Thoughts from the Bus Stop

She's a Little Angel

Felt angel doll (c) Kristen Bailey

This little lady was a birthday pressie for the Blonde back in June but I've only just got round to posting her picture. She was my first attempt at making a doll from scratch, with no pattern, and didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. There are a few strange lumps and bumps (that's the pot calling the kettle black...) and bless her, she's a got a distinctive face!

I stitched her features on before I'd stuffed her and didn't realise till then that I'd put her mouth far too low down. Still, you live and learn - and she's got quite a sweet (yet gormless) expression. And I love her shoes. She's made mainly from felt (including glittery felt and some great stuff with shimmery strands running through it) and has a pipecleaner halo.

Why an angel? Well, my little sis used to be (still is) into a band called Little Angels (one of whom is now the drummer in Feeder, who she's also a huge fan of) and ever since then she's liked stuff to do with angels.

I Think I'm Going Back

Closed-down cafe, 88 Oldham Street, Manchester

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Manchester, which I've not been back to in seven years. My dad's from Manchester and I was at uni there. I hadn't planned to spend much time with my dad's family - I didn't know them very well - but when I became desperately homesick, my auntie and uncle swung into action.

They'd come and pick me up any time I was feeling rotten, and take me to theirs and feed me, do my washing, let me use their phone, lend me stuff for my house - in short, they were surrogate parents to me while my own parents were 250 miles (and seven hours on a coach) away.

When I graduated, I went home, but after a year of mindnumbing tedium and bad jobs, I decided I'd take a chance on a life in Manchester... and ended up living with my aunt and uncle for nine months, until it became apparent (ie I found myself working in a callcentre) that things were not meant to be and I packed my bags and moved back down South to Brighton.

It's going to be so strange going back. A lot will have changed. The IRA bomb went off just at the end of my second year and the rebuilding of the bombed area went on long after I'd left.

I want to spend lots of time seeing my folks of course, but I hope I get the chance to take myself off on the bus so I can explore some of my old haunts. I'm quite a nostalgic sod anyway, and the time I spent in Salford / Manchester was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster... chronic homesickness, blossoming friendships, unrequited love, creative frustration (and occasionally creative abandon), and being toughened up and exhilarated by city life in equal measure.

I expect I'll well up as I walk through Salford Precinct, and I'll brush away a tear as I mourn the demise of Lewis's department store. I'll smile wistfully as I wander down Market Street, remembering my stint as the Girl on the Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk. My heart will race as I climb the stairs in Afflecks Palace, or descend into the basement of Fred Aldous.

And of course the one thing guaranteed to reduce me to a blubbing mess is the bear hug I expect to get from my uncle when he picks me up at Piccadilly Station. Sniff...

Still singing 'Galway Bay'

Guinness cake in baker's window, Galway City - more Galway pics

Am back from a few days in Galway. My cousin's lived out there for a few years now, tempted across the Irish Sea by a smiling Irishman with ginger curls, a big guitar collection and an even bigger heart. They got married and had a little strawberry blonde baby, who is now 10 months old.

Galway City is lovely, if you ignore the obligatory depressing shopping mall. Leave that behind and explore the dozens of little independent shops, cafes and pubs closer to the waterfront. That part of town reminds me of the Lanes in Brighton, so I felt right at home. Across the Bay from there you can see The Claddagh (where the rings originate).

Baby wasn't well, so while she's normally very happy and independent, she was very clingy and wouldn't let her mum out of her sight, so our gadding about was somewhat curtailed. Still had a good time - lunch in Moycullen on the way out to Connemara to gaze in awe at fog shrouded mountains and boulder-strewn moors - via Oughterard, where the week before my cousin's wedding my mum had to be rescued from a cafe loo...

Like one of Lewis's

I can't remember how I came across these photos of Piccadilly in Manchester in 2001 (care of Eyewitness Manchester), but I was dead sad to hear that Lewis's department store is no more... and now a Primark - oh, the indignity! OK, it was never as chic as Kendals on Deansgate, but I used to be in and out of there all the time when I lived in Manchester and have affectionate memories of it.

