Category: Autobiographical

The sewage back surge from the flats where l live burst through my bath plug hole, filled my bath, flowed over the edges leaving the remains of someone’s dinner on the side of the bath, and flowed determinedly onwards into my hall, bedroom and kitchen.

The unwell monster that seems to live under my bathroom floorboards, was exploding. Her vomit filled my world. Several of my books, my slippers and the laminate flooring was ruined. No insurance.

Being a council tenant feels very like being a third class citizen. Council housing was a brilliant idea, affordable housing for the workers, those that keep the city running. Makes sense doesn’t it? But now the stocks of council houses have been hugely run down by selling them off to private owners, so you only get one if you are in a very bad situation ( I was in a squat, diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain disease and uncontrolled epilepsy, when a heroin addict smashed up the place). These days buildings like the current one I live in, a 1960’s tower block, are allowed to fall into disrepair and the councils aren’t given money for required maintenance of them. And these days the workers – the cleaners, nurses, teachers – can’t afford to buy housing and can’t get council housing. They either end up getting into huge amounts of debt they can never pay off, live in bad quality shared accommodation or move out of the city. This will of course mean a lack of cleaners, nurses and teachers in a city that desperately needs them. The government bring out various policies to try and attract more nurses or teachers and allow them to afford homes, but surely there was a policy already in practice, that worked, called COUNCIL HOUSING. It has an absurdity that sings like an intro track to The House of Cards.

But then I can’t make any sense of our current politics. A friend asks me why I don’t write about politics much in my blog. Because it makes me miserable. Life essentially is a beautiful thing, difficult and painful sometimes, but at other times just astoundingly beautiful and wondrous. Politics and the News seem to concentrate on the horrid stuff, which gets me down. I don’t know, perhaps I should have more political rants, but then it all seems so absurd and out of control at the moment that it seems more appropriate to draw silly cartoons instead (see below). So I’ll stop with politics there and talk about magic instead.

Magically this last climax of the sewage seems to, and here I cross my fingers, seems to have solved the problem.

No more can I hear groaning and gurgling, no longer does sewage spew into my bath. Hurrah!

And it seems to all be thanks to the hazel trees.

There is a couple of hazel trees in Newington Green. Small things, cropped into bushes underneath a London Plain. I go to talk to them sometimes, when I need someone to share problems with.They don’t respond, obviously, which is often a good thing. Anyway, on the morning in question I’d had enough of the sewage problem. Two months it had been. I was fed up of never being able to shower or bath in my own flat without wading in other people’s shit. I explained this to the hazel trees and asked if please, if possible, could something be done about it.

That evening came the flood. Horrible. But it has meant that Islington council repairs team actually got it together to sort out the problem and now I am sewage free.

Never underestimate a hazel tree.

I’m going to celebrate being sewage free at the Rude Mechanicals gig on the 23rd March.

Yes, I will give out free swamp monster original prints (worth thousands of pounds, obviously) to the first five people who can tell me the name of the monster that lives under my bathroom. Any guesses? Keep it secret and turn up to the gig early to tell me and collect your present.

Below is something like my understanding of current global politics

I want someone who wants me for what I am

I want someone who wants me for what I am not

I want someone who doesn’t run away when I get ill

I want someone who doesn’t see my brain disease as a romantic novel

I want someone who does see my brain disease as a romantic novel

I want someone who is strong and decisive

I want someone who doesn’t tell me what to do

I want someone who is rich

And unattached

And good looking

And kind

And open minded

And generous

And intelligent

Has several PhD’s and a professorship

But understands that they are still a fool

I want someone who knows that I am Queen of Everything!

February rushes along. The sewage saga continues, I’ve now contacted my MP who is helping pursue the issue and Toynbee Legal advice centre are writing a stern letter to my council housing repairs team.

But my health is not good and it is all getting me down somewhat.

Everything feels so grim, the sewage, the weather, my health, work, the no deal Brexit shenanigans.

And it being February as well, a cold difficult month full of remorse and heart break.

Still I’ve had worse February’s, like the one I had an operation, which was very painful, and the one where, due to a doctor’s misdiagnosis of medication I had kidney failure. So far this February has been a lot better than those two.

