23 was easier than i thought

every year when time creeps up to my birthday, darting between the shadows and hiding under the bed, every year when it slowly reaches out and pokes my birthday calendar hard enough to make the numbers stumble over another year, i am pacing the floor, gnashing at my fingernails and awaiting the gigantic bomb that is going to explode, turning the world into a crashing, swirling glittery mess as it announces the arrival of another birthday cake. so i don't know why i am always to pleasantly surprised to open my eyes, peep through my fingers and find everything as i left it. i mean i honestly feel like nothing has changed since i was sweet sixteen, literally nothing; 
i still have no grey hairs (ok it is unlikely i know but imagine if you had one and didn't even know about it?! surely its best just to check?!)
i have stopped telling the 'easter chocolate' lie, however i have now begun the 'its preparation for xmas' lie.
i still don't like wine. there, i said it. (i'm sorry for any wine lovers out there but for me it's just too dry, makes my eye to a very weird involuntary twitchy thing and makes my tongue feel like its shrinking.)
i still secretly sing along to bon jovi at the top of my voice then change my status on facebook to a line from 'always' and regret it when i realise my secret is out.


annoyingly i don't have time right now to finish my list...but please feel free to contribute! 
x

soooo, i'm still 22, which means its still perfectly ok to

• spend vast amounts of the monnies on beauty products that promise to make me look like marilyn monroe (its simply investing in your future, like a savings account or something, im puting money in now and in the future it will have turned into smooth-line-free-skin and bouncy-castle-style-bouncy-hair.)
• wear heels that are waaaaay too high and turn my foot into a criple because they make my legs look lushous. people can still fall over in flats y'know! (i actually secretly hope that when i do fall over instead of people pointing and laughing their attention will go straight to the shoes and they'll say 'oh my! those shoes are simple divine dahling.' and then they won't notice the sprawled mess on the floor that is me.)
• still be gobbling chocolate and saying it's 'left over from easter'. who am i kidding? everybody knows i bought it yesterday.
• drink coffee like every cup i drink is personally saving the plannet. 
• change into my pyjamas the very second i run into my flat and don't take them off even if people visit. (well for one they're just too damn comfy and two; love me? love my pyjamas.) 

hmmmm...although the big 23 is fast approaching...maybe there are a few tiny things that i can leave with 22?
stay tuned.

dance till dawn and cackle some more

oh deary me, i saw a witch dancing,
sat on her broom and eating french fancies,
she swayed back and forth as she cackled and gorged,
tapping her feet on the grass covered floor,
her pointy black shoes were strewn over there,
and she had no pins to hold up her black hair,
a goblin man stood by her side,
strumming a guitar with passion and pride,
not the goblin nor the witch ever looked over,
to see me crouching amongst the purple clover,
so as night creeped closer i scurried away,
and left her dancing, all through the night until the dawn of the next day.

summer is the only time lettuce tastes good

the last time i checked, the world was grey, like it was all made out of cardboard or something, all worn out and going fury at the edges. 
so today as i drove down the tiny twisting lanes that lead to The Parents house i felt like somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said "hey, y'know all that wintery stuff? well, it's all gone! take a look!"
so i did. and what did i see? the most hugest leafy trees reaching up into the bluest sky i've ever seen, (the kind of blue that you can never find in a paint pot in the garden centre) wonderfully soft rounded hedges and wild flowers dancing everywhere. i wanted to jump into the wildness wearing a white floaty dress and run around laughing whilst rabbits and squirrels danced around my bare feet and in the distance somebody would be playing a harp or a violin or something...
well, it didn't go quite like that. instead i let the car dribble to a stop whilst i gazed open-mouthed at the wonderland i had just woken into. where had all those trees come from? had they just grown overnight? did little sprites dart through the night planting them all? i rubbed my forehead trying to remember if they had always had so many leaves...maybe the pixies sewed them onto the bare branches just before dawn? and where have all the clouds gone? i stare up into the sky, it's so blue it hurts my eyes, i search but theres none to be found, they've all been swept up and put away, ready for the next rainy day. 
after some time i give a happy sigh, summer is here! and because i'm in the middle of nowhere and i'm positive the only thing watching me is the cow in the field, i do a little mad dance.
after a few more minutes of driving and feeling like i should start a new career as a presenter on a nature program i arrive at The Parents. i come clattering into the kitchen and drop my bags onto the tiled floor. "mum did you know it's completely summer out there?" i gesture to the window.
The Mother looks at me, pausing with the sieve over the sink, a slightly surprised expression on her face. "um, yes." 
i stare at her. "i mean, it's like 100% hot and sunny and theres trees and stuff." 
she looks at the window, and then slowly back at me.
"with leaves." i add, kicking off my shoes.
The Mother stops rinsing the lettuce and raises her eyebrows, she looks like she always does when she secretly scared i've gone mad but doesn't want me to know she's thinking that. "Millie darling, it's been beautifully sunny for quite some time. and there have always been trees." then she returns to the lettuce.


