mind the house, I think they should get rid of the car.
So that's scary, not just because my life hung in the balance (exaggerate much?), but because someone I think of as capable and indestructible is maybe...not.
Of course I'm not worried that they'll read this: they aren't much into blogging. Classic grandparents really. I will keep visiting for a cup of tea and a story or two; I will stop getting in the car of death; and I will continue to hope that this will continue for a long time to come. Even with all the questions about my love life.

No, I don't know what I'm doing!

This week I'm going a little crazy. I have discovered that it takes me less and less time to do any jobs around the house (no! not though being less thorough...I would give Kim and Aggie a good run for their money :s), I write a little or a lot (depending how inspired I am), play the piano, the ukulele, I prepare myself to teach (pop my ballet shoes in a bag). And then I'm bored. It does not help that it's rainy.
It's OK. I'm going to India in a month where I will be far from bored and far from home. Excitement, oui?!
But this has got me thinking what will come next. I have options:

a) Return from travelling, get any old job, save, travel somewhere else.
b) Return from travelling, get any old job, save, go to Italy for a while to eat a lot and learn a new language.
c)Return from travelling, get any old job, save, go to University, study something undecided (English/History/Publishing/Journalism/help me!)
d)Return from travelling, get a job that I like. Maybe do an internship.

a) or b) are the easy options. I like new places, I like the lack of decision these entail. There is something pleasantly bohemian about wandering around the world, journal in hand, dancing as I go. But I don't want to have to put up with awful jobs in between.
I'm realistic enough to know I will end up being a waitress or something when I get back to London in February. Yes soul destroying, but it's easy and something is better than nothing. But then what?
Small aside: the radio is currently telling me (and has been for the last ten minutes) how difficult it is to get a job and how everyone is unemployed (957,000 young people). Great, thanks Newsbeat. Humph!
It does not help me that people keep asking me what I will do next. There is nothing like the pressure of expectation, is there? Grandparents are a particular culprit. I tell them I will have an epiphany in India. I hope the thought of me becoming some kind of meditating and silent female Buddha, and worse, a vegetarian, freaks them out.
As for the internship option, how do you fund yourself? I'll have just spent all my money on poppadoms and papier-mache, I can't afford to work for free.
It's tough to be so indecisive. Perhaps I should choose something that's in demand. I'll google it...
Ok, the results are:
HR - I don't like filling in forms
Construction - But my beautiful nails!
PR- What do they even do?
Teaching - With fresh memories of being shown a verruca, I think not.
Midwifery - Kind of like the idea I suppose, apart from the life/death part :s
IT Consultant - Ha! Hahahahahah!
Nursing - Yuck.
Accounting - Zzzzzzz
Oil worker - Made for it, clearly.
Market Research - Hmmm...no.

See. There's no pleasing me. Being a silent, vegetarian, do gooder sounds more and more appealling (except the lack of talking, bacon and clothes shopping).
That's it, I'm going to be an astronaut.

Falling at the speed of sound.

Amongst all the bad news in the world, there is one shining example of the glorious human spirit of daring: Felix Baumgartner, the man who jumped from Space.
I don't know if there was a point to the exercise. Maybe just to see if it's possible. Which is exactly the sentiment that I love in all these great adventurers. "Let's swim the channel...because we can." "Let's find the source of the Nile...it could be fun." "Let's launch ourselves headfirst into the great beyond, just to see what's out there."
And why not throw yourself out of a balloon 128,100ft above the Earth, where you can see the curve of the Globe and the glow of the atmosphere? Why not fall at the speed of sound, spinning out of control as you go, a Spacesuit the only thing stopping your blood turning to gas?
And I would say the answer is as simple as the desire to push the edges of possibility, to conquer not just oceans, the world, space, each other, but to overcome our own limitations, our own frailties.
Maybe it is a bit of Viking spirit. The point of living is for glory, to leave a mark on the world.
Don't get me wrong...there is no way I'm jumping from anywhere near Space (it's been done darling!) but in a small way I want to thrown myself into life instead. Borrow a little bit of Felix's mettle and hopefully land on my feet with the same panache that he managed.
Just before his jump to immortality, Felix told the watching world "Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.” A quote worthy of Neil Armstrongs "One small step..." I wonder if he planned that line before the mission. It's one to remember anyway. It seems to apply to all kinds of high.
But for me, I never fail to feel tiny, like a speck on the earth, when I look up at the stars. Because I know they are massive and so far away. And how beautiful! And in a funny way it's quite a freeing feeling to know that whatever I do, it makes very little difference in the end. So I may as well risk life and limb to make something as beautiful and fleeting as a fall to Earth.
Now I just need to think what to do. Hmm....preferably something that doesn't risk life and limb though actually. Can I make up a spectacular dance instead. Or write a fairytale worthy of Hans Christian Anderson. Or make the most delicious cake ever that it so good it creates World peace. Is that likely?
Anyway...who's with me?

