Ladies Who Love Dinosaurs

Typical day...

2012-01-30T17:30:00.002Z

Form time (am): Equipment check, over 25% of kids have no pen. Register taken. Lecture delivered to class regarding expectations for this week. Always late kid arrives late. Berate her.

L1: Yr 7. Class arrives hyper on Powerade. It takes 10 minutes to calm them down. Kid reads Demetrius so beautifully I think I'll weep… … then proceeds to spend the rest of the lesson calling other students 'shag-haired villains'. Explain that 'shag' in this instance means scruffy, not 'sex'. Kid shouts 'SEX HAIR'. Students write mini essay.

L2: Yr 9. Fourteen year old has full on tantrum for receiving a 'satisfactory' level 5. Forgets both book and homework at the end.

L3: Yr 10. Class are 5 mins late (PE). Spend ten mins explaining that their essay q does not require discussion of Lady Gaga's gender… … still, half write 'Lady Gaga has a dick' in their books. Headteacher comes in with visitor. Pray to Gods to let kids behave. Gods on my side today. GCSE assessment tomorrow! Woo!

L4: Yr 11. "Who's Tiny Tim?" asks student who's been studying A Christmas Carol since December. Consider purchasing gun and shooting self in mouth. One kid calls Tiny Tim a 'retard'. Another tells me he refuses to read the novel because 'it's of no relevance to my life'. Throw book at him and shout 'READ'.

L5: Yr 8. Class takes ten mins to settle (Powerade and Haribo, again). Class task: to describe Portia. 'Elegant' 'Desirable' 'Big Nose'. Child has epileptic episode in class. Class take five mins to calm down. Sullen child refuses to write, look me in the eye or hold a pen, then realises it's a colouring task and participates with gusto.

Form time (pm). Half of my form have not completed their homework. 20 minute detention + 40 mins to call home and inform parents.

SO YEAH, I WENT HOME AT 4.10. FUCK YOU GOVE, I WAS TIRED!

Love me, love my Mooncup!

2011-08-31T19:31:00.001+01:00

I'm one of many thousands that have scoffed at the Mooncup ads on the backs of doors in health centres and festival loos. "Ha ha ha!" I said, "A plastic egg cup to collect your PERIOD BLOOD! Nyuh nyuh nyuh... GROSS."

That was when I was young.

Now I am thirty and, quite frankly, getting bored of my periods. Sixteen years of paying tax on tampons. And remembering to buy them. BORING. So when I discovered that a close friend used a Mooncup I quizzed her like a Mastermind contestant. So if you're at all curious, below are the questions I asked. And my own answers. Reader, I married it.

How do you get it up there?

Like this:

This is officially called the 'Labial Fold' but to make it more interesting I like to call it 'Rosebud' in a whisper. You can fold it like an 'M' or an 'S' shape, but trust me, this is the best way to make it as small as possible. Unlike tampons (which sit quite high) it only sits about 1-2cm up your vagina, so really it's no more difficult to insert than a non-applicator tampon (which I can't insert, btw). Once it's in it pops open (if you remember the 80s, it's a bit like this), creating a vacuum, and your vag muscles hold it in place. Done.

Can you feel it?
No more than you can a tampon. Unless you don't trim the stem. I did this straight away because I don't relish the idea of sore bits.

Does it leak?
Mine leaked, a tiny, tiny bit, once, when I put it in sleepy as hell and smacked off my tits on co-codamol, at 4am. This was the only time and it was no more than any tampon ever did. Honest.

How do you get it out?
Most internet horror stories about using Mooncups cite this as the most horrific part. But this bit is FUN. It simply involves the art of BEARING DOWN. This just means squeezing your vag muscles, although having a wee will do a similar job. If you've never squeezed your vag muscles before (why wouldn't you? It keeps them taut!) then just have a wee before you try to take it out, the squeezing during the weeing will do half the work for you. You grasp the bottom, and give the base of the Mooncup a little squeeze until you hear a delicious slurping sound (this is the vacuum breaking). Then you just pull it out, keeping it upright the whole time.

Can you pee/poo with it in?
Yes. The fanny vacuum makes it easier to wee and poo with one of these babies in than a tampon, which is basically just floating around in your vag. I could never pee with a tampon in, I'd end up birthing it into the loo halfway through. Ditto number twos. The Mooncup is stuck up there like a plunger, dude, urinate away. If it comes down a bit just give it a gentle push up.

Isn't it GROSS when you empty it?
Underneath, and all around the outside of the Mooncup it is clean and dry. I just want to reiterate this fact: CLEAN AND DRY. Thank the fanny vacuum. It is cleaner than a manky tampon cord. It is cleaner than a sanitary towel. Your hands needn't touch blood at all during the entire process. Yes inside it will contain a small amount of period blood, but to date I have never even hit the 5ml mark, and I thought I had heavy periods. Tip it down the loo. Rinse your Mooncup under the hot tap. Admire how clean it is before inserting it again.

That's it. It's not foul at all. You see no more gore than you do with tampons. So calm down, ladies, and embrace the fanny vac. You'll save over £5 a month!

Why I am fat...

2011-07-10T11:54:00.001+01:00

I rarely talk about weight. I watch the debates scrolling before me on Twitter, or in the Guardian, and keep my comments to myself. So this is probably the only post about weight you will ever read by me, and it is about being fat. So for starters I'd like to hammer home that this is about being Fat, not being Thin. 'But people are mean to me because I'm so thin!'. Yes. Sorry about that. 'Thinism is the new Fattism.' Not true. Fatties get it worse. Always have, always will. Complain at me again when Topshop start selling size 20 jeans.

I was a skinny child, like, really skinny. I was a slim teenager. When I was sixteen I woke up one morning with an arse the size of a DFS sofa. When I was twenty-four I suddenly grew two pendulous breasts. I have absolutely no recollection of these features developing on me. Fat snuck up on me, I never saw it coming.

I knew I was getting bigger, my clothes were, so I stopped buying clothes. Problem solved. Then all my clothes got holes in and I had to buy some more. Leggings looked so comfortable, but I refrained from buying any for years because I thought I'd look ridiculous in them, and offend the general public by deigning to wear them out. I grew livid with Topshop for only stocking clothes size 6-16, and then introducing a size 4, but not a size 18. Now I hated my body, and was ashamed of it. Me!

I look at my arm next to a normal person's arm. My arm is fat. It is nearly twice the size. Sometimes I flick it with my finger to see if it hurts like it did when it was thinner. It really doesn't. I have Fat Armour. If I was a pisshead people would feel concern for me, but because I am a carbhead people just think I'm lazy. I don't care, I have my armour, throw cannonballs of prejudice at me and they will just bounce right off.

I need to eat to be able to do my job. There is nothing worse than teaching on an empty stomach. Trust me, if you had to stand in front of a class of thirty eleven-sixteen year olds for five hours a day you'd need some fucking Shreddies inside you too. And a flapjack for elevenses. And a baked potato for lunch, with cheese. Up until recently I haven't had a penny to spare on anything other than food or bills. It costs nine pounds to attend a yoga class in Crouch End. That would buy me lunches for a week.

"The problem is cake. Stop eating cake" remarks my boyfriend, helpfully. I glance down at his growing sponsored-by-Kronenberg paunch and think 'Okay love, when you stop drinking beer'. He won't, he loves his beer. I LOVE cake. My mum used to bake once a week. Big, hulking rock buns that your teeth would crunch through to reveal a sugary-soft, almost ethereal, core. Victoria sponge with homemade jam, and sugar flowers on the top, looking like a photo from Woman's Weekly. Scones that we'd eat hot, so that the butter we piled on them would drip down our chins as we scoffed them. I swear I once found Jesus in the soft core of a meringue. Mum didn't make these to make us fat. She made these because we were poor, and because she needed to feed us. So yes, I love cake, but who wouldn't after that little prologue? My boyfriend drinks two or three cans of beer a day, I eat, at most, one slice of cake on average every three days. Who has the real PROBLEM here? No, it is not cake.

I forget all the rubbish food I've eaten the second I swallow. I look closely at my diet. I can't see that much wrong with it: breakfast, lunch, tea. Five portions of fruit and veg a day. Water and tea to drink. I am all over that shit. Apples and bananas are my best friends, I see them every day. But this is the shit that counts, this is what I CHOSE to forget, this is what I REALLY digested yesterday: Maltesers (regular bag, I was nearly seduced by the larger bag, and felt smug for rejecting it), Rice Krispie cake, ice cream (plus cone), Coca Cola x 2. The problem is I had to sit down and think really hard before I could remember I ate all that. Somewhere in my brain there is an auto-delete button that I am not in control of.

This is the problem. And yes, I know exactly what it is. The problem is, that in my mind I have not really progressed physically since the age of eighteen (or mentally, but that's another post). I look down at myself. I know It is there, it is just that It is something I choose not to acknowledge; like casually racist remarks made by my nan, or the Sun newspaper. So in my mind I am a size twelve, always have been. How would I know if I wasn't? I don't own a full length mirror. All of my mirrors are less than 30cm long. It is only after a birthday party, or family get-together, and the documentary evidence appears in Facebook albums, that I truly get to look at myself. 'That's never me!' I think, aghast, sneakily untagging myself and hoping the photographer doesn't notice.

People are stupid. They try to give you advice gleaned from too many years of watching Trisha or Vanessa and advise you to admit to the problem. Many people think that once you acknowledge a problem it suddenly floats away into the atmosphere, never to bother you again, like a vanquished demon on Buffy. This is a myth. I owned up to writing 'Bums here please' on a toilet seat at school once, and it made my life hell for at least another two years. I 'owned up' to being mentally ill when I was eighteen and I am still mentally ill now. So truly acknowledging my fatness will not bring me any kind of inner peace, looking into a full length mirror in a dressing room will not reveal any secrets to me, it'll just be boring, and a bit unpleasant.

But I think about my pancreas, glowing inside me like ET's heart and calling cancer cells to it like a mermaid singing to a ship full of sailors. It is a beacon, emitting helplessness, sending out an SOS to my brain. Being overweight causes cancer. So do drinking and smoking and an unhealthy diet. I am going to die of cancer. Or I am going to get diabetes. Or I am going to have a heart attack running up the stairs at work. I might even be found dead with cake in my hair.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am going to try and be a bit less fat from now on. Not because of how I look, but because I am scared of dying. Now excuse me while I run off and do a little cry.

Why you should have gone on strike.

2011-07-05T11:27:00.000+01:00

1. I will lose a day of pay

If you are genuinely concerned about losing a day's salary, the union does offer a hardship fund - simply get in contact with your divisional secretary. In addition, please try using the NUT's pensions calculator which can be found on the NUT homepage. most teachers stand to lose between £150,000-£250,000 if pensions reform goes through. A day's pay is nothing in comparison.

2. Children will lose a day of education

This was not an issue during the recent royal wedding - why is it only important when we are trying to protect our rights?

3. Strikes do not work

There is one course of action which will definitely do nothing and that is if we actually do nothing

4. Striking is unprofessional and damages teachers credibility

This is the argument made by Michael Gove. He followed this statement up by asking parents to step in for teachers to keep schools open - do you suppose he would suggest the same for doctors? The sad fact is that the Government does not place our professionalism very highly - this is why they are open to free schools which could hire untrained staff as teachers.

5. I'm in a non striking union

The only teachers union not on strike is the NASUWT. Membership to the NUT is currently being offered for free so anyone can be part of the strike if they are willing to invest 5 minutes to sign up to our union.

6. Public sector pensions are too high when compared with private sector pensions

Private sector pensions are too low and this argument is backwards. There are plenty of nations with appalling human rights records - surely the government would not suggest reducing our level of human rights to fall in line? The government should be regulating the private sector pensions so those workers get a fair deal. Incidentally the average teacher's pension is £10,000 per year - hardly an excessive amount.

7. Negotiations are still ongoing

This is the line which Westminster council have taken. Having spoken directly to senior union staff who are involved with these negotiations I can tell you that the negotiations have not gone well. This is in fact the reason the unions have called for strike action.

8. I don't want to confront my head

It is not a requirement to name who will be going on strike, you can simply give the numbers to the headteacher. The NAHT is also balloting for strike action and you may find that many heads are more than willing to back your action - Headteachers have the most to lose after all as they have the highest salaries.

When MissGembles met Mr G...

2011-04-30T13:11:00.001+01:00

A gang of people are assembled at Pimlico station, waiting to set off for a picnic which I am co-coordinating. On a concrete bench outside I spot a man with a mass of unruly curls and a baguette sticking out of his backpack. "Are you here for the picnic?" I ask.

We walk along the Thames. I teach the man my 'Favourite Hits of the 90s' game. He doesn't know it's a potential suitor test, but he passes with flying colours.

At Battersea Park he produces smoked duck from his backpack, and steals all my crisps. I fall a bit in love.

I'm peddling furiously on a pedalo in a pond. He is sitting on the stern of the boat, swigging wine from a bottle and smoking Marlboro Lights. All the time he is talking and talking about himself, and his life, and his dreams, and I imagine tiny fireworks exploding and dancing around his head. Then we switch places and I start nervously swigging from the wine.

We retreat to a pub where we each drink a pitcher of Pimms and start comparing notes on our likes and dislikes. Nerd alarms ring loudly.

We sit through a show. I don't know how we managed this. I just wanted to maul him.

We end up in another pub. He buys us red wine and we talk about Blake's 7. He offers to show me his box set, and we head back to his flat in Chelsea. He snogs me on the night bus and tells me I am beautiful.

And...

Yeah...

The next day we can't bare to be apart. I float through a hangover in a state of bliss. I go out wearing his jumper, because all my clothes are at my friend's house. I stay another night.

Now he has to get up and go to work. I have to go back to Norfolk and go to work. He tells me to stay in bed and promises to come back and bring lunch before we say goodbye. He brings salad, and smoked mackerel and we kiss again.

Hints & Tips for the Discerning Mentalist

2011-04-20T13:19:00.001+01:00

Don't stay up late.
Be in your bed by 10.30pm, at the latest, even if you're not tired. Once midnight has ticked by the gremlins enter your brain through your ears and gnaw on your mind. You might think you're beating them by choosing to stay up of your own free will, but this is what they want. They want you to get sucked into a crap and depressing film on TCM. Or a Jerry Springer repeat. They want you to stare out of the window at the stars and ponder the futility of your own existence. Do not satisfy the gremlins! Do not feed them after midnight!

Feeding time
When I am depressed I lean towards beige food (bread, biscuits, tea). It usually requires minimal preparation, fills the gaping void in my soul/stomach (same thing) and is bland enough so that I don't want to vomit it back up. But this is wrong. The key to surviving is to eat colourful food.

This is what I really, really wanted to eat yesterday:
- croissant/brioche
- bread roll
- KFC

This is what I forced myself to eat:
- strawberries
- a pear
- an omelette & salad
- a yoghurt

... and guess what? I had almost picked up by 9pm. Almost. Until I found out Elisabeth Sladen had died and it set me off again.

Choose your entertainment wisely
For example, I can't watch loud things, or stupid things on TV when I am depressed, even though I generally love loud and stupid things. They frighten me. And give me a headache. I can just about manage knitting. And I can read a classic (Austen/James/Eliot). I try to avoid social networking, because it makes me paranoid, but generally fail miserably. Take my advice: stay away from social networking. Nobody wants to look at pictures of their horrible, old classmates' fugly babies, sometimes they can persecute you with their eyes "You have failed at life. Look at me. I am living proof that somebody you hated when you were fourteen is more successful and fulfilled than you".

Go Out
Of course you don't want to go out. Look at the state you're in, who'd want to look at you? What could you possibly offer the universe in your current state of mind? Your face is covered in anxiety spots, and untreated dry patches, and your good clothes are all lying in a spent heap at the end of your bed. Tough. If you work, I'm afraid you're going to have to go. If you're off, stick a big, baggy jumper on and go for a walk. Nobody is going to look at you. Get over yourself. It helps to have a small MISSION. For example, "Today my Mission is to buy some toilet paper from Budgens and go to the Post Office". Then you can get home and say to yourself "Mission Accomplished" which makes you feel nice, and important.

CBT
Stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Ask your doctor about it. It's ace.

Of course these techniques won't work for everybody. Depression is the most personal, most self-centred, most eclectic condition of the bunch. But perhaps, just perhaps, some of these scenarios will ring a bell with you. And maybe just feeling that you're not alone will help you recover for a brief second. If that occurs then "Mission Accomplished".

Sick/depressed/useless

2011-04-07T20:10:00.001+01:00

I'm really not going for the sympathy vote today. If anything, I'm going for the opposite. If I read this post on somebody else's blog I'd definitely want to comment something like "You absolute gimp. Pull yourself together."

