The Word Cloud

Miranda came to visit me in Potters Bar. She was due to arrive on Friday, but decided to come early on Thursday  - *Yay!* but *Panic!*

I rushed around, trying to make my flat less minging. I managed to clean the toilet, and excavate the kitchen sink. I also bunged the worst of the floor debris in a big bag, but by the time I had to leave to meet daughter-dude from Victoria, my gaff was still looking like a cross between the Somme and Nora Batty's vagina. Oh well.

So, Miranda arrived and we went to my pub, the Oakmere. Initially, there was a random human sitting in my Inner Sanctum (the snug), so we had to sit elsewhere, but halfway through our first drink, the landlord - Matt - popped his head round the corner and said "Your office is free now, by the way" so we got to sit in my fave spot with a view of the squirrels and ducks in the park. When we got back to my flat, we spent half the night on the Interweb, inflicting our fave musics on each other. She showed me many awesome cool stuffs she's found online, eg this. It was a lot like when Miranda was lickle, and we used to sit together on the sofa, reading kiddie books - I used to extemporise on the stories, adding all sorts of bizarre and surreal details to make the stories last longer. (We had a animal book, where I did the noises, and Miranda copied me. Unfortunately - teehee - this led to Miranda having a tantrum at playschool when the teacher did the same thing with the kiddies. I wasn't good at doing elephant noises, so I'd told her that elephants go "Ping!" When the kindergarten teacher told the kids that elephants go " Eurraaagh!", Miranda wasn't having it. "My Daddy says elephants go 'Ping!' " Oops. Just as well they didn't get around to doing tortoises.)

On Friday, we went to the pub again (pattern emerging here), and decided to play a drawing game. (I used to love lying on the living-room floor doing drawings with my daughter, and Miranda knows that, so she'd suggested bringing pens and paper with us). The game is simply this: you draw a representation of the name of a town - eg: grassy bank with a hole in it, bloke kneeling down with his head in the hole, rabbit sitting nearby looking puzzled. Solution: Edinburgh ( it helps if you have a London accent with that one). This resulted in us laughing like loonies, and shouting out strings of random words as we attempted to guess: "Alien wardrobe artichoke!" etc. The more maniacally we laughed, the more nervous the humans became. "Gusset fungus!" The humans who had invaded the Inner Sanctum went away, but unfortunately they were replaced by a family with kids. Meanwhile, Miranda had drawn a town - Lewes - which involved a extremely badly drawn picture of a toilet. I totally couldn't guess what it was supposed to be.
"Lava lamp?"
*laughter*
"Blender? Mincer?"
*more laughter*
"Is it something you would cook with?"
*hilarity*
"No - gasp - I hope not!"
"Could you make music with it?"
*hysterics*
Miranda drew some additional clues: toilet roll holder and bog brush, which I misinterpreted variously as 'Asthma inhaler' and 'Tampon'. Miranda, barely able to speak, managed to scream "Nooooo!!!" I asked "Are they some form of ammunition? Is it something you could kill people with?" Miranda pretty much fell apart, and the human family decided to sit elsewhere.
On the way home, we stopped in at the 24hour garage to score snout, booze and noms. As we piled up the plunder at the checkout, the git behind the counter gestured us contemptuously aside, and said he was going to serve the bloke behind us first, cos he'd bought petrol. I was pretty much outraged. "No-one has ever done this to me in a shop before! What are we, not good enough or something?" Once the petrol-buying dude was done (he seemed just as surprised as we were, and more than a little embarrassed) the checkout git finally deigned to serve us. "Are you sure there isn't someone else you'd rather serve first?" I sarked. When we got back to my flat, we watched a Cheech and Chong movie ('Nice Dreams') together.

Saturday was almost sensible, until it started to snow. (Yay! Miranda will be stuck here and not able to go back to Worthing on Sunday *does a little dance*). As the snow settled, Miranda cooked me yummy foods - a important first! She videoed me nomming, and posted it here. As the snow built up on the rooftop outside my 3rd floor window, Miranda decided to scoop up handfuls and make snowballs with which to bombard passing humans on the street below. We also watched people trying to enter the petrol station opposite, and failing as their wheels spun helplessly. Some of them looked up while attempting to push their cars, legs windmilling cartoon-style, at the sounds of hysterical laughter from above. They seemed somewhat resentful at our unhelpful 'we're in the warm and entirely taking the piss' attitude. It was better than reality TV, watching the cars slithering around and waiting for them to crash into each other, or at least for a pedestrian to fall and break their ass-bone.

