Conor came home from Utah without Cameron Diaz but with a special jury mention for his film, which is absolutely brilliant.* One Hundred Mornings will be showing at the Dublin film fest on Saturday 20th: you can get a ticket here, although I think they're selling out fast.

*The film is brilliant, I mean, not that he came home without Cameron Diaz, although obviously that is absolutely brilliant, too.

Mountain

My village in Wales sits at the foot of a mountain, thousands of metres high. But that's nothing special: on the other side of the mountain lies an identical village with an identical population of 299 people. There's one of them for every one of us down here on this side. For every Sian there's a Siani, and for every Megan there's a Mary. There's also another redhead, turning thirty, who goes by the name of Annie.

I've never met her but I'm told she's just like me, but fitter, and when she walks she holds her back just that little bit straighter. I've read about her in the local paper. Every day that I spend in my pyjamas, she'll spend the day in the darkroom. I'll sit and dream of rich and of famous; she'll write at least seventy-three pages. She never smoked a cigarette in her life and looks five years younger. I heard she wrestled ten men to the ground last summer! And that sorry day I kicked my bike and cried when I couldn't mend my puncture? That was the day she stood up and roared and led an army of aid trucks to Gaza.

A tragic aeroplane crash

"Oh god," I wail at my flatmate, Fiona, clutching on to her ankles as soon as she gets in through the door. "The man I love has been killed in a tragic aeroplane crash somewhere over the Atlantic ocean!"

"WHAT" she says, dropping her shopping all over the floor.

"Well," I sniff. "I can't see how else he's been in America for two whole hours now without texting me."

Fiona sighs. She knows well that he's in Utah promoting his film at a festival.

"I'm sure he's not dead, Annie," she says, losing sympathy. "He's probably just super busy getting off with Cameron Diaz."

Cameron Diaz? Cameron Diaz! Which is worse: losing the man you love to a tragic plane crash, or losing the man you love to Cameron Diaz?

There's really no question: I'll have to keep busy. And so, in a fit of madness, I pick up my guitar, throw some things in a backpack, and get a boat home to Snowdonia, where I will spend an entire week with my insane parents in the middle of nowhere.

In a bid to appear cooler than I actually am

In a bid to appear cooler than I actually am, I'm taking hip-hop dance classes. Six weeks from now you'll be looking at me filled with that heady mix of fear and admiration, reserved only for those who can 'glide' and 'pop' their way out of any given situation.

"Will you come with me?" I beg my American friend, Jenna. She is the least hip-hop person I know — yes, even less hip-hop than me — but she has the right accent and I need her for my posse. After minimal grumbling ("You do realise I'm from Oregon?") she gives in and agrees to come with me.

The class is small; just us and four cooler, younger people. There's the obligatory hip-hop chicks: pixie-like and foreign, boys' cargo pants, tank-tops, and some vaguely interesting piercings. In the corner, a guy warms up a little by spinning on his head.

"I'm not sure I can do this," whispers Jenna, as we line up in front of the mirror. "You realise we've never danced in front of each other before?"

"I swear I won't look at you," I lie. Of course I will look at her, it's going to be like the first time I went to the pool with my friend Ursula and I just couldn't take my eyes off her boobs in the showers.

But it turns out I can't look at Jenna dancing after all, because I have to spend the whole hour concentrating very, very hard on not falling over. And I don't think we've even got to the 'gliding' or 'popping' bits yet; this first class just seems to be about 'stepping in time to the music'. In a bid to appear cooler than I actually am — and blacker — I have only confirmed that I was born to be clumsy and ginger.

Megastars

Ferg says we have over 900 hits on our brother/sister YouTube guitar debut, and you know what happens when we get to a thousand hits? Yep, that's when we're megastars.

Ferg's friend Ronan is annoyed because his own guitar debut only has eighty hits and hasn't it been up there longer? I look at Ferg and Ferg looks at me and in a secret brother/sister telepathic moment we decide that that's probably because Ronan's mum doesn't use the internet quite like our mum does.

But then a shadow crosses Ferg's face and he says wait a minute, hang on, a thousand hits, that won't make us megastars, that'll only make us kilo-stars!

So we decide to keep practising.

On Being a Dog

I always thought falling in love would be like getting into a warm bath, but it's not. Falling in love is like being a dog. And guess what? There's nothing you can do about it.

I spent most of last year all giddy and up; but then Monday mornings would roll around and I'd be waving him off with a pretend smile and a shrug. Another five days of wondering how he could possibly feel the same way about me as I did about him. Did he spend his weekdays marvelling over fate and coincidence, staring out of the window listening to Leonard Cohen, and trying not to vomit? I decided that no, he probably did not. So this is it? This is 'in love'? To have dropped a ball at someone else's feet and now what? NOW WHAT?

My friends were no help. "Yes, it's agony really, isn't it," said Eavan. "Terrifying," said Ann. "Look," said Cathy, "just try to keep busy."

I kept busy: I crawled under the bed and chewed on my flatmate's runners. Yes I'd like to make out I haven't blogged in four months because I've been 'too busy' – but of course I'm not! I haven't blogged in four months because I've been a demented, love-sick dog.

The Whole of Ireland

Conor stopped the car on top of the highest hill in the North and from there I could see the whole of Ireland stretched out in front of me. The sun was blinding and the sky was burning but when I shielded my eyes with my hand I could see all the way from that hilltop in Rathfriland to the city of Dublin to my home in Wicklow to the most southerly point of Cork where we had been only weeks beforehand.

Romance Does Funny Things to People

On Friday I commit a cardinal sin and dump my friends and the surf trip we'd planned in favour of staying in town with my new man. They don't seem to care. They've barely seen me lately anyway; and anyway, I say, anyway, it's not like the ocean's going anywhere. Is it? Well, is it?

Conor lives in Dublin by the canal and is made up of forearm and talent and integrity and various other qualities that I like in a man. Turns out breakfast is a quality too — who knew? — and we eat it with the blinds open so sunlight spills in over the bed and the floorboards and the books he has lying around the room. Alright, I know; but just because I don't read books anymore doesn't mean I don't enjoy having them scattered around the place — I'm not a philistine, y'know. And anyway, I've been thinking about taking up reading again lately. Maybe even some poetry. Yeah, romance does funny things to people; there you go.

Christine and Aine and Louise throw their backpacks into the boot and strap their surfboards to the roof and jump in the car and off they go. Have fun, I wave at them as they take off down the road. And when this relationship falls apart, I expect all three of you to be right here picking up the pieces, y'know!

One of those bad boys

I have an ingrown hair on my boob, which is both painful and embarrassing, and this time I'm definitely not going to tell anybody about it. Except my new friend Teagan, of course, who is like the sister I never had and understands absolutely everything I say.

"On your boob?" she shrieks. "Come on! You mean on your neck, right?"

"No," I sigh. "I mean on my boob."

Like I said, painful and embarrassing. I wonder if I should see a doctor? The sister I never had isn't sure. A doctor? That's a bit extreme, isn't it? Hmm. I think she may be right. Oh, what to do, what to do?

"You're going to be fine," says Teagan, eventually, slinging a supportive arm over my shoulder and looking wistfully out of the window. "Look, can't you just try to enjoy it? Ingrown hairs were some of my best nights in ever. Haven't had one of those bad boys in a while."

David and Fiona and Lola the Dog

The Trouble with Shoes

I have to buy a pair of shoes and I don't want to. I don't understood the point of them — I like boots. Yes, I know, it's not the nineties. But what happens when you find yourself in a fight all of a sudden and need to defend yourself and/or run away?

Not that I'm planning on getting into a fight this weekend. It's that poetry awards thing in Cork and then it's Conor's film premiere in Galway. It's not a weekend for fighting and/or running away; it's a weekend for art and culture; and "shoes" I suppose.

But the shop windows are full of heels and straps and open toes and I can feel panic set in and wish I could just buy a pair of big old lace-up boots and be done with it all.

Well, maybe I forgot to switch my telepather to silent, or maybe Conor just knows me well enough by now, because he points out a pair of black military boots and says hey, what about those, and I feign disdain and say hey, it's not the nineties y'know.

But really I am pleased and happy, and I buy the boots and feel better about life and all its possibilities. Then we get in the car and drive across Ireland; head for the horizon til we get to West Cork.

July

Who knew July would turn out this way? When we talk I want to kiss and when we kiss I have a million things I want to say.

One little song

With my bro Ferg in Galway yesterday.

Hoping he might get the hint

It took over two and a half weeks for him to ask me out, and even then I had to instigate things. "You can buy me lunch," I texted him, hoping he might get the hint and buy me lunch or something.

He got it. And now here we are sitting in a park in the sun with his arm draped over the back of the bench behind me like it doesn't matter.

"Where did you get that?" he asks, pointing at the scar on my chin. I like the way he looks at me, steadily, like he doesn't care who gets turned to stone. I don't have an answer, though. Nobody ever asks about that scar; nobody's ever been close enough to see it, I don't think.

I look up to the left side of my brain where I shelve the stories. I must have something about a girl with a scar on her chin. But nothing is alphabetised — it's chaos up there! — and all I can think about is kissing him.

"Are you making something up?" he asks.

"Shark attack," I say, eventually, decidedly. And then I look away again.

False Identities

These three pics are from my father's book of large-format portrait photography: his grand-daughter Selkie; his friend Graham; and me.

My father is old-school when it comes to photography — cue heated cross-generational debates at the dinner table. He shoots with a Rosewood 54 and a mahogany wholeplate, which basically means he only gets one shot per shoot – so you better stand really, really still when you're posing for him or be prepared to feel the wrath of Bruce rain down upon you. This method of working is completely alien to me (my preference being to snap two or three hundred shots at a time on automatic and then airbrush the shit out of them in Photoshop afterwards) but it's always exciting to have to wait and see the finished product when he's done with the dish-developing. Yes, dish-developing! With liquid and stuff.

You can flick through the first 15 pages of his book and order a copy here. There are some other people in it you might recognise too.