I will be away now for about two weeks. Just saying.

We are going on the Eurostar to Paris, first class, and then staying in a millionaire art-dealer friend of my husband's flat near the Louvre. Oh Gosh, how spoilt and lucky you are, I can imagine people thinking. It is so crap that in fact it isn't THAT much fun. I didn't have any kind of summer holiday this year and haven't been anywhere except back and forth to here for over a year. My husband, meanwhile, zooms about the world 'on business' which involves lots of eating and generally looks, to the untrained eye, very much like a succession of short vacations. He gets 'frequent traveller' discounts on the Eurostar which you have to use within time limits so the first class thing is actually almost free. I was so excited the first time we used it, coming back from Avignon to London with my son. I was expecting some 'Orient Express' romantic voyage. In fact it is just like being on a normal, decent train as you would like it to be; rather than cramped up with hundreds of back-packers covered in vomit which has been my Standard Eurostar experience.

Last time we were in Paris, a couple of years ago, my son bought some replica Japanese swords at the Clignancourt antiques market. In usual overprepared mode I rang Eurostar and asked about their policy for transporting weapons. They said that we must arrive at the station extra-early and they would put our parcel in some locked box-thing. It was freezing cold and very annoying to go THREE hours before the train left. At the barrier we checked in and they said they knew nothing about transporting weapons, locked boxes, phone calls or indeed anything at all you stupid English fools. We should wait 'over there' until a manager arrived at some normal pre-train time like half an hour before departure. Our inter-family relationships reached a new low, with mutterings of 'F@cking swords', sulking and disappearing for ages without a word evenly distributed amongst us. Eventually millions of people arrived, queued, and boarded the train. 'Where is the manager?' we asked. Gallic shrugging. We were the only people outside the barrier and the Eurostar left in 15 minutes. The staff had drifted away leaving just a weedy youth. 'We are about to miss the train', my husband screamed. The youth looked puzzled, 'Why don't you get on to it then?' he asked, holding the gate open. We passed through with the swords in their brown paper wrapping which we placed in the luggage rack over our heads. No one checked us or them during the entire journey or when we disembarked with our dangerous cargo and vanished into the London night.

To finish off. The millionaire's flat is used by him about once a year and he has some random reciprocal arrangement with my husband. Every time I have been to or lived in Paris I have stayed in some cheap hotel right in the middle of the Left Bank. The 'other side' of the river is alien to me and also somehow less romantic and a bit dull. This is not only a serious and 'grown-up' flat, it is a showcase for his antiques collection. Many of which, I am not joking, are upholstered in WHITE VELVET. My son, who is hoping to spend part of his time drunk, will be sleeping in NAPOLEON'S CAMPAIGN BED. Obviously wandering through the flat with a cup of coffee, or - Nooooooooooo..... put it down - a glass of red vin ordinaire, will not be an option. Also last time we were here it rained in a cloudbursty way for the entire holiday and Paris entails constant walking.

Okay, I am spoilt and ungrateful and anyone else in the world would be thrilled to have this opportunity. Of course, (surely), it will have many happy and exciting moments and we will find all our Christmas presents and my son will go off on his own and have amazing adventures and speak some words of French. And we won't get bored to death with each other or f@ck up the flat or not find my daughter's perfect boots, (' the only present I really want'), or get ill or insist on buying replica swords again. And we won't mind that the flat has no television and that when we get back, wet, in the evenings we will have to sit there, very still and not holding a drink, and talk to each other although we have been together all day already. And my son's internal clock will instantly swivel round so that he springs up smiling at 9.00 am rather than after some hours of shouting, cursing and even crying (on my part); he is just asleep.

Yes. Yes. I can tell. It is all going to be just great.


- posted by Iris @ 11/24/2003 11:28:00 AM comment

 
I was going to write about living in Paris when I was a student but feel I should put a quick warning about burglars instead.

We too used to think and say that if a burglar ever broke in they would see that there was nothing worth bothering about. I too have masses of books and not much electrical equipment. I think the thing is that once they have broken in, they then tend to make the best of it. I was watching a TV programme where habitual burglars were confronted by burglary victims. The burglars all had the attitude that they were somehow forced into their way of life by 'Society' and that they normally only stole from people who would 'Get it all back on the Insurance', often, apparently, getting more money than the stuff was worth. The victims were reduced to hysterically shouting things like, 'I don't want the money, you creep, I want my mother's actual engagement ring and my son's first shoe'. Even at the end of the programme the burglars still had expressions of 'Sorry, I just don't get what you're on about. The insurance paid up didn't it?.'

In our case we were lucky because they were very young boys and not drunk or on drugs. So they didn't make any kind of vicious mess. As a joke, after the first burglary, I said that I would hide anything I really cared about in the bookcase as that is the one place a teenage burglar would never look. (I did put my 'jewellery' there and they didn't). They did tip out all the drawers all over the house though and the police said that normally burglars did stuff out of spite including ripping up books, setting them on fire or peeing all over them.

As we didn't have brilliant sound systems or anything like that, they took most of my son's things including all his video and computer games, lovingly collected over the years, and all the little quirky objects that decorated his room. They took his shoes and his nicest clothes. They took everything small and fun from my daughters' rooms including pictures and CDs and little necklaces with their names on from when they were babies. For literally months afterwards I would reach out for something like a pen or a bottle opener and realise that they must have stolen it. Even the control from the one TV they didn't take.

So I am saying here that you must never think that a burglar won't be interested in your house. In a way, the less obviously expensive stuff you have the more likely they are to take things you really care about.
- posted by Iris @ 11/23/2003 01:21:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
The last series of Oz is about to start here. My son and I discovered it by chance late at night two series ago and have watched it obsessively ever since. Anyone else passing the TV always says,'Oh gross. How CAN you watch that'. The untrained eye has no inkling of the perfection of the characterisation, the subtlety of the interwoven plotlines and the endless capacity for thrills and surprise. Nudity? What nudity? The only crap episode, as usual, was the one dealing with the UK. Why do Americans always portray English people as 1920s moronic aristocrats, 1920s Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins cheery working-men with bizarre accents, or hateful, icy criminals? The Irish, as in Oz, are naturally shown as heroic 'freedom fighters'. We particularly liked the character's oft repeated cry of ,'Don't send me back to England to be hanged'. The Death Penalty was abolished here what ... about 40 years ago.

