our brightest lights

'What platitudes then can we fling along with the listless, insufficient wreaths at the stillness that was once so animated and wired, the silence where the laughter was? That fame and accolades are no defence against mental illness and addiction? That we live in a world that has become so negligent of human values that our brightest lights are extinguishing themselves? That we must be more vigilant, more aware, more grateful, more mindful? That we can’t tarnish this tiny slice of awareness that we share on this sphere amidst the infinite blackness with conflict and hate?'
Russell Brand, on the late, great Robin Williams.*

It was with such sadness that I took in the news this morning that Robin Williams had committed suicide. I can't think of a single actor that brought me more joy as a child, who starred in films that moved me as much as Good Will Hunting or Dead Poet's Society in my adolescence. (Or creeped me out as much as that one about the guy working in the photo lab, but I prefer not to think too hard about that one.) 

In lieu of words of my own I ask you to read the above Guardian piece by Russel Brand. It's everything I wish I was capable of writing. I also ask that if you are suffering... please hold on. Please tell someone. Please.

* It still confuses me that Russell Brand is one of the most eloquent, moving voices of our generation. RUSSELL BRAND? The first time I read one of his pieces I thought it was a practical joke. I mean RUSSELL BRAND. Come on.

A Journey.

I went home* last week, for a funeral. It was the bad kind, the too soon, no warning, leaves devastation in the hearts of a family and community kind.

Along the way, in a haze of sadness I took some photos on my phone, an attempt to grab hold of moments of reality in a journey that felt like a horrible dream. At times it seemed wrong but then the man we were saying goodbye to was the man who first taught me to take photos 15 years ago and who introduced me to the concept of photojournalism which I'd never heard of before. I hope he wouldn't have minded.

* 'home' is used interchangeably to mean the island I grew up on and the city I now live in. If I don't know where my home is why should you?

Leonard.

Nye's Poppa died last week. His funeral is today. The girls are poorly and irascible so they and I stayed at home while Nye flew up to Edinburgh to say goodbye one last time.

I didn't meet Leonard until he was 89, already older than most people ever get. He would have been 98 this year. He had a lot of stories to tell, about his childhood in Liverpool, his sporting prowess, his days during the second world war ('the best days of my life') to his years with Lillian in Kenya, Libya, Greece, England. All of his stories ended with 'I've had a remarkable life, I've had a good life', and surely that's the only ending any of us can hope for? 

mama.

They call me 'mama'. 

Sometimes I feel lost and then they point at my heart and they call me mama and I know who I am again. 

It's like floating off and just as you're losing sight of the ground, feeling the gentle tug of a string and knowing that you're tethered somewhere, even if you can't quite remember where. 

*photos by Nye. 

tipping point.

I was editing a photo session, an hour I spent this week with a gorgeous little girl in her home, looking at the photos of her playing with her mummy and smiling and giggling and showing me her toys. Every so often I was checking twitter, as I do on most work days, to see what was happening in my small corner of the internet and to share amusing links to articles about boobs or let the world know that I spent my morning photoshopping dog genitals out of a wedding album, when I saw this tweet from Gaby Hinsliff. At first I skimmed by it, tried really hard to ignore it. God, I wanted to ignore it. Who wants to read things that they know are going to break their hearts? So I went back to my photo session, back to images of a happy, safe toddler wrapped in the arms of her mother. But then I was back on twitter, my finger hovered over the #tippingpoint hashtag and after a few seconds I clicked. At first I read one blog post; not too graphic, not too distressing, just facts, a call to Do Something.  'okay,' I thought, 'I've done my bit, I can go back to work now', but a few minutes later and I was back and I was reading through the posts as fast as I could, one after another until finally this one broke me, forced me to feel what I had been avoiding since I first caught a glimpse of a headline three days ago. 

