Winter Joy

Like absolutely everyone down here, south of Birmingham, we were hit last week by a cold snap, and I could not have been happier. As a person whose temperatures naturally run high (maybe because I was born in the summer of 76?), I am at my absolute best when the ground outside is frosted and the air chill nips my ears red. Far from condemning the Snow Queen in Narnia, I have sympathy for her endless winters and the build up to Christmas being more exciting than Christmas itself. 

I'm less with her on the turning people into statues issue, but hey, who doesn't have a character flaw or two?

So you can probably imagine my joy each morning as I would peer through the blinds to see a sparkling world, dressing hurriedly, so I could get a walk in before having to switch on the laptop for work. Pacing slowly along the canal in my boots and layers, more wool than woman, stopping to capture the light. 

It was simply a delight to walk every morning, timing it so the school rush was over - or not yet begun - and the canal path was pretty much just me and a couple of hardy dog walkers. Joggers and cyclists moved to the main roads and left the space clear for us to wander at will, filling our eyes with the sparkle and snap of the morning. 

The moon was bright and glorious each time while the sun cast benevolent halos that made me blink. The rushes and reeds glinted, bejewelled by the frozen droplets that turned them into living chandeliers. Leaves were etched, their veins picked out in silver, while mosses retreated into their own tiny frozen worlds. 

I don't think I walked a straight line once, so dazed was I by how beautiful it was, by the patterns in the frozen canal, by the cloud of my breath spiralling up into the clear sky. 

Tiny Wee Mabel enjoyed trying to catch the snow during one of the handful of flurries we had. Just 8 miles down the road, they were shovelling it off driveways. Friends in Wales and the Cotswolds made me green with envy as they showed off their magical, sparkling gardens, made mysterious and slightly eerie by the snow-quiet and pale light. 

We are bunkered in for Yule now. Presents brought, wrapping still to be wrestled with. Food to be prepped (I'm making a magnificent trifle this time, after last year's pavlova affair). The day itself will be full of family; the day after just him and me, recovering from the previous day and letting our blood sugars slowly return back to normal. There will be large sandwiches full of turkey and stuffing and redcurrant sauce and, oh, all the trimmings, always so much better between 2 slices of thick bread the next day. 

This isn't a good season for everyone, I know. If you are still deciding which charity to make a seasonal donation too, I heartily recommend this one, which I've supported for a number of years. Or, seek out one nearer to you. 

Wherever you find yourselves and whatever you find yourselves doing, I hope this is a good season for you. May your trees be bright, your puddings fulsome and your lie-ins lengthy. 

I left my sock in Bruges

When it came to deciding on a honeymoon location, N and I were in swift agreement: Bruges. It had to be Bruges.

We’re both fans of the darkly, bitterly funny film, In Bruges with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, which also contains one of the finest comedy gangster performances you’re ever likely to see Ralph Fiennes deliver.

So we set ourselves in the direction of the “fahkin’ fairytale” medieval cobbled city at the end of October. I’d booked a medieval (there is a theme in Bruges) cottage right next to the canal and then booked the Eurostar so we could feel all green and smug. A feeling that quickly evaporated when we realised we were seated facing backwards and my sea sickness (so much worse now that the perimenopause has kicked in) took a fierce grip.

But we made it. 7 hours of travelling, 4 trains. Green with sickness and smuggery, one of us at least, we staggered from the final station with one wheelie suitcase and one partly wheelie (it lost a wheel en route) case that had to be carried, and straight into a town more well preserved than David Dimbleby. As we passed along the streets, the lights became dimmer. The walls of the houses were punctuated with niches in which sat Mary and Jesus in various states of decoration and decay, looking down as we cringed at the sound of our own approach. Mullioned windows blinked the subdued streetlights at us as we and a handful of other brave souls headed for our respective staying places.

 
The sound of a dozen wheelie suitcases making their way over the Bruges medieval (that word is going to get a lot of use in this post) cobbles is like nothing you’ve ever heard. Not even the thunder of hooves at the Cheltenham Gold Cup comes close.

