virtually, of course.

when you're drunk.

every day this week has felt like Saturday.

i had this mad dream last night with mr.trolly driving the car at 120 mph, and i really felt like i was careering along in warm air. my head thrown back in some kinda daft pastiche of fear and loathing in las vegas....

and then

today was this rigid, frozen, brittle-white day, that stuck its jaw out in a punch me kinda way. but when the weather's like this i want it to go on and on and on.

and i'm

so looking forward to seeing my twin brother this weekend, who'll be driving south with a dear friend and her son to stay for the week.

mr.trolly went on a wild goose hunt with our daughter this morning. and came back with a goose in a box.

really

he did.

good man.

image provided by Emilia Miná Bicking at SXC, 2007.

my poor daughter has impetigo. it's come out of nowhere and taken hold really quickly. her face has erupted in quite bad sores and she has sores on her scalp and back too.

i had no idea what it was. yesterday she had what seemed to be chapped skin around her nose [she has also had a bad cold]...but after a trip to the chemist, who took one look and said,'impetigo', we took her to the nearest Suffolk doctor available.

she's on antibiotics now, and i think they are just about starting to help. but, bless her, she's really wretched, her nose a dreadful mess, and almost completely closed up in one nostril. i'm taking her to the docs again tomorrow as am concerned.

it really is vile infection. poor bairn.

i have a job!

:D

My journey from home to Colchester takes me via the A14 to Copdock where I pick up the A12 south. It's a journey that winds through the gentle Suffolk countryside, sweeping in a long, lazy curve around the south of Ipswich.

I used to drive this road daily as I headed to work at the University of Essex. But yesterday, I felt real unease taking this unremarkable route. All that had been so normal, now not so; all that peace, or at least the assumption of peace: violated.

And maybe I was somehow naive to have bought-into, in any way whatsoever, that lazy, rural charm; the agas and log fires and the pretty timber-framed cottages that flash by now and then in a blush of pink through ragged-bare, petrified trees. A harder, colder reality was always here; one which pushed up close to those who were most vulnerable: to young women who had been invisible, and who are now marked by stark, white tents and fluttering ribbons of police-cordon tape.

There is no warmth in this landscape, none at all. The grey sky falls down to exhausted, winter fields in vast, bleak slabs of grey and brown. Two helicopters cut across the empty sky; the tattered hedges stream past, and draw my eye. I look, I can't not look. What's there? Nothing and everything:

Fear.

But what stuns is the remarkable ease of this cruelty. The ease with which five young women can be taken, killed, dumped. And I feel this. And not just because I am a woman.

And now I loathe this place. Truly, I do. It outrages me.

It appalls me.

Somewhere here a killer is lurking.

fancy that.

i came second.

and tho' i did not get it

am curiously well-chuffed at the result.

no news.

but second guessing my second guess

i'd state with some degree

of certainty

that i ain't got it.

i am.

absolutely

zorsted.

my presentation, and it's not half bad.

:-)

now, i just need to think about the

interview itself.

eek.

i have started again

on my presentation.

well, not entirely again.

but i have decided to focus on what i know.

and be honest about that:

this is who i am.

this is what i bring.

no more

no less.

i hope not.

i am trying to finish working on

my presentation for an interview tomorrow.

[sighs]

tomorrow morning, that is.

i had to complete an online personality profile assessment yesterday:

108 'stages'.

and think that i've come out of that as:

an emotional, stressed-to-the-hilt,

break all the rules, very modest about my achievements,

non-competitive, consultative

type.

would you employ me?

don't ask me how i did it.

but i have.

and if i knew where i'd put it

it'd be being decorated now.

but i can't.

so it's not.

was ever thus.

i was going to be all melodramatic.

i was.

and call this blog 'the first day of the rest of my life'.

and although it is, it's a bit cheesy, don't you think? and cheesy isn't what i am after on the first day of the rest of my life.

and it's not like i'm the only person ever to have gone through this.

so. i'm up at 4.30. today i shall have my hair cut. work on my presentation for next week. bring the logs in and light a fire. think.

and bin the cheese.

