Getting Lost

The poacher was working on a country estate last week, around the stables, with the completely nuts but highly amusing JC.
As there was an event on at the weekend I got drafted in for publicity purposes. This involved spending Friday driving down country lanes stapling posters to trees. After some time I realised that the posters I had already put up were already gone ...I waited in a thicket until low and behold, a small rotund gentleman of advanced years drove up and removed a poster I had just attached to an estate sign. When challenged he muttered something about horses and drove off, chucking the crumpled poster out of his van window. Thus I spent most of the day in a bizarre game of cat and mouse with a man who also worked for the estate ! ....creeping back and putting up posters on the same tree 3 or 4 times until one or both of us gave up. Bizarre!
The other element of my job, involved taking photos of the event (see unofficial ones in media) Unfortunately by 9.00 a.m on Saturday morning, gale force winds were lashing the yard with sheets of arctic rain, from then on I had to wipe the lens every three seconds...
It took the Poacher and three other assorted miscreants in high viz vests , several hours clinging desperately onto the guy ropes, to stop the hastily erected marquee from being whisked across the fell.....
Meanwhile the horse boxes and trailers arrived and diminutive riders in pink jodhpurs attempted to drag reluctant ponies into the storm....
The insane couple who run the gaff, strode about ordering jumps to be built which would collapse within seconds..bits of broken fencing to be cleared away or lanes to be blocked so no one could sneak in without paying.....JC's solutionto the utter chaos was to commandeer a tractor and to drive up and down the lane with a bottle of strongbow in his lap attempting to look busy.....whilst the rest of us had futile orders barked at us above the roaring of the winds...
The only refuge was JC's caravan....unfortunately it afforded no hiding place.
The Poacher and the other casual labour would sneak back to the caravan as often as possible for a pipe, fag or cider depending on their individual stress relief. Shortly after there would be a pounding on the door, the wind would slam it open and more pointless tasks would be given out by one of the several persons who all believed they were in charge.....and who all gave conflicting instructions....
Throughout all this joyful activity ...until 5.00pm Sunday, large women in horsey sweatshirts would encourage small girls to kick and cajole their large, pissed off ponies around the increasingly Somme like course....These women would stalk us all with tins of rock buns demanding we buy raffle tickets, in order to win some tatty old bridles or a Pony Club key fob. They were also in charge of the catering, and as far as food hygiene went, I was glad I'd brought a packed lunch.... they all had Labradors or flatulent Jack Russells, who thoroughly sniffed and licked all the burgers before they were served from underneath the gazebo, which ended the day upside down in a horse shit filled paddock...Obviously, as it had rained for two days solid, all the trailers and horse boxes were stuck, so two hours of wheel spinning, shit spraying, gear crunching, expletive hurling hard labour for a very pissed off group of casual labourers with one winch ensued....... ..INSANE !
I was so relieved to get home, light a fire and take my sodden clothes off.......I love horses...but nothing would persuade me to sit on one in a full on storm for 12 hours a day.......not unless my life depended on it.......Out of 300 sodden photographs only 50 were usable......but hey...they want me to make a training DVD next............
I also discovered on my saturated door mat, a letter from Lancaster University....I'm on the MA course after all...Hoorayyy!!!

As part of the government's apparent intention of allowing rural areas to become countryside theme parks for the second home brigade......after months of campaigning by desperate local people...the closures of several small but vital local Post Offices were announced this week. This represents a disgusting disregard for the needs of rural communities, and a transparent refusal to carry out a genuine consultation process. It seems that as small villages become slowly re-populated by shiny brand new 4x4 driving (badly), second home dwelling tosspots who moan about cow shit in the road and beep when behind tractors....community resources such as local Post offices and schools which are vital for farming communities......are becoming under used and so " not viable".
Game and hunting laws become ever more draconian, and there is even talk of licensing Air Rifles..........
Second homers contribute nothing to the community and have a very negative impact.....even "off-comers" as my Dad would call them, people who move here permanently from urban environments, with some idealised view of the countryside, are changing the character of our small formerly farming communities....casting judgement on centuries old traditions of which they have no understanding, patronising the local communities and grabbing funding for their elitist and nepotistic interests which were meant for inclusive projects to engage isolated parts of communities.
Local people can no longer afford to buy houses near their families. For those who work in vital services this presents a huge problem.
I have alluded to this before....mark my words.....as resources become scarcer it will eventually boil down to the survival of the fittest...and in this area the fittest does not mean newly arrived wallpaper designers and lifestyle coaches in barn conversions who try and stop people using guns for pest control, try and gate up green lanes and drive their 4x4s like they own the feckin road........
There is a groundswell of unrest brewing....prepare for the imminent birth of The Indepedent Free State of Cumbria Militia....