Moving on............ I feel that I can hardly bear to watch this series without knowing who is going to die. Please, please don't let it be Keller or, Oh no, not Cyril. It has to be one of them. Is there anybody out there who could put my mind at ease? ( Or even not at ease - I would prefer the truth to the hideous suspense).
- posted by Iris @ 11/23/2003 12:34:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Next week I am going to Paris for five days with my son and younger daughter. Years ago I rang a friend to ask him and his wife to supper. 'We can't come', he said, ' E... has gone to Paris to do her Christmas shopping'. How cool is that? It seemed like the pinnacle of sophistication. I was really, really jealous. One day - that would be me.


And, eventually, it was. (Typically, much later on, I told E.. how impressed I had been by her gift-buying expedition and she laughed like a fool. 'I wasn't getting presents at all. I have an old lover who lives there and I go over and have a little fling with him when I need a break from my family. Especially in the run-up to Christmas'.) Well .......... sadly I don't have any old lovers in Paris, or even any friends. Our only useful contact was my daughter's American ex-school friend who was doing a course and had a perfect central flat last time we went. She has now gone back to New York and it's probably all for the best as she apparently has a penchant for younger brothers and might well have made advances to my son now he's a bit older. Which my daughter said would totally have ruined their friendship.


- posted by Iris @ 11/22/2003 02:08:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I waste so much time trying to control the future by covering every aspect of its possibilities. How could I still not have learnt that IT S NEVER GOING TO TURN OUT AS YOU THOUGHT. This thing with the Scouts is so typical. It is time to try, finally, to live in the present. But then again, learning is all to do with applying experience from the past to anything coming up towards you. How can you not do it and surely it would be ridiculous if you didn't?

The Scouts. I rang four or five people around to warn them of this visit and discuss, at tedious length, burglaring in all its forms. I dragged a spare TV from one end of the house to the other so the building would seem full. At dusk I rushed around drawing and half-drawing curtains, putting on side-lights in some rooms, bright in others, turning on TVs to different programmes and having music playing in one place. Then arranging downstairs blinds so I could peer out unobserved. My son set up mentally to stand menacingly in macho pose in the most obvious and well-lit window as soon as we heard the sound of distant boyish voices.

We sat tense and alert for about three hours. Finally, although oddly in total silence, the outside sensor light snapped on. We sprang to our positions. In a short flicker, two, - TWO - ,small weedy Scouts with a depressed-looking 'leader' shot past and were gone into the darkness.
WTF? I had wasted two days pondering, planning and worrying about this. She had used the word 'troop'. A troop is large, it consists of many more than TWO boys. Boys of exactly this age and from this same small town had burgled my house and taken our cars the year before.

Am I a ridiculous overreactor? Or was I sensible under the circumstances? Or aspects of both of the above? It is a really exhausting way to be. Does all the thinking and arranging actually make much difference in the end? I have no idea. My son seems to potter through life without any real disasters. His lack of planning only causes various minor inconveniences and with anything vitally important someone else is probably involved too and they'll remind him, or do it, or whatever. Whatever - I should probably make more use of that word.
- posted by Iris @ 11/22/2003 01:40:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Great............. A note has just come through the door saying that the Boy Scout troop from the local town is doing a night time orienteering course in the next door wood tomorrow and they will be using the right-of-way path that goes just by our house. Just what I needed. Every single teenage boy in the area will now know where - and how isolated - our house is. It was at exactly this time of year last year that we were burgled by local teenage boys. F@ck.

We own 200 acres of farmland with our house right in the middle. Obviously we are too lazy and my husband does not have time to look after it ourselves but luckily the neighbouring farmers are thrilled to have extra grazing and it has all worked out really well. The only drawback to the sense of peace and security is the right-of-way 'Bridlepath' which runs through the middle of the land (once from one village to another) and very near to the house. It is mostly narrow and muddy and is only legal for walking or riding and in fact, is hardly ever used. So these stupid Scouts are a huge, potentially serious, bore.

Ha! I have just rung the Scout Master in fake concern saying that we have major burglar alarms with sensors on the drive that alert the police station and obviously we wouldn't want their boys being upset by these going off. So I will make sure that they are disabled for the whole evening.
(We don't actually have these, naturally). He was touchingly grateful for my helpfulness and I am hoping that this is passed on to potential Scout burglars so they think it isn't worth bothering.
Or .... they will just know to approach the house from over the fields ........... Crap.
- posted by Iris @ 11/20/2003 11:50:00 AM comment

 
My son made the Sausage Sauce. And perfectly. I felt an old familiar feeling which I couldn't quite pin-point; then it came back to me. The warm satisfaction of finding that your child has actually been made happy by following one of your suggestions. How rarely that now occurs.

I thought that I wouldn't write about my children much as I am so sure that they will eventually find this. Then again I am so fond of them and we normally get on so well that the odd cruel and sarcastic comments could surely be taken in their stride.

Anyway, I am so cross with my eldest daughter that I need to write something down. She has just e-mailed from India to say that she is not coming home for Christmas after all. I would, (probably), mind a bit less if I hadn't known all along that she wasn't going to come but she was too cowardly to say so before she went. (As I wrote some weeks ago in this very journal). She has an open ticket and was returning on 20 Dec. but has now extended it for six weeks. We are in the middle of an e-mail row as she told me I was 'over reacting' by sending some sharp comments about her change of plan. OVER REACTING? The first time we have been apart for Christmas in our whole lives? And I need her to water down her brother and sister irritating each other and back me up when my husband becomes too anal.

I should have been born under 'Libra' as I am always too ready to see both sides of any question, ( actually born under 'Leo' which is definitely the coolest sign), but in this case I am just furious. It has taken me many years to realise that the more sensible and objective you are the more people treat you like crap. They talk about you with respect and come to you for advice but then feel free to ignore your feelings and behave carelessly with your stuff because you will 'understand'. The first time I behaved like a screaming maniac with one of our neighbours when finally pushed 'too far' was a stunningly eye-opening experience. They backed off and down within a matter of moments, after months of niggly notes and even a lawyer's letter, and I hardly heard from them again.

'Unreasonable' is always good because it makes people stop and think about you. They brood about what you said and try to make sense of it. They make an effort with you rather than ignoring you; even if it is just to get you out of the way. Of course, they don't like you so much but at least you aren't a high-quality door mat.

I could easily and wetly have sent my daughter a charming message wishing her a happy holiday and saying that what is one Christmas in a life-time. But, in fact, wouldn't you rather feel that your family is upset that you won't be with them? Even if it makes you guilty it is also really flattering. Obviously I will send the wet message nearer the time but I don't mean it and as I am going to suffer on the day it seems fair enough that she should suffer a bit now.

