i am half sick of shadows
2003-08-15 || 1:11 p.m.

I had a very strange dream last night.

I dreamt I was in a car with my mum. Suddenly in front of us was a bus, on its side, flipping over again and again. I shouted at my mum to pull over and let me out because I needed to go and help. I got over to the bus and the driver was climbing out. I could see it was a school bus but it was this peculiar grey colour, kind of shaped like a bullet. The driver was dazed and showed me how to undo the windows which sort of lifted out whole. I undid one and there was a boy, quite stunned, strapped into his seat. He looked at me. I asked him if he thought he could undo the seat belt and climb out through the open window. He said he would try. I offered him my hand and held him tight. I could see he was wearing what looked like a private school uniform. The headrest on the seat next to him was down over the next boy's face. The boy I was helping was desperate to see if his friend was okay but I was scared for what he might see so I very stubbonly kept my other arm over the seat and refused to let him look. Once I had him out of the coach I went back to see how the other boy was. I lifted up the head rest and I could see he was unconscious but breathing. I went back and told his friend that he was definitely still alive. And then the paramedics arrived and I left the rest up to them.

On my wall I have lots of pictures. Mostly prints of real paintings but I do have two original paintings. My aunt is a potter and she exhibits. A few years back she exhibited in an arts centre that used to be a church. She exhibited with another artist. There were two paintings I particularly liked. Unusually for me, they are both still life but they are abstract. One is painted in very cold colours and the other in very warm colours. The cold colour one is like a negative of the warm colour one. I could only afford one so I chose the cold one because it is more me. It looks unfinished. My mum bought me the other one. I have a couple of Klimts. One is just a detail from what I call his 'mother and baby' painting. I don't think that is its real name. When Bex was small I told her it was her and me. She believed me. It is a beautiful picture. Both the mother and baby are asleep and the mother has tiny little flowers in her hair.

I wish I had the love and beauty that those flowers symbolise.

And then floating down the middle is the lady of shalott who should have stayed behind her walls.

When Bex was a bit bigger I used to drop things in the grass. We'd go for a walk and I'd say 'oh! what's that, just down there?' and she would bend down to pick it up. And I would tell her how lucky she was to find something that the fairies had left behind.

And I'm a terribly untidy person.

I have an 'in/out' system around my desk at school. It makes the children giggle. But every now and then (most often usually) I have bags and folders behind there and it becomes too dangerous for them to walk around. I have fairies who live in my classroom. One day I told the children one of the fairies had crashed a lorry leaving an oil spill all across the floor behind my desk and until it was cleared up, they wouldn't be able to walk there. Every single child avoided it very carefully indeed.

I've explained to the children that the fairies have everything we have, just in miniature.

Of course the fairy who crashed the lorry was safe and well, it was just a bit messy for a while, that's all.