On Sunday, we tried to watch a DVD on my pooter, but somehow managed to disable the speakers (Duh!) so we ended up playing a card game called 'Shithead' which Miranda taught me. We also discussed a huge, squashed, dried-up spider that I'd forgotten to hoover up, and having such a egregious fit of hysterics that we both thought we were going to be sick. I introduced Miranda (who hates country music) to the delights of Waylon Jennings, and she called me a redneck, which is totally true.

On Monday, despite my insistence that it was still snowing ("It's invisible snow - that's the worst kind!") Miranda departed for Worthing. I escorted her to Victoria, where I had to hand her over to Alex, and off she went. I travelled back to Potters Bar with a lump in my throat, trying to think about anything but our wonderful weekend together so as not to burst into embarrassingly public tears - which is so dumb, cos she's gonna be visiting again in  three weeks time. I am such a dweeb!

Recently I have spent a bit more time than normal at my father’s house as he managed to have another being ill experience. He is approaching 87 and these things are to be expected. In any event, he turns out to be OK and is recovering nicely.

But in the way of things with old folk he once more insisted on taking me through the various papers and stuff that I will have to take care of “if ……” I have no particular interest in his money and usually find something else to do. On this occasion though I humoured him as I didn’t want him having another heart attack. In the same cupboard there was an OXO tin (remember those?) in which there were some old photographs dating generally from the 1930s and the Second World War of him, my mother and various family members, many of which I recognise, some of which he’s forgotten all about. Also there are some great pictures of the Mosquito Squadron he was part of in the Fleet Air Arm. Lovely planes and some great pics.

On the bottom there were two pictures that could barely be made out, image almost faded to nothing. Yesterday I spent an age scanning, filtering, adjusting until rather like magic I got them to the state you see below.

The wedding group one is recognisably my grandmother in the middle and so it must be her wedding to my grandfather, which I can date. He’s the rather nervous looking chump with the watch chain - also recognisable. He had reason to be nervous, naughty boy! My grandmother had a quite distinctive face and despite the quality I am absolutely sure it’s her. Also the old fellow with the walrus moustache on the left is my great grandfather, I know because I have a good picture of him from the first world war period, standing in front of his pub. This is definitely a find, no other known copy exists.

The other, and this was equally challenging in different ways, must be my great grandmother because I can see my grandmother in her, although I’ve no idea when it was taken. She looks younger than in the wedding group.

I have no reason for writing this other than I had a crap weekend, apart from this. I’m rather pleased to find them, and also with myself for managing to rescue the images, so I thought I’d brag about it.

 

Went to Worthing on Saturday to see my daughter for the first time in 20 years.

I met Miranda, her Fiance Alex (massively cool dude) and her two cats, Hendrix (who was entirely disdainful of me) and Sookie (who went utterly soppy for me and covered me in cat hairs and dribble) - she enjoyed repeatedly falling off my lap in slow motion.

I told Miranda "I've got a little prezzy for you, but don't get too excited, it's nothing fantastic." I then rooted around in my bag, and handed her a Rice Crispies Square, choc orange flavour. She gave me a quizzical look, and I said "That's not it". I then produced a wrapped prezzy that was obviously a mug - a egregiously kitsch 'world's greatest daughter' thing, with a fluffy woolly mammoth stuffed in it. When she extracted the mammoth, she found another (tiny) parcel underneath, which contained some demon skull earrings, which met with aesthetic approval.

We then did the photos thing: I showed Miranda the pictures she'd drawn when she was lickle, 'Ghostys coming through the dark', 'Big fishy!' (whale) and a 'Birdy' that looks like a kersplosion, among others. The photos came with stories: Miranda in the 'soft play' area for younger kids at Jungle Tumble in Hastings, rolling a enormous foam rubber cylinder up the slide in order to launch it at other passing kids; Miranda on the 'squirty thing', a water cannon which you are supposed to direct at a sort of castle-type target - not into the ear of the kid standing next to you on the next squirter! We got banned from that. I also told her about getting banned from the trampolines for using them as a sort of racetrack, shouting "Bouncy bouncy trampoline!" and sending the other kids flying in all directions, and getting thrown out of a cafe for covering the entire place in grated cheese, etc etc.
I also gave her some photos of me in various squats and travla sites, and she showed me various photos of her and her friends getting utterly twatted and acting like idiots etc.

