Hmm.

Some say blogs should have a bit of a theme. This one doesn't really. Well, weddings. And books and that. And pictures that make me larf.

Actual LOL. Not just typing it. I mean it.

Some say love's a little boy...

This week, work has required me to get to grips with WH Auden.

Now let it be known, I like miserable poets. Particularly miserable British and Irish poets of the 1930s and 40s.

Miserable poets are well and truly my thing. I like the way they deal with misery. It's elegant and understated. I think you've already heard my thoughts on Thomas Hardy - now THERE was a miserable bastard - but, hey, each to their own. I once worked with a teacher who rated Dave Pelzer as a writer. That was uncomfortable. And if you share that view, well, I think it's best we never meet. Soz.

I'm not denying that he went through a horrific experience. However, he's also responsible the horrific Airport Fiction experience I go through once or twice a year. Seriously, have you ever tried to find a book that isn't about child abuse at an airport WH Smith? I've taken to hiding them behind Lonely Planet guides and naff autobiographies. Pelzer spawned an entire genre of fiction that didn't previously exist - FOR A GOOD REASON. Who wants to read about child abuse? I don't get it. People give these books to each for Christmas, for God's sake. Christ. And Christmas is statistically an annual suicide high-point. Coincidence? I think not.

But I digress. Miserable poets float my boat. So much so that when the English department decided to run a after-school enrichment club for clever kids eager beavers and we each had to nominate a Specialist Subject, Mastermind-style, I went with the misery.

"Miserable 1940s Poets. I'll think of a better name."

And of all the miserable poets, Auden is probably my favourite.

Probably. Possibly. Bah, too hard.

But it ain't all sad, is it? Look at this cheeky little devil.

you should probably join pinterest. it's wicked.

(although originally from here)

We don't teach this beauty at AS level. But I did consider it as a wedding reading

It's so jolly and bouncy. Musing on the matter of love, the line 'Is it usually sick on a swing?' never fails to raise a smile. And the final stanza is near-perfection.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough? Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

(read its jolly entirety here)

***

Some Monday Auden-loving.

The End of the Summer

'....until they think warm days will never cease.'

I was conned. I thought they'd never cease. But cease they have. Last night was the first night of 'oh-God-this-lighting-in-the-bathroom-is-a-bit-harsh-and-it's-only-just-after-8-o'clock.'

I have a feeling that more shock-revelations (having to put the heating on? That awful juddering noise the back wiper makes as it skids over an icy windscreen?) are on their way.

The last wedding of the season is on Saturday (hurrah for Mick and Sarah!). I'm a little sad. Sniff.

Summer seems a while ago. 

But Autumn has its music too.

WORMGATE

Something is rotten in the home of the Bedfords.

Figuratively and literally.

You see, Bedford decided some months ago that he wanted a womery.

"A what?" I asked.

"A womery. It'll be marvellous," insisted Bedford. "We'll be like George and Lennie. Livin' off the fatta the lan'. The dream!"

"Does it involve worms?"

"Err, yes."

"Making compost? Chewing up our leftovers?"

"Yeah! Amazing, eh?"

"And then pooing it out?"

"Yeah!"

"No way."

And that was it. I drew my line in the sand. However, my zero-tolerance anti-worm stance lasted all of...oo, ten minutes. You see, Bedders made some promises. Here's promise number one. Ready?

"Laura, you will never have to see the worms."

OK, this sounded fine. We have a cellar, you see. And in this cellar there's a separate little room. I call it the Man Cupboard. There are mysterious things in there like puncture kits and those two types of screwdriver I can never remember the difference between. It has a latch on it which I find nigh-on impossible to open. Pathetic upper-body strength.

He claimed the worms would live in there. They would be happy and content. They would munch away all day and I'd never even know they were there.

Second persuasive tactic. They would live in a lovely little house. No ordinary wormery for us, oh no! Bedders wanted the Porsche of composters. Being a farmy type, he'd come across Wiggy Wigglers. Behold, the Worm Cafe!

Ooooo.

Sturdy, says the website. That sounds good, I thought.

But I was fooled, you see. Fooled by the clever branding! Worm Cafe? I had visions of them ordering a Diet Coke and meeting other worms for a date. But no! These are WORMS, people! They DON'T ORDER DIET COKES OR GO ON DATES!

Sounds obvious, I know. But I was sucked in.

Anyway, the worms moved in. They bedded down and settled in to a life of chomping and reproducing. Sounds great, eh?

I wasn't exactly fond of them, as such. But I quite liked the thought of them down there. You know. They were kind of like pets. Hairless ugly pets with no legs.

But tonight I went down into the cellar. I was putting a wash on, you see. I know, these crazy Monday nights are gonna kill me.

