Goodness, exams have ended, purdah has ended. But I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go, since everyone I know seems to be travelling. I go to Italy quite soon though, once I get round to booking my flights. I'm still not sure where I'm going.

Also, should I buy a spinning wheel?
I mean, I'd never thought I might want one until I saw one advertised on a notice board. And anyway, if I prick my finger it might help with my insomnia. I think I probably won't buy a spinning wheel, although I like knowing that I could.

I'm approaching the end of my time at the Shop With No Customers, but my boss doesn't know this. I don't have a contract, I don't have to give notice and she'll be glad to see the back of me. I can tell.
Saturday was so boring that once I'd put all the stock out and swept the floor etc, I made a doll's house out of the empty boxes. I know, how fucking twee.

It was awesome though. It had staircases and windows and a full length mirror that tilted on it's hinges (and reflected a picture of Eva Longoria from a magazine, though, confusingly, the mirror in the bathroom reflected Paris Hilton) and a toaster and kettle and a bathroom suite made out of bubble wrap (it was also carpeted in bubble wrap) and a wardrobe with doors that opened and little styrofoam cushions in the living room. And it had a little cardboard turret and a balcony.

If I'd been minature I'd definately have lived in it. It even had a washing machine and tumble drier.

Then a Customer arrived with her daughter, to collect some plates and was like "oh, what a brilliant doll's house, it's like the things my daughter makes, who made it?"

And I had to be like, "oh, I don't know probably my boss's daughters..."

Because otherwise it would have looked quite a lot like I was insane or a nine year old.

Anyway, after months of revision, I realised I'd done something impossibly stupid. And, long story short, even though I'm actually brilliant at biology A Level now- it's impossible for me to get enough UMS marks for an A grade because the paper I didn't retake is actually worth a bigger percentage of the final grade than I had thought.

Sometimes, despite my stringent athiesm, you just have to take a hint from the universe.

I'm writing to Goldsmiths to transfer from history to English lit and creative writing. I'm looking foward to leaving home. I'm looking forward to doing something the grammar school thinks is stupid.

Baby Jane (as Sister B will henceforth be known) is getting ready to start at the Convent in September. The Convent do not think going to Goldsmiths to do English lit. and creative writing is stupid, they think it's a great idea and they're like my extended family. So I'll put my faith in power of prayer and the wisdom of fate, although I know they're not real.

And when you think about it, I mean really think about the implications of what the universe means, the fact that it might give you hints now and then is less frightening than the looking-directly-into-the-sun feeling of remembering that it came from nothing and it's expanding into nothing and that it had a finite start in time, but that this start was also the start of time itself. Nothing existed before the start of the universe- not even time- but that somehow everything exists now.

Compared to that, terrifying, gaping hole in the creation myth, even astrology is less than ridiculous- although it is preposterous. And I don't believe in astrology, but maybe I'll just believe in little hints now and then. When it suits me.

Maybe I'll believe in a very quiet, almost completely metaphorical god of university choices. Because it's not like it's important, not in the long run.
I'm an adult now, and I think that might mean realising that other people don't know what's best for me; not the Times universities guide nor my former headmaster, lizard like in his ridiculous oak panelled study surrounded by old boys' own manuals from the 1950s, hidden deep in the Victorian part of the grammar school. None of that was made up; sometimes, it's not the universe you have to take the hint from...

Today is my dad's 50th. Yesterday we had a barbeque for friends and family, although the distinction between the two isn't that important, since the older children of the three families of friends who were invited are as much a feature of my early childhood as my own sister was. More so than my own cousins, except Catherine, who were either too old or not born when it was important and lived to far away anyway, and secretly (or not even that secretly) a few of whom I simply can't stand. Although blood is thicker than the fact they drive me mad. But shared childhoods are quite binding too. I know some of then aren't that keen on me either.

Despite the forcast the weather was lovely; we sat in the garden, the boys pummeled each other on the trampoline, everyone fawned over Dusty the puppy who dragged around half a lamb chop and slept in the shade.

We all drank too much and probably ate to much- it was difficult not to. I still find it strange at these things that I'm one of the grown-ups now. I do expect sometimes to be given a burnt sausage in a bun and be sent to off to play with the other children so the adults can talk in peace, and that I know now what they're talking about.

The food was very, very good. Red onion and goats' cheese tart, big sweet prawns, sardines, salads, new potatos, steak, home made burgers, lamb chops, sausages, hunks of chicken, green beans in lemon and mint dressing. Chocolate cakes with cherries, strawberry tart, apple pie and a big fruit salad with pineapple, melon, kiwi and pomegranate.

Everyone complimented my dress and were suitably impressed I'd made it myself, and hadn't used a pattern. Even though it isn't finished yet and half the apples are still just beaded spots and I still haven't put the zip in.

It was a lovely Sunday and I'm not sure I ever want to eat anything again. Although I had an apricot and an expresso for breakfast, which is actually the perfect breakfast. I don't think I'll have lunch though- since even after all that we're going out to dinner tonight.