I've recently been ill.
Not just a-little-bit-sniffly ill but all out, cripplingly, repeatedly ill.
In that time I haven't felt much like blogging, or like writing, or working, or flirting or dating or talking or socialising in anyway...
The one time I threw caution to the wind because I was feeling a bit better and went to a friend's house for Sunday Roast I ended up even more ill than I had been before.
My GP now recognises me immediately and doesn't even listen to my chest, look in my mouth or ears or any of that, he justs takes one look at me and writes out a prescription...
Either he's not a good doctor or I have just spent the last 4 weeks looking like a corpse that has been warmed up and wheeled in to his office just in time to die again.
It all started at the doctors actually.
I went for a flu jab; as I have a congenital heart condition I recieved a letter urging me to get the vaccination which I did on xmas eve just before travelling along the snowy roads to home.
The side effects of the flu jab are symptons of flu - which I thought I had.
Xmas was a wash out for many reasons but not least because I was unable to eat my xmas dinner and not able to take even a sip of alcohol.
Two days later when I went to get the train back to London but was too weak to even pack my bag I realised it wasn't just flu like symptons.
What developed was a horrid sickness bug which I think I caught from my housemate and narrowly avoided passing on to all my family.
Thanks to my mum and some super strength Pepto-Bismal I got better and got back to London literally the day before New Years Eve.
I was pleased that I could still go out with my friends, I looked forward to starting the new year healthy and was also just happy to be away from a toilet bowl.
I realised at this point that New Year's Eve is not a lucky time of year for me; I had spent quite a few recent New Year's Eves ill.
Last year I left a perfectly entertaining party early as I wasn't feeling too good and was ill for the first 3 days of 2009.
The year before I had only just recovered from a bad cold when New Year's came round. On a quick trip to the supermarket only 6 hours before I was going to see my friends DJ I picked up my bag of shopping and put my back out. Thanks to some amazing heat patches and super strength painkillers I was able to still go out.
But I couldn't drink or move much...
When you look back at the photos you can't tell I was sober and in pain and I still managed to get a new year's kiss so for the dawn of 2008 all was not lost.
The year before that I had arranged to fly to Belfast with my wingman but I was ill.
My mum, my boss - everyone I knew in fact - told me not to go.
I was determined not to be beaten so full of flu and stubborness I boarded the plane armed with enough Vicks and Lemsip for a small army.
Though I was quite miserable and exhausted from the journey the evening was good fun and on New Year's Day as we headed back to the airport in a taxi we witnessed one of the most amazing sunrises I have ever seen.
Despite everything it felt like I was supposed to be there to see it, snot and all...

So this year I had just recovered and managed to go out, it seemed like I had broken my New Year's curse.
Then I woke up on New Year's Day and the right side of my nose would not stop running and my right eye would not stop watering.
This lasted a few days and when it finally went it was replaced with a god awful head cold which every time I turned too fast or bent down made me feel like all my sinuses would explode then and there.
This went on a couple of weeks and then I got a cold, by this time I had settled into a routine of getting through the week at work and then feeling rubbish all weekend and I was sick of it.
All that energy and enthusiasm you tackle a new year with was wilting.
Worse than wilting it had vanished and replaced with was a bitter frustration.
I felt like a kid that couldn't go play outside.
I said to a friend of mine that I felt defeated.
Maybe it was some small insight into how it must feel to suffer from depression or other mental health illnesses.
I wanted to feel good about myself, to go out and live my life and stop being ill but I had no control over it whatsoever.
And it was the lack of control that was getting to me.
I was trapped into feeling emotionally whatever I was feeling physically.
It wasn't mind over matter it was matter taking over my mind.
Then my head cold developed into a full blown cold and cough.
I had 2 days off work and a weekend to recover but when I went back to work on the Monday by 5pm I was shaking and sneezing again.
The cold and cough returned ten fold and despite ridiculously strong antibiotics from my doctor I was off work for the best part of a week again.
Last week I went back to work and I was feeling much better but was still coughing so I went and got a repeat prescription of the antibitoics which I finish in 3 days. Though I am almost 100 % better - breathing through both nostrils now and only coughing for about an hour in the mornings I feel completely wiped out.
I guess that's what antibiotics do to you and after what will be 14 days on them and over 6 weeks of various illnesses I'm not surprised I feel this way.
I know there are many worse ways to feel and luckily I have an amazing holiday coming up which - as long as I don't catch anything else - will, I'm sure be just the tonic I need to finally feel healthy again.
All this definately hasn't been fun but it has got me thinking.
Health is so important.
Not just big health stuff against big diseases but little health stuff against little illnesses.
I've practically just slept through xmas, New Year and the first 6 weeks of this year.
Why?
Because I must not have been taking care of myself?
Because perhaps I needed a holiday more than I realised?
Or was it because I went to get a flu jab?
I can't help but think that the very thing I thought would prevent this caused it to rain down on me.
It just seems too ironic that by trying to stay healthy I had ended up more ill.
Maybe if I hadn't tried to strengthen my body I wouldn't now be so weak.
As it valentines day I can't help think that it's a bit like tyring to protect yourself from getting your heart broken by never falling in love...your heart still breaks, just in a different way.
Maybe I shouldn't try so hard to protect myself from being ill or for that matter from being hurt.
Perhaps if you worry about something maybe you are just writing an invitation for it to happen.
One thing is for certain after this - I am never going to take my health for granted.
I'm quite fortunate that I never really did before because I was born 2 months premature with a heart condition and the doctors thought I wasn't going to make it.
I don't have to dig very deep to appreciate just that I have made it this far but I'm going to make an extra effort to be grateful for what I have when I have it and not to worry about what will happen next or how I might stop it.

