The beginning of a children’s story by anna pickard

Over the ocean, well,
over a little bit of the sea - Over a strip of the sea -
Far away from the city, far away from all their untidy rooms and far far away from school;
Big Brother, Middle Sister and Little Anna went on holiday.

In the middle of summer, and sometimes in spring, and sometimes in autumn too, Big Brother, Middle sister and Little Anna would go on holiday.
To Nana’s house. Over a strip of the sea, next to the beach, over the ocean, under the blue, big skies, Nana lived.

And the day they arrived, or the day after the day they arrived, Big Brother, Middle sister, Little Anna and Nana would climb in the car and drive to the lake.

The lake where they sailed their boats.

Everyone had a boat apart from Nana. Nana liked to watch.
But Big Brother, Middle Sister and Little Anna had boats. Beautiful sailing boats, powered by the wind or pulled on string, different colours and different sizes, they all had boats…

Big brother had a boat -
And this was his boat.
As long as his arm, and as tall as his knee with three white cotton sails - rigging and pulleys, a door to the cabin and tiny glass portholes.
A perfect sailing boat - just like a big one, but little instead.
that was Big Brother’s boat.
And it was called “Endeavour”

Middle Sister had a boat -
And this was her boat;
As long as her am frrom her fingers to her elbow, as tall as her teddy bear and just as wide - it was blue, with funnels and decks and an anchor, a bridge for the captain and portholes and portholes and portholes for all the happy passengers.
It was a passenger ship. A liner.
This was Middle Sister’s Boat.
And it was called ‘Mermaid’

Little Anna had a boat.
And this was her boat.
It was a dinghy.
A little boat.
Little and red.
With a seat in the middle.
And her boat was called
“Sinky”

Which was a good name. Because it sank a lot. That’s what it did.
Put on the water, Sinky would sit, for a while, held by the thin nylon string connected to the little pink hand, and then, after thinking a little, would sink.
And be pulled, happily, around the boating lake, making a noise like this;
chhhhhhhhhh-rchhhchchchch -kkkkkkkkkkchchchchchhrrrrrrrch
as she crunched along the gravel toward the edge of the pond.

And damn I loved that boat.
I wouldn’t accept another boat but Sinky.

No matter how often it sank, no matter how predictably, I refused to stop putting my little red boat out on the water.
Float or not, she was mine. And I loved her. And the putting her on the water was the fun of it.
And that was enough.

So that’s it.
That’s Sinky.
That’s the toy I keep naming things after - Journals and stories and projects and theatre companies.
If you ever wondered, in case you ever wondered - that’s the little red boat.

And I only mention it because its a year today that this boat was put on the water.
And in terms of sinking? (insert sucky metaphor here)

Not yet.
And if we do?

Right, so I’m cleaning cutlery this evening, with a random - very pleasant - woman, staying here this week.
This very-busy-week week.
She asks me what I’m doing when I leave. Which is normal. It happens every week. 50 times.
People ask you what you’re doing when you leave.

But the people who ask don’t know they’re asking for the 50th time. So it’s only polite to answer them as if it were the first.

So I tell her that I plan to go ack to university, to do a Masters degree in Drama stuff.
She asks where, I tell her the town. She guesses the course.

Which suprises me, because no-one yet has ever heard of dramaturgy - let alone thought that there may be a course in such.
I tell her I’m really passionate aout the subject, but don’t know whether I’ll get in.

She says she’s the Dean of the Arts and Humanities Graduate School at this university, the school that contains my course.
That she teaches on the course and has an overall view of admissions.
And that there’s a fair chance that I may. Get in, that is. Maybe.
She says, if I like, she’ll act as an extrra reference on my application.
I think that may be a little cheeky.
But then again, that’s fine.

I just think it’s amazing.
One minute you’re cleaning cutlery neary some random, the next you’re cleaning cutlery next to the dean of the very gradute school you want to… oh, i know it’s simple… but come on! I’m excitable. ish. That’s kind of exciting. Isn’t it? It is.

Although I’m not going away going away, This is the biggest week of my year.
And I’m going to be very busy.
I’m nervous, in fact, about how busy I’m going to be.
And I have a really sore neck…

So, to all intents and purposes, I’m away for the next week or so.
I’ll try and post something on tuesday.
Because it’s my little red boat’s birthday!
yay.

I don’t know why I’m so excited about that. Well I’m not that excited. Just a bit.
Anyway. I’m going away. ish.
Is it the blogathon this weekend? Well I’m kind of doing the anti-that. Spending 24 hours (times some) not posting. For charity.
Ach, it made sense in my head.

