I had this idea a while ago, but it seemed a little morbid for a blog who’s foundations lie in tales of clumsy teenage misadventures in fingering and text message induced anxiety. But c’mon. We’ve written about all kinds of crap since talking about actual boys started landing us in various degrees of ‘trouble’ with whomever we may or may not have been referring to in our tales of comedy boy-induced woe. But, as they say, if not now, when…

(Incidentally, I just remembered that that quote formed part of my school motto…)

Some people are sort of ok with or used to people dying. They lose a grandparent or even a parent when they’re young. Or a pet. I was pretty fortunate really that I got to keep people like that until I was 17. My brilliant grandma Betty died when I was in the middle of sitting my A Level exams. She had been ill for a long time and in the end, despite how devastatingly sad it was and how I pretty much held everything in to look after my mum and get through my exams, it was one of those deaths that you know is a relief. My grandma left a whole world of brilliant things behind. Funny stories; like how she told her soon-to-be in-laws on their first meeting that their cat was being so friendly to her because it could, “probably smell her pussy”. Or the time she tried to pull a handkerchief from her handbag in the theatre but ended up wiping her tears on a pair of tights that she had in there for some reason. A legacy of great recipes, an inherited fear of hair brushes, and beautiful mirror I now have in my own home. Long time ago, now. 12 years. But you know what? It’s still sad. No one can think or talk about her for long before it just feels too sad. I find it funny to think that she was such a big part of so much of my life, but I was only in a really short time of hers, in the grand scheme of things.

A boy I went to primary and secondary school with died in a terrible car accident about six years ago. I’ve written about him and his brilliant bright trainers before. And he’s in this wonderful picture of us in a school play. It was so completely horrific and shocking. I had to tell another friend over the phone – she was his best girly friend and she hadn’t heard. I had been at a meeting in central London and I sat bent over double on a street in soho wanting to cry or fall apart but just crouched there, clutching my phone. It felt surreal. Like a confusing dream. People my age don’t die. They don’t get in to accidents and just die like that.

When my mum phoned to tell me that my cat – the sweet, quirky, strange little kitten I had been given for my tenth birthday – needed to be put down, I was at a knitting class in the middle of the Royal Festival Hall. I felt completely sick and sad but that same confusing disorienting surreal feeling consumed me, and I kept on knitting. When we took her to the vet, I ended up tweeting what was going on the whole time. I keep on wishing I hadn’t done that. I had posted this photo to my mum on facebook too. And it’s still there. Just like my grandma, the cat had been a part of my life, my history, for a really long time. I was part of her entire life. She was very old, and very ill. It was just her time to die.

I woke up at 3am this morning. I’d been having a nightmare – a recurring one actually which now may or may not be leading me to a really great opportunity, in a bizarre yet somewhat irrelevant twist. For whatever reason, I was awake. I wrote a tweet about being awake, nightmare, etc etc… deleted it due to not wanting to sound needy, and being quite aware about how pathetic I sound when I use twitter in that misery-crutch way when I feel rubbish. So instead I scrolled down, read what was going on with who was awake, and saw an odd message from one friend to another, who happen to be neighbours, something about the police… I was tired… it seemed like a DM that had gone astray. When I woke up, I saw a string of messages that left me feeling like I was stuck to my chair with lead weights. I felt cold. Hot. Pale. Flushed. Sick. Confused. Wondered if it was some sort of strange twitter joke. How could someone – a funny, intelligent, talented and creative person I had spoken to on twitter for over a year – someone I debated with about everything from pre-raphaelite typographical styles to the best way to sneak cameras in to museums – one of a (gladly, increasing) handful of OnlyKnowFromTwitter chums I had met in Real Actual Life – how could these cold administrative tweets full of dates and times and arrangements be real? James was no big part of my life. A tiny (impeccably well dressed) face in a tiny box on a tiny screen who would pop up every now and then. But no one has ever died from my twitter stream before. Twitter plays this little game with us where it turns strangers in to friends. The feelings we get from the connections we make aren’t really like anything we’ve had in other parts of our lives before. It’s new. Everything is a bit unmapped. We don’t know where we’re going. Take the ridiculous Twitter Joke Trial for example. The lack of understanding of the medium is because this is all new to everyone. The way we read tone of voice; The jokes we’re allowed to make; And, what happens when someone dies. I find myself incredibly sad, shaken, confused. Twitter is full of people trying to outsmart or out-funny one another but it’s full of a lot of bitching and moaning. People pouring their hearts out. Whinging about a bad day at work. Spilling intimate private details of their sex lives or their mental health or their physical ailments. I do it. (A lot, yeah). And you know what? I’m glad. I’m glad that people share everything and I hope that they carry on doing that. Because these connections aren’t made by being family. Or school friends. Or pets. If this is how we make connections now, then this is how we deal with death now. A grandparent dies, you spend time with your family. A pet dies – you keep their bowl for a little while, maybe bury them in their favourite spot in the garden. A school friend dies – you share photos and stories and hold memorial events in their honour. But a friend you made on the internet? What then? Is it less real? Is it less sad or more sad that you didn’t realise anything was wrong? How do you cope with this sort of death when there are so few rules with how to cope with the bits you do whilst you’re alive?

PANDA:

Men who baby Talk

‘I have a tummy ache’ Are you three? No? Right then you’ve got a stomach ache. Your Mother is your Mother, Ma, Mum, Old dear, but NEVER your Mummy. You’re not poorly you’re ill, unwell, sick at best, Don’t ever talk in a little boy voice, you don’t wuv me you love me, despite the fact that I’m a hard-nosed cow.

Grown Ups

Contrary to what I just said I’m a big kid most of the time. I’m always up for adventures and playing, I bought myself LEGO for Christmas. I love Harry Potter and Dr Who more than my children do. You’re a grown up though, you don’t understand why adults watch things that are made for kids. You would NEVER go to the park and get on a swing, the idea of a fancy dress party horrifies you and if forced to go you’ll turn up wearing your normal clothes and look thoroughly miserable all night. You don’t dance, play or do anything that risks you looking the slightest bit silly and uncool. What’s even worse are the judgements you cast on all the people who do. For you the world is serious, play time is over, you’re like George Banks before Mary Poppins teaches him the joy of kite flying.

LOLTYBRB

The internet abbreviation bloody irks me up good and proper. Let’s start with LOL, I realise I’m not alone on this and it’s certainly not an original thought to have but god I HATE it. I hate it more because 70% of the time it’s not even used in context ‘Hello lol’ ‘Just got back from the shops lol’ WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?? Did you go the shops with a clown, did hilarity ensue? Even when it’s said after something humorous I bet the person didn’t actually laugh out loud, I bet they did a snort at best. Obviously PMSL and ROTFPMSL are equally ridiculous…Imagine finding something so hilarious that you rolled around on the floor urinating, would you then get back up and type what had happened? You couldn’t sit on the chair for a start. Would you go get cleaned up first?Surely the moment would be gone by the time you got back. I can handle a OMG, I like the way it looks, BRB slips through my net because I like the noise I make in my head when I see it. Anything else though is just lazy, C for see, U for you, TY for thank you UUURRRGHHHHHHH and don’t add Z’s where no Z’s are needed, Laterz Twat.

Manners

I was driving today and I saw someone waiting to turn in, so I kindly slowed down and let them go. They did not thank me, NOTHING no wave, nod of the head or my favourite the little flash of the back lights. This winds me up so much SAY BLOODY THANK YOU, I let you go, I gave you 6 seconds of my life SAY THANK YOU! Same as Zebra crossings, I have stopped, I’m waiting for you, oh look you’re lollygagging in the middle fiddling with your phone, still I wait, I could have drove on but I don’t, I’m nice, thank me, any small acknowledgement will do. Thank. Me.

Food

Don’t steal my food. Why are you taking my food? Stop eating all my food! I don’t like sharing food. It’s rubbish. I’m a nice person, I’ll buy you loads of food if you want. What really gets me is when I ask if you’re hungry and you say ‘Ohhh No thanks I’m definitely not hungry, I couldn’t eat a thing’ then proceed to eat half my dinner. This is not on. Also if I’ve got crisps don’t stick your entire hand in the bag trying to grab as many as you can, don’t be greedy, get your own. You may however place your finger and thumb inside the bag and carefully and gently take one ONE crisp out. Next, don’t drink cold drinks from a mug ESPECIALLY fizzy drinks. I don’t care how thirsty you are, I’d rather you sup it from your own cupped hands than drink it out of a mug. Don’t eat egg sandwiches in front of me.