so i guess what i'm trying to say is 'happy early summer everybody!'

reverie

dedicated to the lovely Kim

i woke up this morning to a world painted grey; small sprites had trudged through the night with black and white chalk, smudging the sky with damp fingertips and dusting the grass with ash. not for the first time this year, i wished for summer. i dragged myself out of bed and opened the curtains, allowing the pale light to wash across the bedroom, making me feel like i had been immersed in cold water. 

all morning i moped; i moped in the kitchen when i discovered i didn't have any hot chocolate, (one of the few good thing about winter) i moped in the bath because i didn't have any bubble bath and i moped in the bedroom when i realised i'd ran out of perfume. in a fit of determination i rummaged through boxes and bags and it was whilst i was in the midst of the perfume hunt that i stumbled across the wash bag i had taken with me around europe last summer. i'd emptied it out apart from a travel hairbrush, some hair grips and a small silver tin from Lush. i pulled the tin out and took the top off and that is when it happened. it was like somebody had ripped me out of the flat, out of my winter hibernation and plunged me back into last summer; the heat burning softly against my skin as it shimmered over the world, melting the roads and buildings as i danced though foreign streets in flip-flops. i rubbed the sweet jasmine moisturiser over my arms and the reverie was so strong even when i walked through the sleepy streets of Cinderford i could see Amsterdam before me, smell the flower market and see the glitter in the canals...then Florence with those beautiful rings...Berlin and cocktails. with each breath i was transported to a different city, every city me and two friends visited last summer presented itself before me, complete with the people we had seen and the conversations we had spoken. all those memories that had been kept safe within me were playing themselves once again, and like discovering a film that you once loved but lost, i watched with nostalgic happiness.

Venice.

city of magic and masks. 

i never thought the day would come when i would be excited over a cooker. literally, never. peep-toe heels? yes. scarves and headbands with that cute flower print? of course. my new fudge coloured nail polish? obvilously. but a cooker? hmmm, i new i felt a bit funny when i woke up this morning. i mean, its not even some amazing wonder cooker that can fly or something, its just a plain old white cooker. (well, i actually love the fact that it's old because its got that whole cute grannyish thing going on)
but yeah, so there i am; rushing around the parents house grabing random coats and bags (attempting to find mine) and running to the car whilst shouting to my mother to hurry up and that she doesn't really need to put on shoes to drive. after all this i am standing in a strange womans flat, after meeting a man on the side of the road (he said he'd meet us there, probably to check that we wasn't weird people) and staring at a cooker with genuine awe. there, right in front of me, close enough to touch (but i didn't touch it, i think the woman might have thought i was rather odd if i did) was a cooker, in full working order, with no horible icky patches, we didn't have to travel the earth to get it and she wasn't asking the earth for it either. i could not believe my luck. i practically threw the money at her and gave my dads word he would collect it tomorow.
so, after what has felt like years of searching the paper, ringing up and being told it's already been sold, this dahling of a cooker jumped into my arms and with a smile said 'please take me home?" and i smiled back and said "you are welcome to stay as long as you like."

i think sometimes, if i let myself, i can feel very very small. but i don't mean the kind of small that other people make you feel, i mean the kind that only you can see. its like i'm walking along, humming a sweet kind of tune that i heard someday on the radio or maybe in a friends car, when something happens. or maybe it had been happening and i only just realised, so maybe it just felt like it had sprung itself onto me. but anyway, its as if the grass begins growing, taller and taller all around me and at first i'm scared, not just of the grass but because everything else is getting bigger too; the houses becoming giant's castles, stretching up up up so their rooftops are obscured by the clouds. and the lamp posts spike the sky, stirring the heavens and making raindrops the size of boats fall all around, plunging the world into an inky mess. but then my fear changes slightly; instead i start to become more and more frustrated, because everything carries on; everybody still talks in the same voice, completely unaware that their words are booming around me, making the ground shake and me almost topple, they still stomp ahead, oblivious to me stumbling along after them in a desperate attempt to keep up and dodge the flood falling from the vast blue thing above me. and what makes it laughable is that they keep turning their heads and looking at me like, 'whats the problem? it's only a bit of rain' and then i finally bubble over and i'm angry, really, really down to my core, angry. i scream and shout and kick at the stupid blades of grass that have now grown bigger than me, i march around with my eyes squeezed shut whilst fierce tears trace across my creased face. 
and then suddenly, those words echo once again in my ears:
its only a bit of rain
then, just like that, the grass starts shrinking, or, rather, i simply start to grow. until the rain is just that, tiny splashes of water that make me smile and hum that sweet song again. as soon as i remind myself that i don't have to clamber over grass, its easy to dance through the rain.