 

The house was beautiful (although there was a noticeable lack of tea bags and milk on our arrival – this is the very last time I use Air BNB) and only a few minutes’ walk from the very centre of things: the Markt, the tower, the museums, the churches. There are a lot of churches – this is a deeply Catholic country. Our longest walk was on the 1^st day when we went to see the Jeruzalemkerk* to the north(ish) of the city. This was one of the film spots, but also, just somewhere I wanted to visit because I have a passion for old churches and N is kind enough to tolerate that. Or at least lean against a wall outside looking up nearby battlesites while I go knock myself out.

 
The cobbles did an absolute number on my poor arthritic feet and I watched with jaw dropped in awe at the oh-so-chic women swinging along in heels and camel-coloured coats, apparently unaware that the ground beneath them was chronically unstable. They would sweep past, all dark glasses and shiny hair, speaking rapid Flemish into their phones, casting glances of disdain at the giggling couples** and pouting singles taking selfies along the canal wall.

Houses in Bruges can go for over 1 million euro, the chap leading the canal boat tour (yes, we did). Leading you to wonder where the real people are when they are not selling us postcards, taking us on carriage rides (no, we didn’t) or serving us terrible beer (much head, little liquid, for god’s sake don’t complain or ask them to top the glass up…they really don’t like that, keep quiet, order your moules et frites and make a mental note to only drink wine for the rest of the trip).
 
The coffee was delicious. Short little cups, drained in 3 gulps, but rich and aromatic, served with cream not thin and unsatisfying milk. Hot and revivifying in a way I had forgotten coffee could be. Everywhere it is served with a little speculoos biscuit – that lovely caramel, slightly spicy biscuit – apart from one memorable occasion where it came with a little dish of nougat and marzipan made on the premises. A marzipan made with real almonds, not a whiff of essence in tastebud reach, it was a completely different beast to the sort we cover our claggy fruit cakes with. I brought quite a lot of it to take home.
 
We saw extraordinary art – Bosch and van Eyck and Memling. At the Groeninge, halfway through, there is an extraordinary painting in the chiascuro style, of a young woman and her lover, the candlelight giving her a luminosity that made me cry. I brought a print to bring home where now, in the lamplight, it glows again. At the St-Janshospitaal, there was a splendid exhibition on the assumption of Mary as depicted in art through the ages. There I found a wonderful olive wood carving and Books of Hours that were rich with colour and devotion. The Gruuthuse Museum was full, packed to the gills with interesting things, some of which dated back to the Iron Age. At last! Something older than medieval! There is a surprising lack of natural history in Bruges. It’s like nothing happened here until God moved in.

 
Speaking of which, there were many, many churches, of course. I do wonder myself at my complete irreligious self so liking churches. At the Helig Bloed Basiliek, there is a phial of (allegedly) Christ’s blood that (supposedly) liquefies every now and then. There is no entry fee, but you are invited to pay due REVERENCE by way of a donations box right in front of the phial, guarded by a stern woman who looks like she probably ignores safe words. It felt…cheap. Lacking in taste. I mean, charge me an entry fee, sell me a postcard and some holy socks but don’t put the donation box right in front of the bloody exhibit.
 
In another church (by this time, even I’ve forgotten the names), there was a decidedly graphic reliquary with a bit of a saint’s arm bone in there. I wondered if that waved every now and then.
 
In between, I would make N pause for more coffee and a break from the cobbles, and he would fill me in on the tour we were taking in the middle of the week, which battlefields, which war memorials, which cemetery for the war dead with their rows and rows of graves that saturate you with sadness. 9am to 6pm that tour. It is safe to say he made me pay him back for the churches.

 
Our final night, we ate at the little tavern 2 doors down from us where we had made friends with the pub dog and the food was cheap. Drank a final glass of wine (on Belgian soil anyway), chatted to the owner and tried not to think of the 7 hour, 4 train return journey.
 
