Little_Mama_Luv

I'm not a fan of january, its supposed to be the beginning of a whole new year but i think its the most topsy turvy month of them all.
So currently two weeks away from starting my masters, trying to figure out where I want to live and existing off a pittence from my horrid job!!!
And the heat...I want to go back to the english countryside. So cold and wet and drizzly...there were no decisions to be made, just a whole lot of rambling around cow fields full of stone henges older than J.C.
January..its the new july
(Still, january has also brought us my new most favourite thing EVER, "So you think you can dance?" It gets my vote for best reality show ever!!!!!! And no I don't think they can dance, except for the really skinny guy...of course being able to dance doesn't actually mean you should be allowed to!!!!Ever.)
For people who can dance go to Youtube.com and look for Rachel Brice. She is Queen.

And now on your left you have...Bath! My Jane Austen pilgrimage included the Pump rooms, where the Austen heroines often went to take the waters of Bath ( under sufferance of course, Lord, no one should drink that water willingly!) And I also have photos of No4 Sidney Place where she lived whilst writing her Bath books. I also, yes I admit grudgingly, bought the last book of hers that I haven't read, the difficult Mansfield Park. And trust me, thats enough Jane Austen for one week!
My literary tour continued with a quiet pint at Prince Saracens, the pub in which Dickens sat and doodled some characters that would become the main parts of Pickwick Papers (silly book, I do not recommend!) I also flirted with the barkeep, who remarked how good it was to see ladies drinking Pints. I smiled and said I was Australian, not a lady!
Now I'm in Merry old Oxford, freezing to death and getting so lost. I am hopeless at maps, who'd a-thought? But so far today I have visited the Eagle and Child pub in which Lewis Carroll (dirty filthy kiddy fiddler) and C.S Lewis met to chat about the vast Christian epic C.S wanted to write. I have also scowled at the Rhodes Scholars house..well, mansion! Patted the walls of Magdalen College, tried very hard to get kicked out of the Bodlien Library ( What do you mean we can't go in there, thats where the books are?)And there was also an incident with some ducks I was trying to herd!
But have met a crazy traveling companion who knows nothing about Oxford and that in itself is perhaps the most literary thing on this literary tour. There's nothing a writer loves more than a captive audience.

Ahh, Barcelona....
Land of many contradictions, firstly that it is only a city, not a land.
Secondly, full of tourists but that three out of four of the tourist attractions we have deigned to visit are actually under renovation. And by under renovation, we mean under a tarp! Including the Miro gardens, all of the miro gardens...
Thirdly, there are traffic lights and road rules but really when I say rules it turns out I mean guidelines, suggestions, subtle but annoying hints.
But really its all going fairly well so far. The Sangria makes everything rosy and Cap´n Peely makes a good Transport engineer, while I have accepted the title of Minister for Housing. We make quite a good team and do an excellent charade whenever we need to buy anything.
Gaudi´s great too, completely mad but just brilliant. The people who gave him money to build stuff must have been crazy or maybe its just the sangria that seems to pour through this city.
I´m warming up to travelling, sangrias helping that along. And the minor achievments like finding dinner and working out the met system make me feel like I might need to hire a cheer squad soon.
There is some excellent yelling going on outside of our hotel in the wee hours, Spainish is a great language to yell in. The beer is cheap and tastes like it costs but if you drink it really fast you just don´t notice...no tastebuds left on my tongue now.
But most importantly, though the Musee de Picasso sucked a lot, a whole bar of perfectly acceptable chocolate costs .65€. I HEART BARCELONA.

See everytime I sit down at the computer with time to write an lj post its only because I am a-bored, b-avoiding doing something else, c-lonely and cranky with too much spare time.
As today is merely a b) day I shall endevour to write something happy and joyous and full of kittens and ribbons and tiramisu on toast!!!!
I get to live in someone else's house, which is like borrowing someone else's shoes but bigger! And then I get to go to spain. And then I shall know what I am doing with my life next year and consequently for the near and distant future. Marvellous, smashing, sweet things on toast invoking!
Isn't it all just one chocolate filled adventure!
And the best part about borrowing my boy's house while he's away in Indni ( Yes, han, the mythical land of palindromes!!!) is that is it really close to Tom and Fenn's houses and seeing as Hannah will probably be borrowing Fenn's shoes, we can all drink too much together!! Hoorah, kittens, kittens with tiramisu coloured ribbons!!
Right, perkiness is exhausting and I need to take a break from procrastinating by doing some work.

Hypocrisy makes the world go round when love is otherwise engaged.

How do we know if we are truly happy? Maybe its as simple as being too busy to think about it.
Maybe we only have moments rather than general happiness.

When two people you love find out they adore each other and do something about it.
That feeling you get when you are perfectly happy walking alone under rain clouds.
Meeting someone you click with in such a profound way it leaves you breathless.
Accepting the time that is stretching out in front of you is not infinite but filled with possibility.
Knowing your own faults and loving yourself any way.
Being afraid and doing it anyway.

Ah, sweet anonymity,
So I have given in, too many people have chorused you should have a live journal and as I like talking about me, why not?
I met Garth Nix yesterday, Garth Nix the successful children's writer, on my last outing for the little bookroom who have cruelly turfed me out of the warm bosom of boredom into the scary, deep world. And Garth Nix (to whom I referred, even to his face, as Garth Nix) was very amusing and witty and that dirty, dirty word, urbane! And most importantly didn't blanch when I suggested he was being a tad precious! (Well, he wouldn't sign a book for Hannah with the words 'I am actually Phillip Pullman'!) He countered with "Are you a writer?" After I answered in the affirmative and expressed surprise at his intuition, he replied, "Yeah, you have that unpublished look about you!"
Ah, nothing like a good banter with an urbane man to form a challenge in the brain. So novels, here we go. And first up I am taking those wise words to heart, write about what interests you! As a novel about the hotness of Wentworth Miller seems a trifle bland, feminism, paganism and belly dancing it is.
Maybe I shall throw in an urbane man or two, just to spice it up.