The Power and The Glory

Happy New Year, etherkin. It’s going to be a strange one. Ructions are afoot - I have read the auguries in my laundry. 2012 is seals in the eelgrass. Something cold and bobbing.

Seals will be big this year, and sisters, and doggish things dancing on their hind legs through the trees. We’re on the edge of the strange times. On the plus side, the matador look will be in, and I look adorable in those trousers. Swings and roundabouts.

Anyway, here I sit, baht ape, watching out of the window as the headlights climb the hill opposite to the unreasonable black of the moors, picking my teeth with a wishbone and pondering what’s to come.

When looking forwards, it’s always best to start with a quick glance behind you. Last year was one of yearning, for penpals and monsters and muses and gods. Yearning makes me bilious. Perhaps it’s time I turned to Christ. Or to Christopher at least, patron saint of my dog-head daydreams, hot-breathed, slobbering force of faith. St Christopher was a definite sort.

In the meantime, there is work to be done. The Olympics are coming and I am Team GB’s only hope.

Be Afraid, Be Mildly Afraid

When I was a little girl, wind-up teeth gave me nightmares. I was terrified of the theme tune to Birds of a Feather. Haybales, bundled in black plastic and just waiting in the fields, made me nauseous. I was frightened of Radio Assembly as well, but that was because Gareth Minhall used to kick me in the back. I was afraid that my father would somehow get lost in space like Major Tom, or that my toy animals were sentient and sad with no way to tell me. I was scared that I would forget the words to Grace and get told off by the dinnerladies, and for some reason I was convinced that Ben O’ Brian was plotting to put me in a big jelly. I had an eye for the uncanny and an almost constant sense of unease and it was thrilling.

Now I am a big girl I’m afraid of bigger things, like money and responsibility and the cat-litter tray. I’m afraid I’ll be crushed to death on the 8.30 to Dewsbury, that I will die with my nose shoved in a fat man’s armpit. I’m scared of my potential, in both directions. I miss being frightened of monstrous trifles. Tonight my Snout and I are venturing out to the cinema, to see a scary film, and I intend to get very frightened indeed. When we come home I’m going to fuse the lights on purpose and sleep with one foot out of the duvet.

Look Back in Envy

Here I sit, beneath the ‘Crabs & Lobsters’ wall-chart that I got free with the Guardian, toking on a fat one and pondering the future of the female serial killer. Today I read three books about murderous women and shelled a pound of peas straight into my mouth. I lunched on Ritz crackers smeared with Gentleman’s Relish and Danish Blue and I had a soft-boiled egg for breakfast. Why does violence make me so hungry?

Last night I dreamt I went to Junior School again, back to the spire and the hills surrounding. Junior School was a wonderful place. I might not have learnt my times tables, but I did learn how to sew a guinea pig from brown velvet curtains and how to make chocolate mint creams. Sometimes the man who lived as a Roundhead came to give us a history lesson, and once the Great Jam Sandwich Machine rolled in, operated by men riding ostriches, and with much clanking and juddering and eruptions of glitter it produced a perfect sandwich for every last child.

Halcyon days. I still like to sew funny animals and draw lopsided pictures, but these days I try and intersperse my daydreaming and playing with more grown-up activities like washing pants and growing herbs and taking the cat for her jabs and, of course, reading my Children’s Encyclopaedia, because education should never stop. Although if I ever see that Great Jam Sandwich Machine again I will jump up on it and I will ride it to the ends of the Earth.