Describing the evils of massacre in detail is beyond me. I'm still resisting engaging with this as a mother, imagining that it could have been my babies. I don't have the words to pull at your heartstrings, to make you feel the revulsion and the pain and the despair of the situation. All I ask is that if like me, you were avoiding engaging with the horror of the Houla massacre, you consider letting yourself feel, consider reading about what happened and doing something, however small, to voice your anger that things like this happen in our world. 

Todayt, June 1st, bloggers have united in protest. People are tweeting with the hashtag #tippingpoint and the Times have made their article on the massacre free to view today. There are things you can do too...

• You can sign petitions from Save The Children, Avaaz and Amnesty.
• You can blog about it, tweet about it or share the things you read on Facebook.
• You can RT tweets you see that use the hashtags #tippingpoint #syria #stopthekilling
• You can read more about the politics and facts known about the massacre in Houla, Syria here.
• On June 10th You can join the protest of mothers, parents, grandparents and children in London 

Four years minus nine months, concluded.

introduction

part one

part two

And so I sunk. Again. Further. I started a blog, which helped. But not enough. Days were spent staring into the middle distance and the slightest knock would find me locked in the bathroom crying uncontrollably. I wouldn't talk to Nye about it, I wouldn't talk to anyone about it. Reluctantly I made an appointment with the hospital's fertility counsellor and once I made it to the top of the waiting list we met the women who would push us and protect us and make us cry and ultimately, nurse us through more than we thought we could bear. Now, two years later, we owe that woman more than we could begin to put into words; our health, our marriage, our daughters.

But I get ahead of myself. Things were still not good and in May of 2008 (aged 23) I found myself referred to a psychiatric unit. Which was fun.

In a windowless room and with the smell of disinfectant seeping into my very being, I poured out my tears to two women who I would never see again. They decided I was fine. Or rather, that with the right medication I would be. An hour later I was sent home with a prescription and a few months after that I wasn't exactly fine, but I was no longer locking myself in the bathroom.


At the same time I start having monthly injections into my stomach, well, not so much injections as implants. Implants pushed through a bore needle (have you seen an apple corer? Similar.) Designed to push my body into a false and in theory reversible menopause, intended to stop what is left of my ovaries being washed away in the monthly toing and froing of my hormones and preserve them for the future. For it is accepted by everyone that at the moment they are no use to me at all. With a laconic shrug and wave of the hand my consultant brushes away the universally accepted belief that the implants are only safe for six months at a time (something insignificant to do with decreased bone density, osteoporosis, the chance that the aforementioned menopause might become less than false, less than reversible...) and writes me a prescription for 20 months worth, a prescription that makes my GP and the nurses who inject me and the pharmacist who hands over the shopping bags full of industrial sized, pre-loaded needles baulk.

And so the next two years passed. The nurses come to know me by name and every four weeks they ask the same question “how many more?" Eighteen months I reply, fourteen months... ten months. Their eyebrows furrow as they silently turned to double check my notes. Riddled with small round scars my stomach now resembles a map of one of the lesser known constellations

Nye and I get married. We throw ourselves into starting a business that will support us if we ever have a child and will distract us if we don't. There are months that are good, where we carry on not quite as we once were, but close. And then there are months that are bad, months where we cry and we despair and we question whether this wait is worth it, whether the appointments are worth it, whether the boxing match with the unknowable outcome that is IVF is worth it, whether biological children are worth it. We see specialists who sympathise, nurses who are brusque and doctors who resent stepping away from their daytime TV viewing to explain to yet another scared and hurting couple how IVF works. We go to appointments that we have waited a year for, more often than not leaving with tears stinging our eyes and unanswered crowding us like predators as yet again we are told that we will learn more when we reach the top of the list.

There were days, months really, when we planned another life. A childless life. And just like the imaginery one with our baby that we had immersed ourselves in so many years previously, we pictured this one so vividly that it was hard not to be swallowed up by it. We stopped picturing the life we once imagined, the one with three of us, because we just couldn't and so there were times when our new dreams seemed to displace the old ones, seemed to shine more brightly, confusing us with their promises of freedom and adventure. A decision loomed over us; will we do this? Will we sacrifice ourselves to the process? Do we want a child?