And the place is part of my family's vocabulary too. Apparently the little arcade at the side of the store used be where ladies of the night would hang out after hours. If she found you standing around in a seemingly pointless fashion, my gran would say, 'What are you doing, hanging around like one of Lewis's?"...

Industrial Powerhouse: Fashion Manchester Trail
Manchester Evening News, 28th October 2005: Kendals name dropped forever

A Bag For Sarah

Click on the picture for a larger version.

I made this in burgundy corduroy to match her favourite cardy, and lined it with pink candy-striped cotton, cos the girl likes her stripes. The handles are glittery amber plastic, the roses are french knitting and the leaves are cut from felt left over from Rachel's 'shrunken sweater' bag.

Tell Laura I Love Her

A few days early, we welcome to the Clipson/Hynes clan Miss Laura Susan Hynes! 7lb 8 and a huge amount of hard work from Mum.

Edited to add: I'll see you soon I hope - if you're a good girl I'll take you along to the Galway Arts Festival!

Chocolate Tiffin

Since the Gorgeous Blonde made me a tin of chocolate tiffin for Easter, and since whenever I'm not eating it I'm thinking about eating it (drooling out of the side of my mouth like Homer Simpson), here's the recipe (acquired by the Blonde via Sarah's grandma):

Ingredients
4oz margarine 
2oz caster sugar 
1oz drinking chocolate or cocoa powder
1tbs golden syrup 
¾ cup raisins 
6oz crushed digestive biscuits (seal in a sandwich bag and whack it with a wooden spoon!) 
300g block of cooking chocolate (milk or plain)

Method
1. Prepare a greased flat tin (approx 11” x 5”)
2. Melt margarine in a saucepan, then add sugar, stir in well but DO NOT LET IT BOIL!
3. Keeping stirring – add cocoa powder and syrup. The mix will be liquid.
4. Add crushed biscuits and raisins. Mix in well.
5. Turn out the mixture into tin and press down well, especially into the corners.
6. Break up the cooking chocolate and melt in the microwave or a saucepan – remembering to check and stir it every 30 seconds or so until completely melted.
7. Pour liquid chocolate over the praline and spread it smoothly with a knife.
8. Leave to cool – then put in the fridge until totally cold – I find it easier if you score the lines across the surface of the squares you are going to cut it into, before the choc goes rock solid! Then you can cut all the way through the mixture into squares.
9. Turn out of the tin carefully, using a warmed knife if you experience difficulty.
10. EAT!!! Be careful, it's very addictive! Mmmmmmmmm… it can be frozen as well and saved for a later date...

Little Green Book

Sharry requested a homemade card for her 30th birthday. I didn't know what to buy her for a pressie, so I took the making of the card to The Next Level. This is made from one piece of rectangular card, simply folded and cut according to a great basic pattern from Creating Handmade Books by Alisa Golden.

I made it in her favourite colour and included a little '30' cake decoration, definitions cut from an old dictionary, maps, a stamp by Peter Howson (her favourite artist), bits of old artwork of mine (heavily endebted to Tom Phillips' A Humument), old photos and photos of 'number 30' houses in Brighton and Hove streets. The '30' on the front is made from french knitting. Then I made a simple folder with a ribbon tie and her name in letter beads. It's bits of me and bits of her and things she's into and things we've done together - since we were 12, bless!

Pictures of your mama, taken by your papa

"Picture book
Pictures of your mama
Taken by your papa
A long time ago..."

