Mab of Dream

*bounces like a mad bint*

Back and spiritually renewed. :-D *bounces again and happy dances as best I can on a dodgy ankle*

I'm going to try and write it all down, so I don't forget it all (though the amazing bits will always be there)

Wednesday:

FT Kate woke me up at 10 to 6 in the morning and we were at Ian's for 8am and on the road at half 8. Naturally this put us smack bang in the middle of the rush hour traffic, in the pouring rain, in Brum, which is always a git to drive around regardless of the time and weather. I finished listening to a audio version of 'The Alchemist' by Paul Coelho, which Andy Charnell had given me, and then got onto my car tape; still driving was hard work. The lorries kicked up spray, the rain came down and the further we got, the more my neck and shoulder hurt (from the whiplash).

I pulled into the Abbey carpark, in Glastonbury town, just before 11am, and Ian and FT Kate had only just that second pulled up themselves. Timing! Ian needed money, so we parked up and while he was at it, I nipped to Witchcraft Limited, to see Trevor, but the shop was closed, the lazy git.

We didn't hang around, but drove off to the Festival in Pilton. There was a lot of traffic and we had to wait at temporary traffic lights as part of the control system. None of us minded that at all, as it was necessary, however the sign-posting was downright crap. We always park in the west carparks, so we can camp on Pennard's Hill, but the signs didn't make it clear which was the entrance for them. In the end, Kate asked a steward, who sent us right around the other side of the festival (we knew we were wrong when we passed through Pilton village itself, but a steward there waved us on). Fortunately the stewards over on the east were a little more savvy and directed us back to the west. In the end, we drove into the 'drop off and pick up' entrance, simply to ask there, only to find out that that was the entrance to the west carparks!

We were in carpark 22 and driving over the field jolted my shoulder even more. I was in agony by the time I parked Rebecca and got out, but Kate had put so much thought and time into ensuring that I wouldn't get hurt by attending this festival that I didn't want to make an issue of the fact that driving to it hurt me. (We're encouraging Ian and Katy to learn to drive so that Kate and I do have the option of not driving in situations like this...)

We loaded up the sack carrier and all should have been well, except that the rain had turned the track leading to the entrance gates into a quagmire. Within ten foot of struggling down that track, it was patently clear that I could not handle the sack carrier without causing a lot of damage to myself. I would have struggled on anyway, but Kate refused point blank. That left a situation where Ian and Kate were having to carry the camping gear for three people (plus Katy's tent) for over a mile, through ankle deep mud, in the pouring rain. I felt so bloody guilty! Also, by the end of that first track, my sandals had both snapped at the straps. The left one came away completely, while the right one was left dangling by one side. I took it off in the queue going in and the Oxfam man put them in the skip for me. That left me barefoot in the mud, which I quite enjoyed. :-D In the queue, as in the carpark, Kate was humming a tune from an advert, which got in your head and stayed there. We kept hearing it all over the festival for the entire time we were there, and I hold her fully responsible!

We all had that Dunkirk spirit, laughing and joking, with me surrepticiously taking things off the other two to carry, when they were so battered down by the conditions that they didn't protest. There was one moment when I managed to get the sack carrier back, with Kate saying, 'I'll have it back off you if it's too much'. It was too much, but I wasn't saying that! I'd seen the effort on their faces getting us that far. However, Ian took one look at my face and said, 'It's hurting her, she's lying' and it was taken off me.

Two seconds later, I slipped off the metal trackway on the mud and felt something go PING at the back of my ankle. It turned out that I'd strained my Achilles tendon, but no-one noticed and it was Saturday before I got round to mentioning it. I figured that after the whiplash and the effort that took on everyone else's part, that I had no leeway left for an ankle in pain. Needless to say, the others had words to say about me not mentioning the ankle.

Eventually, we were all set up on Pennard Hill. Bob and Loz, with their gang, turned up just as we were putting the tents up, so we got to camp together. There was Harry, Joseph from Texas and Chris. During the next couple of days, our gang grew to include Katy (Ian's sister), Andy and Ellie, Andy and Mick, two others whose names I never got, Bruce (who gave me a bandage for my ankle on the Saturday) and two ladies with a baby named Connor.

We went on a wander around then, in search of cups of tea and wellies. Well, Kate wanted wellies, as I had my boots on by then. It was so exciting to be back! *happy dances in memory* Everywhere was just setting up, but all of the stalls were in place, though not quite open yet. Somehow, we managed to lose the others, so Kate and I went wandering off to the Pyramid Stage area and discovered the She-Pees! Of course, we had to try them out! They are female urinals, but we didn't know that there was a funnel to be had too. We just crouched and used them. Very posh.

I can't remember anything else about the Wednesday.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Me and Mum counted the flags on cars only, from the Scotlands to Wyrley, and they numbered 66! That's a 10 minute car journey for those who don't know north Wolverhampton (actually, isn't that everyone... LOL).

I found it highly amusing and tittered when I got that e-mail, about those with a low IQ are now required to fly a St George's flag from their cars. When I pledge allegiance to a flag, it tends to be the Wolves flag or the Draig Goch. Football is my religion, as much as everyone else's in Britain, as long as the colours are burned gold and black, but the higher levels tend to pass me by. Other than amusement, I haven't really given it much thought. (For those outside England, right now the entire of the country is covered in St George's flags - white with a red cross on it. By covered I mean that in 10 minutes you can count 66 flying from the cars along; they are also flying from flag-poles, from windows, from the necks of children; the major fashion right now is to be wearing an England shirt of some description - whether it be the official one or a mock up one from Bilston Market.)

The thing is, I've never seen this country so patriotic. I've seen it decked in the Union Jack, which I personally find distasteful - too many connotations with the BNP and NF, not to mention what the Union Jack STANDS for (neither the Welsh Draig Goch nor the Northern Irish Red Hand of Ulster are present at all, but what is there is the English St George's flag stamped over the Scottish St Andrew's flag. Apparently the original version was the St Andrews over the St George's, but there was a near riot and it was swapped. Given the times, the Scottish weren't in a position to fight very hard at all.) To me, it doesn't represent Great Britain. It represents England ruling over the Celtic nations, which, while honest, is a little insensitive methinks.

I would be quite happy to see the Union Jack banned, simple as that.

