Weekend

an animated film shouldn't make you cry at the end...

i took littlefish to see Shrek 2...come to think of it I cried at the
end of Shrek 1...

the bertlets are still puking ... i am selfishly relieved they are at
bert's and not the fish house ... i don't think i am good with ill
people ... the bertlets are sick frequently ... if i attend my
meditation classes a bit more often i might be able to let go of the
idea that it is out of spite ...

i haven't been to meditation for three weeks and i can tell ... i am
filling up with bile again ... when i go i become a much nicer person
... if it hadn't been for meditation and its beneficial effects on me i
am sure bert wouldn't be living here at the fish house for the last two
months ...

dan is very happy as his bird has returned home from her holiday in
Nice ... she is beautifully tanned ... he says she is a tanner as her
dad is iranian ... bert is partly iranian (rather persian) and he is a
tanner too ... someone only needs to mention that the sun is out and he
goes brown automatically ...

jol is in menorca on holiday with HIS bird and two other couples ...
jol's bird is posh and has an uncle who owns a villa ... this is lucky
for jol ... bert and i are trying to organise a few days in edinburgh
... we are going to see eggy buns ... this is the sort of thought that
always makes me happy ... i had a marvellous time frolicking in the
bloomsbury green room with eggy buns ... i wonder what it would be like
to be grown up and not feel delighted by a table of sandwiches and a
fridge of beer and the presence of some "real" writers in the same room
...

some people are signing up for my prison summer school ... you never
know who you will get on these things ... we are doing "write a book in
a week" ... this is no longer technically accurate as there is no
prison education on the friday of that week as they are banging
everyone up to train the staff for the day ... not us though ... we are
not prison staff really ... we just work there ...

last night amz came round to cut my hair ... she is training to be a
hairdresser and has only really practiced on a nasty dummy head ... i
wondered how wise it was to let her loose with her scissors but it has
turned out very nicely and she blow dried it and it swishes about like
a pleasant well conditioned curtain ... usually it is the texture of
felt ... what a miracle ...

she has booked me in for a "full head" on thursday ... i expect this
involves hours and hours of sitting in her salon with stuff on my head
... she wants to put in pink "hidden highlights" (?) and i have told
her she can do what she likes ... a person who is used to having felty
dreadlocks ought to be grateful for anything ...

i must make a mental note to wear something reasonable to the salon so
as not to embarrass her ... hairdressers care about matters such as
dress and grooming ... not that i do particularly ... i don't scrub up
badly ... but i am in a profession where i need to look as unglam as
poss to avoid murderers taking a fancy to me ... so far it has worked
...

on the way back from the cinemas we stopped at the garden centre and i
bought a couple of gigantic sacks of bark chips for the borders ... the
borders are a problem ... dan has dug one over and i need to shape it
and till it and bung some compost amid it and bark chip it before it
grows its new luxuriant crop of weeds ... i have a design in mind for
this garden which bert believes is far too ambitious ... he is
presently fixated on buying shrubs for the border ... he believes
himself to be innately talented at picking and planting the right sort
of shrubs based on his observation of gardens in public places such as
macdonalds and various council tended roundabouts ...

i plan to give him his head shrub wise but slip in some flowers when he
isn't looking ...

this is really the clueless leading the clueless when it comes to us
gardening ... i prefer to make mosaics and wire fish to be decorative
than do any real spade work ... i am thinking of something that is boho
chic for the general impression of the garden ... lots of fulsome
borders and mirrored bits ...

littlefish and i went to the tip after the garden centre and i procured
a little mirrored cupboard painted purple for the boho garden ...i am
tempted to mosaic it ... maybe just a bit ... bert says if anything
stays still long enough it will be covered in filler and snipped
squares of broken plate ... and grouted ...

my hands are about recovering from the china snipping ... i had a
million tiny cuts and a big blister from operating the tile snips ...
dan had a better idea and put loads of china inside a carrier bag and
whacked it with the back of the axe ... interesting ... but i prefer
order ...