I didn't make a new year's resolution because I was ill and in fact I haven't for the last few years for the same reason but I am going to make one now.
Carpe Diem.
Seize the day.
Not just because one small flu jab means you can't enjoy the day but because one small twist of fate and you might not have even got this day to begin with.
Seems a tall order to remember to be grateful every day but I'm going to try.
After all it can't be any harder than remembering to take your antibiotics every day and I seem to have been doing that just fine...
Stay healthy everyone - in every sense of the word.
x

Four times a bridesmaid...

In my opinion there are certain things you believe in when you are a little person that you don't when you grow up;
Santa, The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny etc
And for me, on that list, was the idea of weddings as a symbol of love.
Sure, I thought it was true when I was little, in fact I thought they were amazing because I got given a new dress to wear to my 1st wedding which was my cousin Ian's wedding!
It was purple with black spots and had matching socks.
Oh yes, back in the days/age when wearing socks with dresses wasn't retro it was normal!
I loved this dress, I loved the big celebration, I loved seeing my cousin's wife look like an angel, I loved being spun round the dancefloor by my uncle and I loved my first sip of babycham too!
I had a fabulous time and I wanted one of these weddings one day.
Then about a week later Ian left his new bride for another woman.
It was worse than realising the sound of Santa coming down your chimney is actually your dad retrieving presents from the loft.
Ok, maybe it was a one off, I wasn't about to give up on the idea totally just because I had one dumb cousin...I didn't know then but it would turn out I would have quite a few more...
The first time I was asked to be bridesmaid was another cousin's wedding.
She had 8 bridesmaids and put 4 of them in Lemon and 4 in Navy Blue.
You can guess what colour I was in can't you?
Yep...Lemon.
The dress was particularly puffy (as was my hair in those days) so I basically looked a cupcake all day.
I did enjoy the champagne this time - a privelege I was not legally old enough to have which added even more so to the joy of the day.
I found out later that my cousin had walked in on her groom in bed with her mother the night before the wedding and had married him anyway.
I guess my aunt was the only person who actually had a dilemma when asked what side she was on - the bride's or groom's!
I didn't feel quite so bad about looking like a cupcake...
Turns out there are worse things in life!

