Randomly, I adore this unflattering photo. It was on my 30th birthday, with a good friend I am sporadically entirely in love with, in lust with, and just happy to be friends with. In this particular photo, we were both entirely MASHED after partying all night (think photo about 9am) and the most recent pill we had taken was just kicking in. I remember how dishevelled I was and how silly my little black dress and boots were, lurching around some random suburb with a cute boy, looking for a taxi while wholesome people walked their dogs and looked at us curiously. All very hedonistic.

Anyway. The reason I love this photo is that it is so rare really, to get a photo where I am not trying to make it a at least a NICE photo. I think I was doing "Mr Potato Head Angry Eyes" and my thigh was pressing against someone I found so entirely sexy it was pretty much a feeling of "I can Die Happy" knowing that he found me sexy in return.

We remain friends, both of us way more grown up and responsible, but both capable of returning to this moment of mashness in a moment of drunken syncronicity. Recently, in a giddy couple of weeks, I enjoyed being in love with him again, but reality snuck it's way in and I've shoved it back into the more sparkly world of mashedness, which is way more fun that reality anyways.

These days I try my very best, in my own mind, to reframe these bouts of introspection as more COOL. I don't mean or want to be entirely self indulgent and whiney, So I figure to do something constructive THIS TIME I shall dive into it. Mental Me Archeology. I've made a therapy appointment - I figure I need a proper digger.

In other news, I have been alcohol free for like, 6 whole days now. What a horror. More of a horror, however, was the molecules of something around my waistline that seems to live on wine. When I don't drink wine, the molecules go into hibernation. This is better. Obviously I can't GIVE UP WINE, but I figured the best way to break this delightful stint of alcoholism was to stop drinking for the rest of september. Daylight savings starts this weekend, so I will be riding my horse again. Hopefully this will make me less inclined to drink say, a bottle of wine a night.

My son remains just adorable. At his daycare, they teach them sign language. It has been fantastic for him to be able to communicate before he can sound his words properly. (His first word was "ta" such a polite boy... closely followed by 'uh oh"). He knows the sign for 'finished', 'please' and 'more'. Most hilarious when he combines them to basically say "I don't want this food, I want you to bring me something else". He says 'finished' which is making a sort of unscrewing motion with both hands... then says 'more' (points his finger to the palm of his other hand) then 'please' which is tapping the palm of his hand to his mouth. I say 'no sweety, we will eat this yummy dinner' and he gets more insistent, bashing his finger to his hand, then slapping his mouth, with the most earnest look on his face. So hard to resist!!!!

This is my latest domestic project, Tom's awesome under the sea bath.

I have an insanely (so I have been told) vivid dream life... I can remember my dreams most mornings, even if I am not able to put them into words. Recently, I have even been able to CONTROL my dreams, and turn nightmares around. This is a good thing. As a child, I had a serial nightmare. Actually, a number of serial nightmares. The main one, which lasted for years, was centred around 'the Rag Man' - a particularly horrifying beginning to "the Nutcracker Fantasy". I recently discovered a clip on You Tube - it was more than I remembered, less than I remembered, exactly as I remembered. Hey, I was maybe 4 years old at the time!!! Anyway. The fricking Rag Man reigned in the nighttime for YEARS. I had nightmares when I was a small child that I still have now, although now, I know that they are a dream, I wait for the bad things to happen and they often don't, but the tinge of memory is often quite enough to unsettle me through to the following day. I usually wake up from a nightmare trying to reframe it for myself. 

Sometimes my dreams are a little too realistic. Not in a bad way, but in a way that I wonder if my memories were a dream. When I was breastfeeding Tom, and never had more than a couple of hours sleep at a time (for say, lets call it a year) I was a bit of a zombie. When it was dark, sleep, awake, dream,. whatever... it all blended. In the morning I wasn't sure what was real, and decided to not act on anything that I couldn't confirm.

