Betwixtmas

I’m sure I’m not the person who came up with this term but I can’t remember who did. Whoever they were, full genius marks to them as this is the perfect word to describe this period between the tired damp fag end of this year and the bright shiny start of next. 

Ordinarily, I’d be spending it clearing out cupboards, catching up with friends and family, taking long walks and generally filling my hours with activity. This year, recuperation means I can’t. I’m forbidden to lift anything heavier than a quarter full kettle, banned from all housework and under orders not to get cocky about the speed of recovery. 

Truth be told, this chafes a little bit, until I stretch too far and then the wound site chafes even more than my forced inactivity, and then I give in and have a doze on the sofa. 

Christmas dinner was a triumph, cooked by N - his first ever time of doing so. Yes, it was 2 hours late and we forgot the crackers, but there was no rush. These are the long slow days of not very much at all this year. I'm rarely properly up before 10 and he, with his infinite capacity for sleeping in, can get a good 12 hours before he wakes. 

It made me weep the morning after I'd come home when he appeared at the spare bedroom door (where I'm sleeping currently for maximum comfort) just as I was trying to struggle upright. He'd set his alarm so he could be ready with a cup of tea for me. That is consideration. 

Yesterday we had snow, as did many places. There is still something magical about this white stuff whirling down and covering everything, making it clean and bright. The cats were perplexed by their first encounter with it, although Mabel did decide to enjoy it after her initial jump back in surprise. Today, when more fell, she leapt into the air, batting it with her paws and generally acting like I wish I could have done. 

A friend of ours with a recent negative Covid test came over for a game of Trivial Pursuit, some damson gin and a lot of cheese. It brought a lovely dose of new energy and conversation to the house. Her present to me this year was a handmade apron with a fab print and a Granny Weatherwax hat on the pocket. It may have been the residual anaesthetic, but I was incredibly touched and a little weepy with it. GW is a heroine of mine and the most perfectly realised female character ever written by a man. That she'd remembered that and got it worked into a handmade gift was a truly generous thing. 

Apart from getting weepy over an infinite number of things (Mabel giving me a headbutt, Thor bringing me a gift of wool from my stash, N tweaking my toes as he walks past, the end of Ghosts, episodes of The Repair Shop), what have I been doing with myself?

Reading, making plans for next year, filling notebooks with these plans, making a sourdough starter, watching Christmas films. Chair yoga. Writing. Playing games. 

When I was little, this betwixtmas time would have been spent in much the same way (minus the yoga and sourdough, plus arguing with my sister), with the excitement of New Years Eve growing every day. For NYE was when we were sent off to stay with my maternal grandparents. We'd arrive in the afternoon so we had time for the usual rituals: visiting the tiny graveyard, playing Poohsticks from the bridge over the stream, exploring the small church that we never tired of, feeding the ducks in the farm pond across the road from their house. 

Dinner would be early and we'd be allowed to stay up, trying small nips of things from the leatherette-clad bar in the corner of their living room - advocaat is my Proustian madeleine - watching Clive James being incredibly erudite and witty as the clocks chimed 12 and we chomped a supper of biscuits and cheese. 

The next day would be our second Christmas as they were always elsewhere for the official one. Our parents would arrive, heroically hiding hangovers, a huge joint of beef would be roasted and there would be presents, crackers, squabbling and people trying to politely refuse the homemade wine my Grandad devoted hours to making but that always tasted like vinegar at best. 

I was lucky with my childhood Christmasses and the hardest lesson with growing up is that these can never come again. Both grandparents are dead, to begin with, second Christmas is a distant memory and besides, the wench is middle aged. This does not make me sad or melancholy though: this year, as I turn these memories over, I am just grateful for all the ones I've had and all the ones I hopefully have to come. 

All things considered, I'm having a pretty good end to a year that's been a test for all of us. There was no right or wrong way of passing this test - it is enough to have endured it. I'm impatient for recovery, for the new year, for change, as are so many, but I'll step carefully over 2020, rather than my usual full headlong pelt forwards. And I'll raise a glass to all of it. 

