The Paris of New South Wales

Whenever you start a post, WordPress gives you the option of giving your post a title. Like this:

Title (optional)

Have you noticed?

I never think about it. I just put one in - there! – like that.

But this time I wondered – do they mean it is entirely optional whether or not I make an ass of myself by giving my piece in a highly conceited name?

It’s up to you … you can call it THAT if you want but … anyway, it’s entirely up to you.

Is that what they mean?

Because today I started to wonder. “The Paris of New South Wales (Australia.)” Will that sound a little pompous, a little princess? And if so, will anyone from WordPress help me out when I regret it?

Given WordPress’s interest in my blog, I think I know the answer. Even if they did notice me here I suspect the answer is in the parenthesis: (optional)

Which is tempting …

And yet I can’t resist. No-one knows me. And it’s so optional.

The Paris of New South Wales (as opposed to old north Wales in Wales, singularly known as Wales.)

Please forward all correspondence to:

Pete and Gigi

Paris

New South Wales

Australia

please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for return mail as a precaution.

I wonder if it will ever arrive.

Paris, New South Wales is thousands and thousands of miles away from the real thing as well as from many other places. Nowhere near Europe. Or France. But still.

Where exactly we are going, Pete? I wonder, nearly aloud. But I don’t want to scare him so I keep my questions to myself, in a box marked “?.”

Where is this Paris?

I have so many questions.

Our trip to Paris (France) was full of beauty and happiness. So full that I decided I would never be able to convey it.

I will never be able to convey … a thing! I thought. Even though I wanted to.

It’s too much. I will write about something else.

But first it crept into the title (optional) and then, when my eyes were closed, everywhere else. And the result is that Paris is all over the place.

One afternoon we just walked around Saint Germain with my mother and my step-father. A simple walk.

A step here- a beautiful church with a fountain tumbling at the front refreshing you with a glance – before you step into the beautiful church. A step there – a quaint hotel, some people or a very small dog on a long lead.

We wandered past shoe shops. I am not a fan of shoes the way some women are, the way my mother is , but I wish I could go back to that one. All the shoes in the window were ballet pumps, simple, understated footwear. if you can imagine how a Parisian might draw a ballet pump with a pencil and then with a wand bring it to life. I couldn’t so I wanted to buy the whole shop.

We wandered in swirls, nobody really knowing where we were and everyone thinking they did. But it was better that we were lost.

We went to Montmartre. I wanted to go even though I was sure it would be all tourists and sexy business. But I wanted to … After debating all morning (me debater, Pete audience) we went.

And it was neither. We took a child-sized train and choo-chooed our way up the hill to a background of commentary in three languages. It was very quick commentary and I missed nearly everything but I did catch the word artist three times.

The sun was shining and I felt so happy, happier by the incline.

“I can feel the artists history here” I said.

“Can you?”

“Yes. I can” and then I just sank into feeling it.

Sacre Coeur was sparkling at the top and inside, filled with feeling. Enough for every person there. Filled with lightness, joy, release. Pete and I both felt it, he quietly in a pew, me walking a circle, pooping coins into boxes because I felt so happy. Even when you left you felt it. We took some of it with us. I still have some here.

Another day started out as a fiasco so mid-trip, we all four jumped out of the mini-bus and found ourselves in the heart of Invalides, an area of vast grandeur which the name does not suggest.

Plonk! - that was us sitting ourselves down outside the first cafe that we came to.

Why is there caviar on the menu, I wondered knowing nothing of anything.

And one by one people of every generation filed past showcasing an exquisiteness of taste I had never seen. Never really even believed in. Each one wearing, apart from extremely beautiful clothes, a kind of genial light, all walking past our little table.

Knowing nothing of anything, our waiter let slip that we had plonked ourselves a block from fashion week, known to all the world as Paris Fashion Week. But they probably don’t use capitals.

We watched, stared at and adored creatures from another world, one with rarefied air which they were kindly sharing with us. And it did feel easier to breath

And.

They did it with clothes.

Leaving day and we could hardly bear to. But we did.

We only had to come back here, to Edinburgh, one and a half hour’s flying time on the wings of a steel bird. But we chose seats inside. This is not India. People do not usually ride on the outside of public transport here.

Home was beautiful we when landed and still is; days are filled with light, sky and trees starting to glow, undressing to candlelight.