CRUMPET:

I’d like to start by pointing out how hard this was to write. I mean, how hard it was to write so little. THERE IS TOO MUCH that makes me cross. Too much. I know I know. Let it go, no point getting wound up etc. I have tried my best to stick to a few big ones. As they say. *ahem*

People who start/end tweets with “Twitter, …”

I hate hate HATE those stupid preachy blog posts about “how to do Twitter right”, or Twitter ‘rules’. Do what you bloody well like. Write how you like. Reply to who you want to. Play it your own way. But this has been really irritating me of late. (Despite occasionally being guilty of myself and, well, yes I DO cringe at myself when I do it, too, but sometimes you gotta, but hear me out…) – Twitter is a WEBSITE. Obviously people will answer when you write something, whether you politely address ‘them’ or not. My friend @kibkibs highlighted this nicely in this one very concise tweet:

SEE? He gets it. If you must, why not say “dear friends”. Or “PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET”. or “OI YOU SLAGS”. Why start with “Twitter….”? TWITTER ISNT WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO. It’s the people USING Twitter. You don’t need to be polite. You don’t need to start everything with any sort of address. Just say it! You’re already limited by how much you can fit in as it is. It’s not like Siri. Or that weird family in the advert who say “EGGZBOX… I command thee to put that shit film on” and you’re not the bloke in space on the telly who has to say “COMPUTER” at the start of every command. If you are typing a tweet, you are typing to people. Twitter is providing the service. Blablablabla – you know, though?

Boys with long fingernails.

Or any fingernails worth noticing really. Chewed, short, even well-looked after is FINE but my word please keep them below finger-tip level and for the love of all that is polite and sanitary, don’t talk about them because that just draws attention to them. Bleurgh. (see also: feet, although the older I get the less repulsed I am by SOME of them. Also don’t “see also” because I haven’t written about feet because I don’t want to and I’ve already said “feet” more than I care to.)

People who are unwell in some way but refuse to do anything about it.

Despite my endless Tramadol-laced evenings, I am not a fan of popping a pill for every little ailment. WATER fixes most things. Or magical tea. Lemon & ginger tea especially. OOH or peppermint. Most simple things are fixed with rehydration. Headache. Confusion. Rage. Hating your job. Not knowing what to eat next. Being angry at your brother. And so on. My lovely friend Meg’s mum gives the standard advice for anyone moaning about anything – GO AND SIT ON THE TOILET. But she’s American. Being somewhat Englisher about everything, MY mum, who was the school nurse at my high school – all 7 years of it (eurgh), was known (and mocked) for her sage, wise, caring response to any moaning child who dared enter her office. “Go and get a drink of water.” She was bloody right, though.

But if you’ve got the flu, or a cold, or like, a migraine – you know what’s really good supplement to the spicy chillies, fruit & OJ? MODERN MEDICINE. Don’t sit there wishing you’ll get better if you won’t try to fix yourself in a very easy way. Even whilst I was writing this one of you moany (lovely) bastards was telling me how you were worried you were full of germs but it’s ok because you’ve got some ginger in the kitchen. Bloody hell.

Boys obsessing over fitness/gym/diet

Specifically, in a verbal way. More so if it’s in a preachy or showing off way. I DONT CARE HOW LONG YOUR GYM SESSION WAS. I reeeeeeally don’t care why you won’t eat potatoes. Do it, don’t do it, whatever. Don’t bore me with it though because yeah I like swimming, yeah I hate the way I look, no I can’t really be arsed to be as saintly as you about fixing it, because I fucking love cheese. AND MY SOFA. Bikes are ok though. You can have bikes.

FORGETFULNESS

I have a completely ridiculous memory. For detail. Fine, insignificant detail. The date we met. What you said when we went to that place that time. What I ate when you bought that thing. Why this happened on that day. Bits of script. Lyrics. I like solving mysteries and puzzles (YES I COMPLETED THE TINTIN MYSTERY APP GAME TOO WHICH MEANS IM ALLOWED TO BUY IT FOR THE seXBOX NOW WOO) which I think is why my brain keeps track of all these clues – so that I can solve mysteries further down the line. Maybe. The other month over a very fancyposh breakfast, I claimed I’d remember weeks and weeks in the future what the ladies to my left were eating. WELL LET ME TELL YOU NOW that the one next to me had mushrooms on granary toast and her companion had fresh berries on porridge. Anyway, my lack of acceptance of other people’s imperfections (aren’t I lovely?) means that I find it aggrivating if someone doesn’t remember the things I do, or remembers it incorrectly. Especially because I KNOW I’M RIGHT. It’s not that it makes me think it meant less to you. No no. It’s just that the incredible power of my WonderMemory is unable to grasp that yours doesn’t have the same capacity. Sweet jesus I’m going to be single forever aren’t I?

UNADVENTUROUSSESNESS

How do you KNOW you don’t like that whateveritis on your plate if you haven’t tried it, you foooool. My lack of compassion towards The Unadventurous leads to my constant bullying of dear friend @LuckyLuque, which so far in 2012 has resulted in him not only eating AN EDAMAME BEAN (yes an ENTIRE one!) but also trying A BLACK OLIVE. These are incredible steps. Anyway adventure doesn’t end with an empty plate. How can you not want to see the world? Or leave London? Or go on a massive long train ride like Portillo? Look round the corner. Always.

CRUMPET:

It’s totally rare, you know, for anyone to not have one single issue with food. Even if you have the best metabolism, figure, and the most ‘normal’ or  ‘healthy’ attitude to eating in the world, you might still find yourself scoffing raw potatoes or lemon slices, or disguising your love of pickled onions for fear of offence, like my old flatmate. A selection of my nearest and dearest reveals a diabetic mother, a father who is never ever full, a brother who force-feeds his girlfriend his Man vs Food-inspired creations, friends with varying degrees of eating disorders in one form or another, and those who just bloody love food.

Just keep swimming just keep swimming

I’m pretty wobbly. I’ve never been toned, but it’s quite easy for me to control how I look by cutting down on certain things and upping my exercise, like the week I went mental by cycling everywhere and swimming 4billion lengths in 2 days. MAN I was hungry.

I find food massively comforting. Food DOES fix the mood. When I was little, I hated hated hated having my hair washed. HATED it. Possibly because it inevitably led to hair being BRUSHED. Nightmare. If I was very brave and didn’t cry, I was allowed a Daddy Gokgok (a chocolate from my dad – those mini dairy milks which used to come in cardboard envelopes before those tubs of HEROES came along). On a Friday, after a long week of school and sucking at maths and kids laughing at my hair and glasses and freckles and bogies, my grandma would feed me a delicious afternoon tea of fresh hot jam tarts and we’d all have a big family dinner of Proper Jewish Chicken Soup and a roast and it was my absolute favourite bit of the whole week.

Daddy gokgok

When I go and visit my parents now, before I’ve even taken off my coat I get “you want something to eat?”

When I get in from a night out, my head instinctively decides it’s time for toast, or crumpets, or snacks, even though my belly rarely needs it.

If I’m anxious or nervous, upset or stressed out, the first thoughts I have are about what food might make me feel better. It’s rarely chocolate, by the way. Or cake for that matter. My most comforty comfort foods involve eggs, or smoked salmon, or potatoes or coronation chicken or soup or humus.

We’ve written about food before, where I detailed my terror over eating in front of boys. That was pretty much a year ago I think. In the past year I’ve got way more used to it, including having a ladle of soup force-fed to me shortly after writing that piece, to happily scoffing the messiest meals in front of all manner of men and hiding behind napkins less and less.

I bloody love food. I love cooking it. I love reading about it. I love shopping for it and experimenting with it and I LOVE feeding it to other people. But most of all I just bloody love stuffing my gob. It calms me down. It makes me feel happy. It excites me and even when I go absolutely mental and have a week of mad crack-like full on food addiction and end up feeling horrific and full and spotty and completely repulsively unlovable, I’m still going to always choose a hot toasty cream cheese bagel over a swim.

So there.