That was quite a good start, so I then went to the Tesco's just down the road and scored plenty of booze for the evening. Alex went to bed after a few bottles of Speckled Hen, but Miranda and me stayed up all night, talking and being silly.

There were some emotional moments, which we shall pass over with a small *ahem*, but there was also a great deal of sidesplitting hilarity. We have the same sense of humour, so we were cracking each other up. Miranda enjoyed playing drum'n'bass at me (drum'n'bass gives me a pain in the vagina) but we also have a lot of music in common, eg Slipknot, Dr Feelgood. Miranda also enjoyed singing at me - it was among the best pissed singing I've ever heard *glows with fatherly pride*.
We sang a 5.30 am duet, to Cradle of Filth's 'Nymphetamine', but by some oversight we both sang the female part, leaving Danii Filth to sing the male part on his own.

So, we spent the night talking about (among other things) getting utterly twatted, farting, throwing up at parties etc. All very father&daughter stuff. About 10am, I decided I needed coffee. Miranda warned me that, for some reason, she is unable to make good coffee. We fell towards the kitchen, Miranda stepped in some kitten poo (luckily she was wearing Alex's slippers), and she made coffee in the Plungey Thing. I'd been warned not to expect much, but this was the Devil's diarrhea! My reaction made Miranda have a fit of hysterics, and we both laughed like loonies for about ten minutes, till we were both gasping for breath. We then had tea instead.

We had decided that I would go to Tesco's and score breakfast tackle, which Miranda would cook, but then wiser councils prevailed (which probly saved us from spoiling the Worthing Fire Brigade's Sunday morning) and we decided to crash out.

I wedged myself onto their tiny sofa, with two fluffy pink heart-shaped cushions for pillows which had been egregiously partied all over, with all sorts of weird stuff stuck to them, some of which was dangerously sharp. So, with my spine creaking, my legs folded into a sort of origami swan, and being supervised by Sookie who was staring disconcertingly at me from the window ledge, I attempted to sleep. Sookie waited until my breathing got slow and regular, then kicked over a stack of CDs. I woke up after three hours of extremely uncomfortable intermittent sleep, half-crippled and feeling about 25 years older.

But I was in a far better state than Miranda, who woke up (verrry reluctantly) three hours later with a hangover the size of a brontosaurus. She then drank the entire litre of milk I'd scored from Tesco's, so I had to drink Organic Coca-Cola: Coke with cat hairs and saliva (I much prefer the regular flavour).

I hated having to leave and kept having to blink back tears on the train home (I am such a dweeb!)

It was a brilliant reunion, and I can't wait to see Miranda again. She'll be coming to visit me in Potters Bar sometime (soon I hope!) and I'll be able to show her off to my friends: "Hey you guys, this is my awesome, beautiful, witty, talented, awesome daughter Miranda!"

As some of you will know, I recently made contact with my long-lost daughter Miranda. She's all grown up now, but I'd like to tell you a little bit about the young Miranda who I've loved and carried in my heart for all these years.

One of the reasons I was so gutted to lose the Temple was that Miranda had joined, and sharing each other's stories there was almost like the best ever times of my life, when my daughter and I lay on the living room floor drawing pictures and telling each other stories about them.

One time, when Miranda was 19 months old, she drew an oval shape with a line across the middle and stick arms and legs. "It's a ghostie," she told me. She had a slightly worrying obsession with ghosties.
She then proceeded to scribble over it, which sent me into 'worried parent' mode. Why was she destroying her picture? I asked her.
"It's the dark," she kersplained. "It's a ghostie coming through the dark." She had picked up on my being worried - even at that age, she was amazing that way. She drew a smaller figure behind the ghostie. "And that's Mirandarose, chasing the ghostie."
I went straight from 'worried parent' mode to 'proud parent' mode, cos I realised she had added herself to the picture in that way (and with perfect use of perspective!) in order to reassure me. I was also proud that she thought that it was the ghosty who should be afraid of her!