It took me a few days to work it out. But I think I did.

I took a compass and placed it on the world map. And it pointed to the Blue Mountains.

I tested for and against it. But it showed me this:

There are lots of beautiful places in our world.

You only have to see the beauty

and stamp it: Paris.

And if you happen to be travelling a long way away

from a lot that you love

and hold dearly in your heart

you might find that there is one near you

very beautiful

with more leaves

a different shape

and a new colour.

Artwork, The Banksia Tree, Margaret Preston (1875 – 1963) 

Image from Google

Not in my name

For someone who blogs a lot – with the exception of a ten day recent hiatus for no particular reason – I write almost nothing else in my name.

When it comes to letters of complaint, some text messages and other unspecified forms of communication, much of mine is signed off as “Pete.” Sometimes I sign off as “Pete and Gigi.” Rarely anything else. Mostly “Pete.”

Apart from emails to family members, private stuff. Although I have on occasion toyed with the idea of making those public. But that too is rare. I would have to be really vexed with someone to bring it to the attention of the whole world via a virus. Or else think that what I had written was so wise and so funny that it would be ungenerous not to share it.

With the second one I found a solution …

With the first one not, as I worry that I would have detractors. No-one likes detractors. Except perhaps farmers on the continent: de tractors!

This ten day hiatus has not served me as I am still writing about nothing. I thought it would make me fresher …

which brings me to this:

You see? Empty space.

So I am turning back, “doing a U-y” as they say in Australia which is mounting the kerb in a battered Holden to drive back in the direction that one has just travelled. In other countries the manoeuvre is called a U-turn. Women – none of us whom can drive – simply say we are turning around and in the act of it we aim not to knock over pedestrians. We can be quite boring like that.

On the continent the move is possibly referred to as de U-turnez. But that is life. We can’t help how they spell things abroad.

Pete mostly never seems to mind that I write in his name. He is grateful when I write a text message for him as he can’t. Well, I think he can but it takes him ages and he hates having to. He starts to whimper and looks sad.

And then he surrenders, a sound that is identical to a whimper but in reverse. Then he will hold out his phone to me, me who is happy to take over because: a) I love to take over and; b) I love writing anything, anything at all. I love it in exactly the same way as he doesn’t.

So I write: “Hey Arthur! Hope you guys are well Love to see you both! Love and big hugs to you and Sadie, Pete xoxoxo” or: “ Hey Arthur … ditto …  ditto … ditto … Pete and Gigi xoxoxo.”

And Arthur will reply: “Hi Gigi! Lovely to hear from you! We’re at the Cumberland if you guys want to join us! Otherwise lots of love and we’ll try tomorrow! Give our love to Pete xoxo ”

as he knows it is me because I have already told him that it always is.

In other matters – in emails, for example, complaint ones, that is – I use Pete’s name for reasons I cannot explain. The only reason I can offer you is that it is easier. People look for too many reasons anyway. Why not give ourselves a break and just state the facts:

this is what I do

(no explanation provided)

?

I write about nothing and now I am not even giving things away … typical.

On the weekend Pete wrote another letter to a major newspaper complaining about a minor trip we took (distance-wise) with a major airline who has shown minor concern for our rubbish travel experience which was filled with major faults all of which the major airline has subsequently owned up to but only in a very minor way.

Pete wrote the email while he was in the kitchen making dinner and I was sitting here at the keyboard. It was a combined letter given that I wrote every word and he was somewhere else. But there was nothing to stop him chiming in with some wording, some thoughts on the matter, except that he knew nothing about it.

The major airline that we were chumped by had owned up to their blunder in such a minor way that I found myself inspired to pen a new piece of correspondence by Pete asking the travel doctor of the major newspaper for medical help.

I had had enough. Not with our situation which I had given up on ages ago but with everyone else’s. All the others – a stream of correspondence to the doctor available to the whole world to read in the newspaper. A stream full of swindles or near misses but all ending well when the doctor was called.

Our bungle - their bungle - wasn’t swindle-ous but it was scandalous. It wasn’t about money: it was about respect, humanity and faith.

But in the end it is about money because nearly everything is. Nearly.

However I suspect it could be about money for the major airline as they so far have not shown any interest in parting with any to make us feel better and I also suspect they are uninterested in offering us a cuddle.

But if they did I believe we would not accept it. It has gone too far for cuddles.