And this is what I saw.

Oo, what are those swirly patterns on your otherwise-grey-and-lifeless concrete cellar floor, Laura?

Gosh, I don't know reader, let me take a closer look...

I gasped. Gagged. One of them was still writhing.

THE CARCASSES OF WORMS!

With the exception of the still-writhing one. Obv.

Maybe the worms, grown fat and disorientated from the leftovers Bedders lavishes on them, fell out. Maybe there's some disillusioned teenage worms in there who've listened to too much Placebo. Maybe they've all joined a cult where flinging yourself to an untimely death from the third storey of the Worm Cafe is all the rage.

Eiither that or he hasn't put the bloody lid back on properly.

Look at this one! It's perished mid-way under the door of the Man Cupboard! Caught on the threshold between a dark former coal store and the relative pastoral idyll of the utility room!

Oh wormy, what were your final thoughts? What final cry broke the air as you met your doom? "Damn you, Bedders, and your incessant coffee granules! I'm so jittery on Taylor's Lazy Sunday blend I just fell out of the bloody thing!"

I have sent a text. It reads, "Sort it out."

Excuse me while I go and try not to have nightmares about giant worms slithering up the stairs and eating my face off as I sleep.

Mr and Mrs (Dr and Dr?) Narahari

Aw. Look at us. All decked out in our wedding finery!

And do you know what? It was the most beautiful day.

After torrential rain in Alnwick a few weeks before (err, while we on our honeymoon. Thanks, weather gods!), the day was dry and the sun even managed to shine. Hurrah!

Clare, my sister, is an absolute beauty on a normal day (like, annoyingly so), but she really did look an absolute stunner in her pink sari. I love the colour palette, don't you? Ivory? YAWN. So passe.

And Krish looked very dapper himself.

Here they are garlanding each other. They're on the mandap (spelling?), which was like a raised stage at the front of the room. The Hindi priest lit a fire. There were prayers to gods of all kinds, devotions and dedications, the tying of a necklace around Clare's neck, seven sacred vows...it was long, I tell you. But very interesting. Strokey-chin-thoughtful-face.

And what was really interesting was that the sentiment behind a lot of the words and symbolic actions wasn't too different from a church ceremony.

We had a church ceremony, too, you see. An Indian lunch was followed by a swift change in the B&B to an ivory frock and a Reiss number for me. Timings cocked up (which we laughed about later, but wasn't so funny at the time) and Krish was late to the church. His parents were later. We took refuge in the priest's house. He offered us a whiskey. Clare declined. I reeeeeally wanted one.

And then we had a wedding breakfast (where the speeches were beautiful, and completely paid tribute to the fact that Clare and Krish are the Loveliest People In The World) and then a party. Their first dance merged into the Slumdog Millionaire song (the non-Pussy-Cat-Dolls version, thankfully). And my dad was on the dance floor with all of the Indian contingent punching the air with one fist.

It was hilarious. And brilliant.

Congratulations to Mr and Mrs (Dr and Dr?) Narahari!

Bad blogger

Bad, bad blogger.

I knoooow. But being a teacher is tough, you know. Yes, we get squillions of holidays (don't start with that shite, ok? No bugger would do it if it wasn't for the holidays. It's a fairly thankless task at regular intervals, and as bad as your cushy office job may seem at times, know this. You've probably had a buffet lunch on company expenses at some point in your career. I get excited at a free soggy sarnie, I tell you. And I bet you have air con. Oh, and I definitely BET you have a window. A window; man, that's the stuff dreams are made of. And sometimes kids tell me to fuck off. That's always heartening. So quit the holiday-negativity, yeah?)

And now I'm back at work, it's all gone a bit mental again.

I will get better, I promise. To cap it all off, Virgin have messed up our internet (and have refunded us the princely sum of £1.50 to make up for it. Aw, cheers guys!), but as soon as we're back up and running I shall continue to post stuff and nonesense. And get better at answering emails.

Amidst this internetless back-to-work madness, there's some light around the corner. A trip camping in Norfolk (we'd better bloody camp no matter how freezing it is. No one had better wimp out) is around the corner. King Lear is coming to the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Heidi Talbot is playing in Selby next month. We're going to a ceilidh on Sunday.

All perfectly normal shizzle. But exciting, like. 'Cos we're wed and it's wonderful and we're just pleasing ourselves getting on with the business of living.

And...wedding photos have arrived. Oh my. I started off disliking them...and now I positively love them? I'm not even lukewarm about them-I love them. It's like the dress saga all over again. Am I schizophrenic? No we're not.

Bad joke. Back soon.

Wedding Season

It's well and truly upon us.

An opportunity to fathom the DSLR, methinks.