Miranda also made me mega-proud during a visit to Regent's Park zoo (also loads of other times of course, these are just examples). We were visiting the tigers. The enclosure has one wall made out of bullet-proof (or at least tiger-proof) glass, so that visitors can get up close and personal with the beasts without getting nommed.
The adults had all stood back so that the kids could gather at the glass wall. There were kids of all ages - Miranda was 2 and a half years old.
Suddenly, one of the tigers turned round and pressed his nose against the glass. Every single one of the kids screamed and ran back to their mums or dads - except Miranda, who leaned forwards and planted a kiss on the tiger's nose!
I looked around at all the other parents like "That's my daughter!"

Well, the Temple is gone now, but Miranda is here on the Cloud where we can share each other's stories and poems again. It makes me very happy.

This is a difficult blog for me to write. You see, my grandfather is dying.

Before anyone jumps in with the 'I'm so sorry's, I want to make it plain that my grandfather was no Grandpa. He is a spiteful, self absorbed and, yes, I would say unpleasant man. I never knew him as a child (I never knew either of my father's parents); they made it plain from quite early on that it was their way or no way, and when my parents wouldn't toe their line (big family issues, don't really want to talk about them here), they cut off all contact. Since then, I tried to connect with them when I was a teenager, but it's hard to connect with someone who just wants to tell you off all the time, especially when you are 14. For me, it came to a head just over a year ago - my Dad had yet another falling out with his father (he tried to be a good son and looked after him every day for 3 years, despite my grandfather's increasing belligerence. In the end, it took my grandfather to hurl a plate of food at my mother for my father to finally step away), and upon meeting his first great-grandchild, he  wouldn't even look at her and spent the entire meeting making digs about my father. As it happens, he was more interested in my Uncle's new puppy than he was in Emily's birth, and he has never met her.

So why the blog? Because I have no idea how to react.  I was told yesterday that he had been admitted to hospital and, basically, this is it. The only way he will come out now is in a box. I also found  out that he has not only cut my father out of his will, but out of the family - on all next of kin records, my father doesn't even feature.

My brother rang me from New Zealand this morning, full of angry tears. He feels helpless being so far away, hates the fact that there will be no reconcilliation, is angry that my family can't sort itself out just this once. Me? I feel nothing. Literally. I feel worse about not recognising my neighbour because he has grown a moustache for Movember.

I suspect this makes me a terrible person. Maybe I should have made more of an effort. Maybe the fault does lie with me - with us; maybe we should have turned the other cheek and continued to try, because family is important.

All I do know is that when I see my daughters playing with my father - their beloved Grandpa - I know that we are all the richer for it. They won't know the confusion - and yes, the pain - I felt as a child, not having grandparents (my mother's parents weren't around either - he was an abusive alcoholic and she very much cut herself off when they divorced. I do have a relationship with my maternal grandmother now, though, and Lucy and Emily see their GG regularly). And for that, I am eternally grateful.

There have been quite a few significant character building changes in my life in the past one year. Not all of them were welcome since I have a natural resistance to change, very un-evolutionary (if that is a word) I must say. So I fought and kicked and screamed and yelled bit ( really hard), and yet I was dragged by the hair kicking screaming and rebelling all the way to the middle of 2010. My life is full of very independent and confident people who know what they want and have created very successful niches for themselves in the world. These wonderful people happen to be my parents, friends and of course my dearly beloved who has achieved enough commendable heights to rightfully say “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. However I am still running after all that jazz while it daintily eludes my time and again like a feather in the wind. My academic life of late is like a stubborn bit of burnt cooking at the bottom of the pan which refuses to leave. Not that I do not want to research!!! It is still a part of my grand plan to be a successful person.

In the past few months life as I knew it is rapidly changing, I am contemplating finishing my Mphil research, leaving hyderabad, getting a job, getting married, applying for further studies, moving to a new country, making my marriage work, studying or working, travelling and continuing to run behind my life as the years fly past like a constant panorama of colours. Like a continuous reel of film a movie where I am the flawed protagonist who wants all of it with a bit of romance, tender loving care and romance thrown in.

