Stardust Memories

Last night I had my single layered anxiety dream: I was on the train and I missed my stop because I had spread all of my stuff all over the train carriage (This time books, often it’s clothes and my cat, and zebra finches). I am near Paris but because I take so long to collect all of my stuff i end up somewhere like Kings Lynn or Great Yarmouth.

A young girl sitting around the table asked how I could possibly work without my work being classsified and put into sections. I panicked and responded defensively: “Actually I’m doing a PhD and it’s a bit different from ‘A’ Levels (little lady).

We went past a waiting room full of meatballs resting on the bench. I just managed to stuff my books into my wicker bag, a bulbous moses basket with biros, eyeliners, and in the past knitting needles sticking out of its inflated puffa fish belly.

I got out of the train and saw an island on the river populated with about 20 black labradors (sealpups?) which I knew was the winning piece from the Saatchi show. Oh lord I have to get a taxi to the studio now.

Today I am sitting pissed by the fire after failing to log in to my account.

Auerbach and Freud are off to Brighton, the one day of the year where they don’t crack the ice on the loo bowl. How do they avoid bumping into one another? If they see each other on the pier do they have to scarper-like the horrible scene from Brighton Rock.

My mother, like myself is very clumsy. Last year she fell over onto the 220 Christmas decorations her husband had saved from his childhood in the 1930s.

Town hit by lost Christmas tree

A police investigation has begun after unidentified workmen cut down and chipped an Oxfordshire town’s Christmas tree.

Witnesses said the men arrived on Saturday at 1430 BST at Vale Avenue, Grove with a truck and chipping machine and disposed of the tree on the site.

Planted in 2006, it has been used each year since and was surrounded by a 1.2m(4ft) fence.

At first it was thought the tree had been stolen.

Why would anybody cut down a tree so soon before Christmas?
Graham Munday, Grove Parish Council

A parish councillor reported the theft to the police on Saturday evening after noticing the tree was missing.

Graham Munday from Grove Parish Council, said: “I couldn’t believe it.

“I thought, why would anybody cut down a tree so soon before Christmas?

“You would wait until a few weeks before Christmas if you want to sell it on.”

Subsequent enquiries revealed the tree had in fact been chipped by the men, who arrived at the site in an unmarked van.

“Police think they were possibly bona-fide tree surgeons who have taken the wrong tree down,” said Mr Munday.

“But how could they have mistaken it?”

Thames Valley Police appealed for more witnesses to come forward to try and identify the men behind the incident.

A local developer said he would replace the tree in time for Christmas.

Lessons learned from the latest lost Christmas tree hunters

Dad, kids rescued after getting lost on Christmas tree hunt
Family missing for three days used twigs to write ‘Help’ in snow
Associated Press
Published on: 12/19/07

Paradise, Calif. — A father and three children who vanished on a Christmas tree-cutting trip in the Northern California mountains were found alive Wednesday after huddling in a culvert for warmth during three days of heavy snow.

A California Highway Patrol helicopter crew spotted Frederick Dominguez waving his arms atop a small bridge and landed nearby, sinking into 2 feet of snow, flight officer David White said. White said the crew found the family on their last pass over the area as snow from another storm, even bigger than the first, started to fall heavily.

Hours later, after he had been checked at a hospital, Dominguez described three harrowing nights in the wild as he tried to keep his children from panicking and succumbing to the numbing cold.

“You just want your kids to be safe and you’re just praying, ‘God, keep my kids alive,'” he told reporters gathered at Feather River Hospital in Paradise.

The rescue came as their family and friends were starting to lose hope, with another storm moving in and beginning to dump yet more snow in the foothill region about 100 miles north of Sacramento.