Party

Everyone is scared of something.

My little sister is scared of clowns; her boyfriend is scared of spiders. My dad is scared of being trapped in a small space; my ex-boyfriend was scared of rollercoasters; my mum is scared of... well, just about everything, including tofu and halloumi cheese (“it`s the texture”). My best friend – and this is my favourite fear – is scared of any animal that flies. Birds, insects, butterflies; if it flies, she wants nothing to do with it.

“What about robins?” I once asked her. “Nobody hates a robin.”
“I do: I hate robins,” she said. “They`re creepy and scary and they freak me out and they shouldn`t be flapping around with their little flappy wings, it`s horrible.”
“But robins are cute.”
“No, they`re little red breasted devils.”
“Robins?”
“Please stop saying that word.”

Me, I`m scared of parties. I`m scared of other things as well, obviously – planes and earwigs and brushing my teeth in public and being alone for the rest of my life – but I`m really scared of parties. Other people`s parties, yes; it`s taken many years to be able to attend them without dissolving into a nervous mess on the doorstep (years and large quantities of alcohol, more specifically). But – predominantly - my main fear is any party I have anything to do with. Which means that – unless you count the Halloween parties my mum threw when I was eight years old, which also freaked me out – I`ve never thrown one. Not one. When forced by my flatmates to hold one at University, I simply took my name off the invites and pretended I was a guest for the evening in my own house.

A psychoanalyst would have a field-day. I can see her already, rolling up her sleeves and patting the long black leather chair that I`ve already lain myself down on (I will lie down on anything given half an opportunity; I like napping).

“What is it, exactly,” she would say in a low, calm, expensive voice, “that you find scary about parties?”
“Firstly, I`m really shy. Parties make it hard to cover that up."
"Ok," she would nod, smiling gently. "I`d say that`s pretty standard. What else?"
"They`re a big commitment.”
“In what way?”
“You say you`re doing it, you have to do it. You can`t flake out on your own party without drawing a lot of attention to just how flakey you are. And I don`t like doing things I can`t flake out on if I want to. It makes me feel trapped and panicky. Contracts, promises, all of that. Scary.”
“Uhuh.” I`ve never seen a psychoanalyst, but from all the films I`ve seen they say Uhuh a lot.
"It`s like a wedding but on a smaller scale," I clarify. "The thought of it actually brings me out in a cold sweat."
I see the therapist making a note of that on a pad of paper so that we can discuss that at a later date.
"What else?”
“It`s a test, isn`t it? A popularity test. If people turn up or not, it`s showing whether people generally like you or not. And I don`t want that test. I failed that test throughout my formative years; I am not doing it out of choice when I`m an adult.”
“Uhuh. And what else?”
“There`s huge responsibility. Are people having a good time? Are people talking to each other? Is everything going well? Do they like each other? Do they like me? I don`t like responsibility.”
“Uhuh.”
“And I`m very private. I`m happy to share some things, but I need to be able to keep bits hidden. And people in my house, in my space: the thought of it makes me feel like screaming or crying and I don`t know which. It`s where I hide and where I feel safe; letting people in makes me feel exposed and vulnerable, even just when it`s one or two people, let alone twenty.”
“Uhuh.”
“And..." I would continue, on a roll, "I`m a total control freak, so I don`t like being in a situation where things might get out of my control; where people might get upset, or break things, or go home early, or not go home early enough, or have no fun, or have too much fun, and then what do I do to change it?”
I would take a deep breath.
“I think that`s about it,” I would add. “Apart from the mess I have to clean up afterwards. And I hate cleaning. I really really hate it. And washing up. And cooking. And you have to cook and wash up before and after a party, right? I hate that.”
“Right.”
There would be a silence.
“So,” I would say, just before the psychoanalyst could open her mouth, “I think I am mainly scared of parties because I`m a painfully shy, private control freak, terrified of responsibility and commitment and exposure and rejection, and all the things that a party inevitably threatens you with. Which doesn`t mean I shouldn`t have one, does it? I mean, you have to face your fears, don`t you? Isn`t that part of becoming a better person? And I really want to become a better person.”
“Mmm,” the psychoanalyst would finally say, nodding sagely. “Exactly. Well, I think that this has been a very useful session. I`m so glad I was able to help. Please leave fifty pounds with my receptionist on your way out.”
I would stand up to leave.
"Oh, and Holly?" she would say as I got to the door. "Parties are supposed to be fun, too. You know that, right? Try and have fun."
And then she would listen to my laughter bouncing around the corridors for minutes afterwards, and make another note in her pad to discuss that at a later date too.

