'ONLY CONNECT'

My mother and I can never agree on which year we travelled to Madeira. But I have journals for every year, and so I have checked. It was 2004. At the airport, we were unable to resist buying a Bird of Paradise bulb. It held promise, and we were prepared to be patient. We waited and watched over the plant as it grew and grew, green, leafy, tall. But we were really waiting for the flash of orange beak and blue headdress. It has taken nine years for the first flower to grace us with her presence. NINE! I feel anticipation of something special heralded and, at the same time, desperate - imagine waiting on a flower!

The sun is shining today, and I am twice returned: once from a flying visit to Ireland again, to attend the first public reading Marian Keyes has done in four years, since the axis of her world shifted into the worst of the horrors. Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin last night witnessed many transformations in her audience, from raucous, joyous laughter to the raw ache of mirroring each others' human suffering. Yes, we wanted to cry out to her, yes! Just exactly that. The soul laid bare quivers, pulls itself taut, appears impenetrable, hard as bone, and as easily shattered as bone.

I breathe. 2004 turns to 2005 and the dissolution of my own mind, cracked wide open by unbearable pain of optic nerve damage, of corneal ulcers, of catatonia until sunset when the painkillers had numbed me enough to descend the stairs and make a cup of tea for my father and myself to discuss death with biscuits. Chocolate cake might mysteriously appear if it had been a particularly brutal day. It took years for the edge to begin to soften.  That's what I call it. The Edge. I can taste it against my teeth. I fear it. And I try not to fear it. My surgeon saw it all and continues to infuse me with optimism inspite of some bleak realities, but my eyes are unpredictable. Which is why, sitting opposite him today, having a relatively gentle procedure felt like small waves of torment. My eye wept for itself, pooling a little river by my chin like the Walrus in Alice in Wonderland ('I weep for you,' the Walrus said, I deeply sympathise... Holding his pocket-handkerchief before his streaming eyes'). 'It's been a while since you've made me cry,' I snarked at Blue Eyes, which actually made me feel much better, because it has been a while. And I have come leagues and travelled miles, and been blessed with new friends, new horizons, glorious humour and extraordinary kindness. And leprechauns. Shur, how can I forget the leprechauns?

We move forwards, ever conscious of the road ahead, gripping on for dear life to any vine of light. We want life.

E. M. Forster teaches us the way forward when he begins Howard's End: 

'Only Connect'.

HALLOWEEN CUPCAKES BEFORE SKYFALL

Autumn isn't exactly sizzling this year, is it? Perhaps it's just me, my eyes are woefully aggrieved with my overuse of them. My operation cannot come soon enough. Chop that scar tissue, dear surgeon, I am ready! Ish. 

Occasionally though, I see a patch of fire, usually behind gothic grills...

Yesterday I was invited to a pre-Halloween cupcake tea party... well, I made it a cupcake party by baking twelve Consistently Reliable Cupcakes and I flung in a cola-cake for luck. One of the little girls was NOT convinced by the idea of coca-cola in her cake... but I won her around! Or rather, I should say Marian Keyes won her around... it was her recipe, albeit highly re-arranged from the original (sorry M!)... see the little scuffly, crumbly pile at the Central Ghost's feet? While I was asleep, my mother decided too much icing was going to waste at the edges, and scooped a spoonful into the middle, perhaps hoping I wouldn't notice? IT'S IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAKE MA!!! Anyway....

After cake and sangwitches, tea and bedtime stories, the grown-ups, self included, went to see Skyfall, the new Bond. I had the pretty nails to show for it, a bright yellow dress with ochre boots (very autumnal) and just before the show, we even had a martini! Well, I shared mine... a delicious Polish appletini thing... just to get in the mood...

Now, the truth is, I have never really been a Bond girlfan, too many car chases, too many cars! but with this Bond, with these Bond women, I'm all in. Although, hasn't Judi always been the coolest, ever?