And all along, in a tiny airless room perched above the motorway, we continued to pour out our hurts and our worries and our doubts to a women who listened to us and cared for us and took our hurts and our doubts and held them in her own arms so that we could rest for a little while.

And then, after a journey that was much longer than it was supposed to be, after another surgery (no surprises when I came around this time, just a gentle "you're ready, good luck") it was January 2010. I was 25. We had reached the top of the list. All of the maybes and the whens and the in-the-futures were over, it was time to do or die. And there was no decision to be made.

Standing with our toes curled over the edge of the cliff, knuckles white on our desperately clenched hands, we looked at each other and we each asked 'are we going to do this? Are we going to jump?'

And we did.

So that was going to be it, where the story ends, (or rather where it merges into another, new story) you know how IVF goes, the appointments, the drugs, the uncertainty. And I don't know if I mentioned it or not (SPOILER ALERT) but it worked, we had twins. But the fact that writing our story has been helpful to people means so much to me. So, if you think that hearing about the IVF process would be helpful to you, tell me. It might take me a while to write about it (uh, does anyone remember when I started writing this? I did not have babies back then) because although it has been all sorts of cathartic to write this down FUCK has it been draining and emotional and a little like pulling teeth to get the words out.

*photo by Autumn Fingers

Four years minus nine months, cont.

(I didn't finish it before the babies are born. I will no longer set myself unrealistic deadlines. Here are parts 1 and 2)

And so we start trying. Not right away, we give it six months. Six months to get our lives in order, to contemplate parenthood. Six months to finish art school and sell the flat that is perfect for two but absolutely not big enough for three. Six months to talk about how we will raise our child, dream about the adventures that we're going to have, research how much our baby will cost us financially and have a blazing row outside the pet shop about what we will call it. Our dreams are so vivid that they feel real, tangible, and every night we fall asleep with our hands resting on my belly. We are ready. We are sure. We are going to have a baby very soon. .

But we don't. Six months later we have finished art school, sold the flat, bought a new one with a Baby Room and a park on the doorstep, started a business that we hope will support the new family we are making, and nothing. We had been told that those first three months of trying after treatment for the endometriosis are crucial, as with every month that passes my body will get more damaged and our chances ever smaller.

By the end of those three months I am sinking.

I start playing games with myself; If I do/eat/think/don't do x,y,z then this will definitely be the month I get pregnant. Desperate, chaotic games with no rules.

In Spring of 2007, aged 22, my consultant tells me I'm not releasing eggs any more. He tells me to go on a drug that stimulates egg release and it will all be fine. Actually, he tells Nye that if I go on the drug it will all be fine. As if I'm an animal Nye has taken to the vet. But I'm in no state to start taking a drug that ups the chances of multiple pregnancy and is likely to make the endometriosis worse. I'm in no state for anything. I ache with anger, loss and disbelief. I cry every day. I stop talking and I take to getting up an hour after we go to bed to stare at the computer screen in the dark, hoping that it might show me an answer. We have stopped trying. There isn't any point.

Meanwhile the pain is worsening. As well as the burning, clawing, screeching period pains there is a continuous twisting, tugging ache throughout my pelvis. A reminder with every move I make that I'm unlikely to ever get pregnant. The endometriosis has spread to my bowels and I pass out when I go to the loo. Cysts grow on my ovaries then pop, spraying blood over my organs like hot oil from a frying pan. With each month that passes I spend a week in bed and another in a haze of exhaustion. I spend a third tortured with hormonal highs and lows and on that fourth blessed week I'm able to function, catching up on a life missed. I look forward to that week all month.

I need to see the doctor again but the thought of another appointment with The Vet sends me into a tailspin and without question my new GP refers me to Dr G, a different gynaecologist at the same hospital. He books me in for another operation to 'see what's going on in there' with the view to us recommencing trying to conceive after everything has been 'tidied up.' We leave our appointment with glimmers of hope stirring inside us, we have finally met a doctor who inspires confidence.