PANDA:

I’m much like Crumpet in a OH MY GOD I BLOODY LOVE FOOD way. Actually last time I went to see Crumpet I had to undo my bra in the middle of a pub to make way for some more food. Right now I’m chomping down on a family sized pack of Salt and Vinegar crunchy sticks, I’m not even that keen but I’m sure I’ll keep going.

I’ve no self control when it comes to food. One day I’m gonna wake up obese and diabetic and I’ll be totally screwed. It’s like the other night for instance I started into a pack of Marks and Sparks Chocolate Viennese  biscuits. Now these are the Queen of the biscuit world, buttery and melt in the mouth and just bloody wonderful. So there I was tea in one hand biscuit in the other, like some sort of orgasmic robot, dipping and sucking, dipping and sucking. When suddenly I felt full, really full, a bit sick full, but when I looked down there was only two biscuits left. I couldn’t leave those two lonely biscuits while the rest of their family were churning round in my belly. They had to be reunited, I had to fulfil their little biscuit destiny. GOD DAM IT I had to finish them all, so I did. I felt like yacking but I was also proud, what a bloody achievement.

Whenever I can get away with it I like to eat food with my hands. The feel of cutlery in my mouth does not please me at all. I’d much rather feel the food then taste it, get more of my senses working, a fork is just a barrier, a rubbish metal barrier. Sometimes I’ll treat myself and cook a chicken and just sit there like Henry the eighth ripping it apart with my hands whilst the grease dribbles down my fingers. Steak as well, oh god yeah, fuck cutting it up, I like to hold it and tear into it like a wolf then sit and feel all meat drunk after.

Sausage fingers

Sausages, eight in a row once, standing in my kitchen dipping them into a jar of mayo nom nom nom. Today I dipped my fingers into cream cheese then wrapped smoked salmon round them then popped each delicately wrapped finger into my mouth (I blame Hula Hoops for this anti social behaviour, I remember being five years old and opening a pack. They were hoops! They’re designed to be popped onto your fingers!)

This might all sound quite sexy/repulsive but let me make it clear I do not mix food with the bedroom.

No Mathew NO

I mean yeah I’ll eat Trifle in bed but I do not want to smear it all over you then lick it off. How absolutely ridiculous, tainting my lovely custard with man juice. I’m also not great at sharing food, don’t get me wrong I’m not tight I’ll buy you all the dinners you want. But if you say you’re not hungry then THEN EAT SOME OF MY FOOD I WILL WANT TO RIP YOUR FACE OFF. I also get quite cross if I’m not fed, I’m like the opposite of a Gremlin. But like a kitten I’ll keep coming back for more if you do.

My big sisters a brilliant feeder, I think she takes after our Nan who used to be Jewish. I went round there last week and before I’d even taken my coat off there was a cup of tea and a plate of toast and pate sat in front of me. Crumpets a good feeder as well, she always buys the food I like and last time I got to eat it all with my fingers so I was dead happy.

I guess apart from the willingness to inhale entire packets of biscuits at a time my only problem with food is I only eat when I’m happy. Luckily I’m happy 80% of the time but the first thing to go when life’s being a bit shit to me is my appetite. I also (as you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter) really like eating in my car. I’m not sure why or when this started but I’ll go park up and eat, alone. Sometimes it’s a lovely experience and I’ll be parked up along the seafront watching the boats or sometimes it’s bleak, like when I’m in the Tescos garage forecourt and it’s dark and raining. Sometimes it’s just a bit weird like the time I made food in the house then went out and ate it in the car.

I genuinely get quite excited about food. I’m like a six year old when I get to go to Bodeans, they serve up plates of meat and it’s totally fine to eat it with your hands and they put several different animals on your plate at the same time,. It’s my best thing EVER.

One of the main things I liked about being pregnant was the fact I got to walk down the street, sausage roll in one hand and chocolate éclair in the other and no one could say a bloody word to me. Unsurprisingly I was a big ol bird when I was expecting.

I like the tradition of food as well, it’s comforting. I love sitting round as a family and eating a Sunday roast with a big apple pie after. I like the fact we always have a buffet on Christmas eve or a special breakfast for Easter. Watching the boys eat something I’ve made (and sometimes enjoy it) is an absolute joy for me. Actually I don’t do it as much as I used to but making food for someone and seeing them like it is a brilliant buzz.

So yeah I’d say I’m definitely team food, yeah go food! I’m pro food, gotta lot of time for it.  Maybe it’s not the healthiest relationship but I’d always rather be the girl who eats with absolute gusto than the one who classes having one chocolate out of the selection box as a naughty little treat.

Anyone Can Play Guitar

You absolutely MUST catch it (also showing at the brilliant Prince Charles Cinema in London on Dec 1st ) – not least because Crumpet’s real life human name will flash before your very eyes in the credits (WOO, btw). Anyway all of this glamourous Hollywood excitement made us think about films, and cinemas, and, of course, boys.

BUT WAIT! We’re a whole year old now. So we get to do things in a more exciting way round here.

Have a read. Share YOUR cinematic stories of love, regretful movie-dates, the tale of the time you met That Guy From That Film,  or your best popcorn-in-bra moment below in the comments, and the director of Anyone Can Play Guitar will pick his favourite – AND AWARD YOU AN AMAZING CINEMA POSTER (If we’re very nice to him, he might even sign it for you too.

WIN THIS PLECTRUM! And a POSTER! Ooh

He’ll ALSO chuck in a very cool Anyone Can Play Guitar branded plectrum.

IMAGINE THAT! Get busy.

CRUMPET:

I bloody love films. My heaving bookshelves are rammed with pretentious French surrealist cinema, David Lynch classics, 60′s mod-ish gems, and Cool Runnings (well OBVIOUSLY). I love the ceremonial nature of going to the cinema. The purchasing of a paper ticket to keep in your purse to remember the occasion by. The absolutely impossible choice of what snacks to consume. Choosing seats. Swathes of red curtains. The way you have to carefully consider in advance what you will have with you because there is never ever an adequate way to deal with storing your coat, scarf, handbag, eBay package you had delivered to your office for ‘convenience’ and the shopping you forgot you needed to take home from the fridge at work.

The cinema is the classic date scenario, isn’t it. Back row smooches. Fumbling to find hands to hold. Cock in the popcorn. Aah. I get totally sucked in to the cinema experience. All film-watching, really. I have a totally overactive imagination. When I saw Tintin last week I was the epitome of the emoticon smiley face throughout. When Tintin was in danger I scrunched my face up with my heart in my throat despite knowing the story inside and out since the age of 7. If I watch an older film, I end up confused about it not actually being 1960′s London when the credits roll, or that I don’t actually live in some strange American backwater town.

I actually find cinema dates a bit naff, socially and practically, despite loving the classic romance of the idea. You can’t chitchat, can’t press pause, if you stop for a smooch you miss approximately £1.25′s worth of viewing pleasure you’ve paid for, Orange Wednesday or not. Watching films at home though. Oh boy. I bloody love that. SNACKS. Endless snacking potential. PYJAMAS. Cosy blankets. Controllable lighting situations. Adjusting the volume. The fact that the film probably only cost you £3 from Amazon and it fills a space on your shelf. And when you’re done – WHY NOT WATCH ANOTHER ONE? Until you fall asleep, even! Brilliant. All of these things make home-date-film-time superior to cramped, separated-by-arm-rest-and-cup-holder cinema dates.

Film taste is quite a specific thing though, innit. Some people call my taste in films wanky. I just love having my brains stimulated by what I watch. An intellectual investment. I’ve got 5 years of art school education that I rarely get to excercise and will never finish paying for, so I bloody LOVE watching something that I want to talk about after, or tear apart with my mind coggs, or compare to a painting I’ve figured out it’s inspired by. Yes yes I’m a film twat. I’d rather have my eyeballs sparked with inspiration than sit mindlessly chuckling at slapstick and fart jokes.

I’m actually a bit rubbish to watch films with, I think, if you’re a boy. I vocalise my “oooooh”s and “eeeeps” and “OH thats like that bit in that OTHER film” and whatnot. I like a good discussion at the end. I like arguing about how brilliant or crap or contrived the story was.

I had a cinema date once to see a very popular film, not so long ago, that everybody was bloody raving about. Total hollywoodarama. Not my usual cup of tea but, you know, dates are sometimes about compromise or doing stuff you wouldn’t do usually. By the end, when it transpired that (predictably) I had hated it and my date had loved it, I ranted for a good 20 minutes about all of the old surrealist films – and more modern films – that it seemed to rip off. The flaws. The bits that gave me motion sickness. The books it had borrowed themes from. I properly went to town without gasping for breath, hoping this would be the start of a brilliant great lengthy discussion. My date responded with “well I suppose you’ve got a point, yeah”. Meh.

