Month: April 2005

  • This is my favourite picture of Liz, ever.  Because she's just got married to James, and we've just managed to shock her with confetti.  This is the woman who mouthed 'Lesbians' through the window at us, when the photographer was doing the traditional "take the photo of bride and groom pretending to cut the cake before buggering off" bit.   You can blame Sam West for the 'Lesbians' catchphrase.  It's luvvie for 'cheese!'



    Bless them, they looked so entirely happy, but, at the same time, so entirely them.  James is so very very proud to have Liz as his wife.  He is besotted (I've not seen a man so besotted in a very long time).  Liz wrote her own vows (go and have a look, she's posted them on the blog), Sal and I cried, I leaked even more during Sonnet 116.  Liz has had the most gorgeous, lovely, traditional and, at the same time, personal wedding.


    xxx

  • Quick question: what is the age of consent to medical responsibility (i.e. how old do you have to be for it to be YOUR decision to receive/deny treatment, rather than your parents' decision) where you live.


    I can't think where I'd go looking for that information for the UK (no, actually, ignore me, I can).


    And as for the US and Canada?  No idea.


    xxx

  • Motivation:


    Knowing that you're someone else's inspiration.  Wow.


    That, and proving people wrong, when they say "You can't do that."  Or surprising them.  Or that little silver badge, and the knowledge that I'd got just that little bit further to go.


    Knowing that I can, and that it's a waste if I don't.  I'm determined.  So sucks to anyone else who tries to make me do what they may feel is better for me, including myself.  Sidmouth Folk Festival, last year, is a case in point.  Glastonbury too.  I didn't really want to be at either of them for most of the time I was there: and Sam thought I ought to go home from Sidmouth, making it quite clear from the very start that he simply did not want me there (because I refused to sleep with him any more).  But I'd made that much effort to get there, I was going to give it my best try.  Even if I did end up feeling somewhat suicidal by the end of Sidmouth.  The good times just about outweighed the bad, and the friends I made there have made it more worthwhile.  Not that I'd do either again.  Not like that, anyhow.


    xxx

  • Great Britain's Newest Queen's Guide would like to thank you for your moral support.

    She'd also like to go to sleep in a corner, and is drunk with tiredness (very interesting, tottering round Leicester Square Station, feeling and looking drunk, without actually  being same, too).

    Proper thank you list to follow.

    But, I couldn't have done it without

    Liz and Jo

    xxx

    OK: I sent an email to everyone I could think of that might want to know, whose addresses I could find.  And then thought 'two birds, one stone here we go'

     I got my Queen's Guide Award!

    Well, to be accurate, I got the last clause signed off tonight.  I still need to post the book off to be signed by the powers-that-be: however, my County Commissioner is the person who signed off the last clause, so, I'd say I'd finished, I'm done, and the rest really is a mere formality.

    And, since I'm telling the world here (yes, I'm bcc'ing everyone in, since that's good practice), I'd like to thank the following people in particular, in public, before I forget.

    <begin overly emotional Halle Berry style recitation of people to thank>

    Liz and Jo, for keeping me sane, and for inspiring me, and keeping me going (if it wasn't one of you, it was the other.  And if it weren't for either of you, then it wouldn't have happened).
    My Parents (for listening, just occasionally)
    My assistant Guider Sarah (for listening whenever I needed it, and being home contact for this, that, and the other)
    The Tumulus Expedition Posse (Eff, Emma, Liz, Karen, Sam and Robert)
    The Canal Boaters (Jo, Karen, Alannah, Claire - can I now say that I hate canal boating?!  It's not the company, it's the boat bit)
    Helen, for training me, and Maria for signing off my books (and Joan too)
    Clarissa Cridland and Ruth Jolly at Girls Gone By Publishing; and Lucy and Heather and Moira  and Eff for wanting me to write the book
    Dom and Sonja, for proofing my research (and everyone else who answered questionnaires)
    James, for producing a wonderful form for me.
    Steve & Tig - for encouraging me to programme (I still can't believe this.  I have produced a whole website, and some of it's in PHP that actually works!)
    Brendan (for picking up my pieces on Monday night, listening to me snuffle, and helping find the answer to the question)
    Tom (even if we never made it to Playford...and definitely for all those Monopoly cards), and all the Esps (particularly MJ and Fiona who produced useful advice about intolerances and allergies) for encouraging me to love folk dancing
    Sid and Pat and Andy and Jamie (for patiently answering inane questions about banjo-players and bluegrass in the 1930s, and for producing music for me to listen to while I programmed away)
    All the Xangans who have read my wails and woes and been there at the other end of the IM and cheered me up and made me laugh so hard that I've almost fallen off the chair.
    And, everyone else who can't see themselves specifically in this list.  Because you've been my friends, and you're still my friends despite the fact that I've been falling to pieces here, there, and everywhere; and, even if you can't think of anything obvious you've done, I've learnt something from you, and I've probably used it during the past twenty-two months.
    <end overly emotional Halle Berry style recitation of people to thank>




    THANK YOU!


    xxx


    Note.  Halle Berry and I are not related.