Middle class weirdos.

'Would you like a bag, or can I pop it in the one you've got, madam?'

'Uhhm... yes'

'Yes to which, madam?'

Let me introduce you to my new favourite customer. She's been off her chops on drugs the last three times she's been in the shop, has bullied and confused children because she's named them Toto (male) and Rex (female) and wears dirty clothes daily. However, far from being the village pariah, she's Westgate's new favourite person. Any ideas why? She's got that X Factor, that ge ne sais quoi which is so sought after in little villages across Britain, and probably the world. She's a local celebrity, because she's middle class. Drug problem? Who cares, with that posh Home Counties accent? Messed up kids? No matter, they're in private school. Dirty clothes? They're from Boden you say, it barely even matters that she's been wearing them the past ten days.

Observe the worrying fascination with those who buy their cushion covers from Laura Ashley and teach their children Mandarin 'for fun'. If a working class - or, heaven forbid, underclass - parent gave her children stupid names, was out of her tree on recreationals from morning until night and gave the entire family dirty clothes to wear, the children would be taken away faster than you can say 'chav'. But not this woman. She's eccentric, not a clear fucking mentaller. She's probably remeniscing about running club nights when she was at Goldsmith's when she takes her kids to school already gurning. Too busy writing poetry and making her own placemats out of reclaimed seashells to wash her clothes. Her kids' names are individual. (No they're not. They're dogs' names. I wouldn't call my child Whiskas, she shouldn't call hers Rex. Easy.)

It is a well-known fact that the upper classes have systematically passed STIs between them with their bed-hopping ways for years, with every Mitsy and Bunny and Jonty having passed the clap around their closest friends at least once after a manor house wedding. And we only need to look at the amount of MPs who have been accused of domestic violence (that's 29, btw) to realise that largely, if a person has money or gives the impression of having money, they can get away with anything. So here's a message to you, enablers of bed behaviour due to the wealth of the badly behaved: sort it out. If a bloke on the minimum wage beat his wife or gave someone chlamydia, you'd go nuts. People complain about stupid 'chavvy' baby names all the time, as well as mums who smoke pot. Take a long hard look at the person who buys their groceries at Fortnum's, who linens her bed at The White Company, and then ask what her baby's name is and what she smokes of an evening. Being a bad person is not just for the underclass.

An education.

So... my course has started. Not only am I now very busy, I am fucking terrified... wondering whether I've been too long out of education to get back into the swing, especially now I'm having to basically teach myself and structure my own work. I'm really enjoying it so far though, it's filled me with a lot of hope about what I might be able to do in the future. I've really got to make some big decisions in the next few months, time to stop coasting and start living.

Things that are better than The Legend of the Seeker.

(which, FYI is Ben's new favourite TV show)

Genital warts
Being run over by a truck
Being run over by a bigger truck
Gone-off milk
Sick kittens
Uncomfortable shoes
Catching fire.

Why I don't visit graveyards; an essay.

My grandparents' gravestone was returned to their grave this week, after having my nan's name and dates engraved on it. After a comment from my mum, I realised that I have visited the graveyard maybe four times since my grandad died 11 years ago, one of those being my nan's funeral. Maybe I should feel bad about this, but I really don't. Here's why.

Graveyards are horrible. Why would you choose to remember a person by going to a place of death, going to a place where the only memories attached are of a person's funeral and subsequent unhappy visits? Would you visit the room in the funeral director's where you went to view the body? No. Would you visit the hospital room in which they died? No. Would you go and sit in the undertaker's private ambulance or hearse? No. Those places hold difficult memories, and as everyone who's ever been to a burial knows, so do cemeteries.

Who wants to be assailed by memories of sitting in a black car in black clothes, pinned in either side by crying people, fresh from a funeral and ripe for a burial? Memories of a coffin being lowered into the ground, lining up to look at beautiful flowers that offer no comfort, the drive back with the expectation of a family event with a missing member. Not, I, readers, not I.

When I went to see my nan's body, I realised that she wasn't there. There was a body that looked like it could have been hers, a face that looked like an artists' impression, and this woman was definitely wearing my nan's clothes and carrying her handbag. But it wasn't my nan. Nan was long gone, somewhere with my grandad, not sitting in a body which had caused her pain. So what of the grave in which her body now sits? A nice monument to the pair of them, but not much more. They're not there. They're in their kids, grandkids, great grandkids. Every story told by my nan's brothers about her is a memory, a monument. Every time a cousin tells me something I didn't know about my grandad, it's worth more than fifty marble stones to me.