It is also tied up with her travelling-companion boyfriend and this under-currents all our e-mails. It is a strange phenomenon which I have noticed amongst many of my older friends. Their children, at about 18, start going out with someone they (the parents) really like. Because they (the boy/girl friends) are still relatively young, they come round to the house a lot and in fact end up like a surrogate child. One who is in many ways more sympathetic and charming than their own children. It is such a relief that someone so well-suited to the family ethos is going to marry their son/daughter. At about 22 the son/daughter dump the perfect person for no particular reason except that they feel 'too young' to be so settled. The person is devastated and still comes round to talk to the parents and probably sees a lot of any brothers and sisters too, who 'Can't understand it'.

Quite soon afterwards the son/daughter takes up with someone totally unsuitable in any random way which their family will find quite unbearable. Usually dull, hideous with low-paid job (as boyfriend) or slutty, stupid, manipulative, possibly pregnant not necessarily with their baby (as girlfriend). They then either marry them or torture everybody by living with them for ages while pondering marrying them. Any attempt at sensible dialogue on the family's part, like late-night drunken screaming, 'WTF are you thinking? I can't believe that I gave up 20 years of my life for you and you end up with THIS'. Only seems to lead to defensive shouting about the family being too crass and 'up themselves' to 'get' boyfriend/girlfriend.

You probably see what the 'undercurrents' are in my own mother/daughter relationship here. It is hard for me to understand as she and I not only look very alike, (someone drunk stopped her in a restaurant recently saying, 'Iris! My God it must be 25 years and you haven't changed a bit'.), but have always been on exactly the same wavelength. We like the same books, clothes, films etc. and until now, the same people. Out of every possible facet - how could she pick the one I really, really couldn't bear? Someone with no sense of humour.
- posted by Iris @ 11/19/2003 01:42:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
This is the weather forecast for the next three days: ' Dull, grey, with a fine drizzle'. Possibly my least favourite, though maybe closely followed by 'Strong gales, driving is inadvisable', which I am sure will be here next week.

This is the kind of weather which calls for 'Sausage Sauce'.

My son, M... , is here for a few days and in unusually slumped mode. He has managed to turn his internal clock right round and is rising after dark, (about 5.30), and going to bed just before dawn. I have tried waking him every hour from about 12.00 onwards and bringing coffee and the odd snack as a bribe but he falls unconcious again as soon as I leave the room. The whole thing gets pretty wearing for both of us. Particularly when he finally gets up and runs around shouting' 'F@ck, f@ck, f@ck. I really wanted to go for a long walk today and now it's pitch black out there'. The trouble is that I don't REALLY care. I was the same at his age, in fact I was the same since I was about 10 years old, in that I felt totally awake and alert after mid-night and dead up until lunch time. The change-over point came at around five in the morning. I only adjusted to normal day-light hours when I was about 30. My perfect job was in that Gambling Club where work started at 10.30 pm. The only job I ever had where I was never late.

The trouble is, apart from the rest of the world being out of sync., that everyone treats you in a despising way as if you were really lazy. It doesn't matter how many times you point out that you actually sleep for fewer hours than they do; they always have that 'I'm not listening' face and then say something like, 'I saw your curtains were still drawn when I passed your house at 2.00'.

So, while my son has nothing much to do here I tend to leave him alone. Teenage boys really need to have someone on their side and my husband is mentally living in 1940. He uses the phrase 'When I was a boy ....' a lot. It doesn't help that my son has inherited my personality which has a strong careless and casual element. My husband was brought up in a very old-fashioned family with very old parents. He really thinks that a brisk walk in the rain first thing in the morning will blow away all your troubles. While my son and I know that lounging around in bed until mid-afternoon with a lot of toast and some new magazines leaves you refreshed and ready for anything.

To counteract the lack of outside activity, I suggested that M... should try to learn one new thing every day, however trivial and small. He agreed in principle but then managed to leave the room whenever the words, 'I've just thought of something you could do', were uttered. He had, at one point, mentioned that men being able to cook well was, 'Quite cool'. So to-day (or rather to-night), I have planned that there will be no supper until he has cooked it himself. And it will be one of his favourites: Spaghetti with SAUSAGE SAUCE. Everyone loves this sauce. So I am now going to share it with the world.


SAUSAGE SAUCE.

2 tablespoons olive oil. 2 red onions, peeled and chopped. 2 garlic cloves, chopped.
8 pork sausages, (ideally Italian spiced but you can manage without), skins removed and meat crumbled.
1 small dried chilli, crumbled. 2 bay leaves. 1/2 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped. 1/3 teaspoon grated nutmeg, (you may want more, to taste).
1/3 bottle red wine.
salt and freshly ground pepper, (add more pepper if meat was not spicy).
800 g. tin of chopped tomatoes.
Parmesan, grated. Double cream approx. 150 ml.
Penne rigate, (is best but any thickish pasta will do).

In a large, heavy pan fry onion in the oil until soft, then add sausage meat, garlic, bay leaves, chilli and rosemary. Fry, stirring and breaking up the sausage, until meat is browned. Pour in the wine and cook for a few minutes then add tomatoes. Lower the heat and simmer gently until the sauce thickens - about 45 minutes. Check half-way through and if it gets too thick and sticks add a little water. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

You can then stir in the cream and Parmesan. Or - maybe better - each person can add them to their own plate. The sauce is perfectly nice without them.

To bulk it out. I have found that adding an aubergine, (purple), cut into small dice, just before the wine makes it go further and no one, (especially fussy children), ever notices it is there.

In Italy each sauce is meant to go with a particular kind of Pasta. Apparently to do with the sauce's coating qualities. Anyway the short Penne is the one for this, ideally, but ordinary Spaghetti has always seemed, (to my untrained taste-buds) perfectly fine.



- posted by Iris @ 11/18/2003 10:53:00 AM comment

 
On the local news today they said that they have found the body of a teenage girl who has been missing for a week. She had set off to catch the morning bus to college from her house on the moor, which meant a half mile walk down a charming country lane. The man they have arrested, (and it is obviously him), is the bus driver.

You have no idea how nasty that is. We get a lot of 'weather' around here and it is always cheerful and reassuring to come round a corner on a lonely road in the mist and meet a small, red bus with a smiling middle-aged driver who waves at you.