All I Want for Christmas?

 A decision of the utmost kind was made last week as we decided not to go for a tree this year. Part of me hates this but part of me is also glad. Mabel has grown to the length of a roadside atlas but she still, judging by the way she tries to sit on my chest in the morning, thinks she is tiny and palm-sized. Knowing her nature, there is no way she'd resist getting up inside a tree. And knowing Christmas trees, there is no way it would still be upright every morning.  

It felt like a level of stress we could do without this year. 

So instead, I treated myself to some tiny lights strung on copper wire to decorate the bookshelves. This weekend, I may hang some baubles from curtain rails, as well as some more lights. Candles are dotted around and, thanks to the judicious use of museum wax, they can't be knocked over by small, curious  and not at all malevolent paws. 

I shall miss hanging up the dinosaur though. And my Nan's weird 50s polar bear. And continuing the tradition of buying one new ornament a year, started 22 years ago when my son was only 6 months old. But I figure the world will not stop just because I don't buy a novelty glittery sloth clutching a piece of holly. 

Last year, we had our lovely stripy Loki to keep us company. The way he would fall asleep on the tender part of your leg, gradually allowing his full weight (and he was a hefty boy) to turn your limb numb was a real sign of affection. Or cold. It was hard to tell which. 

Sadly he went to the great sandbox in the sky just as lockdown #1 bit. Now we have Mabel, who is slender and slight and altogether too flighty for sitting on knees for longer than 2 minutes. She has the attention span of a butterfly and the ears of a bat. I have already purchased her Christmas toy of a pudding on a string with a bell and some feathers. She has no idea what time of year it is but she knows that this pudding must SUBMIT to her will and claws. 

I am feeling rather smug and ahead of myself though: last night I wrote all my Christmas cards, today I shall post them, I've delegated all remaining present buying to N as I've finished getting what I need from the shops (my side of the family is all done *smug level increasing*). I even found time to buy myself a stack of secondhand books, but then, the world could be burning and I'd still find time to nip into a bookshop. 

The cats are currently out of their tiny minds with joy as I'm making pompoms for a door wreath (oh yes, the whimsy is strong in this one). For every 2 I make for the door, I make one for them to bat around and tear apart with all the ferocity of a lion attacking a wildebeest on the Serengeti. 

 

N reminded me yesterday, with the gift of flowers, that we are now exactly 18 months into living here. A time that has both flown by and stretched out to eclipse all other time. I can remember we lived separately and in different places, it just feels like another lifetime ago. 

Partly this is down to my own ill health. Beset by a number of ailments that doctors either scratched their heads over or snorted and told me to stop being dramatic, it has not been the easiest of 18 months. BUT. I am from sturdy Lancashire stock: lying around bemoaning my fate is Not Allowed and would probably make the assorted Doris's and Gladys's in my genealogy spin so hard in their graves, buildings would topple. So I am looking for answers and cures where I can providing no one uses the phrases "clean eating", "crystal therapy" or "this tea tasting like manure will really detox your liver". 

So today I see a nutritional therapist and on the 22nd I go into hospital to have a part of me removed that's responsible for some of the problems. Merry Christmas! 

This obviously means self-isolating for 2 weeks (from next Tuesday) and then not being fit enough for the usual round of families etc. Do you know what? I am completely happy with this. My op is at a small private hospital 10 minutes away (it was that or the choice of 2 huge public hospitals 40 minutes away), which means N can get to wave through the window on a daily basis - although I suspect I'll be booted out by Christmas Day - and then, oh then!, I get to REST. 

Oh yes friends, REST. Properly, staying in bed, no-lifting-heavier-than-a-kettle, no gallivanting, REST. After the 1st 2 weeks, Covid situation allowing, I can welcome visitors to my bedside with an air of regal suffering. I shall be gracious in my acceptance of gifts and good wishes with an air of benevolent, plucky elegance. 