Facing your fears, sometimes, is not always about doing something huge; it`s not always about jumping out of a plane or swimming with sharks. Sometimes it can be as small and as apparently trivial as facing that spider in the bath, or getting into a lift, or eating a strange type of cheese, and when you do it - when you stare that clown in the face - you`re a better person for trying. For me, throwing a party is the best way I can think of to improve myself, and to start facing commitment and responsibility and rejection: even if it`s just for six hours on Friday night. To attempt to conquer painful, inherent shyness that will never be truly conquered but might be pushed back a little further for a little while longer, until I`m as convinced that it`s gone as everybody else is (I have become brilliant at pretending to everyone but myself).

Parties aren`t spiders, or robins or rollercoasters, but they`re my own private fear. So - this Friday night - I`m pouring vodka into jelly moulds, and I`m putting my diary in a safe, locked box, and I`m opening my house to all of it; to friends and colleagues I`ve invited in with little pieces of paper, and to the mess and fear and exposure and rejection I`ve invited in without them.

And who knows? I might even end up having fun with them.

More car problems

When making new friends, it is very important that they fully appreciate the weight of your intelligence.

My car broke down today. It just stopped working; specifically, it stopped working in between two parking spaces outside our local supermarket. I turned the key, and I turned the key again, and then I turned the key again and swore a bit, and then tried to pull the key out and the car wouldn't let me because it was stuck. So - after trying another six times, under the impression that something might change for no reason at all - I got out of the car, walked around it, peered into the windows, and then unsuccessfully tried to open the bonnet by pushing down on it and feeling around the edges for some kind of button. Finding nothing of the kind, I swore with more vigour and then wandered off across the road to go and get my friend who lives opposite.

She wasn't in; her door was open, her music was playing, but - after walking around her flat - I established that she definitely wasn't in. So I walked back to the car park, still swearing and with my face all creased up in the middle.

At which point a totally different, even newer, friend and her husband got out of the car behind where mine was parked (that's the thing with Nichinan: somebody you know is almost always within a ten metre radius).

"What are you doing?" she asked.
"My car has broken down," I told her grumpily. "For no reason at all. It just stopped working."
She laughed.
"We just watched you get out of the car, prod at the bonnet, walk around it in a circle eight times and then walk away with the key still in the lock, swearing, and then come back, still swearing. It was brilliant."
"It's not bloody brilliant," I said: "I'm hungry and I want my lunch and I can't have my lunch until my car has stopped being broken down."
My friend laughed again, and then peered into the car. And then she laughed even harder.
"You know you're still in 'Drive', right?"
"Am I?" I looked into the car.
"Yeah. You need to put it into 'Park'."
"Oh."
I put it into 'Park' and the car started working again in front of my new friend and her husband just to spite me.
"Oh," I said again, looking at the floor.
"Did you just turn the power off while you were in the middle of driving?" she asked, trying to stop giggling.
I thought about it.
"Yes," I said. That's exactly what I did. I'm very lazy at driving: that's how I park.
"You have to put the break on and put into 'Park' before you turn the power off," she explained.
"Oh. Right." I tried to pretend that this wasn't even vaguely news to me, even though it was.
"You okay to drive home now?" she said, giving her husband a firm look because he was also starting to snort with suppressed laughter.
"Umm, yes," I said. "Thankyou so much for saving me."
"No problem - it's horrible when your car breaks down, isn't it," and then she burst into peals of laughter and got back in her car while I got back in mine muttering something rather uncomplimentary about automatic vehicles.

I think, as far as convincing my new friends go, that they now fully - fully - appreciate the weight of my intelligence.

