1. washing up at a Little Chef (aged about 12)
2. waitress
3. shop worker
4. waitress
5. cleaner and barmaid
6. pub cook
7. cook and cleaner in a cafe
8. voluntary teacher of English as a Foreign Language
9. teaching assistant
10. researcher
11. barmaid in pub
12. barmaid in different pub
13. temp teacher of Business English, Russia
14. research project manager, UK university
15. senior research officer, UK university
16. assistant producer, BBC
17. freelance journalist, weekly national newspaper
18. e-learning manager
19.

somewhere between 7 and 8, i went to night school and then uni, and managed to start earning more than the minimum wage. and 19?...i'm working on that.

i'm thinking of booking on a short story course with

the Arvon Foundation.

because, if nothing else, it will give me some space to reflect.

i've been reading Orwell again recently, having devoured most of his work [and it really did seem like that] when i was in my late teens. talk about being hungry for ideas: i was famished!

and then this morning, out of nowhere, i remembered his article called Why I Write, which he wrote in 1946.

and it was funny reading that,

because i feel

that

i have come

full circle in some

small but

significant way.

mr trolly

went on a thai cookery course recently

and made mrs trolly

a lovely red fish curry

last night.

he carefully minced up lemon grass, galengal, garlic, many red chillies, shrimp paste, shallots, coriander root, kafir lime leaves and coriander seed into a fresh red curry paste.

after frying this gently, he added coconut milk, palm sugar, fish sauce and a big pile of white fish and seafood. towards the end he added a handful of waterchestnuts and then garnished it with thai basil, coriander leaves and lime wedges.

seriously delicious.

but i ate too much.

greedy trolly.

and i now have

red curry tummy.

...with Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

[trolly dancin around the room]

Cocktailer has an excellent list on her blog of 30 things to do before you're 30

which has me pondering on the 42 things i might want to do before i'm 42 next year...

i've made a start:

1. write list
2. find pen to write list with
3. [turn house updside down, see if any pens fall out]
4. swear
5. pour large whisky
6. fall asleep

tbc.

there's something rather poignant about these lists: it's fun to imagine all that might be possible, but then kinda sad to ponder on whether any of it is really achievable. and there's the challenge.

but one thing i do know:

i'm going to sort my working life out.

mr trolly and i went brambling today

and came back with 8lbs, which is a lot of kilos

[and if i knew quite what that was

i'd let you know.

but i don't]

it's going to be a bumper year for brambles

all that sun. i guess.

so, go out and get them while you can -

the best ones, when cooked, have this

subtle violet taste...just delicious,

and free.

mr trolly came to bed last night in a

purple velvet shirt.

but, by the time i had engineered

to wear it myself,

he was asleep.

i've added a flickr badge to the left-hand column (you need to scroll down a bit to see it).

just to explain that this is pulling public images from a flickr group, Light in Motion, that i contribute to.

now and again.

there are some lovely images there. if you've also got time check out the link to Buttersweet in my links bloglist too, which links through to her work on flickr.

some light, on a rather grey day.

happy bank holiday to you all.

trolly x

bleugh.

this has gotta stop.

i've been awake an hour or so already and here i am

trying

to do something constructive.

so.

here goes:

there once was an insomniac called trolly
whose life was a bit of a worry
she said 'i don't much care
for these midnight affairs;
they strike me as utter feckin folly'

[yawns]

perhaps the folly is stopping taking amiltriptyline but am determined

to sleep without ruddy tablets, the effects of which have me in some foggy haze for the first hour of the morning.

am going for lunch later today with a colleague who has also been signed off work with stress.

we make a right pair.

so anyway, have got Sound Sleeping playing in the background...chimes and birds, and thunder (which sounds like heavy breathing} and rain and - all the options selected - and

am

without

any

shadow

of

doubt

spark

awake.

turn the volume up

and sing to any siren

you might

happen

upon.

burning bridges.

i do.

so,

it's gone

2.30 a.m.

and i'm sitting here considering

the end of my career.

i am rewriting a response to a draft, strategic plan,

putting back in all the critical stuff i took out:

all the 'why the fuck didn't you come and talk to me about this before you wrote this pile of confused, ill-conceived and unworkable tripe'....

[sigh]

and i wonder why i bother

because this really does feel like the end of the road

and i should take the money

and run.

maybe then

i could get back to sleeping at night.

maybe.

just maybe.

is a story which moves between a counsellor's room and the mississippi river.

and

kd lang singing leonard cohen's, Hallelujah

i spent most of the weekend travelling to and from a christening up north then woke at 4, exhausted, awake.

we drove through rain the like of which we just don't get here: rain which pulled the cloud right down to the road in a tight clattering muffle around the car.

i'd not been to church in as long as i could remember. the sermon was dreadful; the prayers [by someone else] a passionate anti-war statement, both remarkable and startling. five children were christened; my daughter, her first time in church, liked the clapping. but i felt relief to be outside again.

i am an outside person.

just listen.

breadmaking.

but

key bit of information with a breadmaker

always put the little mixy paddle thing in

else you get:

bread,

but not as we know it.

i happened upon a great link at the Perspicacity Corruption blog to US artist Nicole Gordon.

