I crashed a life drawing class with my mummy this evening..
Here's my feeble offering. I haven't done life drawing since my art a-level, many moons ago now:

One thing I always take when I travel away from Edinburgh is my sports gear. I am a runner.. I like the freedom of being outside and able to run up or down or everywhere.. I run, I challenge myself as to the length of time I can run for rather than the speed and feel euphoric when I find a steady, long lasting lope comfortable after an hour. I've been a runner since the age of 7 although then it was mostly for track training. Being the size of an 11 year old at 7 meant I was encouraged to enter all the sports teams etc.. it resulted in me competing in 200m sprints for my school and for a short two years at 15, for southwark. Anyway, when it finally transpired that I wasn't particularly fast (a love affair with cake put that to rest) and not much taller or stronger than the other 15 year olds, I stopped and took up long distance running instead.

So I was running today in the woods near my house. It's nothing when compared to the majesty of the mountains in the east of france where I run during visits to my grandmother, where everything is super-sized pines, loamy paths and colourful backdrops or even when compared to Athalassa park with its reds, dry greens and warm eucalyptus scent with the cicada muffling your footfall. It is, however, lush and cool and running through the winding tracks makes you feel a little less in London which is always nice. It does sometimes remind me, though, of how perverted England is compared to Cyprus.
I used to walk home from school through a tangential path to the woods and aged 13, this walk was always overshadowed by a man who used to walk his dog near the exit. Everyday he'd be there, everyday he'd try to chat to me. What my name was, how old I was, if I fancied going out with him. We're talking a 20 something year old man chatting up a 13 year old girl. Even after I told him my age he wouldn't leave me alone. I told him I was 12 to press the matter home that this wasn't an appropriate situation but he still insisted. I wouldn't tell my parents as I feared they'd disallow my walks home which I secretly enjoyed if only for the fact that I walked past my brother's school where I might bump into one of his friends.
Anyway, he only desisted once I forced my brother to accompany me home a number of times. I saw a few years later with a woman, she looked more his age. I think he recognised me as I walked past, although I wasn't in my school uniform. The path still gives me the creeps somewhat. More so because there was a regular wanker behind one of the trees on the way up. I mean wanker literally, he used to hide behind a tree hardly wide enough to cover his form, all you could see as you walked up past the tree was a hand furiously pumping backwards and forwards from the trunk. If you looked back over your shoulder, you could catch him looking at you with determination as he skulked further behind the greenery. They were all over the woods though. Various hotspots you'd know not to linger in if you were alone. The number of times I'd crash through the paths only to disturb these men (always men) mid-stroke. You'd think it was a convention. The woods are far too populated to make it a dogging area so I have no idea what these men are up to.. maybe they want to be caught by a young woman jogging. Who knows.

Today would have been a bad day for them. As I ran, glorying in my solitude and the peacefulness of these old green woods, I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sinewy, greying 70 year old who casually apologised for overtaking and was gone in a jerk of his spindly, time worn legs. Once the disbelief had subsided, I then realised I was surrounded by runners. All jogging in time like a Midwitch Cuckoo marathon, their efficient breathing the synchronised whooshes of digital printing presses. I couldn't stop as I was scooped up in their elegant strides. I felt like a gazelle running from a lion, until I changed lane to a quieter path and Lo! Another stream of runners came from no where and then I felt rather more like a fox on hunt day. I was being hounded out of all my serene routes, forced to smaller tributaries where the wankers live. Thankfully the combined pounding of a million pairs of feet drove the perverts out. Perhaps the dynamic movement (akin to the Arup wobbly bridge) made the woods shake off its hangers on, those who dared not follow the rhythm. I suppose that's the point of masturbation, you find your own rhythm. Having it dictated by a hundred, olympic inspired dulwichites isn't anyone's idea of romance.

I survived my run unscathed. Although I was a bit rattled by the sudden migration of the Dulwich middle-aged. I've also developed a particularly unsightly eye infection. Good timing!!!

LAst night saw MP dining with her bezzie mate Nnav and family. Barbeques in evening sunlight in the quieter corners of South London. Anyway, it was a fun day- we went to the park with Nnav's new baby cousin who's now a tall 2 year old and honestly the most charming and beautiful baby boy I've seen in a long time. Learning to play catch and playing piggy in the middle (although that was more the adults, wee boy can't catch yet or throw).