I'm sick. I've been sick for over a week, and I'm no better than I was seven days ago. My voice is squeaky and cracked, and because I have to teach I am unable to rest it, so it just gets worse, rather than better. My nose is blocked and I can't smell anything. I feel feverish when I wake up in the morning, and drag myself through the school day, only to feel guilty at 3.15pm when I drag myself home again to collapse on the sofa. I can't ring my dad, or my sister, it just hurts. Instead I send them weary texts, or Facebook messages.

James' birthday went largely uncelebrated last weekend, due to the fact that I was unable to get out of bed, so I have stacks of residual guilt about that too.

When I'm at work I am constantly berating myself for only being able to give about 60%, and worry that my colleagues are looking down at me.

I haven't worn any 'nice' clothes or makeup for over a week. I haven't blow-dried my hair, or straightened my fringe. I haven't cooked any meals, or undertaken any kitchen activity greater than heating up a ready meal.

I can't do any more job applications. Just thinking about filling in another form makes me feel like I'm about to cry.

It could be worse. It has been worse. I felt the cold kiss of dread creep across my body as I cradled the telephone receiver after discovering my mother had terminal cancer. I should really pull myself together. I want to. But knowing that I can't is making me feel utterly useless.

Oh and also...

2011-03-22T20:24:00.001Z

... I'm turning into a hermit again. Help!

I can't do job applications

2011-03-22T20:17:00.001Z

I need a new job. If I remain in my current job beyond the summer I will go mad.

Job applications freak me out. I don't know how to sell myself to people I've never met. I feel awkward using flowery words and pretending to be ten times more productive and efficient than I really am. I am so teachered out at the end of the day that I have no words or knowledge left to impart to anybody, and application forms feel like a mental trek.

What I'd really like to do is just brain vomit all over them. If I wrote what was in my heart on these forms it'd probably go like this:

Take me! I'm great! I love teaching and can make a really good cup of tea. Look at all this stuff I've done! (insert list of awesome feats here) See how awesome this makes me? Please give me a job. I want to buy a house. And a dog.

I could do more. I want to do more. But I don't know how to say it. Blerg.

A Tribute to Mum

2011-01-02T00:07:00.000Z

Mum died a year ago today. I don't want to make too big a deal of the date thing, but I can't let it pass without remembering her at her best.

So here are four reasons why I continue to miss my Mum every single day; four reasons why nobody that loved her will ever forget her.

She was the BEST cook:

Look at her here on Xmas day. Look at the RANGE on food on the table! This was the last Christmas dinner she ever cooked for me in 2007, she made it to 2010, but was too sick to help with any of the preparations. Rather than remembering that heartbreaking Christmas I'd much rather remember this one, when we were all healthy and happy and together.

She was a great daughter:

This picture of Mum and Nan was taken about five months before her diagnosis. In this picture nobody has any idea of what's to come, and that it why I love it. I am so glad she didn't have to suffer for too long, and that we all got to say goodbye to her before she died.

She was funny as hell:

Mum's misbehaving on a boat ride up the Thames here. On her last night I lay with her and thanked her for the million or so things she'd given me. Her sense of humour is the one I'm most proud of. She got funnier as she got older, God knows what she'd have been like at 70!

She was my best friend:

I adored spending time with Mum. Even at 28 I'd still drag along behind her on trips to the supermarket, just for the pleasure of sharing her company. That's why I can grieve for her so openly; there is no baggage, and no pain, just love and loss and laughter.

We both knew that God and the afterlife were a myth. We both laughed at psychic reading shows on TV. I don't believe she is an angel floating around outside my head, or standing behind me. But I feel her inside every day. Rest in peace, Mummy. Love you.

2010 Roundup

2010-12-31T23:10:00.002Z

A bit of a shit year really, with a few shimmers of joy. I suddenly feel very old and grown up. Today I spent over a hundred pounds in John Lewis - entirely on household items.

It is one of my resolutions to blog slightly more frequently. So here is my grisly annual roundup. Seems like a bummer ending it on a depressing note. So let's start with The Bad:

The Bad:

Work
My boss is still insane. My school still teaches creationism. My commute is still an hour each way. This must be rectified, and soon.

Family woe
My relationship with my father is ten times more complicated than it was a year ago. This is partly due to 'The Awful' (see below) but mostly due to the fact that he's been dating a Shameless version of Tracey Stubbs since about 3 weeks after Mum died. My brother is, essentially, an overgrown puppy with a sex addiction.

Mentals

I'm still a bit mental. Sometimes. Oh well.

The Awful:

Mum died.

At times I wanted to join her. At times it feels like she only died yesterday. Grief festers in your brain like a canker and dulls the sheen on the most uplifting and exciting days.

The Good:

Getting out of debt

I am £4800 less in debt than I was this time last year. At some point in 2011 I will owe HSBC £0 for the first time in over ten years. Money will enter my account on payday and be MINE, ALL MINE and with it I will buy glitter and moonbeams and puppies, and probably more jay cloths (why this constant need to buy more jay cloths?).

Mr G

He's been absolutely wonderful this year. Best boyfriend, ever. And very clever too. If I had the money I'd buy him a yacht and a big car and a solid gold watch. But he hates all those things and I'm too poor, so I'll just keep bringing him tea in bed.

New friends

Thanks to Twitter and despite crushing social retardation I have three lovely new lady friends to quiz and titter with. We quite often win. Hi Jesus!

Big sis

Unchanged and reliable in times of hideous overhaul, I am beginning to appreciate my sister in a Hallmark-cards-kinda-way.

Powdered milk

2010-12-08T21:37:00.000Z

It's just over a year since I found out mum was sick, and as you'd expect, I am not doing very well. I'm haunted by frequent and vivid flashbacks in which I am mixing milk powder into full fat milk for my mum. It was all she could manage in the last week of her life. I can see myself measuring it out, feeling utterly pathetic and hopeless at the good it will do her. Then I can see her hands shaking as she tries to drink it and the floodgates open. This crying is like nothing I've experienced before. It hurts, and it makes me breathless. I bellow into cushions or the empty flat and worry that I am going insane.

It's going to be a tough Christmas.

Shyness is nice, and shyness can stop you, from doing all the things in life you'd like to.

2010-11-10T19:32:00.005Z

Hello, my name is Gem and I am a social phobic. I get anxious about meeting friends for Sunday lunch. Work dos make me feel sick. Parties terrify me. Sheer willpower prevents me from hiding under a blanket on my sofa every time I'm required to go out and converse with people that I have never met before. For every social situation, from going to the pub to attending a friend's wedding, I am forced to choose from one of the following options:

A - Force myself to go out. Stand in the middle of the room and feel like I am drowning. Feel sick. Get very sweaty. Panic. Come home.
B - Force myself to go out. Enjoy it. Forget myself. Feel better.
C - Stay at home. Feel safe. Go to bed.
D - Stay at home. Feel horrifically guilty. Commit mental Harakiri until I pass out on the sofa from shame.

A has only occurred a few times, and when it has I've felt like a total failure as a result. B is occurring more frequently recently, but is harder to psyche myself up for. C, if I am honest, is the option I take most regularly, for less-pressing social concerns such as drinks after work or one of James' work dos. D occurs when I let down a friend, or feel unwell. It happens fairly regularly.

Many sociophobes, like these guys here, have hang-ups about the way they look. For me, it's not so much what I look like, exactly, more what I sound like when I open my mouth. I'm quite loud, always have been, so my voice stands out (I have since given a name to this; 'Teacher Voice', and it's very useful). And to further compound my shame what came out of it in school was quickly deemed to be abnormal. I withstood years of persecution by my peers for saying 'weird' things that simply came naturally to me. I'd quote Oscar Wilde at opportune moments in class, or attempt to engage others in a discussion on the merits of Reeves and Mortimer. I thought these were all very normal topics for discussion, they were at home. But apparently, in school, you are only allowed to discuss two topics: shagging and each other.

Awareness of this condition has only made it worse. Meta-cognition has ruined conversation for me, to the extent that whenever I talk to somebody I don't know very well this monologue will run in my head:

I AM HAVING A CONVERSATION. THIS CONVERSATION IS GOING WELL/BADLY (DELETE AS APPROPRIATE).

AM I SAYING THE RIGHT THINGS? PROBABLY NOT.

AM I SMILING ENOUGH? I DON'T WANT TO LOOK MEAN. MIND YOU, I DON'T WANT TO LOOK EAGER EITHER.

SHIT, THEY'VE STOPPED TALKING. I'VE SPENT TOO MUCH TIME THINKING OF WHAT TO SAY AND HAVEN'T LISTENED TO THEM.

JUST NOD AND GIVE A LITTLE HALF-LAUGH, THAT SHOULD WORK FOR MOST SITUATIONS.

OK. DID THAT. WHAT CAN I TALK ABOUT THAT ISN'T MENTAL?

THE CAT, GEM, GO WITH THE CAT...'

It'd be so easy to blame those bastards at school, wouldn't it? But the fact is that I am a grown woman and should be able to look back and learn from my own errors, and the errors of others. No, it's mostly me. I could spend all day reeling off a list of the reasons why I feel safer indoors than out at some cocktail bar. Let me begin to count the ways:

People, generally, annoy me. High voices annoy me. Quiet, timid voices annoy me. People with expensive clothes annoy me. Loud chewers annoy me. And people that sniff.
People are mean. They make snap judgements about people based on ridiculous things, such as their tone of voice, or their clothes, or the fact that they sniff.
People are noisy. Well, lots of people together in a room are. I have a real problem with noise differentiation, so I find rooms with lots of different conversations going on in them really scary and disorientating.
People smell. They really do. Some people smell worse than others.
People are stupid. Show me one clever person and I bet I can find at least ten stupid people to outnumber them. I'm not, by any means, a genius, but I genuinely have no idea what to say to people with marshmallow-fluff brains in a social situation. Where does one start with these people? The weather?

Occasionally I attempt to explain my 'problem' to people I meet, but it just confuses them. Or makes them think I'm mental. Or, worse, they nod sagely, join their palms in a symbol of shamanic wisdom and make snap proclamations of cod-psychology that they've gleaned from too much Trisha such as: "You know your problem, Gem? You think too much."

Thus reinforcing my opinion that I am better off indoors.

So that's it, then. I'm a sociophobic. So now what do I do? I would like to get better. I would like to be able to attend work events with my boyfriend and not feel like I am melting into the carpet, or being trodden into it. I'd go and see my GP, and perhaps try for cognitive therapy, but she's put up with enough harassment from me recently, and would probably just tell me to 'go out more'. She'd be right, wouldn't she?

Poor

2010-11-08T17:35:00.000Z

Jesus Christ I am so sick of being poor. It started at university, when I received huge cheques for over a grand and had absolutely no idea how to spend them correctly. I bought a load of shit.

Then I graduated and bought a load more. I got greedy. I borrowed money to buy more shit. And so on for another few years until...

A bank machine ate my card. I went home and threw up. My work closed, and my hours were drastically reduced. Minimum payments went unpaid. Bills arrived at my parents house, and I was too scared to open them so just chucked them straight in the bin. At certain points I imagined myself banged up in a debtor's prison, like a character from Dickens. Poor Mistress Gemblesnuff, she got behind with her payments and ended up in the Marshalsea. I was terrified of bailiffs and checked my windows to make sure they were locked before I left the house.

I fell in love. I moved to London. Now I knew I had to get real and sort myself out or lose everything. I contacted a debt management agency on the recommendation of a friend and added it all up. I was sick countless times. It felt utterly unmanageable.

The debt management company were excellent. They contacted all my creditors and got them to agree to reduced payments. I started paying £300 a month to them, which was shared equally between my debtors (of which there were seven).

Years passed. I became a teacher, with a proper wage. I was even able to increase my monthly payment to try and pay my debts off more quickly.

I don't earn enough, in my opinion, for the job that I do. However, I could probably have a reasonably good quality of life if I didn't have to pay £402 to my debtors every month. I am skint within ten days of payday, and have to dole tenners out to myself to ensure I can eat until the next payday. On days like today, when I see £200 left in my account until the end of the month I want to cry.

Next year one of my most enormous debts will be cleared, a debt to HSBC totalling over £9000. This will mean that my other debts can be cleared much more quickly, because my monthly payment to each will increase. I know it's not the end of it, but I'm going to celebrate nonetheless. And whenever I see £200 in my account and want to cry I have to repeat this mantra: 'Soon. It will be over soon.'

25 things about me

2010-11-02T17:46:00.002Z

1. I once wrote a letter to Jim'll Fix It, asking to meet the entire cast of Baywatch (I was 8).
2. The idea of terrapins existing makes me feel sick.
3. I once ate a whole box of Maltesers in under half an hour.
4. I am, despite often seeming otherwise, quite a solitary person.
5. When I was 17 I once sat outside the King's Lynn Corn Exchange for five hours in the middle of a freezing cold winter night, waiting for Mansun to come out, warming myself on the exhaust fumes from their tour bus. I caught mild hypothermia. It took me two days to thaw out.
6. The person I can't stand the thought of anything happening to is my little brother. I would crumble.
7. I listen to Prince, on average, every 3 days.
8. I know all the words to 'Snooker Loopy' by Chas & Dave.
9. Dogs love me.
10. And small children.
11. I don't really like small children.
12. I hate being overlooked more than anything.
13. I jumped off a tube train and followed a man down the platform to give him back a £2 coin that he'd dropped on the floor of the train.
14. I have had the same pillow for about 6 years. It's moulded to my head, flat as a pancake, and probably mouldy inside.
15. I once spent £500 in one go in Topshop. The £500 was part of my student loan.
16. I know A LOT about the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
17. As children, my sister and I were encouraged to refer to our genitalia as a 'doody'.
18. Christmas always makes me really depressed. I get fed up of being around people at close quarters by 3pm and storm upstairs for a nap.
19. I have a Moomin themed bathroom, with a Moomin soap dish, a Moomin toothbrush holder, a Moomin hand towel and Moomin pictures.
20. I smoked for about 10 years, until I gave up two years ago. I never told my parents.
21. I had 9 piercings at one point. I got bored and took them all out.
22. I thought Heath Ledger's Joker was sexy.
23. I use certain songs/tv shows/films as benchmarks when assessing potential suitors, but I never reveal what they are.
24. I sometimes stop and stand in the street, looking up at the London sky and feeling grateful for being alive.
25. I am petrified of ketchup.

Bad Day

2010-10-28T08:54:00.000+01:00

So yeah, my last post was a bit intense, right? So glad to have drawn a line underneath yesterday; a Bad Day all round. Managed to convince myself that I was dying of cancer before passing out in a co-codamol-induced coma at 4am. Definitely need to try and get some more sleep this morning, babysitting an eight-year-old in a few hours' time.

Thanks for reading and kind comments via Twitter. They make it less painful, honest. xx

Autumn letter to Mum...

2010-10-27T19:18:00.001+01:00

(I'm not going for any writing awards here)

It's getting really cold outside now, you'd definitely be wearing your pink wool coat in this weather. Dad rings and says your grave looks sad and barren without a headstone or any plants to keep it company. It's too soon to put a stone over your remains, and your death is too raw to work out what we'd write on it.

In a few weeks it'll be a whole year since you made that phone call to tell me about the scan. Your voice was so tiny on the phone, and I melted into a pool on the living room floor after you'd rung off. Blind panic gave way to an odd kind of autopilot, and somehow time passed. That night I woke up at 2am screaming 'I don't want my mum to die', and managed to calm myself down by convincing myself that you wouldn't. If I'd let myself think for a moment that you would I would have been useless to you.

Do you remember how I took the next day off work and came straight back to Norfolk to see you? You looked tiny. Shrunken, and yellowing. After you'd gone for a sleep I broke down in the living room and retched all over the carpet, I was terrified that you'd leave me, the world without you in it seemed sick and horrific.

I lost your voice for a while, Mum. White hot fear set in for a few days until I found it again. I got it back by remembering the time I took you to the ballet for your birthday, and how you'd bought chocolates because 'everybody has to have chocolates at the ballet'. I miss your sense of humour so much. On days like today I would give anything to hear you speak again.

I hardly ever say the word 'Mum' anymore. Sometimes I say it to myself, when there's nobody around, just to feel the sensation of the word on my lips. But it's forced, not like the 'Muu-uuuum' I uttered as a teenager, or the 'Mummy' I repeated as I stroked your hair in your final hours. I've lost you, and the word, it seems.

Nobody warns you about the loneliness. It's terribly lonely without you, Mum. In the past, whenever life threw shit at me I could always somehow think my way back to you, and feel safe again. In the picture by my bed you are holding me as a baby. It's a snapshot, so neither of us is posed. I'm gazing dreamily at the camera, and you are holding me and watching me, the weight of motherly responsibility very clearly on your shoulders. Now it's much harder to find a way out of the darkness without you acting as my spine. I knew this would happen. As I watched you fight for your final few breaths I wanted to grab your body so that you could take me with you. I didn't want you to be alone. I didn't want to be alone.

I'm so grateful for the perspective that your death has given me, your final gift to me; you made me 'grow up'. You'd be so proud of the way I handle life's trivial ups and downs now. But I'm scared of this winter, and the memories it might throw up. I almost feel like I should stock an arsenal of happy memories to see me through it.

