Ode to albatrosses

My room is in the basement of the house. Its just like the other floors, it isn’t a dank drippy room filled with dusty wine bottles and rats as in Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mister Fox. For some reason ever since I read that book I’ve had the Cider cellar in the back of my mind whenever I envision cellars. They all include a scary farmer’s wife with a rolling pin standing at the top of an uneven stone staircase up to the floor above too. The fox hiding behind the shelves is optional.

The cellar consists of two cupboards, one of which I believe actually is a broom cupboard; a washroom with an old closed up well in it; and my bedroom. Due to the old well it can get a little damp in the hallway, but that doesn’t affect my room luckily and my room serves as the only room in the entire house that reaches a temperature just below twenty five degrees during the night. Therefore, it is the only room in the entire house where it is possible to get a decent night’s sleep. This, of course, I am extremely grateful for.

I’ve got a sofa bed, a TV with DVD player and MTV (in English with German subtitles), and a functional computer. There is also a door and some steps out into the garden which is a useful fire exit/ way in which to escape during the night if I ever actually meet anyone here worth sneaking out to see. Not that I would really have to do any sneaking, but you know, I’m still a teenager and searching out escape routes as soon as I enter a new house is still sort of ingrained.

I think my room may also be the only room in the house that actually has a carpet. All the rest are tiles. Not that that actually has any relation to anything, but it is something I have just this second noticed.

The house is lovely with a really big mural thing up the stairs, and a slightly eclectic mixture of interior design with English, Turkish and German bases. I especially approve of the large fuzzy bean bag in the lounge. I did consider buying one and taking it home (along with a hanging chair which incidentally, I have in my room hanging from the ceiling here) but decided against it because it probably wouldn’t fit in my suitcase along with the huge amount of clothing and shoes I have acquired in the past three weeks. Having money is bad for my outgoings.

Since coming here my gorgeous Sony Ericsson walkman phone has literally fallen apart (the top has unscrewed and separated itself from the bottom- crappy thing, grrrr) and I have been forced to use a waterproof but otherwise boring Nokia 5210 that is never quite sure if it’s sent a message, has a memory of exactly eighteen texts, and switches itself off twenty seconds into every phone call without fail, regardless of how much battery or reception it has. I’ve been through three sim cards, and am now on German Vodafone contract that has no texts or minutes, and I don’t understand the tariffs at all. I also can’t receive or send picture messages due to this stupid phone that advertises being in colour, as long as that colour is yellow. The annoying thing about it being that it isn’t even yellow; it’s more an orangey green colour that makes me nauseous.

The keyboards are also a little confusing as the z and y are swapped over (making yellow nearly impossible to touch type and causing me to go back every few seconds to change zellow into yellow). And the (at) sign is hiding. As are the square brackets now I come to need them. If anyone with an inkling about keyboards is reading this, if you have three different letters/ symbols on one key, how on earth do you access the third one?? For the first you just press it, for the second you press shift, but for the third? I’m completely bamboozled. Why can’t they just have simple QWERTY keyboards, and none of this ö, ä, and ß nonsense? What are these things? QWERTZ keyboards? That just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

My alarm clock wakes me up at half five every morning with Counting Crows “Colorblind” and does so every nine minutes after that until sometime around six thirty ish when I stop pressing “sleep” and contemplate getting up. Not that I actually get up until seven, I just decide I’m getting up, turn my alarm off, and wake up half an hour later guilty and very late. I get dressed in two minutes flat, usually in a mini skirt and whatever top is on the top of my pile, then run upstairs doing my hair, teeth, and face on the way to wake up the kids.

From there it’s a never ending cycle of one kid going to kindergarten while the youngest potters around. Then at approximately eleven thirty I put him down for a nap, spend twenty minutes convincing him he does want to sleep rather than run around some more, run out the house and pick up the eldest at twelve. He comes home, eats, runs around for a bit, then goes down for his nap around half one. The youngest wakes up at this point when he hears things go quiet, and has another nap at three when the eldest wakes up and goes out to play. Both are awake when the youngest wakes at half four, and will either go for a walk or play in the garden (at temperatures of between thirty and thirty six degrees Celsius generally) until six when they throw food around for an hour, then go to bed.

And the stupid thing about it all is that they’re actually easier to cope with when they’re awake at the same time because they play together instead of constantly looking to me for amusement. But this doesn’t occur until half four, by which time I’m ready to murder whichever one cries first.

When I finally eat at half seven all I want to do is sleep. Or collapse in front of the joy’s of BBC Prime (2.4 children and endless repeats of Top Gear).

All in all, it’s a wonderful life.

Labels: Stage Settings

Guten tag.

It has been a whole two weeks since I last logged in. I came back to 1269 emails and a reasonable number of comments. All I can say is that my "spam filter" has a lot to answer for. Quite obviously, the reason I have been away was because I was having two weeks of non-stop passionate sex with a tall gorgeous German with really big feet who wouldn't let me get out of bed, or even off the kitchen table, long enough to come online. It had absolutely nothing to do with me being run off my feet by two hyperactive toddlers from seven in the morning till eight at night, and then being too knackered to do anything other than collapse into an inanimate mush until seven am the next morning.

