Rights

Today I am frustrated. Fed up. Tired. Grumpy. Not from any specific reason, more a multitude of reasons that have been lying in wait and have all decided to wait until today to gang up on me. Yes, I know I was upset by the burglary. Today tho, for reasons that I am not going to list here, I'm just rather, well, miserable I suppose. Which is awful as I've got Comic Relief on in the background and seeing people on the information pieces with terrible lives is making me guilty for just being fed up when I have a comparatively luxurious lifestyle. I don't have that right. I want something I can't have. They need something they can't have. Their need is greater than mine.

Wait

Cliche-like the fine drizzle soaked into her hair, beads of water immediately flattening, disappearing into her general miasma of misery. She stood. Waited. In the distance the lights flickered. On. Off. On. Off. On. She watched disinterestedly, as the rain made halos round them. The lights grew brighter, brighter still. Died. The sudden dark made the noises round her seem louder somehow. A twig snapped behind her and she flinched, instinctively whirling round, hand to her bag. Defensive. The rabbit that appeared from the hedgerow looked as surprised as she.

The drizzle turned to rain and was now falling continuously. Now she could barely see out through the wet curtain of her hair. Her coat provided no protection - the layers of drenched wool giving of an acrid aroma of stale cigarettes, reminding her of empty bars and empty days.

Ominous rumble. Flash. Rumble. The street lights back on now. The rumble grew nearer. Nearer still. She looked skywards.

Beep, beep, beep. Loud. Impatient.

"Do you want to catch the bus or not?"

Stolen peace of mind

I got home on Thursday and found our flat had been burgled. I had my keys in my hand, ready to unlock the door when I realised, almost in slow motion, that the door was already open, swinging gently to and fro. The lock lying splintered on the floor of the hallway on top of the pile of post.

I called my Dad on my mobile. Well, actually I walked in, a la any stupid female character from a horror film, doing the same thing that I always tell the characters off for doing. Watching any film I always wonder why the vulnerable female lead walks into the empty house. You do though. I don't know why. I even called and asked if anyone was there. I'm not sure if I expected any remaining burglar to answer me and what I was planning on doing if they did so. It was then, walking up the steps to the living room, standing staring at the contents of the cupboard, ransacked, lying scattered on the floor, that I spoke to my Dad and told him I'd been burgled.

In the living room I looked at a pile of scattered children's clothes and couldn't understand why they were there. In retrospect, once I could think logically again, the children's things weren't that odd - one of my flatmates is a primary schoolteacher and all the items were from a recent school trip. However in that moment I just couldn't comprehend them. It was only promptings from my Dad on the other end of the phone that prompted me to check my bedroom. At first I thought the lock was stiff. Then I realised it was jammed because someone had broken it. Once I managed to get the door open, the lock fell apart and landed on the floor.

Now I know I am very lucky. Nobody hurt me. Nobody crapped on my bed (or worse). No-one smashed my mirrors. Property is replaceable. I am healthy. However everything they took from me had been a present. That I find upsetting. My camera, iPod touch, video camera, polaroid printer - all presents from my family and all gone. Other things may have gone too but as yet I haven't found out. I think my room got off more lightly than those of my flatmates because I am chronically tidy. I could only have made life easier for the burglars if I had actually labelled each drawer with a list of what was inside. As it was I did everything but. Camera was on the desk, iPod was in the docking station, everything else was immediately obvious in my desk. The burglars went through my clothes drawers and bedside cabinet but didn't ransack them in quite the same way they did the other rooms. Presumably because by the time they got that far they'd already got a fairly good haul. My clothes drawers were disarranged with one T-shirt randomly lying on the floor. Odd, that. Ditto my bedside cabinet - someone had gone through it and removed stuff, but left some things lying on the floor. My jewellery was all tipped out of the boxes and dumped on the floor, but as none of it is worth serious money, it was all left. I'm not the sort of person that has diamonds - and let's face it, if I did, I'd be wearing them.

So I told my Dad what was missing. I then rang 999 and managed to hold it mostly together enough to sound like a grown up (calm and collected) while I spoke to the police, then reported it to the lettings agent and requested a locksmith. Then I called my flatmates and told them to come home. They were upset on the phone, then hysterical in person.

