Happy Birthday Toooo Meeee
on Blog From Beyond (Rwanda), 24/Feb/2010 19:57, 34 days ago
Heehee. Marilyn (dad's partner) made this lovely cake(s) for me from the cupcake kit I bought her for Christmas. Next Christmas dad's suggested we buy her an alchemy kit :opAlso, it snowed like a demon - which is reminiscent of the year I was born when dad had to follow a snow plough to get mum to the hospital! :)See, our garden has looked like this pretty much constantlysince December.Even the Christmas tree is frozenly preserved, sheltering local spirits until Spring arrives.The turning of my 29th year has been a somewhat subdued, cosy affair. The wonderful thing about a blog - and also the slightly scary thing - is that you can look back over the years and see where you were and what you were doing on such and such a day back when. Birthdays past include:28:Lalibela and High Noon. I was living with Cathryn in my old house in Kisimenti and Jeff came to visit.27th:Party at Sola Luna, first year in Rwanda.The year before that...? I must have been doing my MA at Cardiff. See how fast we forget if we don't write things down!So, here's another to add to the list. Dad and Marilyn came over and we went up the pub with mum and Merrick then had a huge Indian meal at home followed by champaign and a table football match to the death between dad and Merrick :opIt was really nice to spend it with my family after being away for so long. Nice to get actual, real presents to open too.Continuing the family theme, it was also a year of inheritance with an amount gifted to me by Marilyn from Marj's estate, who never forgot my birthday and sadlypassed awaylast May. It came in a card in a box filled with old traditional-style pear drops which I'm absolutely crazy about and come from the amazingFarrington's farm shopnear Bath, where we used to take her for breakfast.I also inherited a watch that my granddad bought nana for their wedding day. Things on dad's side get passed down through the women of the family so a lot came to me because dad's sister had three sons, although two now have daughters of their own but I'm the eldest. So this goes with great grandma's ruby engagement ring and amber necklace which great grandfather brought back from Mesopotamia in the war. So two generations of heirlooms now.My mother bought me a gift of amber earrings, the 'Tiger soul' stone, which is apparently my great grandmother's favourite which she always wore.So, a bit of a family year in many ways.I also got money to spend at the stables and Merrick bought me some riding gloves and an absolutely gorgeous riding crop, pictured here with the new hat I bought myself. I haven't had a chance to test drive them yet but will do next Tuesday. Can't wait.So lots of lovely things. I also bought myself a treat of aCineworld unlimited pass. It's£13.50 per month but I figure it's worth it. It's usually around £6 to go so if I see three movies a month I've made it back and that's around the money my ex and I used to pay for Tescos DVD rental. I just love going to the cinema during the day time when it's completely empty. It's like you're invisible for a couple of hours - pure escapism.I used it for the first time today and went and sawAnthony Hopkinsplaying a fairly convincing warewolf inThe Wolfman. It was entertaining. Scored higher thanSherlock Holmesbut you had to take it at face value. I used to go potty for anything period and slightly gothic but rather going off the genre now. It's harder and harder to impress. Recycle the corsets and the top hats. People cottoned on to its marketability withSleepy HollowandBram Stoker's Dracula- now they're not even trying.Talking of which, I had an utterly crushing blow the other day. I finally managed to track down a copy ofBathoryafter having no luck with Amazon. I remember reading about it long ago whenAnna Frielwas but a rumour. It was another in the long list of films released whilst I was away that I'd really wanted to see.It's the type ofsubject matterI love. Who wouldn't? But oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.I have to admit, it's one of the only films I've ever reading a book during. I couldn't bring myself to turn it off after having spent so long trying to find it. Yet I couldn't bring myself to give it my full attention either. It was utter diatribe.If you're going to dissect history (a hysterectomy?) for goodness sake, do it. But make it clear that's what you're doing. Give it someBraveheartspin, a littleRob Roy. You needn't go as far asCheGuevara but round aboutElizabethand herGolden Ageis perfect.If you're going to tell history from the perspective of the downtrodden, misunderstood and thoroughly abused underdog, then give us something we canbelievein!I couldn't believe in this. I didn't even understand