Because that is the other thing that fixes nearly everything. Cuddles. Oodles and smoodles of cuddles. And love. Poodles of love. Heart-freeing, free-flowing love. Like a fountain. Like a waterfall …

The easiest thing in the world to give if you are flat broke and need to make amends.

Love …

Yet as I say it has gone beyond that. What we want are two complimentary return flights to a European destination of our choice before we have to pack our bags and leave for Australia, a land very far away. A land where Holdens and U-ys are made.

Holdens and U-ys. I am sure you have never heard of either.

Australia, a place very far away.

(Genuine old Holden)

We stole the sun

little berlin shop

ribbons in Berlin

It’s not any consolation but we have stolen the sun from our friend. We have stolen it from her and from everyone who lives in her building. We have stolen the sun from her neighbourhood, from her whole city. We have stolen the whole sun from the whole of Berlin.

But it is little consolation. Or was. As I write these words I am having a change of heart.

The window is open and the late afternoon is green and blue; blue sky above a tangle of green everything. There are violet and crimson bells twirling like ballerinas on the fuchsia tree which is so rampant and so close to touch that it’s branches have become immovable awnings for the window.

The tangle has grown a foot in our week’s absence. Apart from the vibrancy of the ballet dancers, everything grows in one colour – green, green, green. Which is three. There is so much green it is threefold as green as anywhere else.

The darling nasturtiums have not yet blossomed although they have brought forth tiny, new tips in pale gold which I think are flower buds. The buds of their imaginations. If the seed packet is to be believed, their imaginations will be orange, brick red, magenta and gold.

Right now they are all curly-wurly stems and circles, twisting, bending, stretching to find the light above the density of this patch of earth that was once our tiny garden and is now our tiny jungle.

We planted the nasturtiums in hot pink window boxes, a look that has added a dose of girlie sex appeal and wantoness to the building whose tone is otherwise stone grey. Who needs more grey in these parts? When the sky has only just turned blue after weeks and weeks of a flat, palling alternative? No-one. That is my guess.

Whatever the weather our window boxes bring relief for tired eyes and souls, some whose beds may be too cold or too empty. Once the flowers bloom, anything could happen … Hot pink window boxes smacking lips with all those fancy colours? …The neighbourhood may go all tra-la-la if you know what I mean. It sure is going to get pretty around here.

The hot pink window boxes are a success in anyone’s language.

In the ones outside our bedroom the darling nasturtiums have decided to grow up. Up up up … They now resemble a Christmas tree. I will not question their shape; they know how to grow, they know what they are doing.

They really know – I estimate the spiral has grown three inches since I got up this morning. It is like Jack and the beanstalk. I will climb to the top maybe next week and see what is up there. Who is up there. I am not afraid of giants.

… Now it is yesterday. I mean that was. Today is tomorrow. And now we are here. In today.

And the sun has gone. Back to Berlin, I suspect, from whence we borrowed it. In my mind we stole it which does not always mean you have to give it back …

Here you are, oh city with so much going for you anyway! Here, have the sun as well!

Life can seem unfair after a holiday.

How come …!?!?!?!?

and then you make a list:

how come they get ALL the cafes

and ALL the dedicated bicycle lanes

and ALL the grooviness

and ALL the EVERYTHING THAT IS MISSING FROM HERE – arty boutiques, arty people, arty art, arty-farty?

How come? Why? Why why why?

Or maybe you went to the beach.

How come they get all the surf?

Or the forest.

How come they get all the mulch and leaves on the ground AND new ones on the trees?

It can turn you into a whinger.

My advice is to get your own back. Take the sun, even for a day. Take the surf, if you can. Take all the trees and and all the people and the arts and the farts. Take as much as you are missing in your own life and hold onto it … hold on tight …

… because maybe you are going to have to give it back …

Tomorrow. Or the day after.

That’s the thing about holidays. If they were no good, no-one would go on them. We would go to work for a change. Or do some chores. Or pray for bad weather.

Now I’m just arsing around trying to get to a thousand words. It’s a distraction. Not for you, hopefully, but for me.

Because if I look out the window right now, the sky has turned from yesterday blue to the colour of our building.

And it is weeping. For itself.

This is no good. I am going to have to take the whole sky on holiday with us next time. I don’t know which carrier will take us when they find out what I have in my luggage.

Miss?

Yes?

