Good Will Dawn

Seeds of hope

It's a grey morning, which could be disappointing after a short but glorious burst of springtime sunshine over the last week. But I have awoken with a bounce in my pounce. This is good news since for the last few months it has seemed that I had unwittingly been the victim of a back street, funny bone, organ theft incident. But even though my easy-to-grow (children's) sunflower seeds are languishing on a book shelf in the dark, while my long time hard-to-get compost loiters on the porch...

If I may explain.

During my recent dark ages, in one particular fit of despair, deep within the belly of a ubiquitous, value, megasaurus Supermarket (shudder), I happened upon some hopeful little packets of seeds whilst inspecting vegetables. I tossed up between the children's "Easy Grow" variety as opposed to what can only be assumed to be the adult's challenging, frustrating and ultimately disappointing  version, for minutes on end, before deciding that I face enough challenges as it is without my first ever attempt at growing something cheerful being marred by some clever branding. Although, who knew how long it would take to drag some compost back to my shabby chic domicillary, without the aid of a size eleven carbon footprint? Anyhow there it is, now I finally have all the materials, about four weeks too late, for optimum easy growing and then it starts to rain.

Oh well. I shrug it off.

Perhaps my recently recovered good will is because I swam half a kilometre this week, inducing a warm fuzzy feeling, minutely post coital. (And who needs sex anyway when you can hold a Warrior One yoga stance for ten minutes? Hmm.) I know it's only half a kilometre but I managed one and a half last week fuelled on curry and pizza and this week I was fuelled on only porridge... and then a pair of fake tits attached to a sixteen year old plopped into the pool ahead me and I got intimidated. So super sweet of Daddy to oblige those, yah! I don't like tits. More over any that were moulded in China. There are some unique things about my habitat; picturesque hang out for the rich and listless. Not least that my compadres at the local leisure pool may frequently suffer the embarrassing faux par of all being named Moses. Go ahead, part the waves and stop splashing me in the face.

Nevermind.

This pictureque Southern fancy of a town, almost as far from the sea as you can get in the United Kingdom, so I am told, is still a bit melt-in-the-middle gorgeous in places. Now that we are entitled to more than 4 hours of daylight per diem, I have been riding my old school, Raleigh, lady's metallic, khaki bicycle to work, along the riverside, where the dog walkers and boat dwellers of 7am are at least a bit more down to Earth than Moseses and Peacheses. At this peaceful hour, cool waters steam in the early sunrise, ducks are awakening and cormorants dry their wings perched on rambling root-works in the centre of this juvenille stretch of our glorious river Thames. These tangle and join limbs to form an island, (also heavily reconstituted,) where welly-sporting folk live, die and in between times clip their hedges into a quirky pastiche or two. Well, there they are again, the strange and the fascinating, image-conscious. But c'est la vie, it's just as easy to borrow a spliff on the tow path. That's what I love about the English rivirea. We can share it, without prejudice. Except in July of course, when a certain Royally endorsed sporting event engulfs our lawns, terraces and every nook and cranny which can feasibly be charged rent upon, but that's another story.

My house mate the Bear warned me I would turn into Bridget Jones. Which I contested, vehmently. Yet here I am, thumb holes punctered in my sensibly over-sized pantaloons, and growing an appetite to match. All shopping  lists and Radio 4. I downloaded a recipe for vegetable crumble yesterday. At least I downloaded it. It's not as glamorous as downloading pornography, if it is possible to deem that more glamorous than anything. I still shout at my radio, but now it is to contest parliament's decisions of the day, as opposed Nirvana's latest lyrics. I also talk to myself, probably a bit too much. I'm just keeping myself company, I tell myself. Just can't keep my opinions to myself, I answer back. Oh dear.

But perhaps my sunny disposition is down my musing, aloft ma bicyclette, that the last time I wore this particular top was the last time I had sex in the morning. Now really, oh dear.

Now the boss's wife is trying to set me up with a very young looking and impossibly ginger-bearded pig farmer. So now something really has got to change. Especially if my "contemporaries" are trying to matchmake the pig farmer's son, (he's got to be, no one grows that much ginger on their face unless they are trying to prove something; either puberty or a bet), with someone who can no longer bear proximity to bacon as a result of over exposure to the industry.

Help!

Riding my bicycle is fun. But Maybe it's time for a new ride. Please not the farmer's son!

Dangerous Liaisons

Complimentary Health

You may be wondering where in the world I have been these last two months. It's hard to say with any real certainty, but the last months of winter haven't been their kindest. It's just a fact of life that February in the temperate zones is hellish and after a few miniature disasters in the name of gainly employment, romance, moving on, facing up, falling out and trying in vain to appear in control of the process, respectively. You could well be glad I took those dark months off, to ride out a winter of discontent in the relative safety of solitude.

Although that's not what really happened, not entirely. In resolute point blank refusal to give in to seasonal depair, I have been partying all over the country, denying burnout, dressed scantily. Fastening young ladies into corsets, zipping naughty girls into all-in-one devil suits (honestly, not even a hole for a face!) Attaching lashes, buffing bustles, sliding down poles whilst encircled by bobbing bottoms, attending a grand Oxford University ball dressed in barely more than a Donna Karin shirt and to climax, falling out of a dead shark and performing a striptease.

Have I mentioned that I lead the steely double life of a burlesque performer? Well sometimes it transports me to a galaxy far far from reality. But then reality is subjective. And bearing that in mind, what seems plausible after pumpkin time, can require the most deft Fairy-Godmother to pull off. So following my gutsy shark debut, long after the clock had struck midnight, I shepherded the last-standing, negotiating Bristol, carrying shoes, deflecting the amorous attentions of Eastern European night shift workers, to what was thus far an undisclosed location and turned out to be the residence of one mysterious (or not) "Dr Love". Here I took full advantage of a hot bath, sometime after dawn and Dr Love climbing in to give me a foot rub.

Now that's what I call complimentary health.

I have since lost most of my eyelashes in a small gas explosion on a boat. So it's lucky my burlesque adventures have equipt me with the rock steady hand of an experienced lash applier who's not afraid to fake. Though having arrived back to my one woman boudoir, a little more Spam than Glam. I feel it might be time for a little change of pace and an adaptation of my own Great Expectations.

Watch this space the commercial break is about the end.