My house is filled with memories of my grandparents, from my kingfisher shot glasses and Cherished Teddies to the photo of my grandad on my mantlepiece and the bread I occasionally bake, they're remembered every day here. I have no need to visit a cold cemetery to cry at a stone and make myself feel worse; I quipped earlier that to feel close to my grandparents I either go to the pub or clothes shopping. But it might be a song I play, a candle I light, a glass I raise. They're all far more likened to my grandparents, and the memories I have of them, than standing in the cold looking at some dates in a field.

Troy Davis./Clean!

Hello! Sorry for the lack of posty-posty but work/other writing/keeping my house free of mould and mice seem to have gotten in the way this week. We're all downhill from here to the weekend though so hopefully I'll be able to post more...

So... first of all, ever so sad about Troy Davis. I was actually in tears last night when they issued a stay, but when I woke up I wasn't too surprised to find they'd gone ahead with the execution. A lot has been flying around over Facebook and Twitter about Iraqi teenagers being executed and no-one causing hell on the internet, but Davis' case was one that shocked me to my core, so I'm writing about it. America (especially the state of Georgia) fucked up big time last night, and I hope every person involved, from the guy who gets the lethal injection ready to the increasingly ineffective POTUS, had trouble sleeping.

And on to the next matter of the day: I am cleaning my house! I like to stick to doing it once a year, whether it needs it or not, but as we have guests over the weekend (and after seeing friends of ours' gorgeous home) we decided it was time for a mini-facelift for Number 34. So I am being a crazy bitch with a Hoover and the bleach for the next few days, but expect business - and dirty plates - as usual from about Monday.

Had a fabulous meeting last Sunday for inspiration for my book, with my friend J and her mum, Mama C. Really great to start bouncing my ideas off people and shaping what exactly I want the book to be and contain. I think I've got the very basic framework straight in my head now, but I'll probably storyboard the bare bones of it in the next few weeks. I want to start actually writing now, but I'm doing this and am determined not to cheat.

A successful days' shopping and gallerying was had by all in Margate during the week. The Turner's new Nothing in the World But Youth exhibition was cracking, as was lunch in the Greedy Cow Deli... their salt-beef sarnies are absolutely increds.

Be back tomorrow with news of new clothes and *hopefully* more on the book . . . x

A day off!/Book.

Afternoon. First of all... I HAVE A DAY OFF. This never happens. Seriously. I have spent it eating bacon, watching stupid YouTube videos, and doing this:


Me, being fuckingexcellent in my back garden in Margate.

There may also be more travel news on the horizon, in the form of either an all inclusive, liver damaging week in Egypt, or a BYOB, liver damaging long weekend in a cottage on Suffolk. I want to do both! Don't know if LSJ course will allow a whole week away but we shall see, and if we go on a long weekend I can take my work with me. Also it's likely to fall in November, which brings me to our next item:

MY BOOK. My second book. Which I will hopefully complete. Which will hopefully be published.

I have set my sights slightly lower this year - chick lit. Scoff you may, but a fuckload of it gets published every year and it sells like nothing else. If I can get my message of emotional health and the distinguishing features between brain and mind across sandwiched between stories of break ups and wine, it's better than not getting the message across at all. So expect slightly fewer blog posts around November time - unless I cheat and post excerpts from the book and pictures of me smoking/coffeeing furiously. Working on a brief synopsis this week so that may show up on here too.

Travels?

So today I've been trying to plan a trip from Kent to Paris to Brussels to Paris and back to Kent. That's be lush... I could do it in two days and see everything I want to see (The Eiffel Tower and a Belgian waffle), thus saving some holiday entitlement and not being bored to death. However, the Eurostar is daylight fucking robbery so I may well be doing it on foot... which will probably take about three weeks. And I only have two weeks' holiday to take. Balls. Perhaps a UK-wide trip would be best first. I'm hitting Anglesey, Edinburgh and Liverpool this year, fo' sho', on a five day trip. Let's call it the fuckingexcellent tour.

No picture today as it's a Sunday and I have no eyes, just black bags.