'Bond Women'... did you know we are to have no more Bond 'girls'? Nice idea, although there are aways some rather sticky ends for the beauties...  Javier Bardem, the villain, was righteous in his peroxide, cyanide hell and the roll call of eminent British actors was just fantastic - Ben Whishaw, Dame Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Naomie Harris... it was so character-driven, told such a strong story that had you never watched a Bond before, it would not matter. 

Tomorrow is my pre-op and despite not being an agent for MI6, I feel absolutely shattered. I prop myself up with the good news that Malala is out of danger, and recovering in Birmingham, but falter at news of Hurricane Sandy hurtling towards New Jersey. (Apparently, someone has dubbed it 'Frankenstorm'... who?!) Sigh... there's always a storm somewhere. So how about a chirpy picture of nail art?

Not very Goth, are they? They have butterflies and little pink daisies on them...
I ought to try these, like my friend Vicky who writes a blog at Books, Biscuits and Tea... now hers are Frankenspooky, don't you think?!

WHEN MARIAN KEYES CAME TO TEA

I have had such a weekend. And I knew I had it to look forward to even while the Blue Eyed surgeon was drawing pictures of the tube in my eye... the last thing I flung at him was the news that a certain delicious Irish author had promised to swing by for a cup of tea while in the general neighbourhood of England, and that I would tell her all about his failure to sing Long Way to Tipperary (which he himself admitted was why the last operation didn't 'take') - "Ah, she'll understand!" he flung back. "She's Irish!" I had my comeuppance in the conservatory on a misty autumn morning, when my father plagued Marian Keyes for a song...

I had baked Marian a cake the night before, which that morning refused to politely unstick itself from the cake tin.... who bakes a cake for a cake expert?? Someone convinced of the cake expert's kindness, compassion and humanity, that's who. So I plagued M to sort it out... before she'd even been offered a cuppa tay!!

It was magical to wander round the village and pop into the Telephone Box like a pair of excited tourists and take photos of each other - and this within the first ten minutes of her arrival - which gives you some indication of the exquisite human being she is; a kindred spirit from the tips of her sparkling heels to the veriest eyelash above her green green eyes.

There's a tear in your eye,
And I'm wondering why,
For it never should be there at all.
With such pow'r in your smile,
You should laugh all the while,
And all other times smile,
And now, smile a smile for me...

I whisked M around the house and into the garden and pretended she was a magic wand - I wanted her faerie dust everywhere. When my mother asked a consultant in the first bitter trauma of my illness, "Will my daughter ever get better?" she crumpled when, with casual cruelty, he replied, "Well I don't have a crystal ball, do I?" Marian's kindness is the other kind of crystal ball. The one my mother prayed for and kept faith for - that healing would come, that her daughter would not only live, but be happy.

I spent a wonderful afternoon at the theatre by myself the day before M's arrival, fascinated and compelled by Sean O'Casey's play 'The Plough and the Stars', entranced by the poetry, in awe of the energy - and now, this autumn, I am once again immersed in studying Joyce, Munro, Carver and O'Connor's short stories as the Masters continues apace. Pain in my left eye prowls and gathers gears; I am constantly aware of the heaviness in my eye, the damaged optic nerve chews away like billyo, but here I am, alive and seeing joy.

And if you look closely you can see a few wee strands of purple in my hair :)

Mind you, these help. A lot. Nine cupcakes from Marian. I practically inhaled the first (lavender flavour, naturally missing from photo) and am steadily wolfing the rest. Will you remind me of this weekend, cupcakes and all, on the morning of the next surgery? I suppose Ol' Blue Eyes will... he says I am a good healer, too good a healer - I keep healing over the holes he makes in my eye for drainage! Is it any wonder with such gifts of love?

EATING MARIAN KEYES' GUINNESS CAKE WITH CLIVE JAMES

The day before I shlepped back into hospital for my second round of monoclonals, I decided to bake a cake. Marian Keyes' brand new copy of Saved By Cake needed breaking in. I studied each recipe during the Jubilee weekend and finally decided on the most interesting and unconventional recipe - a combination of Guinness and molasses! Couldn't wait!