So they rushed me through an appointment to the local Hospital for a Colposcopy yesterday.
Luckily I had a session with my therapist earlier in the morning. We discussed how I've always gone in to hospital and done stuff like this alone and how I feel a bit resentful than no one is ever arsed enough to come with me...then I realised I never ask because I hate to seem needy...but end up being more needy when it all gets too big and scary and the martyr mode kicks in !
She told me to not be afraid to ask for support, not be too hurt if I didn't get it and to ring her later if necessary... I also thought of the kind support I'd had on this blog...
I then rang my Mother and told her that I was going into the hospital, as expected she was obviously not listening as the telly was on in the background, I suppose I got a bit upset and finally spoke to my Dad ..who couldn't come with me as he had a bowls match (!) but volunteered my mother..
Then I thought about what it would be like to actually have my mother there :- anxious and tetchy and making her self the martyr...and thought ...hhmm actually I don't want her there.......
Anyhow with weird synchronicity - I rang my friend, whose Dad is dying, just to see how she was and turns out her Mum had an appointment at the same place and time ! -( All the appointments are for three o' clock and you all just sit and wait for your slot....)
So I drove us both down to the Hospital, and actually it was good to talk to her, I feel for her so much, and hadn't had the chance to tell her how sorry I was.. She has been with her husband almost fifty years. he built or fixed everything, his presence is everywhere in that huge house...and yet not, as he now lies dying in the hospice. It was good that she could talk to me. She is facing the future alone in her sixties and it terrifies her. Her honesty was humbling.
I got to go in really quickly and the nurses were lovely...as it is a tad disquieting stripping off, climbing onto the hi- tech straddle chair, then seeing the badger appear on a sony monitor...in glorious technicolour live and direct and then wahay up the pink tube to see your cervix winking at you...
At this point I probably should have looked away...the nurse showed me the almost (to me) indiscernible darker pink area and told me it would mean I'd have to have a biopsy as it looked like CIN evidence..although until testing she couldn't be sure...
Just as when a few weeks ago I almost got a coil fitted, the nurse said I might feel "a little sting".
Oh yeah ?
Now I wouldn't say I have a particularly low pain threshold ...I have had broken bones, beatings, tattoos..but I must have a very sensitive cervix ..and as I saw the little metal jaw attachment about to chomp a bit of me, I bloody jumped. ..Christ on a bike it hurt !... Then they dab it with silver nitrate to stop it bleeding..I shouldn't have looked but it was interesting...It's only a tiny spot but it's magnified hugely on the screen.....made me feel queasy though...
I don't think they get many requests for a photographic still...she did look at me a bit oddly...and no it will not appear on this blog..I have few boundaries ...but one has to draw the line somewhere.....
A cup of tea and two painkillers later I am being given leaflets whilst trying to pull my knickers up , and the nurse is talking me through the next stage - which should take place in three weeks if the cells are pre-cancerous... , which will mean more slicing bits off , but thankfully this time with local anaesthetic
(and a good bloody strong sedative I hope !!!)
Everything was cool until the nurse said the fateful words and she must have seen the horror on my face , as she laughed out loud.....If the next stage is necessary...NO SEX OR RUNNING FOR SIX WEEKS... OH... MY .....GOD !!!!!!
Life will have no meaning!
Well it will be a test of the poacher's commitment I suppose....and of my sanity.....
So I go back to the waiting room and my companion has also gone in. She comes out shortly, but has been told to wait to see the Consultant...so we sit ..and we sit into that stage of sitting where everyone else has disappeared and you start to believe they've forgotten about you......eventually she goes back in and half an hour later emerges ...and I can tell she's been crying.......
I take her home, and discreetly ring her daughter.....she has a problem ...not major, but enough to be a final straw for her at the moment. It puts all my self pity and anguish into perspective. I wait until her daughter, my friend, comes back and I brew tea.
I go and see my Mother and she in her emotionally stunted way manages somehow to articulate her concern.
I am late picking up the poacher and the poor lad is soaked to the skin....
I rush him home, run a bath and make soup.....