It reminds me of a story that my father used to scare me with when I was young. It was called 'The Woman Running on Salisbury Plain'. One night a man was driving his horse and cart across Salisbury Plain when a woman came running up to the road out of the darkness. 'Oh my God. Please, please help me', she cried. 'Of course, my dear, get up on the cart and tell me what's the matter'. She got on and he whipped up the horse to a fast pace. 'Now what's wrong'. 'It was this man. I was walking home when he loomed up out of the fog. He was wearing a cloak and when I said 'Good Evening' he pulled the hood aside and ... HE HAD NO FACE'. The driver turned to her. 'You mean ..... LIKE THIS?'.
- posted by Iris @ 11/17/2003 12:24:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I have four cats and one of them is ill. That is the reason that I spend such a lot of time here on my own at the moment. Of the four, three are happy and sociable and will sit on any lap going however skanky and cat-hating. The other one loves only me; runs from the rest of the family with mad eyes and sleeps on my head. Naturally she is the one who is ill. She is called Lottie and is part of a long chain of family owned cats going back into the mists of my ancestry.

She has an incurable disease, (apparently - but perhaps there is some foreign cure that I haven't heard of), which is caused by an immune deficiency failure. It is like having tonsillitis all the time and it is only eased by steroid pills. If I don't give them to her every day she eats nothing and would eventually starve to death. Otherwise she is TOTALLY FINE. It is such a small thing that I can't understand why there isn't a 'golden bullet' as the Vet calls it. I have spoken to several vets including one VERY expensive one and they all say the same. That she can carry on for years like this, but there is nothing else to do. It is seriously affecting my life. I have been doing this for two years now. I can't be away from here for more than a week without imagining her in pain and miserable and feeling insanely guilty. The person who feeds the cats while I am gone is saintlike and hides ground-up pills in all Lottie's food and drags off to buy the only brand of cream she likes (which is all she will drink). But Lottie always looks thin and low when I come home and throws herself at me, purring in that high, squeaky way.

Many people have said, 'Why don't you just kill her', using euphemisms obviously. I can't. I don't feel strongly about many moral issues but where animals are concerned I feel we have a duty to protect and serve. Once you have taken on an animal I think you should feel an obligation to look after it as decently as you can for as long as it takes. So I am stuffed.

Lottie is my favourite of the present cats. I bought her and her husband to replace my older set of cats who were all the same age and about to die anciently. They were bought when I became hysterically certain that I would never have children and so would have to pour my frustrated instincts into animals instead. It turned out that I was six weeks pregnant at that point - hence the hysteria. Oddly, the next time I was six weeks pregnant I went through exactly the same scenario; only that time I impulsively bought a miniature horse.

Of the first set one became my constant companion and close friend. In a horribly similar manner he loved only me and ran from the rest of the family with mad eyes. However, he had a constitution of steel. He was called Mr. Fur and escaped certain death on several occasions. Once he ate rat poison and was found lying in the garden, frothing. The Vet said it was hopeless and only a matter of time. I took Mr., as he was known in the family , into my bed and stayed there with him for several days, only leaving to get him Brand's Beef Essence, well diluted, which I forced into him with an eye-dropper. On about the fourth day I went down to greet a visitor and was saying how Mr. was seriously ill and couldn't leave my room. 'But isn't that him?', he said. Tottering behind me was Mr., obviously desperate to escape the vile Brand's Essence. He instantly ate a huge dish of normal cat food and was better in no time.

Another time we had only recently bought our house in Norfolk and the whole rotting thing had to be sprayed with timber treatment. It was so poisonous that they wore space suits and did one section of the house at a time and then sealed the rooms off for THREE WEEKS. Just to walk in and breath during that time was totally inadviseable. They had to take up random floorboards and spray underneath. Naturally I had all the cats herded away well in advance.
Late at night, with all those rooms taped off, there was no sign of Mr. Noooooooooooo...... It was just not possible - I had even asked them to double-check with torches before they nailed the floorboards back. ( 'Stupid bitch' had hung in the air). I crept up to the deadly rooms and called - there was a faint reply. F@ck! He was not only nailed up under the floor but had actually been heavily SPRAYED with timber treatment. He was sopping wet and had been there for hours breathing the stuff in. I rang the emergency Vet who said 'I'm afraid it is hopeless, he will probably die within a couple of hours'. I washed him down with a wet towel and he seemed oddly cheerful. He ate a large supper and fell asleep. I watched him all night, our last together, until the dawn when he went out, peed, and returned for breakfast as usual. He never showed the faintest sign of anything amiss and eventually died at the age of 21 after not a single days (normal) illness.

If you looked into his eyes it was like looking at a human person. I always felt that he was an old soul and for some reason was constantly reminded of a wise, Chinese scholar when I was with him. I did try out some Chinese words on him occasionally, but he did not respond. Perhaps it was my accent.
- posted by Iris @ 11/16/2003 11:19:00 AM comment

 
I was interested to see that more commenters on the super-popular site of a charming bi-sexual are questioning whether she is 'real' or not. I started reading her about eight months ago and was struck almost immediately by various discrepancies. One regular commenter recently said that he wondered if she was 'mad' and wished that he could actually meet her because then it would be instantly apparent.

I was struck by this because mild schizophrenics are often exceptionally charismatic and also have a propensity to exaggerate and embellish accounts of their life. I had personal experience of this when one of my early boyfriends, who I was hoping to marry, left me for a strange girl who had appeared out of nowhere in our relatively static University community. She was older than us and had been roaming Europe living off her trust fund. I had been in Paris on a 'break' while we thought through the getting married idea, although I was sure that the boyfriend would agree in the end. I came back to find that she had moved into his flat and he was totally bewitched by her. She said that she was a serious artist who had had many exhibitions abroad and set up a vast easel in the middle of his sitting room. She didn't seem to do much work but she said she was exhausted from painting so much in Spain and was concentrating on her 'stock portfolio'. She spent hours on the phone talking to her broker, which we found incredibly exotic.

In spite of my feelings of rage and jealousy she was so empathetic that I was totally drawn to her and spent hours talking to her. Everything was definitely my boyfriend's fault and anyway, who could fail to fall in love with someone as fascinating as she was? She set up a little court of acolytes including some younger girls who were obsessed with her in an obviously lesbian way although they had been straight up until then. At the time, my boyfriend had just finished university and as he couldn't think what to do next, his father, a property developer, had lent him the money to buy a big run-down house in the centre of Cambridge to run as student lodgings. I had set the whole thing up with him and it had been massive fun and the house had turned into a commune-like group of friends. So it was especially awful to come back and not be able to live there anymore.