I love the new HP ad which feature this Kinks song - very cleverly done. The song reminds me of a few months ago, when I was looking through boxes of slides with Mum - pictures taken in Kuwait in the early seventies, when she and Dad were courting. Dad standing proudly by his Lambretta outside his RAF quarters. Mum standing outside a mosque in a thigh-skimming minidress. Mum and her flatmate Eileen posing in their tiny, flower-crammed walled garden, with the desert visible in the background, stretching on for miles, punctuated only by oil rigs and the de-salination plant. Mum at a party wearing a white embroidered cheesecloth two-piece, bought on her last trip home from 'Stevie's' in Portsmouth.

She is the age I am now in these pictures. I screw my eyes up as I examine each one, trying to see myself in her. She looks so happy. Sexy, fashionable, and very happy. And of course, she was freshly in love - with the man behind the camera! But with the benefit of hindsight I can see that the happiness shining from her face is not just from the rush of meeting someone new, but from the feeling that she's found someone with whom she feels she really belongs for the long run.

Sometimes, she still looks at him like that...
:)

My Perfect Cousin

This is a favourite old photograph I got out to make a copy of, to give my cousin David for his 30th birthday. He's only three months older than me, so there are many, many photos of ous together - he blonde, photogenic, cheerful, and I with my dark hair, scowling at him or the camera. This one was taken in Nanna's hallway in about 1978. The house was a bungalow, that's the bathroom behind Dave, and the loo behind me. I love the photo because I'm very fond of Dave, and I like the three patterns in it - his jumper, the very '70s wallpaper and my security blanket.

I sucked my thumb till I was about 12 (only at night time in later years of course), which accounts for my poky-out top front teeth and pushed-in bottom front teeth. That cot quilt I'm holding was my 'byebyes' (never tried spelling it before), which was what Mum's pupils bought for her when she left teaching to have me. I used to hold it in one hand whilst sucking my thumb, and ram the other arm into the kapok inside the quilt, through a hole which had appeared in the seam. When I was five my parents tried to persuade me to swap it for a hanky, which I refused. When I was six I finally gave it up in return for a cuddly puppy toy from Woolies. I miss my byebyes...

Little Green Bag

So, I finally finished Rae's bag! She went to New York and bought a jumper, then brought it home to the UK and put it in the washing machine when it was dry-clean only, reducing it to felt. She was so upset. So it's a bag now, with french knitting roses and padded leaves cut from scraps of the main fabric (and an 'I heart NY' charm on a chain round one handle). I was a bit worried the decoration was too full-on for her, but she assures me she's thrilled with it.

After I gave it to her, we were browsing in a trendy baby boutique and she was deliberately wafting the bag in the direction of the shop owner. She noticed the bag and asked if I'd do them a batch of bags on sale or return! Damn, but Rachel's good - I may have to keep her on as my agent...

'But you know that I do love you - you're like Manchester...'

Belle Vue Zoo guide book, 1933

A lovely bit of reminiscence from Dad, prompted by the news that Manchester's Central Library is putting on an exhibition about the city's famous Belle Vue Zoological Gardens:

"Many happy hours spent at Belle Vue.. the fun fair, zoo and, later in life, the speedway ('Slant' Palin was the star of the track then) where you would come away covered in red dust from the shale track. Looking back, the animals were not kept as they would be now - but that's then and attitudes have changed, since. Easter was the time when you would get into your new clothes and Mum and Dad would take you to Belle Vue for the day - a great treat!"

Westlife: Obvious

Video for 'Obvious' by Westlife

"I've crushed on you so long
But on and on you get me wrong..."

It had to happen - it's always been my belief that pop groups I'm not fond of will eventually put out ONE song I totally love. Step forward Westlife. Lads, you've done it - I am hooked on Obvious. The Gorgeous Blonde will be pleased. It's just a great shiny pop ballad. It muses on the awfulness of falling for a friend who fails to notice, while you read deep significance into every look, every word, every gesture, blinded by hope... apparently.

Elnett

Today I bought a tiny can of Elnett. Partly because I hardly ever use hairspray so I don't mind buying the good stuff, but mainly so I could have that golden can, with the lady with the long neck and the huge hair, just like the can which sat on my Nanna's dressing table next to the pot of Cyclax moisturiser and her '4711' perfume.