Plus I shall off my face on some massive painkillers, so you know, it's all good.

 

Slowing it Down

 Today is the start of my very favourite month and with it, I can feel the very bones of me start to relax and my brain take a sigh of relief. October brings cooler nights, my cloud-like duvet, the click and whir of the heating in the mornings, stews and soups, nesting and resettling. I find summer quite unsettling with its exposed flesh, eyes squinting against the sun, chafing and sweating. Hurrah for October where the sun still shines but the temperature is cool. I adore it. 

This week has been a week off for me and N, although he did have to work on Tuesday morning (endless Zoom!), so I grabbed the chance to catch up with a friend I haven't seen for over a year. We headed to this arboretum, which has the national collection of acers and Japanese maples, both trees I love, and we caught up on all the changes.

The last time we had seen each other, N & I were separated (long story), I still rented in the House of Inconvenience and the Kid lived with me. On her side, her daughter was about to get married and her long-term partner was seriously ill. Laurie was a wonderful, gentle, charming man, full of old-school manners, a passion for theatre and horse racing, and I adored him.

 He was full of stories of a life lived to its very corners. Always open to new experiences and ways of thinking. You could sit down and have a long chat about the new Hockney works of art and end up discussing who would win in the 3.15 at Cheltenham, via diversions into who played the best Hamlet (David Tennant - which we'd actually all seen together - and Andrew Scott, in case you're wondering), the best type of soil to plant brassicas in and his experience as an evacuee. 

He was the least judgemental person I have ever met. 

So we walked and talked about everything under the sun, but especially about Laurie and how the lockdown has given my friend a chance to mourn him fully, without distractions and with a tenderness I hope I evoke when I die. We parted with full hearts, bellies (thank you marmalade and poppy seed cake) and, in my case, a Japanese hornbeam for the garden. Purchased at the garden centre, not just dug up and lifted off site. I haven't yet reached my Nan's level of pinching off cuttings in gardens and carrying them home in a box of wet kitchen paper, but I fear it won't be long. And even she drew the line at digging entire plants up. 

That one expedition aside, we've done very little this week and gratefully so. N cleared out the horror-show that was the shed and rearranged it so I can now get to my bike without having to step over 5 bags of different compost, shift rakes and spades to one side and then disentangle it from the hose. Pots are neatly stacked in size order and the tools form an orderly row at the end. I went in and spun round for the sheer novelty of being able to do that without being impaled on a garden cane. 

Today we were supposed to be heading to Ikea but have made the decision not to. Crowds still make me panic at the moment, add into that masks and the standard Ikea-chaos, and it was just asking for trouble. So we're going to order what we want instead and spend the rest of the day pottering around the house. 

Pottering is very much the word of the week: I've painted a wall in my retreat room a dark blue which I shall sprinkle with hand-painted constellations; my sister, her daughter and my mum all came over for coffee and cake one afternoon, we took in an exhibition of drawings and etchings at the local gallery, we've visited the allotment, I made apple muffins which are absolutely perfect for this time of year and had my first CBT therapy session, which interesting. 

We're watching Us, the Simpsons, Bake Off, Ghosts and football (well, N is, I'm reading on the sofa and making the right noises). I'm reading again and sink into a book every morning with a sigh of pleasure. We're eating foods that bring pleasure and drinking a red wine that demands respect. We're shifting furniture around and making cosy for the coming months. 

The kitten, Mabel, is now nearly 4 months old and a long, lean kitten she is now. My morning ritual goes something like this: get up, make tea, feed her, feed Big-Cat-Thor and let him out just before she pounces him, trying to get him to play, take her back upstairs with me, into the retreat. There, once she's settled down after checking my toes are still not something she can eat, gnawing on my book/phone to see if they are edible, sniffing the plants to check they haven't become tasty overnight and knocking any pens or hairclips off the dressing table onto the floor, she settles around my neck, purring like a tiny earthquake, for a snooze while I read. As she's still housebound for another 6 weeks at least, her fur is incredibly soft: it's like wearing a silken thermal scarf. 

