The sea makes everything better.

Last weekend I made a two hour train trip to Den Haag to see some friends when it should have only taken an hour. We drank wine. And lots of beer. And then we couldn't ride our bikes anymore and we laughed and we laughed at the stupidity of it all because it was raining so hard and the sane people were indoors and then we howled to the moon. (Even though we couldn't see it)

Then we woke up, drowsy, hungry, ill. So I said let's go to the sea and and so we cycled to the beach and stood barefoot in the sea. We drank the wind and it ate away all the yuck we felt refreshed. Clean, pure and barefoot, we drank tea in hut on the beach.

Then I came back and worked and it was hugely miserable until my OWN violin arrived in the post! Along with a small selection of books and little things from around my room that my mama could find. I love her. I miss her.
And then F decided she wanted to learn how to play the piano which was actually quite successful- more successful than the violin, lets just say- and she can actually play a C major scale with the right fingers! And she sometimes growls at the same time!
Although it does get slightly tedious when she plays it over and over and over and over.
I'll have to think about something else to teach her.
All suggestions welcome!

Last Thursday I met with all the other au pairs in the area. We drank beer and laughed at eachothers shame. None of us speak dutch, none of us meant to come here, we are all home sick. So we stick together.
Especially on Wednesday mornings when breakfast in the HEMA supermarket is 1euro before 10am.

I met a really cool Irish au pair called Nina at a breakfast. We decided we were both from the UK so we need to be best friends. It's entirely very convenient that we have huge amounts in common and we'd have been friends anyway. we wandered around Amsterdam that day, lost and carefree. Remarking how goddamn WEIRD everything is.

Then I stayed on the train to Hilversum when she got off in Naarden, where our bikes were. I went to an SGI Holland meeting... It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever done. They were radiant souls and so so warm and open to me- we chanted and  discussed hardships and their relationships to us! It was magic and then we hugged and went home and i'll write more later because Nina is upset and I'm running to albertheijn to get some ben and jerry hugs.
Peace!

Tantrums and nosebleeds.

Ok, take back everything I said in the last blog. Not all of it, but most of it.

The house is made of light. Only light. Nothing else. It's a showhome. Sentimental at times, but rarely. You can see yourself in the floor.
No, I'm for real.

The dogs are my friends. They're good people. Laid back, snuffling, they know what they want in life. Did I tell you Guusje and Higgins are like best friends in the world? They say hi every day like they haven't seen each other in years. And then they walk side-by-side, proud. Or they jump on eachother and play. Dogs speak the same language as me. We get along. Except when Tinkle actually peed on top of Higgins today. Not cool, guys.

Ok, the kids aren't entirely bad. They're sweet, they're just highly strung and temperamental. Oh, and manipulative. They ask for cake in dutch, i say no. Especially not half an hour before dinner. They ask for cake in English with 'please may i' stuck on the front... They learn quickly, let's just say.

Whereas F says 'ouch' when I brush her hair and it hurts, J says 'oh dear!' or 'oh no!' Which is hugely endearing. Especially because it sounds sort of like 'owdeea!' or 'ownow!' and is an immensely redeeming quality in J. His little sister is somewhat more mature than he is, though, in so many ways!

First thing this morning they were hugely bored and wanted to play at friends' houses. J called Mote (that's how you say his name..) and grabbed his skateboard and headed to put his shoes on. Meanwhile F was ringing round all her friends and nobody was home! Or still asleep, and all she really wanted was to play with J. So she asked him and he said no because he'd already made plans with Mote. And her face, her poor, tiny, but so emotionally mature face!
She's bright blonde and the rims of her eyes and nose and lips are pinkish anyway but I watched her eyes fill up and her nose go pink and she was so restrained about it all until she couldn't breathe properly. She really REALLY just wanted to play with J. It wasn't because he had plans and she didn't, it was because she really loves spending time with him.
And then came the huge tantrums.

They do love eachother, those two. They aren't hugely sentimental about it, but they never fight. My sister and I always fought at that age.