Open you bag please. Thankyou. Ah … uh … ?

It is the sky.

It is the weeping sky.

How will I explain it? How would anyone?

How to explain? …

ballet dancers

ballerinas

Oozie

Oozie! That’s not how it is pronounced by the way.

It’s pronounced Ooze-airs. As in who’s there? That sound. English cockney.

Allo, allo, allo!! Oose ere??? Fancy a muffin? I’ve nicked it freshly from the bake-ouse.

Ooze-airs.

Uzès, as the French spell it. Absolutely correctly. But if you read the spelling first and are not French speaking, you will never have a hope of pronouncing it. Phonetics above hieroglyphics.

Our friend has given it a pet name. His pet name appears in the title; Oozie. We didn’t know it was his pet. We thought it was the word, the sound of the word.

As in: We are going to Oozie to have friend tomorrow. Perhaps he has? Holding up our camera charger which needs an adaptor plug. Our camera is out of battery. We thought ahead and brought a Swiss adaptor plug with us.

Our camera is still out of power. The Swiss one does not work. Our European adaptor is at home, inside a box.

We need what they absolutely for sure do not have here. We are understood only by bringing the camera charger with us to the store and smiling sadly at it, at it’s tail end, in front of the sales person.

Somehow, for some reason, we are doing this in a pharmacy. I am sorry, I cannot explain it further. You must, if you are inclined or willing – and once again – as well as on your own - go figure. And I say that with whole-hearted respect.

We are talking to a pharmacist. A lovely one. She has been won over by our foolhardiness and our delinquency. And possibly our mime.

There’s no way, she conveys, also looking sadly at the tail end of our camera charger. France does not sell such things in small towns, in pharmacies.

Oh! I pipe up! I know I can say friend in French. And Oozie. That ought to ring a bell with her. She is so friendly and going so out of her way it seems she has fallen head-over-heals in love with us. It all happened so quickly.

In perfect French, I offer: We are going to Oozie to have friend tomorrow. Our friend is England. Speaks England. Perhaps he has?

I swear I saw a tear in her eye. She was melting. She understood nothing.

Oozie? Ou? she asked.

Oozie.

Ou?

Ooz…

Uzès? (Ooze-airs)?

Oui yes!!! Yes, I mean, oui!

And then I go … one … step … further … Our England friend, he say us Oozie! He say Oozie, Oozie, Oozie! All the hours!

Perfectly clear.

I am sure she wants to come with us now. For the fun. And possibly to sort out our England friend with his advanced speak pet names.

We are from Australians, I say. As some French have issues with all English, I’d like to give us a chance.

We are living in Scotland now. Like she cares.

Oh! she says. She loves us from Australians.

It was hard saying goodbye. We don’t know how to so we wave the adaptor at her. Au revoir, au revoir Madame! Until next time, tail end adaptor!

In the end we borrow an adaptor from another England friend, the manager of our holiday property. “I’ve got tonnes of these lying about” she says.

“Thanks” we say.

Ooze-airs, nestled in the hills of the Gard region of Languedoc, is a little French star. A brilliant star. Wish we lived there.

It is a star we missed. Even though we went there. Because there is too much to do in the Gard region of Languedoc. Too much to even see stars.

As we rise into the hills our shutter takes off. The higher we climb, the more wisteria, apple and cherry blossom there is and the more petite the landscape. The countryside shrinks, the road twists and turns. It is becoming heavenly.

And then we are there. Uzès in dreamscape.

Snap, snap, snap …

The famous market.

We have a rendezvous with friends. I don’t need to tell you we are late.

Look!!! … at the market. At this dreamscape.

Pete needs sunglasses. His broken ones are starting to scar his nose.

I spot a stall. But it is not a stall with sunglasses. It is a stall with the most exquisite dresses I have ever seen in a market anywhere. I must be dreaming.

They are some of the loveliest dresses in the world. Layers and layers of soft-hued linen. With smocking and dropped-waists. Just right. Pinstripes in red and white or blue and white. Utterly feminine. Loose and lovely.

There is something for all of us here, for all of us girls no matter where we come from or how young or old we are. I highly recommend this stall. I am sorry I cannot tell you more. I cannot give you any details. Uzès markets. Saturdays. By the cafes in the square. If you can, try to drop in.

It is all so relaxed.

Our dear friends! Our hearts jump! All together I think. It is so good to see them.