But since Saturday, I've been looking at all of the St George's flags and thinking about it. This is English nationalism and I applaud that. The more that the English find their own voice and identity, the better, because until now England seems to have only found representation in how well it can drown the identities of other nations and people. The Union Jack is fucking over the Celts; the big nationalist songs - 'Rule Britannia' (Britannia rules the waves'), 'Land of Hope and Glory' ('Wider still and wider, shall thy borders be set, God who made thee mighty, shall make thee mightier yet', even the National Anthem ('Send her Victorious') are all about the British Empire, colonizing countries far away, so we can get rich while they get poorer.

Right now, there seems to be a move towards finding an Englishness that is English for itself - tea, crumpets, strawberries and cream, the St George's flag, the football team - and that's bloody brilliant! :-D I was sitting in my car last night, cleaning the windows on the inside (and messing up my neck big time, but that's a different story), and I suddenly heard singing. The goosebumps went up on my arms and I switched my tape off to hear it. I haven't direction of sound, so I didn't know which way to face, but I listened to a group of men singing in rich tenors and baritones. It didn't matter what they were singing, they made it great, but incidentally it was 'I'm H-A-P-P-Y, I'm H-A-P-P-Y, I know I am, I'm sure I am, I'm H-A-P-P-Y', intercepted with strains of 'En-ger-land, En-ger-land, En-ger-land'... it sounded like a male voice choir! LOL And it turned out to be not one but several groups, coming down different roads towards the Old Quarry. I don't know what they were doing over there, but I watched around 30-40 people, mainly blokes, but one or two wenches too, going over the pit, whose entrance is 50 yards from my front door. I nearly went over, but I didn't. If I had a St George's flag too, I might have gone, but I have a Draig Goch and I'll go instead to hear the blokes of the Rhondda sing their own tunes; or, more likely, I have a 'Pride of the Black Country' flag with a wolf on it, I'll go when they sing 'Hi Ho Wolverhampton' and sing at the top of my voices with them. You can't steal others identities and so I didn't go.

I didn't put my tape back on, I listened to the sound of England Calling instead and grinned at their awakening identity.

Soooooo Wayne Rooney scored again, did he? 4-2? Good lad.

yours

Matti (or Mab, if you're reading this on Kindly Ones)

xxxxx

I'm in a unique position. Everything on my 'to do' list is done; 'Priestess' is all typed up; all of my e-mail folders are empty; my car is ready for driving to the festival (give or take some oil... as in it desperately needs some. It was completely empty, so I contacted WM Mike and asked on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being bad, how bad was this? He said 11); my rucksack is packed...

In short, I haven't GOT to do anything. There are some things for after the festival - some things to put on the website and a reading to do - but they aren't expected until next week.

Sooooooo... excited? Beyond excited and into some strange netherstate of over-excited. FT Kate put it best: it's like being so hungry that when you finally get food in front of you, you no longer have the energy to eat it. I'm excited to the point of no longer being excited! LOL But I'd have to pass through excited to get back to normal.

And I'm supposed to SLEEP? Are you sure? I'm waiting desperately for tomorrow and I'm waiting desperately for a special 'phone call. Perchance to dream. :-D

Underneath, but postponed, I'm excited on a different level, about Anna doing this interview malarkey. I think that might still the ghosts of the past forever, but that is post-Glastonbury.

Oh well. I'll now attempt to sleep.

yours
Mab
xxxxx
- who's also fucked her neck up cleaning her car windows and is currently not screaming due to over-excitement, Georgia energies and the painkillers.

Nos da cariadiau. Tomorrow will ROCK!

... the Goddess sent Saoirse.

Her horror came not from fear, but from the awareness she suddenly felt from the image of an appalling, endless loneliness. Great power was held only in great isolation. Looking at the Greenwitch, she felt a terrible awe, and a kind of pity as well.

But the awe, from her amazement at so inconceivable a force, was stronger than anything else.

'Greenwitch' pg 383

I'm reading Susan Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising Sequence' at the moment. It's five books bound into one and they have been amazing. That, coupled with typing 'Priestess', and KO and WG, more or less constitute my influences at the moment, and so have got me thinking about power.

How could anyone court it? I'm talking about power over other people now, rather than that over yourself, which is a whole different kettle of fish. I've had taste enough in the past few months, what with one thing and another, to want to run away and hide for the rest of my life! All of my instincts are saying that right now - leave all of the groups, don't go to the Moot, hide, run away, run away...

But then again, tremendous highs and tremendous lows, isn't that what I told FT Kate at the beginning of the year. Did I bless or curse us?

But then, I think it shows. Two hours after Kully looked at me and said, 'You look a lot better than you have, the light's come back on in your eyes', I went round Laura's, and she looked at me long and hard and said, 'Ok, what's going on in your head?' (or words to that effect) And when I said I was fine, she pressed me and still didn't look convinced when she finally gave up. In a way, they are both right. Laura reckons that even though I'm there, there's a look in my eyes that's not. I'm really fine and I'm really haunted.

I'd better finish typing 'Priestess'.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

I've been shopping up Wolverhampton, with Mum, and I've got a few things for Glastonbury. This year, Kate and I are on Operation Lightweight and Minimalism, so that we a) don't have to make two journeys to get all of our stuff for camping and b) I don't have to carry very much, because of the neck situation. We're doing very well! Kate's got a trolley, which, she speculates, will involve me not having to carry anything.

There's general I'M GOING TO GLASTONBURY excitement going on. But then, last night at the mini Wolverhampton Moot, we fixed some dates for everyone to run off and try to get booked off work, plus arranged cars/who's giving who lifts etc, for when Georgia comes over. Loads of people are up for it now! So I'M EXCITED ABOUT GEORGIA COMING OVER!

Underneath all of this is Cerr's pregnancy. She's due to give birth any day now and I've read the progress reports on the Baby.com site every week, so I feel like I've lived this pregnancy (without the physical side-effects, like actually being pregnant, obviously!). I'M EXCITED ABOUT THAT TOO!

I was bouncing around all day yesterday; bouncing around all day today. Then some off-list crap happened and now I've hit the ground with a bump.

I think I'm going to go off-line for a few hours and do something else instead.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

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From Caroline's 'Spiritual Moments' calendar for today:

'We make for ourselves, in truth, our own spiritual world.'