This place is so unnatural. It's beautiful but forced. There are trees and canals and ponds but they're all built and planned. There are no accidental hidaways.
The swans scour and snuffle on the surface of the canals not big enough to sail on, eating the algae. It makes a cuddly noise.

J had a nosebleed. A great big, messy nosebleed everywhere. It wasn't exciting. Not. Nice.
Kinda made me feel lonelier yet in this scheme of lonely events that proceed. Not entirely sure why.

I'm pining for my wonderful love. and he is all I can think about.
Ever.
I need a hug.
I thought I'd miss Wales, but really I miss him more than any of it. Does that make me more his than Welsh?

p.s did I tell you about the violin? and the piano? and the other au pairs?

The Netherlands.

The house is built of light, it drips from everything. It's clean, straight, gentle. The neighbourhood is pretty; all hanging baskets and bicycles and dogs on leads. The kids are beautiful, blonde, sweet. There is a lovely neighbour across the street. It's all such a cliché.
I'm waiting on edge for them all to start screaming and scratching each others eyes out tomorrow when their dad looks after them. Of course this won't happen.

I arrived last night after the most dreadful farewells and the most hysterics I have been in for a very long time and it might as well have ripped my heart out and bled it dry because I seem so lost here. I'm so glad my love can't cry, otherwise I swear I wouldn't have gone. It feels like I cried for weeks. I'm still seriously dehydrated.

It's so flat here. People are so TALL. I'm positively short. My bike has been lowered to the lowest possible height and it's still too high. In Wales I am tall. I keep forgetting this.

I walked F to her playdate this morning with Guusje the dog. She struggles a lot with remembering english words. Like her brother, she loves the ducks. A LOT. And the herons and swans and moorhens. So she stood and watched the heron before it flew to the other side of the canal in the park and we carried on. She picked up a stone and said 'Steen' and gave it to me as a present. I dropped her off and went 'home.' It's still in my pocket. The stone, I mean.

I'm stupidly home sick, in case you haven't noticed. I'm not doing myself any favours here, but my creature comforts are, and that just makes it worse.

After heading into town twice already today, a lady from just across the street came by. She has two dogs: Tinkle and Higgins. It's mostly ironic because my dog's called Pippi and we all know what Pippi means in Dutch. And we all know what Tinkle means in English. Creepy. I get to walk her two dogs for the next week or so because she's going to Venice... She's an artist.
Her son is in College in Norway in the same college my sister wants to go to... but he left his violin behind. Which is convenient because I LEFT MINE BEHIND ARGH. This is the root of such anguish in my soul.

...It could be that or the fact that I just had a skype chat, whilst writing this, with my family and dog and cried uncontrollably. Again.
Moosie.
Not even the tint of something sparkly that someone dropped on this desk cheered me up.

F came and sat with me whilst I played the violin before dinner. Then she went downstairs. And came back up after dinner to give me a small bowl of strawberries that she tripped and dropped all over my floor, then picked up and put back into the bowl and handed to me. I'm eating them anyway because she is beautiful and sweet and I love her already.

But I miss my love. and I miss hugs and his voice and his hand in mine.
Love is so strange. Half of me is missing.

What am I doing?

Dear anyone who has any idea about anything at all,
What on earth am I doing?
yours,
my-flight-leaves-tomorrow-I'm-terrified.

p.s
Who in their right mind creates such a beautifully charmed existence and then just LEAVES?

Storm in a teacup.

There is a rainstorm outside. There has been afternoon. I feel weary.
I do not want to pack, I do not want to tidy.
And no, I do not want another cup of coffee.
I don't want to sleep, but I certainly do not want to be awake.
Today is not a good day.
I don't want to leave.
I don't want to say goodbye.

