Dog Sitting

I am dog sitting.
The dog is doing my head in.
He is really sweet and calm and kind but also smells like fish food.
He also rubs his head on the carpet.
The carpet now smells like fish food.
He has to have chicken ripped up into tiny pieces and hidden under his 'Bakers' but he doesn't like the green peas so I have to take them out for him.
When I walk him (which is annoying anyway) he wees everywhere and then he lets his wee fall onto his feet.
Then because he is a dog and doesn't have footwear that he can take off...you can imagine where the fish food smell may have formed.
However, he has started to put his paws around my neck when I am sad, thoughtful, bored.
And I have started to oddly enjoy it.

NOW NOW NOW

So, news, on Monday the newsletter went out (sign up here if you want to get on the list), pretty exciting, am getting to grips, S-L-O-W-L-Y, with Twitter, have to say though…ain’t easy.

Today I have read hundreds of stories for the IGGY short story prize, and have shortlised ten out of 30 poems for the John Betjeman poetry prize, I did this in the bath whilst listening to Pure Garage.

I then get a phone call from my dad to inform me that Echoes has had a shout in Marie Claire, apparently Echoes is ‘beyond cool.’ They obviously don’t know that my big toenail is black and is falling off because I stepped on it…yes with my other foot, I’m not sure how ‘beyond cool’ that makes me or anything I do, but am so flustered with the support I need to calm down and eat a caramel rocky bar. Thanks Marie Claire for that excuse to eat a caramel rocky bar.

Now I'm writing two poetical stories, sorry for the super-duper intelligent pretentious lingo…I am just really enjoying breaking writing rules at the moment, peppering sentences with twisty turny poetical phrases. The first is called SIEVE (which is about a girl that works in a sieve factory) the second is called TOPPLE (mainly it is about love.) I will soon put these up for you to read.

Have started off another new project too: MAPS. If my rubbish drawings haven’t offended you enough in the past it is your lucky day! Maps are set of illustrated…well… maps… of my favourite places; the maps are covered in stories and poems and am hoping to exhibit them in the future. Got Soho completed and Camden nearly ready, hands covered in crayon, ink and glue. Am dog sitting, we do a lot of snoring and consumption of meat. I like both.

Good day and love to you all.

The Big Chill

Then Big Chill. Happiness. I love The Big Chill. It is literally a…duh… big chill. After slagging off my mate for bringing some raggedy arse tent that was ‘as thin as a tissue’, I soon forgave him when the sun graced us with it’s glowing bottom. I am glad I didn’t win the ‘let’s just sleep in the car’ argument. Everybody is lying down by the main arena on blankets, sleeping; the atmosphere is calm and relaxed, people just hanging round (for some reason most of them are painted blue) eating crumpets. In fact I think most people are in their pyjamas the entire time.

So my new favourite thing is this tent called IGLOO. It is basically an igloo shaped tent with screens surrounding the inner walls to the inside of the dome, amazing music and pretty inspirational concept- although- listen- I’m not great with geeky technological terminology but it was impressive.

Cider and sleeping at gone 4am.

The next morning was blissful, I have jerk chicken for my breakfast and fall asleep on the grass to Morcheeba. Whilst I’m here I let all the ghastly memories of bumping into my 17 year old brother and the way he has managed to let himself look like he works on the Waltzers fade away, I see the positive side and am grateful that at least I not the big sister of his mate who looks like he has taken two handfuls of nettles and grazed them over his eye sockets. Hives- not a good look.

Highlights: Igloo, Metromony, Shlomo, M.I.A and a triple chocolate brownie.

Car journey home was listening to Flight Of The Conchords.

Hiya, thanks for being so patient. I have real trouble getting my act together, but it’s got to the stage when my whiz kid, Kate Fitzpatrick, was like ‘sort your bloody life out.’ So I have done just that… I think maybe my favourite thing in life is distraction. Anyway, less of that, what an exciting week, my third book Echoes was released on Thursday -

Here you can see it stacked up in Foyles and on the Highlights shelf. I was a bit gushy when I saw that, pretty much wanted to cry, probably did. So if the photo looks a bit ‘God that’s a shit photo’ it’s because I was trying to be both cool and collected and to not look like I was taking picture of my own book at the same time.

Saturday morning consisted of filming a reading of Echoes with these really kind German people- I think this should be, hopefully on this page somewhere soon.