And the sock? A casualty of packing light so I could bring back ALL the chocolate. I’d had to do a wash halfway through the week, draping the wet socks on the radiator to dry. 4 hours later, I knocked it down the impenetrable back of the radiator. I like to think of it slowly becoming at one with the house. Or hooked out by the puzzled owner with a long arm, an even longer piece of wire and a growing collection of odd, foreign socks.

*I’m currently posting this with no WiFi due to complicated BT-engineer-based reasons, so I’ll add links another day
**We took precisely 1 selfie because otherwise, how would we prove we’d been there? But there was absolutely no giggling. Serious selfies befitting of our Great Age (personal age, I mean. There is nothing great about this political age).

Winner of this year's "Nicest Pub Dog with 

Silkiest Ears" award

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We are halfway through October, my favourite month of the year, and it still feels like our feet haven't touched the ground. Thank-you cards have arrived but remain unwritten. I will tackle them tomorrow and hope we're forgiven a little tardiness. 

A lot of the whirlwind has been around work as mine continues busy and N started university the Monday after the wedding. At the start of the month, I went to see a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Birmingham Rep which was beautifully handled, with signing (some of the actors were deaf) and a sensitive treatment of multiple needs. Hero was actually given some autonomy in this performance, instead of remaining a cipher, a pretty mute thing who has no voice but merely accepts the fates dealt by the terrible men around her. It was rather refreshing. 

The last time I'd seen this play, it was a Bollywood version in Stratford, which was a visual feast. I've always loved the sparring between Beatrice and Benedick. 

Last Saturday we went to see Mark Steel, the comedian, at Tenbury Wells Regal, a treat of a little art deco theatre, loving restored and working again. I'm a big fan of his 'In Town' series on Radio 4 and he didn't disappoint. Every joke about a place is said with genuine fondness for its strange customs and quirks, there is no malice. Unless he was talking about the present government, but then he could be forgiven that. Especially as the audience felt much the same. 

We have met up with some of the RHS course crew a few times since it came to an end in May, most recently yesterday. Generally at each other's houses or in a garden centre. Mostly, the talk is not about gardens or gardening careers, but about families and plans and life in general. Children and pets run around. We eat. We chat. We swap cuttings and bulbs. 

Lured in by how much I'd enjoyed the films, we started watching Rings of Power and got 3 episodes in before I declared I did not care for any of the characters, and I did not care for a stroppy Galadriel, and I did not care for meaningful looks where a simple "this is a terrible idea and we shouldn't do it" statement would do. But Ghosts has restarted which makes me joyous, as does the new puppy on Gardener's World, all wriggly legs and ears. Bake Off continues to reach new heights of silliness and I don't care in a good way; it is the icing on the bun on the bake that is unnecessarily complicated but still, somehow, delicious. I think I might be in awe of Noel Fielding's eyeliner. 

The Cheltenham Literary Festival is on. I haven't been to an event there since I saw Audrey Niffenegger speak in 2010. Back then, I was living a different life, writing a different blog. Now I'm living this one and looking forward to seeing Ian Hislop talk about his Desert Island Books tomorrow with N. I've long admired Hislop's intelligence and wit, so this should be interesting. And yes, I do have a list of desert island books of my own, and have already decided that, should I ever be on the Desert Island Discs, I will reject the copy of the bible for the collected novels of the Brontes. 

Speaking of which, I will not be watching the new film, Emily. I'm sure it's a very good film but I feel that all biopics take liberties with the truth and Emily Bronte has suffered enough at the hands of people taking liberties with her truth. 

But I have reread the book recently, and Jane Eyre, and Dracula. This month always calls for Victorian novels, I feel, and I've got a copy of Lady Audley's Secret to hand, a blanket to curl up under and Nordic socks to wear to keep my feet warm. These socks are simply amazing. Warm enough to keep my toes from feeling froze, even without slippers or within wellies, whilst not keeping them so warm I end up with unpleasantly sweaty feet. Consider this a wholehearted recommendation. 