A couple of years later two of my cousins chose to get married in the same summer.
Until this point in my life I didn't know what true bitchiness was.
The first wedding was a cousin who is beautiful and kind spirited and had for many years been in love with a guy in the army who she hardly ever saw.
She had decided to get married rather suddenly whereas my other cousin had been planning hers for ages.
So the claws came out...
And this was not just Bride wars this was Mother-of-the-Bride Outfit wars, Father-of-the-Bride Speech wars, Cake Making wars, Seating plan wars, First Dance wars...
It was actually the loveliest wedding I had attended but was overshadowed by family members of all shapes and sizes bringing out the worst in each other.
To her credit the bride seemed not to care about the wars breaking out all around her one little bit.
I just thought it was a shame that a day full of love could be ruined by jealousy.
A while later I found out that the wedding was rushed because my cousin had gotten pregnant.
When I say her fella was away a lot, I mean he was away a lot and was to be away a whole lot more after this.
To this day my cousin has never said who the real father of her child is but it certainly explained why she could care less about the bridal bitching that day!

The wedding that was later that same summer, is actually my favourite bad wedding story so far.
It was the 2nd time I was asked to be a bridesmaid and I couldn't think of a good enough excuse to get out of it.
This time I was dressed in emerald green it wasn't quite as humiliating as the lemon coloured dress till my cousin's hairdresser decided I would wear a hairband.
This was the wrong side of the 1990's for hairbands but no one had told her!
Around the same time I had decided to stay on to college and university at the end of school and, as I was the only one of all my cousins to do this, I was literally the black sheep of the family.
A few of my cousins congratulated me and were genuinely chuffed for me but most of them decided not to talk to me.
So I literally had my hair and make up done for the wedding in silence.
Turns out the only thing worse than wearing a hair band is having it literally pushed onto your head while your cousins give you the silent treatment...

And so to the wedding...

The way these guys had bitched about the wedding earlier that same summer meant I was expecting a lot and to be fair nothing was left untouched with this one.
We drove to the wedding in a limo, I helped myself to the champagne in the back while everyone fussed over the bride.
The reception area was stunning, I helped myself to the champagne while everyone chatted.
The photographer was exceptionally talented, I helped myself to the champagne whilst waiting to be called for photos.
The wedding was ultra-traditional, they even had chimney sweeps at the church. And they did the traditional line up where you go along and shake everyone's hands.
My mum said she couldn't shake the groom's hand and I was quite drunk at this point and just wanted to sit down so we slipped into the main room without going along the line.
I asked my mum why she didn't want to shake his hand and she told me to ask one of my cousin's.
I was quite merry at this point so it took a while for the penny to drop but when it did it was a clanger...
That same cousin had confided to me on the hen party that she was sleeping with a man who was engaged.
Well, turns out she was now sleeping with a man who was married - to her own cousin no less!

All of a sudden I wasn't nearly drunk enough for this so I sloped off to the bar unnoticed. In the brief interlude between the line up and being announced into the room the groom had gone to the bar too.
He didn't notice me stand behind him at the bar.
He certainly didn't notice me see him take down the phone number of the woman behind the bar.
I'm not surprised my mum didn't want to shake his hand, she had no idea where it had been!
I got my drink and sat back down.
But I wasn't sat with my mum and my brother.
I was sat with all the other bridesmaids so I made sure I drank plenty more to cope with the silent treatment again.

I looked round the table.
I was sat opposite the cousin who's groom had slept with her mother and next to the cousin who was sleeping with today's groom.
When the best man got up to make his speech he said he didn't know of a happier couple than the bride and groom and I am ashamed to say that I burst out laughing.
The champagne had helped me decide that I couldn't take much more hypocrisy.
But even if I didn't like the way my cousin bitched about the earlier wedding and even though I didn't like the groom I had no right to ruin that moment for all the other family and friends who were none the wiser.
I think my brother took me home very shortly after the speeches and I'm pretty sure we had a great night getting drunk at home.
But the next day my aunt said she would never speak to my mum again because she didn't shake hands in the line up.
My mum was ostracised from her own family for having standards.
Needless to say most of my cousins didn't speak to me after the laughing incident either but they weren't exactly speaking to me before it anyway so I didn't feel a sense of great loss.

I have been to other weddings since and most of them have been much more joyous.
My dad's was, I'm not going to lie, quite a difficult occasion.
Not one I feel I can speak about much on here but one where I learned a very important lesson that, as a writer, you have to be able to stand by your words as much as you would stand by the members of your family.

