Kinky boots

So I have some new boots. The lady at the vintage fair swore they were Edwardian, and although they are in suspiciously good nick I am determined to believe her. They remind me of my days of (re)reading Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, and I quite fancy wearing stays and a picture hat with them. I can pretend I live in more innocent times when putting your skirts 'down' and your hair 'up' were the signifiers of moving from childhood to womanhood (and hence, presumably) on the marriage market, and when all Anne wanted was a pair of leg o'mutton sleeves (you can imagine the confusion that cast in my nine-year-old mind). I also bought a royal blue frock, although I am a little concerned that it looks a bit - medical.

Enough about my shopping, these were spontaneous and very naughty purchases in the week I am supposed to be paying extortionate amounts of rent and deposit (denial is a wonderful thing). It was supposed to cheer me up in a weekend of being constantly damp and blown about. Perhaps I am shallow, but it does a bit.

Lovely Dawn

Things are happening on the home front. Met up with potential new housemate last night and he seemed very sweet in a wholesome way. Let's hope he doesn't have some kind of secret crack habit.

I also watched Dawn Porter: Free Love on Channel 4. I think I have a bit of a crush on her (especially after the episode where she careened around London in an open-top bus, naked, to promote real women's figures in the media, as opposed to lollipop strumpets (more parentheses, what a great name for a band)). She's just so pretty, and normal, and yet completely full of neuroses. And look at her lovely pink bike and earmuffs in the photo, sigh.

It was a bit of a shame that despite her earnest exploration of the alternate ways of loving in various free love camps and homes, the people she met were all long-haired, of some kind of Teutonic descent, and a bit Eighties. There were a lot of intarsia rainbow jumpers.

Speaking of intarsia, am going to track down the SnB group tonight, and hopefully not sit next to the rather alarming lady, who to my tremulous 'Is this Stitch n Bitch?' replied: 'Yes. Can you knit?' 'Yes' 'Good. That helps.'

This girl

I have totally fallen in love with this girl. I love the spooky fairy tale things she makes and paints, but most of all I want her clothes, and her house, and to look like her. I am amazed by people who find the time to create such beautiful things. Saying that I got back to the temp flat last night (after finding my first new SnB group!) and for a few panicky minutes couldn't make the TV work. Yes I could have sat and read, or done something creative, but there was something about the panorama of highrises and silent scudding planes that gave me the creeps, and I had to fill some time with garish adverts and a murder mystery. Or I'm lazy, you could look at it that way.

Can you tell what it is yet?

So I finally stopped dithering about with much-folded print-outs of things that I was 'definitely' going to turn into a tattoo and actually did it. I chose a retro, Sailor Jerry-style swallow, symbolic of all sorts of things, and despite being ridiculously (shaking) nervous all Saturday, it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be. With my arm rather ostentatiously bound up in clingfilm I felt a bit like a patient and perfectly at liberty to spend the rest of the weekend eating to 'build up my strength'.

It's been a perfect Brightony weekend too, involving my favourite cafe the Mock Turtle (which has proper china cups and saucers and cakes the size of your head) and sitting in the Pavilion gardens, where I spotted not one but two people reading books about Buddhism and a lot of perfect children in stripey babygros, probably fed on organic carrots and named Daisy.

Eeek, as I type I keep catching glimpses of my tattoo. It's very there. And despite being officially grown-up now, I am still slightly concerned that my mum is going to kill me.

Malta sunshine...

-sigh-

I loved the little old-fashioned haberdashery shop in Valletta, with its racks of old lace and ribbons and beads deep in the shady interior (I didn't venture in, it was staffed by some rather formidable older ladies). Deep in the twisty lanes of Victoria, the main town on companion island Gozo, I spotted a tailor's shop, which comprised an old man bent over his treadle sewing machine, surrounded by suits and frocks.

The stones are part of the city wall in Mdina, which kept the aristocracy safe during the sieges in the Middle Ages. What I found most touching was that ordinary folk hid there during the bombardments of World War II, and carved their names and dates into the stone.

Back again

A man sat next to me on the bus this morning, and I barely had a chance to acknowledge his handknit grey cable jumper than he whipped out (steady) some giant circular needles and continued something complicated-looking in acid green. He was not your 'average'-looking knitter, being big and burly with long red dreadlocks and fisherman's beard, which somehow made it all the more pleasing. I wanted to introduce myself as a fellow knitter, but felt too shy - if only there was some kind of secret symbol or handshake.

So yes, I am now in London, no more trains. It hasn't quite sunk in yet, I am still waking up at 6, only now I am having jumbled dreams about Brighton and work and school and (last night) being massively pregnant and eating chocolate cake. I am staying temporarily in a flat in Hackney, so getting used to sirens and sodium lighting keeping me awake rather than seagulls and the lumbering circuits of the Number 5. The other side of the flat overlooks a canal, so at least I get the rather bucolic conversations of ducks and moorhens to make me feel more at home.

It's strange getting home in time for Coronation Street, it's strange not seeing the sea at the end of my road. I am pretending not to be nervous when I get off the bus in Hackney and it's dark. My stuff is all in heaps of boxes in my old flat. I am a gypsy again.

Sir Cliff

So, I met Cliff Richard last night. When I say 'met', I mean was in the same room as, and had my photo taken with (near) him. I was genuinely, non-ironically, a bit excited about it but thinking about it now I feel a bit sorry for him. 50 years or whatever of having your photo taken with complete strangers just because you're told to, being paraded around and having false conversations. He also reminded me a bit of my dad.

Despite my red carpet evening (Cilla Black was there too, of course) it was a relief to head home and find my housemate having a rehearsal of his folk band. Only a few more days of accordians and trumpets blaring into the small hours.