In search for that missing bit of spice in my life I have resorted to a lot of trashy novels which help me dream. Learnt to live alone and re-confirmed my knowledge that I am not a loner but someone who needs a lot of space, I am extremely attached to family and friends who are as good as family. I don’t care where I live as long as this basic need is fulfilled. South India hasn’t been the same since the 23rd of January. I suffering from withdrawal symptoms of tender loving care. I have spent a lot of time away from research trying to regroup myself, making new friends, travelling and turned into a suspicious person who craves for attention.

I am not sure what will help since I know what I should be doing. Maybe retail therapy will help but I doubt it, I just need a shove in the right direction and a listening ear and a helping hand. Is it too much to ask.

I don't do blogs very often, I don't feel I have much to contribute in a blog sense, and following the only other blog I have done they're depressing.

I hope in writing this blog I break whatever real or imaginary 'curse' that's around.

Most of you know my husband is in the military.  During the five years we've been together he's had two dessert tours of duty and he is currently involved in the ground support for Lybia.

When he was in Iraq, our joint friends little brother (aged six) got run over by a car and died.
When he was in Afghan, my Dad found his best friend (my pseudo Uncle) dead following a heart attack.
Today I received a phone call from one of my best friends that her terminally ill mother has taken a turn for the worse and has been given days.

I've only ever voiced this to one other person, but it would appear that when my husband goes out of area, someone always dies...  

My Mum died three weeks ago.  I miss her.
Anyone who read my blog before Christmas about meeting myself coming back will know I had persuaded my 87 year old Mum to move closer to me so I could do more for her and see her every day.  She moved on 17th December to a ground floor apartment attached to a nursing home at the bottom of our farm drive, nice and close.  Lovely apartment, lovely people. She was looking forward to looking out of her french windows and seeing our ewes and lambs grazing in the field opposite.   She was only there three weeks before she was admitted to hospital.  Bad turned to worse and she was finally diagnosed with a secondary tumour on her spine.  By this time she was too poorly to have further investigations as to the primary cancer and too poorly for any treatment.  She died on 11th February after five weeks in hospital. 
This has been the worst experience of my life, watching someone you love fade before your eyes, unable to do anything except be there.
My husband and daughter have been beside me every step of the way and together we have come out the other side.
Although we moved her in December and had already sorted through a lot of her possessions, the final clearance of her flat has been a very moving time.  Finding photographs of long forgotten holidays, pets, friends and homes has been a revelation and I am now managing to remember the past with great fondness rather than with feelings of loss. 
So now both my Mum and Dad are gone and despite my wonderful family, a tiny bit of me feels very alone.  This is the first time in many weeks I've felt able to start put my thoughts and feelings into words.  I hope you don't mind that I've come here to share them with you.

I'm quite nervous. I start my job in Birmingham tomorrow and I'm getting the train in.

I'm not too fond of Birmingham, as it's massive and I've never got the train either. So, my sister said she would come in on the train with me, to show me the ropes and then go to her own work experience in Birmingham.

Turns out she doesn't need to be in tomorrow, but as mum has paid for a term pass, my sister said she would come with me anyway, drive to the station with mum's car, take me and then drive home.

But no.

She is now refusing to take me, and all because of an article.

I don't usually tell her about my writing because she tells me I won't get anywhere or slags me off, but this time I thought i'd tell her about NaNoWriMo, because it's cool and I thought she'd be interested.

I tell her it's a great chance to let loose and not worry about grammar or any guidlines of writing, to which she responds: "hahaha how can your grammar get any worse? You're so crap at it."

But I'm meant to let that go, because it's "just her personality" as my mum says. So I do.

But she brings home an article she wrote, I make one tiny suggestion and she blows up at me, saying it was cruel and that she won't take me to the station now.

What have I done to deserve this? I'm now alone for tomorrow, and my sister is being the offended party in all of this, when really I should be the one complaining.

So, I figure it’s time I put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard), about my recent journey. To those who have noticed my absence, I am still here and have missed your Cloudie companionship.  I made a vow of silence over this matter, acutely aware of its news worthiness in my small town – oh they just  looooove to talk, but I think it was also my own means of avoiding its reality. Now, as it draws to a close, I feel the need to get it down, not for a pity party (please no!), but rather selfishly, to gather my thoughts and process my feelings.