it. I think I tuned out somewhere around the bath water being herbs instead of blood and her stabbing the maid to death in some form of mushroom-induced fit and waking up with no memory of ever having done it. The 'oooh, is it witchcraft or isn't it' fuzzy green scenes and erotic nightie dreams were just plain irritating, not enticing. And the whole thing with turningCaravaggiostraight!!? No, wait, not just straight but clean-shaven andsober! Now that just beggars beliefe.In all truthfulness, they would have done much better to completely ditch any pretence of telling the woman's story and turn her intoQueen of the Dammed. In the eyes of Hollywood, the next best thing to telling a truthful and emotional story is to dress everyone up in whalebone and slide around the floor in a fake-blood induced orgy of gore and sexuality. Worked for bothBladeandDusk Till Dawn. Why break a popular formula? Could have had another gothic icon on their hands.I know I've been filling up my posts with films lately. Must get terribly boring if you're not really into them - or my kind of them. But indulge me, I've been deprived for a long time (or is that depraved?) :)Final mention today - I'm having an absolute Ghibli fest. Rolling around like a pig in muck. For those of you unacquainted withStudio Ghibli- it's like Disney but for adults and intelligent children.Probably their two best know areLaputa: Castle in the SkyandSpirited Away.Pretty much everything they do is excellent, though some stand out above the rest:Norsicaä:Valley of the WindandPrincess Mononoke(featuring the voice ofGillian Anderson) are also beautifully crafted and possess more than a small dose of healthy heathen values. All about the wind, the rain, the forest gods and demons. Disney for Pagans perhaps ;)Anyway, I know everyone has their favourite, but I would like to champion mine. Many will disagree, but I absolutely adoreHowl's Moving Castle. It may be considered wrong to marry a cartoon character, but if Sophie hadn't got there first, I would definitely marry Howl. And not just for his incredibly cool real estate, but it's just such a lovely story. Wouldn't everybody like a house like that? And a Mr. Turniphead?So, I watched that yesterday and it brought a little ray of sunshine and nostalgia back to the frozen wastelands of wintry East Anglia.Then I went back to work today. End of half-term for part-timers like myself. Was a really good day actually. Had fun. Went to the movies after. Good that I'm out the house. After eating all the Belgian chocolate I brought back I've turned into a complete porker. Though it's now been over a month since I smoked and in that time I got drunk once. I drink extremely rarely now, only took a glass of bubbly on my birthday. Also don't drink tea or coffee anymore. All of which is cancelled out by the sheer amount of junk food I eat, but one thing at a time! I'm working on that. With warmer weather will come more exercise and more exercise will lead to healthier food intake. But hopefully I've bought my lungs and liver some reparation for Rwanda :)Enough waffling now. Not much else to report. Still umming and aahing about what to do jobs wise. It's awfully comfortable here. I have a nice room, plenty to eat, central heating and hot water on tap. Part-timing gives me plenty of time to write, ride horses and watch movies. It's all feelingverycomfortable at the moment, bar the embarrassment of living with parents aged 29.It's a sticky trap though. If I want to move out I have to make more money. To do that I need to set up a business here, which would mean moving out into a place locally *shudder* and then paying for things like internet to be installed, telephone lines, changing my address on all my post... what a hassle.So, if I am going to move, I might as well move somewhere completely different. Which would require a proper job. But where? I'm getting horrifically lazy and picky about what I apply for lately. I'm turning into a total vegetable in the ambition stakes. I came back raring to go again and now I'm melting into the scenery.Ho hum. I'm just suffering a total lack of direction. I'm very content where I am all of a sudden. I love having time to do 'stuff'. I'm not losing any money, though I'm not really making much either. It's just all very 'nice'. It's comfortable. But is it healthy? I dunno....answers on a postcard please. What am I turning into? More importantly - what should I do next? I have no doubt that if I had a direction I really wanted to go in, I'd get going. But for the first time in a very long time I haven't got anything lined up. I've run dry.Maybe Spring will sort it out. I think I'm suffering hibernation doldrums. Once the sap starts to rise I'll feel that wind change and, like Vianne inChocolat,I'll be gone...