I was too tired to do big things today so I did some sewing- fighting with the sewing machine my grandmother has given me. I suspect it's because the latch is gone on the wheel on the side so that it lets go ever so often and the needle stops flying up and down and the machine whines in exasperation as it can't fly through material anymore. I'v enearly finished my top, I just need to sew down the seam finishes and put the sleeves on and the zip on.

Then I made scones... then lunch.. then my old piano teacher came round and we had tea and a long chat which was nice. Then I repaired my jeans..
Then I helped repaint the room my brother's evacuated.

Then I cleaned the bathroom..
Now, I'm exhausted.

Tomorrow: take passport photos. Pick up visas, pick up tickets and then back to nnav's for a day of fun! Minus baby cousin though.. although his made up game of throwing gravel from one end of the garden into the pond gets a bit trying.

Romance is in the air for Monkey Pie. Not the knee wobbling, heart racing, pupil dilating kind of romance which has you tearing at your heart to stop it from filling up painfully when you don't hear from the object of affection within the acceptable time limit but rather like the easy companionship kind, where you oblige them with hand holding, you allow your proffered cheek to be peppered with kisses, you use their love like balm on your lump of a scarred heart.

The last month has seen Monkey Pie let V back into her life, as he gratefully laps up all the time he has with me. I'm humbled by his confessions of love, of being his best friend, of this being his happiest month. I must agree that it has been spectacularly easy to go along with it, to meet up, to lie entwined in a mockery of intimacy. To pretend to be jealous if another girl wants to see him.. Truth be told, I'm not in love, to any degree. If "deeply fond of" is allowed, that'll be what I'll label my feeling. I do not miss him, I'm even a little glad to be away. What, I realised finally, had made this last month so easy, is that it also coincided with a month's silence from my usual torture of checking M's blog. He'd not written in ages so I stopped checking and it did me good.. today, I checked my facebook and he popped up on my newsfeed with a new photo- he's looking delightfully rough with his 20 day beard and sun tan... I checked his blog, assuming (correctly) that he'd update both at once. Everything came flooding back and I enviously digested his prose..

V is like sweetener for a sugar addict.. the taste is similar but the high is nonexistant. And it doesn't linger in your system for so long afterwards. Lionel Shriver wrote that as soon as a woman denounces a man as being 'sweet' it puts him off the radar of sexually attractive. She has a point.. Women want their men to be rugged, manly etc.. sensitive, sure- but not at the expense of manliness. V is very sweet. Partly from being extraordinarily clumsy and a questionable dancer. We went to a ceilidh last week and he was so preoccupied with looking at me that he missed all his steps. I ended up having to physically manoeuver him into place and do my steps simultaneously.
He talks about when we'll be married. Which, frankly, makes me smile, only because I remember these talks with my first boyfriends and actually believing that the world works like that: you meet, you marry, you always love equally. Now, with the bitterness of ill gained wisdom, I know that love manifests itself differently- eros has many facets, all as real but none identical. I know in my heart of hearts I cannot fall in love with a man I feel I have to look after so much. I was brought up to be independent, to work as a team, to be a mother to my children, not to my partner. I know in my soul that I need a musician, an artist as well as a scientist.. they exist- I've met a few in my life.

I've decided to make him a project. As I say, I'm fond of him. A definite lack of fireworks does not necessarily equate to repugnance. So I will mould him into a good looking, well groomed and more confident version of himself. I will make him a competent and understanding lover, tolerant of bad days and more at ease with the flakey whimsicality of women and teach him that when it comes to affection, sometimes, less is more.
I don't think I'm acting cruelly... although, obviously my feelings are dubious- I can never love someone who seeks complete ownership of the other- to be able to say "you are mine" is not a notion I'm interested in. I'm good at meeting people in the middle but not at crossing over completely to meet their greedy self esteems. He needs this; so while I simulate being in love- he learns a valuable lesson. Not too harshly because I am, ultimately, kind and uninterested in breaking him and he is therefore happy. In exchange for the adoration I felt for M, I get someone who adores me- who scrutinizes, what I perceive as prematurely drooping breasts, dodgy tan lines and too often neglected leg hair, and declares me "panemorphi" or "all-beautiful". I'm building him up for a fall by serving him scrambled egg croissants, or eggs benedict for breakfast, helping him improve his skin with products I searched for him, meeting his friends and laughing politely as they tell me I should call them when I'm tired of him.. Happy to live theatrical love if just to keep him happy and to stop me feeling the inherited guilt of too little jilts.