It started a year ago, in the sterile linoleum lined Doctor’s Rooms of the best Specialists Obstetrician in SA , wow, renown for the successful treatment of infertility. After undergoing numerous tests, X-rays and scans, he advised my husband and I that we were unable to naturally conceive a child.  Shock and horror!!!! But I wasn’t truly surprised, I had suspected this my whole life ... also I’m not the typical ‘Mommy’ type. I don’t stalk to-be-mum’s and babies down the shopping isle, in hope of feeling the stretched expanses of a pregnant belly or  squeeze the appled cheeks of a screeching slobbering child. OK, that sounds a bit horrible, sorry, I know not all woman (or kids) are like that – don’t go bashing me with hateful comments please, I’m a little bruised and hormonal at present!  That being said, I have not yearned for kids, I have not felt that maternal clock ticking, the one that most woman of a certain age talk about.  I have been happy, just two peas in my pod, my husband and I. However I might try to ignore the pull, my real need for family runs thick through my veins.  Coming from a small close-knit single parent family, I married into a large involved one, with insatiable curiosity in all business Coleman (that is my surname) and a genuine concern for the wellbeing of all its club members (in the overbearing kindda way!), along with a kind and caring surrogate family on my brother-in-laws side, refined and honestly sincere in everything; I truly understand and appreciate, and actually survive off their support and acceptance, in fact I thrive on it. So, this being said, I knew the years to come would be difficult ones, famililess, without the proverbial passing onto a new generation. And so it all began. 

It came to a peak 6 weeks ago when we arrived at the final stages of our first attempt at ART (Artificial Reproductive Therapy).  This meant daily injections and numerous blood tests. Living very ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’, this logistically posed many problems, most exhaustively getting the necessary drugs supplies and co-ordinating the quick processing of pathology results, a difficulty I had not anticipated and a daily slog, a constant reminder of the aching changes in my body. Never the less, many phone calls and a million questions later, my doctor’s impatience mounting, the day  finally arrived and we were off to Natal, a 900km drive to the Doctor’s rooms and Hospital - my eggs half-baked,  manipulated into submission, instructed to be an inviting and nurturing host.

Over the next while, we followed the strict preparation schedule, getting everything in line for the Embryo Transplant.

The day was dark looming, as we left for the hospital. It was 5am. With a stomach ready to burst with ripe fruit,  I felt a small sense of pride that I’d produced anything at all.  Lying on the theatre table like a slab of meat, I calmed my ragged nerves, and then, into a deep sleep, only to wake with a suffocating dry throat and a completely numb tongue, the rest of my body still lay quiet, unaware of the 5 punctures in my stomach.  Returning to my parking spot in the ward, I found my husband reassuringly waiting patiently, normally an impossible feat. And then peace, as I drifted in and out of consciousness for most of the day, until eventually the Doc arrived .... There were complications, so that meant procedural changes, new drugs, and weeks of questions and uncertainty.

Ok, that’s enough detail, this is supposed to be about me and how I feel now, waiting for my first pregnancy test.

I am now back home, in my bed with an ache in my stomach unlike anything I have known before. So, I lie with my feet up, as instructed, and honestly, it is too sore to do much else. I’m surrounded by a breakfast tray of work papers, ‘my’ cat Livingston, my bean bag lap tray, ‘our’ Jack Russell Beatle, my laptop on the one side and the autobiography of Andre Agassi on my bedside table, a hectically busy place of rest for a convalescent!

I ask over and over and over:  who am I going to be after this? How will I feel about the results? What will develop from it all? What is coming for me?

I am somehow changed, a stranger in my mirror, timid and restrained.  My strong, ambitious and yes, opinionated character, normally able to burst from any confines, is spent and limp. My writing has tamed my exuberance, provided me a quiet place to vent and explore, unwitnessed and safe. Yet, now I feel its complete departure ... like a favourite dress that won’t fit, carefully packed deep in the closet, secreted away with a distant hope that it’ll fit once more ... but then again I’ve watched that scathing terrible twosome, Trinny and Susannah, always determined to throw those exact items away.

I think of my adorable little nephew, Howard, his irrepressible hysterical laugh, and ecstatic smiles, determined pout, and questioning eyes, a life of adventure and amazement, gasping delight at the unexpected and screaming defiance at his greens – maybe that is my way forward. Look for nothing and appreciate everything.

But secretly, silently my hope grows.