I was so sad and low that when the Summer holidays started and most of the rooms emptied he said that I could move back into his flat while he was away abroad and collect the remaining rents for him and generally run the place. She was also away in London doing something mysterious and glamorous. A couple of weeks later I had collected quite a lot of money and, in those innocent days, put it into a drawer. She suddenly appeared on a flying visit to collect some of her things. The next day, when I was about to take the money to the bank, the drawer was empty. Never, for a single mini-second, did I think it was her. For a start she was really rich. My boyfriend gave me hell by phone and our thread-like relationship was practically over.

The weather was hot and thundery and none of my friends were about except for one close and sympathetic girlfriend. My life had become crap. Resentment began to bubble. Why should I sit there while this bitch took everything that had made me happy? For many years I had had a keen interest (mental only) in witchcraft and had a small library of spell and text books. The centre piece of my boyfriend's flat was a huge stuffed albatross, which we had bought as part of a mixed lot when furnishing the house. Killing an albatross is one of the stupidest things you can do (see 'Ancient Mariner') and I had always felt that its presence was a mistake. But now.......


As the dawn broke we placed the albatross on a rough pedestal in the garden; garlanded it with flowers and laid out offerings of cake and wine. Then we danced round it, chanting spells of banishment taken from my books and starting, 'Oh Great Bird of Ill-Omen, take, we pray you, the woman Margot (her real name) and banish her into outer darkness......'.


A week later Margot returned from London and my boyfriend from abroad and I went home to my parents in despair. Three days after that, the police arrived at the flat and took Margot away.

Apparently there had been a warrant out for her arrest for several years as she was a notorious cheque-forger. She was not rich; did not have a trust fund, (all the calls to her 'broker' had been to the speaking clock); was not an established artist and had never had an exhibition. In fact just about every single thing she had ever said had been a lie. All her amazing 'foreign' clothes had been shop-lifted as had all the food and presents etc. she had brought home over the months. But everyone still adored her. After the first shock, it just added to her mystique. Even I felt sorry for what I had 'done' and kept very quiet about albatrosses.

She was quite a serious criminal and was sentenced to two years in prison. It was an open prison and after a couple of months of model behaviour she walked to the station one day and took a train to London. She arrived at a friend's flat for the night. She was annoyed as she had found a girl on the train who looked about her size, waited for her to go to the lavatory, and then stolen her suitcase and got off at the next station. The clothes turned out to be one size too small - how irritating is that? She charmed the Passport Office into issuing her a temporary passport as she had 'lost' hers and had a family emergency and flew away to America. Where I assume she still is.

My boyfriend and I got back together but it wasn't the same. Eventually he got heavily into drugs and Buddhism, was forced into a shot-gun marriage with a really dreary girl and now lives in the wilds of Scotland.
- posted by Iris @ 11/15/2003 01:31:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I was just checking Friends Reunited as a distraction from the depression of my blog going wrong. A pointless exercise as in the two years since I put myself on only one new person from my year at school has appeared. Out of a possible 80 there are 25, none of whom I liked or knew very well.
Lately they have added new group categories like Favourite Teacher; First Day at School and.. Famous Ex-Pupils. This would obviously be quite interesting as my school - in a Muriel Spark-like way - used to actually tell us that we were the creme-de-la-creme of English girlhood. As the school is in a major university city they were inundated with the daughters of brilliant academics and had a really tough entrance exam. I got in as I was always good at English, partly from reading so much when I was little. In fact I got 97% in the English section, so they overlooked the 40% in the Maths. section as some kind of fluke. (An optimism which turned out to be sadly misplaced).

They were obsessed with getting girls into Oxbridge and long before the recent school league tables came in there was a Double Secret League Table just for Oxbridge entrance numbers. On the first day of every Autumn term the headmistress would read out our ranking, always either first or second. First - wild cheers; second - muted clapping.

So .............. in this small island, how many of my school mates are now household names? Up until 1940 there are two relatively well-known novelists. From 1940 - 1980 - NO ONE. From 1980 to the present. Two TV. presenters, one for a car programme, and an Olympic gymnast. Hello ..... we were meant to be a collection of some of the most intelligent girls in the country. A clue might be in the School Memories section where comments like, 'I have never been so unhappy in my life'; 'I left with my confidence at rock-bottom'; 'It took five years of therapy to restore my self-esteem' etc. were the norm. (Apart from one sad entry 'I am sorry that so many of you were so miserable. I was really happy here'). There was an atmosphere of grinding hard work; art and even music were thought of as pretty trivial and any mark below an 'A' showed that you just weren't bothering to try. As I was told once, 'If you can get such high marks in English, you can get them in anything'. Errr...?

By chance, last year, I was introduced to a woman at a party here in the country. It turned out that she had just moved from Cambridge. 'Oh, I was at school there', I said, 'At the .....'. She actually backed away from me, flapping her hands. 'Don't say that name again', she said,' So was I, but I try never to think of it'.


- posted by Iris @ 11/14/2003 01:48:00 PM (0) comments comment

 

- posted by Iris @ 11/14/2003 01:00:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Please could someone help me? Why is my blog now in this huge size? The posts when I am writing them look just the same as usual, but when I looked at the actual thing it had sprung to vast. The only thing I have done is try to install a blog-roll, aborted half-way through, could that have affected it as I now have an error box appearing when first logging on. Why is life so cruel.
- posted by Iris @ 11/14/2003 12:59:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Right.....I just Googled Betty MacDonald and she has a massive fan club and millions of sites dedicated to her and she did write Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle which I had never heard of.
- posted by Iris @ 11/13/2003 05:25:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I used to read Betty MacDonald's books when I was younger as they were my mother's favourites but they are mostly out of print, sadly. She wrote in the 50's mostly, about her own life in a very amusing way. One of the books 'The Egg and I' was made into a rather dull film. I liked 'Onions in the Stew' best, which was set on Vashon Island. One of her main characters was her sister, Mary, who was wild and eccentric. Mary wrote her own book 'The Doctor Wears Three Faces' (by Mary Bard), but it was nowhere near as funny as her quiet sister Betty's work. I know that Betty died quite young but not any details or what happened to her family.

Because I have spent a lot of time alone in spooky houses over the years, I have a selection of cheerful, undemanding books that I can turn to when there are strange tapping noises or howling outside. Betty MacDonald is perfect for that.
- posted by Iris @ 11/13/2003 05:20:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I am writing down a recipe for CHRISTMAS CAKE.