Horrid day yesterday......felt crap all day and throat just got worse and worse & felt like I'd had a good kicking..and the Poacher didn't ring all day....and it was getting very late.and I started to imagine he and JC had been in an accident..as JC was driving and had stood on his bins a couple of days ago ....but they turned up around seven, filthy and covered in paint...he'd forgotten his phone....
I milked the self pity for 5 minutes but the bugger made me laugh, then made tea.....bless his darlin heart...
He said he'd look after me whatever happened....which was all I needed to hear.
So resting up today..managed to get a Doctor's appointment first thing & antibiotics script should I need them...(although I hate them and will only take them if I haven't managed to beat the buggering infection off with just the power of my antibodies by the weekend, as I have work and a photographic assignment with the huntin shootin fishin set.....at a weekend big horse event....)
It has been a shock to the system the Poacher working all week...I feel a bit lost...and not a little insecure about the young jodhpur wearing pony club set that hang around the yard. I never used to be the jealous type but since the actor my confidence got such a hammering I can't trust anyone anymore....I hope this is just a temporary state of affairs, as I know what happens when you hold on too tight......
I need to get working and involved again with other friends.....I just enjoy each moment with him so much.....I can not bear to think of being here without him in my life, but still having to see him....I suppose if the worst happens that's when I revert to the original plan and head for Brazil...

So I'd gotten over the rejection from Lancaster University, not good enough apparently for their MA...not sure what they want if it isn't someone who has been writing all their life and has finally put everything to one side in order to take it seriously .....someone with references from writers and academics....who has edited well known poets....anyway I'd got over that....managed not to evoke class war sentiments again....or the paranoia that someone has put the boot in somewhere..........
I was enjoying my day to day existence in my new nicely developing life. In therapy I was facing my desires and fears about having children and being honest about what I really want,,,and seriously assessing if there was still enough time.....
After a wonderful, adventure packed three months together, the Poacher and I had talked and put ourselves on the list for a small holding on a local estate....with dreams of horses, goats, pigs,hawks, dogs, guns, quads, bikes and land rovers aplenty...
Some stability and a future together...for as long as it lasts.....
A huge step for me as I said after the double whammy of relationship break up and being homeless, that I would never live with a man again....I am still so insecure in this relationship, as previously mentioned - because of the age gap, my history of fuck ups, his golden radiance and because of the number the actor twat did on me...but generally speaking I was happier than I have ever been......and fitter and healthier...
Then a subtly phrased letter from the clinic..."abnormalities in a recent smear".....Firstly it was feckin weeks ago - why the bastard delay ?
Secondly...Why do they post them to arrive at the start of the weekend so you have to wait until Monday morning to find out exactly what kind of "abnormality: we are talking about here ?
Finally I discover it is a fairly serious kind of abnormality, and now I await a hospital appointment for a biopsy...whoop de fookin doo !
Generally speaking I don't do hospitals......filthy rotten places full of germs....
I have to decide whether to tell anyone until I know what exactly the problem is....I have faced all the most serious shit in my life alone...so it seems fitting that I should do likewise this time....I can't stand being vulnerable around other people, again less so than ever after the actor's evil head game shit.
Don't know what to think or feel.....just as I was becoming ready to commit to a last ditch attempt at becoming pregnant. Guess it's true ;- you never really know what you want until you can't have it.
If it is more serious than the loss of my fertility- which rips me up anyway - .....I can't have him or anyone else feel that they have to look after me...I'll bugger off for a last goodbye to the planet...a semtex vest and take a few likely candidates with me....
Forgive the morbidity....I had convinced myself over the weekend that it was nothing.....this morning's news has been a shock....and I can't bring myself to talk to anyone about it...I can only write.