Does your heart go boom?

Pondering the delicate nature of attraction last night, I was very happy to have Helen Love's Punk Boy pop into my head:

Does your heart go boom when he walks in the room?
Do rainclouds scatter and fall?
Do you feel yourself sigh as he passes you by
Or do you grow a hundred feet tall?

D’you go bang shang-alang, every time you see him?
D’you go bang shang-alang, every time you’re near him?
D’you go bang shang-alang, every time you hear him?
If you don’t, he’s not a real punk boy,
If you don’t, he’s not a real punk boy,
If you don’t, he’s not a real punk boy at all

Heaven knows I don't have a wide frame of reference, but at different points in my life I've encountered extreme loveliness with which I had all the sexual chemistry of a damp flannel, and lovely-but-damaged which could create fireworks at fifty paces from just a glance:

'It was then she understood how dough feels when it is plunged into boiling oil.'
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

I guess the 'right' person would be a mixture of the dependable loveliness and the sparky chemistry. Looking at the couples in my life who work so well together, that's what I see: one couple who have been together for ten years and are currently supporting each other through great grief, a couple who have been together through seven years of 'thick and thin' and just married in the most touching and romantic ceremony I've been privileged to attend, another newlywed couple who have quite an age gap but totally belong together, my parents - thirty-one years on the clock and still holding hands in the street, and even a friend who has just begun to fall for her new boyfriend. It's possible. It happens. I must remember that.

I want the world to know I'm happy as can be

She was looking for a job, and then (eight long months later) she found a job, and Heaven knows she's... pretty happy now actually!

Nickel Creek: When You Come Back Down

Video for When You Come Back Down by Nickel Creek, c/o YouTube

"You got to leave me now, you got to go alone You got to chase a dream, one that's all your own Before it slips away When you're flyin' high, take my heart along I'll be the harmony to every lonely song That you learn to play

When you're soarin' through the air
I'll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I'll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down..."

Just bought the first Nickel Creek (bluegrass wunderkinder) album, and so far haven't broken it in because I can't resist sticking When You Come Back Down on repeat for an hour at a time. It's gorgeous - the lyrics, the vocals, the mandolin, the violin...

It's a love song, but not necessarily of romantic love. It speaks about the supportive, unconditional love of good friendship or parenting. Certainly it makes me think of my parents - I'm well aware that not everyone has the good relationship with their parents that I have with mine, and I'm so thankful I've been blessed with them. They've always been 100% supportive of me in whatever I wanted to do, wherever I wanted to go.

Not that I've deliberately rebelled against them at any point - but I realise now that they could have made things very hard for me when I wanted to go to art college and my teachers were angling for me to head off to Oxford to do something safe and academic. Mum & Dad would have been very proud if I'd chosen to do that, but they'd been sticking my drawings to the fridge door since I could hold a crayon, and knew where my heart was.

They didn't impose their ambitions on me, they encouraged me to do what I yearned to do - support that Mum certainly didn't get from her family when she was leaving school and had aspirations of her own. You're good people, Mr & Mrs B.

Flamingo-go!

Right guys - if anyone reading this knows and loves me, then this is where you need to go in pursuit of my next birthday present... or indeed your next totally spontaneous display of affection... just check out the pink flamingo earrings, for goodness' sake!!!

I speak as someone who has recently purchased a set of pink flamingo fairy lights... I've been reimbursed by Mother, she's hidden them in her wardrobe till December and they will be a 'surprise' birthday pressie...

