I must imitate Mina

my Best Friend & I met up by chance in the railway station this morning, both of us setting off to Leeds...me looking for wigs (!?!) and she looking for a funeral outfit (for the best kind of funeral: elderly grandmother, died in her sleep after long, happy life)

B. F. had been to a party the night before; a fancy dress party with the theme 'Come as You Were'. i asked how she'd dressed. 'oh' she replies airily, ' i went as a Goth; i wore one of my wigs & black dresses'. I gave her abit of a LOOK, but said nothing & off we went to spend money in Leeds. I bought 4 black dresses, a pair of black sandles and a black parasol-type umbrella. And so did she.

we went to Revolution and drank violet-flavoured vodka shots.

we mooched around HMV and dithered over Dimmu Borgir & discussed the pros & cons of the March Violets.

we discussed funeral etiqette.

we looked for wigs, but found none & she suggested i buy some turquoise clip-in extensions...she said she could chip in towards them, so we had joint custody.

I asked her on the way home, are you sure we are NOT GOTH???? and she reassured me that we are not, but I am thinking we are both getting too old to deny the tendancies! (and like all true goths are both quick to deny it, whilst also saying, 'i don't care to be labelled!') What do you think, Steve?

so i've prepared an up dated CV and am beginning to search for a whole new career...i just don't think i have that special teaching gene that enables one to talk bollocks & i'm tired of feeling as if i am banging my head against a brick wall.

since a fit of piety made me decide to give up chocolate for Lent




and oh how I miss it! I relied upon those cups of chocolate to get me thru' the school day; & to make things worse, i haven't lost an ounce of weight.

still, I am determined to see this thru' til the bitter end. On Easter sunday, i plan a breakfast of pain au chocolat,lunch of chocolate mousse and afternoon tea of toast with nutella.

yum yum yum.

a word of advice: if your hairdresser is clearly going thru' some personal issues, don't involve her with any major hair changes.

I can no longer trust my hairdresser which is a shame.

and she is fabulous!i will try to give her some adventures.

one of my sons has bought me a Blythe doll! an ADG 'pow wow poncho' with masses of blonde hair, she definately shouldn't be in that ethnic poncho...i think she'll be called Jezebel, Tallulah, Salome perhaps....or maybe none of these, for I am rubbish at naming dolls; they either have names or they don't.

I had planned to spend much of the coming half term holiday sleeping, but now i have something to play with, something new.

i have crossed a line into middle-age now by spending at least an hour at Boundary Mills and actually enjoyed it enough to say to Tim, that we should return to buy more stuff there....we were looking for a washable doormat & ended up pricing up the faux Tiffany lamps, the le creuset kitchen ware and bought a pile of new bathroom towels.

Goodness.

this coupled with our liking for 'Lark Rise to Candleford' means that we will be refused admission to see Rammstein on Tuesday.

the moment i finished my 'A' levels, i left home...not in an unhappy way, rather in an 'i'm off to see the world!' way...i didn't realise how much i was leaving behind. And i think i always thought i'd get to go home again




i didn't feel homesick until I realised i couldn't easily return...my family are either in Heaven or scattered around the world; no one lives in Northumberland any more.




Everything changes of course. A century ago, my family were the entire population of a village & no one is left to remember them now; why that bridge has that name, who planted those trees, who built that house...its all forgotton. Sometimes i think i'm the only one left who remembers anything about our family. Certainly i seem to be the only one who cares.




My grandfather washed elephants in a Northumbrian stream, my grandmother danced the tango all night long and breastfed other women's babies, my aunt rose spoke to spirits until one of them told her not to, one uncle was a defrocked priest, another faked his own death so he could marry again, my great grand-mother raised 9 children by teaching piano, my grandfather spoke Arabic fluently & led expeditions into the desert (one of the first to explore tutankamen's tomb...we had handfuls of tiny green scarabs to play with)I had an aunt called Fairy because she was so tiny...i have a photograph of her in a purple velvet dress, an adult the same height as the pit ponies another uncle bred....I should keep all these family stories, in case, just in case I ever have great grandchildren who care.

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when i was a litle girl, i hated my real name & thought Sukey (as in the nuersery rhyme 'Polly put the kettle on, sukey take it off again')was the most wonderful name imaginable. I'd call myself Sukey, i'd call my dolls sukey and Sukey was the heroine's name in all my stories.

At the age where I was discovering experimental handwriting - you know the age; flowers & stars where you dot the 'i's', spiralling loops and so forth - I was also discovering experimental spellings & changed Sukey to Tzuki, because I thought it more exotic.

Years later, I found out it meant 'moon' in japanese.......the 17 is just my birthday, but its kind of got Tarotish associations too.

this movie looks fun; but i can't help but be reminded of a bloke i briefly went out with who wore (until i asked him not to) one of those full length barbour style jackets with the extravagant collar and wide brimmed matching hat, not unlike this




(apologies to who ever that is)

School was open yesterday but only 50 out of a thousand pupils turned up! Looking out of my window here, I can see the snow has begun again!