The police took ages to arrive - we obviously weren't a priority (fair enough, it wasn't in progress and they couldn't find the flat), then the locksmith turned up hours and hours after that - following several chase calls because he couldn't find us either. It would have been so much simpler if the burglars hadn't found us either. He patched up the front door but recommended we got a new one. Unfortunately he wasn't allowed to fix either my or my flatmate's bedroom doors - both of which had had the locks broken. She got her boyfriend to stay over that night. I slept with my bedroom chair against the door.

Scene of crimes came the next day and took fingerprints - or would have done but the burglars wore gloves. So we were left with lots of futile shiny powder everywhere.

I'm currently left wondering why I feel cross with my flatmates and have come to the conclusion that it is because they expected me to deal with everything for them. I am not the oldest in the flat. I was just the first home. Today I was first home again. I have been sitting here typing this on and off for the last couple of hours and no-one else is back yet. Every noise in the house is making me jump. However I am determined that I won't bow down to nerves because that way I'll turn into Penelope Pitstop, wandering round having screaming hysterics for no reason. I'm not the type of person - maybe I should have run out of the house screaming when I discovered the burglary, but my upbringing taught me to phone the police. I never was meant to be the female lead in a film, more the sensible side kick that never wins the man.

Writing

You can tell when I've been writing poetry as it's usually when I'm in bed, around 10 - 11 at night (hence why I sleep with a pen and paper by my bed) and there will be scattered leaves of an A4 pad lying on the floor. It is true that I am actually addicted to stationery (along with chocolate) and am unable to pass a branch of Paperchase or Waterstones or even better, independent stationers, without investigating what they have on offer. However I would never dream of soiling any of my beautiful notebooks with my first attempts at poems in case it spoils them. For some reason I also have a different style of handwriting for writing rough poetry at night - a slanted and scrawly style which even I find hard to read. It is completely different from my neat and rather upright (uptight) every day handwriting but this can't be anything to do with speed writing as I use my every day handwriting for lecture notes at University on a weekly basis with no problems. It is just habit and it works for me.

Take this evening for example. I've managed a couple of poems and a couple which have the potential to either work or to be drivel - they could go either way. Hard to tell. There could definitely be something workable there. I'll have to put them away and maybe get them back out in a couple of days. Meanwhile I'm going to bed surrounded by sheets of cotton and sheets of paper.

Night all.

Ice Ice Baby

Lecture today from the British Library. Very interesting but slightly marred by the freezing air con which turned what had been an admittedly warm room into one of the lesser known regions of the North Pole. I would not have been surprised if a Polar Bear had wandered in at some point during the talk. That said, as the room was quite full, if one had done so there wouldn't have been anywhere for them to sit.

We got to hear all about the British Library's vision for the future, and given that I have visited it quite recently, I could envisage it quite well. It does look and sound like a lovely place to work but I understand there's a hiring freeze on. Appropriate given today's lecture room temperature.

Chameleon

I don't know whether it is to do with being deeply unfashionable in my teenage years (that said, isn't everyone?) but I tend to go for camouflage. I don't mean that I troll round wearing desert fatigues and combats in the Kent town where I current reside (though to be honest I'm not sure that would actually cause anyone's eyebrows to raise), but that I use my clothes to hide. When I can wear what amounts to a uniform, I will. For work this amounts to black trousers and a top of some description, for home, it's jeans. To think that I spent my formative years wearing my school uniform skirt short, my shirt untucked and my tie the wrong way round in an attempt (along with everyone else in my school) to stamp some personality on it. As the crowd in The Life of Brian shout "I'm an individual!"

Except... except that now I have lost weight I am rediscovering clothes. Kind of. I am not exactly rushing out and wearing mini skirts to the office (too draughty, too impractical and too difficult to sit with your legs curled up under the desk in what is frankly a DVT threat but oh so comfy). Yet I am now thinking more about what I wear and how I look. Yes, you will still find me in jeans, but sometimes, just sometimes, I'll maybe surprise you.

Jasper - a jewel worth queuing for

So today Kate and I went to hear Jasper Fforde talking about his new book 'One of our Thursdays is Missing'. As usual he was interesting and came across as the sort of person you would really like to have at a dinner party. It does make me vaguely wonder how much of this personality is an act 'JF the author' and what the real person is like - or if he is really as he seems. I never really question interviews with actors in papers, I just assume that they are as they portray themselves.

Anyway the excerpts that Jasper read sounded brilliant and I am looking forward to reading the new book (I am obviously not a complete JF addict as I haven't put down my current book to read it!). Could possibly have done without his comment when he was signing and stamping the books about being a frustrated librarian though...