Kerrist I feel like a parent with at least four sprogs - which is kinda funny considering out of all my siblings I'm the only one without offspring. And because everyone else has a sprog and my mother is nowdays incapable and my father overworked, I have become Corvid -Housekeeper Extraordinaire! (Which means mostly I'm tired, slightly ratty, my feet hurt and I'm so busy from 9am 'til 11pm that offerings of wine or coffee get ignored.)

My younger sister (lovely when the world is going her way, a solipsistic complaining pain in the arse when it isn't; eats like a locust) and her noisy goblin child Delilah have been here the past few days.

My brother James (generally pretty cool) his lady Sian and their little rampant neuron Hazel arrived on Christmas eve.

My eldest sister Zoe (insane wench who pisses me off rather a lot*) her man Dom (usually nicely sardonic, occasionally grumpy) and their two sprogs Scarlet (ohsoqueenofherself) and Romely/Indigo (painfullyshy) got here today.

Tomorrow my other brother Bastie (alright) and his lady Anja (sweetheart) as well as their grovs Yana and Dillion will arrive. As will sundry neighbours.

I've spent 13hours straight in the kitchen with a half hour break for lunch and probably another half hour when I was feeding Hazel or helping her mountain-climb the stairs. I've cooked mince pies, carrots julienne, sprouts, broccoli morney, roast potatoes, pears in red wine, as well as one lot of vanilla cream, bread pudding and trifle. I've cleared and tidied after breakfast lunch and supper and done at least six sinkfuls of washing up. Tomorrow is likely to be like today only more so.

Erm. Oh, I did get some presents. I got a plum scented/coloured candle from James, hideous false eyelashes from Katie (I think she thinks I spend my life pole dancing in Soho or something) and some paint brushes from my father - which is cool because leather paint eats brushes.

It does feel like Christmas, it just doesn't feel like Christmas that's there for my benefit or enjoyment - I'm here so other people can enjoy it. Which I mostly don't mind actually. (Is that my inner martyr?) It's just occasionally vexing and constantly knackering.

Heh, the only thing that makes me want to throw a flid are people people asking (when I've been working for six hours solid and have just finished everything that could possibly need to be done for the meal) 'Is there anything I can do?' Bollocks to your useless and guilt-assuaging offer of assistance, I find it insulting - get out of my fekking kitchen =P

=====

*She said to my father, "Oh, I don't mind what there is for lunch, whatever, leftovers are fine." Then she said to Katie, "D'you know what's for lunch? I don't want Christmas day leftovers." Oi, pokey bitch - we had leftovers on Boxing day when we were all grovs living together as a family. Has my father ever fed you leftovers when you're grown-up and visiting? Hell no. He organises bloody three course meals and gets out fine wine and does everything he can to be lavishly hospitable.
Arrgghh. Bitch.
I'm aware this is one of those things that is only irritating to me and likely gets everyone else looking bemused and wtf?.
Sigh.

Because this might amuse someone other than ketchgirl for whom it was created...

( Raven's Twelve And Then Some WildWest Days of Christmas... )

I rather feel like I'm running out of time.

I am in work today. After work, I need to drive down to Lambourn to see my family for Christmas. I still haven't finished my Christmas shopping, I haven't put the tree up yet, and we haven't even got food for Christmas dinner.

I've still got things to do in work and I haven't actually had an evening at home since December 11th, which I know I should be happy about, but just seems to have left me in this awful mess.

In good news, my cat is fine, and just needs to be given antibiotics to make sure the nasty hole in his fur doesn't get infected. I shall try and cling on to that, and pray that everything else somehow comes together.

In the meantime, I'm sorry if I seem a little ratty. I'm basically running on sheer panic.

This morning I got a parcel at the Oast.

It was an imperial purple cloth bound book with peculiar pictures printed on the cover - one of which looked like a grown-up Cinnamon twined round a grinning CheeseApple. (Pic not the best, despite all my efforts, Mercy for all her good points remains poor at photography.)



It's a black and white graphic novel called 'Salem Brownstone' and looks totally bizarre and utterly intriguing.

To whoever saw it, thought of me, and bludgeoned the postal service into delivering it here (I do have a good guess who might have) - thank you. Mysterious parcels that turn out to be equally mysterious books totally kick arse and make my world a better place =)

I'm now going to hide it away upstairs and save it to read for when various siblings are here or my mother's having a bad day and I wish to stab my head. I shall disappear upstairs and read my gloriously purple book instead.