I'll write again Mum. Sorry it took me so long to write this one. I love you.

Gemmie-Lou xx

P.S. I need to buy a cardigan. The only warm cardie I have is the one you bought me for Christmas two years ago but wearing it makes me sad. I think about how you'd tease me mercilessly over this and I giggle through my sobs. I pine for you and celebrate you in equal measure. I think you'd be okay with this.

**edit**
Felt this needed a photo. Don't want to forget your face as well as your voice!

And the result is...

2010-09-26T19:21:00.000+01:00

... my wee is...

NORMAL

Found out on Friday, and was instantly relieved. Yet another example of me tying myself up in knots over something very minor indeed. Have decided to CTFO (Chill The Fuck Out) and laugh at myself for making shit mountains out of tiny little dung-piles.

The vicious cycle of hypochondria

2010-09-20T22:24:00.000+01:00

I decided to write down my spiralling thoughts, with the idea that reading them back to myself would embarrass me enough to stop having them.

To Wee or Not to Wee?

I need a wee

Oh God, was that a twinge?

My back hurts a bit

I’ve got a kidney infection.
I’ve got diabetes.
I’ve got cancer.

I feel sick.

I feel sick because I AM sick.

I’m going to get sicker, I might even die.

I’ll have to have time off work.

I’ll lose my job.

I’ll lose my boyfriend. And my house.

I need a wee.

Cinnamon Breakfast Cake

2010-08-29T22:33:00.004+01:00

Were two words ever more perfectly suited than 'breakfast' and 'cake'? Anna made this for me yesterday during a little holiday at her house in Harrogate, from a recipe her mum gave her, and I have to share it with you here. It's essentially a tray-bake cake/pastry hybrid. You make the cake batter and sprinkle it with sugar, then you melt a load of butter with cinnamon and pour it over the batter, creating seams of glorious spicy/sugary goo. This recipe uses the American cup system, but I have put the conversions you'll need for this recipe below:

1 cup flour = 150g
1 cup sugar = 225g
1 cup butter = 175g
1 cup milk = 240ml

And don't thank me, thank Anna's mum!

CINNAMON BREAKFAST CAKE

Heat your oven to approx Gas Mark 6. Line a smallish deepish roasting tin with parchment- or a deep cake tin.

Cake Ingredients:

1 egg
3 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar (white not brown for the cake)
1 and a half cups milk

For the Topping:

Lots of cinnamon
1 and a half cups brown sugar- demerara works best
Half a cup melted butter

Method:

Melt your butter.
Mix all the cake ingredients together and pour into your lined tin.
Sift over the cake surface all the sugar- add a bit more if you like it extra gooey.
Sift a generous amount of cinnamon all over the sugar.
Drizzle all the butter all over the sugar topping.
Bake for 35 minutes or until it looks done on top, but not too brown.
The butter and sugar sink through the top to make streaks of goo throughout the cake.

Eat warm if you can wait that long, and it reheats quite well.

It should look like this once it's cooked:

*EDIT*

I just made this. I used caster sugar for the cake, because I'd run out of granulated, and it was fine. I also used extra butter, and the cake was REALLY gooey on the bottom, but I like it that way.

Adam and Jane

2010-08-20T14:07:00.004+01:00

I HATE BT's Adam and Jane, they are the budget Gold Blend couple. The adverts have been going on and on for years now, with little sign of stopping. I have no affection for either character; I hate Adam and I hate Jane. She's got really pinched-looking as the saga has rolled on, and he's completely sold out and now wears a suit and shirts with cufflinks all the time.

The latest advert has them both sat in stunned silence before the great 'reveal' that Jane is pregnant. And apparently this is because WE, the great British public, wanted this to happen. I never made it to the forum on BT.com to have my say, and I never got to cast my vote, but if I HAD then I definitely would have gone for 'not pregnant' because now if he dumps her and goes off with his unruly mates (1:54) he's going to look like a heartless bastard. And if she dumps him everyone's going to say 'Oooh, you cow, you're the mother of his kid!' etc etc. So they'll probably just stay together and have occasional tiffs, like usual. Yawn.

Below are a series of suggestions for the next advert which I would have made on the forum, if I had the chance, and one 'red herring' which is boring and most probably what will happen:

Jane goes for ultrasound, discovers 'baby' is, in fact, giant teratoma containing mainly hair and teeth. Goes home and gives birth to it on the kitchen table. Adam watches on his BT broadband via webcam.
Jane raids Adam's hard drive, finds video he was watching with mates on stag night, projectile vomits and drops dead.
Adam kills Jane. Wears her face as a mask to fool the kids on webcam chat. Feigns trip to theme park and drives minibus with kids into Thames.
Adam wakes up and discovers he has the face of Keanu Reeves, he turns to Laurence Fishburne who says 'That's what happens when you take the blue tablet'.
Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker turn up to pick up Adam, he is their oldest son and this whole thing has been one of his 'pranks'. They tell him off and he starts wanking.
Jane goes into labour, Adam finds out about it via his BT phoneline, gets to hospital just in time, uses his BT phone to ring his parents and tell them, and his BT broadband to email them pictures.

Feel free to add more suggestions below.

P.S. I made the jam. It set and everything.

Rainy days and sick days

2010-08-20T09:53:00.002+01:00

I'm currently recovering from a nasty bout of milk-based food poisoning. I'm not longer vomiting every three minutes but I'm still a bit nervous of leaving the house. I can't bake, because of all the food touching involved, and the TV is getting SOOOO boring. But I've hit upon an ingenious plan - jam making. I don't have to touch it, and I can eat it on toast when I am better. I've trawled the web for recipes, and have created this one, which takes into account the ingredients that I already have in my cupboard, and what I like the taste of.

MissGembles's Plum Jam

700-750g plums halved and stoned, then quartered
600g granulated or jam sugar
175ml water
2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla pod with seeds scraped out)

Sterilising jars:

To sterilise jam jars and lids, wash, rinse and dry them (remove any traces of old labels if you’re recycling) and put into the oven for 10 minutes at 150 degrees C/gas 2.

Put the plums, and 175ml of water into a pan.

Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the fruit is tender and the skin soft. May take 20 minutes depends on the size and variety of the plums.

Add the sugar and vanilla and stir until dissolved. Bring to boiling point and boil rapidly until setting point is reached, usually 10 – 12 minutes. If you have a sugar thermometer you can check, setting point is 105C or 220F.

Take off the heat. If the fruit is bobbing about at the top of the pan then it may not be cooked enough. If this happens, cook for a few more minutes, about 3 – 4.

*You should always pour the jam directly into the hot, sterilised jars after it has reached setting point, and you need to seal the jars up straight away. Pop them in the fridge when they have cooled. The jam lasts about 2 months.

Purists amongst you might have noticed the omission of gelatine, or pectin. That's because the cooking process I have used above SHOULD bring out the pectin that is already contained in the fruit. I'll let you know how it goes.

Aqualust

2010-08-14T18:52:00.004+01:00

James and I received a small aquarium for Christmas. We put an ugly bottom feeder and a Siamese fighting fish in it (which died after about two weeks).

(RIP Cromwell)

Then we populated it with platys (a much hardier fish) and two out of three have survived, despite constant attention from the cat.

I am fast becoming a 'fish person'. I often find myself drawn to aquatics shops, murmuring appreciation of enormous koi carp and tutting when the tanks do not meed my standards.

Today we bought a Glass Fish to replace Bowie, the silver platy who blew up like a pine cone and died. He looks like a ghost so we've called him Hopkirk. He's ace. I already want another one.

I have Aqualust.

Letter to my sixteen year old self...

2010-08-07T12:24:00.004+01:00

Turn the music down and pay attention, close your bedroom door and have a sneak peek at what the next thirteen years of your life will bring.

Firstly, your hair is going to change colour multiple times, to orange, pink, purple, red, blue and blonde. It's never going to forgive you for this. Please stop dying it.

I suspect you've been listening to the Manics, and gazing longingly at your copies of Melody Maker (you're going to get work experience there, next year!), imagining life passing you by as you rot in your Fenland bedroom doing your Geography homework. You want to get out, but you're scared of what you'll find. You're scared that you won't be able to cope on your own, without your cosy bedroom to fall back on.

You've just started smoking. YOU IDIOT. You're about to waste the next nine years of your life pissing money away on Marlboro Lights. You conceal your smoking habit from mum and dad for nine years. You think you've got away with it. You haven't. They know. They've known all along.

Recently you've been experiencing feelings of unreality, where you imagine yourself detached from what is happening around you every day. You cry more than is necessary. Getting drunk and stoned is scary and disorientating, and you can't understand why everybody else is so keen on it. Sometimes you're frightened to leave the house. I know all this scares you, but trust me, I've had a lot of experience of all this and you don't need to worry. It's called 'depression'. You'll suffer with it all your life. But you will be fine. Every day of your life from now on is a baby step towards happiness and freedom. Even the days when you feel like you are sliding backwards into despair will teach you a valuable lesson. Try to talk to Mum about this, she wants to understand but she's not sure how to approach you. Dad's not angry with you, he's just afraid.

Don't be so afraid of being alone. Your lonely moments tend to be defining points in your life. You need them to think and move on.

You've got your GCSEs by now, so you know that English is your strong point. Stick with it, it'll serve you well in your future. And pay more attention in Geography, because it'll feature again in your life. You're working harder than you've ever worked because you've realised that the only escape from the boredom of being a teenager in West Norfolk is to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. You're quite right. Keep it up. I won't reveal your grades but you will pass your A-Levels and you will get into your first choice of university.

You LOVE university. Nobody laughs at your clothes or calls you 'weird' (or, worse still, 'original', urgh). You make friends that will stay with you for life. You study Film. You live in a shared house and in this house you find the freedom and acceptance that you've yearned for. Be good to Elin and Anna, they'll take good care of you when you need them the most.

Someone you really fancy off the telly is going to try and have sex with you when you are 26. You knock them back because you've fallen in love with someone else. You think you fall in love at 20. You learn a lesson. At 24 you fall in love for real. He is marvellous, and intelligent, and funny, and all the things you have found lacking in the male populace so far. He gives you confidence and brings you into the light. You move in with him in London and have pets and lots and lots of books and DVDs (they're like videos, only on CDs). He writes comedy for BBC radio, and you are immensely proud of him. I can guarantee you'll still be with him at age 29.

Now, I don't want to alarm you, but I must warn you that at some point in your twenties something bad is going to happen. I've decided not to tell you what it is, because as I look back I wouldn't change a thing. All you need to know is that this event will test you to the very precipice of your soul, but you will cope with it, and you will emerge from the wreckage a stronger and more sympathetic person.

Joe is fine. He never grows out of his epilepsy, but it is controlled, and he has a good quality of life. Maria is fine. You and her live close to each other in London for a few years, and you miss her when she goes back to the North.

You never really 'grow up'. You will feel sixteen forever. But you'll get better and better at being sixteen as the years go by, and your life will sprawl out around you like a rich carpet. It's all going to be okay.

Phones 4 POO

2010-07-13T17:57:00.004+01:00

A summary of the worst customer service ever. I have replaced the guy's name with 'DICKWAD' to spare his dignity, but even that is a questionable concept:

Dear Phones 4 U:

This letter is to complain about service I recently received from a Phones 4 U customer service representative named DICKWAD.

I came to your Kilburn High Road branch (ref 424) on 13/07/10 at approx 15.20pm to find out how to deal with a problem I’ve had with the handset of my Sony Ericsson Experia X10 phone. After I had been waiting on the shop floor for several minutes, a member of staff told me to wait on a stool. A few minutes later a member of staff named DICKWAD called out to me from where he was sat with another customer and asked me the nature of my enquiry. I rather self-consciously called back from my position on the other side of the store that my phone was faulty. After a few minutes he turned around and said ‘You’ve got a faulty phone, yeah?’ then continued talking to his other customer. Seemingly having finished with the other customer, he started the consultation by tapping on his computer with his back to me, and turning round periodically to call out and ask me for details; this prompted me to ask ‘Would you like me to come over there?’. The sales assistant shrugged. Not wanting to conduct business by calling across a shop floor, I went over and stood next to the seated sales assistant for a few minutes before another member of staff saw me and fetched me a chair.

Once I had explained my fault the sales assistant asked me to remove my memory and SIM cards, because, he said, ‘I don’t wanna break your phone’. I had to explain my problem to him several times (can’t switch phone on, red flashing light) because he did not seem to be listening, frequently asking me to spell simple words out to him and appearing never to have heard of the London district of Hornsey, which is less than three miles from his store. I was informed that my phone would take two weeks to be returned to me, and when I asked why I could not have a replacement handset or a loan phone immediately he told me that it was because ‘Phones 4 U are tight’. Needless to say, I was quite frustrated, not just with him, but because I would effectively be paying line rental for a phone I could not use.

I asked to speak to the manager, who was busy with a customer at this stage. He later told DICKWAD to call the customer service team and speak to them. DICKWAD conducted his conversation with his back to me, and seemed quite agitated. He then passed the phone over for me to speak with customer services, and walked off to another area in the shop. After I had finished speaking to customer services I was asked to hand the phone back to the assistant, but was unable to do so because he had gone off to try and sell a phone to someone else. Myself, and the representative of your company at the other end of the phone, spent an uncomfortable few minutes waiting for him, and in the end I had to go and fetch him to speak to me. After the call ended he walked away and the manager dealt with me from that point.

The manager and the customer services team on the phone were able to provide an adequate handset replacement for me to use while my X10 is being repaired, but by this point it was 16.10 and I had been in the store nearly an hour.

At one point while I was waiting for the manager, a customer’s coin fell out of his hand and past DICKWAD, who noticed it, and ignored it, preferring to sit and fan himself with a mouse mat in the shape of a telephone handset. This signposted to me very clearly his lack of customer service skills and given that your website says that ‘Delivering excellent customer service is Phones 4u’s number one priority’, I would recommend some basic training in this area, as he was practically monosyllabic throughout my consultation.

I expected a much higher level of service from your company, and I am quite disappointed. I will be informing my friends and family about this experience.

Lost one, losing the other...

2010-07-11T13:50:00.000+01:00

Mum and Dad were a unit. Dad was the one who called me every day, but Mum was the one who always said 'goodbye' at the end. Since Mum died Dad calls me rarely, and when he does it feels like I am talking to an android. I know why he's so scared of talking to me, because most of his 'news' revolves around the lovely adventures he's having with the woman that he so conveniently slotted into my mother's place about two months after she died. Over thirty years of marriage, and a loss, dealt with in two months, it must be some kind of miracle. He's still very angry and guilty around us kids, so he clearly hasn't dealt with his loss yet, and I worry that because he's not dealt with it yet he'll jump feet-first into a situation that is difficult for him to extract himself from.

I have told Dad that I love him, but I can't deal with this new relationship so soon after Mum's death (her grave doesn't even have a headstone yet). He went on holiday with her last week, and I received a five minute phone call on my birthday and a BACS payment of £70. I felt like sending it back. I still might. I told him 'okay, have fun' but no, I don't want to hear about it, because I'm not over my mum yet, and it feels completely alien, but because he's like a teenager in the throes of first love, he's not listening to anything that anybody else says, using juvenile defiance along the lines of 'It's not fair, huff...'. I can't feel how he wants me to feel. I love him, and he knows it, but I feel hollow with loss, and I can't deal with any more.

One day I'll be in a place to accept what he's doing but it is just too raw now. So I've gone from two amazing parents to half a parent; it hurts like hell but what can I do about it?

D-Day

2010-06-28T20:18:00.005+01:00

That is the name I have given to days when I am sad and heavily under the influence of hormones. D stands for any of the following: Depression, Darkness, Despair, Doubt and Disappointment. Fleetingly (and I really do mean 'fleetingly') it can stand for Death, when I can see only my own and my loved ones' demise through a port-hole of misery.

Today is a D-Day. I am really poor until payday on Weds, I have about a fiver to live on. The heat hasn't helped. Nor has my impending period. Nor did the fact that I was given a cover lesson and had to work flat-out all day to try and inject enthusiasm into wilting kids. Then I got home and discovered something about potential upcoming changes at work, and BOOM... D-Day*.

All I could see in my future were more days like today and worse, and I honestly felt hopeless. If I'm more honest, I still feel a little like that right now. I sobbed through a phonecall from my dad and jibbered through a phone call with my sister, and I felt embarrassed on each occasion. It is pointless to try and think yourself out of a D-Day situation. Every turn has me slinking back into poverty and mental illness and that futile feeling like I am wading through quicksand. Shame prevents me from sharing my feelings; thoughts of those 'starving children in Africa' that were pummeled into my brain when I complained about doing PE in the rain at primary school. My boss is a control freak! Tough, there are babies in Africa with flies in their eyes. Get a grip.

I can't get a grip.