I adore it here. I actually have money for the first time since... erm... I discovered alcohol? And to celebrate I bought myself the most gorgeous dress in the whole wide world. It's a black and white polka dot halter neck summer dress and though it is slightly revealing, it still manages to be demure. Of course, if I continue I will never be able to buy myself a laptop as intended. And I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to fit my smoothie-maker machine thingy into my suitcase... But, hey, I'm a big girl now, I have to buy kitchen appliances or I'll not be able to make valuable stuff like mango smoothies and tomato soup. It was totally not an impulse buy. It was actually pretty cost effective considering how much I must have spent buying a smoothie every morning for the last year. The Bridget Bardot sunglasses were, of course, completely essential.

The houses here have tiles on them. The sun comes down stronger, and everything looks like its straight from a Hans Christian Anderson story. It's all houses with hats on, and antlers about the front door. Germany is a country of confused identity. The architecture is so random its insane. It all looks so very german, but it's varied, and, well... completely obscure. It's all so very cynical. Religion, architecture, their whole national philosophy. They're a nation of perfectionists. It's weird because I'd heard the stereotypes, and somehow it lives up to them all, and then manages to surprise me.

The kids, of course, are driving me insane. I don't get enough sleep, and changing nappies... I'm eighteen, this stuff just doesn't agree with me. Today I was dribbled on, puked on, had food thrown at me, and carried a kid while he was sitting on his bicycle all the way home because he kicked up such a fuss i couldn't be arsed with him. I then came online for the first time in fuck knows how long to have david and scott making unnecessary comments regarding me, dildos, my ex boyfriend's cock, and various people that I'd managed to completely forget existed. It reminds me why I never logged into msn when I was using the internet on a regular basis. Meh. It cheered me up slightly.

I have a conundrum at the minute regarding when I come home. I have a choice of two weeks in which to return. I'm totally undecided and don't want to go into it yet on here. For the first time in my life I'm going to exercise discretion. Also, there is the probability that if I do go into it here I will be yelled at. It makes more sense to come home later. If I come over on the third of september then I won't be travelling alone, I'll have an extra weeks pay, I won't have the chance to do anything stupid that I would regret for a very long time and would think of myself as pathetic for doing. But if I come home a week earlier then I get to act stupid, I see my friends for an extra week which is good considering how early some of them are going to uni, and i get to go down to london for a few days and visit my brother. I need to make a decision pretty quickly too otherwise I won't have a choice and will just have to take whatever ticket i can get.

But I don't want to go through this all here. I'm in another country, I've got a completely different lifestyle, and my skin is a completely different colour. Realising that changing all of that changes so little inside me isn't just depressing, it's pathetic. But I don't adapt like that. My sleeping pattern has taken a kicking- I'm a morning person now (god help us). I've turned from strict vegetarian to, well... someone who can't really call herself that anymore. I mean, it was only a croissant which I totally didn't realise had ham in it. Even though I don't speak german, if something is labelled "cheese croissant" I don't expect ham inside. And then there was the tortellini with bacon in because it was cooked and I was too tired to actually make myself something meat free, plus I'd already had the croissant so who cared? And then it was the sausages cos I was hungry and they smelt goood. And so on until eventually it all just slides away from me and I'm left with the certainty that my dad is going to be really disappointed in me, and my aunt will be disgusted (read "aunt" as "bossy surrogate mother").

Anyway, I'm exhausted and I can't afford to sleep in tomorrow. I can't afford to sleep in at all, but sometimes its unavoidable and I end up going out make-up-less and without suncream which results in me wearing my sunglasses too much and turning red everywhere except for two huge circles around my eyes. Well, slight exaggeration. I mean, I haven't actually turned any colour except from a rather acceptable mocha yet, but I really do have sunglasses marks and if I continue then even if I don't turn into a lobster, I will still die at the measly age of twenty three due to skin cancer. So anyway, will write something lovely and poetic or something tomorrow night. Or some other night when i'm awake enough.

Labels: Stage Settings

Callum: You can’t really live in the middle of nowhere.
Hatty: When I look out of the window in the mornings, I see sheep.
Callum: Oh, well that’s never good.

People in my village are inbred. I mean that in the nicest way possible, truly, but it’s true. In reality, it isn’t just my village; it’s probably more accurate if I say people in this area are inbred. You talk to someone on a bus, mention a name, and sure as hell you know they’re going to say, “Oh, really? They’re my cousin!” It’s a simple fact. Everyone is interrelated or, if they aren’t, they’re cousins to someone who is.

I live in a rural paradise. Or at least, that’s what they tell me it is. It’s beautiful, absolutely heaven if you’re a big fan of squirrels, woodland walks and fields. Squirrels are great; you pretty much can’t go wrong with squirrels. Yeah, they can only talk in a weird piercing cheepy chattery noise, but other than that they’re cool. I like squirrels. And woodland walks are fine when you’re of a certain age, or want somewhere scenic to walk the dog. But fields? Fields I don’t like. They’re either filled with sheep, or that horrible rape stuff that is a stupid mustard yellow colour and flares up your hay fever within seconds of it flowering.