Lalala!

My little white cat is not well. Myrddin seems to have a wound in his chest which isn't healing. He seems fine - he's bouncing around, and eating, and trying to kill me if I pick him up - but there is this nasty hole in his fur. ksirafai is taking him to the vets tomorrow as I can't get out of work to do it myself. This makes me sad, ad I'm also beginning to fret about my kitten.

I am hoping he'll be fine - he's not seeming ill or broken - but I'm definitely fretting.

********************************

I went to see Avatar tonight. I did like it, but I came out of it rather feeling like Nancy in Enchanted, upon meeting Prince Edward.

"Wow. You way you said that, without a hint of irony. It's very..."

James Cameron does have the most amazing ability to entirely ignore any little internal voices he might have which tell him he needs irony, or pop culture references, or knowing winks to the audience. He turns his back to the fourth wall with a great deal of determination, and embraces the world he makes utterly.

And the weird thing is that it works. ( Mild spoilers lurk beneath )

Apparently there are another two films coming. I'm looking forward to them.

********************************

I know the snow is a pain, but I must admit that I've rather liked it. I got out of work at 6 pm, and walked across Waterloo Bridge, very slowly, to avoid slipping in the snow. On the South Bank, the Cologne Christmas Market was in full swing. The carousel was spinning, with 'Walking in the Air' playing.

I know snow is a pain, I really do. But I'm glad I saw the painted horses dancing in the snow.

Things you don't expect your boss to say at your appraisal: "I've found your appraisal really difficult because you're actually too good for this job and there's not much we can do to help you develop. I shouldn't say this because it's not good for the department, but you should probably be looking to move."

Me: "Er..."

It's nice to know I'm appreciated :-)

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The land is dark and disappears into mystery or perhaps nothing at all when not touched by the light pooling weakly from the open door.

The world is monochrome and so am I: a girl in a black stetson and heeled boots, a long black coat with a high fur collar shielding me from the cold. Snow crunches underfoot, masking what little of the earth I can see in ice-grey and white.

A bottle with wine dregs is in one hand, a cigarette in the other. The smoke wreathes from under the brim of my hat and swirls to meet the falling snow in a strange dance of unknowable patterns that create beautiful, half glimpsed phantoms with brief lives.

The wind blows cold and sharp as if trying to whistle; but instead of a piercing shriek it brings to me a different noise, lower and more rhythmic. For a second as I listen I believe it to be thunder, until I realise it is the drum of a horse's hooves, cantering somewhere beyond me in the darkness. The creature itself could be a ghost, a horse of rime and snow, bringing the weather in its wake like a line of poetry by Tennyson.

It's a moment stolen from between the cracks in reality. The tobacco will burn to ash, the snow salting my hat will melt; the dawn will come and daylight do its best to warm the land to frost and sludge, revealing the field across the way that contains a pair of very real and singularly boring horses.

But for the length of a cigarette (a peculiar way to measure time if ever there was one) there is nothing but magic and possibility... and a storm horse riding in with ghosts at its tail.

=======

I return to London late tomorrow and likely will stalk Greenwich on Saturday when not collecting post, doing laundry, sorting finances and other such petty chores.
I still owe lots of people stories and scribbles and jackets.
I'm hoping someone owes me a drink.

It is generally agreed that the Gideons are, in fact, ninjas.* The Royal Mail are in deep trouble. Clearly what we need to do is send postmen on Gideon ninja training - the post will turn up in your toast rack before you make breakfast! *shadowjon has confirmed this under controlled conditions.** **He was the night manager for a hotel at the time. Get him to tell the story one day. </span>

That was... kinda surreal.

My mother had a 'good night' last night - meaning she went to bed before twelve and slept 'til 5am. Pity that I'd expected trouble and so stayed up 'til 3. ( Ah well... )

I'm surprisingly functional for someone who's had 5hours sleep in the past 48. I think the only reason I haven't fallen over yet is the cigarette smoked under the stars with an accompanying mug of coffee laced with brandy - that was really rather good.

I did some writing and some drawing at 2am last night but have been too busy to go back and see if either are any good.

Damn, I want to sleep.
Or to have more coffee, cigarettes and brandy please.
Don't care which.

Because this amuses and because in life there will be moments of good things in the bad and vice versa which go unmentioned, lost in the mix...

