Arch child

You are 18.

I didn’t leave you at the supermarket or lose you at the beach; you didn’t bolt so far that I didn’t track you down eventually.

When you became a teenager you sprayed enough deodorant to kill an elephant and when I complained you replied,

“What does it smell like?”

“Like a teenage boy trying to hide odours in their room.”

“That’s exactly what I want to smell like mum.”

What a force of nature you are cyclone Arch. In the womb you kicked the shit out of my ribs. You couldn’t wait to get out. Now you enjoy staying in bed.

A few months ago when you screamed late at night, I said,

“Did you have to do that?”

And you said,

“Did I scare you mum?”

“Your whole life.” We laughed.

I raised my baby to adulthood.

Happy 18th birthday my Menace. I’m glad the pill didn’t work


Shiver me timbers

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day and also my 450th birthday. In order for my day to have meaning, I’m harnessing the power of celebrity (raising teenagers and eating their two-minute noodles will do that to your brain). Growing up near Crows Nest I was obviously born to plunder. Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum, hoist the mizzen.


I share a birthday with Twiggy, Mama Cass and my spiritual guru, chocolate maker and philanthropist George Cadbury. I work for a charity that was sponsored for years by Cadbury chocolate. As Oprah would say, I found my destiny; I was born to consume chocolate, preferably the expensive stuff.

aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I’m no longer a child and I still want to be, to live with the pirates. Because I want to live forever in wonder. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this and only this: when I was a child, I longed to travel into, to live in wonder. Now, I know, as much as I can know anything, that to travel into wonder is to be wonder. So it matters little whether I travel by plane, by rowboat, or by book. Or, by dream. I do not see, for there is no I to see. That is what the pirates know. There is only seeing and, in order to go to see, one must be a pirate.” Kathy Acker


August 16 birthdays

MADONNA and CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Apparently if you were born today you are pushy and domineering because you’re a Leo.

Elvis Presley died today.


June 8 birthdays

BONNIE TYLER (nee Gaynor Hopkins) and JOAN RIVERS

Ah, the wisdom of Bonnie: “Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I’m only falling apart,” I’m hearing you Bonnie.

Check out the hair and the clothes in this clip, ah the glory days of the 80s….


MAY 13 BIRTHDAYS

STEVIE WONDER and DAPHNE du MAURIER

This man is a United Nations Messenger of Peace


May 5 birthdays

Cinco de Mayo

ADELE, KARL MARX and TAMMY WYNETTE

Tammy Wynette’s birthday, she was married 5 times, what an inspiration – Stand by your bloody man.

Thought for the day – “Cause after all, he’s just a man

 

Famous marriages in history: 5 May 2000 – Billy Bob Thornton wed Angelina Jolie.


May 1 Birthdays

 

Monthly reminder: There is no devil so bad as a she-devil

1st MAY – MAY DAY

BELTANE

EMILY STOWE and JOANNA LUMLEY


April 30

WALPURGISNIGHT

Walpurgisnacht (in German folklore), is the night from 30 April to 1 May when witches are reputed to hold a large celebration on the Brocken mountain to await the arrival of spring and hold revels with their gods. Brocken is the highest of the Harz Mountains of north central Germany. It is noted for the phenomenon of the Brocken spectre and for witches’ revels which reputedly took place there on Walpurgis night. The Brocken Spectre is a magnified shadow of an observer, typically surrounded by rainbow-like bands, thrown onto a bank of cloud in high mountain areas when the sun is low. – Oxford Phrase & Fable.

WILLIE NELSON and JANE CAMPION


April 29 birthdays

DANIEL DAY LEWIS and DUKE ELLINGTON


April 28 birthdays

HARPER LEE, , OSKAR SCHINDLER, SADDAM HUSSEIN and JIMMY BARNES

Harper Lee has only ever published one book. What an incredible book it is.