I am sat in the room, on the sofa where someone didn’t know that no means no. Having just been for a cigarette in the garden where things have been thrown at me, including scissors. Fag ends or other people’s rubbish has been dumped over our fences. A garden which fills with the toxic smoke of constant bonfires during the summer as the neighbours burn whatever wood, plastic or other rubbish they can find. A garden which does not get used by the children that much because it isn’t safe or secure enough to just leave the back door open when the weather is fine.

In this room, the curtains are always drawn. The dog and my son are told no if they open them enough for people to see in. They are left drawn so we don’t sit here and look up from what we are doing to see people peering in or hanging around. Our windows left shut so the swearing is at least muted and the stench of weed isn’t filling the room on hot summer days. Our front door leads out to the street where there is always rubbish, broken glass, and if we’re lucky, a used needle left behind by a heroin addict.

Turn right and you come to the street where the girls and I witnessed a guy get quite badly beaten up. Go to the local park and you have another unsafe place where my youngest must be constantly watched in case he finds a used needle, empty beer can, decides to go say hello to the local drunks and drug addicts… where my dog and I were threatened.

We moved here because we had to. We had to get out of that tiny little flat. But the time to have moved has passed.

God knows there have been an enormous amount of good times in this house too. New friendships made. Friendships proven without a doubt. This place has been a home to more than just us, or the mice, or the bees. Or the rescued crow.


My husband and I have reached an impasse. I need to make changes in our lives, but he is not willing to take this journey with me. I can't imagine taking the man he has become, so willing to settle with his lot, with me. I need to get out of this house, for me and the kids. Somewhere where I can just leave the back door open during nice days and let the kids run in and out. At the very least, somewhere where the events of last year did not happen. 

It's emotional right now. Not in the way the post-traumatic stress was last year. A combination of normal emotions as a relationship comes to an end. I had hoped it wouldn't be the absolute end of us, yet it looks like it will be. 

Tonight You Belong to Me

They sang Tonight You Belong To Me in Bunheads.

It was a lovely scene, very touching. No mention of the argument, just sitting in each other's company, allowing the anger dissipate.

 I couldn't help but go off to find my favourite cover of it. These guys were amazing.

Last night we did haibuns...

A painted blue sky with perfectly white clouds, the edges of which are whipped into such shapes as to appear like painted waves. The kind they would use on stage during a whimsical musical about life on the sea. Low in the sky, there are but the beginnings of clouds. As if we are being pulled forward by a steam engine.

My spring is like this:
Pink blossom gently falling,
Flourishing landscape

Random stuff

Sam
Sam shovelled the last of the dirt of to the grave. Falling to his knees, he cried. Not just for this one, but for all those he had to murder. Each killing left a new scar on his soul. He had been chosen for this task. Had accepted it.

His humour was dark. He made each killing a pleasure, a joke, entertaining... just to get through it. Sometimes creating Damien Hurst style artwork with body parts of his victims. It was the only way he could deal with the task itself. Yet once the job was complete, the mourning period began.

Short writing exercise

"Get out the fridge, fatty. You're so much like your dad."

"But I'm hungry," I tell Marcus.

He stands there all skinny. Just like his dad. I realise my t-shirt has ridden up a bit as I leant over. I'm too late to pull it down. Marcus starts poking my belly.

"Fat. Fat and lazy. Fat, lazy, stupid and now you're stealing our food."

He tells me to eff off to my room. Only he doesn't say eff. He's told me loads of times he wished Mum never effing had me. That she's never met effing John. My Dad's horrid, but not as bad as his. I really wish Mum wasn't so ill.

I go off to my room, well, Marcus and Chelle's spare room. There's this big wardrobe in there. Like that one in the Narnia books. Only there are no fur coats. No wondrous escape from this world. There are sometimes mice, and spiders in there. But no fawns or lions. And it still smells of pee.

He locked me in there once. Marcus. I could just hear his stupid laugh. Telling his mates I believed in fairies and witches. They put a chair in front of the door so I couldn't get out.

By morning I was still there, my jeans soaked in my own pee. I try to shut up now, shut the eff up now,
whenever I'm around Marcus. But just in case, I push the chair under the door handle.

Old diary entries - 3.

I have my music, my pen, and a notebook. Often these are all I need to maintain my sanity.

I would say this is another relationship over where I leave with less than I had before it. Yet that would be a lie. Whilst I may have given up material goods, whilst my heart may be a little worse for wear, everything I wrote in my diary at the start of this is true. He has indeed taught me not to settle.

As chance would have it, our song played in the newsagents I visited just after saying goodbye to him. I nearly looked for the cameras.

He made it easy to go in the end. Although, there is the dread of explaining it to my family.

My daughter pulled a sicky today. She is unbelievably strong and kept trying to hide the tears. In the end I found out why. She has reached the time where she wonders why Mummy and Daddy don't live together. I think I explained it okay. Difficult to tell enough of the truth whilst not telling any of it. How to make it sound like Mummy had a good reason to leave Daddy without damaging the image she has of her father.

She'd also picked up on X and I splitting up. She told me twice she missed him today. She also said she wanted to be here instead of her dad's more often.