Well after yesterday's escalation of paranoia I went for a run after shrieking down the phone at the poor poacher like some kind of hysterical harpy. Suffice to say we sorted it out quite quickly and with his sweet ways he deflated my bubble of insecurity pretty quick. Phew..thinking seriously about life without him and all I have gained through him, made me very very sad.
It's funny how some people just know how to be with you instinctively when you're all over the place and others just escalate the situation by making it all about them...or ..taking the piss or saying nothing.....
So once crisis over we went up the allotment where we found Rich and JC just about to make a visit to Tony the Pig to buy more chickens...
We got the chickens and we also got four Indian Running ducks ! ....they're comedy gold ...running everywhere in tight formation quacking away...I
On the way home I found a battered Jackdaw which had been hazed in the big crow fights which are going on at the moment, half its tail feathers were missing. I shoved it in a ferret box, took it home and went off collecting insects for it, made it a nest and left it in the shed. I called it Glove as when I first saw it I thought it was a lost pair of gloves.
Unfortunately when I went to check it at 6.30 this a.m it was stiff as a board. So it will add to my skull collection...currently being collected for animation purposes. I am trying to find out about preservation and curing of dead animal skins.
And so to one of the most important days of the year ! The annual pilgrimage to the Horse Fair...
Off we all toddled, too early to be properly organized, up to Appleby.
It's always busy there when the weather is as good as it was today....but I've never been up on the weekend I usually go mid week...and Jesus was it was rammed. If we hadn't got parked up by 9.00 it would have taken hours to get through the crowd of bareback riders, sulky & trap drivers, ice cream scarfing rubber necking tourists and all manner of Traveller contingents from across the country.
Sunday is obviously posing day...naturally the Fair hums with hormones..all them young people looking to find a suitable mate, all half naked bare back on horses in the river....and the overpowering scent of anarchy in the air...it's a heady mix. The coppers looked red faced and frustrated as they are so out numbered and ancient by laws mean for a few days there is really very little they can do.....whilst every traveller and pissed up wide boy in attendance takes the piss as much as possible.
A new departure this year...or maybe just a Sunday thing, was the super-tanned & over made- up girls all dressed from 12 years up like eastern european pole dancers.....though some still stuck to their jeans and gaiters thank god. The lads generally favour bare chests, mullets, tuffa boots and riding whips....sometimes a flat cap or trilby and heavy gold for both sexes.
The usual glitzy schmaltz was on sale...genuine (!) Armani tracksuits for a tenner, solid gold rolex watches for twenty quid. Godawful flouncy nets and Chanel bedspreads..Irish hybrid Gypsy Grime and Country and Western competing through cheap speakers..2 CDs for a fiver.. the Fortune Tellers and Card Sharps still managing to drag people into their particular game....so much to see and chuckle at.
We had a great day watching the trotters and dreaming of affording some of the bigger horses...and talking about getting land between us....and of course I was taking photos, and meeting up with people...I would have stayed into the evening and jammed into the pubs to listen to the songs and stories but my companions are not used to so many people all together and were ,as men, a little worried about the (likely) odds of something kicking off....so we spent an hour trying to drive through the mass of whistling, laughing, galloping, barking, crying hordes and trundled on our way.
I'll stick up some photos tomorrow, as I doubt my words could ever do it justice.
Managed to lay to rest some demons too...part of what I think yesterday may have been about. I felt a little wobbly before getting there, remembering the year before last...but once there I felt I belonged much more and was at ease far more than when I was there with the actor....a familiar feeling in many settings...and something of a relief....and this time when a fortune teller tried to grab my hand and tell me "something very important" I just laughed and walked away.

Cauterize this foolish heart
which will not learn its lesson
wrench it from my sagging breast
end this strange oppression
It beats too fast
It fills too full
It aches and throbs and flutters
It acts alone and takes control
and leaves me in the gutter.