My brother's was particularly fun, even though it was the day after my university leaver's ball I loved every minute of it!
I was bridesmaid again and for once the dress was gorgeous and I had a great time.
My mum's was ace too, she got married the day before I went travelling around the world just so I wouldn't be away when she did it.
I was bridesmaid again, it was a gorgeous dress again and instead of having a table plan my mum had one big table that everyone sat around.
And this huge table had more wine on it than I had ever seen before and, yes I drank a lot and yes, I laughed a lot, but this time in the right places and for the right reasons.
I set off round the world with a huge hangover and very aware that having been a bridesmaid 4 times that I was very unlikely to ever be a bride.
But that kind of suited me.

At this point I could concede that maybe weddings weren't all bad, but only if other people could concede that they weren't all good either.
That they don't paper over the cracks in a relationship, that they don't stop the truth being found out, that they don't make up for something else that is missing in your life and certainly the more you spend on them doesn't mean the more succesful your marriage will be.

It's been 7 years, almost to the day, since I set off travelling and in all that time I have happily held the view that weddings are great, they're just not for me...until now.

I recently went to a wedding that I knew would be the exact opposite of all my horror stories.
I knew it would be a room full of fabulous, wonderful people who were genuinely filled with love and excitement for the happy couple.
The reason being that the couple are two of the nicest, kindest, most wonderful people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.
You can't choose your family but you can choose your friends and I don't know how I was lucky enough to get the chance to choose these guys.
I knew their wedding would be all of these genuinely amazing things, but I just didn't know it would affect me so much.
It was only the 2nd time in my life that I thought 'I want one of these'.

Don't worry, I think the feeling will wear off...
I still have too many objections but it definately chinked the armour.

When I told one of the many very nice men I happened to chat to at this wedding that I didn't want a wedding myself he told me that it was as selfish to not want one as it was to want one.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with him but it certainly makes life interesting to look at things a different way...

I grew up believing in weddings until I found out they weren't real.
But I spent so long after that not believing in them that it feels strange to find out now that maybe they might be more real than I was ever able to give them credit for.
It's strange, it's a little bit like someone telling you they still stay up on christmas eve to see Santa or that they still find money when leave their tooth under their pillow.
You're not sure you would do the same but you can't help admire their conviction either...

According to the saying being a bridesmaid 3 times means I will automatically be ruled out of ever being a bride.
A week ago I was perfectly happy to be living proof of an age old cliche.
And maybe I never will be anyone's bride.
But right now, I'm not sure I'm going to let someone else's cliche decide for me.
Why should nice weddings automatically mean a girl should want one?
Why should bad weddings automatically mean a girl shouldn't?

Anyway...sod the cliche I've actually been a bridesmaid four times, what does that mean?
Maybe it means I get a bit longer than most people to work out what I believe in.
It's much easier to believe in that which you can see than that which you can't.
Maybe that's why my cousins wanted weddings so badly, perhaps they wanted to prove something existed that actually didn't.
In my opinion weddings are for couples that are truly in love but they are overused by couples that aren't.
And so a word to the wise; when true love exists you don't need to prove it (and that perhaps is when you enjoy it most).
And you certainly don't need dresses that make people look like cupcakes.

One more for the road...

I've noticed since I finished my MA that the 2 years of studying, struggling, staying in, non-socialising, watching, analysing, questioning, creating and generally tearing my hair out has, if nothing else, given me 2 wonderful things...

1) is the confidence to say - out loud and to other people - that I write.
Ok so I'm not a writer yet and I certainly am not a paid writer but I spend my time writing and I am not ashamed to admit that's what I do, in fact I am proud that it's what I am incredibly passionate about and not only shapes the way I look at the world, it shapes who I am and what I want in this world.

2) is a fairly decent drinking habit.
I am not denying that I used to drink a lot pre MA, I just didn't need it quite as much as I do now.
I love to come home and have a drink while I soak in a brilliant piece of TV writing or go to the theatre and have a drink, or to go out with friends and drink...it's become less about binge drinking my way through my weekends which my former self used to do and more about having a drink with most things I do...I'm not sure which is healthier to be honest!

There's no doubt that writers have a reputation for being the first one to suggest going for a drink and the last ones to prop up the bar too and that got me thinking about why writers drink so much, what's in that last mouthful/last glass/last bottle that we crave?