We sit under shade in an outdoor cafe. The market is right beside us. Oozie’s glorious, romantic market. Perhaps the most romantic market in all the world.

From where I sit, I can see the dresses. I have to ignore them. I had to walk straight past them. There are too many good things happening.

We’re hungry. Off we go somewhere else (lovely) for lunch. By the time we finish, the market is a skeleton of scaffolding and planks.

Don’t try to do it all said the guide book. You will never be able to.

Oozie. Uzès.

Say it any way you please.

We have been there. But we have not seen it. Yet. It is a star we missed.

I am definitely going back for the dresses.

And for our friends who are Ooz- eans now … say it any way you can.

One day.

Une autre fois. Or as I say in perfect french: Another clock. Merci!

A Gospel of Love

The freedom that comes with being open is undervalued. Perhaps only by me. I don’t know – I only have me to compare it with.

I have a beautiful friend, Elyjah. He is so beautiful. He is six foot and nearly a half, gorgeous looking, as kind as anything and sings like a nightingale. He played Jesus in Jesus Christ Super Star once at a local theatre in Byron Bay, Australia where we were all living,. Except I hadn’t moved there yet. But no-one has forgotten it. That’s how know. They still talk about it. He was a beautiful Jesus apparently. People there still think he would be.

He is open about his sexuality; he is very sexual, very loving and gay. He is one of those gay men who truly don’t look it. Maybe he is too tall to be gay. I don’t know. I never suspected it. But then I didn’t know my own brother was gay until my once boyfriend told me. I was completely surprised. “Is he? Really? I mean, really or just partly?”

It came as a complete surprise. I had no idea. He didn’t seem gay in the least. Still doesn’t. All my girlfriends kept falling in love with him. Secretly it makes me proud. Which I think counts as a sin. But maybe not in all cases.

Even when Elyjah dresses in a skirt – a long Balinese piece of fabric that he wraps around and around his long legs, so it is pretty much a skirt – he doesn’t look gay. He looks … beautiful. Like a man in a cloth. A beautiful one.

This next part is going to sound like the most enormous boast (what? another one?) but I say it as a testimony to Elyjah: Elyjah hangs out with the Dali Lama sometimes. Well, he did in Australia. A few years ago. When His Holiness made a trek Down Under.

His Holiness the Dali Lama must be running out of places to stay since he can’t live at home. I think he dosses down wherever he can. In his cloth, his robes. A bit like Elyjah.

I saw him once, the Dali Lama. I have just remembered it. He gave a talk in London. The only thing I recall about the whole evening was that when His Holiness walked onto the stage, he was giggling. Like a little boy. Bent over, nearly folded in half and laughing softly, sweetly.

My friend Elyjah loves the Dali Lama. He likes to live by the gentle and kind principles of Buddhism. He hasn’t changed himself at all to accommodate this path or this wisdom. He has opened up to allow it and there it is, alongside his social butterfly-ness which sees him flitting form party to party, from song bird to stage to mentor for young men who haven’t had enough fathering and are trying to become men.

It sees him flitting around the world sometimes and here he is, over in this part now, near me.

“I would love to see you” he wrote recently. “Have been trailing through India and am now in the South of France.” We were in nearly the exact same spot when he wrote that. But I didn’t get his email until we came home.

“Come up” I wrote back. “We love you. We’d love to see you.”

And then I did my usual.

I dashed off two more emails. I usually send batches of emails. I never get my voice right in the first one. Nor the second, apparently. It usually takes three.

I changed my mind.

Well, not changed it, but something akin to it. I may as well have done. And I may as well tell you what I did. There’s been enough pussy-footing around.

“Darling Elyjah” I wrote again, this morning. “I would love to see you but …”

And then I said it. Because I love him. Because it is true. And because I hope he will get it. I have my fingers crossed.

Here is the truth that I couldn’t say at first. But I have decided to be open. To try to be. It’s not always easy. On this topic.

“My darling friend” I wrote in my openness.

“I hate having guests.”

There.

That’s it.

It seems like lot of hoo-ha to get to that.

I have enormous judgemnt about this part of me. So I look for why or try to change it or me or work around it or  … Of course, none of that works. It was never going to work. The only thing that works is being true. And being open. And loving everything that you are.