PANDA:

I’ve been sitting trying to write this for bloody ages…I thought it would be easy I LOVE films…I guess that’s the problem didn’t realise still I started writing what a big part of my life they are. I know people who just aren’t that into films, they might watch the occasional thing but they’re just not fussed. That confuses my tiny brain…My Mum says they are far-fetched nonsense. ‘BUT THAT’S THE POINT!!’ I wail at her. My Dad takes it to the other extreme and will happily stay up till three in the morning simultaneously watching two films at once.

PANDA:

Dear Flat,

I’m gonna level with you, I never used to like you very much at all. When me, my EX Husband and young Master C moved in it was quite exciting at first. I was all ‘Ooooh new flat’ but then that wore off and I started to notice the things I didn’t like about you. You’ve no Fireplace…Why do you have no fireplace I HATE that and what was with all the blown Vinyl IN EVERY ROOM (We’re not in the 70′s anymore mate) Your bathroom was mouldy and our bedroom was cold. Really cold, like the bed feels wet because it’s so cold. Oh god your drains…Did you have to wait till we had company round to let off the smell that can only be described as EGGY DEATH. Nope we were not friends I wasn’t happy, you were a temporary stop-gap till we could move into a house.

Then my relationship with my EX finally came to an end and he moved out. It was cold and snowy flat but something strange happened. I felt like you were supporting me. I felt like you were taking care of the three of us. You suddenly felt cozy and the dampness went away even my Ice box of a bedroom was less well Icy. I covered your blown vinyl walls with pictures and pretty things. Friends and family rallied round and bought and made you stuff, little things to show we were being thought of. You made us feel safe and protected…Here I was a single Mum living alone for the first time in years yet I felt secure.

You embraced me through the hard early months, provided me with a place to cry and yell and feel sorry for myself. Remember the nights when I’d get a bit drunk and try to break-dance on your kitchen floor? Or put those dreadful Karaoke videos on You Tube on and sing my head off. I was therapizing myself and you were there to support me.

I’d never bothered planting bulbs the previous year, to preoccupied with going through a break up. Yet spring rolled around and you managed to magically produce daffodils and tulips and bluebells in abundance.

The summer you filled with light, me and the boys would spend our days dressing up as Super Heroes and running round the garden the evenings I would sit out drinking tea pondering what the future held. I was happy and I was beginning to appreciate you a bit more.

Even our first Christmas together when we all got ill and the turkey didn’t get cooked, is a happy memory for me. Because there we were just me and the boys snuggled up on the sofa together watching Elf and it was perfect.

I once saw only fault in you, at one time I was so desperate to move out of you yet you have supported me through so much. You’ve watched me struggle at times to be a single Mum then blossom into a darn good one. you’ve watched me pour over Essays then welcome in an actual client. You’ve seen my crying over silly boys and laughing with good friends till wee nearly comes out. I’ve made more happy memories in the last two years than I ever have. I realised I wasn’t running from you before, I was trying desperately to escape the situation I was in.

Six years I’ve been here now, almost two of those just me and the boys. You were once a temporary situation, I was waiting for something better to come along. Now though you have become my home and I love you very much. You’ve been a proper nest for me to bring up my not so small humans in and for that I’m eternally grateful.  Of course one day we will have to part, see the small people they just keep on growing as does our ever-expanding LEGO collection. We’ll need to move on but it will be with a heavy heart that I do.

I also know that you’re a much better home since we’ve been here, you only have to walk through the door to feel how much love there is (Unless it’s I’M COOKING DINNER WILL YOU PICK THOSE BLOODY TOYS UP time) I know when our time does come to part that you’ll welcome in another family and protect them just like you’ve done us.

Until that time comes though let’s continue to have ALL the fun and make even more memories and I promise to dust you a bit more if you lay off the eggy death drains.

CRUMPET:

I moved house. This is the 10th time I’ve moved in as many years, and pretty much every single time it’s felt like home. I’m good at doing Home. I’m as happy staying put as I am a victim of itchy feet. Sometimes it’s just time for a change and sometimes I feel like I’d gladly stay somewhere forever. I have a lot of stuff, as previously discussed. I am a hoarder and having my Stuff all around me makes me feel cosy and homely wherever I am. Wherever I lay my 412 hats, that’s my home.

When I first left home and packed myself off to art college, my parents moved house. They massively downsized, and I know now that aside from other issues this was largely to help pay for me to go to university, for which I am more than eternally grateful. So much so that I somehow ended up studying for 5 years at 4 different institutions. Ahem. But when I went ‘home’ that summer, the place they moved to didn’t feel like my home. They moved from a 5 bedroom house with a gigantic garden, to a 2 and a half bedroom cottage. It is beautiful and quaint and the front is covered in rambling roses. There’s a pond where my mum studies the movements of the resident frogs each year and teaches it to her science class. There’s a funny little pretend fireplace and just about room for the piano, which was the first Big Grown Up Thing my mum ever bought when she entered the World Of Work (at WH Smiths’ head office, in the late 1970s). But there’s never been space for my things. And I just didn’t have any Moments there. I have no history with that house. I’d been a naughty child and a grumpy teenager in their old house. I’d done my Growing Up there. My room had been built especially for me, as an extension, and I’d even written a ‘certificate’ on the plaster declaring that “this wall was once outside but now it’s inside” so future generations would know that room was built all for me. We haven’t lived there for 11 years but I still get a lightning-fast glimmer in my brain where if I am heading to see my parents, or if I dream of ‘home’, that it’s that house I see, and not their little rose-covered cottage.

When my ex and I were deciding on where we would live – chosing between Brighton, Melbourne and London, I threw around that ridiculous cliché, that “home is with you” and it doesn’t matter where we are as long as we are together. How disgustingly soppy. However I took myself by surprise by being terrified of feeling at home in Melbourne, because it really is terribly far away from the Thames. Went to great lengths to make sure I was just miserable enough to always feel like I wanted to get back to London at some point. Even bought myself some ruby slippers. (which have ended up coming to everywhere I’ve visited since, incidentally. I even hear I left a few of their little red sequins scattered around LA last month).

Home is where you make it, and for whatever reason, I find it pretty easy to feel at home almost anywhere. Pretty much any place I visit on holiday, I’ll say at least once “yeah I could see myself living here” – Thailand, France, Swindon…. ok not Swindon. That bit was a joke. And I know it’s terribly materialistic of me to think that as long as I have all of my shit around me – my antique floral desk lamp, records, books and books and books, letters from lost lovers, postcards from friends, handmade gifts from sweet baby cousins, then anywhere will feel like home – but I do feel like those things help me feel settled somewhere.

My recent move has been so fluid and easy and calm, apart from the moment where I had to choose between sawing the legs off of my handmade antique desk, or sawing the legs off of my brother, that it’s not surprising that I feel totally at home after just over a week. I’d hardly been quiet about my living situation these past 2 years. Despite being a Londoner born n bred (shutup it’s only Essex a BIT), it was my first time renting in this glorious city. 150a was the perfect home at the perfect time – the dots all joined up so that I fell in to the right place at the right time. Living there with close friends gave me the strength and the opportunity to move on from a lot of things that had been tied to my ankles the previous year. A lot of my life in that house was like therapy. It worked. And my new home is just up the road, but is a little calmer, and a little neater, with more room to relax and have my things in order. Which is perfect, because it’s just like how I feel inside my brain, now

CRUMPET:

“The seconds pass slowly and years go flying by”.

Ben Folds, that. WISE, eh? It’s funny coz it’s true. Etc.

A year. A WHOLE YEAR since we first took a deep breath and said – no one’s going to read this crap but we’ll just do it for US and see what happens.

On 22nd July 2010, @mixmasterfestus decided that he would give a stack of comics in return for #FF’s presented on video. I made this one, she made that one. We’d chit-chatted a little bit on twitter via other people – but that was the day we first followed each other. And won a stack of comics, each, by the way. YEAH.

