As you read this I am on my way back from Manchester after seeing the wonderful Black Stone Cherry – enjoy, share a secret at the end and have a wonderful weekend!
1) I’m 5′3″ (1.6m) tall and weigh 9st1lb (58kg/126lb)
2) I am obsessed with Stephen King, Charles Dickens and Arjuna’s quest in the Baghavad Gita. I believe Mr Guppy to be second only to Krishna in the great heroes of literature.
3) I have a black eyeliner in the following places: handbag, bedside cabinet, desk drawer, cupboard at work, car glove compartment…
4) …likewise painkillers.
5) I believe in God, but have very little time for organised religion. I don’t think God has a white beard, but remain open-minded on the subject.
6) I could never get into Twilight, or True Blood or any other modern vampire fiction for the simple reason that there will only ever be one vampire story for me.
7) I have been obsessed with human anatomy all my life. Upon every visit to a library or bookstore as a child I asked if there were any new “body books” out. The first television programme I ever watched when left alone with the TV was one about childbirth. It is no wonder I do the job I do.
Giving up my addiction to celebrity gossip was far harder than giving up smoking. I am never tempted by Marlboros anymore but Heat magazine tries to catch me in its clutches every week.
9) Sometimes I wish I’d been born 20 years earlier so I could have followed Led Zepplin around the world…
10) …or 100 years earlier so I could have written awesome Victorian Gothic novels.
11) I wish I could savour fine wines, but they give me a headache.
12) I’m never happier than I am by the sea.
13) I have wavy hair that naturally dries into a 1970s Farrah Fawcett flick. I hate it and have spent my life straightening it.
14) I am really freckly on my face shoulders and arms. My body and legs, oddly, are not.
15) I have never really known what I want to do with my life. But I think I’m closer to finding it than I ever have been before.
16) I have a ridiculously large make-up collection. I tend not to go anywhere where I can wear a lot of it these days, although I have been known to teach yoga in green glittery eyeliner 
17) I start every day with a cup of hot water and lemon…
(that orange blur there? That’s my brother’s insane dog)
18) ….closely followed by strong coffee. I only have one coffee a day these days, although occasionally we have what are known as “two coffee days”.
19) I’ve always wanted an older brother. Noel Gallagher would fit the bill perfectly.
20) I really hate snark….but at the same time I kind of do like Simon Cowell. As my friend Matt says; enigma, thy name is Rachel.
Tell me a secret readers, I won’t tell a soul!
(inspired by Jenna)
Baby brother and me, August 1981
1981 was a pretty good year when it came to awesome people being born. In the April my along came baby brother, and much as I didn’t appreciate his arrival at the time, thirty years later I can’t imagine life without him. Then in the May there was Phil who recently celebrated her big three-zero. And in the July the world welcomed, with some trepidation, Himself (why yes I am a Cougar).
These three marvellous people in my life are all celebrating the start of a new decade and closing the door on the old one with all its good and bad moments. I celebrate along with them.
But to be frank readers all this turning thirty business has made me feel old. My baby brother is thirty for goodness sake. A week tomorrow I turn thirty seven. And honestly, I don’t know how I feel about that. The last seven years have disappeared in a flash and also lasted a lifetime. Seven years ago I was training to teach yoga, I had just got back from India, I had just finished writing that novel, I was single and lived in a tiny shoebox of a flat in one of the less trendy boroughs of north London, I drove an MG convertible, I still worked in an office.
Life changes and sometimes it’s hard to get your head around it. I’m not very good at getting older and I have a tendency towards nostalgia and melancholy. You’re as old as you feel, they tell me. Unfortunately some mornings I feel ninety seven!
I look back at that girl who turned thirty and barely recognise her. I don’t think even my mother would recognise her! But as a reminder I dug out an old Live Journal entry I wrote back in 2004 about my thirtieth birthday that I thought I would share with you. This decade didn’t get off to the most auspicious of beginnings.
Here’s to forty I guess!
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Liverpool: An Anecdote
June 2004
I was turning thirty. Doom doom etc. Die alone. Eaten by Alsations.
“Why don’t we go away somewhere for the weekend,” pipes up my friend. Let’s call her A.
The National Trust had just bought John Lennon’s childhood home and opened it as a museum. I have a weird obsession with The Beatles and decided to go to Liverpool. Besides I thought it would be nice to see where mother grew up — I had been once before but it was as a child and had something to do with my small brother meeting Postman Pat. I forget what.