I dream alot, at the moment and for a while, about my therapist that I had when I was 18 through to 20.(Fiona) Yip, a long time ago. Pretty significant stage in my life that exists frozen in some sort of subconcious layer that emerges most nights in my dreams. Sometimes my next therapist (Sasha) appears - often a more powerful arrival - she had pretty inpenetrable boundaries, so in the recesses of my crazy young mind, she was entirely a psychodynamic mirror. (Last month she appeared in my real life, as a client at work. I have no idea whether she realised that it was me - then again, why would she - but I had a bit of a giggling idiot moment as I dispatched a technician to fix her malfunctioning water pump) Today I was thinking about my Fiona dreams, last night I had one that I don't remember in detail, I just remember the feeling - it has stayed with me all day. I realised that somewhere in my head, there is a layer of me that still thinks that it is possible - or maybe wishes it was possible (what is the difference to someone who isn't always 100% sure what emotional/psychological/physical plane she is operating on???) that I was able to peel back the layers of my memory, my experiences... lay it all there and Fiona makes it all OK. The high hope that as a 20 year old GIRL, led me to, in hindsight, stop therapy with her quite abruptly, to avoid testing this theory out. Partly from my own inertia (eeeep sic) and partially from a fear that unfortunately, no one can make it better.

My latest conundrum is to explore making it better with someone who I rationally have every reason to trust. Someone who has allowed me to push boundaries and then pull back without allowing the previous pushing to ruin possibility. (this will either make sense to you, or it won't. Needless to say, my instinctive pushing of boundaries and also wanting to explore more with a person who I genuinely LIKED was eventually countered with an understanding of how I needed boundaries with someone who I intellectually trusted with processes I hadn't even considered. I need this person on ice. I need to know she is there.

So. Am I really ready to be wholeheartedly let down? I have a kernel of pain that has been hidden for more than 20 years. It doesn't have words, it doesn't have feelings that I can discern...it has been entirely unspeakable for seemingly my whole life. I have often imagined the unveiling. I tried, once. I believe I came close, but I shut down quite quickly.  A few years ago, this was. Time has blurred since I had Tom. I don't know when it was. I had the opportunity, I tried, the core of me wasn't touched.

It is a combination of inability to use words - hard for me, I have words for everything... shame... and fear of disappointment that it really won't be better when I let someone in. I no longer gain any day to day comfort from the possibility of this - but there was a time, a long time, where the possibility of someone making things alright was enough to sustain me from uncountable dark days. It was better than counting sheep. My swirling brain would be calmed and lulled by my imagination of Making Things Ok.

So, now, when my awake brain has nothing to calm it anymore - hurrah fluoxetine! - my subconcious still holds onto my security blanket of "Fiona"... not the real person half the time, a symbol. A pretty powerful symbol that has managed to survive being well and truly TRASHED in the real world!!! Cognitive dissonace exists, apparently. Even subconciouslyl

I'm trying to watch a David Attenborough doco. I have two CDs.... and all episodes have so far been background noise. His voice soothes me as I do whatever. It reminds me of the home movie my mother made in 1991 of our trip to England to spend time with Dad's family. On one of our endless traipses around stately houses and the landscapes of Capability Brown (I used to pretend to hate both, but in fact, my heart is in these estates as home) there is footage of me inspecting the shores of a lake. My younger brother was next to my mother (cinematographer), speaking in hushed tones about the 'spotted Hannent' in a perfect impersonation of Mr Attenborough for a ten year old. Obviously at some point I clicked to his game, and it ends with me flapping my arms towards him in  manner of demented goose, with squawking and honking. Strange, strange children.

I've always been a little wary of animal documentaries. I'm not very good with the cruelty of nature. Or animals suffering even remotely. The Littlest Hobo was enough to give me nightmares!