Maybe it's because no matter how eccentric we are we are also social creatures who love to tell stories and it's in our social DNA that alcohol and stories mix well, why else does most of the population have a night in front of the TV or DVD with a bottle of wine, or do they bear to hold the obligatory plastic glasses at theatres?

Maybe it's about gaining access to the unconscious certainly the only time I cry these days is when i'm either a) drunk or b) writing an emotionally charged scene.

Maybe it's because we're constantly stressed, not stressed like I've experienced before in management jobs but stressed because we're trying to birth our creative babies a lot of times without the equivalent of a creative midwife.
Maybe like an epidural alcohol eases this difficult and painful process?

Maybe it's an insecurity that even after we've said out loud that we write and cried our way through our difficult scenes that it will all mean nothing.
And maybe what we really crave more than anything else is meaning.
We want to find the meaning in things that's why we write and we want our stories to mean something to others that's why we work so hard at it.
What if they don't?
That's more than an insecurity for me.
That's a paralysing fear.
But surely the more successful a writer is the less insecure they would be and the less they would drink...I know for a fact that this aint true.

I get the sense that I could discuss the topic of alcohol till the cows come home but I can't make much sense of it (and it might not be terribly exciting) unless I really investigate my own relationship with it.
So instead of why do writers drink, I'll ask why do I drink?
And I think all of the reasons above are valid, but there could be one other possibility too.
To me I used to binge drink at the weekend - not excessively, just the same amount as any other young Londoner would - and then I would work my ass off all week to pay for the lifestyle.
There would be times I would be 'on' meaning nights I would be up for drinking and partying then nights when I would be 'off' meaning nights I wouldn't drink.
Since doing this MA these 'on' and 'off' periods are a lot less distinct, I can have just as many (or as few) drinks on a Saturday as I can on a Tuesday.
In fact if I do fancy a drink on a Sunday or a Monday I struggle to find a friend to drink with me because most are giving their poor livers a break from the excess of the weekend whereas for me the weekends are my writing time and not my drinking time.
I'd rather be hungover at work than be hungover when I sit down to write.
Also, I am never really 'off' because I never really stop writing.
I can be thinking of ideas sat at my desk, or on the bus, in the bath, in the supermarket, in the gym, chatting to mates etc
Perhaps a side effect of this is that the more often my brain is 'switched on' then the more often I will crave a drink to help switch it off.

I don't think I have a conclusion to why writers drink or why I like to drink maybe I'll think about it some more...
Maybe I'll write about it and see where the story takes me...
If I'm going to write about it maybe I'll have to do some more in-depth research...

Now, where did I put that corkscrew...?

It's been a while...

I haven't written much on here recently...I like to delude myself that there are fans out there eagerly awaiting my next post but there aren't, yet it still feels important to me for some reason to explain my absence:

I finished my MA.

I was so busy doing that I didn't have time to do anything else.
And then I celebrated finishing which took up all my time and even though I finished the course a month ago I have only just finished the copious amounts of celebrating!
And now...?
Back to business as usual.
Except, I have no idea what that is anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I couldn't wait to finish the course, to get to the end of the stress of delivering that final script, the end of the pressure knowing it would be used as our calling card and the end of the intensity of not having room for anything else in your life.
But I miss it.
I miss the structure, the deadlines, the constant challenges and surprises, the great tutors and mentors and of course my fellow writers.
I miss having someone to blame, for two years I have been saying - I can't go out/stay out/spend the day/night/watch this/read that/stay up/sleep in/drink this/eat that/buy those or generally afford to do anything...because of the MA.
There is no way I would want to carry on studying but there's also no way I would want to carry on living the life I had before the MA either.
And that's the scary part.
A lot of my friends have said they are glad to have me back on the social scene, glad I can actually say yes to their invites again, glad I can have dinner or a few drinks on random week nights again etc
And I have been doing a lot of all of that in order to make up for lost time!
I'm touched that they have welcomed me back with open arms but I am also terrified of actually embracing them back.
Because if I go out half as much as I used to I will never have time to write...
If I drink a quarter of the amount I used to put away I will never write anything of quality if I am doing it whilst suffering through a hangover...
If I travel across London on the sprawling nightbus network for just a tenth of the time I used to I will be so sleep deprived I will never even be motivated to write...
So it's clear that I can't go back to my old life and I can't carry on the one I've got used to whilst on the MA.
I need to forge a new path.
New rules, new discipline, new goals, new deadlines, the lot.
It's a bit like breaking up with someone, suddenly there's an MA-sized hole in my life and I don't quite know what to fill that hole with yet.
This last month I've been to the theatre 6 times, celebrated my birthday on 5 different occasions, had 4 friends come to stay, been to 3 friend's birthdays, had 2 weekends away and 1 massive 'end of MA' blowout has been liberating, rewarding, exhilirating, depressing, terrifying, inspiring, surprising, tiring and expensive!
But it's been exactly what I needed to get over the 'break-up'.
I think now my life will naturally be divided into 3 parts; my crazy TV life pre-MA, the none existent life I had during the MA and post-MA.
And this 'life post MA' is the one story that has not yet been written.
I suppose the only thing I can do is get writing...