Some mornings, I've got myself out of the house for a walk along the canal just as the sun breaches the trees. The air has that autumn smell of woodsmoke, fog, damp bark and earth that is so wonderful. The colours make my smile wider and my step springier. I'm enjoying Mabel's fluffier coat, the return of soup to our lives, the shine of conkers against the paths, the moon rising a little higher and brighter against the darker skies. 

Once we return from Bruges, a proper hunkering down will begin. Fewer excursions, a retreat to warmth and light behind our doors. I love the whole process of Wintering, when my overstimulated brain is allowed to rest, when I naturally wake later and don't feel that surge of 'must do' that comes from the lighter half of the year. I am a natural hibernator. 

Autumn, I've been waiting for you. 

Into the August Mix

So far in August, apart from staring glumly into our rapidly emptying water butts and asking each other who's turn it is to cook ("I'm sure it's your turn", "Can't be, I did it last night", "we had sandwiches last night", "yeah but I made them", "that does not count as 'cooking'" and so on until we agree to have sandwiches again), we have enjoyed the simple pleasures of a drought and a looming wedding. 

I have discovered that swimming at my nearest salt-water lido early in the morning is a delicious, if breath-sucking, thing indeed. The birds are still yawning, the trees cast elegant shadows over the pool and lawns. Swimming capped ladies of a certain age, knobbly and soft with life, bob alongside each other, chatting. "I told him, it's no good you saying that Steve will fix the tap, we've seen hide nor hair of him for weeks; he'll only show up again when his latest fancy piece kicks him out." "Ooh, you never said that!" "I did, I'll not put up with idleness."

Afterwards, I reward my fortitude with hot chocolate and a toasted tea cake. Sometimes I go in the evening, a welcoming cool down, but the conversation isn't the same - it's more likely to be that Steve and his fancy piece, plus approximately 5 billion kids and a similar number of teenagers casually trying not to catch each other's eye - and the cafe is closed. 

Trees at the Lido park

Bridesmaids dresses have arrived and are hanging in my wardrobe ahead of the Big Try On. A froth of netting, embroidery and chiffon, with a sprinkling of sequins, in blush pinks and creams. I can't decide if it looks like a cupboard some sinister fairy Bluebeard would have, or as though Tinkerbell sneezed in there. Either way, the nieces will look twirly and special on the day, which is all they're really worried about. I have threatened both nephews with a lovely peach satin page boy outfit, complete with dicky-bow, as spotted (and photographed for future sartorial threatening) but am graciously holding back on that reality. 

N and I have started a new Friday ritual where we go for a walk somewhere lovely and rural. After the other week's epic, uphill, flying ant experience, he picked a woodland walk that was on level ground and didn't take 4 hours. It was pleasant, a woodland I'd not visited before, and cool under the shady trees. Huge dragonflies zoomed around a clearing we stopped in for lunch, and there were dozens of butterflies leading the way along the paths. We're undecided about this week - part of me has given a small sob at the thought of 35 degree heat - and may decide to be sensible and forgo it until the following week when it is a sensible 22 degrees and I can move without melting. 

A walk that didn't make me feel like my lungs were about to fall out. Still nice though. 

There's been a new addition to the family this week. Well, 3 new additions. Earlier in the year, I'd pointed at the shubunkin in the pond and said, "that one looks pregnant," which N had scoffed at until Monday when he spotted 3 very tiny shubunkins flitted between the reeds at the shallow end. Babies! This is very exciting and has resulted in much peering over the edge and trying to spot them again. The other fish are too taken up with clopping at unwary flies on the water's surface to bother them now. 

We've also had our first ever dahlia success. Having been handed a bag on anonymous tubers and the vague instruction to "plant them in the spring", we weren't really sure what we'd get. Was it even a dahlia? I'm pleased to say that it was and that they are beautiful. Tiny wee firecrackers of colour, just as the nemesia are giving up the ghost. I can't go out and photograph them for you right now as I'd burst into flames. 