Henri F Amiel

So my plan for today was:

Wake up
Get excited about Glastonbury
Type up some more of 'Priestess'


CHECK! On all three! In fact, I've been unbearably excited about Glastonbury. :-D

And I fitted in time to be Woden. *Avoids looking at any of the Heathen/Frejan/Norse Witch types*

And Anna has looked at my blog and come up with a great idea for the questions malarkey. Thanks Anna fach. :-D

Cerr, are you in labour yet?

yours
Mab
xxxxx

I've typed up two more chapters tonight and got us out of the Vicarage again. See, that didn't hurt a bit... *cough*

It's taught me a lot though. For example, I knew that my recurring dream had to do with that night in the Vicarage, but there were a lot of details about the reality that I'd forgotten. It'll all go towards the long overdue healing of it, because though it's ceased to be a big deal in my ordinary life, it must have traumatized me enough that the dream occasionally still comes, though nowhere like as often as it used to. Right up until last year, it was there at least once a week and frequently several times.

That's for consultation with the wise old Witchgrove elders at some later date - for now it's enough just to know what happened more clearly, so I can vaguely work out how to dive back in and help that younger self of mine. I've rubbed emotional comfrey cream into so many of the little wounds, that I think I'm well sorted now to tackle the bigger ones.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, in the Grove or on here, about what I'm up to (long term). I discovered that it's not only possible, but quite easy, to go back into yourself and rescue a younger self. You can then send energies, healing and reassurance from your secure, wiser viewpoint now. I wonder if that's what we commonly know as hope, when the chips are down? Just ourselves reaching back.

The extremely long-term plan is to reach forward and find the older self. It's got to be possible if the reverse is so.

The other 'Priestess' related thing for me to remember is to speak to Anna about what I've been thinking for afterwards, and get her suggestions. I'm not sure how to play the aftermath (and what's new there? LOL). Basically, I said from the beginning that I'd be honest about 'Priestess' and answer any questions about it, because it is a mix-match of fact and fiction, just as the characters are a mix-match of real people. I know who was there when and where, who said what and how the situations played out for real. But then, when Cailet asked, the writer side of me took over and said I'd tell about it at the end. There were a few e-mail on the Grove about it, but the upshot was to wait until it's all in there, then we'll cant about it.

Fair enough, but how does that work then? I know of at least one person who is reading it, but feels awkward asking me her questions. She's told me straight out that she's figured that others will have the same questions as her, so she's going to wait on them asking them. She doesn't want to be the one to ask me, I think! LOL Also, I haven't a clue who's reading it. I know that Cailet, Carrie, Minerva, Teri, Kass and BS Kate are; I think that WM Mike is, and Georgia maybe.

Part of me is thinking to go through it chapter by chapter, on Witchgrove, not as a story of my life, with the what's true and what isn't, but in a discussing the psychic/witchy bits. There are so many things in there which would make great threads! Also, as it's the story of someone toddling out on the Wiccan path for the first time, there are several things which are called Wiccan, which aren't at all. I know them, but I'm not sure as the newbies would.

That's one aspect, which I'll speak to all of the Mods/Grove about. The other is this questions about what really happened part of it. If folk feel awkward about asking, then I'll just use that as an excuse not to talk about it for another half a dozen years - I know me. I don't know if it would be a good thing on the Grove or not, because 90% of them wouldn't know what on earth we were talking about. I definitely wouldn't like to do it in real life, because there are questions that I would have trouble with (in a good way, because they are the ones I'd need to actually think about for once in my life).

The vague ideas I've had are either like Anna's interviews on the Grove or like the web-site interviews. As both of those were Anna's ideas, I reckon she's the wench who'll know the best way to play this. Shall I consider this me asking her for ideas, as she leaves enough comments that I know she reads my blog?

I think the basic things I've been cogitating are:

a) Not confusing the Hell out of the people who haven't been reading it;
b) Not putting it on-line where the public might find it, in case any of the questions/answers aren't Mum Friendly;
c) Not giving myself the excuse to bury this inside myself again - so asking for help there really, because I can only not bury it if I have people aiding and abetting by asking the questions;
d) Letting folk do it anonymously, so they don't have to ask a question which they suspect will hurt me, then have to face me two days later at the Moot;

It does sound like there needs to be a buffer in the middle, for the last one, unless we just say sod it and just call it a free for all on WG. Then, if folk have the guts to ask the questions, I swear by the Three in One that I'll have the guts to answer them; and if either they or I chicken out? I'll just deal with it in the next life. ;-)

And 'kin Hell! Did I sanitize the Vicarage or what? LOL Johnny, you bloody coward! *giggle* It's a good job I like you.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

You're Odin! The Allfather, the wise. You gave up
your eye in the pursuit of wisdom and hung for
days from the world tree to attain even more.
You feel that if you can just gain all the
wisdom in the world you will be able to prevent
Ragnarok.


Which Norse God are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

*bounce bounce bounce*

This time next week, I will have woken up in the Glastonbury Festival. *bounce bounce*

My excitement was bouncy enough BEFORE I went to the Delivery Office and picked up my Davy Lamp of a torch. I was well bouncy BEFORE FT Kate texted me to say, '4 more workdays and 7 more sleeps...' But she's wrong. Everyone knows that you don't count the day you're in, so it's only 3 more workdays and she's miscounted, it's only 6 more sleeps.

Then this:


And this:


And this:


And this:


OMG! I'm going back! I'm going back! I'm going back!

I'm going back THERE!

yours
Mab the Overwhelmed
xxxxx

Laura's pep-talk didn't last too long, did it? I've been sitting here tonight thinking, 'Just get such and such done and you can type up some more of 'Priestess''... but such and such took a long time.

As I type, my inbox, KO and WG folders are all empty, which normally makes me feel good. But that took a grand total of 6 hours to do; which followed after eight hours work (as in paid... at work), with an half hour dinner-hour, which I spent starting to type up the 800-1000 words on Wicca that Phoenix is waiting for. Even the drive to and from work was spent listening to Radio 4 and thinking of things I could write to Kindly Ones.