Diversion Ahead

I have made a countdown calendar.
The no# of days left till my final deadline for my MA.
Today it sits on 43.
My fingers shake slightly as I type that. I think I'm in shock because, first of all, I am now counting my deadline down in days (how scary is that) and second of all I feel like I have so much work to do I should still be counting down in months (where did all the time go)
Such is life...right?
Writers - far more experienced and talented than me - deal with much more stressful deadlines than this on a more regular basis, in fact they deal with multiple deadlines at once.
But this one, for me, is as big as it gets. I really hope it will be the first big writing deadline of many big writing deadlines. As well as hoping it will be the first, I also hope it will be the last. The last one where I am labelled a 'student of writing', or a 'wannabe writer'.
Despite my hopes and my state of shock...I am feeling blocked.
BLOCKED!
I'm not even a proper writer yet but I get writer's block?
What is that about?
It got me thinking about that fact that a few years ago I had a man pal who I loved dearly and it turned out he loved me dearly too. In fact too much so - he wanted us to get together and I just didn't feel strongly enough about him to get into a serious relationship with him.
So for a while we just stayed friends. Not for long though. In true When Harry Met Sally style it was not possible to 'just be friends' - we would go out on nights out, have fun and then one of us would get emotional, we'd argue and then we'd talk for hours on the phone and meet up the next day and make up. I realised I was having a relationship with this man without actually having a relationship with him.
I talked to him about this and he said we needed to move forward or move apart.
We decided not to be friends anymore and - true to his word - I haven't seen him for about 3 years. Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that we had to stop our pseudo relationship somehow I'm not sure going cold turkey was the best option and I'm almost 100% sure that if I could do it over I would do anything but that.
Why am I thinking about all this?
Well, it seems the parrallel is I was having all the problems of a relationship without having an actual relationship and now I am having all the problem's of writer's block without actually being a writer.
I need to move forward or move apart from this story.
Seen as I am 43 days away from deadline it is too late to move away so I can only go forward.
If this block is a wall I am going to have to smash it down.
Ok maybe not smash it, but perhaps take it down one brick at a time.
Why am I blocked?
1) I feel like I don't really know what my play is about.
I mean, I know what it's about - I know what happens, who to and when. But I feel like I am still struggling to know why. Has this play evolved too far past what I originally wanted to say? Can I still say that? Should I be trying to say something else if the story has taken me somewhere else? Why have I come up with a story that doesn't say what I wanted to say in the first place? And how did I do that? I feel like I've been painting a sunset using green paint. Do I still say it is a sunset or is it actually just a green picture now?
2) Until I 'know' what it's about I feel like I won't know what the right form is.
And I have David Edgar to blame for this (no, not the new Burnley player)
His incredibly insightful article in the Guardian last weekend pretty much ruined my life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/11/drama-edgar-plays-theatre
Until then I thought I was telling a nice, little, interesting and dramatic story about Burnley. Then he made me see that the story is one thing, the plot is quite another.
And the plot, well the way the plot is shaped shows you what the meaning of the play is. That's great, so clever and true, I'm really glad he pointed that out while I am still in the process of writing my play. See point 1.
Oh...Crap.
3) Points 1 & 2 have - over the recent two weeks - combined forces and like some looming transformer-type monster have dwarfed every creative decision I've made till I have got to the point where I can't type a word without deleting it again.
Writing is putting words down in a shape that gives them meaning. Not putting them down, being unsure about the shape and then taking them away again. That's just typing.