So, the good things about this February-

1. I’m not in hospital. Hurrah!

2. I’m enjoying playing around with animating some old stories of mine. All stop frame paper cutouts and badly done, but good fun!

2. I’ve managed to get a friend to read Geek Love, and he phones me almost every day to remind me how good/funny/dark/disgusting it is.

3. I had a one eyed alien come and visit me the other day. Very large, neon green and rather a blob of a creature. Incredibly frightening during the visit but now it seems ridiculous, like a children’s cartoon character.

4. I’m also hallucinating lots of cats everywhere at the moment, which is a bit distressing because I think I’m treading on them, or knocking them off of things, but a bit nicer than the the normal insects.

5. Listened to Begotten’s track recordings the other nightwhich sound surprisingly good.

6. I’m playing with Gardyloo Spew and MFU in an improvisational band in Brighton this Sunday!

7. I’ve decided to create a tape recording of Miss Roberts stories, with various invited musicians to do sound effects and backing.

8. Have broken at least half my New Years resolutions and am feeling surprisingly satisfied with this.

9. There is now recorded a new Rude Mechanicals single, all ready and waiting to be launched in the next couple of months.

10. I quite enjoy writing relatively pointless numbered lists

Found this picture earlier, it is surprisingly like the alien that visited me, funny, I drew it about 15 years ago for a children’s book I was writing. I long for summer days walking through long grass, eating strawberries and spending long evenings drinking cocktails on some terrace somewhere exotic…

So here we are at the end of January. It has been a difficult month for me, and my neighbours sewage is still gurgling and grumbling it’s way into my bath. I’ve called it Gertrude.

Will be seeking advice from lawyers and MPs this week.

A friend of mine was discussing the possibility of him having a midlife crisis. To do something exciting and life changing now. I think I am having the opposite to that, I had my mid-life crisis in my twenties and became Miss Roberts. Now I find myself attracted to the idea of a steady job, owning my own house in the country with some cats, a dog, some ducks, a goat. There would be a wood at the end of the garden so I could sit and daydream or forage for materials to make paints. The problem would be that I’m not allowed to drive (epilepsy) and I like being near my friends, so I will have to take them with me. A small commune in the country…

My first mid-life crisis was when I got diagnosed with this old brain desease of mine. They said the creature was very big and buried very deep in my brain. They said I would have to have 6 or 7 operations followed by laser treatment to zap it which would all take years and years, but if I didn’t have it I would be dead in 10 years. After a lot of indecision i decided not to have the treatment, I enjoyed my life and didn’t want to spend it in hospital on what was only a 50% chance of being cured.

So, I thought to myself, if I’ve only got a little while to live I’d better do something exciting with it. Now I’d been a quiet child, and a sulky teenager, I barely spoke, but I loved the stage. The idea of getting up on the stage and performing thrilled me. I said to myself “well Roberts if you are going to die in a bit you’d better get yourself a wig and a fancy dress and get yourself up on that stage”. It was an excuse to misbehave.

So Miss Roberts arrived, and slowly the world around her became a somewhat less terrifying place, people (some of them) became worth talking to, and the monster, although it has given me occasions to think “right this is it, it’s going to kill me now” hasn’t yet, and ten years has come and gone.

Maybe I’ll marry an accountant or lawyer, that would be a good turn around for me.

Below is a picture of me as a child. A friend on the phone last night was telling me how he was a happy sweet child with lots of friends. I was the opposite to this, I was the scary child who never smiled and wore a black coat with hood up that I never ever took down.

Oh, and just thought I’d mention I’m making short video logs every evening (well most) that I’m putting on YouTube. The are on my channel, though I’m not sure what that’s called or how you get to it. If you find out let me know.

So far this month things have been grim. Firstly my friend Sheridan died at the start of January. A lovely man who devoted his life to helping others. I met him in the late nineties when I offered to volunteer at a community art project he had got started in Islington. We got on well and he helped me out at a time when I was very confused and unwell. He moved to Manchester and would visit London now and then when we’d go out and get hideously drunk together, put the world to rights and plan new projects together. It’s been about five years since we last met up though, when we planned for Rude Mechanicals to hold a night in the venue he ran in Manchester. Wish I’d got the band organised and gone and done that!