I have already sent this recipe out into the Web but obviously to the wrong address so it will float randomly in space forever.

When we bought our house in Norfolk my mother had just died, younger than I am now, and my father had rather quickly, (but not horribly), settled down with one of her friends. This, and the fact that the house epitomised most people's idea of the perfect setting for an Olde Englishe country Christmas, meant that I suddenly had to provide the whole thing myself. My mother had been a Christmas-freak sort of person but in a rather sophisticated, urban way. (Black and white striped wrapping paper and rather futuristic gold sprayed dried flower arrangements). Because I had devoted many hours to ancient childrens' books I saw it all from a more Victorian point of view.

I filled the entire house with holly, ivy and fir branches, (easy when they are growing just outside), and put a huge tree in the hall; which was double height. As we didn't have any other heating downstairs every room had an open log fire. (You have no idea how much you don't want to bother lighting three or four log fires every single dreary morning). Everywhere amongst the leaves I hung small silver and gold reflecting things and more artificial scarlet berries. There was low lighting and candles. I was trying to make a 'magic' atmosphere for the children but also to relive Christmas as if I was a child myself, having the kind of old fashioned setting that I had always really wanted.

My husband is a Quaker and sees things from a practical rather than romantic viewpoint. The kind of person who says, 'Do they actually NEED all these presents?'. No, they don't NEED any of them. But I want them to have that pleasure of seeing a tree surrounded by strange, exciting parcels....JUST FOR FUN. He was away a lot, working in London and I had to do everything alone. It is peculiar, but I am pretty much the childrens' only real relation. There was no-one else to provide them with any form of present. I am an only child with no cousins, grandparents or aunts and uncles except my father's brother, from whom he is estranged. My husband's parents were really old when he was born and he has one much older brother and they are all QUAKERS who think that one small, well-chosen gift is quite adequate. This meant that I had to find roughly ten presents for each child, ranging from one 'big' one down to cheap but perfect, just so it would be similar to a 'family' present-opening session in olde Victorian times. This says nothing of the twenty or so tiny but individually relevant things which went into each child's large Victorian-style stocking. It's funny that written down it looks kind of mad but at the time there seemed no other way to do it that wouldn't be disappointing and dreary. My first two Christmasses with my husband's family had had such a 'sensible' unglamorous feeling about them. I wanted my children to look back and think that they couldn't imagine having a better time.

The Victorian thing extended to the food. It actually seemed quite fun, (the first two or three times), to make absolutely everything myself. I even toyed with crystalising my own fruit for the pudding but it apparently took weeks of stupid fiddling. I hadn't done vast amounts of cooking as in London we used to eat out all the time but, by chance, I had bought a book with a large Christmas section. I made everything from that and I have ever since. And that is where this cake recipe comes from - which I will now reveal.

CHRISTMAS CAKE.

From 'The Four Seasons Cookery Book' by Margaret Costa.


6 oz candied peel; 6 oz glace cherries; 4 oz almonds, skinless;
1 lb sultanas; 1 lb currants; 12 oz raisins; 10 oz plain flour;
10 oz butter; 10 oz soft brown sugar;
grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon;
1 tablespoon black treacle; 6 eggs; 1/2 teaspoon salt;
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice; 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg;
4-6 tablespoons rum, brandy, whisky or sherry.


Chop the peel; quarter the cherries and chop the almonds. In a large bowl coat all the fruit and nuts with a tablespoon of the flour. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in a separate bowl, together with the grated orange and lemon rind and the black treacle. Gradually add the beaten eggs, with a sprinkling of flour to stop the mixture curdling, beating with a wooden spoon. Then stir in the remaining flour sifted with the salt and spices and enough of the alcohol to make a batter that will drop easily when shaken from the spoon. Lastly lightly stir in the fruit.

Turn the batter into a 9 inch cake tin, well greased and lined with two thicknesses of greaseproof paper. Tie a band of brown paper round the outside of the tin for extra protection. Hollow out the centre of the batter quite deeply to ensure a flat top for icing. Cover the top of the tin with two thicknesses of the greaseproof paper too to prevent it browning too fast.

Put into a very moderate oven, Mark 3, (325 F; 160 C), and after 20 minutes reduce heat to Mark 2, (300 F; 150 C). Bake for a further 40 minutes, then reduce the heat to Mark 1, (275 F; 140 C). The cake will need about 5 hours baking altogether. It s done when it stops 'singing' and a warm skewer comes out cleanly. Let the cake cool for an hour before turning out of its tin.


As I said on the lost e-mail. The ingredients of the cake are pretty expensive but it is very 'dense' and also lasts for a year, so you get a certain amount of wear out of it.
Also, whenever I make this it reminds me of the bit in 'Onions in the Stew' by Betty MacDonald, (her autobiographical book about living on Vashon Island in the '40's, if you don't know it). Where they are asked to tea in her shack by this obviously once genteel but now skanky hippy. Once they are seated, she proudly reaches down a bundle from a high cupboard and offers them some ancient fruit cake, wrapped, they can't help noticing, in a rather grey pair of mens' longjohns.

YOUR WORK IS NOT YET DONE.


ALMOND PASTE.

12 oz ground almonds; 6 oz caster sugar; 6 oz icing sugar;
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice; vanilla essence; almond essence;
a little sherry or brandy; approx. 3 egg yolks;
apricot jam.

Mix the ground almonds and caster sugar, add the icing sugar, sieved, followed by the flavourings. Mix to a stiff paste with sufficient egg yolk to bind.
Brush the top and sides of the cake with warmed apricot jam. Roll out to the shape of the cake, using the smaller piece for coating the top of the cake and the larger piece for the sides. Press well on to the cake. (I always find it is too sticky to do this and just squodge it on in chunks and spread out. Then leave to dry for 24 hours).


ROYAL ICING.

First coat: 1 lb icing sugar; 1/2 teaspoon glycerine; 2 large egg whites.

Second coat: 3/4 lb icing sugar; 1/2 teaspon glycerine; 2 small egg whites.


First coat. Sift the icing sugar. Add the glycerine to the egg whites. Gradually work in two-thids of the sieved icing sugar and beat well. Add the remaining icing sugar. The icing should be thick enough to stand in peaks before use. The first coat should be allowed 2 days to dry out before the second coat is applied.
Mix the second coat of icing in the same way. The icing should be thinner than that used for the first coat, but sufficiently thick to coat the back of a wooden spoon.

