in cambridge

I am in cambridge in the kitchen listening to women's hour on radio 4, calming down from my fury at the man who was just on saying that women should just get over men making lewd remarks to them no matter how aggressive they are, he was such an almighty wanker i was sitting with my jaw hanging down!
had a very surreal couple of days for a few reasons.
my job description is altering by the minute and i now spend the majority of the week in central leeds rather than out in armley which i am a bit sad about.

headed straight to the station after work on tuesday, the shoes that i had bought with such complete delight on saturday in Scope for £8 both broke on the way to work!!! luckily had my wee chinese slippers, the weather has been very strange this week, definitely adds to the feeling of surrealism, heavy rain and then sun, very strong wind all the time shaking the trees. I am anxious and agitated all the time at the moment and feel that my body and mind are working in overdrive, propelling me faster than i can keep up, my legs constantly twitching and my mind racing.
got the train to cambridge, the rain started to come down in sheets, i didn't enjoy the journey as much as i do normally, maybe due to the nature of a mid-week 2 days off.
Once in cambridge the usual strong feelings come over me immediately: jealousy, that other people are here in my city, and i am now a visitor, sadness that it is changing so fast that it is becoming unrecognisable, feelings of being old mostly, everything reminds me of being young and of biking about, there is hardly one cranny in cambridge that i don't have an associative memory with, it's amazing how powerful these feelings are once you get distance from a place, you start seeing it as a separate entity, like an old relative who you don't see enough but who you also aren't sure you get on with as much as you thought.


had a quiet evening with mum and dad, very restless. slept very well and woke up feeling completely refreshed at 8am which was a strange feeling. headed into town at 9 with mum as she went to work, went around the shops, beautiful day, also the weather that is the most synonimous with cambridge for me: sunny but bracing, this IS cambridge weather and autumn is arguably when the city is at its most beautiful.

Visited Marie in the CATS library where I used to work, is so much improved and was quiet and orderly, polar opposite of when i worked there, marie came out for a coffee, totally revitalising me with her energy, she always looks simultaneously wise and very young, like a child, it's an amazing quality, i wish i could see her more, she's like a life force! i am so lucky to have met her.

Had the memorial service from 6pm. drove into london, dad overjoyed at his genius of paying th congestion charge ONLINE!! then paid for parking in a bay that became free art 6:30, paid it to 6:29 which was SUch an infuriating dad thing to do! the venue had moved without any prior warning to Tavistock Square. It was quite disorganised, the room was a terrible shape, 2 rooms with a wall knocked through so no one was going to be able to hear it seemed. the chairs were crammed in so no one could move, but there still were far from enough, they had supplied some wine but only about 10 cups and no corkscrew. The room filled up fast with lots of mysterious people. Mum spoke second after the children. Her speech was utterly beautiful, i could see that most of the room was reduced to tears.i cried for Grace for the first time, and found it quite hard to stop, it is something that i have deliberately avoided thinking about, and not digested at all. it is still very strange, and very very sad.

The great thing about the evening was meeting the other people that had known Grace, people who knew her before she changed her name and her life, lovers, people who knew her only through her poetry and had never met her.
Lots of poems were read out which was wonderful to hear and also an utter eye-opener for me,i am going to investigate her poetry deeply now and can't wait to do so.
to reconnect with her children was great, i will be in touch with them, we are connected now very definitely, in such a strange way, but also quite naturally.

left finally around 10, lots of people wanted to talk to mum and were very grateful for her speaking and for the things that she shared.


got home around 12. i was definitely to melancholy to sleep and don't feel great today, very tired.
back to work tomorrow which i am not relishing as i was contacted incessantly by my colleague yesterday which i am really pretty angry about.

newcastle at the weekend, looking forward to some light relief.

gonna do the blog twice a week now, a realistic goal!