This is one of my gardening projects. It doesn't look very exciting, I know. It doesn't look much like I spent hours and hours and hours of wrist spraining digging creating this garden and drainage ditch. I should have taken before photos. Try to imagine a pile of dirt and weeds starting at the barn wall, and ending past where the car is parked. The lack of stone lined drainage ditch led to a giant muddy puddle on the other side of the barn as none of the water was draining away. (Aren't you glad I'm blogging again, you may have missed out on this!) I didn't entirely have a plan when I started digging the mud away. Or maybe I did have a plan. But that was about 6 weeks ago and I shit you not, Mummy Brain means I no longer retain these little details. Digging digging digging. Collected various posts and boards from around the farm to line my new garden. I kind of LOVE that it it cannot be mistaken for a professional job. I like that I used what I had access to - it didn't cost me anything but time (and sprained wrist that I am still nursing a little). I was so addicted to the digging stage that I was doing it at night in the dark! Well, under lights. I loved it. The soil is a mix of soil that was already there - nice wormy broken down stable compost- and new stable compost. I have been watering it down with buckets to help the manure break down. The hose doesn't reach. Last night it started raining, finally. My drainage ditch had some water sitting in it tonight, I scooped it up and threw it on. Once it breaks down more, I shall plant flowers. Depending on how long that takes depends on whether it will be seedings, seeds, or plants.

I don't want to write about weight. It is rarely an issue. I suspect I drink too much wine. I should start drinking vodka. Ha.

I've run out of easy things to write about. All that is left, I fear, is distasteful and unspeakable.

I have caught up. I have looked at people who have not written for 4 years. I have wondered about them.

Today was gorgeous. This weekend, Spring has arrived. Like the rest of the planet, we have had some crazy weather - actual snowflakes fell. As the newspapers said, a once in a lifetime event. Snow is SO last week. The sun has been out for two days - suddenly I'm all aflutter with trying to catch up. I got stuck into digging a drainage ditch that will hopefully stop my veggie garden flooding next winter. Heavy, sticky, clay. It was exhausting. I love it.

Not alot tonight, but I want to get into the habit of writing every night.

Instead - my boy. Isn't he yummy. Also, so FUNNY.

I should maybe change my profile photo. It isn't really me anymore - well, it never was. I hoped it would be though! Over the years, you accept reality. I don't think that I can change it, however. I'm not good at changing things.

I miss writing - it isn't like breathing anymore. I don't know why. I'm going to reexplore. And to read. I don't know why I thought no one was here.There are people here!!!

My latest obsession - gardening. Born from a strange sub-obsession. Great estates of England. Servants. A productive garden. The strange thing - I wouldn't mind BEING a servant. The bliss of blocking out the horrors of the 21st Century. Lighting fires, curtseying and 16 hour days - sure thing. I indulge my joint obsession with you tube viewings of the Victorian Country Garden, Edwardian Country House, the Lost Gardens of Heligan; books - Heligan books, walled kitchen gardens, life in the gardeners bothy; Downton Abbey - swoon; my garden. My garden hasn't grown anything yet. It's been too wet to plant, although I have fennel and flowers growing in the greenhouse. I've taken over the greenhouse. I've been preparing gardens to use - raised beds abandoned by my father in favour of mowing lawns,overgrown compost heaps constructed by a previous owner of the property 20 odd years ago. In my world, that is as far as archeology goes. Although it has certainly answered a question I have always had - why do they always find things when they dig? I haven't found much in my garden other than many, many broken pieceso f terracota pot. Perhaps one day someone will get all excited when they dig up a layer of 2011.

My weeks and months fling by in an enjoyable sameness. My delicious son Tom is a joy. I burst with pride every second I think

 of him.

I shall write. It shall probably be about my garden. Funnily enough I explore my world (pretentious) through reality now. Oh, and the possibility that I could somehow be a housemaid in 1912. Who knows.

i should start writing again

i should make the connection between me now and me who wrote this before

i should write in the absence of talkng

even tho i would rather talk

now, it is harder to find somone to talk to

i miss my xanga girls so much

i don't think anyone is here, even though i thinkof you every day and always have

Well - I finally have a computer at home again!!!! My work computer had a nasty firewall that was opposed to any site that had the word 'blog' remotely attached to it.

I will try to update on everyone else...

then update myself...

xxxx