Lemon and Grapefruit Drizzle

Sitting and cooling in their tins, glistening

jewels.

A freshly cut pomegranate spilling out seed.

citrus sting stinging inflamed tonsil

Tasting/testing is the cause of this sharp scratch

Silken, adding more flour. prevent curdling.

The acid does something funny to the eggs and fat.  

switch

creaming butter and sugar for Monty Don’s dahlias.

 Flower flour

 eggs one by one, adding the juice

one grapefruit two lemons

alternate spoons of flour

prevent curdling

It is looking a bit odd, rather grainy.

Add more flour quickly.

Smooth and corn yellow. taken four eggs to bind it.  

A lot of fruit always makes for a longer bake

time with eggs flower and sugar. 

Madeleine. Jeanette

There are friends I would like to share

 filling with that warm sweet smell.  

 

 

 

My City

A garden wrapped in wool

pink, yellow and lavender

Hill

London flits through my mind

noise of birds, the bustle and smell

it’s quiet here

coastal

Bird calls are my sirens

crashing waves the south circular

this garden my Clapham Common

I’m home away from

home

A city that I longed to escape

pulls at me

Tugging at my hair, my skin, my nails

My breath comes too freely here

I gulp to fill my lungs with smog

just a salted sea breeze

Swansea croaks with fresh air

The spines of my books cracking with salt.

birds cat calling in the trees

I am isolated here

a child with her parents

escaped back to

home

From there to here

I long for what I had had

enough of

of London

 

Touch

The mistake, the bruise, the orgasm.

I wish to rub it out,

Sometimes.

To think about that crooked cock

Differently.

The one that unsettled

That was a tacit connection.

We could still touch through him

Could we?

Far apart I brought us closer.

With the rough smooth of skin on skin.

We dont know each other anymore.

You’re just a number in a phone

My phone.

January 2019

I’m sitting in a uncomfortable chair. Chin jutting forward towards the screen of this computer. Crossing and uncrossing my legs.

But it’s not just the chair it’s me. I have shifted somehow and feel uncomfortable in myself.

It’s not the first time I have felt like this.

It’s the age old question. But who am I meant to be? What am I meant to do?

I feel I am stumbling purposely from one thing to the next. Nothing really seeming to fit.

Or maybe I am stopping things from fitting. Resisting stability. I am only 26, does it really matter this unsettled feeling?

Yes, because I am feeling it. I have read what others have written expressing similar sentiments. Feeling lost, un-tethered and porous like a sick amoeba.

I adjust the way I am sitting, back straighter, pelvis tucked. Little to no difference. Ugh.

Last week and over the Christmas break I threw myself into yoga and swimming, peppered with a little rowing and running. If I felt uncomfortable I just moved. Moved away from the feeling. Was I running away?

My first week back at work and back in London was really hard. Walking up a slow steady incline with a cart laden with heavy books and a dodgy front wheel. Hauling myself into the new year.

Heartbreak is indeed a slow burner. It has been around 6 months now and still flares up burning in my head and chest. An ice cold heat. Rejection. It takes quite a bit of my energy (and some from friends and relations) to keep on stomping in my stomping boots.

When obsessive thoughts kick in it can drain away the work I have done to ‘heal myself’. What did I do? What’s wrong with me? Was it my anxiety? Was it my body? Am I disgusting? Does he think I am disgusting now? I start to believe my negative answers to these questions and tirelessly seek reassurance from my close friends and mother.

I start to feel that I must be a tiresome friend. I start to see weary expressions on their faces. Projections of how I feel about myself.

Ignoring these thoughts and suspicions I continue trundling up the slow and steady incline.

I don’t know when I will reach the top.  I will that there is a plateau just around the corner or maybe I will find a floor pump to pump up that dodgy wheel.

Share this:

It is not enough to just open a window when you have closed a door

£25,000 bonus

Dear colleagues

I am afraid

There isn’t enough

Money

I am afraid we have

significantly more than others in the sector.

But there isn’t enough

After an exceptionally successful year in 2017/18

There is not enough

We just can’t

There is no money.

We are hugely sympathetic

And thank you

but there is uncertainty ahead

We can’t invest in our staff

It would be irresponsible

We can’t open this up for discussion

There just isn’t enough money

But if you are eligible there is

£25,000

A sweet steal

As I pocket more than your years salary on top of mine.

Thank you.

 

Fiscally responsible but socially irresponsible

South Asian

I heard you that day

Thursday

I heard what you said

When you boiled them

Down to their ethnicity

That Thursday

When you made the speech

Do you remember?

You said you were excited

I heard what you said

When you boiled her

Down to her ethnicity.

January 1st

The beginning of the new year

The beginning of a new period

Blood stains the gusset

Watching fireworks and wondering what it will bring

perched on a hill in the howling wind

Striding along the street we chatter loudly about new years resolutions

A tired tradition they will recommend new ways to keep

Be kinder or just be nice Orla

Orange cat curled on a white bed

Walking up the hill out under blue skies

That man has the loudest slippers on earth and a camel dressing gown

Turning to Catfood and fizzy drinks

Retracing steps in a different direction

To the house

The home

The new year

And Thai food.

London

Today a grey misted rain coats the streets and river. Obscuring the tops of the tallest buildings, flattening the city. Large droplets fall from the leaves above that have become heavy with gathered mist. Pattering the canopy overhead. A smaller and closer city on days like this. Searching for dry warmth indoors or at bus stops.

Lowseck and Granroth

Two languages twisting in air

Wrapping you

Religious words through compromise

 

Gold dangles at your earlobe

Jenny

Stolen smiles between the two of you

 

Sniff and a rustle for tissues.

Net stretches, bending bodies

Hands swollen

 

Nervous, a shove, a push, a giggle

Blessed by mothers

The back of your neck bends elegantly

 

We flirt with tears

Some more successfully than others

Petals and confetti pelted at you swirl softly about your bodies.

 

Pillar like

Imposingly beautiful, strong.

Tartan and lace catching like velcro

 

Woven but not bound

Richard

A photographer stands on a ladder

 

Freckles wink through fine netting

Vintage volvo but no tin cans

Pickled fish and haggis  

 

You are different now

But no different to the people

in that small London flat.

 

“Freedom in small things

Unity in major matters

And love in all things”