This isn't me in whinging mode, it's me taking a long, hard look at myself. And I wonder why I get so exhausted that it takes my friends to having to constantly pick up the pieces, and my handbag contains three different herbal ways to calm down. This long hard look also tells me that I can't think of anything that I've done which isn't reacting to something else. I've responded to a load of e-mails, but have I started any threads? I think that the only two e-mails that I sent out today, which weren't in response to one sent to me, were: one to the girls seeing if they could access my new task-list; and one to Draig asking for a favour re: pics for the WG web-site.

All day, as I was at paid work, I was thinking 'GOING TO GLASTONBURY, GOING TO GLASTONBURY' and getting quietly very excited about it; then alternately thinking, 'Tonight, I'm going to type up 'Priestess', because I didn't get to do any last night and I'm going to remember what Laura said...'

I can almost hear Anna saying,
'Jo, just walk away from it! Go and do what you have to and leave the rest be.' (except a bit stronger...)

And Laura would be saying,
'Didn't we already have this conversation? Go and type up 'Priestess'!'

Everyone else would be either looking for signs of this being more serious or telling me to go to bed.

Soooooo... here's my plan for the future:

Go to bed; wake up, get excited because this time next week I'll be in Glastonbury, go to work, come back, type up 'Priestess'.

However, if I was a betting woman, I'd be saying, 'Johnny, you're a bloody workaholic and you know it. You'll finish work, look at your task list and think... 'I'll just do...' and be having yet another long hard look at yourself this time tomorrow night.'

I've always been shit hot at doing what I think I should be doing, rather than what I want to do.

BUT tomorrow's another day and all that, and I WILL eventually surrender in this war I'm fighting against myself. Either that or Anna, Laura, Shonna, Georgia, Roxanne, Kate, *insert name here* will convince me that what I want to do IS what I should be doing and the two states will cojoin for a whole 24 hours... 48 hours at the outset...

How the Hell any of them put up with me, I'll never know! LOL

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Oh Joy! Joy! Joy!

WM Mike put me onto the fact that the Yahoo mail thing has an inbuilt task-list. Not only that, but it can be shared (which is occasionally an issue, when I have a burn out/freak out and Anna becomes my secretary just to calm me down... know thyself...)!

I'm in the process of adding new tasks to it and deleting the 60 day trial programme that I downloaded from a Colette link. Being a Virgo and therefore getting cold feet at the thought of deleting a perfectly good list, I thought I'd put the past tasks in here.

Humour me.

I'm a Virgo.

This is what I did (exc. the things I did immediately and therefore didn't end up on a task list anywhere) in the past 54 days:

Get up to date with WG
Chapter 21
Georgia's reading
Mike G's reviews htmled
Get up-to-date with KO
Fuel to the Flame for KO
E-mail Kate M with URLs
Update my own site
Chapter 20
Chapter 19
Chapter 18
Get up-to-date with WG
Reading for Genhorrall
Empty inbox
PAY VISA BILL!
Photo link on WG site
Pics to Richard
Pics to Phoenix
Pics to Kate
Scan in Kate's art
Scan in photos
Write to Clair
Add Colette's logo
Write to Moonkissed
Tarot (Colette and Grove)
Ask Juell about link
Update archives
See doctor June 2nd
Html Mike Gleason's review
Ask BS Kate about Dad's book
Check wedding plans with Kate and Phoenix
Chapter 17
Chapter 16
Chapter 15
Chapter 14
Get Shambala tickets
Add Karen's blog to the WG list
Pay parking fine
Write 800-1000 words about Fair Trade in W-ton
Get statement sent off to Glastonbury people
Check phone bill
Check Visa bill
Html WD
Chapter 13
Chapter 12
Kindly Ones
E-mail Singe about Wulfrunian directory
html Amos's interview
WD html
Anna's book
Add Andrea's pics to Charles's site
Add photos to Charles's site
Bibliography
Tidy room before Kate and Phoenix get here
Lillyth's blog on site
Put sunflower in the garden
Fill in MA registry form
Transfer MA info and tidy up footnotes/read Luhrmann notes and add them
Sort out Glastonbury ticket money
Error check and defrag this bloody computer
Get MA amendments done
Get tickets for Levellers Day
Find the lost bibliography in WG
Colette's Tarot
WG's Tarot
Remember first aid cert. for work
Link to Shewolf's site from the PHC site
Build Live How You Listen website
Laura's Mirror pic
Laura's discussion onto the website
Becca's poem on the Bards
Chase Vijay and see if he's decided about Presidency
Finish going through Shewolf's site (from Wicca history onwards)
See Kate W
Add Mike Gleason's review
Update posts page
Do oil and read 1st initiation for tomorrow
Write to list about distraction and energies
This Month in the Grove
Renew Amnesty membership
Watch Kate's video before Saturday
Get back to PG Society about Presidency
Check statement and find out how the sweet proverbial I got so overdraw
Chelle's poem in bards
Add Gen's blog to blogspot
Speak to Cabochon about 2nd initiation
Write something for FotH
Clean fish out
Go up the Co-Op
Go up Wednesfield and give Liam his pressies
Find card for Heather
Read through 2nd initiation again for Beltane
Html weekly discussion
Fix connection to website
Chase essay
Chase pay slip
Fill in solicitor's form and get it signed and sent
Read PHC e-mails
Upload Karen's pic for photo page
See if I can hurry up bank statement re Glastonbury
Html my review of Heselton's book
Review Philip Heselton's 'Cauldron'
Empty inbox
Do Cherokee's reading
Write to Roxanne re Temenach
Ask Laura about Pat Green's essay
Write something for reader's e-mails for WWW
Write to Patricia re her Green genealogy
Write to Sharon re her Hickman genealogy
Reply to 'Priestess' questions from Cailet and Corey
Html 4 reviews from Mike Gleason
Get up-to-date with WG
Try and participate in KO
Write Bella re Beltane
E-mail Jamie about Tuesday
Read and comment on Ogma 1
Read and comment on Ogma 2
Read and comment on Ogma 3
Read and comment on Ogma 4
Read and comment on Ogma 5
Read and comment on Ogma 6
Read and comment on Ogma 7
Read and comment on Ogma 8
E-mail Kate re dictionary
Find a coven in Chatwell/Newport, Telford
E-mail Viv about Joolz and Billy Bragg
Colette's shop onto WG mall

I've just typed up a 25 page chapter of Priestess - Chapter 21 - and even shocked myself with how much I put into it. The entire chapter is around 98% true. I'm not 100% sure how I feel, but something inside me breathed out.