I'm no longer so certain that's a good thing.

The Law

Today was a peaceful day - surfing, dinner, onsen, massage - marred only by the fact that I was very nearly arrested. I'm not a big fan of being very nearly arrested. It makes me anxious; or it would if I wasn't absolutely convinced that I am impervious to the law and nothing truly bad will ever really happen to me, in any way. As it is, I take it all in my stride; convinced - just as I am convinced that I am possibly immortal, because I cannot conceive of no longer being - that it will all be alright and nobody is ever going to put me in jail because that sort of thing only happens to other people.

It was a close call, though.

Apparently - and I know this now - a red triangle sign with white writing in the middle of it does not mean, as I thought it must do, accelerate at all possible speed, while fiddling with the buttons on your stereo. It means stop. The cross man with the police uniform told me this after he had waved me into a sidelane and gesticulated angrily at me for a few minutes.

I told him I didn't understand Japanese. He told me he didn't care and continued to shout at me, via my Japanese-speaking friend who was in the backseat (Betty was taking up one half of the car, including the passenger seat. Surfboard, not grandma). The entire conversation was conducted in a very strange shape; he shouted at me - refusing to look at my friend - I looked at my friend while she translated, and then looked back at him so he could continue shouting at me in fast and official Japanese and he pretended that there was only one person in the car.
"But the light was green!" I told my friend.
"The light was green," she told the police man in Japanese.
He said something angry and pointed to the sign.
"He says it's a stop sign anyway, even when it's green."
"Even when it's green?" I exclaimed indignantly.
"Even when it's green?" she asked him, a little less indignantly.
He said something that presumably meant yes, even when it is sodding green.
I apologised, kept looking at Betty sorrowfully (clouds were starting to come out and I wanted to be on a beach and not having a run in with the Japanese law), and waited for him to stop shouting.
Then he said something and held his hand out.
"He wants to see your driver's licence," my friend said.
There was a pause.
"It's at home," I answered, and then my friend put her head in her hands.
"Holly, it's totally illegal to drive without having your licence on you in Japan," she mumbled through her fingers. "They can and will lock you up."
I stared at her, and then I stared at him. He looked very cross and was still holding out his hand.
"Lock me up?" I repeated eventually. "They can't do that."
"They can," she said.
I looked at the police man and he nodded. They could, apparently, lock me up. And he looked like it would be a veritable pleasure to enforce this law.
"I...." I looked at my friend. She was staring with fascination at the seat of my car. I opened my eyes as wide as I could and looked as young and scared as it was possible for me to look at nearly thirty years old and not very scared at all because it was all actually a bit of an adventure and I was kind of hoping I could blog about the inside of a Japanese prison cell. "I'm very, very sorry," I said in a tiny voice, in Japanese. And then I added, in English, for good measure: "I promise I have got one, it's just not here."
There was a long silence, while Betty, my friend and the policeman all decided how often they were going to visit me in jail.
And then the policeman's mouth started twitching.
"Not do it again," he said with an excellent English accent. "Next time, you in trouble."
And then he laughed and indicated that I could drive on.
"Jesus Christ," my friend exhaled as we pulled out onto the road. "That was close."
I ignored her.
"After all that," I eventually managed, "he speaks bloody English?"

It's nice being impervious to the law, especially when apparently you have broken it every single day for at least a month without realising it.

Sleep

My neighbours and I appear to see the point of a weekend rather differently.

My weekends are - predominantly - for sleeping. Yes, writing, reading, surfing, onsening (or whatever the verb of to onsen is), dancing around my bedroom, drinking and losing at poker are all on the list too, but Saturday and Sunday morning are both reserved for sleeping. I get up at 6.30am every weekday morning; I reserve the right to sleep until at least 11am twice a week.

Except that my reservation is being pointedly ignored by the old couple who live next door to me. Their weekends appear to be bookmarked predominantly for standing outside my bedroom window and holding long conversations in Japanese at 7am on a Saturday morning. And, while they are absolutely lovely at a Godly hour of the day, I don't have any interest at all in what anybody says at 7am on a Saturday morning - I don't have any interest at all in 7am on a Saturday morning full stop - which renders them both very unlovely to me right now.