The only dark spot on her otherwise light and playful presence, is her behaviour with B-C-T. To be fair, he is a grumpy old so and so: although he's only 5, he seems to have embraced a middle-age more suited to a Dad in a 1950s sitcom. If he could smoke a pipe, wear slippers and read the Telegraph, I'm pretty sure he would. However, Mabel is more of a freewheeling, playful, hippy spirit, what's yours is mine, hooray for today, kind of personality, coupled with a wilfulness that all toddlers exhibit. Her favourite thing is to sit on the arm of a chair until he passes underneath, whereupon she leaps, all 4 legs spreadeagled, onto his back, causing him to race around, growling and spitting, with her clinging on like a rodeo girl. Once he manages to shake her, there are a few minutes of feverish fighting before he manages to break free and make an escape. 

We're hoping time and neutering will calm her down with him, but if you have any tips, let me know. Heaven knows, I can't be supervising their behaviours all the time. 

This evening, I'm off to a friend's house for dinner. We scored a perfect Bunty hit in a charity shop a few weeks ago, spotting 10, original, 1960-70s Bunty's in damn good condition for £3, so tonight we'll sort through them, eat roast chicken, drink some wine and indulge in a good old gossip. We are both full of plans for things we'd like to start up, including a local group for peri, full and post menopausal women in the area. She is just post and I, with my hysterectomy planned for next year, will be thrown full on into it before too long. Until the question of the hysterectomy came up, I hadn't given my fertility another thought: I'd had the Kid and was happy at that. Once it did though, I found myself questioning absolutely everything about myself, the very fundamental core of myself and feeling almost bereaved. It was very odd. 

Anyway, a leaflet entitled "So, You're Past It" or "What is the Point of You Now?" handed out by doctors doesn't really cut it in the information/support stakes, so we're thinking of setting up our own. And a podcast where she demonstrates her considerable knowledge of history and I play the one who says "ooooh, really?" a lot. And and and. 

So many plans, so little time. Or rather, given that a growing time obsession was one of my "I think I'm going mad" triggers, enough time. If you really want to do something and its the right fit for you, it'll happen. Breathe, look at the trees, take it slow. 

June at the 'Lottie

Thank goodness for the rain, has been the recent cry around my house as it means we can neither go anywhere and face the crowds of ridiculous people, nor were our watering skills needed at the allotment for so long, my allotment neighbour sent me a message to check I was okay.

Another reason for being thankful is that the ground has finally softened enough for me to begin digging over the space where the fruit cage will go. The earth is full of roots - bindweed, bramble, thick tussocky grass - as well as bits of plastic, pottery and interesting stones, which bring a pause in proceedings as I check them out for fossils. No luck so far.

The great runner bean project is now well underway with the beans making their winding way to the top of the poles. Planted between each one is a beetroot. Truly, the boyfriend has an autumn of pickling ahead of him.

The squash and courgette I planted in early May has recovered from the frosts and there are now tiny yellow courgettes on the one below. I won't leave it too long before harvesting them as I prefer my courgettes small and tender, rather than large and tough.

The remaining potato plants are resolutely refusing to put out any flowers, so I'm not sure if they're ready to harvest yet or not. I figure they're not getting into any harm in the ground, so there they stay for the time being.

And the wildflower patch is buzzing with life. Last time I counted 10 bumbles going nuts amongst the purple blooms, wriggling and buzzing like children round a chocolate trifle. This makes me smile. The bottom of the plot does not. There are 2 downed elder trees that I can't chop up and burn as we still have a ban on it at the site, plus they are currently the only thing holding the Japanese knotweed at bay. This is spreading along the canal bank and I know, from my Dad's days as a landscape gardener, it's harder to get rid of than a boring (and toxic) guest at a dinner party. As we don't know when the council will be out to deal with it, I'm not in any rush to clear the area.