He admitted he wanted to get something off his chest and confessed about how he'd had a girlfriend aged 9 who showed him her pants in return for him showing her his. The pathetic nature of his worry was quite adorable.. I laughed at his concern only because his worry was surely a joke?! No one actually feels guilty about things they did aged 9? He then confessed to only having kissed 3 girls and probed me, subtley but probing nonetheless, as to the figure of boyfriends I'd had. I laughed it off and told him it wasn't important adn in the end with his cajoling he teased out a confession of only 4 others. I wasn't going to counter 3 kisses with the 50 odd I've kissed... let alone number of boyfriends. WIth his little experience, I'm maybe wrongly assuming that he won't understand the extremes women go to to feel loved and the willingness of less scrupled men to exploit these women. In any case, I don't want him to slot himself after a long list of men as they are certainly not all equal. I've only loved a small number of them, and felt fond of maybe a third of them. My feeling for him is unique if a little patronising; hence my minimising of the truth.

The fact of the matter is he's just not M. But no one ever will be. M's memory is tainting my future. I fear our fragile friendship is impossible to maintain- he'll sour all my romances and make a mockery of all the good men who can never be as amazing as him. The question is, how much should I remember or should I forget the whole thing? I don't think M understand's the force of my regard for him so he politely tries to keep our friendship alive which, despite the certainty of an exclusively platonic future, I pathetically cling onto in the hope that it might bring some more interesting fruit. I think I should forget the whole thing, it causes too much turmoil within me- even a photo or a few words which I know are from him are enough to send me back into a gloomy pit of reminiscence. A pointless fantasy with only one, desperately sad conclusion which contradicts the whole point of friendship. Maybe keeping him in my life is brutal self-flagellation and I fear it's too much for my body to bear when, for the moment, I only have the non nourishing kind of sugar substitute for my tea.
Perhaps I'll let him back in when I've found something greater yet.. which I hope to whichever Supreme Being has control, does exist because I miss his company...

Fast forward to the end of the summer and I'm about to embark on my far eastern adventure.. I'm in London for a few days to pick uup visas and my passport etc.. which is nice. I get to see my mum which is always nice. I was woken up this morning by my cat- I think I have met the world's only snoring cat. She snores if she's awake, if she's asleep, if she's trying to creep up on you to swipe your face with a carefully selected claw.

So here I am, looking over the green acres of south london with my new glasses. I feel ever so designer with these specs! Although they're so strong I feel like I can see forever.... Nevermind.. I'll maybe wear them more often now that they're actually quite pretty. Anyway, I'm off for a run.

The Irish have invaded my quiet little flat up in Edinburgh. What was eventually, after a couple of weeks of scrubbing and careful baking (to make it smell nice) has been taken over by what I can only describe as the Banshee's more noisome cousins.

I'm no stranger to guests, indeed I love having nice people over to stay. My preferred ones are close friends who have the same routines as me or the occasional wildcard who forces me to be outwith my comfort zone. The latter are, like the Swedish say, like fish- more than three days hanging around and they start to smell. I'd signed up during my quieter months in Cyprus to the phenomenon which is couchsurfing. I plan to partly travel across to China sleeping in people's homes, on their couches, floors or other space. In order to gain authority on my credential as a non-psycho and a real human, I have hosted some incoming travelling folk in my wee flat up here. Which has been a hoot! MY first guest was a smiley Korean girl studying in France. She stayed for 4 days (3 nights) during the festival and I had, against my initial reservations, a good time taking her to various shows. She loves musicals, which, unfortunately, I hate but I put aside my incomprehension of singing ridiculous songs about nothing to make her feel welcome. We went to see "Frank Sinatra" (ho ho, he was crap with a capital K), the Opera (more succesful but in English, which is weird) and the ballet (very very good..). All in all, she had a blast and then, as she was leaving, admitted she'd been shy about coming as it was her first time alone but that I'd made her feel at home and like Edinburgh was the place to be and she hoped to come and see me soon. And I, being a bumbling eager to please ninny, said she could come and stay whenever and she laughed and warned me she'd be staying a month next time.. Fish! Fish!! Haven't you heard of Fish?!!

Then a couple of days break (read: cleaning) and I'm hosting a delightful German girl just for the one night. I've never met anyone who's quite so happy to meet you and so positive and laughy (a word?) about e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. It's nice.. it's a change from my usual grumpy neutrality and it encourages my lighthearted side which NNav claims "laughs at everything". It's true.. if I'm encouraged, I will find everything funny. Although in her case (NNav, it's because I find her amusing, probably because we've spent the last 9 or so year being friends, surely sense of humour rubs off..?) Anyway! German girl was delighted at my encouraging giggles and my obsession with cake, chocolate and all things bad for you at the moment (I'm pre-menstrual) and declared, as I left her at the bus station, that she hadn't expected to make such a connection and that we're really similar. I shoudl see her in Germany etc... which is really very touching and I'm not unmoved by either experience. They were both lovely and the kind of globally minded people (whether it's in the blood or the mindset) who I always deeply admire and find intriuging.