I’ll be back somewhen.
You know the drill, I have to bugger off a few days, e-mail if you like, guestbook’s yonder, use the comments to talk amongst yourselves… there are archives. Go and read those…. lalala.

Last night I dreamt I had somebody elses surname.
It wasn’t a bad thing, just a little bit odd.
I used to want to change my surname. In the last year of college, when everyone was trying to find a catchy ’stage name’ I made lists and lists, researching old family names, maiden names, names that just sounded good.
My big sister spent the whole year campaining for me to take up the surname ‘bisskit’, in order that the question “Would you like a cup of tea, Anna Bisskit?” would become funny.
Because Anna sounds like ‘and a’, you understand.

Or ‘And I’ in some accents.
I had a friend from the North-West, near manchester, last year. And he would insist upon telling kids that I was his fiancee, because of his surname, and his accent.
Because If we got married, therefore, my name would be “Anna Lovett!”
Which in has accent, sounded great. In mine too, actually.
Shame we didn’t fancy each other in the slightest.

Still, all’s not lost. His dad’s called “I Lovett”.

Tell me, why do I let people who’ve cut hair once before in their lives cut my hair?
My very thick hair?
Very annoying people?
Especially when attractive people may be turning up on the island in just a few days time? (Don’t ask me how I know… I can just feel it in my water. It’s a rural thing..)

Is it a symptom of tiredity, or am I just really quite stupid?
I am, stupid or no, fucking tired.
I know I keep saying that.
It’s because I am.

Damn, I’m sure I had something funny when I came in here. Where did it go?
I probably put it down somewhere. I’m always doing that.
Now where did I last see it? I know I had it on me when I came in…
Damnit. Ah well, it’ll turn up.
It’s probably down the back of the sofa…

I just wanted to mark this somewhere, because I’ve forgotten elsewhere.
Tonight, I was wearing my jeans.
My ‘incentive jeans’.
Bought in Bakersfield, CA, 6 years ago, they were they kind of jeans, beautiful jeans that I would only ever fit into lying on the bed, tugging at the zip, praying and swearing.

I swore that the first day I managed to fit into them without swearing - or without lying down, holding my breath - or in fact, managed to fit into them at all, I would throw a ‘jeans’ party.
I would wear my jeans.

So I’ve been wearing them for a few months now, no ceremony, no celebration, I fit into a pair of trousers (big whoop!) that I didn’t fit into before.
But I’m glad.
I only think of this because my friend was talking about her incentive dress this evening. A dress she bought not because it fitted or suited her, but because she knew she’d probably suit it one day. She’ll know she’s got somewhere with the diet and exercise whatever, apparently, when she fits into that dress.

Incentive Dress?
Pfah!

I have a whole ‘incentive’ trunk.

And the day I fit into that trunk, I know the diet and excerise books have all been worthwhile.

Only kidding.
I can already fit into the trunk.

I just can’t get out again.

Not without a really big shoehorn.

I’m just being silly now. Sorry. There is no really big trunk.
It’s a wardrobe.

Sleep now.

I was pissed off, for a few minutes, at some point this evening.
I’m not sure whether it’s reasonable or not. I mean, I know it’s not reasonable on the normal scale, but on my scale, I’m not sure whether it’s reasonably unreasonable or unreasonably unreasonable.

Somebody was sick in my toilet.
Not in my toilet, not my toilet at home.
In my toilet in the pub.

Now I’m not sure. I’m trying to figure this one out, is it normal?
Is it normal to have ones own toilet, or to have ones own habitual toilet in the pub, bar, cafe, workplace, university toilet that you frequent?
For me, it’s always the same, in the door, straight ahead, first on the right.
Always.
Unless that one’s busy. If that one should be busy, the fallback toilet is ‘turn right at the door, first on the right’. The other toilet cubicles in there are a closed book to me.
Or a closed toilet cubicle - the metaphor fits better.

It’s not just me, is it?
Actually, I know it’s not. My friend’s toilet is ‘right at the door, second right’, my other friend’s toilet is my fallback.

This happens elsewhere, I’ve known it at university, at work, in many pubs and bars and theatres and stuff.
People, out of habit, who go to the same stall every time.
I’ve known some to get quite upset when their toilet was out of order.