The Kid started a new job this week. After 4 years working in care, looking after adults with physical and mental disabilities, before, during and after the pandemic, dealing with an increase in aggressive behaviours during the lockdowns, struggling on the minimum wage. Excuse me a small amount of anger, but all that clapping resulted in absolutely zero in terms of better wages or better working conditions (fancy a 12 hour awake-all-night shift followed by a 3 hour 'essential' team meeting anyone?). 

All the most intriguing paths were strictly non-humans only

Anyway, he now has a job at the lovely Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford, long one of our absolutely favourite places. When I asked him how it was going, he said, in a tone of great wonder, "I can walk into the research room any time I like". Which pretty much sounds like the dream to me. 

We have a trip to the sea coming up shortly. Not having seen our friends in the north for nearly a year, catch up is overdue. After my quick solo break in May, I made a resolution that we would get away more and remember to tell N about it as my finger pressed "BOOK" on the next break. We're going to see Lindisfarne, Bamborough and Alnwick, because he's seen none of them (he hasn't lived!) and then we're having a massive gathering of the clans, plus quiz, food and cake. I Can. Not. Wait. 

Today I did something I've never done before...I complained about a school. Bear with me. I'd been thinking about it for the past 2 weeks, but shied away as I'm not, by nature, a teller of tales or caster of stones. However, after the 4th incident of finding the grammar school were using a sprinkler on their goddamn CRICKET field, I properly lost my temper and did it before I could calm down again. I was, I think, calm and polite, yet unequivocal in how that's really Not On. So there. I am now one of Those People, who write do-gooding complaint letters and twitch their net curtains and write down reg numbers...actually, I draw the line at the last unless a Proper Crime has been committed, however badly the woman at No 1 chooses to park. 

The canal at 7am. Gorgeous and shady. 

So I am a snitch but we are hours away from an official drought announcement and subsequent hosepipe bans. Some places are without water already. The allotment ground has cracks in it wide enough for a finger to fit in. We slop grey water from the house to the garden. Everywhere is tinder-dry. Whole crops have been lost and farmers are caught between a drought and a Brexit. Now is not the time to be scattering water like so much privileged confetti. 

And if they can just wait till Monday, there shall be rain enough to green their pitch. 

This morning I harvested a lot of wildflower seed heads from the allotment, so I can spend this afternoon decanting the seeds into tiny envelopes for our wedding guests. Some people pick sugared almonds (although why? Those things are harder than the science questions on University Challenge with Jeremy Paxman yelling "Come ON!" after 2 seconds); at my cousin's we all got little Burts Bees lip salves and hand creams, which was sweet. I like the idea of wildflower seeds though, and even if all they do is throw them away (as happens so many wedding favours), the seeds will still find a way. So if you'll excuse me, I need to get my shaking hand on. 

Have a splendid weekend, everyone. Hold on in there, rain's a-comin'. 

PS, I'm trying not to bombard you all with too much wedding talk, but it has to be said, the damn things take up a lot of time and attention. Tell me if you're bored and would prefer my hot take on the Tory leadership race. Although no one really needs that. 

Sprung Days

Caster sugar with rosemary flowers for which to make biscuits.

Not cookies, biscuits. 

This afternoon, I am going to write for pleasure. This is after having spent yesterday trying to write for cash and failing miserably, (and having written most of this post TWO DAYS ago). Sometimes, I do not feel able to dredge up yet another metaphor for "this is a really good project! People will like it! Come ooonnnnn!" and yesterday was one of those times. Better to knock it on the head at 4 and take myself off to the allotment. 

Where the rosemary is in full bloom, narcissi are springing up and there were ladybirds clustered around the new growth of the fennel. The skies were blue, the birds were singing, it was bliss. The woman who runs the nature reserve CIC on the site stopped for a chat, looking almost drunk on the swelling of spring. 