In January of 2008 I come round alone in a hospital bed. There is a new scar on my stomach. Two of the previous three have been reopened. I notice that they now form a cross with my injured womb at its centre. Curtains pulled around me, to block the eyes if not the ears of the other women on the ward, I am told that my tubes are blocked and my ovaries are decaying like overripe fruit left in the sun. “If you ever want to have children” I am told, in a halfway place between sedation and awareness, “then you will need to have IVF. The waiting list is two years.” And with the quiet swish of the curtain that was that.

*photo by Pacocamino

four years minus nine months, cont

{I'm still writing about the last four years. I finished the post I started to write in June twice and I deleted it twice. I started again and decided that if I ever was going to post it I should do it now, in pieces, as they materialise. I plan to finish my story before the babies are born. That gives me anywhere between a day and 5 weeks. It's anyone's guess.}

It's 1997 and I'm 12. I'm standing at a traffic crossing in Kings Cross, London, dressed head to toe in red velvet. It's the Easter holiday and I am visiting the capital with my grandparents. We are standing waiting for the light to change when for the first time I feel it, an evil clench of pain in my stomach, burning claws digging into my flesh. For one insane moment think I have been been shot (it's London, anything's possible). I gasp and double over but the traffic is too loud and the pedestrians too intent on getting where they're going for anyone to notice. Within seconds the pain is gone, the lights have changed and I am on the other side of the road.

At 14 I start passing out with regularity, every fourth Monday finding myself in the middle of the night with my cheek pressed to the bathroom floor and every fourth Tuesday missing the morning's classes as I am allowed an extra hour in bed. Over the next few years the imprints of many bathrooms, some kitchens and a few hallways gather on my face. My Gran's downstairs bathroom is the best, wool shag pile being more forgiving than cold linoleum.

In 2000, aged 15, I visit the doctor for the first time. She suggests a hot water bottle and tells me that my pain is normal. My mum starts buying the strongest painkiller she can in boxes of 100 whenever she visits the mainland, it not being available on the island without a visit to the doctor. Who thinks a hot water bottle is what's needed.

It's 2004 and I'm 19. The pains are worse and I have taken to passing out more frequently. I now live with a boy who has wooden floorboards that are pleasantly springy. He's a worrier though and once again I head off to the doctor. It is around this time that I begin to suspect that I have endometriosis and ask to be referred to a gynaecologist. The doctor, a stand in whom I've never met before frowns at me looking puzzled and prescribes a medication for heavy periods. I don't have heavy periods, I have cripplingly painful periods. As I leave the surgery I crumple up the prescription and throw it in the bin, wiping tears of frustration from my face with the rough sleeve of my coat.

In 2000 I turn 20. I now spend two days every month completely immobile, curled into a ball. When I stand up I fall down. I need help getting to the bathroom where the pain does nothing to reassure me that I'm not having my womb ripped out. When those two days are over I spend the next three in an exhausted stupor, the previous days having rendered me completely and utterly useless. Pissed off and having had enough I decide to bypass my GP completely and make an appointment with an independent women's clinic. They take one look at me and refer me to a gynaecologist.

Six months later I'm sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, watching the heavily pregnant women in pyjamas and winter coats huddle under the doorway trying to keep warm while they smoke between contractions. I meet said gynaecologist who laughs at me and assures me that I don't have endometriosis but she will willingly perform an operation just to prove that I don't have endometriosis. Two months later I'm back in the waiting room, three small wounds in my stomach and desperately wanting to go home. I've just come round from the operation and have been diagnosed with endometriosis, stage III (aka: severe). My brain still addled with morphine and general anaesthetic, I am told that if I ever want to have children I should probably do it now.

* image by Pat Pat

four years minus nine months

The babies are due on November 17th.

The babies are due four years and one month after we started trying to conceive them.

I have been writing about those four years for a month now.

I'm struggling.

My blog is in limbo as I grasp for the words.