We’ve been through how this blog came about before – but in summary, it was, as you’d imagine, the product of having to briskly move from a couple of vaguely melodramatic tweets by each of us about boys,

BOYS

to DMs where Panda DEMANDED to add me on Facebook – the stalker – in the hope that I’d elaborate and send her hilarious juicy details in emailish form. Whizz forward a few months, a few massively lengthy GettingToKnowYouAndAllYourBaggage type emails and IM sessions… and here we are.

It’d be an understatement to say that having this Pandafaced fool as a friend has changed my life a little bit. Her ears and brain have provided me with a bit of a cosy padded cell if ever I’ve been sad or confused or upset about any number of things. Her words and understanding and insight generally calms me down on the most part (even when it’s the HERE’S A BIG MIRROR AND A SLAP IN THE FACE NOW PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER style), and has changed the way I understand a lot of things in my life. My family, my relationships, my cake-icing skills and my love of coronation chicken.

We met in real human form (it was a POWERFUL moment) after about the first 3 times we published anything on here. We went to go see Jaws at the PCC.

An Actual Photo from my disposable camera

We had some underlying boy-based themes/plans to our day but the main magical thing was that I took a photo of us on a bus on a disposable camera and also bought this really cool red and white striped cardigan. Such a special day. I bloody love that ridiculously over-ruffled cardigan. It was also the day I chucked a load of chips on the floor and got burger in my hair, and the day that I left Panda alone, abandoned in big ol’ Laaandan to be looked after by her now love. Aaaww. We had a wicked time and it was that thing you always get with internoodle pals, generally, that they’re just as ace and fun as you thought they would be, and that you really DO end up spending the whole day talking about boys.

Lots of things have happened to me this year. Lots and nothing. She’s listened to all of it and you know who else has? You. Having a place to combine thoughts and worries and stories and quotes and share them has become so valuable to me. I’ve gone through worrying about not getting the family diamond and going on billions of panic-dates a week, to meeting a few boys I quite liked and going through the various typical Crumpet scenario of making it just complicated enough to go spectacularly wrong, every. single. time; through varying degrees of friend-based dramas; through a Christmas that fell apart because of airport closures; through mentally and emotionally processing holding a man by the wrists over the well of a flight of stairs; through hating my job to changing what I do there to loving it again but having to work a bit harder (eurgh); through falling out spectacularly with my mum and little brother, and a number of teenage-dream musician-related encounters… every single bit of each of these things has been made lighter by being able to write it down.

CCTV footage from every time we have hung out ever

To talk about it on Skype with Pandapants, to be able to take a day off work and go play with her at the seaside or have a ‘meeting’ where we plan to write down blog ideas but end up eating cakes and chips instead – all of this is brilliant and valuable to me.

No Oscar-style speech needed. Totally aware that it’s Just A Blog. And it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

I don’t care. We only ever did this because we made each other laugh. Now other people laugh at us too which is… yknow. A bit rad. My favourite thing about that is that this is exactly what still happens. Although we’ve gone a bit soppy now after a year and end up a bit teary most of the time. We’ve only ever half fallen out like one tiny bit of a time too.

AND NOW we’ve got this awesome chap who sends us quite frankly a very flirtatious bit of fan mail declaring his desperate need to illustrate one of our posts. We’d been deciding how to ‘celebrate’ our anniversary.

We wanted to try something new. We had talked about some kind of collaboration, or cross-over, or changing SOMETHING. We got a bit stuck though and ended up talking about… well… boys. S’what we do, innit. x

PANDA:

I remember first seeing Crumpet lovingly caressing the loo roll in that video and I remember thinking she was all sophisticated with an amazing fringe and the straightest of straight hair.

Confusey-haired loo-roll Crumpet

Then later when SHE friend requested ME on Facespaz and I stalked through all her pictures I saw she had in fact the most magical mental curly hair I had ever seen. I didn’t quite understand how someones hair could be so different…

It still confuses me on an almost daily basis.

To attempt to sum up Crumpet would be difficult, when I think of her I think of our first meeting. I knew she was a bit O posh as I’d stalked through her you tube videos and I by then knew of ‘The Hair’ but I still wasn’t prepared. I was a bit nervous, what if she didn’t like me in person? What if the conversation didn’t flow as well in real life as it did in emails? So I got off the tube and walked into a busy Liverpool Street station and there she stood all red stripes and sparkly trainers and she skipped towards me and engulfed me in a massive hug. Apart from thinking ‘Wow nice bloody arse’ I was instantly struck by how warm and sunny and just well bloomin lovely she was. She grabbed my arm starting talking ten to the dozen and whizzed me off round London for one of the best days ever.

After that meeting we became proper friends not just internet friends and over the last year we’ve seen our friendship change and flourish. Neither of us have ever been the sort of friends who only tell each other what we want to hear. We’ve always told it how it is, or even just the blunt how we think it is (I think that’s the Jew in us) At times this has caused us to bristle and get cross with each other (truth hurts don’t it) but we’ve always come back and always will do.

We’ve both grown and changed so much in the past year. Crumpet has been there for me through heart-break as well as shoving me towards my wonderful Mr Panda. She has been a constant listening ear and her warmth and compassion not just for me but for everyone in her life never fails to amaze me.

I still get excited when she DM’s me to tell me there is an email on the way and I still delight in reading her tales of boys and gin. She is a beautiful person both inside and out although at times I’ve wanted to strangle her because she just didn’t see that. Now thanks to a brand new magic sexy bra and several other things she’s finally starting to.

"Hello. I'm Johnny Chicken"

So here we are one year on, bought together because of our love for boys and stuck together because of our love for cold curried chicken, Johnny Cash, each other and of course our lovely little blog.

What started as a silly thing, something we genuinely didn’t think anyone would read apart from us. Has turned into something we both cherish and also something I’m incredibly proud of. So many times when we’ve had stuff going on, to be able to get it down and write about it has been the best therapy there is. To have YOU read it is truly wonderful, the feedback we get and listening to your stories is exactly what we hoped the blog would become. For that I say a massive thank you, the fact you bother to read our often silly words means the absolute world.

So Happy Anniversary to us!!!! Here’s to another year of sharing boy stories and fingering anecdotes, and drawings, and shoving flowers in our hair and me trying to get fresh with Crumpet whenever I possibly can. And here’s to you, you absolute lovely bunch of sexbeasts! We ruddy bloddy LOVE you! xx

CRUMPET:

I am a terrible flirt. I don’t mean in the cheeky “ooh you’re a TERRIBLE flirt” way – I mean I am pretty dreadful at performing A Flirt. Lots of people think they’re bad too – I know. And the people who are good (not sure what “good” means – will get to that) – or well-practiced at it always ends up seeming a bit sleazy don’t they.

No one had done any flirting on me for years (on account of having been in a long-term relationship), but I definitely remember noticing it more now as a grown up, now that we’re not clouded by teenage hormones and “snog? lunchtime? back of science block?” note-passing. I even distinctly remember when I first noticed A Flirt being done on me since The Single Years began. At a party about 2 years ago when a friend of a friend made some sort of saucy but not sleazy comment about my outfit to which I turned to a girlfriend and yelped OH MY GOD IS HE DOING FLIRTING ON ME??? I responded by dropping quite a bit of my drink on his shoes as I turned back around to face him, obviously. Took my seat firmly in the friend zone in record time with that one. Ah well.

Anyway – my inability to flirt probably ties in nicely with my inability to spot it being done to me, unless it’s horribly obvious (ie borderline sleazy-style). For example, the lovely chap who recently told me he owned a very comprehensive book about oral sex. Blatant I can understand. Blatant is good and helpful. Blatant works.

There are basic signs, right? Touching… eye contact… smiles… but all easily misinterpreted, aren’t they? I mean – I like to get a bit handsy. Not in a slutty way – just in a (I suspect, over)familiar way. Like in an “ol’ buddy ol’ pal” shoulder pat sort of way. And I’m a girl – so I like greeting people with a cuddle. If you want it to go flirty it’s easy to take it from there with a subtle grab of the bottom. No? Oh. A little stroke of the neck then. That’s perfectly harmless, right? I can’t wink, on account of only really having 1 fully functioning eye anyway. I do like holding eye contact for an uncomfortably long time, though. Always fun.

HELLO BOYS.