The problem here is three fold. First of all, the noise stops at around 9am; just long enough to make sure I can't go back to sleep. Last weekend, they had obviously had a tiff, because the old man went outside to their small garden - which happens to be directly outside my window - and started inexplicably moving one pile of wood to another piece of wood, and - when he had done that - moving them back again. Then he started sawing in them, just in case I had adjusted to the previous noise. He stopped at exactly 8:53am, just as I was about to set fire to both piles.

Second of all, I can't say anything. Literally, I can't say anything: I have no idea how to say "please, for the love of GOD go back to bed" in Japanese. Metaphorically, I also can't say anything: they are a lovely couple, they are Japanese, and that would be the absolute height of rudeness in any culture, let alone this one.

Thirdly - and perhaps most importantly - I am terrified that at some sleep-deprived stage in the next few weeks, I am going to lose my temper and do what I did at University when the builders woke me out of a bad hangover at a ridiculous time of the morning; namely throw open the window in a state of semi-undress and scream at the top of my voice "what the fuck is wrong with you?! Stop that sodding racket or I'll come down and give you something else to make a fucking noise about" (at which point my then-boyfriend hid under the covers and refused to come out until I had apologised to them for swearing).

And if I do that, I will be kicked out of Nichinan and put straight on a plane back to England, after being lynched and arrested first.

They've stopped now, obviously. It is perfectly quiet; I can hear the birds singing, the trees swaying, the spider hopping across my carpet (seriously, it is hopping - I don't know what is wrong with it). The old couple have done with waking me up - now that I can no longer go back to sleep - and have high fived each other and returned to their beds for some much needed kip. It's tiring work, keeping the foreigner awake and cross at stupid times of the morning.

I have no option really; I'm going to have to start getting up at 7am on a weekend morning too, or buy some ear plugs.

That, or I'm going to have to learn a whole lot of Japanese swear words and find a man who can hide under my covers until I have apologised for them.

Traditions

Today is my Unbirthday.

I`ve been celebrating my Unbirthday since I was six, when I decided that one day a year with me as the allocated special person definitely wasn`t enough and it needed to be repeated as often as possible; which – after much trial and error (every Monday, for instance, or every second Wednesday) – turned out to be the 7th of every month. As my birthday is the 7th of December, the 7th of every month – as of my sixth year - therefore became my Unbirthday; a day that is celebrated 11 times a year by me and only me, because absolutely nobody else is even remotely convinced and never has been. Especially not one of my best friends, whose real birthday happens to fall on my Unbirthday and is distinctly unimpressed every year when I remind her of it – quite hopefully – while handing her present over. “And,” I always add, “it`s my six month Unbirthday, so it`s a particularly special one.” The noises she makes in response indicate that she isn`t sure why she keeps hanging out with me.

I`m in a new country now, though, with new customs, so I just made a very fervent attempt to introduce the Unbirthday to my favourite Japanese colleague in the hope that he might pick up on it as a British tradition that he hadn`t heard of before but thoroughly embraced anyway.

He didn`t.

“Once a month?” he said.
“Yes.”
“The seventh of every month?”
“Yes.”
“You get presents?”
There was a pause while I thought about it.
“Yes,” I lied hopefully.
He looked at me suspiciously.
“Every month?”
“Yes, and on the seventh of December I get a really big present.”
“I have not got a present for you today because I did not know.”
“That`s okay,” I said. “You can bring me two in June.”
“Eleven a year? And a big one?” he clarified in confusion.
“Yes,” I answered firmly. “And a cake.” I thought about it. “And a bottle of sake.”
He looked at me.
"Everyone in England has this?"
I considered it; as the only English person in Nichinan - possibly in Miyazaki - I could probably get away with affirming this assumption, but he might Google it and find out that I`m fibbing a little bit.
"Just me," I admitted.
“No,” he said eventually. “No presents from me until December. I think you are...” and then he ran out of vocabulary and simply put his finger up to his temple and twisted it a little bit, which – as we all know – is the international sign language for you are bonkers.
“Oh dammit,” I sighed. “Not even a little one?"
So he gave me a lollipop and told me I could have that, which made me quite happy until I realised that it was from somebody else and everybody had one and I was due to get one anyway, Unbirthday or not.