There's cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, brown sugar, butter, flour, eggs and some kind of magic because it turned out beautifully. I've almost always baked carrot cakes and Father's personal favourite is a good sponge cake (safe! safe!) so the parents were slightly taken aback by the flavours - but on the eve of a visit to the needles I can't bear to play it safe.

Armed with slices of cake, grapes for balance and a good book (Marian's recent gift), I settled into the armchair for a long infusion. Midway, I sent a jokey tweet to friends with a picture of my needled hand and thought nothing of it, until it appeared as tbough the man in the chair diagonally opposite was staring at me. Did he think I'd taken the photo of him? Slightly unnerved, I thought it was my eyes - maybe he was asleep and, perhaps, locked in that position? But then the tea lady came round and he asked, "D'ye have anymore of those nice buscits?" and something about that Australian accent stirred some kind of memory. I couldn't be sure. An infusion bay! Surely not. I decided to chance a meeting. Everyone else was asleep or lost in thought, so I wheeled my drip over and offered Guinness cake to accompany our cups of tea.

'Twas Clive James! He partook of the cake after I assured him it was a Marian Keyes cake, hence the alcohol content was nothing to be alarmed by; we talked of poetry and fame, form and metre, and the dispensing of both when snubbing imperialism; his long years of being a critic and the short tiring months of being ill. He has leukaemia but was being treated with my favourite drug of choice - Intravenous Immunoglobulins - so feel sure he is in the best of hands. He advised me to look him up, since I seemed to have no knowledge of his many books of poetry. Did you know Clive James was a poet? He was reading a selection of Robert Frost to pass the time...

His infusion ended hours before mine, and after we wished each other well, and he toddled off, a young woman came up to me and told me her husband had just left her because she has stage 4 nephritis and lupus has burned off her face and hair. I assured her she looked beautiful in her paisley headscarf. Shining eyes, gentle soul. Such is life in hospital mes amies... painfully tragic despite the cake and celebrities.

And yet, oh thank goodness, for cake and celebrities :)

http://www.mariankeyes.com/Home
http://www.clivejames.com/

IT ARRIVED!!

A package arrived today with the hottest sunshine of the year... from Eire...

The brightest day of the year completely obscured the inscription I was trying to show off!!

MARIAN KEYES MARIAN KEYES MARIAN KEYES!!!!
So there I was, on twitter, recommending 'The Princess Bride' to Marian Keyes, best-selling Irish author of fabulous books, when she replies saying she's never seen it. I offered to send it of course, but privacy and all that... anyway, there was a silence for a while. A couple of weeks later, Marian Keyes goes on a hunt for me - me!! - to find the Lupusgirl who recommended the lovely film. And then I was found. And Marian asked how I was, and I said I was off into hospital and she said, "Can I do anything? Anything at all? Signed copy of a book?" And I says, "Oooh yes, please!" Shameless, I know. But this may NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!

Isn't she lovely?? She manages to sprinkle gold dust over our lives from a house in Dublin. She loves chocolate and cake and high heels. She understands suffering. She values kindness above everything. Only the kindest of people could send a signed copy of a book just to wish me well. And not just any book - but, on her authority, her own personal favourite.... D'you remember when I wrote about not writing to Eva Ibbotson? I feel as though Marian has given me a chance to say thank you to a beloved author in the here and now, so I'll never be haunted by ingratitude again!
So just to be clear...

MARIAN, I LOVE YOU!!!!!

THANKYOUUUU!!!!!

June the first, a bright summer's evening, a Monday. I've been flying over the streets and houses of Dublin and now, finally, I'm here. I enter through the roof. Via a skylight I slide into a living room and right away I know it's a woman who lives here... 

(from 'The Brightest Star in the Sky')