A Winter's Tale

Go together,
You precious winners all; your exultation
Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some wither'd bough and there
My mate, that's never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.

Park Life

The huskies are gathered, sniffing the air, smelling all manner of scents on the breeze. They should be about to pull a sled, haul it over snow and ice to where the pre-skinned seal-cubs are waiting, dying. Instead they are on a leash with a couple of pugs, smelling the musk of the Hoxton joggers as they archly circulate Shoreditch Park. Oh the indignity of being tethered with the most ridiculous of all canines. The Pug. Can it even be regarded as a real dog?

Playing House

Reduce yourself to nothing. Boil yourself down until you are nothing but eyes and ears. And a heart. And then re-assess the importance of things.

Meaning and value are what's important here. They say lessons repeat until they're learned. Well this is my daily lesson:

Here is as good as there.

I've played at being a housewife. A domestic goddess, a grown-up who sweeps the kitchen floor. Living alone allows for this kind of reinvention. I've played at being a well-heeled drunk. Luckily I was only playing. I enjoyed the pose of the lush: sleeping late, staggering up and down the stairs to stock up on Tesco discounted wine. Knocking back 2am mint tea, lukewarm and pointless, missing the yoga sessions which I always miss anyway, sobriety aside.

I flirted with drug abuse. But too many waking hours made me depressed. Being awake when all others are sleeping and I can obsess alone over the missing screw on my mailbox does little for my sense of worth. Couldn't a human hand fit in there? Couldn't they then easily turn the latch? Doesn't the postman know very well that it's loose and know very well that a single white female lives here alone, slightly saner and less tough than Jodie Foster. What's that? Oh, a pigeon fluttering busily on my roof. But what's that? It's the ventilation being rattled by the wind... isn't it? Given enough time in the dark and I will beat myself up so no one else has to.

Give myself a kicking for not renewing my driving licence photograph since it expired in 2009. Trip myself up with my lack of an NHS number. Oh God. Must register with a doctor. Must get a GP to discuss a few things. And what about this definitely-chipped bone in my elbow which should surely be more painful? Look at this stack of unread newspapers, building up along with the tidemark of my own guilt. I really should read up on what's happening in Libya. And what about Japan? Everyone's forgotten about them. And my Amnesty membership has lapsed. Must phone them and donate. And get internet. And fix the fucking washing machine so I can stop hand-washing or just buying new clothes whenever I run out – which I never will because I cant stop buying new clothes on a daily basis. At least the profits are going to charity. So prattles my inner monologue. While the other half goes 'Hmmm another cuppa tea/piece of chocolate/chicken/beer/line/cigarette/shag? Of course'.

Which is why it's better when I'm on a bicycle. Or a dancefloor. Or in a book. I can hypnotise myself with another activity, distract the child in my head for 5 minutes of peace.

Like most 21st century females, I have settled into an uncomfortable obsession with looking 'hot' or 'stylish' or 'cool' or 'clever'. When really, none of those things are related to how I look. I should be spending time nurturing feeling all of those things for good reason – like just having completed a really amazing short story.

So here it is...

The Journey From The Door to the Edge of Sanity.

'A trip of three steps down the palette to tap, at three on the teeth.'

I am continually searching for meaning. Of course I am. Aren't you? And I cannot find it on a screen. Who cares if 'Kylie Goes 3d!' who cares about 'hot girls in tights?'

Too much information. Absolute Information Fucking Overload. My mind freezes like a PC when I just click click click refresh. Anything but refreshed. Click through rates, traffic, but the traffic is actually a sedentary person looking for meaning, sitting frozen in a chair looking for meaning. They will not find it here. Leave! You will not find it here.

Check out my own lack of meaning. Check out my unbridled confusion. I want to return to the 70s when everything was on vinyl and you had to go to a library to look up a fact. Really. I am not joking.