This week is pretty tough in terms of anniversaries, and the Horse Fair in particular is an event which resonates with painful memories.
Only two years ago this weekend I chose to throw my lot in with and put my trust in an insubstantial mirage, a shadow, after what seemed then like the romantic fulfillment of 6 months of feverish infatuation.
With hindsight it seems more like desperation to feel something again and temporary insanity, and all I remember now, is telling my then partner of 12 years that I was leaving him and watching him crumple and having to try and stay strong when I felt like the earth was spinning too fast and I was going to pass out. I regret so much of what happened and the fact that my life slowly imploded from that point. I know I wasn't happy before, but I lost so much in the process, it was done all wrong. So there is the context.
Add the hideous demise of the illusion that I ran to, in the worst most humiliating drawn out way.
Now add a poacher, bless his heart who really doesn't know what he wants and is happy for the moment bimbling around with me but the minute something more interesting pops up, he's off. Last night I left him at the allotment with his brother and as always when he's around drinkers, worried not that he would succumb necessarily,but more that someone might spike him. So waited to hear he was safely home....
I went to see friends that I have neglected and it was nice except we are all feeling for one friend whose father is dying and there is so much pain there too. It puts things into perspective as they say.
I feel for her so much and don't know what to do for her.
And the poacher didn't ring.
So I haven't slept.
The poacher rings at 8.30 this morning. All he can think of is he wants to get a rescue dog out of the paper, which means he won't be able to spend so much time at mine, and maybe not come to the horse fair......yeah and vet bills for me to pay for on top of everything else...without even discussing it...
Brush off ? I don't know but it certainly doesn't feel like my needs are being met at the moment.
Maybe I should end this before I waste anymore love on someone who doesn't really want it.
Why do I make it so easy? Even after all that's happened I try and anticipate the needs of others and fill them because that feels natural when I love someone, instead of holding back and protecting myself more.
I think the best of people, and wrongly assume they will express love in a similar fashion...or any fashion... when experience has taught me that most people think only of themselves...rightly probably. it is only fuck ups like me with no sense of self who lay down and ask to be stepped on time and time again.
I am a rationalist so how do I get so deluded about love and there being a soul mate for each of us out there when It is clearly bollocks, and people insist on pretending they love you just because it is somehow easier or gives them a sense of power ...why?
I will be strong and go to the Horse fair alone if needs be.

I need to go for a run and let the wind dry my tears before I do anything.

As the city sleeps
ideas are dreamt,
which rise to condense,
in the cold around the moon
and stars,
to form words,
which trickle down chimneys
and create tomorrow's
news.

Either I've worn him out or the poacher is sickening for something.....he's slept for two days and hardly eaten...He is the sort of man who never goes to doctors though, he cut his hand at the allotment one time and blood was literally spurting out of the wound for several hours...he just wrapped it up, and though it opened up a few times, it did heal fine.
There's no point fussing around him.....I sometimes forget that it's only a couple of months since his liver was about ready to throw in the towel....guess the body takes a while for the immune system to get properly strong again. I blame Monarch airlines for keeping us hanging around in Barcelona airport for twelve weary and expensive hours....breathing in hideous re-cycled air, eating overpriced shite airport cack....but I shouldn't complain...considering fuel price hikes it was a ridiculously cheap holiday......
On the subject of fuel........full support to the M6 demonstrators today...though I don't believe it will be even acknowledged.......The way forward may well be recycling chip fat etc to make bio diesel.........looking into the possibilities.........in the meantime I have blagged a cannibalised bike from my chum.....
I used only a bike for transport right up until 1997 when I started teaching and carrying an office around daily....and after sliding slowly down the front of a number 53 bus, realising death by blind drivers was imminent....
I really enjoy riding a bike and here there are sneaky green lane routes which keep you off the main roads...another great reason for living here.
The only problem now is managing to stay here....I'm not claiming and the bulk of the equity from the house I sold is gone......so I need to find gainful employment. The problem is I have lost all interest in being inside, anywhere near computers or people wearing suits.......
All ambition has fled and I realise how little I need to feel content...I also realise how stressed I was before working 60 hours a week plus. I can never do this again...I never want to go back to that half life....
My mission is to find a better balance....a way of grafting which also doesn't sap the will to live.........

We've been scouting for a suitable roof material for the botch greenhouse...but thus far...nowt in local skips! Why can you never find crappy old UPVC windows when you need em?
So we've been dingying on Coniston again, terracing the allotment and today visited White Scar Caves in North Yorkshire...............I was impressed when I was eight....less so today...£7-50 to bend double up a slippy cave system whilst being wittered at by a deranged guide.....glad I robbed a fossil last time I came now.
We are gearing up a large posse for The Horse Fair which starts Thursday. Travellers from all over the country are on their way to Appleby to show off, race and sell their horses, plan weddings, sing, gamble, gossip, fight and do all the deals that need to be struck at a place which just for a few days becomes free, run in the old ways subject to no laws...there being precious few such places and times left... Will post photos next week.. Can't wait..though I know it will make me itch to get a pony and a waggon and hit the road...in fact the poacher and I have discussed it..... neither of us wants the rat race.....and fancy the nomadic life for a year or two......To be self sufficient on the road though I might have to rethink the vegetarian diet......
The jill is pregnant...so I'll have me own polecat ferret soon !!