And tonight, someone was sick in my toilet. Which pissed me off.
But that’s not the point anymore.
The point is ‘personal toilets (not at home)’

Come on. Which is your toilet?
Where?
Do you have a fallback?
Or will you cross your legs until your personal toilet is free?
*please god someone comment on this one. Or I’m going to feel like the big toilet freak next time I check this post. The Big Toilet Freak. and it’s not that often you get to say the words ‘Big Toilet Freak’ together. Thank you.*

this is a very, very beautiful thing.
I just can’t believe my birthday has already gone by.
Still… maybe next year… maybe then…

My life’s flashing before my eyes a little bit.
Not all of it.
Not in a scary orchestral music death-scene way.

Only three years of it in fact.
I keep seeing people I know. On the television.
It’s not that suprising I suppose. One of those old adage things ‘You pay peanuts, you get monkeys’, ‘You can’t stand the heat, you therefore get out of the kitchen’, ‘You go to a drama school thingie, people you know will carry on turning up on the television. whether you like it or not.’

Some of them have been good - like Demelza in ‘A date with Dr Death’, or some such drama about Dr Shipman. Others have just been disquietening.
I watch television to relax before finally falling asleep in the early hours of the morning.
Someone I haven’t seen or even thought much about suddenly turning up and being - you know - On The Television, is not something that’s going to make me sleep well.

This is not me being bitter. Really.
It’s a remarkably good impression of someone being bitter, I know.
But I went to drama school - what do you expect?…

But I’m glad people are working. Just because me and Acting broke up a couple of years back and don’t talk any more, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to see other people in relationships with it.
I’m really glad that people are working. Because they’re good.
We always would sit around and wonder which of us would ‘make it’ and which wouldn’t.
Which would still be a working actor 3 years hence and which would be making candles on a remote scottish island.
And I think we’re all in the right places. The ones of us that I can see, anyway.

One of my friends - actually, not really a friend at all, we bugged the hell out of each other. Someone I knew - last time I heard of her she was doing research for a flannel company.
Being filmed in the shower to see where people wash first.
Still, it’s a job. And at least it’s something for the showreel… (’available at your local video store - please ask an assistant for help’)
Strange profession.

Mind you, I can’t really talk.
At that point I was being paid by the local medical school to pretend to be three different types of depressed in order to train people.
While being at least one type of depressed of my own accord.
Lots of money though.

But that’s another story. One I might have told before. I can’t remember…

About a billion tiny things are nibbling at me today.
And then there are midges.
Over all, they’re fraying the edges of my temper.
And my jumper.

But it’s alright, I’m thinking if I go on smiling and being patient, everything will be fine and calm right up until the point where I explode and then I’m thinking that that will serve the midges and the nibblers and the christians right and I’m further thinking that it won’t matter that much any more as I will have exploded.
Yay to that.

*paf*

The candle counter has past 500.
Hands up who’s excited.
I can’t even pretend.
My hands are safely on the keybaord.

I have a question, and I’m English, so I feel I should know this.
And I know I could try and find out through google, but I’d feel like a fool.

You know, like, in London, we have those men, yeah? The ones in the big fluffy hats, y’know? The ones in coffins stood on their end (the coffins, not the blokes). The ones who just have to stand there and stand there and stand there and can’t show emotion or move or anything. You know the ones? Well, what are they called?

Do they have a specific name?
And what is their job? (their ’standing in a box not moving’ job.)
Are they doing something specific?
Are they guarding something? Protecting something?

How?

How are they protecting something if they’re not allowed to move?
I don’t get it.
If something comes along, threatening the thing they’re protecting - with, like, a pointy stick or something - how are they going to help or improve that situation?
Glaring? Are they going to glare?
Or will they fart?
Perhaps they have very bad breath, all of them. This is just a guess, obviously.
Perhaps, even, in that circumstance, they’d be allowed to move - the exception that proves the rule, and all that…

I should know these things. I’m English, after all. My national spirit is obviously lacking. I feel bad about that.
But not very much.

I’m aware - and these things do take a while with me, I’m rather slow on blog-politics, mainly because I can’t summon up enough energy to care - that there seems to be some kind of conversation or debate going on about the local village fete joint giant-pumpkin/best-british-blog-competitiony-guardianny, thing.
I would like to say, on this matter, that while I agree with you all, on every part of this, I did however, enter.
I have no excuse, apart from the fact that I was really very very drunk, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
And the fact that the one thing I could do with, apart from a damn good shag, is one thousand pounds.

And that - according to my ‘never apologise, never explain, never get caught-up in blog-politic debates that you don’t really understand’ rule, - is all I’m going to say on the matter.

How much is too much?