And the fact that this is the first uninterrupted 26 minutes I have spent all day is proof of the scourge of the internet. The erosion of my concentration is proportionate to the amount of windows I have open, multiplied by my number of facebook friends and cubed according to how near a Friday (or Monday) my current situ actually is.

Fucking heck – life with your face in a book and a honeyed tea on your table is so much sweeter. So much slower.

A return. A hark back. I'm off. Off to the country hopefully to slow things down a little.

I wonder what I would have been like if I'd never encountered the internet. Or hair dye. Or rizlas.

If I'd been a 70s child would I have grown my pit hair because it was a political statement?

If I had a clue.

Life Is Like A Song

Dazed by the bomb blast, ears ringing, head a shuffled deck of snapshots atop a suddenly 30 year old body. Oh my aching bones.

Desperate to be involved but shut out of proceedings by the very fact of it being my birthday, I listen for snippets. My own excitement has been mounting month by month until it's all I can think about. I glimpse updates over hunched shoulders. I cock my ear for spilled surprises. But really I know nothing. The sheer scale of it is all a complete shock.

And as I touch down on the Welsh hill which is a good 10 degrees colder than London, (sorry - I forgot about this) I see the site. Oh the dance tent, the Low-Lav, the tippee, the frame over the trampoline. Freak on a leash. I twinkle around the site, unsure of where to put myself. Talking too fast, running to show people round, to repeat the tour, to make the endless, rolling introductions.

A superfast summation from where I was standing:

Silver body paint, spandex, smiles till we ache, a scrum of people round my family table tucking into my dads pasta sauce, selected party heads coming to see my mum in the kitchen for tea and sympathy at various points throughout the weekend ('the things I know...'), the Low-Lav, the dancefloor knows no rest, a certain person leaning into the heart with a fork, digging for gold, the trampoline, the frame, the fat-suits, the headbuts, the unwise lack of sleep on Friday, a lowdown dirty lack of shame on Saturday, a Bloody-Mary Sunday, pass the parcel, the Madonna power-up, the punch, the campsite, the quad, the lamb stuffed with chickens, my mum and dad having it to Your Niece, hay-bales on fire, the many toasts, the biggest, shiniest, heaviest birthday card in the world (***HICKS***), the party reigniting for a 25 minute electro smash at 23:35 on Sunday, the endless tippee session, the daisy-chained block rockers, the U-turns, the purple book, the elation....

Guys I didn't know what to say when I was handed a BIKE. Words failed me. I'm sure it was obvious. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I was overwhelmed. And then, seeing that I was lost for words, I was surrounded by my favourite people, utterly crammed against the people I love most, all touching each other and consequently touching me as we slow danced to my favourite song in the world and sang at the tops of our voices while a I sobbed like a babe.

At Last. My love has come along. My lonely days are over. And life is like a song.

Yes it fucking is.

Thanks to all the people who came all the way to Wales.

Thanks to the Low-Fest Crew. You're the best in the west.

Thanks to all the DJs who rocked it.

Thanks for the bike. (The very bike I have been salivating over all year.)

Thanks for all the amazing presents.

Thanks Rina and Tim for being the best.

Thanks Rhys and Siw for being the best.

Thanks Carmen for making me the very best outfit.

Thanks to you all for making it the best birthday ever.

Andy Ellis. You rule.

So. Very. Lucky.

To Phenomenal Woman Everywhere

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I’m not cute nor built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

That’s my mother
And all your mothers,
And my grandmother
And your grandmothers.
And all my greats
And all your greats.

And ALL you women
And me.

by Maya Angelou

The Things I Lost In The Fire

So I'm back. And life goes on. Untouched, it feels, by the great leaps made by our hearts, our heads as we journeyed around South America.

Typing from a London desk, a place I thought of often, too often, and at this very moment the rawness of the whole four months feels completely absent. Etched nowhere. Why is the grass always greener?

Why do we live our lives in the places we can never venture: the past, and the future?