This string of top quality guests, for whom it was a pleasure to cook for and show around has abruptly been sliced off. Through the door this afternoon come The Three. A.k.a my Irish (note- the dirty one) flatmate's "Girlies from hooooooome!! Yipeee!!" All three look identical and have the same names- like aisling, aileen and lesley or some such and come in three shapes and sizes: bean pole, medium and watermelon on matchsticks. The Three announced that they are staying three nights but not to worry as they were going to be on the lash for all those nights so I wouldn't see them, aye?!! They've set up camp in my living room. No piano, no TV, no where to sit. My bedroom is a cupboard, my study is a shoe box with no window. I shall take to sitting on the kitchen floor to have my breakfast as I doubt that, following "a night on the lash" that the living room will be free at 8:30am to be able to use the dining table.

I made such amistake getting hiim as a new flatmate. He's horrendous, his harridans girlfriends are horrendous and he's taken to be lecherous towards teh Grecian who's bravely trying to continue seeing me despite having to run the gauntlet from the front door to my room without being cooed over or groped or stared at hungrily (a one time accusation).

On that note.. I took Jackfrost's previous slap on the monkey wrist comment to heart and I realised that he's right. why shoudl I punish myself pining over the unobtainable, when there's someone who very nearly fits all my basic criteria and is kind who seems to love me irrationally and wholly. Even more irrationally because I've developed a sensitivity to (I suspect) wheat and keep farting like a flame on wet coal. He finds it hilarious that someone otherwise so demure, well spoken and apparently, pretty should have such a noisy bum. It's quite embarrassing but as long as he finds it hilarious, I'll keep farting. Maybe it'll drive out the Irish and his hags.

My travel journal for when I'm on the slow train to China..

Nothing there yet!

Ok.. so nearly done. Here we are, an exclusive, unique commercial opportunity in Cyprus for let:

This is the view of the front of the shop... As if you were walking up the street.

This is the view to the side street.

This is the entrance for the upstairs part, currently separate from downstairs but that's negotiable.

So I'm finishing the drawings for the building today... this is as far as I've got so far. I'll see how much I get done by 6pm!!

Still no takers for a tenancy? I could do you a deal on both floors.... There's a coffee shop just next door with the best baklava and tiropitta (cheese pastries) this side of Lebanon. In the mornings, you hear the muezzin and the church bells. Where else do you get such expression of faith??

So.. 2 hours later:

Edinburgh is fun. I always seem to be busy here. Something about associating it with independence and my own turf makes it all the more appealing. At the moment it is suffering the festival so tourists abound and get in my way. Honestly, don't they know who I am?! I'm also subjected to my usual bout of paranoia and keep thinking everyone's staring at me for all the wrong reasons. Namely, for nutella smears all over my face. Every summer, the jolly crepe van comes to Teviot place and every summer I queue up and marvel at the £1 increase in the price of a nutella and banana crepe as I buy it anyway- at nearly £5 a pop, you'd better wolf it down and enjoy it dammit. So I do enjoy it- immensely- and to prove I do, I eat it in a meticulously messy way which invariably results in a nutella facemask.

Only my date this time was kind enough to let me know I looked like I'd been nuzzling toilet bowls. So it's not the nutella this time, it must be my fading tan making me look like a leper.

Anyway! So far I've seen Andrew Lawrence, who was very funny if a bit odd. I laughed loudly at his inappropriateness and embarrassingly loudly at a quiet bit where he was referring to a suit he'd fashioned from his dad's skin. Then last night I went to see the comfortingly pleasant-voiced Edwina Hayes, whose voice soothes and songs reassure. I bought her album and it's lovely! She's also really sweet and chatty in person and not at all as mellow as her voice might suggest, quite the chatterbox! I also went to see The Dark Knight which was very good if over long and Batman's Batvoice a bit irritating. None of the acting was wooden though and the joker was quite terrifying.

I'm going to spend my weekend in St Andrews. A couple of years too late to woo Prince William but I'll try and bag myself a Sloanie anyway. He can keep me to the life of luxury to which I've accustomed myself. Marmite doesn't buy itself. Neither do those gold lined nutella pancakes.