Can’t use my hair in any sort of sexy ladylike way either on account of it usually being held in place with 300 bobby-pins, a couple of flowers, a bird, probably a bit of lunch, a lot of hairspray… well… we’ve discussed the hair problem before. I’m not a particularly hot or sexy looking lady – that’s fine. I have other qualities. Like a detailed knowledge of Georgian chimney designs. And I can make my tongue wiggle in to the shape of a flower. And despite my general overall wobbly exterior, I have an OK-ish bottom and ample bosom.

I’m not great at ‘selling myself’(clearly) in that flirty way where you somehow manage to explain in a sexy list of harmless yet ever-so charming innuendos how you’re brilliant in bed and handy with a pingpong ball and can tie cherry stalks in to knots with your tongue and don’t mind a bit of light bondage etc – you know – the classics. My ‘flirting’ banter usually just involves brutal honesty, shame, tales of past failure, and often, quite a bit of dribble escaping my mouth either mid-conversation, whilst ‘sexily’ sucking on a straw as a lump of lime from a gin and tonic shoots up and becomes lodged in my throat/teeth, or during an over-dramatic gasp whilst playing out one of those near-scripted conversations about “ooh aren’t you good with your hands” “oh you don’t know the half of it” and so on.

Sausagefest

At a friend’s BBQ recently, I was subjected to some amazing examples of flirting (I was basically the only single girl there, so that helped, in some very sad and slightly uncomfortable way) which made me actually consider what would be better or more effective. My favourite was “so… your phone is red… it matches… your dress. And hair… cool.” At a close second was a lengthy ‘discussion’ about how I was waiting around for a sausage.

Needless to say – I’m a straight forward type of gal. And from Essex. Whilst I do love a bit of cheesy flirty banter, it does make my cheeks go awfully pink and I do often need to relay every single detail of the entire conversation to others (usually Panda – thanks/sorry) before they’re able to correctly interpret for me and say YES – YOU HAVE BEEN FLIRTED and I can attempt to proceed. I’m more of a cheeky boob-grab, playful slap on the bum, laugh in a mocking way at my pronunciation of founTAIN and mounTAIN, then grab my face for a proper snog as I drop my bag on the floor in a fumbly bumbly frenzy kind of gal.

PANDA:

I’ve been casting my mind back to my single days and thinking about my flirting style and realised I never really did it. Well I guess in my head I thought I was but I’ve since realised that instead of coming across like I was interested in that person I actually looked like I hated them deeply. I used to try to do the eye gaze thing but was told my ‘sexy eyes’ actually looked like a death stare and if we ended up having a conversation I’ve been told my voice is so monotone that I seem totally disinterested and sarcastic. Add to that the fact that If I did like you, It was programmed in me not to show it, the conversation would mostly consist of me taking the piss out of you.

This probably explains why I never got asked out on many dates.

Because of this cool (psychopathic) exterior I never really had a lot of flirting done on me either. The ones that dared to were always a bit, well for want of a better word – WACKY, Comedy Colin, Crazy Dave, you know the sort. When I was a barmaid one started serenading me ……Actual singing to me in a public place with other people watching, laughing, fucking mortifying. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? STOP THAT!! STOP FUCKING SINGING!!

I never went for the charming flirt in my 20′s, the few times it was attempted on me ‘Wow I could get lost in your eyes’ I rolled my eyes and walked away. The ones that took the piss out of me, the cocky ones, the complete WRONGUNS they were the ones that caught my attention.

Then I got in a relationship and was a flirt free zone for a very long time. So when I found myself single again EVERYTHING was different. For a start a lot of my social life was now on a computer. INTERFLIRTING!! This was shiny new and exciting with added LOLS and smiley faces. Also confusing (see Crumpets post about xxx’s) ‘Ooooh he put a x on the end of that Tweet WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEAN??????’ ‘Shall I friend request him on Facebook? Oh no I can’t, but I wanna OH GOD’

I met my other half on Twitter, we were both shit at flirting. Our tweets sometimes had a mild undercurrent, he once commented on a picture of me and said it made his knees turn to trifle. I bloody love trifle so I knew we were on to something. But as he’s a lovely friendly bloke to everyone I never thought he fancied me. Then we ended up meeting to go to the cinema (Not a date) I had said I was taking my son to see Ghostbusters and he pretty much invited himself along. There was no flirting then (Would have been mega sleazy with a six-year-old in tow) But once he did lean slightly near me in the cinema WAS THIS FLIRTING??

Like all 30 year olds it took someone else to tell me he liked me ‘My mate fancies you’ type thing. I was mega surprise but excited as we were meeting up for some Twitter thing. Crumpet was subtle, when we arrived she announced loudly that J should sit in the middle of us, which he did. We then spent the rest of the day ‘Flirting’; (Slightly leaning on each other with arm touching)

Not so subtle, Crumpet

Fast forward a few hours and we were down the pub, I was managing to do nice eye contact and actual smiles, at one point he sniffed my hair SNIFFED MY HAIR!! I knew I was totally in there. But then Crumpet my wing man was going so I went to go too but she was all ‘No you stay, J you’ll look after her right RIGHT??’ With lots of winking and giggling and me trying to subtlety kick her.

Nothing actually happened that night, we were back to INTERFLIRTING which we were both crap at, even hiding behind our computers we didn’t have the guts to flirt. We didn’t actually end up going on a date till a good 6 weeks later, even then we were both useless. More arm touching and leaning in the cinema….We’re the King and Queen of the leany flirt. We held hands right at the end of the date although he’ll tell you it was after dinner IT WASN’T.

So I’m not really any better at flirting now than I’ve ever been. When I’m trying to be all nice and flirty with Mr P I do that hair twiddling thing, and I definitely have a ‘Look’ now which I think is more sexy than psycho (Hopefully) and I think he definitely knows when I say ‘Put the kettle on Spaz head’ It actually means ‘I really love you, you handsome beast’ or something.

I dunno I think there’s something quite creepy and calculating about the ‘Expert flirt’. I’d take a bumbling, embarrassed, clumsy spaz over a smooth talking, charming Romeo any day of the week.

PANDA:

I love holidays. The anticipation. The tiny toiletries that make you feel like a giant. The getting there. The Airport. The service station. Luggage convener belts. New smells. Airplane food. Holiday food. Food. Foreign people. Foreign animals. FUNNY MONEY. Food. Hotels. Bright stars. Donkeys. 99′s. Caravans. Fish and Chips. Paddling. Sand Castles. Food.

I’ve got such fond memories of my holidays as a kid, it always seemed so hot and hazy even when we were holidaying here in the UK. I remember going to Ibiza before it got all clubby I was only 5 or 6 and I remember having sword fish and loving it and some of the best chips I’ve ever had. We went to Spain and my Dad made me eggy bread for the first time, straight after I was chased by a dog as big as a small horse down an alley way. He turned out to be ok though and would often dine on Dads left over eggy creations. I remember going to Austria and eating pate and french bread in the town square and the South of France where I had crepes with cream and chocolate sauce and Dad spilled his whole stack down his cream chinos and Mum got cross.

Holiday foooood!!

The caravan holidays in England with my big brother and Sister and our family friends. Crying when I was 5 cos I was too small to get in the under 18′s disco. Crazy golf. Cheap wax work museums. Amazing Cornish Ice creams. Going to a miniature village at night and thinking it was the most magical place ever. Hiring bikes. Picnics. Swimming in the sea. Gift shops, Oh god gift shops were so exciting, I’d have my five pounds in one of them plastic money holders round my neck and get to go in and choose ANYTHING I wanted, that was heady.

Now I’m all grown up and have kids, holidays are slightly different, two bored kids in a caravan on a wet grey day isn’t really that relaxing. You have to watch them ALL the time to make sure they don’t get killed or maimed and they’re ALWAYS hungry. I had this great idea to take them on Holiday by myself. It will be AMAZING. We’ll have so much fun. Just me and the two boys. So I hired this converted Double Decker Bus for two nights and off we went. I was comforted by the fact it had WiFi. I have internet therefore I have adult company, I’ll be fine.

The WiFi didn’t work though and when we got there the kids fucked off with a load of other kids and I was left sitting in a bus like Billy no mates. There was a perfect family in the pitch next door, they had bikes, fishing rods, goal post, the Dad was a twat though (sandles and socks) they looked at me sitting outside my bus alone and the look they gave me was pity. It was at this point I thought what the fuck have I done?? Things did improve though, we played with the toy cars racing up and down the hill, we took bubbles out into the woods and found an old swing, had a picnic and in the evening we dined on pizza and chocolate mousse.