So I keep thinking to myself 'Next year'. Next year I will be out of debt. Next year I will be able to quit my job and find one in a place that isn't run by a megalomaniac. I will be further along the bereavement trail and coping better without Mum. But it isn't bloody 'Next year' is it? It's 'Now' and it's fucking horrid.

*Also, my fish wasn't cooked properly and I had to spit it out and leave it on the plate. Yes I know, starving children in...

What a let-down!

2010-04-17T00:41:00.002+01:00

I had a bit of a meltdown this evening, before James and I were due to leave to see a comedy show. I've been pining for Mum a lot since I got back from New York. It's almost like I took a holiday from grief and came back only to experience it all over again. Fresh grief. Nice. In the end I pulled myself together, got myself there and had a good time, but it wasn't easy.

So here's the truth:

I'm not in good shape. I'm so stressed that I've got shingles on my stomach, and shooting pains around my shoulder and neck. I'm not sleeping well at all. I'm knackered all the time. I feel constantly guilty because I can't live at the pace I used to, so even though I give people the impression that I'm coping okay, I'm actually feeling like a tiny piranha swimming the wrong way up the Ganges, my fins are flapping so fast that they are wearing me out. At best I am functioning at around 70%, which means I can hold a conversation and crack a joke, but need to compensate by staring at the wall on my own for an hour or so every night. Usually at around 2am. My doctor, counsellor and family all tell me to take it easy, and give myself a break by taking less on and indulging myself a little more than usual. But when I do I feel extravagant, selfish and like I'm constantly letting other people down. And worrying about that just makes things ten times worse.

Grieving is like climbing a really greasy pole, or being a counter in 'Snakes and Ladders'. I don't know when I'm going to be back up to full speed again, and that's frustrating for me and others close to me. One week I can take two steps forward, and then three steps back. Another I can take four steps forward and no steps back. Sometimes I hit a big fat snake and end up back near the start of the board again. I want to be better. I don't need to win, I just need to know that I'll finish the game; even if I have to start all over again in a few years time.

Dying

2010-04-15T19:33:00.002+01:00

I'm dying. I'm ALWAYS dying. Well, sometimes I think I am. Perhaps more frequently at the moment. I also think that my loved ones are all dying too. I stare really hard at them hoping to magically develop x-ray vision to enable me to scan them for tumours. Last week I watched James walking through Central Park in glorious sunshine and just thought 'What will happen to me if you die?'. Seriously though, all I think about at the moment is my own demise and that of my loved ones. I think the suddenness of Mum's illness has left me believing that death is a trickster, hell-bent on following me around and ruining all my fun. It's like I have a cartoon reaper on my shoulder that I have to keep swatting away.

DEATH!

2010-04-06T08:12:00.002+01:00

I might be being a little melodramatic here. I'm flying to New York this evening. Anybody that knows me will tell you I am a RUBBISH flyer. I have to wrap my head in a scarf during take-off and landing so that I can't see what's going on. I take Valium before getting on the plane. I make informal wills on Twitter and Facebook bequeathing my worthless belongings to my nearest and dearest.

Once I am in New York I will be absolutely fine. But until then I have to contend with the following invasive thought every 2-3 seconds for the next twelve hours - 'DEATH DEATH DEATH!'.

Nevertheless I am determined to enjoy this holiday, Dad gave me money towards it from Mum's life insurance payout. If I believed in heaven I'd imagine her up there, cheering me on in the shoe aisles of Macy's.

A letter to Mum

2010-03-28T18:47:00.003+01:00

Mum, it is spring. I wake up to chirruping birds and only need to wear a cardie to work. The daffodils are out, and the evenings are longer and every single shop is stacked with chocolate eggs.

I picture you on your hands and knees, prodding at the bulbs in the back garden in Norfolk. I can hear the 'snip snip' of your shears and smell the ozone in the air all around you. Spring was your season, and without you I feel lost. My daffodils wilted last week and I left them as they were for several days. Sorry Mum.

Mother's Day

2010-03-14T09:38:00.003Z

Mum's been gone over two months now, her death is still very raw and occasionally inconceivable.

I can't get over Mum's final days and hours. Dark images creep into my head when I'm on the Tube or in the bath, and I agonise for ages over these pictures which show her shrunken, yellowing and in pain. Questions rise like bubbles over the pictures: Did she know she was dying? Was she scared? Could she hear me? The bubbles rise higher, choking me, and it can take hours to recover.

But I had my first counselling session last week, which was great. The counsellor promised me that the images would recede, in time. Everyone keeps promising me that. But they haven't, they're still there, and while they're still there I can't enjoy any memories of Mum when she was healthy.

One way I'm trying to combat these thoughts is by trying to replace them with a happy pre-cancer memory of Mum, where she's smiling, or teasing me, or baking me a Victoria sponge cake. But it's a lot harder to remember those memories than the more recent, more painful ones.

I am determined to do Mum justice this Mother's Day and remember her as I know she would want to be remembered; laughing, always busy, and calling me a 'baggage'.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum. Love you.

So I don't forget...

2010-03-08T19:14:00.003Z

The bereavement counsellor has just left. It was good, I cried and laughed and cried some more. And now I am eating Mini Eggs.

I thought I'd share another recipe, cos I'm all Mastercheffy, like...

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
1 chorizo ring - sliced
2 sticks celery - chopped
1 medium onion - chopped
1/2 can chick peas - drained
3 garlic cloves - crushed
Handful parsley - chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tiny bottle red wine
Salt, pepper, smoked paprika

1. Sprinkle half a teaspoon of smoked paprika over 2 chicken breasts and seal for 5 mins over a hot griddle.

2. Slice the chorizo into slices no thicker than 5mm and use them to line a casserole dish.

3. Chop onion, parsley and celery sticks and drain chickpeas.

4. Crush garlic.

5. Place sealed chicken breasts over chorizo. Cover with chopped vegetables and garlic.

6. Pour over chopped tomatoes and wine.

7. Season according to taste and cook in oven (gas mark 5) for approx 90 mins.

8. Garnish with leftover parsley and serve with crusty bread.

Witness the decline!

2010-02-16T10:46:00.003Z

I'm losing followers like the Church of England is losing worshippers. Look!

Occupational Hell-th

2010-02-10T10:42:00.002Z

I'm currently the subject of an occupational health assessment. They're supposed to be supportive means of getting you fit for work, but I don't feel at all supported, just terrified.

I had a couple of weeks off last year for flu, and was doing really well, but then, well, you know... the stuff with Mum started happening. I haven't gone back to work since Mum's death on Jan 2nd.

I keep having flashbacks to my mother's illness. I find anything beyond pottering extremely stressful. Some days I can barely get out of bed, and neglect myself completely. Appointments scare the living daylights out of me, as I feel pressurised into keeping them. I know that this is depression bought on by my mother's death, I have suffered depression since I was 16, and have learned to live with it. I was doing SO well until all of this. I had a catch up session with a psychiatrist over the summer and he told me that I was doing 'very well' and was 'fully functioning'.

Last week my boss sent me an occupational health consent form to sign citing 'ongoing illness' and 'sick leave beyond what is normal' (or words to that effect). I signed it to agree to the assessment and sent it back. That's where I'm at right now.

My GP and I were going to try to get me back to work after half term, but this has thrown me into confusion. I have so many questions but these are the main ones:

Should I hold out for the OH assessment and follow their guidance, or go back to school and try to muddle though?
If the OH advises phased return (which is what I'm hoping for) are my school required to act upon their advice, or can they still drop me in at the deep end?
If I take the OH's guidance can it lead to dismissal on the grounds of capability?

I don't want to lose my job. I love my job. I just can't do it right now.

I want to go back to work and try to have a 'normal' life again, but I'm scared that I won't be able to do it. Can occupational health help me with that? I don't know. I just want someone to help me a little bit, because I feel like I'm drowning right now.

Not about being miserable

2010-02-07T23:25:00.003Z

It is a truth, locally acknowledged that I am rather a dab hand in the kitchen. If I had my way I'd bake and roast food all day, but then I wouldn't earn any money. I often borrow recipes from Gordon or Nigella, but very occasionally I compose my own, based on something I have tried and never found the recipe for. The recipe I am sharing with you in this post doesn't exist anywhere else online. I should know, I've searched for it often enough!

So there's a woman at the Alexandra Palace farmer's market that makes the most amazing fridge cake I have ever tasted. She calls it 'white chocolate slab cake' but, to the cake connoisseur, that is a very different thing indeed (an American brownie type cake, baked in a tray). See, she is not as good a baker as I, she hasn't done her homework. Despite her inability to correctly name her creations, I dream about this woman's fridge cake, and I actually drool. I needed the recipe. I had to have it. Obviously Ally Pally lady hasn't shared her recipe with me, it's the only thing that keeps me going to her stall, so I have devised my own (slightly better) recipe, and have rendered her useless! Hooray for ingenuity! Enjoy!

Gemma's White Chocolate Fridge Cake

300g good quality white chocolate, broken into pieces
175g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
4 tbsp golden syrup
150g digestive biscuits
150g dried apricots, cut into pieces
100g sultanas
50g mixed fruit peel

1. Line a 23cm square or 22 x 25cm tray with clingfilm or baking parchment. Place the white chocolate in a large heatproof bowl with the butter and syrup and allow to melt over a pan of barely simmering water for about 6-7 minutes, taking care not to let the bowl touch the water.

2. Meanwhile, break the biscuits into small pieces with a rolling pin. Stir all the remaining ingredients into the melted chocolate mixture until evenly coated. Pour into the prepared tray and level with the back of a spoon.

3. Chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours, or overnight. Cut into 16 squares using a large sharp knife dipped into hot water. The pieces will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days.

Slightly better news...

2010-02-05T18:49:00.001Z

The hits for this blog have tripled recently. I can only thank you, and all of my Twitter friends who follow my boring antics.

Bad Day

2010-02-05T18:45:00.003Z

I have had what can only be termed as a Bad Day today. Grumbling tum led to broken sleep, which led to lethargy and tears, which led to me not being able to get on a train and go back to London. And now I feel guilty about all of the above, which makes things worse.

Dad's been very sweet, and now the child in me wants to stay here forever and let him bring me cups of tea in bed and tissues. I know I can't. I know it's dumb. But right now it's what I want to do more than anything else.

Wherever I lay my hat...

2010-02-03T18:14:00.010Z

I've been thinking about the word 'home' a lot lately. Where is Home? Can you have more than one? My sister calls Norfolk 'Home'. Mum was 'Home', now she's gone does that make me homeless? I call my flat in London 'Home' but also tell people that I am going 'Home' to Norfolk whenever I go to visit my Dad and my brother. So where is it? Have I found it yet? How will I know when I'm there?

When I was younger I'd get very anxious about leaving home, even if it was to go on holiday. My parents would have to go through the accommodation arrangements with me in significant detail in order to prepare me for the change in surroundings. I didn't attend a sleepover until I was about fifteen because I'd freak out at the thought of not returning home at the end of the day. Home was special, it was a three bedroom house in the suburbs of King's Lynn, but it was special. I lived here for thirteen years from the age of five to eighteen. When my brother was born I would press my ear to his bedroom door to listen to him breathing. It was there that I sat on the stairs late at night and heard (through the door) that my beloved Grandad had died. I sobbed there for hours and fell asleep slumped against the bannister. I dyed my hair blue here when I was fourteen. I kicked a small dent in my sister's bedroom door when she ran upstairs telling me she was 'going to eat all of the Nutella'. When I was sixteen I slashed my forearms in the bathroom, trying to emulate my hero of the time Richey Edwards (yes, I was a dick). I buried my guinea pigs in the back garden, I made foul-smelling 'perfume' from Mum's rose bushes in the summer. Then I went to uni, and never came 'Home' again.

However, I look back over all the places I have lived, and try to remember where I have felt most 'at home' in my life, and the answer always surprises me, because it is always Norwich. This house, to be precise:

This is Cardiff Road, in Norwich, part of a little student enclave in the city affectionately referred to by students and estate agents alike as the 'Golden Triangle'. All houses in the area look exactly like this one, so it's hardly distinguished by its features, but by the memories I have attached to it. This house is where I learned to cook a roast dinner from scratch for the first time. It's where I first became familiar with the term 'emergency plumber'. It's where I sat up most nights until 3 or 4 in the morning with my closest friends, smoking Marlboro Lights, drinking tea and plotting world domination (which, of course, never took place). I spent a month on the sofa in the living room here recovering from shingles by eating family sized bars of chocolate and chain-smoking. I naively said 'I love you' to a boy for the first time in my little bedroom at the back of the house. Once I drunkenly dragged a damp sandbag back here at 4am and named it 'Sammy', the effort left my arms aching for days. It's hard to believe that I lived here for just two years, but the rooms and corridors are imprinted in my memory more vividly than any place I have lived before or since. We were all of us amateurs at living independently, growing up, laughing (so much laughing) and making mistakes together. I never felt alone when I lived in this house.

I made a few mistakes; the biggest was moving in with my boyfriend of the time into a shared residence the Daily Mail would call a 'Drug Den Hell'. I had a boring job as a civil servant at the time, I'd leave for work as they all turned in for the night. They grew mushrooms in the cupboard under the stairs and smoked weed constantly. One housemate stole the laces out of my trainers while I was asleep one night, when questioned about it the next morning he replied 'Yeah, er, I needed some, so I took yours'. As you do. My room became my refuge but I was never 'at home' in this place. I was bored, depressed and isolated - my uni friends had all moved away by this point. Despite the fact that his girlfriend nearly losing her mind, my boyfriend refused to leave his mates, grow up and move in with me. So I moved out. And dumped him.

Back to Norfolk then, but by now my folks had moved out of the Home that I grew up in in King's Lynn and into a luxury (well, it has an en suite!!) detached residence in the MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE. I had a few years here while I got my head together. It was good. I went shopping at weekends with my Mum and took my Dad out for curries on a Thursday. I played video games with my brother. I made friends with local people. I saw a psychiatrist and got treatment for my depression. I learned to drive and worked in a college for a reasonable wage. It was nearly home. But my God I was bored, bored as hell. Luckily, one weekend visiting my mate in London, I met James...

When I first moved to London and lived in a tiny studio flat with James I'd pine for home - Norfolk home - every night through tears of anxiety and self-pity. I'd long for the endless fields and deafening silence of the Fens. I missed darkness, which doesn't seem to exist inside the M25. I'd drive through Tottenham on my way to work dodging children and cats, instead of rabbits and pheasants. James would take me for dinner in the West End and I'd secretly wish I was back at the carvery at the King of Hearts in my parents' village, eating ham and roast potatoes. It got easier. In time I laughed at mentals on the bus instead of being scared of them. I completed my PGCE and became a qualified teacher. We moved to a bigger, better flat, in a nicer part of Crouch End. We got a cat.

This is home now:

Well, to be specific, the top floor. It is my current London home to which I beat a hasty retreat when I am depressed or anxious. It is where I am loved. It is where I am warm. It is the place I look forward to being at the end of the day. I chose the furniture, and the contents, and the company. I love every single thing in this flat (except the tiny kitchen, which I am prepared to overlook). Sometimes I sit at the window and watch the world go by, it never gets boring. I wave to my neighbours and water their plants while they are away. I feel 'at home' here. I am on first name terms with my local grocer and newsagent. I buy my produce locally and recycle my rubbish.

But I miss the Fens. I wait for them to enclose me when I get the train up at weekends and the endless emptiness always takes my breath away. I watch the stars come out in the back garden at night and sleep soundly in my old bedroom, to the symphony of my father's snoring. Other weekends I stay in London, go up to Alexandra Palace and mooch around the farmers market where, in a nod to Norfolk patriotism, I buy produce at inflated prices that is created not half a mile away from my Dad's house. I tell my boyfriend it's because 'it comes from home'. He says 'but you are home'. I don't argue. He's not wrong. It's just that he's only half right.

Don't Help Haiti! Pt2

2010-01-28T12:10:00.003Z

They haven't finished!

Now you understand why I had to move!

Don't Help Haiti! Pt1

2010-01-28T12:03:00.006Z

No, of course I don't think that. But some people I was friends on Facebook with do! I'll let you read our exchange for yourself. Humour them, they're from Norfolk...

A Question of Work

2010-01-25T11:07:00.002Z

So I'm not at work this week either. I had a chat with the GP on Friday and she still thinks I'm far from well enough, mentally, to yell at teenagers all day and cram their heads full of information in order to pass exams. I must say, the idea of returning to work fills me with a sort of pantomime dread at the moment, I'm hoping that when it DOESN'T I'll be ready to go back, whenever that is.

So what does one do with their days when off work with stress/bereavement? Well, you have to try and have a normal day, so you get up, preferably before midday, and then you just potter, gently, around your local area, completing all the little chores you don't have time to complete when you are chained to a classroom.

So today my mission is to buy cake tins. If I find them I will consider today a success. Watch this space...

Liar liar, bums on...'