The latches on the doors at the Oast are bloody loud. My parents are abed.

Because of this and because my father loathes smoking, I have just gone to the downstairs loo in a borrowed coat (belonging to gods know who) climbed out of the window and sat on a random wall with a cigarette and the last of a very nice bottle of wine (in a mug) like some kind of errant sixformer at boarding school.

I smoked and drank wine, looking at the stars (which are ten times clearer and more numerous than in London) and got bastard cold (0 degrees, lower when the wind blows). But it was peaceful, and really kinda beautiful.

Then I came in and drew a little scribble sketch of me (only far prettier) and it took ten minutes and turned out okay - I might refine it and make it a jacket design.

As the end to a night it was (almost, save a single lack) perfect.

...I drew my final shallow breath
You told me that’d sure t’be the last time
That you’ll trust that c*nt called death
Really shoulda seen it coming
On about our smiles I could tell
Those angels aren’t from heaven
That fucker sent me straight t’hell!"

I had a really shiny weekend.

Saturday was spent dying clothes, writing snippets of story and trying to find an outfit I thought I looked good in. Once all that was achieved, black booted and stetson hatted I went with Ketch to see a band she's friends with - Penny Black Remedy at a club near Goodge Street. (As is my wont, on the way I ran into drunks on the train whilst wearing freaky eyes and they burbled and floofed pathetically at me probably wondering if I was something conjured by a surfeit of drugs. *snigger*)

Anyway. I'd heard one of the band's songs before and thought they were okay but nothing special. Live, they utterly kicked arse. Their style is a kinda... I dunno... Russian gypsy folk merged with Johnny Cash at his most humorous as played by a British Greenday...? I'm useless at categorising music, but it was a damn fun gig and I'm now desperately searching for the LunaticFriend/'he'll-be-the-death-of-me' song, as that was my favourite =)

On Sunday morning I fell back into boots and stetson to meet Dave T in Greenwich for lunch and an amble round the market. We found a stall that contained artwork I wish I'd drawn: pages and pages of slightly gothic, slightly supernatural/broken-looking pretty girls with intricate tattoos, bloody tears and occasionally stabby weaponry or fun jewellery. I swear there was a picture for every character I've ever played...

I fell utterly in love with a little print of a girl that looked like Cinnamon with mousey hair, and a huge canvas based print of a girl with a raven on her wrist that had obviously just come from her tattoo. (The little print of the raven design was too dark, but the canvas print was slightly bleached and sketchier so showed all the detail. Soooooooo shiny.) I don't know who the artist lady is and wish I did - I have not felt such joy and envy at so many pictures by one person since I discovered Beardsley and Erte.

I am now the very happy owner of the little Cinnamon print due to Dave's generous public-spiritedness. (It was either buy it for me or the lady's merchandise got ruined 'cos I was drooling over it like a shambly confronted with Einstein.)

After that there was winter crumble with custard, and conversations about a victorian 'gals' boarding school that taught deportment, etiquette and zombie slaying. (Y'know, the whole 'rounded education, boon to society and credit to her husband' kinda thing finishing schools aimed for, but add demons and zombies etc into the world and you end up with a sort of Swiss finishing school crossed with an occult-obsessed St Trinians.) It amused us at any rate.

In the afternoon I returned to Ketch's to join Blade and Tom and a couple of others for panatonne and Muppet Christmas Carol, mulled wine and much ranting about how awful 'Twilight' was.

Like I said, it was a really lovely social and shiny weekend.

Had to go Oastwards earlier than expected today and now I'm wishing I brought the Cinnamon print with me as it might serve to cheer me up. My father leaves at 6.20am tomorrow on a business trip; I will have to be 'on duty' until 22.00/23.00pm Wednesday when he returns. Tonight will contain about four hour's sleep, tomorrow maybe the same due to my mother's nocturnal shambliness and crying. This will be...... no, I don't actually know what word is likely to be most accurate. (Neurons are running book. 'Fun' is at 500 to 1. 'Horrific' barely gets you tuppence on the initial stake.)

Ergh. There is however a small bottle of cider in the fridge, I brought a pack of cigarettes with me and I left my scalpel at home - so I've tried to be prepared at least.

Whilst not chain smoking myself into a dizzy heap or wishing to stab my head with a kitchen knife I think I'll see if I can catch up on all the scribbles, drawing and designs I owe various people.