I’m still trying to find out what happened to him.

A lot of my friends have died over the last year, both young and old. I miss them, they are holes in the netting of my mind.

As you may have seen on my Facebook page, the sewage is still coming up into my bath and sink. It is like a large swamp monster is living under my bathroom, it gurgles and growls and vomits up sewage into my bath. Two months this has been happening and getting worse. Seven plumbers with fancy laser jet equipment have failed to stop it. It’s a health hazard, the council call it an emergency, then blame it on different department. Help!

My Facebook friends have been very helpful with suggestions of what to do, and I’m slowly progressing through them. Will be attempting the builders foam next.

Below is a picture of a swamp monster possibly living under my bathroom.

I looked up my resolutions for last year and realise I’ve broken all of them apart from the first one and the last one. I’m very happy I succeeded with two, though admittedly my organisation abilities have only improved enough for an ant to recognise

This year:

1. Get even more organised, so much so a creature the size of an elephant might notice

2. Make lots of money from my art work (thus expanding on last year’s successful 6th resolution)

3. Get fit – yoga, gym, swimming – for god sake woman just some form of exercise!

4. Finish the tree book Or at least read through it – the other year I wrote and illustrated a book about my explorations of trees – the first draft is written, I now need to build up enough stamina to read it through without cringing

5. Go to bed and get up earlier

6. Eat less sweet things (these last two are boring resolutions I will almost certainly break)

7. Drink less. (Spent New Year’s Day being hideously ill, someone remind me my tablets don’t mix too well with alcohol)

8. Apply for grants for the Library to get a permanent residence?? (Again, really?)

A very happy new year to everyone who reads this! Below is a lucky dancing gnome/elf seeing in the year.

I sold a handmade book to a gentleman in the States. I posted it last weekend and presumably it is now floating, or flying, somewhere between here and America. I miss it slightly as I miss all my carefully crafted works. It was also a difficult piece to create. Why, you might ask, did I make by hand a book about insects? Because they are great is the answer. Yet it didn’t start as a book about insects.

It started with me making a simple accordion style book with handmade paper. I’d made a lot of books before but not many with handmade paper. Once made I had no idea what to put in it. I mean that’s the thing with making books, once you’ve made them something needs to go in them.

I took it around with me as a sketchbook, but it didn’t really work as that, it felt like a book that needed a purpose. I tried it as a snake like sculpture, but that wasn’t very interesting. Then a friend asked me to do a reading of a folk spell at one of her art exhibitions. I needed somewhere to write the spell down where it would be easy for me to read in dim light. At a loss as to what to put in this book I decided to write the spell in that. It looked old and kind of magical so it seemed appropriate.

It worked well for the performance but afterwards the book just sat again, without purpose. It didn’t seem to want the spell, the spell was empty and didn’t belong. The book came with me from grotti little art studio to grotti little art studio like a faithful pet but nothing seemed to suit its pages.

Then I ended up visiting the natural history museum every Thursday evening after hours to draw insects. It was great! Such delicate beautiful creatures.

I hallucinate insects a lot. It’s part of the rare brain disease I have. It’s not that I have overdosed or taken too much of anything. I think it’s just something that is easy to hallucinate. Tiny creatures crawling across the floor, the table, the bed, up my arms. Lots of them. The initial reaction is “Yuk” with a very slight panic , but then I usually realise it is just a hallucination and will go if I don’t panic. Panicking is the worst thing, then they will crawl over me and I will start scratching. But my hallucinated insects never look as fascinating as real insects. Real insects can have a movement to them that reminds me of old stop-motion animation, and there colours can be incredible. Even the humble dug beetle (the name says it all) has a bright purple underbelly) I could tell you stories about the dung beetle, but not now, maybe later.

So I covered each page of the book with fine semi-see-through Japanese print paper, meaning bits of the original spell can be seen underneath, and drew real life insects, sketched at the natural history museum, on top.

For insects help the cycle of life continue. Although I don’t want them crawling up me or floating in my soup (real or imaginary), they are amazing and fascinating and necessary.

So is there significance to a witches spell in a handmade book covered in pictures of insects? This thought crawls across my brain in search of a purpose.