2010-01-21T22:29:00.003Z

I've been a bit sneaky recently. I've been telling people I'm coping okay when, in fact, I'm not. I'm a bit ashamed of how crap I am, to be honest. I'm still very much in the 'mourning' stage and can't seem to snap out of it. I sit down to drink a cup of tea, then look at the clock and realise three hours have passed and I haven't moved.

I have to go to the doctors tomorrow and am dreading it. I can either lie, and say ''yeah, I'm coping fine'', or I can tell the truth and say ''I keep seeing my dying mum's face in my head and it makes me retch. I am not sleeping properly. I forget to eat and wash my face''. She will look at me like I'm mental, and possibly sign me off for another week.

It seems that everyone is saying to me, 'come on, time to get back to normal now' and I just... can't. Not just like that. I am trying, but I can't just flick a switch, go back to work and be completely okay again. For one thing my guts are a mess, and another is the fact that my sleep is ALL over the place, and another is that I can't stop thinking about mum in her final days. No matter how hard I try to be 'normal' she just pops into my head and I feel like I've been punched, and then I start getting all panicky. It's so hard to explain this to people who haven't been through a similar situation, it's not like it's a year later and I'm still brooding over it, Mum only died just over a fortnight ago. That's NOT very long ago! I can manage getting dressed and having conversations, but that's about it. I haven't even been out of Crouch End really, except to go to a friend's house for dinner.

So watch this space to see if I lie tomorrow...

Recovery?

2010-01-19T13:19:00.001Z

How do you know when you're recovering from a major trauma?

It is 1.20pm. I am sitting on the sofa in my pyjamas. This is not recovery. This is uncovery.

How Mum Died

2010-01-18T15:30:00.013Z

My brave and beautiful mum died just over two weeks ago on January 2nd. Mum had a very rare and very aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, which took her life just six weeks after initial diagnosis. Her cancer spread to her liver and was too advanced for chemo. The doctor told us to 'prepare ourselves' for the worst. We only got a diagnosis at the end of Nov. Watching her deteriorate was the most painful process I have ever experienced. I can only take some solace in the fact that Mum was happy and well in October, and that this process has been short.

I know I haven't updated this blog. I can barely talk about it without sobbing. But I need to record certain events, for my future self's sake.

Realisation

As the school term drew to a close it became increasingly clear that my mother's condition was deteriorating, and rapidly. I knew she had cancer, I knew it was in her pancreas and I knew she couldn't recover from it. I spent a weekend at home with my parents. I didn't return to school on the Monday morning as Mum had a biopsy scheduled that day and I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving her. Dad took her to hospital and dropped me at the train station between visiting hours. As the train pulled out of the station I felt something tear inside, and I wept all the way back to London.

I thought it'd be a one-day thing. I thought she'd be home that night. But Mum was so unwell that the biopsy couldn't be performed on schedule and she had to stay in hospital overnight. When this stay turned into two nights I shot back to Norfolk as quickly as possible, just in time to see her discharged and bought home. I put the Christmas tree up for Mum, and she thanked me. She wasn't strong enough to decorate it herself. I showed her every bauble before I attached it, and we chatted about the memories attached to them.

Mum kept getting her medication confused, so I made her a chart on my laptop to tick off when she took each different tablet. We thought this was working. But one night, after my sister gave her the pills and ticked off the chart, Mum told Dad that she hadn't had her meds. He didn't check the chart and gave them to her again. Once we realised this we knew that Mum couldn't administer her own meds any more. My dad and my sister went upstairs to tell her that they were going to take control of the meds from now on, Mum complied with the acceptance of an infant. I stood in the kitchen sobbing; the cancer had taken my mum's reasoning and dignity away, what else could it do?

Getting Mum to Eat

One of the greatest battles we encountered was against Mum's appetite. She just could not eat. I assume it was a combination of two factors: 50% sheer terror and 50% pancreatic cancer. Nurses gave us milkshakes and juices to 'bulk her up', but they just made her retch. I don't think a single meal passed her lips between Christmas Eve and her death. This drove my sister and Dad mad, they wanted Mum to keep her strength up, I did too, but I could clearly see that she was dying and didn't see the point in distressing her (and us) over eating when her entire immune system was attacking itself. The only thing that Mum could manage was whole milk fortified with milk powder, which I mixed up for her with the diligence of a new mother. Several times I caught myself mixing her milk and tasting it, and the irony took my breath away. Mum always drank the milk for me, and she never one complained.

Water retention and constipation are two very common side effects of gastric cancer. Two days before Christmas Mum's belly was swollen to the size of a small space hopper. We called her Macmillan nurse who found her a bed at the hospital to get it drained. More admissions, more agony. The hospital became more and more familiar as time wore on. One night the duty nurse gave my mother a double dose of morphine by accident. When my sister and father visited her the next day she couldn't even lift a cup to her lips...

Morphine O'Clock

Which leads me to question... to dope or not to dope? Answer: DOPE. By this point Mum was on about 30mg of morphine twice a day, with 10mg top-ups every four hours or so. This is A LOT of morphine. It knocked her out, and it was distressing to see, but at least she wasn't in pain. Mum could still sit up and swallow the pills at this point. Later on that too was an impossibility. It made Mum so dopey that she could barely get out of bed to use to toilet, so somebody had to be on hand 24 hours a day to help her get around.

Christmas

We were determined to celebrate Christmas. I hadn't spent a Christmas in Norfolk in three years, so this year was supposed to be extra special, because we were all at home. Mum had bought be a gorgeous cerise duffel coat from M&S online a few weeks earlier, when she was able to concentrate on books and the internet.

My brother made a schedule for cooking the Christmas dinner, my sister made the starter and I made the dessert. The meal was perfect, and Mum got dressed and came downstairs to sit with us while we ate it. She took a bite of every dish, just to taste it. My sister has some lovely photos of our family at this meal. I won't post them here because they're too painful to look at at the moment, but maybe I'll put them on here another day. While my brother was outside dishing up my mum caught my dad's arm and said 'it's nice to give him a chance to shine'. She was still there, my Mum, despite all the morphine. She went up to sleep. I went up to sleep. Christmas was over.

Final Days

I went home to London on 27th December, I didn't want to, but I needed a rest, as I'd been in Norfolk for nearly two weeks. I called Dad three/four times a day. On the 28th Mum started behaving very strangely. She'd gone from comatose to hyperactive overnight. She kept getting out of bed, walking around the room and at one point she flipped the bird at my Dad! She was ranting about her sister Glenys, who died when she was in her early twenties, and very agitated, basically exhibiting every symptom of terminal restlessness. Alarm bells started ringing in my head. I called my Dad and told him I'd be home the next day. I called my Head of Department at work and told her 'Mum is entering her final days now'. I don't know how I managed this, but I think I was in autopilot.

I was up, out and on the train at 9am. I called Dad to tell him, he said 'good', Mum was v quiet now, and mostly unconscious.

I walked into the house at 11am, there was nobody downstairs. I walked upstairs and my Dad was lying on the bed with Mum, who was now hooked up to a catheter. She held out her arms and said 'cuddle, cuddle', so I gave her a huge hug and a kiss.

My dad, my sister, my brother and I all took turns to watch over Mum. Every day brought a new development: catheter, more morphine, less morphine, syringe driver, jaundice. Lots of people wanted to come and see Mum before she died. Her best friend visited twice, and sat by the bed chatting away to Mum. More friends came from her work. Maybe it was too much, but who were we to deny these people their right to say goodbye? Everybody told us how unfair it was that she'd got cancer at such a young age, which infuriated me. I don't think cancer is about fairness or misfortune. It's something that happens to people. End of. I know Mum felt the same way because she told me when she was first diagnosed.

They tell you that you should use a loved ones last few days to tell them all the things you ever wanted to say. What does that mean? I only wanted my Mum to know that I loved her. On the night of the 31st I leaned over Mum, so that my face was close to hers, and told her very softly 'I love you, Mummy'. She opened her eyes, stroked my face and told me 'I love you too, Gem.' These were her last words to me before she died. She fell back into the bed with the effort and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

That night I sat by her bed from 2am - 5am and told her about my hopes and dreams for the future. I thanked her for buying me books as a child. I thanked her for staying home with us when we were little. I played her Classic FM and sang her songs that she used to sing to me as a child to soothe me back to sleep.

My uncle (a GP) and aunt offered to come and spend New Years Day with us, to give us all a break from our 72 hour vigil. We were relieved when they arrived, by this point Mum was on a syringe driver that delivered a constant supply of morphine to her bloodstream, she couldn't swallow pills. Mum's sister arrived from Canada, I was so glad she got to see her before she died. The night before Mum died my brother, sister and I all slept in the same room. I had been on the sofa, but the noise of the activity in the room above was upsetting me and keeping me awake. I could hear that there was some sort of crisis going on with Mum's pain management, but I didn't know what it was. I was exhausted and upset and afraid. I asked myself if Mum would want me up there, seeing her like that. The answer came back immediately; No. I crept up to my brother's room and got in bed with him. In the morning I found out that somebody had had to sit by Mum's bed and hit the 'boost' button on the syringe driver every three minutes or she'd start contorting in agony.

January the 2nd. The syringe driver clearly wasn't working, and the GP prescribed a new dose of morphine, which my uncle and I had to search (what felt like) the entire Fens for. Boots told me to come back in half an hour because the pharmacist was on his lunch break. Between clenched teeth I explained that my mother was dying. We understand that, robot lady said, come back in half an hour. By now I was so angry with my family for making me go with my uncle, because I knew my Mum was going to die that day, and I needed to be there when it happened. But they were right, I knew the roads the best, and I managed to get all the meds and pick up my boyfriend in about an hour flat.

I'd been in the door less than five minutes when my sister ran down the stairs and told my uncle 'Mum's breathing's gone all funny'. This is it, I told myself. She is about to die.

We all went upstairs. Mum's breathing had gone from laboured to rasping. Her eyes were staring up at the ceiling, like she was already dead. She took 3-4 more breaths. I held my father as Mum breathed her last breath. I felt him shaking beneath my arms, his tears falling onto my hands as I gripped him tight. I told Mum 'I love you', but I think she was beyond hearing at that point. She took one last rasping breath, and then... nothing. My uncle ran downstairs to get his bag. He came back up, examined Mum and said 'She's gone'. He and my Dad embraced, both in tears. I made myself look at my Mum's body on the bed. I told myself 'she is dead'. Then I left the room.

The Aftermath

We left Dad with Mum. We all went downstairs. I made tea. Nobody drank it. James hugged me. I called my friends. Dad came down and sat on the sofa looking stunned. We didn't know what to say to each other. My aunt called the nurses, and the duty doctor, to inform them of the death. One of the nurses was Mum's friend from work, we told her she didn't have to come and tend to the body if it was too much. She told us it would be an honour to do that for Mum. Mum's body was still upstairs. I didn't want to see it again. It was a Saturday and it was getting dark. I called the undertakers, and gave them Mum's details.

That night I remembered a book I had seen Mum writing in early in her illness. I found it in Dad's room. It was a journal of the early stages of her illness. I called Dad up and we read it together. It contained her hopes and fears, and messages for all of us. It also gave us very specific instructions for her funeral, written in an increasingly shaky hand. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for her to write those words, but I am so grateful that she did. We gave her exactly what she wanted.

The funeral

You think you've felt pain? Watch your 21 year old brother carry his mother's coffin. That is the very definition of pain right there. It is simply unbearable. My brother was a credit to Mum. He carried her well and he never faltered. One day he will be proud that he was able to do that for her. I had to stay strong, as I had a reading to get through, and I didn't want to be one of those awful quivering wrecks you see at funerals on bad TV shows like Casualty.

The funeral was beautiful, and in the village church, just as Mum requested. When the hearse arrived you couldn't see mum's coffin for all the flowers that people had sent. The 'Ma' wreath that my sister, brother and I bought was in the back window. I hated riding in the limousine, but knew it was a necessary evil to be endured. The vicar was waiting outside for us and told us 'the church is full'. He was right, it was packed. Every single seat was taken, and my uncle and aunt had to sit and watch from the side.

I took my place at the plinth and read Remember Me by Christina Rossetti. It's a positive and practical poem, and I chose it because it is was what I could imagine my Mum choosing. Mum didn't really believe in God, and she knew I was a hardened atheist. It felt like the last gift I could give her, these words.

The burial took place in the little parish cemetery opposite the church. We watched as the bearers lowered her coffin to the ground. It's not her, I thought, it's her body, but it's not her. We looked at the flowers, and retired to the pub for an 80s buffet.

And now...?

I'm writing this on a Monday afternoon. I'm not at work. My GP is concerned that returning too soon could trigger my depression, so has told me not to go back until the middle of next week.

My grandfather (Mum's father) died from pancreatic cancer at age 57. My mum died from it a month short of her 57th birthday. I have been offered 'genetic counselling' by my GP, but what can they do? They can tell me if I carry a gene. Do I want to know this? Right now I'm not sure, so I'll give myself some time to grieve before I decide what to do.

Nothing galvanizes you like watching somebody you love die. I have a whole new perspective on the word 'perspective'. I genuinely don't care about missed buses, or the milk running out. It's nothing. Honestly. Nothing.

Why I have been away

2009-12-22T01:49:00.003Z

There is no delicate way to say this. Mum's got cancer. The bad sort. The kind you can't operate on, or get rid of. In other words, she is dying.

In the space of just two months I have witnessed my mother deteriorate from a vivacious and witty 56 year old woman into a bumbling, shrivelled shell, utterly dependent on morphine. Mum's gone. She's been replaced by a woman I could never have imagined, not even in my most troubling nightmares. The cancer hit her pancreas, and sat there, leaking silently into her liver, we have no idea for how long.

I'm offended by the cruelty of this disease. How dare it take away my beautiful mother's energy, personality and future?

I want to curl up on her bed and weep into her lap, but she barely knows I'm there. Sometimes I sit there, watching her lapsing in and out of consciousness, and I think 'you are dying'. Then I turn around and I say 'oooh, let's get you some clean pyjamas out, shall we?'.

The Hallowcaust

2009-11-01T20:20:00.002Z

*awful wallowy post alert*

Arggggh. I am sooo crap. I was invited to a 'do' with some lovely, lovely, interesting people but I just felt to 'nuuurgh' to go. How long until people's patience wears thin? How long until the 'being eaten by my cat' nightmare becomes a reality?

I know that staying here, gnawing my nails and drowning in a mire of doubt is making things worse, but going out and being socially inept can make it all seem ten times worse. I honestly feel like I have nothing of any worth to say to anybody right now. So that's why this post is going to end rather abruptly.

What's wrong with me.

2009-09-09T21:57:00.004+01:00

The above is a statement, not a question. I know exactly what is wrong with me because I received the notes from my previous psychiatric appointment in the post today. And here it is:

Diagnosis:
Recurrent depressive disorder - currently in remission (ICD10 F33.4)

The notes are pretty bleak.

Miss O'Donnell has a long history of recurrent low mood.
Several times a year she has periods of a few weeks or so where she has moderate depressive symptoms. At this point her sleep, mood, appetite, energy, motivation, concentration and interest in socialising are all affected. She also has clear anhedonia (an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events) at these points.
Ms O'Donnell was a pleasant young Caucasian woman.
Her content was logical and coherent.
She appeared to be euthymic with a bright reative affect.
She was cognitively grossly intact.

And the crunch: "Ms O'Donnell has a long history of periodic recurrent multiple depressive episodes. She has occasional low-grade 'highs' but would by no means qualify for a Bipolar Affective Disorder diagnosis."

So there I have it. In black and white.

As a footnote, I googled ICD10 F33.4 and this is what I found.

F33.4 Recurrent depressive disorder, currently in remission
A. The general criteria for recurrent depressive disorder (F33) have been met in the past.
B. The current state does not meet the criteria for a depressive episode
(F32.-) of any severity, or for any other disorder in F3 (the patient may receive treatment to reduce the risk
of further episodes).

Erk!

Waiting for Rose

2009-09-08T16:59:00.002+01:00

Waitrose is coming to Crouch End. Finally! Somewhere to go and piss our hard-earned cash into a chiming register on racks of lamb and Yeo Valley milk products. Oh, but hang on... we already have an M&S. And a Budgens with an 'Epicurean Deli'. And an 'Artisan Bakery'. And an Italian deli.

There goes the neighbourhood.

Recovery

2009-08-30T22:22:00.004+01:00

Day 8, and I'm back in the game!

Okay, so it took six days to get my body used to the reduction of Venlafaxine but I feel fine now, so am very pleased that I stuck with it through all the unpleasant sweating, shitting and shivering. It has also given me hope that one day I might be able to be free of this drug entirely, and emerge relatively unscathed out of the other side.

Now I'm not naive enough to believe that there is a cure for my... condition (but wouldn't it be wonderful if I could erase it with some sort of Victorian wonder-tonic?!) but I do feel that I have recovered quite well over the last few years. I am certainly better than I was.