The Japanese need to be a little more open to different cultures I think; a little more receptive to ways of life different to their own. I think, when I`m done with Japan, I am going to move to a country where people are a little more impressed with British traditions.

Especially the ones I just made up.

Dolls

I have decided that I want a Blythe doll.

I want a Blythe doll like I wanted a bike when I was seven, and like I wanted a pair of Magic Key shoes when I was five: singlemindedly, dogmatically, illogically. I`m coveting her in a way I haven`t coveted anything for twenty years, and I`m trying to work out why. Some part of me – the part of me that used to walk past Clarks shoe shop every single day for four months, just so that I could check in the window that they were still there and some other princess with long curly hair and a white frock hadn`t nabbed the last pair – has decided that it wants an extremely expensive, extremely creepy, Japanese doll with eyes that change colour when you pull a switch. And if that`s not the symptom of some kind of crisis, I don`t know what is.

I don`t even like dolls. In twenty eight years, I have had a total of three dolls. Each met with a brutal fate and probably still haunts me in the limbo that unloved toys go to when their owners destroy or lose them or forget that they exist.

Doll number one – Belinda – was a plastic headed, cloth bodied lovely, with long glossy brown hair that I both envied and resented for being nothing like mine, and an olive face that looked like it might grow a moustache once it hit puberty. She was a gift from my parents – an attempt to get me to play with something, anything – and she failed: I patted her on the head, sat her on the top of a shelf and went back to reading my book. (My sister, on the other hand, took her doll – Sophie, a newborn sweety – and dragged it around and kissed it and fed it until a leg fell off and it stopped looking like a newborn sweety and started looking like a very small, bald Grant Mitchell with extremely violent tendencies and a heroin problem).

Doll number two – I forget her name – was a Cabbage Patch Kid, and I wanted her specifically because (and I remember this) they were all different and I could choose exactly what I wanted, down to the specifications, and none of my friends would have the same. So I went to bed, dreaming of how extremely individual my doll would be, and I woke up, contemplating just how special my doll would be, and then I finally decided on the specifics, got her and got bored of her within 15 hours and put her in a car boot sale, because her individualism no longer meant anything to me at all once I was used to it; the fun had been in defining myself in the choice I made.

Doll number three – who was never named because Matel did it for me – was a Sindy (prettier and less slutty than Barbie), who I stripped down and wrapped in bandages, and then I shaved her head, painted one half black and the other blue and then – when I had shocked my parents quite enough and been told they would not be buying me any more toys for Christmas – ripped her head off and went back to knawing at the felt covering on my Sylvanian families.

And that was pretty much the end of dolls in my life, because the maimed, ignored and tortured ghosts of all three of them were sufficient to stop any others getting anywhere near me.

Now I want a new one. It makes no sense and every kind of sense at the same time, because Blythe dolls are very individual – limited edition, nearly 200 quid each, every single type completely different, with different clothes and hair and makeup and names and characters – which appeals to the Cabbage Patch Kid part of me, and they`re seriously creepy, which appeals to the shave headed Sindy part of me, and they look lovely sitting on shelves while I ignore them completely and read my book, which appeals to the Belinda part of me. None of that, though, really explains why – twenty years after I destroyed my last toy – I feel the need to get another one.

So I`ve thought about it – I like deciphering my own inane urges – and I`ve realised that the Blythe doll isn`t really a doll for me. She`s Japanese, which helps me love her - I am falling more in love with Japan every day - but more importantly: she`s something for me. A few months ago, I wrote about how I had no possessions I cared about; nothing I would save in a fire; nothing that meant anything to me, because I was too scared of tying myself to a place or an object or of risking the loss of something I needed or loved. In the last few months, however, that has changed. I lost the thing I loved – the person I loved and thought I would keep – and so nothing else seems as scary to let go of; more importantly, I`ve finally realised the importance of having things for me, and building things for me, and wanting things for me, and not for somebody else or because of somebody else.