It's better tonight. Last night, I managed to squeeze every emotion under the sun into about half an hour. I was touched and so honoured at what Cailet wrote; I lost my temper at the arsehole whose abusive, shit-stirring e-mails never got onto WG only because of the Mods had had her instincts buzzing and moderated him before he posted a thing - so he wrote to Cerr, off-list, with the beautiful message, 'fuck off and die you skank cunt'. I went yampy and wrote to him myself, though Cerr dealt with it in her usual professional way; I laughed my head off at a joke as Georgia posted... it was just a kaleidoscope of emotions, all within about half an hour.

Today, I feel less burned out, just quieter. I'm finding my peace again.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

This sums it up: entry in Cailet's blog.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

One of the members posted this:

I'm glad to be here, and glad to know people like you, and Bri and Mab, and... well really? ALL OF YOU. I may at times stand in awe of the depths of your knowledge, but it gives me something to work towards. And knowing there are people out there that understand, not just political or social frustrations, but some of the other less pleasant things we've been thru is always a good feeling. Thank you Corey!

Which tells me, beautifully, that everything that Kindly Ones was set up to do, is what it's actually doing.

*grin*

yours
Mab
xxxxx

From Caroline's 'Spiritual Moments' calendar:

'Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.'

Epicurus

GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!
GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!
GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!
GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!
GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!
GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!
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GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED! GO TO BED!


Kate


LOL

Night, blessed be

yours
Mab
xxxxx

... what I just posted, I realized that it sounded like a cue for everyone to send comments about how wonderful I am etc etc. But the emphasis here is on me convincing myself. A little like how you can have the ocean described to you, but you don't know what it's really like until you're standing on that clifftop getting your first view.

I know how I got here, I think. These six months have been like an earthquake in my self-perception and I need to get my head around it. Look at it like this - late last year, I was so shit at accepting compliments and believing in myself, that Laurie (on WG) had me and Georgia practicing on each other. That wouldn't have been needful if I thought myself the Goddess Incarnate.

Then January - I finally 'got' myself. Little cogs moved into place and suddenly I forgave myself the things I beat myself up over. I accepted the good in myself as well as the bad, and I gave myself leeway over the bad. I saw myself as I see my friends. I had the incident with the mirror, where I saw myself physically as if I was a stranger viewed in another room, and I went on my instinct and first impressions. I liked what I saw and you know that, with me, that's nothing to do with skin-deep attributes. Then there was that smile. It's going to sound so weird to explain, even a little schizophrenic, but the 'Mab' that folk go on about smiled at me in the mirror, and I felt honoured! Yeah, yeah, I know. You had to be there, ok?!

It was all like finally get shut of the Judgment Card stage of my little Journey, seven years after the Vicarage. The World blew my mind.

Then carried on blowing it. I got the job at Aimhigher, everything went so right and I felt so on top of the world, that I went a little strange. I lost those two hours wandering around the library, until the Universe sent Syd to fetch me back. At that point, I couldn't get any higher without totally losing the plot.

So I crashed. Literally. After the car-crash, I had two Grovers independently warn me to watch my emotions and that they would be there for me. I don't know what I was thinking - that it didn't apply to me, maybe? It's only now, with a bit of hindsight and that visit to the doctor behind me, that I realize how shaken up my brain was that day and how, as a consequence, unstable my mental, intellectual and emotional faculties have been.

It was laid out plain. My brain hit the top of my skull with a violent force and fell back. It was the equivalent of sticking a jelly in a lidded bowl, then chucking the bowl at a wall. Forget the physical nerve and muscle damage to my neck just now, because buried under all of that was the fact that I suffered a great deal of mental, intellectual and emotional damage at the same time. While I was trying to do the stiff upper lip bit and business as usual, my brain was trying to deal with short term memory loss; loss of concentration abilities; perspective damage; and all kinds of shit. It was subtle enough to not be there in neon lights, but blatant enough to only just be settling down.

FT Kate knew about it; the WG Mods knew about it; my parents knew about it. They were having to deal with my freak outs, tears, sudden dazes, lethargy and all the other things. But I don't think they or I knew how related it all was. I had it down to being stir crazy in the house, but in actuality, it was, I suppose, minor brain damage.

So what did I do? Soon as the pain had receded enough for me to drive a car, I went to work far too early. Then, still with short term memory loss, emotional upheaval and damaged intellectual functions, including the inability to concentrate, I set about learning how to do a new job. A responsible, needing to be organized, think on my feet etc sort of new job.

Not only that, but I chose this period in my life to meet dozens of new people, at the Wolverhampton Moot; to get involved in a load of new projects; to chair the PG Society Presidential elections; to write my MA project etc etc etc

The better I get, the more I am looking around and seeing the utter mess I created in the intervening months. This wasn't time management, it was like giving a slug loads of beer and watching it's daft progress over the paving stones. In short, I haven't been making great choices and I've been working like someone on hard drugs!

So here I am. Looking beaten up, but having had more sleep than I had for several days this week, finally able to see the picture that Kass and Saoirse tried to warn me about at the beginning. Picking up pieces and working out how the sweet proverbial I got here.

Interesting times, eh?

LMFAO!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

For re-entering the world of Kindly Ones, I definitely look the part. As Caroline put it today, 'You just look like a domestic violence victim now.' What she was getting at is that the swelling from my bites has gone down, leaving a plethora of cuts, grazes and marks which do look suspiciously like bruises, though they aren't. I do look like I've been beaten up. There's a patch on my left bicep that looks exactly like I've been grabbed hard enough for two fingers to leave bruises.

BUT they don't itch half so much, so life is good.

I woke up last night from a nightmare involving the Brum P4P Co-Ordinator (work-related), but I haven't any details.

Today has been yampy, at work, and my colleague totally misread my mood. She took some work off me, as I'd been overwhelmed, and promptly went on about how disorganized and inefficient I am. I took it to heart, not realizing that she was joking with me. She sussed and did a U-turn. By the middle of it, I was too young and inexperienced, and by the end of it, it was a simple case of me having to learn to say 'no'.