Years ago I was so desperate to be better that I made myself sicker. I woke up every day with the dogged optimism of a child on Christmas morning. Oh please, let today be the day I feel better, I said to myself. I don't know what I was expecting, rainbows and fairy dust, perhaps? All I know now if that this unrealistic expectation of my own ability to let my mind heal itself at it's own pace was preventing me from making any progress with the recovery I so craved. There is no sudden cure. There is no quick fix. It's long and it's tough and it gets worse before it gets better. The day I stopped expecting to feel better IMMEDIATELY was the day I started to recover.

The future looms large, promising unknown ups and downs. There's a very good chance I could relapse and become unwell again. I have just had to accept this as fact and try to carve myself a life that can deal with these issues as they occur.

But it is the confidence of a mental health recovery veteran that I can say that I feel better right now than I have in years.

Day 5

2009-08-27T20:20:00.001+01:00

Okay, good news. I slept for a full 7 hours last night and didn't wake up groggy from nightmares about demon children or inescapable cinemas. Nausea is all gone, and seems to have taken my appetite with it. No brain zaps - yet!

*fingers crossed* It is getting better.

Day 4

2009-08-26T14:28:00.002+01:00

Nausea. Nausea. Nausea.

I feel SO sick. I am also having nightmare brain zaps.

Not giving up though, oh no.

Withdrawing

2009-08-25T10:48:00.004+01:00

So I'm on Day 3 of the lowered dose and I'm not dead or wishing I was. However my body is definitely asking me 'what the fuck?' and rebelling in a series of irritating ways. The symptom I wasn't expecting is the itching. Last night I was up until about 3am scratching myself raw, and woke to see several long welts where my nails had raked my skin in my sleep. Otherwise I just feel slightly... menopausal. The slightest physical activity provokes hot flushes, migraine-like headaches and overwhelming spells of lethargy.

I refuse to give in, and am persevering with the reduction with a dogged determination. I just wish I felt a little less... sweaty.

Not so manic now...

2009-08-22T16:48:00.008+01:00

Had a bit of a lightbulb moment this week, it's still sinking in and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I had an appointment with a psychiatrist at St Ann's hospital in Tottenham to discuss some of the side-effects of the medication I have been taking and to review my 'condition'.

Since I was a child I've had some instability with mood, my mother picked that up in the first five years of my life. I once refused to speak for a week because a girl at school had died of cancer, and had to be sent out of the room when the news came on because it would send me into a depression. At school I was lively and misbehaved to the point of being accused of suffering from hyperactivity. When I was good I was very, very good, and when I was bad I was horrid. I could be funny and withdrawn within the space of a few hours. I became used to people claiming jocularly "Oh Gem, you're mad!" And reader, I think I started to believe them. At 19 I was nearly institutionalised for a breakdown during the uni summer hols. At 22 it happened again. And so on and so on to the present day...

It's been five years since I was diagnosed by a stony-faced Victorian psychiatrist as suffering from a 'mood disorder' which, I was later told by my GP who had my notes, was type II bipolar disorder. Okay, I thought, fine, at least it has a name now. I took the pills they prescribed me. I got on with it. But increasingly recently when I sat back and took stock of my life since that diagnosis I realised that I have: learned to drive, held down a job for over 3 years, moved to London, passed a post-graduate teaching course and worked as a teacher in a London secondary school. So, as you can imagine, doubts had begun creeping into my mind as to the legitimacy of this diagnosis. This is not meant in any way to disrespect people who suffer from bipolar disorder and have successful and fulfilling lives, I am sure it IS possible, but since the diagnosis I have not had any episodes of depression or heightened mood that were severe or debilitating enough to affect my career or relationships. I have felt down, and I have felt a bit manic, but I have managed to get a grip on my mood and get myself back out there within a few days. I'm not so sure that if I was suffering with bipolar disorder this would be so easy, or even possible. And I think that sufferers of BPD would agree.

So it was this week that I found myself spending an hour in consultation with the psychiatrist, discussing my adventures with my good friends excitement and depression right back from as early as I can remember. Together we read all the notes from reported counselling and psychiatric diagnostic sessions. And at last I heard somebody utter the words I have been thinking over and over for the last three years: "I don't think you have bipolar disorder at all. A mood disorder, yes. Slight instability, yes. But not bipolar."

I will still need to use antidepressants in the near future, but at a reduced dose to help with the side-effect problem. I have been referred for cognitive behavioural therapy to help me cope with the mood swings. In the future there is a distant possibility that I might be able to come off medication completely. I don't know how I feel about that yet.

The only times I have been off antidepressants in the last ten years is when the b.a.d. things have happened. What if they happen again? What if the life that I have spent so long getting back is pulled away from underneath my feet, thrusting me back, head-first into the seemingly endless pit of misery and despair? I need to move forwards. I can't stay as I am. But I am very, very afraid of going backwards.

I've been off and on about 6 different types of anti-depressants since I was 16, but have been taking 150mg of Effexor (Venlafaxine) for the last five or so years. The side-effects are varied and unpleasant and the drug gets a very bad press on the internet with sites like this. I tend not to diss it too much because I've been relatively happy and sane whilst on it. Tomorrow I will take my first reduced-dose tablet at 75mg. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I'm HOPING that it just makes me feel a bit sick, or fluey. I don't know how I'll cope if it makes me confused or depressed.

Should I be happy? I guess so. I wept for joy on the way home, but that quickly gave way to fear and trepidation at the road ahead. I don't feel funny and I don't feel brave. I feel shit scared and isolated. It's a bit lonely out here, in the non-bipolar world.

Greetings from The Edge

2009-08-16T21:44:00.004+01:00

Har-ro!

I'm currently enjoying a few days in the Fens with my folks. One of the first things I did when I got back was to check my local newspaper, The Fenland Citizen.

What did they expect, giving the ghosts their very own passage, and all?

Stunned by the fact that the paper is 95% free. Who is paying for it, and how?

You can always rely on this paper to provide up-to-the-minute news on the most important stories occurring here below sea-level. My favourite columnist is Ian Watson, a man with a potato face who seems to have his finger on a rather retrospective pulse.

This is one of his columns from February this year. As you can see, he has just discovered The Wonder of the Internet. I love his wide-eyed innocence. It's quite sweet, really.

Nick Ferrari am a dikk

2009-08-14T11:26:00.007+01:00

I can just about stand the fact that Nick Ferrari walks freely upon this earth. Sometimes, if the mood takes me, I can tolerate his show on LBC. However, recently he fucked with MY industry with a show that contained approx 10% fact and 90% unsupported, bigoted views.

This is the show's blog report on the subject that made my blood boil:

"Children for whom English is their first language are now in a minority in Inner London primary schools, putting extra pressure on education budgets. According to the latest government figures for the 13 inner London boroughs, it's risen to 54 per cent of pupils - and almost 80 in Tower Hamlets. Has this presented an issue in your child's school? Susan Gowen - a primary school worker in Putney – told Nick most youngsters learn English very quickly, but problems arise when their parents don't."

*BUZZER* MORON.

Next year, I will teach an extremely bright top set year 11 class ENGLISH, where approx 70% of the kids go home to households that communicate entirely in a second language, and guess what?! They've all got B and above in every coursework essay so far. And, to top that, 6 kids that are on track for an A* speak English as a foreign language. They are funny, bright and confident young people, and I genuinely feel privileged to work with them every day.

Would they have achieved these grades if they had been slung into some Ferrari-endorsed 'Foreigners' class, or worse, school (probably neatly packaged and labelled 'EAL Target Group' or some shit)? No. Absolutely not. We teach them in English. They talk to each other in English. They learn, because they have to. Over 50 languages are spoken by students in our school. So, if we put them all together in classes where they all spoke the same language they would not learn any of the academic, and more important, social skills that help them blossom (hopefully) into useful members of society. And they'd never learn colloquial English, despite having 'English' lessons every day. Thus providing Nick Ferrari with material to be able to conduct yet more phone-ins about 'Immigrants who don't integrate', or some other vaguely disguised racist bullshit.

Many parents don't speak English because they're at home all day or working with family members who speak the same language as them, NOT because they want to separate themselves from their local community. However, they usually bring a translator to parents evenings and meetings with them, so it's actually very rarely a problem at all for us or their kids. Our school also offers cheap evening classes to parents who want to improve their English.

Last year we had a few new EAL female students arrive into Year 10 from Iraq, two preferred to be placed in the EAL induction class and one chose to enter mainstream classes. Guess which student/s has better grades and more friends? When she first entered my class she was silent, but I could see her watching and watching everything that was happening and by the second term she was contributing and completing all her work in every lesson. This particular class only had three students for whom English was their native language. So did I feel 'overworked' from the 'pressure' of working with these kids? Did I buggery! And any teacher that does, in my opinion, has an unrealistic view of teaching in inner city schools today. Bugger off to some rural church school or something, and have it your way.

How can a school become a community if it is segregated on the basis of language? NUR Nick Ferrari, you am a dikk.

P.S. I have excel spreadsheets to back all this up. Yes, SPREADSHEETS!

Sadness be gone!

2009-08-09T19:57:00.002+01:00

We've had a couple of rubbish weeks haven't we? We didn't win the cricket, celebrities keep dying every five minutes and we might all die of swine flu before Christmas.

So I am going to share with you some things that I think are funny. These always make me laugh, even when I am considering my impending death.

"Limpy's got cancer!"

"... King's Lynn"

"Awww, yeah!"

Now you feel better, don't you?

New hair for the holidays!

2009-08-07T23:39:00.003+01:00

I have time to look almost human in the summer holidays:

I only have 3 more weeks to enjoy it before I become a grey-faced harridan again.

*EDIT*
Where has my hair gone?! Answers on a postcard please to 'Where's Gem's Hair?' Competition, PO BOX 63, BBC Pebble Mill, BIRMINGHAM, West Midlands, B5 7QQ.

Got bored at work...

2009-05-19T20:09:00.000+01:00

#poormovieposterquotes

2009-05-18T19:07:00.001+01:00

Repeat after me...

2009-05-18T16:42:00.009+01:00

Seeing the same underground posters every day makes one a little obsessive. Do I need osteo-vitamins? Have I got chlamydia? Am I happy?

One movie poster is 90% about the film 'Role Models' and 10% about the film Frost/Nixon. I think they've definitely got their ratios muddled up there, especially considering the pullout quote about the former says "Like watching a couple of monkeys throwing poo at each other on Youtube". Has anybody here ever Googled 'poo-throwing monkeys' on Youtube? Even if you have, would you be prepared to PAY up to £15 for a dvd of men doing the same thing (metaphorically)?

This one is burned into my retinas at the moment:

IT DOESN'T MAKE ME WANT TO BUY MARMITE CHEESE.

It just makes me think about Marmite Cheese ALL THE TIME.

I will NEVER buy Marmite cheese now, as a result of it's aggressive visual offensive on the way up the escalators in Maida Vale tube station.

I'm thinking of starting a blog with a new stupid underground poster on it every day. But then I'd have to take my camera everywhere with me. Hmmm.

Wonderspaff

2009-05-17T12:04:00.004+01:00

Christ's eyes.

Euroderision

2009-05-17T11:37:00.005+01:00

Last night I rekindled the ancient tradition of celebrating Eurovision with my old uni friends. We do not believe in proper parties, with more than five people, so we watched as a merry trio, filling out scorecards and feasting on onion rings, chips, millionaire shortbread* and cupcakes.

Early on in the night Rob had an excellent idea.

"Zing! Why don't we rename all the songs?"

An excellent idea, which yielded varied results.

SO...

Malta became 'Your Mum'
Lithuania became 'Fisting'
Iceland became 'Cold, Dead Eyes' and 'Record Exec Rape-a-thon'
Estonia became 'Fiddle Me This'
France became 'Milf Noir'
Norway became 'Zac Efron is Safe'

Mead was cracked open...

The Ukraine were ROBBED... and the evening ended with us all yelling Wonderstuff songs in Elin's face and mocking her for buying a ticket to see them next week. We were all secretly pleased that we were too young to remember many of their songs properly.

*Why is it called this? It is inexpensive.

Adric...

2009-05-15T22:03:00.000+01:00

... from Doctor Who was possibly the worst-conceived and most ill-performed character in the history of British Television. And that is all I have to say about that.

"I'm not a racist, but..."

2009-05-14T18:41:00.005+01:00

Sometimes, for fun, I go on Facebook and actively seek and report all racist posts on right-wing discussion groups and forums for fun. I think it's important to know your enemy and, judging by the standard of the posts I have reported, the enemy is ill-informed and illiterate. I'm not naive about the fact that I am actually making very little difference at all, but I do believe that every little helps, and it can't hurt to get a few racists removed from social networking sites every now and then, can it?

The one phrase that predominates on these boards is the title of this post. Surely it's a known cliche by now? I'd have to actually join these groups to challenge these people, but I do like to have imaginary conversations with them in my head.

I'm not a racist but...

No... stop right there. The fact that you have to prefix that sentence with that statement means that you ARE about to say something dubious about people from a different culture to your own.

No, I'm not. I'm not a racist. But...

NO. You ARE a racist, actually. Why else would you feel the need to add that disclaimer before expressing your view?

You won't let me finish. Stop taking away my right to free speech!

Okay. Go on then. Show me how you're NOT a racist.

I'm not a racist, but I would be nervous getting on a tube train with a man holding a copy of the Qur'an.

See? I know I can't really win against these folks. But I do try.

Hold your breath...

2009-05-14T17:49:00.004+01:00

... the charger and battery for my new camera have arrived! Charging is taking place in my bedroom as I type. When the light goes GREEN I will immediately dash around my flat taking pictures of all sorts of things and posting them here.

Hello! Ok! Take a Break!

2009-05-12T17:23:00.010+01:00

I've never really mentioned this on here before, because it's a bit embarrassing and makes me sound like an absolute dick. Oh fuck it. I'll just come out and say it. I'm Gemma and I was a celeb-a-holic. It's true, I was actually addicted to fame. My psychiatrist told me! From the age of 13-24 I was utterly obsessed with all celebrities. There are SO many reasons why I ended up following Jason Donovan down a dirty corridor at midnight in Norwich, and why I pursued Ainsley Harriot into a lift in Waterstones bookshop, and why I sat outside King's Lynn Corn Exchange until 3am on a weeknight, warming my hands on the exhaust fumes of the Mansun tour bus. Boredom is the fundamental and most obvious excuse for these escapades. Factor in the knowledge that I was a tool when I was younger; really arrogant and not entirely sane. I was also on and off more psychiatric medication than I can possibly care to recall here. I did not want to be living my life, I wanted to mould myself a false life in the similar way that Katie Price created the monster that is (or was) Jordan.

I held an unshakable and sustained belief that I was destined to live among the bold and the beautiful. This was fuelled by two overestimates on my part:

1. That I would become a celebrity myself, despite having no performing talent whatsoever
2. That if the above didn't work out one would fall in love with me and take me with them on their glamourous journey through celebdom

Yeah, like I said, dick. I would have been happy even with C-list ex-Hollyoaks/Living TV presenter fame. So long as it meant I could go to parties and occasionally feature in the glossies. It didn't help that I grew up in the least glitzy place imaginable; West Norfolk isn't particularly renowned for it's famous inhabitants. We've only got Stephen Fry, who is wonderful, but not very cool when you aspire to grace the pages of Heat magazine, getting drunk in a hot tub with several naked members of NSync.

I was totally obsessed with meeting celebs, any celebs. Much of my university experience was wasted calculating exactly what it would take to rub shoulders with C-listers, and then executing these plans, with varied outcomes. I did actually meet quite a few famous people. But many were douchebags. Some were hilarious. Most were disappointingly normal. And the irony is that even though I revered these people I never felt enriched or fulfilled as a result of meeting them, just anxious and hungry for the next experience to take place. My most active years were 1999-2003, naturally, I had the most time on my hands then, and because this was pre-diagnosis, I was frequently off meds and operating on psychotic autopilot. They were the best of times and the worst of times.

One thing I wasn't, however, was a stalker. I had absolutely no interest in finding out where these poor souls lived, or what their phone numbers were. I certainly didn't want to have any dealings with their families, friends or everyday activities. These things would have made an awfully unsightly tear in the glossy exterior of their media lives (that I devoured so fervently). I wanted them to be idols; gods and goddesses of tabloid gossip pages to venerate above all others. And for a time, some of them were.

Then I had a grand old breakdown at 24(ish) and everything just seemed to fizzle out. I started worrying about getting through the day, instead of getting off with Robbie Williams. I see quite a lot of moderately famous people every day now, because a few live on my road, and in my area of London. I don't report them to my friends unless they're funny and/or remarkable. Now I'm just a boring, one-dimensional husk of a human being, living a life of banal everyday experiences, carting around fuzzy memories tinted with sadness and regret at the stupid life I never had. Nah. Not really. I'm absolutely fine, and definitely more content.