Harvest, Nicole Gordon, 2005

Her work reminds me very much of Pieter Brueghel, and compare Gordon's Harvest with his The Corn Harvest, of 1565:

[the image may not load; click the link and/or the image to take you to the original Web site to see the image in full].

fascinating.

all is forgiven.

i take back all the things i said

about the YouTube search tools

i do.

trolly x

i know

i shouldn't be doing this....

but,

am

eating

my daughter's

chocolate buttons.

bad mummy

i'll save some

honest.

this is one of my daughter's favourite songs:

well, not literally.

my daughter snuggled into bed with us at some unearthly hour of the morning last night, complaining still of stomach cramps.

she, in the middle of the bed, was straight to sleep. arms flung up behind her head.

me, teetering on the edge of the bed, bolt awake.

and so, this afternoon i slept for two hours.

in between i've mooched

exploring the very strange world that is YouTube, which makes me think that i have lived a very sheltered life

in my pond.

and am now drinking red wine,

when i said [to myself] that i wouldn't.

once a fortnight

i hand my daughter over to

the care of her father

for six hours.

she's five. he's not.

she has coeliac disease.

he: idiocy, complacency.

and with alarming regularity

she is returned to me by him

unwell.

unwell? -

because he does not care

particularly

what she eats.

and i have had enough

of this particular feckless father.

my daughter is in bed, ill.

and i want to fucking scream.

okay

i've been musing

on a career-change.

and i quite fancy:

1) learning to make cheese (small-ish stinky ones with curious rinds)
2) becoming a lingerie designer (yep: it's the application of floaty lace and silk as integrally strong garment that intrigues)
3) becoming a chocolatier
4) training as a reflexologist (feet as well as corsets: sigh)

trolly x

yes. i admit it.

this troll loves corsets.

and the laces.

and breathing in.

i wore a boned corset made by Axfords

on my wedding day.

it was fantastic.

and i remembered this as i watched Fat Beauty contest on Channel 4 last night

which i thought was quite a flawed documentary as the programme focused on the event rather than the women taking part. but, one success, was securing a free corset for all the women taking part, which just transformed them: think sex-y women really enjoying themselves....it was great.

i was unable, yesterday, to find a small book of poetry by the Russian poet, Osip Mandelshtam, a book i have owned for years; a slim volume, translated by James Greene.

nor could i find it online. and i was utterly exasperated. with myself for losing it. with myself for never ever having any kind of sensible means for locating anything i need. with myself and my ruddy hurting jaw that prevents me from thinking sensibly about anything.

but, today, here it is:

When, on my lips a singing name, I stepped
Into the ring of dancing shadows
Stamping on the tender meadow,
A mist of sound was left of what had melted.

To begin with I thought the name was 'seraph'
And I fought shy of such a light body,
A few days passed and I blended with it
And dissolved into that dear shadow.

And again from the apple-tree wild fruit falls,
And the secret form flickers in front of me,
Blaspheming and cursing itself
And swallowing jealousy's hot coals.

Then happiness rolls by like a golden hoop
Fulfilling someone else's will,
And cutting the air with the palm of your hand
You chase the sweetness of Spring.

And it is so arranged that we do not dance away
From these spell-bound circles.
The expansive hills of virginal earth
Lie swaddled away.

(123) 1920

there are times when i want to run outside

and jump in the pond.

yesterday was one of them.

see:

we're back from our hols (three days in sheff) having hot-footed it down the A1 to cambridge where brother-in-law and family will have our little girl for a sleep-over

leaving mr.trolly and i to have a night out together

alone

for the first time in

as long as i can remember.

[cue dreamy-eyed moment]

but, note:

1.
during the long, hot summer that was last weekend sometime, whilst lolling out in the garden next to afore-mentioned pond until some improbably daft hour of the balmy night, some itty-bitty-bitey insect ruddy well bited me, and left me with an infected leg and a prescription of heavy-duty antibiotics which made me feel well and truly trolly-sick...

but hey, so i'm off my food a little: that's not going to put me off the prospect of a night out.

and then:

2.
friday night. having farewell meal with family in sheff, i nearly fall off my chair and stagger out the door, clutching my jaw. one of my usually impeccably well-behaved teeth has - i dunno - fallen apart in some way or other.

[trolly advice moment: if you're going to have a dental emergency - don't do it at the weekend, you're stuffed].

back home - suffolk - i'm only just holding things together by maxing out on ibuprofen, paracetamol and codeine. i spent most of yesterday gibbering in pain on the phone to nhs dental emergency care line, which established that there is precious little nhs dental emergency care in suffolk at the weekend, and my kinda dental emergency could well be 'emergency-insufficient' [trolly gibbers some expletive]

so: am off my food, and insensible with pain....

and then:

3.
my period started.

that's it.

i give up.

night out cancelled.