The words are big and they are scary.

* photo courtesy of Variations on the Word Sleep

Distraction and comfort

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown, no finer place for sure,
Downtown, everything's waiting for you

You might have noticed that the tone around these parts has been a little woebegone recently. That despite lovely things ahapenning and lovely people abounding, the air has felt a little heavy, a little sorrowful. I've been trying to keep cheerful but you see, my Grandad is sick and I am sad, and try as I might I just can't keep my chin up.

The Boy and I are Up North for the week, staying with my Gran and visiting my Grandad in hospital. Relief at finally being here to hold hands, hug tight, give love, keep company fights with a constant desire to run, to hide, to find somewhere (preferably sunny, with a cocktail and a masseuse) where everything is ok and one of my very favourite people in the world is not in hospital, not dying.

But I don't think that this is one of those situations, unlike say... a bear attack, where running away would actually help (all bets are welcome on who the first person will be to leave a comment telling me that when a bear attacks you would be an idiot to run away, that what in fact you need to do is play dead, shout 'bad bear' or sing Copacabana at the top of your voice because that really scares the crap out of those big furry bastards.)

I can however run away temporarily. There are places, very certain places that help. When we're at home, ikea is my Downtown. The palace to organisational devices instantly distracts me, reassures me and calms my worried soul, assuring me that there is order in the world, that chaos and unpredictability can be banished, if only for the couple of hours it takes to follow the well sign posted path, testing the best sofas, resting in that bouncing chair that The Boy oohs and ahhs over but I tell him is just too damn ugly to ever find a place in our home, opening and closing the drawers and cupboards in those perfectly formed, never used kitchens and uttering a sigh of contentment as the drawers slide silently shut on their magic, cushioned rails.

I buy the same things every time - glass jars in all three sizes, energy saving lightbulbs, cafe style tumblers and a birch photo frame. Sometimes a plant pot. You can never have enough of any of the above.

I don't even like ikea though. Most of their furniture is nothing but offensive to the eyes, as durable as if it were made from weetabix and destined to end up in landfill within five years. The teenage staff with their pest-control blue and yellow outfits and their 'do I havvvvve to?' expressions make me growl with irritation and that all pervasive smell of meatballs and hotdogs has turned my stomach ever since my aunt who's a nurse muttered 'that's exactly what gangrenous flesh smells like' when we were standing in the queue.

And yet when it feels like life is going to overwhelm me, like I'm drowning in a sea of uncertainty and the ability to Just Keep Breathing is starting to slip away, ikea is my life raft. Which does of course indicate that I'm nuts, because who but those people that live in white boxes filled with white shiny furniture and organisational devices hidden behind white lacquered doors on silent hinges is actually calmed by ikea?


However as we are Up North, there is no ikea. The nearest ikea is 166 miles away. Which is probably for the best as we have about 18 of those damn tumblers, the kitchen counters are filled with glass jars, all of the lights are lit and I can't afford any more photo frames. (Oh god. The nearest ikea is 166 miles away and the Boy and I have been discussing moving Up North one day. Would I even be able move 166 miles from ikea? That would make it a seven and a half hour round trip each time I have an anxiety attack. Not including shopping/recovery time. And I don't drive.)

While there may not be a Palace to Organisation, there is my favourite shop in the world, a shop a million times better and the polar opposite to ikea. An antique shop, in the countryside, down a lane lined with fields, filled with sheep, who have just had lambs, who bounce in the air and make me smile. The shop is divided between a church where the furniture, fashion and fireplaces live and three outbuildings filled with china, linen, jewellery, antique cameras, old postcards, countless other intriguing whatsits and swallows nesting in the rafters. And there's a courtyard, littered with a collection of vintage toy trucks and tricycles, rocking horses and tin cars, sitting there as if they were abandoned this morning when the children were called in for lunch. Or to sweep the chimneys, or whatever it was kids did back when toys were made of tin, not plastic.