So I`m collecting – slowly – beautiful things, paintings and jewellery and stones from the beach I love – and I`m building a life around me in a way that I`ve never built before: for me, and not for anybody else at all. My house is gradually filling with things I love, and objects that mean something, and I`m finally getting to a place where I`m starting to tie myself to things around me and inside me instead of just the person I am in love with. I`m starting to connect the dots and make sense of the picture they have made.

Blythe, I think, represents all of that. There is no other reason for having one; no pragmatic reason, no useful reason, no financial reason. Spending 200 quid on a doll is ludicrous; buying any kind of doll, actually, when a) I`m twenty eight years old b) I don`t like dolls c) I never have liked dolls makes utterly no sense. But Blythe is something for me: to covet, to want, to buy, to keep, to treasure. To pass on when I have children, and remind me of a time in Japan that changed my life. And, on a very simple level, I get to define myself all over again: I get to make the choices and then keep them as a memory of who I was at this point, and keep them forever.

So I no longer care how stupid it is, or how expensive it is, or how geeky it is, or how scary it`s going to look on my bookshelf. I no longer care if I am having a crisis or not. I want a Blythe doll - the perfect Blythe doll, the right one for me - and so, although I wouldn`t spend my wages on her, I am going to ask for one for my next birthday.

And if she ends up with a shaved head and broken eye switch, stuck at the back of a cupboard somewhere, haunting me forever, then so be it. Because she will be mine to do exactly what I want with.

Sick

I`m still sick, or I`m sick again, or this time I`m actually sick: I`m not sure which, but one or all of the above.

I know that I`m sick, because - apart from the fact that my throat hurts and my voice has disappeared and my nose is running and I`m hot and cranky and generally in a terrible, terrible mood and really wanting to shout at somebody and cry for no reason, and they are pretty key symptoms of a cold - I can`t write. I can`t write a single thing. This blog has taken me - thus far - (and I`m just looking at the clock) - fifteen minutes. And it`s four sentences long and contains about seven words repeated. That is not prolific writing. That is not even slightly prolific. I couldn`t base a career on that unless I was Alex Garland, frankly.

I hate being sick. I can handle the hurting and the sneezing and the fact that my body feels like it`s bruised on the inside, but I can`t handle not being able to write. It doesn`t matter how much I want to write; it`s just white noise in my head, or cotton wool, fluff, mucus, whatever you want to call it, and it`s making a high pitched blank sound instead of words that make sense. Like a telly being turned off; suddenly all the noises and conversations I have with myself every single second of every single day just stop, and it`s a strange, fluffy, tired silence. Words make no sense at all; not those belonging to other people, and definitely not those belonging to me. And, instead of engaging with the world and with my own thoughts and turning them around and around so that I can understand them better, all I want to do - and I literally mean all I want to do - is crawl into bed and fall asleep. I don`t even want to eat first, which must mean I am really poorly, because I always want to eat first. Before absolutely everything.

And afterwards too, actually.

So, dear blog, I`m afraid you will have to wait. I feel a bit guilty - as if I`m abandoning a child outside a supermarket while I go shopping (only a bit guilty, mind, because my dad did that to me when I was four and I survived although I got him in big trouble with mum for it and insisted that she beat him mildly for it) - but I will not write when I cannot write; the world has enough texts that mean nothing at all and say nothing at all without me adding to them willy nilly. I do that even when I`m not sick: I refuse to do it even more so when I am.

In this rare silence - where my brain has switched off and stopped talking to me like an old, lonely lady sitting next to me at a bus stop - I have no other option but to try and enjoy it, therefore: to take my painkillers, drink some orange juice, take myself to bed and watch Sex And The City on repeat (it`s the only time I can stomach it; when I`m so sick that my mind has stopped functioning. If I`m healthy it makes me angry, but when I`m sick I just watch all the colours like some kind of manic kaleidoscope). And I shall wait, in absolute quietness - with a pile of soft fluff inside my head, making me deaf to any internal thought - until I`m better and I can start writing again.