A trip to Southampton

Trip to Southampton to see the Gorgeous Blonde. She had to get her usual fix at Shakeaway - Yule Log flavour, wouldya believe?! Sadly, the usual crowd of nu-metal kids usually to be found hanging out in the Bargate Centre were nowhere to be seen. Possibly at home washing their Korn hoodies. Having at least ten years on these kids, I have a little chortle to myself. I don't know why - when I was their age, me and my mates were suffering from the effects of grunge - all flowery skirts and big cardigans. What they now have in common with us then is Nirvana. These kids wear a LOT of Nirvana T-shirts. Sometimes I have to resist the temptation to go up to them and point out that they were about 8 years old when Kurt Cobain shot himself and why don't they let us grieve in private?! Their dress seems ugly at first - flares which Bez would find excessively wide, assorted ironmongery, quantities of eyeliner which Robert Smith would flinch from. But a lot of it is really beautiful. I was talking to a shop assistant in one of the North Laine shops in Brighton a few weeks ago, and kept being distracted by her hair and make-up. Pink spikes of hair interspersed with cute hairslides, electric blue eyebrows and glittery red eyeliner. Gorgeous.

The Gorgeous Blonde mails me

The Gorgeous Blonde mails me a quote from Niles from Frasier, reassuring Daphne about her ailing love life: 'You're a very special person, and some day a man worthy of you will come along, just as soon as the gods create him.'

Victoria Wood

Went to see one of my comic heroes - Victoria Wood - at the Albert Hall. She excels herself everytime. Who else could get an hour of organ-rupturing comedy out of having an emergency hysterectomy? Like all great comedians, her comedy comes the hard way - she's frank about eating disorders and depression, honest about her marriage and family life.

After taking the mickey out of Paul Daniels, she adds, 'Poor Debbie McGee - everyone has a go at her, when all she did was fall in love with a bald magician - and we all do that...' We got to meet glamourous cruise singer Stacy-Leanne; recently discovered when a camera crew arrived on her ship The Watery Queen, to film a docu-soap for the BBC. I don't think I've ever been in the same room as my dad when someone used (no, sang) the word 'clitoris'. '...You didn't say, "Hey, what's this?"...' Fantastic.

Victoria's promo for this tour had included appearing on Parkinson with her béte noire Anne 'Widdy' Widdicombe, and guesting in the wonderful SMTV's Friends spoof Chums. Hey, you should make up your own Chums storyline.

The 'Artistic' One

Click on the pic for a larger version

As the 'artistic' one in the family (ie. the one with the least earning potential) I am relied on to cover anything which doesn't move in glitter, wear dodgy items of secondhand apparel and generally be wacky, zany, eclectic and kooky (I AM kidding, folks). It's chuffin' exhausting, I can tell you, but oh, the therapeutic value of getting creative!

I go though phases of great activity, and thrive on it, then times when I can't think of anything to do - creative block. But ever since Mum first hung one of my drawings on the fridge door I've felt a compulsion to customise myself and my surroundings in whatever way I can. (I'm even exempt from my office's 'clear desk' policy because my boss finds my mountains of tacky crap amusing.) It's an itch which *needs* to be scratched (no sniggering there at the back, please!).

THE place on the Net to relieve that pleasant ache is the brilliant Get Crafty. Go on there, swap ideas, ask questions, get advice - there is nothing these girls don't know about - they're talking about lampshades and hairdos and contact lenses and favourite lyrics and tattoos. It's an inspiring place to go anytime, but especially when you've run out of crafty oopmh.

When I moved out my parents gave me various bits of spare furniture, including the little white melamine chest-of-drawers they had bought for the birth of my sister, twenty-two years previously. It lacked a certain something, so now its frame is covered in mirror tiles and its drawers are sticky-back-plastic-ed with magazine cuttings of shoes.

My back door has a bead curtain made of old charity shop necklaces fastened end-to-end (bought bead curtains are ten a penny in this town, dahling). Lately I fear I am becoming a tie-bleach 'n' sequins addict. Evenings find me crouched over a bowl of Domestos with whatever T-shirt I have recently tired of and a bunch of rubber bands...later to spend hours stitching sequins 'tastefully' over said 'madeover' garment. If I ever start dressing like Christina Aguilera you will say, wontcha?!