"I'm not on drugs!" she proclaimed loudly. "It's just, in there, it's..." she waved her arms back in the direction of the wood and trailed off. "Just wow." Safe to say, her serotonin levels were off-the-chart high. I have rashly agreed to help write some funding bids so I now have to find new, unpaid ways of saying "this is a really good project! People will like it! Come ooonnnn!" but it's for a good cause, so I don't mind that. 

After she'd gone, N and I dug and raked for a while before calling it a day. I was extremely pleased to find my arms still working after the weekend. For the new wardrobe had arrived last Friday and the long postponed redecorating of the Retreat got underway. 

There was a day of painting, a weekend of construction and a further day of finishing touches. And my arms, oh those poor arms: I wasn't able to do anything with them other than flail around like Father Ted and his fake arms for at least a day. 

It was exhausting, and not exactly the fun weekend the Kid had in mind when he came to stay and found himself deputised to holding important pieces of the new wardrobe while N cursed and drilled and banged, but it is done and I'm so pleased with the result. 

The walls glow like apricots in Mediterranean sunshine, the space where I work is screened off from the spare bed by a bookcase, meaning I no longer look like I've rolled out of bed and straight into a Zoom call. Well, I do, but that's more a matter of unwillingness to use a hairdryer than it is to do with the fact there is a bed in the background. I keep leaning to one side so people can clock the improving titles on the shelves behind me and be suitably impressed. 

Part of the finished (almost) room. That green

painting, bottom middle, was one the Kid painted when 

he was small. 

N's Mum is finally out of hospital. I didn't mention this before as, until we knew she was going to be okay and home again, it wasn't my place to. She was in for 8 days after a series of falls that no one was quite sure of the reason for. Was it her MS, or maybe mini strokes, or - oh no, there it is, dehydration. So easy to dehydrate when you're elderly, disabled and the idea of having to hoick yourself around is frankly exhausting, how much easier to refuse that cup of tea, ignore that glass of water. I know my Nan often did the same thing. 

Anyway, she is better now and back home with a full care package that has been much needed but not set in motion before because his parents are quiet people who do not want to make a fuss or be a nuisance. And the quiet, no-nuisance people always fly under the radar. It's been a worrying time. 

In the greenhouse, seedlings are unfurling ever skywards. Rocket, cabbage, cauliflower, lollo rosso, sweet peas and other flowers, spring onions. There are even 2 tentative tomato shoots. On the windowsill, a new batch of seeds are beginning to germinate, including radish, parsnip, dill, basil, courgette and, rather exotically, luffa. Oh yes! This year I am going to try my hand at luffa growing, then I shall have a ready supply of scrubby cloths. Will keep you posted on that progress. 

Tiny Wee Mabel is also infected with the joys of spring - we've barely seen her for the past few days. She comes in, shouts, eats, leaves. Eventually returning late at night to sleep. The fox sounds have died down now and there have been limited sightings of the evil tabby who used to persecute her, so she's making the most of it. 

Tiny Wee Mabel: slightly boss-eyed, 

extremely shouty

The Great Boo, on the other hand, has taken no more notice of spring than he did winter. Still sleeping in the radiator hammock, still sitting silently by his food bowl and attempting to look half starved, still regarding Outside with suspicion. The only change has been that he now sits on the lawn and occasionally we hear a small thud which is him smacking at tiny flies in the grass. 

The sky is bright again today. This morning, awake very early, I decided to take myself off for a walk. Unsurprisingly, my footsteps took me along the canal where the birdsong was a delight. Standing there for a few minutes, no one around but the woman failing to bring her spaniel puppy to heel, I could quite understand why you feel a little drunk after a day spent in the middle of it. 

Sadly, that wasn't to be. I've been back home and ploughing through my to do list since 8am. Feeling like a 4pm knock-off is in order. 

The Great Boo: off his tiny rocker on catnip

Oh, I've just read that Dagny Carlsson, the world's oldest blogger has died at 109 (you can, if you can read Swedish, read her blog here). I love that she was referred to as a 'blogger and influencer'. Better her than one of the Kardashian nitwits. I wonder if I'll still be blogging at 109? What a thought to start the weekend on!