And you, dear blog - if you love me, which of course you do (because you`re my blog and I made you) - will just have to wait with me.

Just be very, very quiet or I will probably throw something.

Running Amock

"I think," my grandad emailed me this morning to say, "your literary licence has run somewhat amock."
"What's the point in having it I can't run amock with it?" I emailed back, a little defensively. "I like running amock with things now and then. It's very healthy. It resettles the boundaries."
"Grandma and I just aren't too sure about Dumbledore and Gandalf," grandad added confidentially, as if there had just been a tea party between the four of them and one of them had said something awkward or perhaps Dumbledore didn't wipe his shoes properly at the front door and then there had been a long silence while they all stared at the carpet crossly and then agreed never to have another tea party because they weren't that keen on each other after all.
"They're nice, grandad," I assured him. "They're supposed to be nice, anyway." I thought about it a bit more. "Obviously Gandalf is a bit full of wrath and arrogance and Dumbledore is a bit of a selfish old miser who consistently risks Harry's life for his own gain, but..."
Dammit, I thought. I didn't think that through properly at all. They might be the most famous grandad figures of all time, but they're probably not the loveliest.
"I'm sure," my grandad said, gallantly, seeing that I was suffering somewhat, "that they are very nice gentlemen and we would all get on famously."
There was a silence.
"If forced," I added, laughing a bit.
"Absolutely if forced," grandad emailed back, probably smiling. I hope, anyway.

When comparing someone you love to something - whether it's a celebrity, or a literary figure, or the guy off the telly in the background of Eastenders or a strange shape of bush in the local park - it's probably best to check first that it's not somebody or something they don't particularly like very much. It wasn't my intention to accidentally offend my grandfather on his birthday; I try to reserve involuntarily upsetting people for the other 360 days of the year (I leave off Christmas too, and Boxing Day, and sometimes - when I'm feeling kind - Easter).

The truth is, now I come to think of it, my grandad in a room with Dumbledore and Gandalf would be far more worthy of writing about than any kind of missing link between them.
"We must send Frodo off with the ring," Gandalf would say, drawing himself up to a great height and swishing his cloak a little.
"We can send Harry, too," Dumbledore would add. "He's good at all that kind of stuff. And he has a wand and a broomstick and everything."
Gandalf would frown.
"Yes, but Frodo has The Power."
"Well, Harry is The Chosen One," Dumbledore would argue back, rising up from his chair. "He's already fought all sorts of monsters. I left him to it. Him and all his other little friends, barely nine years old."
"Nine years old?" Gandalf would sniff derisively. "That's nothing! Have you seen how small Frodo and his buddies are? They're tiny! They're even smaller than children!"
"But Harry's friends are still in school uniform."
And they would step towards each other, twitching their wands threateningly.
Then there would be a cough.
"Excuse me," my grandad would say, stirring his tea, "but - seeing as they're both young and defenceless and fighting all the forces of Evil in middle and central earth is quite a big, not to mention, scary, job - don't you think it's a little unkind to send them out there with only other vulnerable little people to protect them?"
There would be a blank silence.
"Shouldn't we send someone else?" my grandad would continue calmly.
"What do you mean?" the two great wizards would ask eventually, in utter confusion.
"Well, seeing as we're the all powerful wizards and they're the kids, wouldn't it be a little nicer - not to mention more sensible - to do it ourselves?"
"But we might get hurt," Dumbledore would say. "Can't we make Harry and Frodo do it? They're both orphans anyway, right?"
And then my grandad would put his tea down a little bit crossly, and - with a bit of a sigh - walk out of the house and go and save earth while the other two wizards banged their wands on the floor at each other and challenged each other to a thumb war. At which point my grandma would come in and ask them what all the fuss was about and could they please keep it down a little because nothing required that amount of stick banging. And then she'd demand to know where my grandad had gone, tutt, put her coat on and go out to join him in fighting monsters.

My grandad is perfectly right; I stretched my literary licence too far. He is nothing at all like either Dumbledore or Gandalf, and for that I am grateful.

And I agree with him utterly. It is very silly to run amock with your imagination. It gets you into all sorts of trouble.

