"No hugging, no learning"

Hallo my dears,

I shall be sending a donation to Wikileaks following their reportage on US military communications today. These wars aren't quite as clean as portrayed for civilian casualties. Picked up Harry's discarded Guardian in my local pub tonight and was both horrified and gratified by the exposay.

Kiddos are away in Orkney with their others (dad and step-mum) leaving me latitude to get into trouble.

I got into bother on Friday night with a local man, whom I'd first met a fortnight before at the pub. We shared a long and chaste night smoking and listening to music that night. He turned up at the pub looking for me again and was still tall, dark and handsome, so we went up town for another drink alone. We were getting on so well that I allowed him to kiss me, but when I suggested we go back to mine, he flipped. The lover of the minute before started calling me a slag, slut, whore etc., with a slow truth dawning that I was in the company of a nasty-type nutter. When I told him to stop insulting me and to leave ("shut the fuck up and fuck right off out now"), he continued his sexualised personal insults with a raised voice and finger-poking gestures.

I sobered up remarkably quickly, realising I'd made a really bad call and now needed to get home safe and alone, by ensuring he left first and didn't hang around outside. Told him if he didn't leave I'd have the barstaff remove him, but he just carried on shouting about my whoredom and jabbing his finger at me. So I went to sensible-looking blokes sat nearby and told them through tears that I needed help getting rid of the maniac. While he was brave enough to scream for 10 mins at a 5'4", 9 stone woman against her requests to desist, it took just one quiet word from a 6'2" man to get him out. Thank God for the kindness of strangers, who let me get home safe.

What have we learned, ion? That you are not always a good judge of character, especially in your cups. And that tall, dark and handsome does not a gentleman make.

This negative experience apart, it's good getting out more and developing a community. It only took me 6 months to realise that home-working within 4 walls most days was not good for my mental health. So now there's often a morning coffee with Sweetie in the caff downstairs, especially if I'm hungover, and some evenings in my local pub, The Hell in a Handbasket, if I'm not. A glass of wine, a read of the papers or a book, some fiddle music, a chat with my favoured regulars, and claps of the regulars' dugs.

Sweetie from the caff has taken a leadership role with our neglected common back green, strimming the weeds, weed-killing the docks and dandelions, and digging a veg patch in which she's growing courgettes and carrots for the caff soup-pot. What a good influence she is! But amongst the 40 flats sharing the back green, there had to be one bastard. Yesterday, garage owner downstairs asked Sweetie to move her veg patch, due to his need for a 3 ft margin outside his bordering wall for maintenance access. In addition, he hopes the BBQ held out back last Saturday would not be a regular event, representing as it did a fire and safety hazard. It will give me some pleasure this week when I phone the Cooncil to establish that he has no such right. He's never been a pleasant neighbour.

Hallo my dears,

Long time no see, but I survived the winter and am back on form due to combination therapy of happy pills and sunshine. I can't possibly fill in 7 months absence except to say; alles gut mit mir!

Let's see... in the interim
1. British troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, dying for a cause we now can't remember
2. There's a new coalition govt talking about some 'Big Society' for English women's institute people, forcing Vince Cable (an actually reasonable guy) to inform us that higher education is fucked, and some other dweeb to tell us that the NHS is also up the swanee
3. Obama is getting panelled by the tea party movement- is this the US equivalent of the women's institute?
4. Annual mating swarm of flying ants transpired locally this Tues, to my immense delight
5. My Big Wan may be moving out to a campus Uni in a couple of months (coalition govt willing), and the wee wan might become socialised soon
6. It was R's birthday yesterday, so we sang her 'Happy Birthday' and will take her out for boozy fish lunch this weekend
7. I stopped and then re-started drinking alcohol since my last post. Prefer the latter
8. Have had adventures both in Wales and the Trossachs the last few months, and planning another lost weekend in Berlin next month with R.

A bit shallow, but I have to ease back into my metier gradually. After all, it took me 2 hrs to trace blogger sign-in and password. Phew!

Ion x

Fashionably late

Oh dear, has it really been 7 weeks since my last post? It seems like yesterday, but this could be early-onset dementia. Truth is that I now travel a lot and sometimes work stupid hours with the new jobbie, while entrenched in false consciousness. When I am at home, the Big and wee Wans give me quite a lot of work as their hormone levels rocket and mine plummet.

My dears, I am very well, so you mustn't worry. I may get a work-life balance later and come back more regularly, but for the meantime please expect scanty posting.

I visited Edinburgh's Modern Art Gallery this weekend, and by chance came across this inspiring artwork on its Georgian frontage. Who I am to disagree?

Toilet stories

Rob requests toilet stories, and so shall he receive:

1. The Cairnpapple toilet story (history student etc. was a tale of jobbiness in more ways than one. R. was bursting as we arrived, but delayed her relief with my promise of the chemical toilet in the back area of the information Nissen Hut. She's a proper lady, you know, and prefers to pee in sanitary conditions, unlike some.

Anyways, on arrival at the Nissen Hut we're keen to pay up admission at the Nissen Hut, not least to gain access to the saniloo. A sweet-faced young graduate is warden, but (crucially) receiving a visit/ inspection from his Big Boss as we arrive. We stump up admission, buy a guidebook (!) and then request use of the facilities.

The Warden's eyes dart first between R. and Big Boss, then upward to his right visual field as he remembers the H&S; lectures, and states carefully that there are no toilet facilities available to the public. R. says she needs to use a loo, and asks what he suggests- peeing outside behind the Hut? Warden says he can't recommend this option either, but has no alternative suggestions.

Thankfully at this point the Big Boss interceded to say that in the circumstances R. could be permitted to use the staff loo, to everyone (especially R's) relief.

When we came back to the Hut after the tour, full of beans and questions, Big Boss had left and the Warden was full of apologies about the earlier exchange. A student of modern US History and a wee charmer, his history expertise was only 4,000 years out.

2. This story is not mine to tell, but:

A friend, while travelling recently in Italy, took lunch at a railway hotel during a stop in her train journey. After some initial friction with the maitre d' over table size and water ordered, my friend had enjoyed her meal. The maitre d' then made up these misunderstandings with her, and then whispered in her ear that maybe they could meet in the toilets....?

Italian is not her best European language, and I suspect it took some time before she properly apprehended the true humanitarian nature of his offer. As she paid and left, maitre' was still signalling upstairs with head gestures, so there was no dubiety to his intent.

As I texted at the time, clearly this gentleman's kind proposition proved he was one of the world's last great romantics, and I can't believe that she managed to turn down this once in a lifetime opportunity for a toilet assignation, since apparently he was 'no' bad'.

For me:



For Big Wan:



For wee Wan: