Spiders and other scary things

I've never been scared of snakes in the way that I am of spiders. I remember a brother and sister whose parents kept an anaconda in a vivarium in their bedroom. I think the father was a zoologist. The parents were away often, and we would take over the house, often camping upstairs, by the snake tank, sometimes downstairs in the cellar, where other, smaller snakes were kept, as well as a variety of rodents to feed them. Sometimes we would take the snake out of its prison, allowing it to roam the room, slide over our lap, never thinking the poor thing might be indisposed by the smoke of the cigarettes we constantly lit. Once my friends' parents had found the snake in their bed, so we had to be careful always to put it back when we left the room. It took three or four of us to carry him on our shoulders - teenagers between 13 and 15. I wasn't often enough at the house to witness its meal times, but the son and daughter recounted with glee and horror how it would swallow a whole live baby goat.

I have other memories of this house. I remember playing manhunt, escaping with a friend out of the tiny bathroom window to climb onto the roof, then having to jump down from an uncomfortable height because I couldn't get back to the window and didn't want grown ups to find me up there. I remember another frequent guest, a slightly older boy who would boast of his frequent sexual conquests, and talk of the praise he got from women for his 'fairy fingers'. We called him a 'mythomane' - a pathological liar. In retrospect he was probably just struggling with his sexual identity. French teenagers of the eighties were not the most accepting of sexual difference (or anything else, for that matter).

This morning, on my way to work, I had an unwelcome flashback of the biggest spider I ever saw. It had been in the sink in my mother's kitchen one night, and just outside in the grass the next. I can't remember if I ever saw it, or if I was just around when others did. But my senses didn't seem to care. Within seconds I was walking faster, arching my back in case someone had put the spider there as a joke. Some joke.

Of coffee, country cottages and Christmas coincidences

While I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago, I came across an old friend I hadn't seen since I  was a child. I found it on a shelf in my mother's kitchen.

It used to sit on the mantle piece of the big stone fireplace in the common room in our grandparents' country cottage. In that fire place there was a big old black cauldron, some stokes, and in winter, a log or two, crackling because they were covered in dried moss. This is where our parents would heat the water to fill the plastic bucket in which they washed us. The tiny stone sink only had cold water coming out of it. On the mantle piece next to the grinder, there was a big jar filled with empty matchboxes, the big kind, that my sisters and cousins and I used as temporary homes for any insects we caught. Temporary as in last, unfortunately.

I used to play with the grinder, trying to make flour with grains I'd pick up on my walks. The idea was to make bread with it. When I reminded my mother of that, she said she used to have to grind the coffee in it as a child, and how it used to hurt her legs as she would hold it between her thighs. This does bring some perspective to the popularity of instant coffee - if you spent your childhood handgrinding coffee beans, it must be a relief just to pour water on granules! Nah. It makes no sense. The stuff's disgusting.

In our home, we make coffee in a metal pot with a filter on top.

I bought it for one pound in Holloway twenty years ago, on the day I moved to London. But it takes a while to make filter coffee by hand, so we keep it in the pot and then it goes not so nice, or on a busy morning, we go without coffee, which is never a good thing.

So, this year, I had a bright idea for a present for 'Im indoors. Something that would allow us to make coffee quickly and without making a mess. And 'Im indoors had the exact same thought.

I think it's time for another cup of coffee. Fancy one?

There's no place like home

  I've lived in a few houses. My dad was not a fireman or anything like that (they tend to move a lot, don't they?) and I don't think I'm a big traveller, but I was born in my parents' house in the suburbs of Paris, a lovely house, big, with a small garden that had a big tree. I left it when I was 4 years old and yet I remember it as my real home.

After that I moved quite a lot, I even stayed at my grandparents', moved to my boyfriend's tiny studio flat and finally, at the age of 17, to Paris. We lived in the 7th arrondissement, near the Invalides (we were lucky, it was cheap and cosy) for five years.

Shrinks, bullies and hot Swedish actors

For this week's writing workshop, over at Sleep is for the Weak, I chose this prompt: Have you ever felt bullied? At school? At work? In your personal life? How did you deal with that? Tell us your story.

- Hello, doctor B.

- Hello, Marianne, how are you today ?

This writing workshop sure sounds like a therapy session, this week. So let’s do it that way, alright ? Awesome. Let’s rock.

- OK, I guess. Having those dreams, again. You know, with that blond Swedish guy, the one with the gorgeous eyes, hair, chest, Oh dear, his chest…

- Yes, OK.

- Oh, sorry. Got lost again. This Alex Skarsgard thing is getting serious, isn’t it, I wonder whether I should tell someone, you know, let it be taken care of. Oh, but listen to me, I AM telling someone, I’m telling you. But since all you do is nod and say yes, of course I think I’m talking to myself. I’m not crazy, am I, thinking I’m talking to myself when I’m actually talking to you? Right?