Apart from needing to convince myself that I'm ok and I'm good for something, all's quiet on the Wulfrunian front.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

I think it's safe to say that I'm getting there. The bites have cooled to the point where I can actually see individual ones, as the redness and swelling recedes. In most patches, it's enough for the cream to deal well enough; though there are a couple of patches where the selt-belt in Rebecca has opened them up completely. I've shoved the cream on them and didn't show my Mum while she was eating.

There have been TEN NEW MEMBERS OF KINDLY ONES! Five of those have been in the past six hours and some of those are the very earliest Kindly Ones come back. *happy dances* I've also been in and sent reactivation notices to the half a million dudes who were bouncing. Meli will have the shock of her life when she comes back from wherever she's gone.

Work was a lot calmer. Caroline has returned from her holiday in Spain (where she's bought some land and is having a house built on it!); and both Viv and Sarah were in a meeting all day, so I was able to get on top of things a lot more. Plus, because I was in the office, I was able to apply the cream more regularly, which I think has done a lot to help me heal. For the first time in about a month, I've left work not feeling exhausted mentally.

Before I left work, I nipped into Viv's office to say goodnight and jokingly asked her to watch out for flying arrows. I had a dream last night which went like this:

I was in the trenches and the war was the Kindly Ones versus Something Nameless. I went over the top and hit an invisible line (roughly where everyone gets killed if this was WW1), where I just broke out in open sores, bumps, lumps and cuts. I fell to the ground with no skin left underneath this outbreak, and in utter agony. From the ground, I looked across the battlefield and saw Viv being hit in the eye by an arrow. She fell to the ground and I was too injured to get to her and save her.

I woke from that dream in the early hours of this morning. It doesn't take an e-mail to Witchgrove to analyse most of that, does it? I went to bed having to lie on top of my covers, naked, after having had a cold shower, to cool the bites enough to try and sleep - there's the state of my skin in the dream covered; I also went to bed with a mind full of Kindly Ones, hence that. WW1 trench? Bit dramatic, but if my mind was scutting for a war, it's as good as any.

However, Viv got that (with a brief explanation about the Kindly Ones) and asked me what television I'd been watching. Only the Harry Potter film at the cinema, as I don't really watch telly. She asked me if I'd seen anything of D-Day at the weekend. Thinking on it, yes, I had. Only briefly, but it was on at Eric's house, though I wasn't really paying attention.

That was WW2, not WW1, however, it took place in France near to Bayeaux. What's famous about Bayeaux in my mind? The Bayeaux Tapesty, where it shows Harold being hit in the eye by an arrow. Who was Harold? The leader, the monarch. Who's Viv? The boss - the leader/monarch etc of West Midlands Aimhigher. She said that she was only a symbol and that it was I who was hit in the eye by that arrow, in my dream.

Why Harold of all historical deaths? For a start, he held the crown for only nine months, which was a very tumultuous time in English history, beseiged with battles. Obviously historians will argue until the cows come home, but I think that the prevailing view was that he was a shit hot king. Just before the battle which killed him, he had marched his troops up to Stamford Bridge, where he pulled off a victory against the odds. However, the Normans were invading down south, first at Sandwich, then at Hastings. Harold and his warriors were on the wrong side of the country, knackered and needing some time out, but they heard the news and pulled off an amazing march three quarters of the length of England. On the battlefield, he had the upper hand, because he had the high ground, and the Anglo-Saxons (Harold's lot) were winning. However, they got cocky, rode down from the ridge to finish the Normans off, and somehow Harold got isolated and received the arrow in the eye. It didn't kill him - his wounds, shock and loss of blood did that - but it meant that his standard fell, his men panicked and the Normans got to win. Had the standard not fallen to where his people couldn't see it, then the English might still have won the day and the Normans never got a foothold on the country.

Put it all together - this incident with the Kindly Ones has made me feel exposed and vunerable, because of the state of my health at the moment. I feel as though I, as a leader, am going out there to be slaughtered (hence WW1 instead of WW2) and if I don't allow my health to hold me back, I risk losing the support that I currently have and I will be isolated in a very dangerous position.

'kin Hell, my subconscious is melodramatic! Dream analysis isn't my forte, but I'll assume that there are Grovers reading this who have views on Viv's analysis.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Things float up and down in my priorities, but right now Kindly Ones has moved to the top. This used to be my playground, but then circumstances (Cabochon leaving and Cerr asking me to replace him as mod of Witchgrove; followed by the creation of the Witchgrove website) meant that Witchgrove became my priority.

I've just spent half an hour going through the management end of KO, seeing who's there, who's been there, who's left, who's bouncing. Overnight, there were three new members, all Witchgrove members too, while others left. By the look on it, four people left in all, but five people joined, over the past three days, presumably as a result of the debate on there spilling onto WG.

Now that I'm a little more up-to-date, I then had a look at the messages. There is no way I'd ever be up-to-date there, but some cachi had taken advantage of the sudden lack of Mods to post a virus to list around midnight last night. Fortunately, one of the members gave the head's up to the others, so hopefully no-one clicked it during the 12 hours it sat there. I've deleted it and banned the member.

My next step, I think, is to work out if the other three Mods are active there. The other list owner posted on Friday, but hasn't been seen since; one Mod is MIA; while the other is away with the army. Once I've tracked them all down, then it's meeting time to respond to member concerns and see what their feelings are about the group. If anyone no longer wants to be a mod, then I'll see about replacing them.

At the moment, it seems that the future holds more of my presense on KO than on WG, which couldn't have come at a worse time for Cerr, but she has another three active Mods on WG to help her out now. Still it might require a reshuffle and therefore a WG Mod meeting too.

We'll see. What I really need to do is to make a list of all the pies that my fingers are dangling in and work out what's important, then concentrate on the rest.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

The 'Spiritual Moment' from Caroline's calendar for today:

'The path of duty lies in the thing that is nearby, but men seek it in things far off.'

... this is what I just posted. I thought you might like to read it too.

Date: Tue Jun 8, 2004 11:46 pm
Subject: The Rules of Engagement

I'll be honest, I haven't been following the thread.