I usually put the icing on roughly - to simulate snow - and then you must add Father Christmas, reindeer, trees etc. within about ten minutes or it will set too hard.


I also make the cake and put on the almond paste weeks before Christmas and keep it in a tin.
Then put on the icing much nearer the time so that it stays softer.


It gives a charming hands-across-the-sea feeling to share recipes; although very few people actually like fruit cake.



- posted by Iris @ 11/12/2003 02:52:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Two weeks ago, in London, I went to a private view of an artist who we knew when we lived in Norfolk. Norfolk is as far East as you can go in England and we now live nearly as far West. We moved there from London when my first daughter was 10 months old because I suddenly couldn't stand being the only person in my 'set' with a baby and feeling like a big bore all the time. Also one day we were sitting in Kensington Gardens near the Peter Pan statue when she crawled up and proudly handed me a dog turd. The week before a man had sprung out from behind a bush with no trousers on. I had this vision of her running towards me through a field of waist-high buttercups and there being NO ONE ELSE there.

Norfolk is stuffed with huge houses as it was once the incredibly rich centre of the wool trade. It is also on the way to nowhere and miles from anywhere and famous for the surly and incestuous nature of the indigenous inhabitants. At that point there was some random oil crisis and everyone was worried that petrol would cease to exist or something, so massive houses in a place where there were no jobs were pretty cheap. So we bought one. It was big. And really damp and rotting and the entire roof needed replacing. It had been a Rectory right up until that moment so I felt intrusive and sacriligious and also that we had taken away the heart of the village, although the house and the church were, weirdly, alone half a mile outside it. Something to do with the Plague.
I tortured myself with these thoughts and lurked about for some months until I discovered that the woman in the Manor had been dying to boss the village about for years and had sneakily moved all fetes etc. to her house, without revealing that they were normally held with us. She was also pretty unfriendly, considering that we were practically the only people for several miles who weren't slow moving and mud-covered. She was divorced, with teenage children, and her father was the local grand land-owner, living in an exceptionally vast house at the end of a mile-long avenue. I was quite young at this point, really young in terms of the size of the house and the rather stuffy life-style which would normally go with it. It turned out that we had outbid her dearest friends at the auction and, much, much worse. Her husband had left her in a really humiliating way, by running off with the nanny while she was actually still in hospital with her second baby. This had been a big surprise and strangely out of character. She had never forgiven him even when it was revealed that it would not have crossed his mind until his closest friend encouraged him to do it. The closest friend was the man with whom I eventually did the 'efiL pawS' , which although totally inocuous had been seen in some quarters, including hers, as 'disgusting'. We lived there for fourteen years and she asked us in for coffee the first week after we arrived and then, on somehow hearing that a mutual, smart acquaintance was staying, for a drink. Which we had to decline as we were so busy packing, ready for our move.

We were talking recently with some friends about how people often behave far, far worse in their 30's than they did when they were younger. Norfolk bears that out for me. The lonely, cut-off feeling of the place and the fact that there were so many friends living in big isolated houses in a bohemian way meant that there were endless parties and endless opportunities for inventive behaviour. I must write about it some day.
- posted by Iris @ 11/12/2003 12:19:00 AM comment

 
I don't write when I am in London as the computer is in the childrens flat, (which is like the upstairs of our flat but with a kitchen and separate front door). I imagine that they will press that symbol which shows you the last 20 sites you've looked at and see Iris Storm edit. So I never write about London things which is a bit odd.

I was in the local supermarket this morning, which is actually twenty miles away. I was just rushing towards the organic potatoes when a voice boomed 'It is now 11.00, please stand still for the 2 minutes silence and reflect on those who gave their lives for us'. I was so taken by surprise that I skidded to a halt right in the middle and had to stand there, unmoving, the fixed point for everyone else's gaze. I started with a casual expression but after a while ( 2 minutes is really long) began to actually visualise people in trenches and sons never coming home and poppy fields blowing in the wind and had a horrific feeling that I might cry. Thank God that did not happen, partly as I have a memory of an old cartoon which I retrieve when crying is not an option. It is a drawing of a really sleazy-looking tiger leaning forward saying, 'So....what immortal hand or eye framed THY fearful symmetry, Baby?'.

On the News today they were saying that the Remembrance Day interest had waned a bit until recently when we had suddenly had a lot more wars and it had become 'relevant' again. The BBC have become so obssesive about poppy-wearing that they put one on a newsreader half way through his broadcast and when they saw that the presenter of a film reviewing programme hadn't worn one, they added it to his jacket DIGITALLY. As the programme lasted for an hour it soon became transfixingly obvious that it wasn't real. How often does that kind of thing happen? I can't remember about the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Did they choose to end the War at that moment or was it a bizarre coincidence?
- posted by Iris @ 11/11/2003 10:44:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Reading an article about the new Sylvia Plath film I came across a slightly weird thing. Which is that when they were young and lived in Cambridge, (which is where I was brought up - why was I bothering to hide that?), they lived about four doors away from my parents. My parents married really young and their first house was rented from the University in a charming suburb called Newnham. My father has read more books than anyone I have ever known (apart from Badger). Together we even won one of the Sunday Times annual Literary Quizzes, which was quite a big deal at the time and he got all the answers right every year afterwards but they wouldn't give him the prize twice.

Anyway .... They lived there at exactly the same time and were pretty much the same age. AND the man who lived above Sylvia Plath and was their friend was also a friend of my parents and I met him when I was little. Why on earth did my father never mention that? We used to talk about books all the time and I'm sure I would have had 'The Bell Jar' lying about at some point. Who didn't? If only we were speaking I suppose I could just ask him.
- posted by Iris @ 11/03/2003 01:21:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I have just bought this cute book written in the '50.s by an American woman married to a Viennese. And in it is the famous, authentic recipe for 'Sachertorte', the best chocolate cake in the world. Which I will now write down if only for myself. Apparently the Cafe Sacher and the Cafe Demel are still locked in vicious battle over whose version of the cake is the best - you will see how different they are.

SACHERTORTE.

2/3 cup butter. 3/4 cup sugar. 8 egg yolks. 6 ozs. semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled. 10 egg whites. 1 cup sifted flour. apricot jam. CHOCOLATE ICING.