There are beautiful people in beautiful places

Today I am not sitting in an awkward position or in an awkward place and I don't even feel slightly awkward. It is sunny, hot, but the evening sunshine is gentle and the breeze is soft- I can tell because I have the bay window doors open and I can hear the occasional tick of something hard clanking against something harder in the wind. It's not invasive, though, don't worry. In fact sometimes it ticks along to the sound of my now horrifically loud music. (Moddi- Rubbles, incase you were wondering.)

I am alone but I do not feel lonely, not today. I drink ice cold mango juice and remark how dark my hands look against the apple white keyboard. The bay window doors are open because I had to break into my own house after coming back from Greenman festival because I forgot my key- I climbed over the back gate and revealed my overtly frilly, silk knickers to the world for the umpteenth time today. They are pretty. Everyone needs to see, I decided. Mostly my wonderful love doesn't seem to agree so much, though. I love him.

There are beautiful people in beautiful places. I got back from Moulins sur Allier on Wednesday night for my A level results on Thursday. I took the train there, and we took the train back together, my love and I. My journey there was tiring and sad. I hate being alone and lonely, I retreat into my imagination and the tears have no room so have to leak and it's sad.
 I stayed overnight with my crazy, beautiful friend in Paris and her sister and twin cousins- except 'one of them ate all the food in the womb and is bigger and brainier.' We walked around their flat in our underwear and sat on their warm, warm terrace at night and watched the lights and listened to the trains. My french is getting a lot better. We talked about buddhism and the flowers their mum planted on the terrace before it started to rain and we went inside.

Festivals are full of magic things. Smiles and dancing all night and small people holding you close. Swimming in lakes, green dripping hair, sunburn and smiling. Shooting stars and orange moons so you don't need a torch. Bats fluttering, flapping, so close and screaming, peeping so you keep still and listen. Like butterflies only bigger, growling.
Naragonia play beautiful music. They play so kindly, so so gently the notes tip-toe. They have smalls, very small smalls, and you can tell. They are gentle like lullabies so they can play and the smalls can sleep. Hushed dancing.
Thunderstorms and jelly and my most favourite people in the whole world..-

I try not to think about leaving
It takes away the fullness of my heart sometimes.

I got good A level results. But they're just letters on a piece of paper. And I'm not sure I want to go to University even when I get back from the Netherlands. I need to apply for Oxbridge but my enthusiasm fluctuates. But if I don't go to university, what do I do?

sometimes beautiful places are only beautiful because of the beautiful people that you love.

Pitter patter

Ok, well, now it's raining.
And it sounds beautiful and adds no sense of woe to my dreary mood whatsoever. It's like a gentle little song in the background- lullaby raindrops.

This weekend has been lovely but tainted and sad but beautiful. I am sentimental, perhaps overly so sometimes, but this weekend will have been the last trip up North I will make before I leave and it's a little bit heartbreaking. I love it there and I love the ocean and the hills and the estuary and the way the lights of Aberdovey really do twinkle across the water...
And the music and the dancing and the beer and the kitchen music and rambling and red wine and listening and hugging.
It is magic.

But my love remains, no matter how far away.
I wish he could come with with me. I really wish we didn't have to spend so much time apart.

They played music this weekend, I listened, read, remembered. They play beautiful tunes and A writes them all herself from her window overlooking the tumbling hills and the farm. She tells me about the birds and jokes that the dance that the sheep are doing is Breton because they are all in a line. Then the dog runs at them and they scamper in different directions- this one is the Kinnersley Bourrée, where we run at eachother and shriek.

These are all facts.

Then we drink tea and eat biscuits or sit in the garden and name insects and talk about trees and vegetables.

So, as you can imagine this time, the train journey back would probably prove difficult. So.. this time I decided to write a list of my favourite things, in the style of Julie Andrews. That way I wouldn't feel so bad. But I didn't sing them. Which is a pity. But there was a small on the train singing her heart out and I simply didn't want to detract attention.

Instead I kept writing and I now have a 5 page dissertation (in bullet points) of my favourite things.

Which is rather alot more productive than crying until I give my eyes a rash (again), I think. And so I am a little bit proud.

Nevertheless, my life is full of beautiful things.