Scribblings

So the Hack comes in with a bottle of Bacardi. ( Cut for epic rantage )

Also, I'm alive. Yes. Um. Hi.

Why is fanfiction.net so shit? Every time I want to update, it has a fit and refuses to upload. ARGH. ARRRRRGH.

Also, the Hack has got us tickets to see Boyzone at the O2 on Friday. He has to interview them, so likely I will be surrounded by delicious Irish accents. I was never much of a fan back in the day, but my inner fourteen year old still had a stargasm at the thought.

Does anyone else remember the hideous cream knitted polonecks they wore in the video for Love Me For A Reason? Oh, nineties. I miss you. I miss you so.

He has also caved and agreed to take me to see Star Trek on Sunday at the IMAX. We went for dim sum and cocktails on Monday with some of the old crew from M&S Brent Cross and after hearing they liked it, he was finally persuaded it was for normal people and not just hopeless geeks like me.

Borders have a 3 for 2 on all kids' books at the moment, so I bought Scott Westerfeld's entire repertoire (there is a whole thinky thoughts post to come on the Uglies series), Marcus Sedgwick's latest, because I love a bit of gothic horror, and The Demon's Lexicon, because it's a fab book, and I'd like to reread it.

The Hack is absolutely Twitter-obsessed. He proudly tells me each day how many followers he has (296, in case you were wondering.) Apparently Richard Bacon is tweeting him. Who is Richard Bacon? I don't know, but I suspect it's not a match for the picture in my mind, which is of a large cartoon piece of streaky bacon who happens to be called Richard.

The ever-awesome savage_midnight sent me a pile of books which I am slowly going through. I am quite enjoying the Karen Chance books, which are cracktastic, and somehow compelling.

Anyhoo, back to work tomorrow. First day on the new job. Wish me luck - I'll need it.

So we've been in the flat over a week now and it remains awesome and lovely. There was a brief kerfuffle over the extractor fan (I know, will this excitement never end?), which both the Hack and I thought was broken. Nay, it turned out neither of us are smart enough to spot the BIG RED SWITCH.

I saw the wonderful spiral yesterday. We had plans to see Coraline in 3D but that fell through as there is apparently no cinema in London showing it after eight which offers you a chance of catching the last tube. So instead, we went to this fab little tapas place I know behind Leicester Square, and had delicious food and equally delicious conversation.

She's leaving England now, and I'll be sad to see her go. So a trip to Canada is on the cards next year, where I shall undoubtedly get hopelessly lost all over the place and be wide-eyed and touristy. She also left me gifts of BPAL and books and maple syrup, which I am fast developing an addiction to.

The Hack has nabbed himself a free holiday to Andorra ("Is that the one with the landmines?" I asked innocently, and watched as a fearsome conflict took place on his face between terror and greed. Muahaha!) This leaves me a few peaceful days in the flat next week to read and write in the evenings. Hurrah!

I went to see Jason Mraz live a couple of weeks ago at the Apollo. I can confirm that he is fantastic live - it was a really chilled, fun atmosphere. My best friend and I boogied away merrily, despite the fact I only knew the early stuff and she only knew his one chart-topper, I'm Yours. The Hack got us tickets to the afterparty, so we went and schmoozed. I had to sprint for the tube, but she got to meet him later, the jammy devil.

I am really wanting to see the new Star Trek film after all the razzmatazz on my flist about it. (You guys are responsible for half my current addictions, I'll have you know. Yes, you.) It looks pretty damn awesome. Would love to hear any views on it, please!

The deposit is in my bank account. IT'S OVER!

I am still going through my Tudor phase. It is such an interesting period - and there is some great Tudor-period fiction out there. CJ Sansom is my current love, but I also have a penchant for Phillippa Gregory (vinagrette, I know you've just lost some respect for me, but I love a bit of historical pulp fiction.)

Smallville Season 2 is on its way to me. I caved at last...

Now, back to a book and a cuppa.

There is something about the new flat - several somethings - which remind me of home. Mum and Dad's home, I mean. The door into the living room has glass panels in, which is just like the one leading into the dining room. The walls are the same magnolia. The quality of the light is similar - soft, golden, summery.

I keep expecting one of the cats to pad into the room, or my mum to ask me if I want a cup of tea, and then I remember they're a hundred miles away, and I feel older and sadder and a little lost.

I think, then, of that old saying that you can never go back, and I know it's true. It lodges somewhere in my heart, somewhere between grief and acceptance. It's not that I don't like the life I have. It's not that I don't love my career or my independence or my friends. But sometimes it's all fraught and complicated, and I feel very tired, like I'm older than my bones and my skin.

It would be nice, then, to hear my mum asking me if I want sugar with that cup of tea. That would be a decision I could say yes or no to, and the answer wouldn't matter. Time would be soft and golden and summery as the light.

I guess that's what the past looks like through a film of nostalgia. Because even as I sit here and type this, I know that it wasn't really like that. There were other times - times of teenage emo angst and times of anger and frustration.

But when I think of home, none of those things come to mind. Instead I think of sunlight through the bay windows, and the cats sitting in the strawberry netting, and the rapeseed turning the hills into vast yellow flags. The bad things fade: the good things shine.

So I hope that when I look back on the last few months, stress and tears and apathy and emptiness will be driven out like the shadows that they are, and this too will become soft golden summery shining. I hope that as I go forward I will recognise the shadows for what they are, for what they will be: nothing, fading under the best of what is yet to come.

I can never go back. I know that. But I can go forward, and hope.