Cream butter and half the sugar until very fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one by one. Gradually and thoroughly beat in chocolate. Beat egg whites and remaining sugar until very stiff. Gradually and lightly fold into chocolate mixture, alternately with dusted-in flour. Pour into buttered, floured 8-inch spring-form pan. Bake in pre-heated moderate oven (350 deg.) about 1 1/4 hrs. or until cake is done and shrinks from sides of pan. Cool. Remove from pan. Invert.

When cake is completely cold, spread it with heated apricot jam - DEMEL'S VERSION. Or ......
in addition, slice cake through middle and spread with extra layer of apricot jam - SACHER VERSION. Hmmm. How can I possibly decide which is best? Obviously - the Sacher version, two layers of jam is always better. How could there ever have been a contest?

Cover with CHOCOLATE ICING and a 'puff' of whipped cream on each plate.

CHOCOLATE ICING. (Schokoladenglasur).

3/4 cup granulated sugar. 3/8 cup water. 3 ozs. semi-sweet chocolate. 1 teaspoon butter.

Boil sugar and water in aluminium saucepan about 15 minutes, or until syrup spins a fine thread when dripped from a silver spoon. (This seems a touch anal but it was the 50's). While sugar is boiling, melt chocolate and stir in butter. Pour sugar syrup, a little at a time, into melted chocolate, stirring continually until icing is smooth. Use immediately. For one 8-inch cake.


To show an aspect of my coolness. I have eaten this cake in the Cafe Demel in Vienna. (Obviously if I had realised that Cafe Sacher had the nicer one I would have gone in there).

I spent a few days in Vienna, years ago, under slightly odd circumstances. I was unrequitedly in love with someone who had just written a travel article about spending a long weekend there. By coincidence, someone who was unrequitedly in love with me had to be in Vienna on business for a long weekend and asked me to go with him. I took the article with me and retraced the loved one's movements exactly, while never letting on to the unloved one and doing it all in the form of ' suggestions'. Ah ... to be young and obsessive.


While in Viennese mode. When my son was about 8 we had a very long, dull wet Spring with nothing to do in London at weekends. Out of desperation I was struck with the idea of having country-themed days where we pretended that we were somewhere else. One of these was based on Vienna and he really loved it and still remembers. I bought a guide-book with masses of pictures, (this is when computers were still made of wood and we didn't have one), and made Viennese food like cinnamon toast with hot chocolate and whipped cream and Weinerschnitzel (?) with very thin fries. Which we ate while listening to Strauss waltzes and watching a video of 'The Third Man' (Still one of my favourite films in the world).


- posted by Iris @ 11/03/2003 12:32:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Today is the first day of the hunting season. That is fox and stag. For anyone who cares this is a momentous time as it may be the last season ever. For the Labour Party it has turned into a test of Tony Blair's integrity. He promised many things before he was elected and this trivial, unimportant little bill is the one that his supporters have taken to heart. He would obviously give anything if it could be forgotten as it has split England pretty much into Town and Country and sparked off two Countryside Marches through London of hundreds of thousands of people. The biggest marches there have ever been. Last week there were gatherings all over the country where people pledged to carry on hunting even when it was outlawed and said that they were happy to go to prison to stand up for their human rights.

I wouldn't have been that interested a few years ago and also, as I am sentimental about animals to the point of insanity, I was totally anti-hunting too. But then we moved here.

This is probably the hunting epi-centre of the entire universe. It has the longest hunting season of anywhere in Europe practically as the stag and fox hunting run on at different times. Masses of French people suddenly appear around Easter when their season has finished. One of the villages near us is so given over to hunting that they realised every single person would be out of work if the Bill goes through. When we bought the farm it had a 'Hunting Clause' saying that we had to allow hunts over our land or we would be in breach of the sale agreement. We had been looking for somewhere to live for so long that I would have agreed to hunts riding through our house. The 'local people' obviously thought that as 'outsiders' we would probably try to get out of it and when we didn't they had their own ways of showing gratitude.

One evening a large dark van drew up in the farmyard, as usual I was on my own, and when I opened the kitchen door a strange man was standing there holding out a huge piece of bleeding meat. 'We've brought this for you. You deserve it as the stag was 'found' on your land and its the most prized part'. And apparently still warm.

The previous farmer was hunting mad. Every barn had a skeletal stag's scull with huge antlers nailed to the highest outside point and inside was covered with furry preserved heads on plaques. There were peculiar things made out of hoof and horn dotted about on every surface and when we were looking over the ruined wing of the house I suddenly noticed that the door wedge was actually the mummified leg of a deer.

Its hard to choose a way of killing things but at least the Hunt is regulated. They have their own vets and one of the huntsmen carries a pistol to give the stag an instant death. In the months after the sale when the farm was empty the poachers came. I won't write down the horrible things they did and how cruel they are. Without hunting that is how it will be; they will be everywhere. When the National Trust banned hunting from all its land some of the local farmers started to shoot any deer they saw amongst their crops and forty had died before there was a public outcry. The Hunt probably kill about ten in an entire season and they are picked out beforehand as ill or old.

I couldn't imagine that I would feel like this before I lived in a hunting community. My father lives in town and loves animals. He told me that only barbarians hunt and that obviously the answer was strategic culling of the herds by skilled marksmen. What skilled marksmen? It will be amateur merchant bankers paying for sport or poachers. We argued shoutily for a time on the phone and then he said an unforgiveable thing about my commitment to animal welfare and I couldn't bring myself to speak to him again. That was four years ago. I certainly never saw that coming.


- posted by Iris @ 11/02/2003 11:22:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Yesterday teeth were unobtainable. M.. had been asked to a fancy dress party and in casual fashion started thinking about his costume around lunchtime. He had unoriginally decided to be someone dead and I thought J.F.K. would be good, with a bullet hole at the front and red all over the back of his head. He had just had a really short haircut and bleaching though and nothing could make him look right. He settled for a boy who had just been 'turned' (into a vampire) and set off for the Party Shop with high hopes of trashy horror accessories.

The whole shop had been practically stripped bare. There was nothing but orange hair spray and a basket of Mexican moustaches - he bought one wildly. Then began an afternoon of desperately criss-crossing West London. After a bit people started to look familiar and he realised he was part of a small gang of distraught teeth hunters. In every toy shop and Indian newsagent, (renowned for bizarre and random stock), voices begged for fangs and at the shake of the head, low moaning arose. Eventually only he and one other couple were left. 'Sod it', they said, we'll go to our party as Egyptian mummies'. He bought some childrens' face paints and trailed sadly home.
- posted by Iris @ 11/02/2003 09:15:00 PM (0) comments comment