Just ask the wizards in my living room.

Missing Links

Missing links are everywhere.

Somewhere in a wood in America is the large footed link between monkey and man; somewhere in a big pond in Scotland is the long necked link between dinosaurs and dolphins and those monsters we think up when we're four years old; somewhere - zooming around the sky, bouncing between clouds - is a big, jolly and clearly drunk bearded man: the missing link between God, Zeus and Father Christmas. Logic dictates it, and so does magic. And so, somewhere, logic and magic dictate that there must be a missing link between Gandalf and Dumbledore; a mystical, twinkly, white haired man; more wise, more kind, more powerful and more just than all the other wizards in the world put together. A wizard that exists in the space where Gandalf finishes and Dumbledore starts. A wizard with a laugh that could fell trees and a frown that - when it comes, so very occasionally - makes them tremble and grow back again, apologising. A wizard who knows more than we can imagine, and who we can trust to keep returning, no matter what: just as Dumbledore and Gandalf do. Logic dictates this, and so - too - does magic.

Luckily, I know where he is. In fact, I can tell you exactly what he's doing at this moment. As you're reading this, the missing link between the two greatest wizards of all time is making himself a nice cup of tea and sitting down to read The Sunday Guardian. He's wearing tweed slippers and corduroy trousers and grey socks, and he may well have stolen a couple of biscuits even though he knows he shouldn't because he hasn't had lunch yet. He'll be putting his glasses on, and running a hand over his nose, and then checking out of the window and making noises at the dratted cats from next door who are taking liberties with his brand new pot plants again. And then, quite possibly, he'll cut out something inspirational - something he would never in a million years have found in The Daily Mail - and he'll neatly fold it up and put it on a table to send to his granddaughter in Japan.

Some of us are born into greatness; the sons and daughters of Kings and Queens and members of Parliament and people off the telly who do Strictly Come Dancing. It's a privilege, and one that the clever among us never forget: one that we carry with us from before we even know the luck of it. I am one of those people. The greatest of all wizards - the missing link - is my grandfather, and I have been lucky enough to grow up knowing that kind of magic: to grow up knowing what it is to have somebody who knows everything; infinitely wise, infinitely knowing, infinitely kind and infinitely just. I have become an adult under the watchful, caring gaze of a tall man with white hair and twinkly blue eyes and an open laugh and a ready question and a ready answer; I have been protected throughout my life by somebody infallible and strong and generous and funny, and always, always there for me.

I have, quite simply, known in real life the grandfather and wizard that Rowling and Tolkien only ever imagined.

Just as Frodo could never have been a hero without Gandalf, and just as Potter would still be wilting and moaning in his little bedroom without Dumbledore, so I would be a different, much lesser person without my grandfather. He is the moral standard I adhere to; he is the watermark of integrity and kindness and strength. In every situation - no matter how difficult - I try and work out what my grandad would do and behave accordingly; in every moment of weakness or cruelty, I remember the family I was born into and try - all over again - to be strong and kind and worthy of it. I owe a large proportion of the good things in me to the only grandfather I have ever known, and to the only grandfather I have ever needed to know. A great man, and a good man.

Not to mention a man who grows really top notch potatoes.

Eighty odd years ago exactly today - somewhat after Tolkien had finished creating his wizard, but somewhat before Rowling had started creating hers - the link between them was born: without much of a fuss but with a whole lot of magic. As logic dictated, the missing link: the greatest grandad, and the greatest wizard, the world has ever known.

And one who - as luck would have it - also happens to be mine.

I love you very much, Grampy Smale. Happy Birthday. x

Plea

Mum, I'm sick. I've got a sore throat and a temperature and fuzzy vision and everything.

Please send ice-cream and tomato soup and a jigsaw puzzle and some of that good old fashioned "if you're too sick to go to school you're too sick to go to a party this evening, young lady" advice which makes it all better again. And then put your hand against my head and tell me to go back to bed and if I'm good you'll disconnect the tv and bring it up to my bedroom and make dad angry because he wants to watch the football.

I miss you. Especially when I'm poorly.

Thanks mum. x