oh.

that's it then.

until tomorrow.

that is.

one:

one day in 2001, i became a mother. it was then that i understood, like really understood, what love might be.

i have this photo, which was taken shortly after my daughter was born, and i look at myself then all knotted up in green hospital sheets and i'm somewhere else, kinda lost in a smile that is hers and hers only. and, to the exclusion of absolutely everyone and everything else: the fear, the pain, the panic, i'm cuddling her to me. and i can still feel the downy softness and the warmth of her skin...

and i remember the May morning light flooding in through a high window not designed to be looked out of and being simply knocked-out by it all: by her. and her beautiful gazing eyes. and although, of course, i knew that nine months pregnancy would result in a baby, somehow i was nonetheless incredulous.

and my life made sense to me at that point

that day

back in May

two thousand and

one.

two:

a pair of new shoes.

for an interview

on the second day of next week.

three:

the number of wishes allowed by various and assorted fairies and genies who can be found hanging out at the bottom of the garden, or squeezed into lamps.

which i always thought a bit, er, tight.

then my daughter pointed to a bright star in the sky, which she calls the wishing star. and the good thing about that is that it seems to have no end to the wishes allowed.

which is just as well.

at the moment.

four:

the number of excuses that immediately spring to mind to stop me from going to clear my office today.

1. the ironing [true, needs to be done]
2. the shopping [major crisis, no cheese left]
3. writing this blog [yep]
4. watching Aristocats [no explanation needed]

five:

the number of years that i have worked in my current role at the University.

and we're out this lunchtime in an Italian restaurant in north London, sheltering from a sudden, heavy squall that has littered the slate grey pavements with a patina of golden leaves. on the plate in front of me is a small glass of Vino Santo, surrounded by five amaretti biscuits; i dip one in and wait for it to soften.

maybe it's the sweet wine, or the lazy chatter, or the rich sultana yellow walls, but i'm feeling mellow, relaxed. warm. there's a simplicity in this pleasure that's hard to beat.

then, later, driving out of London, the streets give way to exhausted, stubble-strewn fields; the low, Autumn sunshine casting long shadows through bare, leafless trees. and i feel a very strong sense that what has gone before will not, necessarily, provide some unshakable foundation upon which i can continue to build in some kinda fervent, fretful whiggish manner.

but none of this makes me feel bad.

and i tell mr.trolly that i love him. and he smiles his lovely, gentle smile, and drives us home. and the sun in the west catches in deep orange flashes in the rear-view mirror.

and so trolly gets to go out again.

this time to see Rodrigo y Gabriela in London tonight...

:D

sent my CV off again today and found myself pondering on the kissing number problem, which in two-dimensions is six.

i adore Schubert. it all began years ago when i saw the film trop belle pour toi, on BBC2.

and i should love to be able to play this one day....

or just even hear it live.

mr trolly and i went to see Amy Winehouse in Cambridge last night. and it was one of the best gigs i have ever been to.

she is very, very, very good. and funny too.

1. trolls can't spell - previous but one blog title applies
2. trolls are no good at noticing spleeing mistakes for ruddy hours and hours, if ever
3. trolls can get quite tall. i'm quite tall at 3.5 inches
4. trolls hate gnomes (okay y'know that already)
5. troll oral hygiene is actually quite good
6. trolls will drink all your whisky and deny it, (all except the Bells that is)
7. trolls get to go out twice a year
8. if trolls have been very, very, very, very good they get to go out three times a year

so see' yous all Monday. i'm off out for dinner tonight (how posh is that?) and to Amy Winegouse Winehooyuse Winehouse tomorrow night....

for Blighty

have a good weekend!

trolly x

pinched from Subville:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

[falls off chair laughing]

...with anyone else but me.

this is for my daughter, who loves this song. we bought a boxed set of LPs last year for £1 at a local car boot sale (or, Sunday market, this being suffolk), great collection of swing, blues, jazz. that we put on on a Sunday morning and make lego to and sing along to.

the Andrews Sisters are kinda mad. i mean, look at the seriously high shoes... and that pushing the men about too - they really meant it!