We left London in blazing sunshine and summer clothes with a bottle of bubbly packed (squeezed into) the boot (minute space in rear) of my MG convertible. With the roof down we set off, like an unglamorous Thelma and Louise.
As we approached the North the weather became grimmer. By the time we got to Liverpool it was cold and drizzly. Typical. And not an umbrella between us. We spent the first night in a traditional manner – eating Nachos and drinking champagne until A complained her stomach hurt and had to lie down. Rock’n'roll.
We were very good on the Saturday, getting up early and dressing in layers of our summer clothes in an attempt to keep warm. We did all our touristy stuff; Messrs Lennon and McCartney’s childhood homes, the very tacky Beatles Museum, the obligatory stop off at the old This Morning studios and A took me out for a marvellous meal and the restaurant played my favourite Minnie Ripperton song. Sadly, I was still not 30, that was to come.
I have never been a late to bed kind of girl. I was drifting off to the Nodland before midnight…..
Until the fire alarm went off. Loudly and persistently.
“Oh do sod off,” I said pulling the pillows over my head, desperately trying to refind my dreams.
Then the Duty Manager started knocking on the doors, making sure we all got out of bed.
I swore at him. Loudly and eloquently.
This went on for some time. A, I believe, gave in before me and put some sensible clothes on. I was not giving up the bed without a fight. It seemed obvious to me that if there had been a fire then we would have burned in our beds after all this time so there was nothing to worry about. Except shutting that persistent bell up of course.
I lost the battle. Practically dragged out of the room kicking and screaming I was forced to assemble outside with the other plebs, wearing nothing but a pair of pink gingham PJ bottoms and a tie dye vest (please remember it was freezing).
Somehow, as we walked through the hotel, the corridors seemed different to how they did in daylight. Twisty and turny and bathed in a distant glow. Right turns became lefts and figures, silent as zombies, wandered amongst them.
“All we need,” I said apprehensively, “is a dancing dwarf and it’s like the hotel in Twin Peaks.”
I shivered as the fire exit was opened by a bald man of extremely limited height, wearing nothing but underpants.
______________________________________
As I sat in my PJs in the cold North West night, I glanced at my watch.
“Oh look,” I mumbled, blue with cold, “I’m 30.”
But A was too busy shouting at the Duty Manager for refusing to give up his jacket for me.
“It’s my bloody birthday,” I said.
~~~~
Sadly A and I lost touch a few years ago – things change, especially in your thirties.
I still have the pink gingham PJ bottoms though.
Five weeks ago I was at Heathrow checking in for my flight to Australia. It seems like the blink of an eye, and now I’m back, trying to settle back into the old routine, unable to believe the holiday I’d been planning since before Christmas is over.
Truth be told I’ve felt pretty rubbish these last two weeks. A mix of jetlag and despondency. A lack of the sort of energy I need to put back into my business. Even the sunshine isn’t making me smile like it should. Anyone who’s read my blog over the last few weeks knows what a great time we had and even though I didn’t cry all the way home like I did the first time I went to Australia (in my defence I was 12), a big part of me didn’t want to leave.
Last week was bad. I moped and cried and wailed and complained. I was Miss Negative Nellie extraordinaire. I was probably pretty horrible to live with.
Why am I telling you this? Because I want to make a stab at honesty. Because the internet gives us all a tendency to express only a part of what is true. A 2-dimensional us. My heart is in a thousand million bits but I must stay positive in my blog, my facebook, my twitter. I must continue to inspire and smile and grin and pretend it’s not happening.
Which is fabulous. Nobody likes a moper after all.
But I always feel that other people have fabulous lives and don’t get mopey. And then I feel bad for letting the mopes get the better of me.
Yes, I know that’s bullshit.
And so when I read Catherine’s post about feeling oh-so-mopey on Friday I rejoiced. Don’t get me wrong Catherine, I’m sorry you felt down, but I also felt a kind of solidarity. Because so did I.
So here’s the honest truth readers. Sometimes I feel terrible. Truly terrible. And while this too shall pass, it’s OK to feel like crap sometimes.
Everybody does.
My garden is currently full of honesty plants, as you can see from the picture. Therapists who work with flower essences say that we often need that which surrounds us. Essence of Honesty allows us to realign ourselves with the abundance of the universe.
Right now that sounds exactly what I need.