At home I have sprout, purple sprouting broccoli and standard broccoli seedlings on the windowsill. They'll be going in the potato plots once that's been cleared and fed. I'm hoping to grow a few parsnips over the winter too, as well as swede. The raspberries will go in the cleared fruit cage area and then I can turn my attention to the potential asparagus bed and orchard area (right where that troublesome knotweed is).

My birthday looms in mid-July like a big looming excuse to treat myself, take some time off and generally have a reason for eating all the things I like. I've asked for, and been promised by the boyfriend, a small shed for the allotment, so I no longer have to carry every tool up there. A shed! Can't believe I'm so excited by 4 wooden walls, but there we are. I have grown up, it seems, although I also got excited over a new boardgame at the weekend, so not that grown up.

I shall paint it blue with a yellow door, a cupboard inside with a camping stove and a kettle, and a curse on anyone who breaks in and nicks anything.

Getting In My Own Way

Surprised everyone I know when I took up yoga a couple of years ago, not least myself because I'd always assumed that as a curvier (insert own adjective and then burn it) person, all I would do is sweat a lot and embarrass myself in front of the thin, lathe-like yoga bunnies. And that I would get in my own way. 

Turns out I was right on 2 counts. 

I do sweat a lot and parts of me get in my own way but I'm never embarrassed. Everyone is too busy trying to get themselves into the same damned pose whilst worrying about farting/smelling sweaty/falling over. Yes, even the lathe-like ones. They have gut microbes too, people.

Even so, I couldn't help thinking that to fail to sit up very straight seems like kind of an epic fail. Except that I did a one-armed side plank later that evening, so nuts to that kind of thinking. 

Also, it was too damn hot. Why does yoga man never put his fans on? Does he secretly hate us? Or have a mutated genetic thingie that means he never sweats? I shall watch more closely next time to make sure he blinks...if I can keep my glasses on. Last time they slid all the way down my sweaty nose and landed with a sad thunk on the floor.

Now We Are 43

So today I reached the grand old age of 43 and how much better is it than 33 or 23? 

IMMEASURABLY BETTER! 

There's no getting away from it, and nor do I want to: I'm enjoying my 40s more than I ever did the previous decades. Becoming more comfortable in my own skin helps. I'm now more likely to think "fuck it" and go for a birthday swim without worrying about what people think about my thighs, backside or upper arms. Nuts to them, I love being in the water and no side glances are going to stop me. 

Plus, my short sightedness means I can't see the side glances. Ageing has many benefits. 

Of course swimming does make a person hungry, so this was my lunch, hoovered up within minutes of getting home...

 Seriously, this was a huge box of broad beans. I spent 40 minutes double podding the feckers. 

What hasn't been smashed has been frozen for emergency, post-swim, post-yoga dinners. 

 

BROAD BEAN SMASH (or, Poor Man's Avocado)

Ingredients:

• Box of broad beans brought from local farm shop for a fiver
• Coriander
• Lime
• Sea salt

 

Look how cute they are when podded! Like little wee kidneys in the palest of greens!

How To:

• Pod the beans and simmer in hot water for 10 mins.
• Drain and leave to cool for 20 mins.
• Sit down with a podcast and double pod those mothers (i.e. remove the grey outer skins). This will take a while and can be fiddly, hence the podcast as a distraction.
• In a large bowl, smash the beans with a fork or masher until mostly smashed.
• Add chopped coriander, lime juice and zest, and sea salt to taste.
• Serve on toasted crusty bread. Add a fried egg if you need more substance to your lunch.
• Revel in the glorious green. Eat. 

 And this is 3/4s of the way through, when I remembered to take a photo. 

Seriously, this tastes damn good and has none of the slimeyness of avocado. 

 Follow with raspberry pancakes because it's your birthday and you damn well will if you want to.

Take a nap.