Recently I read about someone who sounded fabulous, a glamourous European designer who has designed his own flat and has tonnes of space to accommodate all his friends and have lots of spare rooms.

Except that he has deliberately designed his entire flat so that no-one can stay. In the enormity of his designer living space, somewhere in the middle of Vienna or Rome or somewhere über, there is only one bedroom and the only other spare room is an office which he has kept very small and there are not even any doors on it.

“I prefer to put guests up in a nearby hotel” he said. “It’s just how I am. I am very private at home.”

Me too.

We have a very small flat. I have a very big heart. So does Elyjah. I love him. I hope he can still see me.

And Now I Have Short Hair …

… just like that. It has snapped back to short.

How did it happen?

I don’t know. I know it happened yesterday.

My hairdresser came over. She’s fantastic! I love her. So would you.

She is small and Spanish. She is very down to earth and gives the impression that that is temperament of the nation. Spaniards are not time wasters. They are plain speakers. They are also fun and at any hour of any day or night are up for a laugh, some tapas and some flamenco. All three, if possible. That is the impression my hairdresser gives of her country. She could be an ambassador.

My hairdresser is also groovy, which I think is part of her diplomatic brief. I like grooviness in a person. I respond to it. I think it reminds me of the year our family spent in San Francisco about ten lifetimes ago. It was one of the best of my childhood. But that is a blog for another day. I already go on too many tangents.

My hairdresser let herself into the building. She does this. She used to be our neighbour so she knows how to get in. It is as far as she can get these days without more keys.

I find her inside the door, waiting. The street door – not our flat. I wouldn’t actually mind if I found her in our flat. I trust her implicitly. She never would break in anyway. She only comes to do my hair. Sometimes she drops by to say “hi.” I think she and her Scotsman and their bilingual little girl miss the neighbourhood. In fact I know they do. They are moving back, which proves it.

There she is at the top of the stairs. Slightly early – she always is. I am late as usual. Together, we are sort of on time.

Apart from the fact that yesterday she gave me a lopsided shear, she is the best hairdresser I know. Even including the one-sidedness and surprise shear. Everybody loves her. We all want her to do our hair because she is so groovy and she passes that on in her haircuts. I highly recommend her.

I always feel more beautiful after she has been and snipped and chopped and yesterday … sheared. Yes. Which should bring me to the point about short hair but it hasn’t yet as I am still travelling … on this tangent … whee … !!!! …

If you look at me straight on and you have no peripheral vision – so you must not be a woman – my hair is somewhere between chin and shoulder length. A little bob. Although men have transitory grasp of the language of hairdressing so they probably wouldn’t call it that. But it is and I have to finish the story even though you now know the ending – a little bob, a very short BoB! … so peripherally short … and at the back  … 

With more rounded vision, the type that can see everything, it is easy to see I have very short hair with mysterious long bits at the front … Mysteriousness is a big plus in any hairdo so it is also part of the happy ending of this story! Although I have had to ask her to PoP! around to fix up the off-side blip.

… later …

She has. She PoPped around just now to fix everything. Except that she didn’t pop. She walked on purpose to rescue me. Now she has gone home for lunch.

That is another Spanish thing: apart from being extremely generous and sweet as anything – she still gives us the girl-next-door discount; she just walked twenty minutes on purpose to our place and is now walking them back in reverse – lunch is a proper meal taken every day. They cook it – there are no sandwiches in that country. That is her ambassadorial communiqué.

When they lived eighteen inches from us – the amount of space between our door and theirs – the little alcove of inches was perfumed with Paella every single day by noon. Although they denied it was that every day. We used to hover outside their door, our hands shaped like begging bowls because it smelt so delicious. I told her once. A few days later, she brought over two bowls worth.

Our place at the same time of day gave off the usual smells of porridge, stone-baked croissants and tea. Or coffee. Maybe jam. Sometimes vegetarian haggis – on a wad of buttery rye toast with watercress, tomatoes and Spanish onions – it makes a sensational brunch.

Before she left just now, she fixed my hair. As much as she could without sticking back on the bits that were lost.

“It happens sometimes” she said, looking as if she had committed professional suicide.

“It’s the first time since I’ve lived here (in Scotland.)” She looked appalled.

“It’s my fault” she said, in her matter of fact way, about ten times.

But now, I have a beautiful haircut …

So why do I feel like crying?