A little bad behaviour.

Today a British scientist, Sir John Gurdon, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Well done him I say, and I'm sure my congratulations mean the world.
The thing about this achievement that has sparked interest though is a science report Sir John received at Eton:

He "will insist on doing his work in his own way," written as criticism is praise indeed. That kind of creativity and original thought is exactly what one would expect of a future Nobel Prize winner.
The teacher's lack of recognition almost harks to the following letter that was in the news a few months ago:

Imagine the kind of world we would have if we churned out students like Mr Hilliker wanted. A very confused one at least, a brainwashed and blind one very likely.
So, speaking as a student who received excellent reports, and was very well behaved, and is yet to do something to merit a Nobel Prize, I would like to champion a little bad behaviour.
At the moment I am a dance teacher. It's kind of a funny job actually and one I'm probably not suited to for a long time. However, I have discovered that the children I like the best are the ones who play up in class a bit. One of the girls, is not particularly talented, but she dances around all the time. When I tell her to stand at the bar she's doing cartwheels; when I tell them to use their faces, she really goes for it and makes the whole class fall about laughing; when I teach them polka she says she can't do it and fakes a twisted ankle then polkas over to me next lesson saying she's made up her own step.
And that is a natural performer.
I seem to have begun with science and ended up with the arts but really they both require an ability to break rules and a lot of imagination. And like John Gurdon, who has his school report hung up above his desk in the Institute named after him, drive in the face of criticism.
I wonder what Alex (of the second letter) became...?

Meg

My little sister is 18 today.
I honestly don't know how that happened.
Well yes, I suppose the passage of time is the answer to that but still...that girl is six years younger than me. How am I possibly six years older than an 18 year old? There's nothing like someone who you recited 'Each Peach Pear Plum' to when they were a foetus becoming a woman to make you aware of your own march towards (shut up...I'm not there yet) being a grown up.
So Meg, welcome to adulthood and Congratulations!!!! You now have the supreme joy of being able to vote: that boundary between 17 and 18 means you have to at least attempt to know what's going on in the country or you may, like I did, vote for David Cameron. I would say you also have the supreme joy of being able to drink but...you know...Then you have all of these things to look forward to: jury service, credit cards, seeing your birth certificate if you were adopted. Hint.
I jest of course. I've already admitted to foetus poetry.
I am currently living with said birthday girl for the first time since she was 10 and can I say what a treat. Maybe I'm itching for freedom at other moments but I returned to find Meg was not the annoying little girl who stole my title of 'youngest child' and grabbed my hair when she was a baby. She is now (as cheesy as I risk sounding) like my bestie.
I always knew she was funny. A child who can come up with treasures such as:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Tree.
Tree who?
Tree branch (followed by massively disproportionate laughter)

is bound to become quite the wit. Clearly she has an innate sense of comedy. Now there is some kind of face joke/insult she throws at me that I'm too old to understand or make use of.
But I try. She's successfully converted me to the joys of One Direction and Taylor Swift. Don't judge me, I'm 18 for the next two months. I will put The Shins and Iggy Pop back on my Ipod when I become 24 again.
But this is not about me. My point is that I'm incredibly grateful to my little sister and friend who is not only pretty and funny and lovely, but she also lends me her clothes and makes a mean corn beef hash. And she drunk texts so I know all her secrets...and those of her friends. She is my Hollyoaks and I love her.

So Happy Happy Birthday! May your life be as long and charmed as you deserve. May you avoid jury service. May you find and marry Harry Stiles before all the old ladies get to him. May you smile always because you are pretty when you smile.
*Insert something vaguely insulting about your face here*

:D