I wish I had written to my future self, posted a few notes for use at a later date. For reference when I was on the road. It could have prevented me dreaming of home when I was exactly where I needed to be. The notes I write to my current self, pointlessly, are 'You wanted all this. You came back. You missed your life. You pined for the missing life...' And now that I am indeed back, I can't negate the returning desperation to escape.

It is not quenched. It has not abated. Does everyone feel this??????

So, when people say 'how does it feel to be back?' And I smile and say 'good' it is not really a lie...but it felt better not to be back. Or at least it does right now. As i sit and dream and try to recall just how it FELT to be so far away, and I find I can only conjure the London me. Deskbound, dutybound. Being home feels normal. I feel abnormal. I have returned to my reality. And the trip was a complete unreality. Like hitting dry sand at speed. It feels like I need to lie in a room with the windows open to breathe and relive everything. Instead of banking more memories, more time, more life; I just need things to STOP for a second.

The Quest To Machu Picchu

We are running through the night. Past open drains, feet smacking the rough downhill, the darkness full of backpacker zombies, stumbling blindly through town and groaning. Shouting for our group, this 4am halflight is all torches and confusion. We are all racing to the gates. A collection of the most hardened and ambitious lead the pack.

To get to Machu Picchu on foot one must climb over 2000 steps. A climb known as The Gringo Killer. The gate to the path opens at 4.45am. If you make the climb in under and hour you beat the first bus and guarantee yourself a stamp to climb Waynapichu - the famous peak pictured in all the Machu Picchu moneyshots. It´s all very competitive.

"It burns for the first 400" I hear. These steps aren´t normal steps, but jagged, uneven giant steps. We hit them running, still at the front of the pack. After 2 minutes I´m breathless.

As I climb I think of my friends. My family. Casting my mind into the wonderous pool of happy memories, plucking them out still breathing. I think of the birds, who are singing despite the soft sheet of rain. And of Yale University, who have some relics (mainly gold) which were taken from the site of Macchu Picchu and still have not been returned. Halfway up, (we imagine) and it feels as if i have been climbing steps for my entire life.

Thirty five minutes and we are at the top, soaked in rainwater and sweat, with twenty others already in the queue at the entrance to Machu Picchu - the Old Mountain.

The four days preceding this moment have been utterly amazing - some of the finest of my trip. Day one was mountain biking from 4000m to 1000m: through the freezing mist down into the jungle. The three day trek snaked through unbelievable mountains, hugging the cliffs, falling away hundreds of feet on one side to a river. One of our group suffers vertigo and had to crawl, not looking down. Bananas, mangoes, avacado and papaya grow in abundance in this lush landscape. The perfect day ends at the hot springs beside a raging river. Floating in the hot water and watching a storm roll in, huge drops falling on us as we loll in the massive bath.

That night we have no electricity and the storm drains are overflowing, splashing down the slick streets.

Our group has swelled to 21 people and the cameraderie is immense. A snake which stretches a mile or more as we trek along the riverbed. Finally we glimpse what we have been aiming for in the distance. And after hiking along the railway tracks singing Stand By Me and idly looking for bodies we reach the town at the base of the mountain.

2000 steps and a small piece of my soul later and I´m at the gates.

You see a thousand pictures of this place but nothing prepares you for what surrounds this mystical city. Impossibly steep, jagged cliffs shrouded in mist. A river snaking through the valley. And perched amidst it all is a ruin so perfect it has become the holy grail of Peru.

The rocks are placed so elegently you can not slide a piece of paper between them. One has 21 sides and fits snuggly into the wall like a jigsaw. So much beauty your eyes can scarcely comprehend.

The mountain towering above the ruins is Waynapichu and glowers down upon us all until we give in and scale the beast. The climb is amazing. Steps so steep you are climbing not walking. And crawling through a cave to reach the top, you are greeted with a stack of boulders precariously placed, gringos perched on each one grinning.

With all its shams, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.