I am in love-hate with this haircut. It is so beautiful. It is SO short. I wasn’t expecting it. It is even shorter now because that is the only way to fix a haircut …

At the moment, I feel a bit tall for it. Or my hair feels a bit short for me.

It is kind of a French haircut, if you want to put a nationality on it. I do.

If you tilt your head.

It is kind of chi-chi, kind of sho-sho (short). I am looking for the positives.

So far, no-one has fainted in the street before me. Which can be good and bad. Maybe it will turn out to be the best haircut ever. My hairdresser’s haircuts somehow always do.

Cheese on Toast

I am little enough to be picked up. My father picks me up and sits me on the kitchen bench next to my brother, Trouble. We waggle our legs. My father does not call my brother Trouble. He calls him Henry, which is not his name either. Viewed from here - now - nearly one thousand years in the future, we have a confusion of names in our family. Each of us has two. A real one and another.

I sit next to Trouble and Trouble sits next to my little brother who my father calls Fred. That is kind of his name. Hs first name is Frederick but it is only an officialdom and no-one uses it – except my father. My little brother uses his third name and so do we.

My mother is still in bed. It is Saturday morning and she is having a lie-in. One of us will take her the cheese on toast that is her treat. It is actually her breakfast but it is a treat for us.

Tootles is somewhere reading a book. She is my older sister and that is not her real name, of course. We have to remember so much – the real one and the other one. My father makes up other ones even for our cousins. Everybody we know has two names. My father prefers his names to others. He is like John the Baptist.

My sister is usually reading. Her choices of play are unbelievably boring …

… why do you do it? …

She barely answers if I ask. She mutters something like “I like it.” She must be lying … but why?…

She is hidden an inch below the book. I cannot be sure who has responded or who is even there. I lean under to check… eh? …

It is her.

My mother loves reading. It is what she immediately does in her spare time.

My father calls her Freckle-face, which is not her real name. I also have two names. When I was born there was a tussle with names as my father fought for one he would probably have never called me anyway and my mother for the one I got.

I told you …

I got Dosh from my father, which is an old fashioned word for money although I do not think he meant it that way. But as I am constantly thinking of new ways to get money – as opposed to make - this could be one of them. I could trade in my name for cash.

“Who wants to take the tea into your mother?”

We all do!

“Ask her what she would like on her toast.”

We slip off the bench or are airlifted. My father is wonderful. He is warm and seems to like us. He does’t know our names though – that is his only fault.

“She wants: marmalade on one and cream cheese on the other.”

Okay!

My father scrapes off the burnt bits. He does this every time. This is a partial remedy. At best it is a very slim victory. There is no real cure for burnt toast – there is only this. Too burnt and we start again but most of us cannot be bothered. This kind of toast is only slightly worse than it’s counterpart but it is much better than none.

Off we go!!! Sliding down – bump!  jump! – running in to present my mother with her reward. It is like Christmas! She says thankyou and we wait to see her smile, to see how happy we have made her – and then we run away.

One! Two! Three! Now we are up. The mornings are sheer up and down.

It is our turn…

My older sister is missing and will turn up when breakfast is ready.

My little sister is nowhere to be seen and will not even arrive in our lives until many years later. Nobody has ever heard of her. We simply do not know her yet. However, when she is born, she will be the exception to the dual rule of names. She will be have one and everyone will call her that. She will take (which is putting it a strongly for a newborn) her middle name from my mother.

“Do you want some cheese on toast?” my father is asking me.

“No thankyou.”

“No? What would you like? An egg?”

“No.” I screw up my face. The suggestions are disgusting. Coming so close together they are sickening … errrkkk …

“But you used to love cheese on toast. What happened?”

I don’t know … please try not mentioning them together.

He will try in this vein for a few more weekends and then he will give up.

“What would you like then?” he asks gently.

The next part is blurry but there is a new version of cheese on toast on it’s way which will soon arrive in our kitchen and which I will adore. I think my father may be it’s inventor but I cannot say for sure. It is a little wonder. From a packet he produces cheddar cheese slices that someone has already thoughtfully sliced for our family. They are pale and mild and close to milk.

Beneath the grill it becomes a sensation: a bubble on toast warmed to crisp brown. Underneath is pretty yellow and soft. There are sliced tomatoes. Cheese on toast does not come without them.

It is delicious.

People later say unkindly of the wonder cheese: it is like rubber. If that were true we would all be eating our own galoshes.