And this place is my heaven. It too calms me on days like today when it felt like a world that is supposed to be solid was threatening to start crumbling. A slow walk through the mounds of furniture, stacked high but not nearly high enough to reach the vaulted roof of the church, not nearly high enough to touch the beams. Finger tips traced across polished wood, carved stone, cast plaster. Chairs with three legs, burst cushions, escaping springs. Ceramic bed pans and foot warmers and the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, bursting with furs that make my stomach crawl with fascinated revulsion. Lace veils with holes in them, kid gloves that have never been worn. Velvet top hats and army uniforms, bath tubs with cast iron feet and deep deep sinks from gutted farm houses. And on and on it goes, each item with a history, a soul, fragments of the person who owned it embedded in its makeup. And with each thing a reassurance that something remains, something survives, not everything brakes and sometimes, even when it does it is still beautiful, still valued.

All photographs by me.

gifts from fairies.....

Sometimes, when a day has been really rotten, the kind of rotten that makes you want to cry and stamp your feet and perhaps just give up a little, something magical happens, something that makes giving up seem all of a sudden a most unappealing option. For who can give up while they still believe in fairies? And who but a fairy, someone with the most magical of touches, would know that it was today of all days, this week of all the weeks, that you needed a little something to lift your spirits, warm your heart and make you believe again?

Last week, after a day (or was it several?) of things that made me want to scream (some of which might actually have made me scream) a box arrived. And in it was a bunny. And my heart nearly exploded with warmth and amazement and surprise and joy. Because it wasn't my birthday, I hadn't done anything particularly kind or clever or deserving of a bunny, it was a bunny just because. And how often does someone send you a bunny just because? Hardly ever, that's how often. And how often does someone send you a bunny just because on a day that you really really need a bunny just because? A day that the knowledge that people send bunnies just because will pick you up and dust you off and make you smile and forget all about foot stomping and screaming and giving up? Almost never.

Photos by me, bunny by Little Love Blue, magic by Meg.

Bare feet

slow steps

arms wrapped tightly around your chest

where your heart hammers.




Inch by inch

pulled a little closer

to you know not what.



Hold your breath

ask for strength

no choice

but to climb slowly in.



Image courtesy of Olystad, via Flickr.

December 1st...

December 1st - World Aids Day.


Image courtesy of Rhyt


In 2007


2 million
people died from Aids


a quarter of a million
children died from Aids


2.7million
people were newly infected with HIV


33million
people were living with HIV/Aids



Photograph: © Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos and via The Guardian.

As HIV/Aids decimates the developing world its prevalence in the west increases among every gender, sexuality, nationality and age group.


Aids is killing thousands of people daily and the numbers are just getting bigger.


You should know all you can about HIV and Aids, you never know when you might find it affecting someone you know.

A sigh of relief and tears of disappointment....

It hasn't quite sunk in for me what it means that Barack Obama won the American presidential election, it is bigger than I can take it. Big enough to make me cry into my dinner tonight as the delectable Jon Snow spoke to this girl on the news tonight.

Tears of rage also filled my eyes as I watched the results come in on Propositions 8 and 102 and Arkansas' Initiative 1 and any joy I may feel over the presidential victory is tempered by the passing of these enormous abuses of human rights. I don't have words for how angry and physically ill this makes me, but LGBTQ friends and those who stand by them, please know that in my household tonight anger and sadness beat any ability to celebrate.

Keep fighting. But god, I wish you didn't have to.

Galle lace...

These hand made lace bracelets would make gorgeous and unique bridal jewellery. Jewellery with a conscience...

"Each purchase provides much needed funds to those who have begun the long process of rebuilding their lives. Our Lace Bracelet is designed to be a decorative adornment to any wrist whilst making a visual statement of your support for the women who make them."

In December 2004 Sri Lanka was among the countries hit by the Tsunami, which killed between 265,000 and 310,000 people and decimated the homes and livelihoods of many of the survivors.
The Power of Hands Foundation was set up by Andrea Galer, a film and television costume designer who also designs bridal wear and who has sought to use materials from uniquely skilled craftspeople around the world. The Galle region in the south of Sri Lanka has long been renowned for its crafts, particularly its lace making which was introduced by the Portuguese in the 1th century.

