she thinks she owns the place ... i half expect to see this profile on a postage stamp

a day of physical and psychological preparation is complete ... i am ready for my encounter with shreks two and three and donkey in the office at four-thirty tomorrow morning ...

should i worry so much about the loved one's mood swings ? is it any wonder i've been losing sleep ?

standard attainment test for year six students of goth anthropology: are insomniacs living ghosts or borderline zombies ? discuss

merry christmas, darling ...

... there just wasn't the time to wrap everything you wanted ...

... but i'll still have just enough time to hang a few more baubles before you chain me to the kitchen sink !!!

if you are female, look away now ...

in the park with the dog ...

getting dark and starting to rain but i'm in my work boots and storm proof coat so mustn't grumble

i discover a size three plastic football ( kids soccer ) and i kick it towards a tree

it bounces off with a satisfying thump

i feel smugly self-important, ( to paraphrase lucy from ponty, more like wayne rooney than george clooney )

however, my second attempt misses by about twenty feet and i slink away furtively

but i hide the ball beneath a fallen tree trunk with the intention of regaining champions' form before the new year

doll smallridge

doll was my mother-in-law for a while

she was full of energy and kindness and laughter

possibly the least complicated person i ever knew

she died yesterday and i've been thinking of her all day

i feel privileged to have known her

the lover's complaint ...

when intelligent extra-terrestrial life-forms eventually re-discover our dead planet and break open my mausoleum and reverently unlock my secret diaries, their lexicographers will ponder with some incredulity on the regularity of the compulsory hoovering in my brief and tragic existence, and they may even feel it is necessary to re-define the meaning of the word “suffering” for the ninety-ninth century

double dyslexia

i stand on the threshold of a shop with a clear glass door

on the inside of the door they have stencilled the word PULL in block capitals, at eye level just above the door handle

i read the word in reverse, and then pull

nothing

the girl behind the counter gestures incomprehensibly

eventually the embarrassing truth dawns

the girl behind the counter says lot's of people do that

john wilkes in fetter lane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes

australians in the strand ... i'd welcome any interpretation of the ?allegorical? narrative

i was supposed to be christmas shopping but it was a fiasco and i bought NOTHING .... instead, i ended up amongst all the old familiar faces ...

sadeler's engraving of an allegory on death, portraying his friends bartholomaeus spranger and the recently deceased frau spranger ( christina muller ), in whose home sadeler had lodged

i had wanted to know more about spranger's bizarre paintings to begin with, but something intrigued and mystified me about sadeler's technique, and then i learned that he had engraved some of durer's drawings, long after durer's lifetime, works with which i had long been familiar ... and then, just to annoy me, i spotted the name of another sadeler family member in the lower right corner of this engraving ... so i was still flummoxed, and none the wiser, for a while ... was this engraving from a drawing by spranger ?

ah, here seems to be an answer to my question ! yes ! but thanks to sadeler it seems uncharacteristic because it lacks spranger's usual extravagant mannerisms and lurid colours

http://www.evbaeyer.com/pages/catalogues/sadeler.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadeler_family

http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/4%20Durer%20Model1.pdf

( they're on the phone at ) two temple place

http://www.twotempleplace.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Temple_Place

http://www.bulldogtrust.org/

we're gonna hang out the washing on the siegfried line ...

just fab ! full of mysteries and delight

no photography allowed inside, so not my picture ...

three levels of difficulty for the sleepless

quietly pouring a fizzy drink by moonlight in the darkened kitchen

whilst

counting the remnant oak leaves fluttering on the tree outside

then

failing to count my remnant virtues on the thumbs of one hand

with

eyes tight shut