That was about four months ago now, the other day my littlest chimp who is 3 came up to me and said ‘Mummy you remember our holiday on a bus, it was the best holiday EVER’. It occurred to me that they’d always remember that and although I found the whole thing (all two days of it) a bit meh, they loved it and will remember it forever and that’s what it’s all about really isn’t it. So next year I’m taking them away for a whole week to a working farm, I’ll get them money holders and give them some cash for the gift shop and I’ll buy them cheesy moments at the welcome break “What do you mean you don’t like them, they taste like feet?? Just bloody eat them you ungrateful child” Only this time I’m taking someone, two adults, two kids. Odds are even. We’re gonna create some amazing holiday memories even if it kills or maims us.

CRUMPET:

I like being a nester – being happy at home, knowing where all my stuff is and that I have everything/everyone I might ever need around me or readily available, but holidays are too brilliant. I love exploring new places. I love getting lost in foreign towns. I like wandering off of the beaten track and discovering and views and buildings and birds and OH GOD I WANT A HOLIDAY RIGHT NOW. Fortunately, I’m due one in the next few weeks. More of that in a bit.

Holidays make you feel generally different. A break. That’s the point. Not always necessarily in a good way – anxiety, nerves, apprehension – I’m not the happiest flier – but there’s always the promise of something magical. Adventure. The unknown. The idea that anything could happen and you could see anything or do anything or wear a bikini and not care too much because the people who have to witness the wobble will most likely never see you again…

I’ve had all kinds of holidays. I’m grateful for that. We couldn’t really afford mega-awesome holidays to Disney world and the like when I was younger, so we drove to France, every year, to a cute flat my Aunt & Uncle own. When I think of summer, that’s what I think of. The smell of that flat, the little village square, the year my brother ran along the side of the pool and screamed as his leg fell down an uncovered spike-filled drain, the year we got caught in a tornado whilst eating outside – aaaah. Family time.

Sweet happy childhood memories

It’s been ace going back there as an adult, too. Taking friends there now is a real treat. But this year, for a reason I have yet to fully figure out, I decided to go on my own. When I booked my flights, it was on a bit of a whim. I wanted a break, and didn’t really feel like I had anyone else to go with. I’d never really had a proper holiday by myself. Going somewhere I know so well made it completely non-terrifying, relaxing, comfortable, but still a bit of an adventure. I didn’t even go the tiniest bit mental or sad or lonely until right near the end, but that was mainly because I’d seen a moth, and had to take the rubbish to The Basement Of Terror. It was nice being somewhere else, doing nothing, with no one. I’m definitely happier with some sort of accomplice though.

Drunken girly holidays – long over that. Had a few of them. Proper Essex Girl teenage affairs where we slept all day, drank all night, and kicked an assortment of male strangers out in the afternoon. Catching myself snogging a boy behind a van whilst his hand disappeared up my dress on an episode of Tenerife Uncovered on Sky1 in 1999 was probably enough, I think. Although to be fair, we’d all watch it. We had to. It was like an Essex sixth form version of how you watch the Glasto coverage looking for people you know in the crowd – gathering around the telly on a Sunday night trying to spot school chums in increasingly compromising positions after having downed a yard of Aftershock as a prize for coming 3rd in a wet t-shirt competition.

Holidays with boys, though. Hmm. An ex and I decided to go traveling around Thailand after having only spent 10 days together as a couple. It was brilliant, of course, but is no way to judge anything else about a relationship, really. Holiday life is not real life. No family, no council tax, no work. Hightened emotions made extra-lovely by the presence of sunshine and the lack of socks. People say having a holiday together is a good or big scary test for a couple. Thing is, the sort of stuff I like to do on holiday, I generally like to do anyway with someone. The exploring bit, the long walks, the cosy times, the eating out – the being together non-stop bit is the challenge, I suppose. But if that’s daunting then you wouldn’t consider going, eh?

Now. I’m about to go on the greatest type of holiday ever. An unexpected, no-expectations, awesome trip to a place I’d not really plan on visiting if it weren’t for having someone to see there. I’m going to stay with dear sweet Laurie, who booked me a flight to L.A by donating her airmiles to me for no reason other than that she is bloody lovely. We’ve planned the entire trip via twitter/emails/skype, arranged to stay in increasingly awesome places as the week goes on, including her own apartment which I know so well from seeing glimpses of it every day – so yeah. She’s my internet pal, and has done the loveliest thing ever, and probably won’t even try to murder me or anything because this is what holidays are like now. We make friends on the computer, we hang out, take all the photos, eat all the sushi, then probably make some sort of YouTube video diary about the whole thing. And it will be at least 12 times better than Tenerife Uncovered.

I like holidays. I want more of them. The world is bloody MASSIVE, yknow?

(Being brave and or stupid and posting this solo. Please don’t have me sectioned. Thanks.)

I found that last post where we listed the things that might have made us who we are really therapeutic. A lot of those things I hadn’t really thought about too clearly before, or considered the weight and significance they had in shaping me.

I’ve spent most of my post-pubescent life thinking about identity, sense of self etc; stumbling from art project to art project, through existential crises, swinging from unbridled confidence to muddy ditches full of self loathing and doubt in the blink of a teary eye. And it doesn’t go away. Especially since making that list.

(We’ve covered a lot of these things before but you’re not the boss of the blog so shut up and take it)

Who am I?

I’m definitely not a “you are what you do” nor a “you do what you are” person. Because I only ever got this job as a stop-gap. Despite still being here 3 years on and actually not minding it, generally, I’m definitely NOT a “workswitholdbuildings answersthephone talksaboutvictoriantownplanners”. Because that’s not a thing you can be, like a doctor or a teacher or a taxi driver or a writer. So I’m not my job. Even my OTHER job, despite the fact that I like it because it’s writing and it gives me enough money to just about live (on gin).

I’m not defined by what I wear. That’s a given, if you’ve ever seen me in real life. Most of my clothes are red, and old, though, which I like, and is a “me” thing, it seems. Although I do like how people can appropriately identify things I would love. So THEY must know who I am, a little bit.

I don’t have a Significant Other, or children, or pets, so I’m not defined by belonging to any sort of relationship type thing like that. I’m not defined as A Single Person, though, really, like a spinster with cats and crying about loneliness or anything (BECAUSE MY CAT DIED DIDN’T SHE).

As a teenager I struggled with feeling like myself, because myself liked bands and the 1970′s and David Hockney and photography and collecting things and no body really understood those things (because no body DOES understand you when you’re 15). This was when it seems my obsession with ‘identity’ started, and every piece of artwork I made for about the next 5 years ended up being about my self, or the idea of self. I studied my family history. Music history. Ideas of feminism. I even made a clay sculpture of a Barbie holding a sword which my short-haired Camden-dwelling hemp-wearing art teacher assured me said EVERYTHING about what I feel it is to be a woman (it didn’t. I copied it from a poster I saw in a PlayStation magazine). At art college I shoved people in to photo booths and told them to “be them”. My foundation year exhibition was basically passport photos of me looking sad and confused, with lists of stuff I like photocopied over and over again (passed with flying colours, obv. TOP TIP – Art tutors LOVE photocopied stuff).

This isn’t about feeling lost and wailing “I don’t know who I am any more”. It’s more like I don’t think I’ve ever really known. I’ve had times where I’ve sat in my room surrounded by all the weird shit I own, looking at what I’m wearing, and thinking – hah – I think I’m the person I always hoped I’d be when I grew up. But I don’t know if that’s right or not. I don’t ever remember sitting down at 15 and thinking I’d have no career, a crumbling and difficult relationship with my family, a complete inability to correctly identify/deal with/process romantical feelings, an identified problem with co-dependancy, an impossible-to-describe taste in music and or films, regrets, or a wardrobe full of quite silly and generally ill-fitting clothes and shoes. I have a problem with reality, too. I have vivid dreams that confuse me and leak in to my actual memories and make me sad about things that actually haven’t happened in real life. I sit on the bus and take a theme from something mentioned in a text message and my imagination gets so carried away with it that I end up with the oddest look on my face because I’ve ended up half acting out a completely fictional or hypothetical situation.

In a recent conversation I agreed with someone that you “really find yourself in your 20′s” – and agreed – but it’s more like I was able to just identify the things I like, don’t like, want, need, enjoy… those things don’t describe who *I* am.