Andrea set up the Foundation to help try to repair the livelihoods of the Sri Lankan lace makers whose lives had been devastated by the Tsunami and the loss of the tourist industry which has all but vanished in its aftermath.

The Power of Hands Foundation sells beautiful lace bracelets and lace by the meter online and Andrea uses it extensively in her costume designs for the BBC and in her bridal designs.

Images from The Power of Hands Foundation.

The Hotel Bordeaux

-




(image by The Boy)

It was late when we arrived in Meknes, stepping tentatively from the bus into the black night. We had left Casablanca under a dark cloud, the smell of poverty and pollution filling our lungs, the air of aggression and fear a shock to us. In the dark night of Meknes we were filled with relief at having left the city with such an evocative name, a name that conjured an exoticism and romance that we failed to find.


Gripping each others' hands tightly we made our way through quiet streets, looking for the nearest hotel mentioned in that bastion of reassurance, the guide book. The streets were empty, the area around the bus station dead to the night, garages and repair shops shuttered and blank. We were quiet too, each aware of the other's relief and sadness. There was no need to talk for we had passed the same damaged and desperate men and women and children lining the docks, breathed the same putrid air as shallowly as we could and reeled at the same mosque, built with countless millions of public money while the city's public rotted around it.


After 10 minutes walking the empty streets we found the hotel. It too was empty, an air of desolation hanging in the atmosphere - a huge crumbling building as dark as a gothic mansion, the reception area watched over by a silent stuffed hog's head. We stood quietly at the desk, waiting for someone to come. An elderly woman in cleaning overalls stopped half way down the stairs, looked at us and turned back the way she came. Minutes later a young man appeared, her son perhaps. The sight of a young white couple, both tired but smiling and she little more than a teenager seemed to surprise him. More surprised still when we asked for a room. But without questions he led us down the long dark hallway, past a door tied with rope to the furthest room. Opening the door he looked doubtful, as if the sight of its stained walls and broken furniture would lead us to the decision that this was not the hotel for us, but he had not reckoned with our exhaustion and our sheer relief to have found somewhere to sleep. 'Fine' we nodded, we'll take it.


It took us a few hours to realise that we hadn't been given a key for our room, when we went to ask for one gestures were made to indicate that none of the rooms had keys, none of the doors were locked. We were too tired to care and with our cameras and what little was left of our money tucked under our pillows and our heavy rucksacks and a chair pushed tight against the door, we climbed under the itchy blankets and tried to sleep. I lay awake for an hour or so, the sights of the day playing in my troubled mind. He held me tight, my body curled into his as I listened to him breath slowly and steadily. I knew he was awake too but both too tired to talk we just lay there with the full moon casting strange shadows through the curtains that would not close and the bars on the windows which although decorative with their swirls, did not convey the the notion that they were there to serve a purpose of mere aesthetics.


Eventually I slept and for the first night in many weeks, I was not tormented with nightmares. Under the charging horsemen I slept so deeply I slept that the strange noises in the night barely registered, the barking barely disturbed, for since 10pm a loud and savage beast had yowled and howled and growled from behind the door tied with a piece of old rope.


I woke early as the sun was coming up. I lay still and quiet, still curled tightly in a ball, still nestled under the warm arm of the man I was falling more and more deeply in love with. I opened my eyes, my gaze falling to the windows, the gap between the curtains a foot wide and through the blinking early morning light saw the back of a man hurry by, shoulders stooped and tense and behind him a young woman, her large brown eyes looking in and catching my tired blue ones for a moment before turning quickly away. Twice more this scene played out, although neither of the other women looked in and neither of the other women play in my memory three years later.



I turned over and held the boy, whispering in his ear that we should try to find another hotel for this was one filled with sadness and desperation.