*Right, there are now THREE adverts on this blog and I still have no idea how they got here or how to turn them off. The one of the kid with the cleft palate is particularly stubborn.

**She's gone! Can she read?

Nonsense? No. Adsense.

2009-05-11T21:27:00.003+01:00

I honestly do not remember adding 'Adsense' to this blog at any time. It's possible I did it whilst hypomanic or smacked off my face on Valium in the recent past, though I usually ban myself from using my laptop when I am either of those things. It's very ugly, isn't it? And a little presumptious. Also, how do they decide what sorts of ads to put there?

However, apparently I've 'earned' 48p from it so far, so that's one unwanted visitor that's sticking around I'm afraid. The only question that remains is how do I get my 48p? Postal order?

P.S. HELLO 128 PEOPLE THAT READ MY BLOG YESTERDAY! Where have you been all my life?

Um

2009-05-10T23:58:00.002+01:00

How did these adverts get on my blog? And how do I get them off? Why is there one up there *points up* ???

Meejah types

2009-05-10T00:19:00.002+01:00

Very occasionally James gets invited to comedy gigs and parties. Mostly we don't go. Usually I avoid these sorts of occasionas as much as possible, the social anxiety at having to make small talk with people who are mostly a) twats and b) on cocaine makes my hands feel like they are spraying sweat out of every pore. I subsequently spend the rest of the evening wishing I was at home with the cat on my lap drinking Twinings and watching Britain's Next Top Model. But a few weeks ago we got a shiny black envelope containing a VIP invitation to a gig at the O2 arena, and we just couldn't resist it's glossy embossed loveliness.

First off I would like to point out that three hours before setting out for the venue I knew it was a mistake. Good, we have that on the record. When we got to the venue the backstage area had the vibe of a slightly upmarket doctor's waiting room, albeit with a scattering of D-list celebs. Greg Rusedski was there, and that guy Marc Whatsisname who made puppy-eyes at Cerys Matthews on 'I'm a Celeb...' They were okay. I didn't mind them. The people I did mind were the nobodies. The people who work for the agencies, and the newspapers, and the promotors. Seriously, what is wrong with them? I mean, what's the deal here? Is this some sort of joke? How can they be so clueless and survive in a city like London?

Question 1
Why do they talk so loudly? Have their ears become defective from listening to so much bullshit over the years that they have to shout into each other's faces like market traders to make themselves heard?

Question 2
Do they live in a bubble? Or a house like in The Apprentice, or Big Brother, where they all sit around talking shit to each other all day and nodding sagely thinking it's completely reasonable and normal? Check out this overheard conversation:

Salon Selectives Girl 1: 'Who's that guy?' (points to man her mate has just been chatting to)
Salon Selectives Girl 2: 'Oh, he's from Uxbridge. Fwah Fwah Fwah!'
Salon Selectives Girl 1: (bemused) 'What?'
Salon Selectives Girl 2: 'It's hee-larious. I asked him where he was from. You know, like, where are you from? And he misunderstood and said Uxbridge'
Salon Selectives Girl 1: 'Ha ha *snort* Uxbridge. Ha ha *snort*

She asked the man where he was FROM? Geddit? Not from.

Nah. I don't get it.

Oh hang on...

Ah yes. I see what is happening here.

Do I?

God. I am so glad I'm a teacher.

Yes, I know they're networking and making valuable contacts and all that other stuff that helps to put crap on my television and in my glossy magazines, but why aren't any of them normal?

Actually, the man actually answered her question more accurately than she'd wished. How can she take umbridge with that? Women like them make me want to rip out their extensions and curl them round their Hermes-scarf-adorned necks.

Trifle

2009-05-04T00:11:00.002+01:00

Just back from Norfolk, stuffed full of mum's white chocolate and raspberry trifle. If God was real he would eat this every day. She uses Swiss roll (SWISS ROLL!) instead of trifle sponge and vodka instead of sherry. AND, as if that weren't enough, she melts white chocolate INTO the custard. I wish I could have taken a photo of its swirly, custardy goodness.

So today I spent £40 on this digital camera. It has over 8 megapixels, which I am told is good. I don't take many photos, as I'm sure you can tell. Any that I do take are usually with my shitty old mobile and come out all grainy and rubbish.

The second the new one arrives I'm going to take a photo of my cat looking mischievous and post it up here.

Easy Street?

2009-04-18T12:08:00.003+01:00

A new term begins on Monday, so I am enjoying the remaining days of freedom in the (semi) sunshine doing nothing at all.

One more term until the summer holidays. In theory this should be the easiest term of the bunch; it's the shortest term (five weeks until Half Term, woo!), and at some point my Year 11s will slouch off into the ether, only to return to sit their GCSE exams, leaving me with four free hours a week in my timetable for drinking te... sorry, MARKING DILIGENTLY.

However, it is also the term where the kids get a bit hyper, and things can happen in schools. Things such as abnormally hard paper missiles being thrown across the classroom, and soaring errant flapjacks breaking bus windows.

I have my last observation by the borough on Thursday. If I pass that, and the next half term then I am not only a fully qualified teacher, I will also have successfully passed my induction year. It's a little scary to think that I was typing depressing missives into this very blog three years ago, with little hope of things improving. Now I am a 'professional'. Me! Weird.

Apples and Pears

2009-04-17T20:53:00.003+01:00

I walked from Oxford Street to London Bridge today. So yeah, er, yay for me.

I also had to brave the Apple store, which can age you 10 years. The Apple store is like a Hoxton installation; cavernous, brilliant white and choc-full of every kind of wanker imaginable. The stairs are made of glass, which means that you can't place your feet properly and have to hold onto the hand-rail like a decrepit pensioner.

The charger on my aged Mac was faulty, and the over-heating had made my laptop shut itself down and go into some sort of laptop coma...

...but the little man with the 'Apple Genius' t-shirt knew how to make it not in a coma anymore. He whisked it out back, leaving me squirming awkwardly at the counter surrounded by angry and frustrated Apple owners, only to return a short while later, cradling my newly resuscitated, geriatric iBook in his feeble, geeky arms.

Everyone else at the 'Genius Bar' had their laptops in special swanky cases, so the sight of mine wrapped (lovingly) in a tatty old Primark tea-towel with Santa on it, and wrapped again (lovingly) in a Budgens bag to keep the rain off must have elicited thoughts such as:

'No wonder hers is fucked'

'Fucking kook'

My enthusiastic response of "IT'S ALIVE!" probably confirmed both of those musings. It's okay though, if I get my way I am never going into that place again. Next time I will bin the laptop and leave the 'Geniuses' to work their magic on somebody else machine.

Gapmark

2009-02-20T16:52:00.012Z

Some middle class kids spend their gap years learning to cope without Sainsbury's and Urban Outfitters amid the impoverished and diseased in places like Ethiopia and Cambodia. This, to me, is a waste of time. I suggest they spend the year working in their local (Gap? No, that would be too obvious) Primark. Not only will they earn money, they will also encounter pretty much the same conditions as they would in these less developed countries.

I am a regular visitor to Primark's flagship store at Marble Arch. The conditions I encounter there are akin to anything you would find on a 'no frills' holidaying experience. Let me count the ways:

Disease - A few months ago I happened to pass a mother in the Lingerie section holding a woven basket out in front of her son while he spewed chunks of McDonalds into it. The vomit oozed through the mesh and spilled onto the floor. This happened while her other FOUR children swung like apes from the shop fittings and ran around with bras on their heads.

Dictatorship - I stopped for a short while in the quieter 'Homeware' section of the store today to review the contents of my shopping basket. I was immediately collared by a bulky store assistant and told that I was not allowed to 'review my purchases in the store' and could only go through the contents of my basket in the designated seating area on the right. I searched the whole floor. There was no designated seating area. Was she messing with my mind or my freedom?

Poor Hygiene - In December I witnessed a woman changing her child's nappy in the store. Not such a problem, nappies need to be changed, I GET that. But she had obviously just stopped mid-purchase and changed it where she stood, which just HAPPENED to be slap bang in the middle of the walkway from Knitwear to Dresses. This forced customers to dance a figure-8 around her with their shopping, the reek of green baby shit stuck firmly in their nostrils for the rest of their shopping experience.

Violence - I once saw a woman twat another woman full on in the face for taking the only size 16-18 swirly tunic on the rack. Do I really need to say more?

Intimidation - You are only allowed to hover in front of a rack or item for a MAXIMUM of 10 seconds. If you overstay your welcome you will be tutted at, abused or even pushed out of the way so that another customer can briefly appraise and seize the vast amounts of STUFF that just cry out to be bought.

Over-crowding - At 9am on a weekday you will not need to worry about this problem. But I imagine that even Bombay has it's quiet times. From 10 until closing expect vast amounts of TRAFFIC. Don't even bother trying to cover your mouth with your hand when you sneeze, you won't be able to raise your elbow. Just let the droplets settle on a nearby garment, which already harbours the germs of the 8 MILLION or so people that file past the racks every 5 MINUTES. I suggest store bosses take inspiration from China and implement a one-child policy to keep the population down. In fact, I think they should do that for all shops. And cafes. And cinemas. Especially cinemas.

Poverty - "Toe protectors for 68p? What are they exactly? FUCK IT, I'LL HAVE THEM ANYWAY!" What can I say? Cheap produces attracts people with little or no money. I reckon you could find some of the UK's poorest people in Primark at any one time. I have even seen homeless people in there buying blankets for £2.

So you say you want to experience 'realness' and really 'get your hands dirty'? Well I say don't bother flying to Bangalore, just get yourself down to your nearest Primark and spend a few hours among the old and the pitiful.

Growing up

2009-02-15T19:18:00.002Z

Sitting in my parent's front room at 11am this morning, eating chocolate croissants (dropping flakes everywhere and making an almighty mess) and watching Film 2009 while wearing a white head sweat band a la Bjorn Borg I was struck by an epiphany: I am not very grown up.

Being grown up is getting up and having something to do, every day. Whether that's paying your mortgage or wiping your kid's backside. It's not responsibility, I am reasonably responsible. It's having a purpose. I have spent many idle days content with not pursuing any kind of purpose. In fact, I love it.

I used to be petrified of growing up, to the point where it kept me awake at night, but a close friend in her late 30s put my mind at rest by saying "Gemma, the secret is, you never grow up. I haven't."

I still dance around in my front room when nobody else is there. I also eat Party Rings and watch cartoons in the school holidays.

Photographic evidence of sweat band wearage is here.

Lush.

Hit me with your bloggy stick!

2009-02-12T14:29:00.001Z

This blog is getting about three times as many hits as it did last month. Who are you? What are you doing here?
Write me a comment and say 'hello'.

Guilt

2009-02-11T22:28:00.006Z

11 years of 'certified' mental illness are bound to have produced some emotional baggage. Mine is guilt.

I've racked up £18,000 of debt. I've let my family and friends down countless times on countless occasions because I've been too unwell to see things through. On more than one occasion my mother has seen me collapsed into a heap on my bedroom floor, sobbing into my rug because I'm too afraid to leave the house. I've been out of work for periods of up to 12 months. I've ignored people who love me because I'm so afraid of hurting them. These are facts. I couldn't help many of them at the time, I know that, but I still carry the guilt.

My guilt is large, angular and blue/black - the sort of package that's really difficult to carry around and makes your hands ache with the effort. I take this with me everywhere I go. It grows and diminishes according to my mood. When I'm really down the guilt becomes a room, and it can take me days of scrambling around inside my own head to find the door.

It can dominate my life. My new counsellor is working at trying to get me to view things at 'face value'. I tend to attach my guilt to other people, thinking that they're punishing me for things I did (or failed to do) in my past. In the session I struggled to work out exactly what she was on about, I thought she was being extraordinarily harsh and judgemental. However, after some pondering what I think she wants me to do is to try not to attach meaning to innocent gestures that I might be interpreting incorrectly anyway. Other people are not punishing me. I am punishing myself by projecting these feelings of inadequacy and failure onto them.

At the moment I'm signed off work sick with a sinus infection. I haven't left the house (except to go to the docs) in 4 days. The doctor told me to stay at home. That, under normal circumstances, should be enough to allow me to stay at home and recover in peace. But I am spending an inordinate amount of time racked with guilt over something I have no control over - thinking that my entire department are cursing me for dropping them in it. They're not. I am cursing myself. See? I can be rational, yet irrational at the same time. A psychiatrist's nightmare.

I'm not quite sure how this all ends really. Life will always throw curveballs and catch me off-guard. I'm going to get ill again in the future, at some point, and shit will no doubt hit the fan in a variety of other ways. What I would love to stop doing is blaming myself for these unseen problems when they do occur. Or perhaps just blame myself a little less.

More pondering is needed, I guess...

Bleakness

2009-02-11T09:20:00.002Z

Depression/sinus infection - is there any difference?

One has agitated the other and the two have slowly conquered both body and mind. Face feels like a war zone. Brain feels significantly worse. Hauling myself to doctors once more for a sick note, as the meds she has given me have rendered me house-bound.

Everything is so overwhelmingly difficult, that's not self-pity - it's simple fact. It took me 25 minutes to wash my face and drag a t-shirt and jeans on this morning.

I need so much. I need a cup of tea. I need to wash up. I need to do some laundry.

House resembles student digs circa 2002/3.

Friday cannot come soon enough. My lungs need Norfolk air, Home air, to feel well again. I'll suck it up into my wheezy bellows and exhale with a long 'ahhhh'.

arrggggh

2009-02-08T11:39:00.002Z

I would love to think of some witty, but what I really want to type here is 'ARGGGGH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! THIS IS SO DEPRESSING!'

I've had a migraine since Friday. I have earache. And shoulder ache. It's all because of a wisdom tooth that won't fecking emerge!

I'm not going to school tomorrow. I am going to the dentists and refusing to leave until I am seen.

Just get it out of me!

Twittering

2009-02-06T22:47:00.001Z

I refuse to call it 'tweeting'.

I have added a Twitter widget to this blog, so now you can see my hourly movements. I'm sure you'll be on the edge of your seats waiting to find out what I ate for breakfast, or what pants I have decided to wear.

Enjoy!

DEATH!

2009-02-06T17:07:00.002Z

I live at the foot of a very steep hill. This is the view from the top of it. Yes, that is the gherkin and the Emirates stadium. Well-spotted.

Normally this hill is nothing but a slight annoyance when carrying heavy bags* of shopping. But today it was the setting for my morning dalliance with death!

A sudden and heavy flurry of snow occurred as I was wending my weary way (my first mistake)to the bus stop. I got on my usual double-decker bus (my second mistake) and suddenly realised that the route up the hill was, essentially, a skating rink covered in a downy-white film of snow. We got about two thirds of the way up. The bus started making funny grinding noises. Passengers began expressing concern. Then we started sliding BACKWARDS down the hill. I sobbed silently into my scarf - hoping that nobody would see me. After a few minutes of sliding and accelerating the bus driver managed to pull over and off-loaded us all before turning off the lights and calling in that he was 'stuck'. A bus on the other side of the hill, coming in the opposite direction, had done the same.

I called the Headteacher and related the incident to him, and his response was simply 'go home'. Now, I'm a good girl who always does as she's told, so I stomped back down the hill. When I got home I resembled a snow-covered yeti.

Death was, perhaps, a long way off. But I was genuinely afraid this morning. Luckily I have had a whole day off work to get over it, eating buns from Sainsbury's.

*I keep making really weird typos like 'backs' instead of 'bags', perhaps I am going the way of Terry Pratchett, sans rubbish books

25 things about me

2009-02-05T17:53:00.002Z

1. I once wrote a letter to Jim'll Fix It, asking to meet the entire cast of Baywatch (I was 8).
2. The idea of terrapins existing makes me feel sick.
3. My favourite cafe is Hot Pepper Jelly in Crouch End, I favour the waffles with banana and bacon.
4. I am, despite often seeming otherwise, quite a solitary person.
5. When I was 17 I once sat outside the King's Lynn Corn Exchange for 5 hours in the middle of a freezing cold winter night, waiting for Mansun to come out, warming myself on the exhaust fumes from their tour bus. It took me 2 days to thaw out.
6. The person I can't stand the thought of anything happening to is my brother. I would crumble.
7. I listen to Prince, on average, every 3 days.
8. I harbour secret desires to become a pastry chef.
9. Dogs love me.
10. And small children.
11. I am embarrassed by both of the above.
12. I hate being marginalised more than anything.
13. I can't stand Vernon Kay. Or Peter Kay.
14. I hate sleeping in strange beds.
15. I once spent £500 in one go in Topshop.
16. Nobody has ever proposed to me.
17. My sister and I were encouraged to refer to our genitalia as a 'doody' when we were small children.
18. Christmas always makes me really depressed.
19. I have a Moomin themed bathroom, with a Moomin soap dish, a Moomin toothbrush holder, a Moomin hand towel and Moomin pictures.
20. I smoked for about 10 years, until I gave up two years ago. I never told my parents.
21. I had 9 piercings at one point. I got bored and took them all out. Now I only have one.
22. I thought Heath Ledger's Joker was sexy.
23. I use certain songs/tv shows/films as benchmarks when assessing potential suitors, but I never reveal what they are.
24. I sometimes stop and stand in the street, looking up at the London sky and feeling grateful for being alive.
25. I am petrified of ketchup.

freedom

2009-02-03T15:32:00.003Z

So this week has already yielded two unexpected days off work, and as I spent much of yesterday planning lessons and trying to reacquaint myself with poetry that I studied 10 years ago I decided to give myself a break from all that and make the most of these precious free hours.