Personally, I have some saviors to help me through this. Not just that one person who keeps checking I'm okay, they're an absolute star. But all my friends. I've never been so lucky. It's hard to feel sorry for yourself when you know there are people who care how you are.

Monday I was pissed off, because I wish he hadn't done that just before I met up with people. Because I knew it would end up being me breaking the news to some of them and it wasn't my place. X shouldn't have been in so much denial, especially when it was his call to end it now. I didn't want his family to find out via Facebook... and I totally saw the 'you're crap' attitude from certain people and someone else getting over-friendly.

Diary entries - 2. Train journey

Strawberry things never smell like strawberry. The faux strawberry of lip balm and children's sweets. Not too sure of where the smell is coming from, unless the gentleman behind me has a penchant for smooth, strawberry flavoured lips.

On the whole, train journeys excite me. Watching the scenery change, spying on my fellow passengers. The journey to and from Norwich has to be one of the worst. Whilst the landscape is moderately interesting at this point, soon it will become nothing but flat, endless fields, stretching out far beyond the horizon. Of course there's the occasional pylon, bush, tree, or even the odd building. This journey is far too long to endure scenery of that standard.

I can only hope that more people will need to visit Norwich today. So far this journey, few people seem inclined. Whilst most people would thing me fortunate to be on a train with four seats and a table to myself, I take little pleasure in the extra luggage and leg room. Partucularly as no one is sat in the seats adjacent to this, and now no longer behind me, although the faux strawberry smell lingers.

I should write about the clouds, they are quite interesting for the sky itself appears as if it has been painted blue. The edges of the perfectly white clouds are whipped into such shapes that some appear like painted waves. The kind they would use on stage during Peter Pan or some whimsical musical about life on the sea. Then below, quite low down, there are but the beginnings of clouds. Almost as if a steam train is a little way in front of us.

The faux strawberry smell is beginning to drive me insane. To the point I keep surreptitiously sniffing items of my own in case it is me. It's a little confusing as to why I'm doing this in such a manner, with only one other person being on the carriage. He has his back to me, all I can see of him is a patch of scalp surrounded by thin mousy hair.

Is it just me or are there others out there who think trains would be much more interesting if they left the graffiti on? I don't mean the rushed tags. I mean the artwork, a few carriages with that on would make trainspotting a little interesting. Particularly those ones thirty plus years old which still trawl back and forth between lesser known destinations. The type with incredibly uncomfortable seating and windows next to them which actually open.

Peterborough, and I now share a carriage with five others. Death sits opposite me. No, not opposite me, adjacent to me. Opposite just sounds better than Death sits adjacent to me.

It must have been love. The kind you see in films, or had the good fortune to have felt. There is no other reason you'd make this journey as often as my brother did.

The balding guy, who turns out can't be more than twenty-five, appears to be departing. Or taking all his luggage to the toilet with him. We have a while until the next station.

Out of the newbies who have boarded at Peterborough, we now have the token talks-too-loud-on-their-mobile. Repeating, 'Hello... hello?' at regular intervals, reassuring the person on the other end of the line that she is indeed on the train.

The adjacent seat, occupied by Death. Sadly, this isn't Death, despite his claims during his phone call. Instead, he is a boy, slightly past pubescence, still with the inability to grown decent facial hair, even if he had wanted. The final signs of teenage acne dot his face. Engrossed in today's copy of the Sun newspaper, he bears little resemblance to Death.

The others are but imprints. I know they are here merely because I took the time to look for people taking their seats on this carriage.

Ely and Sun-Reading-Boy-Man has gone. I may stop off here myself tomorrow. Explore the cathedral. The pale-bricked station, there are bins. Albeit a see-through affair, a clear poly bag hung from a hoop. Still, a rarity indeed. There are two people working on laptops as they wait on the platform. A gift shop called English Rose Gifts promises all their items are made in the UK.

A train station with a gift shop. Not a Smith's, nor a chain cafe, but a little gift shop with locally made gifts.

Old diary entries - 1

I have some old notepads that have the occasional diary entry or piece of writing in. Most of the notepad is rubbish, and I want a clear out of them. So in the mean time, I'm going to copy some out here. Mixture of fiction and non-fiction entries.


I gave my love to someone I made a promise to. A friend who felt lost, alone and unloved. I promised him he would find love, not knowing that would be me. We helped each other trust again. Gave ourselves to each other completely.

As time has passed, I have gone from caring for a best friend, to being in love, to finding that the love I thought only existed in poetry was real.

The years have bought ups and downs, though our love has only grown more concrete.

I found out last month. What can I do? Allow him to care for me? Watch as I slowly rot away? Which is better: A broken heart filled with sorrow or a broken heart filled with hatred?

If he hates me maybe he will move on one day.

I don't want his memory of me to be a shadow of who I once was. Nor do I want his memory of our relationship to be of him cleaning me. Having the smell of impending death upon the air, of machines and pills, injections and incontinence pads. Dying doesn't scare me. What's waiting between now and then does.

They delivered the diamorphine today. Ready for the pain. Cancer doesn't hurt so much, it's the things cancer does to your body that causes the pain. As things are eaten away and calcified.