There has been ...

There has been a birthday, my thirty eighth. This year she baked the cake pictured above for me and each piece was a slice of perfection I can tell you. I sat up in bed, blankets wrapped round keeping the cold out. Hiding from the snow once home from school drop off, I steadily ate my chocolate dream whilst working my way through my favourite movies. It started as an indulgent day that led into an indulgent week somehow - my birthday week I kept saying in my head. So much so that in an e-mail to a loved one who was asking for career advice I responded: 'I currently liken myself professionally to the grandparents in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', so I'm probably not the person to ask!' 

A perfect week-end just me and my hubby, courtesy of my mama offering to have the grandsons for a sleepover. There was walking and hand holding, talking and laughter, coffee and cafes and yes I mean plural. Visiting a gallery, a bookshop, a comic book shop worthy of the scent au fart. Ambling aimlessly through the city. A spontaneous visit to the cinema to watch a film that we knew nothing about, smiling extra smiles for the clever straw trick that the barman revealed when he tucked the bent part of the straw into our old school coca cola bottles to stop them bobbing out. Yes we drank coca cola and it felt like a first date, up until I said 'hey, you're eating all the nuts!' 

There was purchasing of wine and halva and films. There was a comedy situation where a card got declined because someone forgot to transfer money from one account to another and tried to purchase halva and glucosamine because we were walking by and why not get it now when we're free and have no kids and can pop in just about anywhere if we want. Thank you smartphones and thank you online banking and thank you halva, your name serves you well 'sweetness'. Oh how we enjoyed you as we snuggled up watching our films, rambling with wine giddiness and favoring a night in over a night out.

Also this week there has been lots of looking and reading of new treasures, books and an illustration publication. There has been some thinking about how to come up with a clever thing like Wes Anderson always using futura bold in yellow. There has been ignoring of a self imposed deadline. Coveting of cameras and colours and pretty things. There's been looking through old photographs, looking at pictures of the children having fun outdoors on a currently very unusual sunny day. There has been some avoidance, some distraction, rebellion and laziness, yes I admit laziness. There's been some reminiscing of when I turned sixteen and my siblings presented me with the jellyfish swatch watch I'd been wanting for weeks. I received a new swatch for turning 38 and happy I did feel at knowing that walls can hear and if not walls then my boys hear through them. There has been a four way cuddle in our 'is this really a kingsize bed because it doesn't feel like it when they attack' where my eldest boy delivered my favourite line of the whole week: 'Dad your ears look like bacon!' Well, what more can be said ... nada!

Watching 'Moonrise Kingdom' whilst trying to ignore the messy desk in the background

Cameras, polaroids, old school chair, classic font ... what a pretty window display!

More of the pretty window display ... prettiness!

Nobrow publication with front cover illustration by Stuart Kolakovic

Nobrow publication with front cover illustration by Blexbolex

Some days it just ain't happening ...

You know when you've just spent ages on something and the end result is that it just doesn't work. You know when it's the first time in ages you've been completely alone and so there's a certain amount of pressure to use the time wisely and it just doesn't happen. You compile what you think is a dreamy series of short videos that inspire you and you hope others and somehow that dreaded html or whatever it is starts getting mixed up even though you put adequate spaces and all of a sudden all of the videos have the wrong titles and it feels like your heart is going to burst out of your chest in a BAD way! It feels particularly distressing because you've already re-done it THREE times!!

You know that feeling when you're really pleased that you've finally purchased (or rather you're hubby generously has but you're too grumpy to even be grateful) that thing you've been talking about wanting for ages but now you don't have time to put it effectively into place and only part one of a two part act has been completed and suddenly you feel all defeatist and wonder why you even actioned part one. You decide you'll treat your afro to a deep condition instead, a lengthy process that I like to perform in solitude, except when I arrive at the bathroom cabinet I am reminded that my household now has enough afro and wafro (diluted form of afro that my off spring bare) to begin producing wigs and in actual fact the meagre amount of conditioner left just will not do. It just ain't happening today! My heart is thumping in anticipation of my family's return as this will signal my time is up and I am panicked because I do not know when I shall be alone next.

Some days I think that perhaps I'm one of those people that should just take off, to live alone in the woods somewhere making houses for my pigeon friends, day dreaming about Mike Tyson visiting me in the wilderness to give me tips on how to make my birds fly long. He'd maybe even have time for a nice camomile and spiced apple tea which I'd make using water boiled on my traditional ghanaian coalpot and then I'd ask Mike about those neck exercises. I'd say 'Hey Mike, one day I'm going to be champion of the world' and he'd reply 'Yeah I can see it's true, it's right there in your eyes'.