I don't want to be a typist.
I want to be a writer.
I want to write this story.
I want to give it the best form it can have.
I want the meaning to resonate through each and every word.
I want to smash this wall.

If anyone out there has a sledgehammer...or a chisel...even a fork sized amount of wisdom to help me do this I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Well, gonna go and score another day off my calendar.
42 days to go now.

Gulp.

Long Time No See

Well, I haven't written anything on here for nearly 3 months...

I never promised myself I would write everyday or even every week but this gap has been a bit excessive even for a commitment-phobe like me!
I did promise myself that I would write when anything inspired me - whether it was good, bad or ugly inspiration and yet I find myself typing away again when I feel momentously uninspired.
And less than two months away from my final MA deadline is not when I can afford to be uninspired.
So, I'm trying to work out why this is so in the hope that I can overcome it.
Perhaps I should do a recap of what has been happening for the last 3 months in case it offers me a whirlwind view of my life which inspires me into action...ok it's a tall order but worth a try and at least I'll feel slightly less guilty about my absence.

Well...Burnley won at Wembley and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion too - and shortly after I went to see Oasis in Manchester something I have wanted to do for ages and I am not ashamed to say that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion - (hhhhmmmm is there a pattern emerging here?)
Then we had a showcase as part of our MA (part of the reason for the exhaustion I think) and it was amazing (don't worry I didn't cry) and erm then I went off on holiday to Stonehenge, Cornwall and Scotland.

Thinking about it, it really was a big relief to get out of London and away from everything I'd been worrying about and working towards...in fact that may be the problem, that once I got away I didn't really want to come back.

No, that's not true, I did want to come back - I just wanted something to be different when I returned, some sign that all the things I had been struggling with were worth it...someone to say "well done", "it was all worth it", "keep going", "almost there"...
Truth is there was no sign that things had changed...there still is no sign that they will.

Well, I need to do something about it. I'm going to do what I do when I'm lost and there's no signs...I need to stop looking for that sign, choose a direction and head in it and then stop and work out a little later on if it was right or not.

It might not inspire me...but it's worth a try!

All's well that ends well...

Sometimes the good guys finish last - we are all used to that, but sometimes, just sometimes the good guys get to finish...at Wembley.
I didn't intend to write this blog about football but I did promise myself I would write it whenever I felt inspired and frankly there are certain nights when those eleven men in claret and blue make me feel like anything is possible. Tonight is one of those nights.
After having victory snatched from us in the semi final of the Carling Cup and being defeated in the FA Cup we could have easily thought that our chances at Wembley had come and gone but we didn't. Beating Reading by 3 goals over 2 games means Burnley will now face Sheffield at the mighty Wembley for a promotion place to the premier league.
In less than two weeks our 61st game of the season will come to define our season for the rest of time.
We want it. We deserve it, but will it go our way on Bank Holiday Monday? Who knows...
What I have learned since I started this blog is that it's not the outcome that's important, it's the journey.
That may sound bizarre from a football fan who's team is only 90 minutes away from promotion but it's true.
Like the Burnley players I have put so much pressure on myself to do this, achieve that, be there by then and have this to show for it. Unlike the Burnley players I am still waiting for my day out at Wembley, but, like the Burnley players, I now believe I deserve it.
I have worked hard, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. I have faced my fears and weaknesses and stared them down. Most importantly of all, I have dared to dream. If I achieve any success now there is no doubt in my mind of the price I have paid for it. Sometimes you aim for the prize and you decide that it's worth giving everything you have to get it. At that point you realise that getting it is not important, the giving everything to it is.
The price of success is knowing that the struggle was the success.
Owen Coyle, the majestic, much loved manager of Burnley said on Sky TV of the Burnley players that "each and every one of them gives me everything they can on a daily basis" - how many people can honestly say that?
If you can say that then I shall raise my glass to you, you may have to wait awhile though because the next time I will be raising a glass will be 13 days from now, amongst 30 thousand other Burnley fans, on the inside of Wembley stadium.