Lloyd and Adwoa have been knocked out of the restaurant.

i have had a short story accepted for publication by Mslexia. it's the first piece of work i have submitted for publication.

i am, needless to say, quite a chuffed trolly this morning.

i am.

:D

i am so happy to hear the news of Alan Johnston's release. it's tremendous news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdNcCcweL0

here's a youtube singer who can sing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Grnh7Qin8

Esmee Denters has recently been signed by Justin Timberlake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuUP17ttuSA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ni-5ZmKLns

all the small, falling apart parts,
left room for me to find a space
that i could fit my fist inside;
now it's an open, broken place.
i have nothing but bits to hide.
you did not look. you broke my heart.

that make me happy

1. cuddles with my daughter
2. cuddles with mr.t
3. reading stories aloud
4. writing stories
5. picnics in the park
6. music
7. the absence of loneliness
8. feeling wanted
9. feeling desired
10. boxed chocolates

remarkably uncomplicated then.

CIMA is an organisation working with street children in Peru. The video shows a music class.

tagged by timsuzi: my 7 things are

1. i speak russian - kinda
2. i'm not a troll, really, no, i'm not
3. i have northern vowels
4. i was part of a student occupation of Lancaster University senate house in the 1990s - it lasted 5 days, and we were protesting about a very large hike in student rents
5. i can sail
6. i didn't pay my Poll Tax
7. my least favourite food is egg custard

mr.trolly and i saw them last night at UEA. they were fab.

this is very strange indeed, and worth watching even if you do not have sound. i had the distinct impression that this was somehow one 'universal' woman, which i have never experienced before when looking at art.

what i also got from this was a distinctly male impression of woman; coquettish, subservient (demure), objectified...or am i being unreasonable?

infatuation: The action of infatuating, or condition of being infatuated; a making or becoming fatuous; possession with extravagant folly; an extravagantly foolish or unreasoning passion.

secretive: Of persons, their feelings, habits, etc.: Addicted or inclined to secrecy; reticent; not frank or open.

OED 2007

image copyright of trolly.

the image shows Morecambe Bay fisherman, Ian McClure with a basket of cockles. the fishery is highly labour intensive, as cockles have to be collected by hand and cannot be dredged for. Ian is standing with the tools he uses: the 'jumbo' is basically a plank of wood with wooden handles, and this is rocked backwards and forwards to bring the cockles to the surface. the 'craam' or short rake, is used to help gather the cockles. the cockles are then sieved to ensure that only ones of the correct size are harvested. it is extremely tiring work, often done with permanently wet and cold hands, and in dangerous conditions.

in 2004, 23 Chinese men and women were drowned when working this fishery. there is a memorial site, which was set up to help raise money for the victims' surviving families at Ghosts.

late nineteenth century image of cockle fishing, note the group is mainly made up of women.

Mariza

shrimp trawl, Morecambe Bay mid 1990s

two shrimp trawls hooked up to a tractor (in far distance at top, right-hand corner of image)

brown shrimps being boiled in out-house

cooked brown shrimps being sorted

i used to write freelance for Fishing News in the 1990s, i was sorting through papers yesterday, and came across these images, which i'd like to share. the photos show Flookburgh fisherman, Ian McClure, a very experienced fisherman who works in Morecambe Bay.

i was lucky enough to accompany him, one beautiful morning at the crack of dawn. he showed me how to catch shrimps, and not fall off the back of the tractor. it was quite simply fantastic. real food, locally produced, carefully managed, sustainable.

all images copyright trolly.

Mika Agematsu

it's raining.

for the first time in a month or more.

:D

this is music of my childhood.

the music is by the Irish composer Turlough O'Carolan, or Carolan, arranged and played by Mark Harmer. i came to it via the music of Pentangle, and more particularly, John Renbourn, (see especially The Hermit).

this is a very strange time for me.

i've been

trying on possible alternative careers for size and wondering what might be.

that's where i am.

mr trolly, tiny troll and me all headed into London yesterday to the Science Museum. the museum is free, and full of unexpected treasure, including Stevenson's Rocket and a collection of exquisite pocket sundials.

i have not worn a watch for six years (since the birth of my daughter), but a pocket sundial could be fun.

my Aunt Jane died recently. it seems odd, but i had not seen her since i was eighteen, although we kept in contact by letter, all rather Victorian in many ways. she was related on my father's side of the family, a family (because of considerable ill-fortune) had become just me, my brother and her.

then last year, the letters stopped, and i had no way of knowing what had happened to her. her obituary was placed in the Daily Telegraph by her solicitor, who has organised her funeral, and this is how i found out she had died. i'm going to her funeral on the 4th, and wonder if i will be the only person there. it's all very sad, and a very lonely end to her life.

i wrote this:

i'm on the raw, rough edge of low; i feel sloughed by it; all sad and sorry and hurt. i cannot let my grief just be, and fall into that dark sadness. i want it to hold me, to be cushioned by it. instead i throw off that comfort with my shoulders and elbows. her death takes me further away from my father, and i've been thrown like a stone and am skimming across the water further and further away from those i know and who knew me; my small, fragile falling-apart family: my father dead at 29, his at 38, his at 43. stones in the water.

in her childless, fecund garden the sun shone brilliantly. she painted and was a friend of Viriginia Woolf once and then i can imagine her a young woman in a white dress and broad-brimmed hat. but it's fiction: an idea of her.

i was reading To the Lighthouse by Virgina Woolf at about the time when i last saw my aunt, more than half my lifetime ago, in her hot, breathless garden that seethed with life that summer. i was 18 and just back from France. we live on in the memories of those who know us, and then are gone Woolf wrote. she is right. maybe that's why she wrote, and my aunt painted, to leave a fragile trail that says remember me for this, and this, or this or this. do not let me really die. and at the bottom of my aunt's garden i remember looking up, being stunned by the sunshine, and could see the sparkling, flat river to which Woolf took her life. my aunt painted this view from her garden. i felt very alive there. then.

and i'll carry these memories with me for a while longer and one day sometime i'll skim them across the surface of some river somewhere, and then they will be gone.