My father still makes tea and toast each morning for his wife who is not my mother, because he loves to. He is wonderful at it.  His wife gets her tea in bed. I am not sure of the state of the toast these days. It would be hard to imagine much improvement. But no-one minds or cares.

It is the something else that counts.

My mother has tea brought in to her by my stepfather. He is wonderful at it. They have croissants together. Sometimes they go out for a nosh-up. They pay for the nosh in dosh.

Pete does exactly the same thing in our home. I know that may sound incredibly indulgent of me but try stopping him … he will not, even if you beg him which I have never stooped to.

I think I may have inherited the breakfast miracle. The inherited breakfast miracle is only thing that explains it.

As well as a mug of tea I am the lucky recipient of croissants, toasted so that I could bat them. They are hardy enough that if they did not instantly burst into smithereens they would likely cross three stone walls and arrive in the next postcode. It would depend on my skill as a bats person.

But none of that counts … It is the something else.

Love

Love is growing fatter. I have noticed!

It is my fattest and fastest growing category. Look!! You can see it on my home page in BIG, PINK LETTERS! But maybe you can see it here, maybe, you can read between the lines.

My heart is bigger now. Maybe it is just more comfortable with it’s size. I don’t know. But I am happy with how things are going in there, behind my skinny ribs, behind the freckle-freeness of skin on my chest. The sun never made it there. Oh well. It made it nearly everywhere else, don’t worry. I guess it gave up when I turned over. Anyway, I have already written that I have lost them all. I think they are on Qantas somewhere, whatever jet we flew over in.

How do you get freckles out of the upholstery? The flight attendants would have had to google that…

My mother is a beautiful woman. She has been all her life. She had the most radiant face growing up. I mean, when I was growing up. I have seen the before shots too and it was there at the begining. Okay, she looked a little gangly with her shorn hairdo as a teenager. Cropped very, very short. She grew up here, in Scotland. It still seems to be fashionable. Women cut their hair so short. I don’t know why. but if I had a wand, I would make it all a bit longer, a bit softer. Just a bit. Just in some streets. And just for variety. They can go back to short whenever they like. It would just be a trial. A fairy-trial.

When friends met my mother they would gape. And then they would want to befriend me more. She was that beautiful.

“Pretty and beautiful” I would say later to someone not in the know.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Then they would gape. A gape afar. A far-gape. Looking into the distance to where she might be now.

Women understood what I meant. We classify looks so dreadfully sometimes and so sweetly at others. I always wanted to be one of those people who could make someone prettier, on the spot. Like on a bus or something. Give a spontaneous make over or tell them what to do. Sometimes I would come close. The most I have ever done is tell someone what a beautiful haircut they have, or beautiful eyes or face or clothes or whatever. I like to do this sometimes. I think I am also slightly compelled.

I never made it to spontaneous makeovers … Uh-oh, yes I did, I just remembered …

Sort of spontaneous. I worked for Revlon once, as a make-up artist. But they let me loose in the world, in the department store, before they had trained me. I was unprepared, but that is nothing to the lady who was my first victim. She was TOTALLY unprepared. I did the most humungous botch up job on her beautiful face. I made her look so much worse.

“The worst case scenario: if you make-up a client and they only buy a lipstick” we were told. “That would be the indication that you have failed.”

That is the only item she bought. One lipstick, after my hours of applying and then de-applying colours all over her face. It was quite an inditement. Not just of me. They trained me after that.

I was in my dream job for about three months, which is as long as most of them have ever lasted.

My mother has a beautiful face and very loving heart. She loves her grown children like a lioness. She loved us as a tigress when she and we were young. Which I think is a young lioness, although maybe I am confusing animals. I hope the kingdom is forgiving.

I have loved my mother all my life. I have adored her. She is worth adoring as much for what she could do to love us, her children, as what she could not.

Life doesn’t always work. Not on the surface. But always deep down, I suspect. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone. I know tragedy exists. But I am an optimist.

The second thing I would do with my wand would be bring in more light.

The third thing I would do would be to say to my mother: You loved and suffered so much. I am so sorry for that. And I love you. I would say it to the world.

That is what I would do with my wand if I had three turns. So that all the world could read it.

Four and I would be rich! Possibly that would only take one.

But I don’t have a wand. I only have this blog spot on the world wide web. I hope it works.