So I:

went back to bed at 9 and slept until 12.30,
caught the bus the quarter mile to Crouch End, and...
ate mushrooms and scrambled eggs in a cafe whilst finishing Brideshead Revisited.

Walking home was bordering on treacherous, and I cursed the slush as I snaked my way back on the dried out patches. Now I am home, on my favourite armchair and refusing to move. I have purchased the necessary ingredients for fairy buns, but have no inclination to assemble them.

Almost looking forward to work tomorrow. It'll be a nice short week.

* this blog does not contain the word s**w at all, unlike every other feckin blog written by me and others in the past week

rule breakage

2009-02-03T07:43:00.002Z

I went out for breakfast again. Earlier this time. But it was a Snow Day and at that time I'd usually be trying to drum up some enthusiasm for literature in a bunch of apathetic year 11s. I was therefore elated to be elsewhere.

School closed again today. Shame.:-/

facelift

2009-02-01T22:04:00.005Z

I was bored of pink. I'm into blue at the moment.

*snow has started again. SQUEEEEEE!

snow and curtain-twitching

2009-02-01T21:41:00.007Z

I've been keeping indoors today, like a pensioner, avoiding the cold. I'm praying to all that is unholy for the snow to become relentless overnight and render my school closed tomorrow. I've been sitting by the window willing the flakes to fall bigger, harder and faster. Official school policy on cold weather states that "If there is snow on the ground then please do not send your child to school as we will be closed."

What a fantastic policy!

My house is at the centre of a t-junction, and is therefore excellent for spying on people. I often see Bernard Butler and Stuart from Queer As Folk wandering down the hill in my direction, only to cruelly turn and walk towards the shop. Bloody teases. This is the view as I look out of my front room.

We have some fantastic neighbours who are very like the Klopecks from The Burbs. They are three men: one large, bearded fat man, one wirey, thin hunchback, and a strange guy with a studded leather jacket and a thin, black combover that looks a little like Professor Snape from Harry Potter. They only emerge at night and then it is to stand outside their house arguing with each other or playing with their homemade remote control car. Often they have ridiculous mini-dramas over tiny little things which always culminate in the greasy Snape man stomping off in the direction of the offy. I have no idea how these three characters came to live together in the suburban paradise that is Crouch End. Like finds like, I guess.

Their house is in the middle. The paintwork is less white than the surrounding houses.

There may be bodies in the boot of that car. I can't be 100% sure. In the summer holidays I am going to dig in their back garden, break into their basement, and crank up their Victorian furnace before exploding half the street. You're welcome to come along, order pizza and enjoy the ride.

wastage

2009-01-31T19:39:00.004Z

Another wasted day. I spent it sleeping, drowsing and occasionally reading. I am insanely jealous of people who manage to cram their days full of activity, ceaselessly accomplishing from morning until night, before hitting the pillow at a reasonable hour and sleeping peacefully, only to start all over again the next day. Do these people really exist? Surely they do. That's how gyms and rubbish dumps and garden centres stay in business. Is this the model of a normal, functioning adult? If so, I am doomed.

Today I was roused by the sound of the doorbell ringing (three times!) and was forced to stumble downstairs in my mis-matched pyjamas to find out what the hell all the din was about. PJ Harvey tickets, as it turns out. But Jesus, the man made a meal out of handing them over. First there was name confirmation, then there was signage, then he fumbled around with the little silver sticker before rifling through a pile of other junk to look for more letters. In the meantime I was exposed to freezing cold wind blowing an icy gale through my hallway and right down my (bordering on indecent, I later realised) cleavage. I stomped back upstairs, treading on the cat, and back into bed only to be roused again by my sister inviting me to breakfast. Breakfast? People who go out for breakfast are weird. It is much better to have Shreddies or porridge in the comfort of your own home. Then you can hate the world contentedly and nobody is any the wiser. However, there are occasions when it is necessary to show your face to others at breakfast time and then you should simply claim to have had a bad night in defense of your odd behaviour. This is not how I imagine normal, functioning adults to behave. I imagine them to leap out of bed, salute the sun, do thirty-or-so sit-ups whilst drinking a cup of freshly brewed fairtrade coffee, then bounce out of the door to attend a basket weaving class (or similar).

In the 11 hours that I have been awake today I have: read three chapters of Brideshead Revisited, drunk 3 mugs of tea and half-heartedly pushed the hoover around the front room. There is nothing else. I lie. I also ate 3 M&S cookie dunkers and fed the cat. I don't like Homebase, I don't want to learn Indian Head Massage and I can't afford to have my hair done. Is this all there is?

Debt

2009-01-30T18:35:00.002Z

Today is payday. Payday frightens me. It is the day when the most money ever goes into my account, only to shoot straight back out again within minutes.

When I was hypomanic I used to fritter my money away on all manner of useless things; I once bought two umbrellas in one go. At university, I spent about 1/2 of my loan on £50 face creams and jeans that I only wore once. When I left and got a job I thought it just meant that I had more to spend. My bank account and credit limit(s) were never-ending fountains of cash, gushing forth pounds to feed my insatiable hunger for ITEMS. I had at least 4 wardrobe's worth of clothes. I also had 40 handbags. And about 30 pairs of shoes. Products were my smack and I gobbled them like Ms Pacman, blissfully unaware of the creepy debt ghosts waiting to ambush me as I rounded a corner.

One day I tried to take money out to pay for a prescription and the magic money machine ate my card. I staggered home and worked out that I was at least £18,000 in debt. Mentally stable, but deeply, heavily and scarily in debt.

So now payday for me is bitter-sweet. After paying my rent and my monthly transfer into my debt management plan I am left with very little to play with. If I feel anything remotely approaching crazy I have to lock myself indoors, or dole myself a tenner and go to Primark. And my face creams only cost £3 nowadays.

I'll throw you in the Timelash!

2009-01-22T20:26:00.005Z

Boredom makes one do funny things, like have photos taken of oneself with the worst Doctor Who story ever.

And then forget how to turn the image round using one's Mac.

Who are...

2009-01-19T20:00:00.002Z

... the 7 people that viewed my blog today? Come on - own up!

gadzooks

2009-01-19T19:56:00.004Z

I'm still reeling from innocently browsing the Guardian TV listings and seeing this:

You know reality tv has gone well and truly out of control when Kerry Katona's placenta gets its own fucking fly-on-the-wall show.

Comedy Drug Hell

2009-01-15T19:28:00.003Z

Think of a comedy name for a mental illness drug. Go on. Spazpills, perhaps? Loopytabs? Tardcaps?

One of the above three is the actual new name for my regular antidepressant drug. Now I am going to go and shoot myself. Goodnight.

Stupid teeth

2008-12-23T22:42:00.002Z

So it turns out that it is not a recurrent infection causing intermittent pain in my left ear but a dodgy wisdom tooth. I was very disappointed when the doctor examined my ear and declared it perfect; I was predicting that she'd see raggedy, fleshy mess and fall to the floor in a deep faint. But no, I simply have to go to my dentist and get it X-rayed in the new year. How boring. However, I quite like the idea that my body has decided that I am now wise enough to sprout a new tooth. Must be all the essay writing I did last year.

As usual, I will spend the first week of my fortnight holiday being ill. I have had an upset stomach since yesterday. Luckily I've just been sitting at home drinking Alka Seltzer and watching Christmas specials of various sitcoms, so I don't need to be particularly fit.

Oh yes, and James and I spent £100 in Sainsburys today, but half of it doesn't count because it was alcohol. Merry Christmas.

How to lose a day in one day

2008-12-22T22:05:00.003Z

8am. Wake up. Have wee. Go back to bed.
12pm. Wake up. Run bath. Wash up. Go to bakers and buy lunch.
2.30pm. Watch trashy tv. Feel tired. Go to bed.
7pm. Wake up. Feel awful. Boil eggs. Eat eggs. Clean out rabbit.
11pm. Go to bed.

I think I might have quite a bad ear infection. I felt a bit ropey all weekend and today has been a complete washout. The doctor will make it all better tomorrow, hopefully.

Do Gumtree do property listings for Cornwall? I'm thinking somewhere rocky, with a sea view.

2008-12-19T19:56:00.003Z

Oh God, I find this whole Christmas malarky so awkward. I go to parties and try to pretend that I am not about to pass out from the effort of masking my panic. I fear the simple hug or handshake, in case well-meaning friends discover that I am actually a quivering, sweating mass. I field perfectly innocent questions from friends about my alcohol-free drinks, turn them inwards and feel like a leper. Then I run away, hide in my lounge and drink a cup of tea, breathing a deep sigh of relief that it is all over. How can you let friends know that it is not them that freaks you out, but the experience of having to converse and appear confident in front of more than 20 people without looking like a mentalist?

The whole experience of receiving gifts embarrasses me beyond belief. Example: I won a tin of Roses at the school Christmas dinner on Wednesday. I was delighted and grateful. What a shame I was so petrified that I shuffled up to receive my gift like a sulky teenager. I was afraid of being looked at. I was sharing centre stage with two elves and a Santa so, with hindsight, I can see the focus would have been elsewhere. I just wanted to disappear. Schoolchildren are not a problem; they look at me all day long and I don't care. Fellow adults, however and increasingly, terrify me.

I have noticed that, with age, I am actually becoming LESS outgoing. I am certain it's supposed to be the other way round. Perhaps it's because I've gained weight in the last 3 years, I don't bother getting dressed up anymore because I don't feel like I could look good in anything except jeans and a t-shirt. Don't get me wrong, I have always worn jeans and t-shirts, but I would occasionally mix it up and wear a skirt and some fishnets. I used to spend 10 minutes a day applying liquid eyeliner, and now I'm lucky if I remember to run a brush through my hair. Part of the reason is tiredness; I'm doing quite well in my NQT year but I'm wearing myself out worrying about messing it all up. I am so exhausted at 3.10pm that I am only fit for napping on the train home and sitting in my lounge staring at Living tv, absentmindedly stroking my cat. The spunk has gone. I don't feel interesting anymore. By the time I get to thirty I will probably be living in a cave somewhere off Lands End, and will have named all the seagulls within a 3 miles radius.

Some of these issues are perennial, but mainly they tend to come to the fore at Christmas. More people commit suicide at this time of year than any other, and while I have no plans whatsoever to shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon, I can understand why. The pressure is intense. Especially if you already have a slight predisposition towards depression. That baby Jesus has a lot to answer for. Little fucker.

And the worst part of this Christmas nightmare? I know that it is all my own doing. If I weren't so bloody inept at being sociable I wouldn't make mountains out of molehills. Molehills seem like a cosy refuge right now. Mmm, molehills.

Card dilemma?

2008-12-12T22:37:00.003Z

How do you judge when you've become acquainted enough with a person to send them a Christmas card? I have about 70 Christmas cards. I have made two lists; one where I just send cards to my close friends, family and my department at work, and another, extended, list that includes most people that I have come into contact with in the last 12 months.

If I send the first list out I'll feel mean, but if I send out the second list I might look a bit desperate and mental.

What should I do?

My cat is obsessed with the Christmas tree. We haven't decorated it yet, because we're trying to acclimatise him to it gently, but he keeps chewing the fake needles and trying to clamber up the wire branches. I am definitely going to come home from work and find it sideways on the floor, aren't I?

Introducing: My Dreaded Year 9s!

2008-11-03T20:10:00.002Z

Today was the first day where I was able to take stock of how far I've come with my unruly, disruptive and, frankly, insane Year 9s since Sept.

Weeks 1-3: Chaos. It took 15 minutes for them to quieten down sufficiently for me to give instructions, even then nobody listened. I was issuing detentions and sending notes home almost every day.

Week 9: After 2 minutes standing in front of the class silently with my arms folded across my chest, staring wildly and malevolently the class are, finally, silent. I call this technique 'The Pirate Stare', I imagine that I am about to make them walk the plank. If they disrupt this quiet again I just say, very softly, 'that's fine, I'll just come and fetch you at the end of the day to make the time up, you know I'll do it'.

And believe me, they know. I have pursued them relentlessly, like a hound on a scent, since September. With 21 kids out of 30 on the school's special needs register (mostly for behavioural difficulties) I have to be on my toes and work them like a drill sergeant.

Drizzle, dark evenings and delays

2008-11-03T17:35:00.002Z

There were a few pleasant ripples in what was otherwise a washout of a day today. The journey to school was HORRIFIC, and I was forced to ride 4 separate Underground lines because of a 'person under a train'. Why would a person choose such an inconvenient time as rush hour to throw themselves under a train at one of London's busiest stations (Oxford Circus)? Actually, now I think about it, why wouldn't they? I have felt dangerously close to suicide several times on the way to work. Maybe one day I will actually do it and manage to piss off a few hundred bustling commuters in the process. Death and major annoyance; the phrase 'two birds with one stone' comes to mind...

The children were particularly exuberant after their half term break, and consequently more difficult to control than usual. To try and divert myself from giving up and sitting on the floor in protest at their behaviour I have begun mentally compiling a sort-of dictionary of all the terms they use in their silly W9 patois. I will share a few with you now:
Jokes: Funny. As in 'Remember when Abdul and Ryan had that fight? That was jokes!'
Butters: Ugly. As in 'Miss, so basically what you're saying is that Richard III was butters, right?'
Swag: Unusual. Quirky. As in 'Miss you're looking a bit swag today'. I was wearing bright pink shoes, a bright green cardigan and a yellow top. I deserved it.

Still haven't got to Westfield. I'm showing unusual restraint. However, I did find out that many of my students are now already hanging about there and referring to it as their 'yard' so it's probably wise not to go after all.

* My cat has an incredibly annoying habit of nuzzling underneath my hand and forcing me to stroke him while I type. If I refuse to cooperate he shoves his huge boy-cat face in front of the screen. He's doing it now. I feel cruel shooing him away. That's actually bollocks. I don't give a fuck. I just wanted you to think that I am kind to animals.

ValiFUN

2008-11-02T20:32:00.003Z

I had 6 diazepam tablets left over from my holiday (I take them to alleviate plane-stress). A couple of hours ago I was feeling a little anxious about returning to school and resuming my hectic working life, so I took a tablet. Is this drug abuse? I do feel much better. But a little guilty.

Guten tag!!!

2008-11-01T23:10:00.005Z

I have made a half-term resolution to blog more often. This is bad news for whoever still bothers to read this (blah blah blah), but a positive effort on my part, to try and maintain the cheery mood that has lingered for the last couple of weeks.

School is going reasonably well. I have had two 'good' inspections; one from OFSTED and the other from Westminster LEA. I am up to date with my marking. I am keeping my head down and trying not to get involved with the gossiping networks that pervade all staffrooms across the UK. I have not been stabbed or happy slapped, yet. I have only made two children cry. And it is only seven weeks until the Christmas hols.

Last week James and I had a much-needed city break in Berlin. It is, without doubt, the coolest place I have ever been in my life. Everything there just works. For a place with such a troubled and tragic history it is the most tolerant and 'together' city that I have encountered (in my, I admit, somewhat limited travelling portfolio). We stayed in a tongue-in-cheek DDR retro hostel in East Berlin, amongst the rows and rows of identical towering grey apartment blocks. It looked bleak, but felt quite cosy. We tried to fit as much into our trip as possible, leaving room for beer drinking and sausage eating, but I was most impressed by a visit to the Stasi headquarters. It's quite a way off the main tourist drag, and barely signposted, but an utterly fascinating and terrifying testimony to a ludicrous regime. I took some photos of the mental surveillance equipment that they used, and will hopefully post them as soon as I work out how to get them out of my dad's digital camera.

I haven't felt like lying down and switching off, or rampaging through Oxford Street with my Solo card for a few months now. The routine and stability of my home and my job has evened me out marvellously. The only problem now is that I find myself occasionally terrified of losing everything that I have worked so hard for, especially James, who made it all possible.

The new flat is really starting to feel like home. I love coming home to the suburbs every night and almost forgetting I live in London. I am currently hoarding items and cultivating a Moomin themed bathroom.

What else? Oooh, yes. I am VERY excited about going to Westfields Mall as it is very close to my school. I will try and drag my workmate Andraya there this week and take a few snaps of it's shiny newness.

Just read this back. It sounds very rushed and rusty. Ah well. I can't be arsed to rewrite it.

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arrggggh

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