Socially speaking it isn’t so wonderful either. The hot spot is a tiny pub ten miles from anywhere that has so few customers that they’re willing to serve alcohol to someone thirteen years old as long as they look like they might, just possibly, be sixteen. If you want a good party, there is an eighty percent chance that it will not be in a house, but will be in either a field, or a barn. People have weddings in barns around here. Seriously. Yeah, so the barn was a nice one, it was still a barn. And it was still bloody freezing. Gotta say though, I did find the kitchen-in-a-cow-stall quite amusing.

The bus drivers now know me either by sight, or name. I find that impressive considering there’s about twenty of them that do my route. Luckily, though I live in the middle of no where, it is on a pretty useful main road that is on the way to a few marginally better places. If you can call two towns with a handful of clubs and pubs between them better. At least they were never too harsh on ID when I was of the age where that could be problematic. And Newcastle is alright as cities go; shops, pubs, clubs, and most of the people will translate what they just said into English if you ask them nicely.

Yes, we’re all inbred up here, but as none of my family is actually originally from here, no one speaks the dialect. Hence a lot of confusing incidents involving errors in translation. Geordies are all wonderful people, well, mostly, but they’re nearly impossible to understand. The first time I heard “I’m gan yem” I just thought it was a little confusing that they’d started speaking Japanese. Never did I even consider that “yem” actually meant “home”. They’re not even the same vowel sound!

So, all in all, it’s a pretty awful place to live if you only really feel comfortable around lots and lots of people. I can only get signal on my phone in either my bedroom, or front garden. Believe me, for me, this is a major problem. But even though when people patronisingly tell me who lucky I am to live in rural paradise, I’m inwardly substituting “hell” in instead of “paradise,” I’ll still miss it.

I’ll miss the local news letter that tells of the wayward youths that have rebelliously set fire to a haystack. I’ll miss hearing people gossip about who is having a property battle over eight inches of dirt that has someone’s prize begonias on it. I’ll miss all the drunken old men in the pubs that you really can’t understand, but who all really, really, want to buy you a drink. And I’ll complain, I’ll bitch, but really I am touched when the bus driver asks if I’m “alreet” and lets me on even though I don’t have my bus pass with me, just because he remembers the last time I was on and had to spend half the journey chatting to him in the front seat as I searched through my bag for my bus pass. Seriously, I think that thing has the ability to turn itself invisible.

I won’t miss the internal politics. I won’t miss being told off because my dad was told by my aunt who was told by her friend from the keep fit classes, who was told from her sister that I’d not said “hello” to her as I walked down the street one day. But it has its charms. I doubt I’ll ever move back, I’ll see more than enough of the place when I come home for Christmas. But sometimes it’s nice to just reflect on all the eccentricities, and really, they aren’t as bad as I make out sometimes.

Labels: Stage Settings

They threw clods of earth at the walls, the windows, the door. Not one square inch was left clear of the mud they threw that day. Broken prams appeared overnight in the centre of the lawn, bricks broke the car windows. Graffiti on the front door. It was an endless onslaught.

My brother would go out for a few hours and come back bruised. A black eye. A broken nose. He learnt to be a survivor, grew up too quickly. Lost his childhood to common racism, xenophobia, and an inept mother. His story is sadder than mine. As a writer I'd give everything I own to tell it, as a sister I'd give my life to take away his pain.

I wasn't allowed outside after dark. Not even in the garden. He took my hand. Told me I was pretty, said he wanted to play. He led me down the garden path, stroked my arm, said that we should play "mummies and daddies". He was only a kid too. Fifteen, sixteen years old, a fucking child himself. They say that your sexuality is expressed from childhood so, then, is paedophilia? He got me as far as across the street before he was stopped. I'm still not sure whether it was my dad or my brother that stopped him. But for his sins, my brother nearly put him in hospital. And that kid was three years older than him. At that age three years makes a difference. I hope to god that kid is in prison now. And I hope he was just trying to get what he could, where he could, rather than it being an expression of paedophilia at a young age. Maturation would not make him better.

I haven't been back there in years. A few years ago I read about an Asian boy being knifed on the main street, and then after that there were the three Pakistani kids that were beaten to death outside the chip shop by a gang of kids. A gang of kids who probably lived on the same estate I did. A gang of kids I probably knew and was ridiculed by.

Now I'm just as likely to get asked for sex because of who I am. But even, "I've never had an Asian chick before" is better than leading a four year old, who doesn't know what's going on, away into the darkness. And mud isn't thrown at the house here, I can walk down the street without people looking at me or my family with disgust in their eyes. I still get the occasional person making a derogatory comment about the "fucking Chink," but it isn't that common.

I know racism. I know it inside out, upside down, and from the very worst perspective. And Jesus Christ do I know pain: both my own and other's. But pain is an ocean. And when you're left drifting in an ocean you have one of two choices: sink or swim. Maybe you won't find the shore in time to survive, and maybe you'll have to beat off sharks along the way. But surely it's better to fight, surely its better to at least try.

Labels: Demons, Past tense, Poetic licence, Stage Settings