Panda wanted us to write about what we are scared off and I said I didn’t want to do that because I wasn’t ready to think about those things without a qualified professional present. Maybe this is it though, anyway?

I have no idea who I am. How do you describe yourself? I like learning, and I know stuff about weird things, but I’m no intellectual. I’ve only ever studied creative subjects, so I’m no academic. I like books, but I’m not well read. I like writing, but I’m no writer, really. I take about 20 photos a day, and despite having a degree in photography, I’m no photographer. I’m not A Rich Person. I’m not A Beautiful Person. I’m not A Clever Person. Does anyone really know what or who they are? Do you know what you are? How do you describe yourself?

PANDA:

1- When I was three before some major spinal surgery to remove a large lump from my back. I was convinced coffee beans would tumble out of it like the Nescafe add going round in 1983. (I’m not sure if they did or not)

2- In 1985 at age 5 every single afternoon when my sister got in from school we would watch the making of thriller followed by the young ones. (Every morning I would watch Mary Poppins)

3- When I was 6 years old we went on a family holiday to Spain. My Dad cocked his leg up in his tiny 1980′s shorts and little Dave popped out. Very disturbing.

4- We moved into a new house in 1986, the old man who had lived there previous had raised a Black Bird and trained it to knock on the window for bread every morning. It continued to do so after we had moved in for one whole year.

5- In this same house I awoke in the middle of the night thinking I had seen the ghost of a cat. Only to realise it was my *actual* cat.

6- My big brother, the man who once threatened to punch me through a wall and kick me down the stairs if I showed off in front of his mates. Went into a coma when I was seven. I was the first person he asked for when he woke up.

Majoroops

7- I was once a very chubby majorette and made everyone coo in the Dagenham carnival when I dropped my baton.

8- When I was 6 years old on holiday In Austria, my Mum and Dad made me do my Margaret Thatcher impression to a pub full of people.

9- When I was 12 a trod on a stone down the beach, it didn’t heal. Eventually when a Dr made me close my eyes whilst he stuck a pin in my foot we realised I couldn’t feel either of my feet.

10- Because of the cut that wouldn’t heal I had to wear a hideous foam boot. My brother drew a Nike air symbol on the side to make me look cooler.

11- First day of senior school I emerged from the toilets walked through the busy food hall with a long bit of loo roll hanging out my skirt.

12- One week into senior school, my form tutor finished assembly, paused then collapsed and died on the kids in the front row. Throughout school we were convinced if you said her name three times into the mirror in the music room she would appear candy man style and butcher us all.

13- My Dad once told me to try anything once except morris dancing and incest……….Wisest words I’ve ever heard.

14- When I was 18 I got stoned for the first time. Whited out, came home and yacked my guts up. Mum came to investigate mid dry heaving and I managed to groan out “Baaaaaaad Burrgggerrrrrrrrrr”

15- When I was twenty I needed another toe amputated. Due to the lack of sensation in it I was allowed to remain awake and watch the entire operation. They did not however let me keep the toe.

16- When I was 22 I broke my foot. I wanted to go out dancing a few weeks later so me and my friend Sarah spent three hours cutting the plaster cast off so I could. My Mum refused to come in to see the Dr with me on my following out patients appointment……”YOU can explain why you’ve magically not got a cast on a broken foot now”.

17- When I was 24 I birthed my first son. They threw this slimy alien type creature onto my stomach and he looked up at me with massive blue eyes.  I’d never felt love like it and I also had a new found respect and understanding for my own Mum.

18- When I was 26 I birthed my second son at home. Didn’t realise I was capable of loving two small humans so intensely and equally. Also they had to call an ambulance to take us both to hospital. This arrived at the same time as the Tesco delivery man. He did not give me free nappies for life.

19- When I was 29 I split up with my husband. Tough, hard, brave decision. What followed was a year of realising how full my life is. How amazing my friends and family are and what a life line Twitter could be.

20- When I was 30 I went on a date with a man I met on Twitter. He took me out for dinner and made me eat weird Asian rubber clouds. He gabbered on endlessly and didn’t let me get a word in edge ways. But then he kissed me by the fountain in Trafalgar Square and steadied me when I was gonna fall.  I knew then that he was the sort of man that I would share my last trifle with and I do all the time (Only slightly resentfully)

CRUMPET:

20 things of varying significance which may or may not have in some major or minor way directly or indirectly contributed to me becoming the person I almost or mostly am today, in no particular order.

1- My first word was “stuck”.

2- In year 2 at primary school, Mrs Hopkins stood under the clock by the door waving her fat little arms up making us all repeat LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT.

3 – Age 9, on holiday in France, my mum told me “JUST LOOK FORWARD DONT LOOK UP LETS GET INSIDE”. I looked up. There were two moths on the wall with a wingspan of about a foot each.

4 – When I was about 13, a girl at school told me my mum’s friend (and my friend’s mum) had a brain tumour and was going to die. I didn’t tell my mum. My mum found out a week later and a few days after that her friend died. I woke up in the night and was sure I saw the lady in my room, smiling but shaking her head at me.

5 – The first time I was ever brave enough to properly tell a boy how much I liked him (I was 11. He was 13…), he gave a mutual friend a card he’d made for me with a big heart on the front painted in orangey red gouache. He was so artistic. It was a full A4 page about how much he didn’t like me back.

6 – The best job I ever had was the result of a clumsy accident. After moving to Melbourne, I decided to enrol in a silversmithing class. I got lost on the way though, and happened upon a millinery shop with a sign in the window advertising classes. I signed up, and became the first apprentice to the longest-established milliner in Australia, where I ended up working for a year.

7 – When my grandma died and we were sorting through her wonderful things, I asked my mum “why would one lady need SO MANY umbrellas?” – my mum said “one day you’ll know”. I currently have about 6. One of them is my grandma’s.

8 – A wonderful, handsome, funny and clever boy I went to both primary and secondary school with died in a terrible car accident a few years ago. He wore crazy brightly coloured trainers his entire life and now that everybody else does too, I catch little glimpses of him all over the place.

9 – Once, I visited a creepy old lady who’s living room was a sort of haberdashery shop. I bought an envelope full of buttons from her, but noticed some odd white stringy things in the way which I handed back to her. “No no. You keep them. One day you’ll know what to do with them”. They were antique millinery stamen to use for making silk flowers.

The crap that makes you who you are... maybe.

10 – The night my brother was brought home from hospital after being born, I had a terrifying dream in which pirates were trying to steal him. I ran in with a sword and shouted “LEAVE HIM ALONE. THAT’S MY BROTHER.” This is my earliest memory.

11 – I saw a man try to throw himself down the middle of a stairwell. I caught him by the wrists. People helped. He was OK. He tried again. He was OK. He went to hospital and then was a little bit more OK. He asked somebody to pass thanks and an apology.

12 – My mum once told me to never iron a shirt for a man, because “once you do, that’s it.”

13 – On a particularly bad day, I found myself welded to the sofa, staring at endless repeats of the show Scrubs. My brother said it was a lovely day and I should sit in the garden. I said “Can’t. Watching Scrubs.” He opened the patio door, lifted the couch (+ me) in to the garden, span the TV around, and sat down next to me.

14 – The moment somebody suggested to me that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at the people they choose to spend their time with, I instantly understood people, and my self, a little better.

15 – When I was 10 my dad thought a fun evening’s entertainment would be for us to watch the film ‘IT’ together as a family.

16 – I found a Jacques Brel record with a gorgeous cover at a flea market but was advised to not get it because it only contained disc 2 and disc 1 was missing. 2 years later, on the other side of the world, I found another copy, containing disc 1 and not disc 2. I bought it.

17 – I can’t drive.

18 – 11 years ago at a party at art college I met a girl who didn’t like me very much. My best friend, who now lives on the other side of the world, knows me better than anyone, despite being so different to me. She knows when to magically appear, or when I’m thinking of her, and nothing compares to the idiosyncrasies I am honoured to share with her.

19 – I had surgery on my right eyeball when I was 18 months old. When I was 7 and was told that my right eye would most likely never ‘switch on’ more than the tiny amount it was working, my mum said “you’ll just see the world differently to other people”.

20 – During my first week of primary school there was a fire drill. A bird did a massive shit on the back of my uniform.