I haven't been following many threads on here, not because my passion for fighting all the world's evils and saving what's left has abated, but because I simply ran out of time to tell you all about it. Too many fingers in pies and all that.

Shit list-owner? On here possibly, but it was left in good hands and I've responded to every SOS; but I don't think that that gives anyone the right to e-mail abuse to me off list. I received one earlier which requested that I 'fuck off and die'. I'm assuming that it was a request to me, because it was e-mailed to the Kindly Ones Owner. That would be me and Melissa, with Ian and Kristine also receiving it as Mods. I figured it was time to poke my head in here to see what's going down. The irony is that I don't think that that message was meant for myself, Melissa, Ian OR Kristine, but that's what happens when tempers get riled.

My temper would probably have got riled as well, because I've had the day from Hell. However, this follows a couple of days from Hell, so instead I sat here and cried.

Something that's easy to forget - at the other end of e-mails are human beings. Human beings with lives just like everyone else's, which, most of the time, we can't glimpse except for the snippets as they choose to show us. There are 42 Kindly Ones left, and I'm 100% sure that we are all human beings (except possibly for the wolf), sentient human beings with feelings and things going down which aren't blatantly obvious.

Kindly Ones isn't about pretty flowers and fluffy clouds. We're not big on group hugs here. The very nature of the group means that we're going to argue incessantly ABOUT POLITICS AND THE STATE OF THE WORLD! Not about each other's supposed personalities, personal thoughts and decency as a human being.

There are two rules here:

1, No personal insults on list-members

2, No getting offended if someone slags off your country. You are not your country, therefore slagging off your country or your political leaders is not the same as slagging off you.

I'm assuming that the breaking of one or both of these rules has led to all the shit. If not, then I'll play catch up tomorrow and kick ass then.

And for the record, Ronald Reagan has never been a member of Kindly Ones, but he has been a world leader and therefore he's fair game, especially after the nuking Europe comment.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

*******************************************************************

'The powerful play goes on
And you may contribute a verse.'
Walt Whitman

My homepage: http://mysite.freeserve.com/mab_of_dream/index.html
Witchgrove: http://mysite.freeserve.com/thewitchgrove/index.html
Pagan Headstone Campaign: http://www.paganveterans.org

*******************************************************************

I'm onto my third day with inadequate sleep. I'm dead on my feet and have two meetings to minute, not to mention the Harry Potter thing tonight.

'The reality of mental and physical collapse was very close....'

'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

I've just counted. I've got 97 large, extremely itchy midge bites on me. I didn't bother counting the little ones as they are too many.

The hotter I get, the itchier they get, and we're having a Spanish summer weatherwise today.

Wailey wailey wailey

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Greatness happened on Saturday morning - OUR GLASTONBURY TICKETS TURNED UP! *happy dances*

I spent most of the morning catching up on Witchgrove e-mails, just as I'd spent the night before dealing with all the off-list messages. I think that between 5.30pm on Friday and 3pm on Saturday (excluding sleeping, eating and having a bath), I worked my way through over 2000 e-mails.

FT Kate came to pick me up and we drove up to Ellesmere Port. Everyone was in all weekend. To clarify this, Eric lives in a two-bedroomed flat. In this flat (two bedrooms, one kitchen, one small hallway, one lounge and an airing cupboard) live Eric, his ex-girlfriend Delma, their sons Richard and Adam (both adults), and Richard's girlfriend, Kara. Plus Adam's friend, Anthony, is often there too. It's quite usual for them to have the telly, music and a computer game all on simultaneously, in the same room; but even without that, I can hardly hear in there, because of all of the people. I generally take it as read that I'm completely deaf from the second I walk in there until the second I walk out, unless Kate has been bolshy enough to get them to turn everyone off and talk one person at a time. I do worry that they think we just come in and take over, but I think that even Eric forgets that I'm hard of hearing.

We nipped out to the shop and I went in the back, but didn't lean backwards quick enough, so the front seat going back hit me right on the bridge of my nose! It doesn't seem to have caused any permanent damage. The day afterwards, I got hit in the head with a cruc lock and eaten by midges, so I'm surprised I didn't come back anymore battered than I did!

The Port itself is toxic. An Old People's Home was refused planning permission there a couple of years back, because the air was too dangerous. As Kate and I approached, we could see an orange glow to the sky over the Port, just like a sunset... but this was about half 4 in the afternoon!

It's probably nothing whatsoever to do with this:



which is the view from Eric's window (over the playing field and the motorway).

Eric, Kate and I spent some time in the Gunners pub, catching up on all of the gossip (he didn't know that I had a new job and had been in a car accident or that Kate had had an operation and won Best Actress award), then returned to the same pub later on, with Richard and Kara. Kara and I are equally matched at pool (ie we're both shit at it), so our game went on for ages. She eventually won, but it was very close.

It was after that that we decided a meander through Stanney Woods would be nice, and that ended up lasting all night. I LOVED IT!

We arrived back at Eric's at around 8am and that's when disaster struck - Kate got a migraine. I say disaster, because she needed silence and a dark room, but there is no way that that was going to happen there. Even with the best intentions, there were just too many people there. Still, it was reasonably quiet, until one of the flatmates got up and just couldn't seem to get it into her head that silence meant not making noise. She talked incessantly and loudly, she tidied up around us, she put the washing machine on, she rustled bags.

If it hadn't been for the fact that I'd been up all night, I'd have driven Kate home (we were in her car) as soon as the migraine hit, but I was dead on my feet and she couldn't have made it without vomitting. I managed a grand total of two and a half hours sleep, before this flatmate woke three of us up and kept us awake with her chattering and housework, with Kate in the room with us.

It didn't take long then for me to proclaim myself awake enough and offer to drive that car.

In the event, it was still a few hours on, when Kate was feeling a bit better, before we went. Kate drove and we had a brilliant deep and meaningful cant all the way home. She was at my house until about 10, and it was really good.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

You should see the state of me! My arms, neck, waistline, fingers, and especially my back, are covered in midge-bites. When I say covered, I mean covered. Mum got some eczema cream out for me and did my back, she reckons there's thirty big ones and she's not counting the little ones.

I'm itching like fuck.

So what went wrong:

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usfeatures/midges/

* Midges become a problem in June to August

Check! It's June

* They like the cool, indirect light of dawn and dusk

Check! It was dawn

* They like damp conditions

Check! I was sitting next to a pond for some of it and walking through dewy ferns for other parts of it

* They like still air

Check! It wasn't windy by any stretch of the imagination

* They are fond of woodland and forest areas

Check! I was walking around Stanney Woods

Mmmmmmmmmmm.

But on the other hand, I've found my Annwn! Stanney Woods at night, into the dawn. WOW WOW WOW!

We were there for 6-7 hours, most of the night, and didn't emerge until about 8 in the morning. For most of that, I was with FT Kate, Richard and Kara, but Eric was in the woods too. It was dark in there, but the night vision proved very effective and I usually could see what was happening.

About halfway through, I decided to go and meditate, so went for a wander. That was amazing. Just me, the darkness of the woods, the sounds of the woods (the sound of something sounding suspiciously like Eric at one point), just sitting there letting it happen to me. It seemed like only a few minutes when I heard Kate shouting for me and I called back, but it was probably an hour or so.

I love woods.

:-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx

You know, there is nothing more disheartening than responding to e-mails from those who have left Witchgrove over something that neither I nor the other Mods could have helped.

There was a bit of flaming on-list in the week and I've just been writing to those who wrote to me about it, shortly before/or as they left.

Sometimes I wish we did have a public gallery in which to show the WG Mods Group. Sometimes the quieter we are on-list, the harder we are working behind the scenes. I didn't have a clue what modding involved, when I replaced Cabochon. Now I do and it's a second full time job.

Cerr got accused of tyranny. She was told to make the other Mods owners of WG. I don't know whether to take it as a compliment on behalf of all five of us - if it looks like four of us are doing sod all, then that shows the grace with which we do it...

*stops being disheartened by those who left and starts laughing aloud* As if an old socialist, with a little red flag, like me would be part of a tyranny! LMFAO! *THUD* In fact, when have I ever taken orders off anyone? RATFLMFAO!

Ok...

*raises my chalice* To Cerr, to Anna, to Georgia, to Roxanne and to Me... we're fucking great the lot of us. *raises my chalice to the rest of the Grove* To you lot, for letting us be great.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

YES! The Glastonbury ticket money refund has now turned up in my account! :-D

Naturally, my car tax came out the same day, which wiped that out, but... *happy dances*

I now have a grand total of £68.95 to spend for the rest of the month. From which will come all of my direct debits, my fags and petrol, everything for the Glastonbury Festival, my spending money and my loan repayment.

Overdraft then.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

PS MAKE ME PAY MY VISA BILL BEFORE THE 15TH! I've managed to forget every day since Tuesday so far. IT NEEDS PAYING! (When I get home) If any Grovers are reading, and you see me in Witchgrove, please reply: 'Mab, that's a lovely e-mail about the meaning of life, evil and transformational grammar, but have you paid your Visa bill?'

PPS I finished the month £312.97 overdrawn, just in case you were following the saga of my finances.

I got my head checked
By a jumbo jet
It wasn’t easy
But nothing is, no

When I think I'm getting high
And I’m pins and I’m needles
Well I lie and I’m easy
Most of the time I really think I need you
Pleased to meet you

I got my head done
When I was young
It’s not my problem
It’s not my problem

When I think I'm getting high
And I’m pins and I’m needles
Well I lie and I’m easy
Most of the time I really think I need you
Pleased to meet you

Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Oh, yeah

I've only got about 50 WG posts sitting there, but they've all been read; and I've only got about 200 in my inbox which are unread (another 100 odd which have been read, but unanswered, and another 3 billion which have been read and dealt with). I think I'll have to be more brutal with my delete button, particularly since I'm off up Eric's on Saturday!

But for now, I'm going up the Faraway Tree, then dream.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Stolen from Karen the Heathen

Copy and paste this list
1. Bold the one's you've read
2. Italicize the ones you haven't read yet but plan on reading
3. Add 3 to the end

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery .
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald .
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (but it was pants!)
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk .
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo .
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner
368. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
369. Dreamhouse, Alison Habens
370. Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
371. Prospero's Children, Jan Siegel
372. Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
373. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
374. Enchantment, Orson Scott Card
375. Cetaganda, Lois McMaster Bujold
376. Beauty, Sheri S. Tepper
377. The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
378. The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
379. Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
380. A wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le'Guin
381. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb
382. The Axis Trilogy, Sara Douglass
383. Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie
384. Sabriel, Garth Nix
385. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
386. The Silence of the Lambs, Robert Harris
387. The Hot Zone, Richard Preston
388. Night, Elie Wiesel
389. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
390. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
391. Stardust, Neil Gaiman
392. Kissing the Witch, Emma Donoghue
393. The Wrong Boy, Willy Russell
394. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
395. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
396. Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton
397. She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb
398. Little Help From Above, Sara Lee Rosenberg
399. Asking For Trouble, Elizabeth Young
400. The Boy Next Door, Meggin Cabot
401. Beautiful Bodies, Laura Shaine Cunningham
402. Go Ask Alice, Anonymous
403. Best Friends, Martha Moody
404. Cane River, Lalita Tademy
405. The Secret Life Of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
406. Girls' Poker Night, Jill A. Davis
407. Last Chance Saloon, Marian Keyes
408. Sugarcage, Connie Fowler
409. The Art of Seduction, Robert Greene
410. The Dirty Girls Social Club, Alicia Valdez-Rodriguez
411. The Girls Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Melissa Bank
412. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
413. White Oleander, Janet Fitch
414. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
415. The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
416. The Story of My Life - Helen Keller
417. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values - Robert Pirsig
418. To sail beyond the sunset, Robert A. Heinlein
419. The Number of the Beast, Robert A. Heinlein
420. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rynd
421. Psychotic Reactions and Carburator Dung - Lester Bangs
422. Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
423. Rivethead - Ben Hamper
424. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
425. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
426. Mind over Matters - Mike Nelson
427. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard .
428. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
429. Roverandom, J.R.R. Tolkien
430. The First Man in Rome - Colleen McCullough
431. The Cat Who Came In From the Cold - Deric Longden
432 Not before Sundown - Johanna Sinisalo
433 December – Phil Rickman
434 The Doll’s House – Neil Gaiman
435 The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield