Two Go To An Island

Oh Lindisfarne, you are so beautiful and strange. Driving over the causeway, a mild frisson of fear that maybe you've got the tide timings wrong, and the sea is going to come rushing at you as you get halfway, is always something special. The vast flat expanse winks with shallow saltwater pools as you cross. One day, I've promised myself, I'll do it by foot to get a real idea of what it would have been like, back in the 7th Century, to undertake that crossing. A leap of faith that even I, a faithless person, can appreciate the magnitude of. 

Whizzing across on tarmac just doesn't contain the same profundity. 

And once across, everywhere you look, that shimmering North Sea surrounding you, the air full of gull cries and oozing seaweed smells. Boats lean drunkenly into the sands, lobster pots sink into each other with resignation. Years ago, when I first came here, there was a sandwich shack selling fresh crab sandwiches. I couldn't see one this time around. 

There was also that strange glitter in the eye of residents, a twitch to the professional smile, that indicated they were, at the end of this long summer, coming to the end of their patience. It's a look I recognise. It's a look I once had. It states very clearly, to those in the know, that the person before you has dealt with approximately eleventy-billion people asking the same damn silly question about the tide/Vikings/whereabouts of ice cream/Lindisfarne Gospels/insert own tic-inducing question. 

Like a parent of small children, they will have been repeating the same information/issuing the same demand (do not feed the dog pickled onions! Yes, you have to get across before the sea starts coming in! Do not put your sister's fingers in the electric socket! No, you cannot eat ice cream in the museum!) since time immemorial (or, generally, since around March when the weather starts to get a bit nice and people think they'll start taking trips again) and they are oh-so-tired. 

To wit: the exchange I overheard in the Lindisfarne Gospels shop and experience entrance, where we'd gone looking for a bit of Viking history on the island - everywhere else having been a bit light and sniffy on the subject. 

"So, these are the real Lindisfarne Gospels in here?" asked a very English woman (no, not me) as she clutched her battered debit card (a day on this island is an expensive day) to her quaking bosom. Bravely asked, I thought, having recognised the glaze and twitch of the stout woman behind the counter and also having clocked the sign outside that said 'replicas'. There is an intake of breath and, as one, the entirety of the population in that space, including me, leaned forward for the answer...

"NOOOOOAH!" Came the roar of a woman asked that question just once too often in a 24 hour period. "Those are in London [she all but spat the word]! These are REPLICAS, like it says on the sign! But you can see allll on 'em pages 'ere. You can't in LONDON!"

At which point, I quietly put down the postcards and headed outside so I could laugh without having a replica holy book thrown at my head, so I missed finding out whether the customer paid up and went in anyway. I suspect she did. It's what the English do. 

And where was N? Leaning on a wall outside, eyes closed and wishing he was in a pub after having suffered through the castle and then the priory. To be fair, he enjoyed both but his stamina for old buildings and epic vistas is not quite as well trained as mine. I'm working on it. By the time we get back from Bruges later this year, he will also be able to show unlimited enthusiasm for flying buttresses and an unflagging determination to see one more gargoyle/Medieval masons mark. Or I'll have completely broken him and he'll refuse to go anywhere with me ever again, preferring to whimper quietly on his own at home, rocking gently back and forth, whispering "please don't tell me again why the Dark Ages is a misnomer". I'd say we're at the 50/50 possibility mark of him going either way at the moment. 

ANYWAY, back to Lindisfarne. The castle is a stunning piece of architecture and has been nicely done up by the National Trust who've employed their now-standard method of interpretation, printing bits of letters and diaries on to unlikely places. Here, their focus is on the early 20th Century and the members of the Bloomsbury Group who came here, particularly Lytton Strachey, who could be a bitchy little number when he wanted. I always wonder why people invited him anywhere. But there he is, snarking all over a tablecloth or a coat, wittily snarking no doubt, but snark nonetheless. He'd not have got to pudding stage at my house, much less been allowed to stay for weeks as he did here. 

But it is charmingly done, and we enjoyed it, although we (I) lamented the lack of information about residents and owners pre-1800 about from one timeline. We also enjoyed the sight of the staff running around like startled chickens when the fire alarm went off. The newest and youngest member of staff, poor lad, repeatedly asking his walkie-talkie "is this a fire alarm?" as if it were some sort of Delphic oracle. As both N and I have health and safety training under our belts and were the nearest responsible adult to him, we informed him that, yes it was a fire alarm, and his procedure right now should be to evacuate people. Yes, even the old lady determinedly doddering off in the wrong direction. 

On second thoughts, maybe never invite us anywhere? We can risk assess a scenario in our sleep. We are the most fun at parties. But at least you'll never be sued over a trip hazard. 

Luckily for all, it was a false alarm caused by someone vaping (what is the matter with these people?) under a smoke detector, and we were able to troop back in after a half-hour wait surrounded by glorious views. Quite the nicest fire alarm evacuation I've ever been involved in. There was much rejoicing when the all-clear was given. 

Then to the Priory, which contained a nice line of simple, hands-on activities (fit the task into the slot) for kids (and me), some nice finds and the most glorious architecture. That's really what you come here for. The sight of those towering arches, the broad sweep of the walls, the expanse of what would have been windows looking out over the sea. You can imagine easily how it would have felt to see these strange ships appear on the horizon, land. Those strange men in their furs, armed with axes that would wink maliciously in the sun, a completely pitiless band of warriors. Would they have been silent, or howling a war cry to the skies as they made their way up the dunes?

I couldn't tell you because there is No Viking History on the island. Despite the Vikings definitely having made history here. It is very strange. I've been told several times that I should go to Yorvik in York for my Viking fix. But I have been there and I have no need to see freshly-graduated students, the ink on their acting degrees still wet, stomping around the entrance asking "do ye be a witch?" in cod-rural accents ever again. 

Regardless, Lindisfarne is eerie and beautiful, strange and glorious all at the same time. I wish I could be there in winter, watching the storms rage around the ruins. One day. Maybe. There are other places to get in touch with my Viking ancestry after all. If I really wanted to.  

A Returning

 Last Tuesday I declared to N that I was feeling restless, missing the big long walks I used to be able to do before the arrival of grinding arthritis in my feet. I felt that the steroid injection had done its job so well, that it was possible to tackle my first one in 4 years. And where I wanted to go was a bit of a trip down memory lane. 

You see, I used to live at the foot of this hill. In my dog days, I would walk with him to the very top on a regular basis. We saunter up past the standing stones, up along the crumply fields with their intriguing hummocks and folds, along through the copse full of twisted trees that soared over our heads, and out into the wide open space. 

This place. 

It has air. Big skies. A curiously shaped stone. A tiny whimsical tower. It has the curves and falls of its Iron Age fort. It has my heart. In a way I cannot define, I belong to this place and I’d dreamed these last 4 years of being back up there. 

The old dog is gone now but I still packed an extra sandwich, an extra bottle of water, like I used to do. And we walked and walked, slowly. Not saying much, focusing on each step. Drawing the thick summer air into our lungs. Feeling muscles sit up and say “I remember this”.  

At the top, we sat and drank it all in. Had the place entirely to ourselves - crowds get drawn to the Cotswolds, the Malverns. This is ours. I let myself feel the sheer joy of being back up here after so long, after thinking I’d never get to see it again. There were a few discreet tears of sheer bloody joy. Relief. Thankfulness. 

Buzzards wheel and scream freely up here. The wind tugs at your hair. Memories wave from the corner of my eye. Turn my head too quickly and they shyly hide again. The clouds tumble over themselves in the sky, chasing their own shadows on the ground. 

We walk the perimeter and I can feel the ghosts of the tribes that called this place home jostle beside me. They chatter and laugh, argue and fuss. They cook and craft, look after the beasts they’ve brought in with them for protection. Until one bloody day when their fortress falls. Skeletons have been found in the ditches. Broken weapons. This place holds them and me. 

And then we leave. I look back as much as I look forward. Tired and dusty back at the car. T shirts sticking to our backs, water bottles empty. Feet firmly back on the ground. 

Bimble in the City

At the beginning of November, in what I'm hoping is the last big excusion of the year*, we headed to London (twice in one year!). N had work and I was going for an explore. We were meeting up for the leaving do of one of his colleagues later in the day. 

The weather was perfect: cool, sunny and with that lovely tingle in the air that autumn brings. With strict instructions on how to cross the road (I once was nearly run over in London and only saved by N's quick reflexes...and better road sense), we parted ways on the tube and I headed to St Pancras Old Church. 

Old as in, it is the OLDEST site of worship in London. Tucked away behind the British Library, down past the Francis Crick Institute (where I muttered some rude words on behalf of Rosalind Franklin), and in a clean quiet spot of London, it's rather lovely. 

The church itself is mostly Victorian. Inside it's all whitewashed and sterile with some cracking iconography. Gilt images of saints that flicker in the light of the dozens of candles that people set out. 

I'd been reading about this place and Hardy's Tree and a particular grave, but before I put myself to the task of finding them, there were some substantial monuments to admire...

You've got to hand it to the Victorians, they give good monument. Not for them the discreet little plaque on a bench. At least, not for those that can afford something more splendid. And whilst it might not be practical, it does at least announce "THIS is how much I loved this person. THIS is how much I miss them. THIS is how much money I have to tell you all about them."

Mostly, of course, it's about status and showing off. Our man Morris, back in Kelmscott, kept his and his wife's affectingly simple but then, he doesn't strike me as an ostentatious man, more one that keeps his grief close and private. 

Hardy's tree is fenced off nowadays, so this is as close as I could get to it, which is annoying but I’d mostly come to see a different grave. 

This is the grave of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She of  A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the key feminist text (not that I've read it but, you know, one day I will. That and the Second Sex). Her youngest daughter, Mary (she of Frankenstein) would meet Shelley, who her father disapproved of (and rightly, in my opinion) there. Scurrilous rumour would have it she lost her virginity to him there. I'm not sure what to believe but a "sublime and rapturous moment" is rare in first-time stories, so I'm not totally on board. 

Mind you, it is exactly the sort of thing Shelley would do. *insert eye roll*

Anyway, back to our girl, Mary W G. I'm pleased to say that after a rackety start which saw her tearing around an unstable Europe after a bloke who was the definition of Not Worth It, she found a like mind, a supporter and a short-lived happiness (she died shortly after M S's birth) with William Godwin. 

I love that Godwin was considered an anarchist, but not where his daughter was concerned. He was furious about her liaison with Shelley and came across all Conservative Papa. I suspect he'd met chancers like Shelley before and had the measure of him. 

Today, people leave offerings on her tombstone. There was a motley but touching collection of small pebbles, shells and flowers on the top. Yes, I did add my own small pebble. Yes, I do always have a small pebble in my pocket. 

Then it was back through London via the British Library and Regents Park, to meet up with N to party the night away, up until the point all that walking caught up with my arthritis and I stopped, like a horse refusing a jump. 

I do need to get better at managing it and, in hindsight, clocking up 30,000 steps in one day is not a better way. Part of it is my refusal to let it stop me doing anything (until it most emphatically does) and part of it is sheer bloody mindedness. Actually, all of it is sheer bloody mindedness. 

But there, that was my last trip to London for a good long while. Now is the time to make soup laden with giner and turmeric, to crochet blankets under more blankets, to drink coffee from a flask at the allotment and watch the winter sun come up. 

Keep well everyone.

*I mean, it's absolutely aces to see everyone again and see things and go places but I'm quite tired now and my allotment needs me.

Getting Back To It

It was with some relief that I returned to work this week. As I'm working from home and it involves sitting at a laptop, this is something I can do without worrying about being asked to lift anything heavy. The heaviest thing I lift is the kettle (filled to the minimum required for a coffee boost). I may still be banned from doing any yoga, digging or anything interesting, but I can still use my brain. 

And my brain is glad that I can because it was getting impatient. I could almost feel it itching with ideas and plans, which is always a good sign I'm recovering. That said, one podcast recording, one meeting and an afternoon of emails completely wiped me out, leaving me yawning and barely able to hold a crochet hook by 7pm. 

I'm so much better that I was even allowed out for a walk all by myself last week. True, I did try leaving the house in my slippers (got 3 paces out of the door and realised what I'd done), the pace is slow and the distance not far, but the joy of being able to get out into the air is not to be underestimated. 

 

And then it snowed! And got very icy! A fear of slipping kept me from going outside again for 3 days - I really do not need to fall over right now. Although, I managed to almost take a tumble in my own home by getting my foot tangled with a phone charger cable, so maybe I just shouldn't be allowed to stand up on my own. Or at least move from my seat without supervision. Sadly N wasn't taken with the idea of being my personal watchdog - "mind out for the wool! There's a pile of books to your left!" - on the grounds that he has a proper job what pays the mortgage. 

He has promised that we'll take a trip up to the allotment at the weekend though, so I can't complain about him. 

So far in lockdown we've had surprisingly few rows. The most recent involved him playing The Idles very loudly while he hoovered and I dealt with laundry upstairs. I loathe that band. I mean, really hate them. They make me want to tear off my ears and beat the lead singer into silence with them. I don't know why, I just do. So I did the only reasonable thing and sat upstairs, seething, until the album ended and I could go back downstairs and tell him to put his damn earphones in.

 

It could be said that he was reasonable in asking why I hadn't mentioned it at the start, instead of waiting until the end, by which time I was in the right frame of mind to throw things (I didn't, credit me with some dignity, if not rationality). But I was not in a mood to be reasonable. At least, not until several hours and a bottle of wine later. 

This morning saw a lovely doorstep visit from my son and his boyfriend. They delivered and received belated Christmas presents, and he received a pile of post he hasn't thought to have redirected. That is something he's going to have to deal with soon as they are moving up to Sunderland at the end of Feb. I am trying to gather the tatters of my rationality around me about this - he's not moving to Australia, the house they're getting has a spare room for visits, he's healthy and happy - but it's a close thing. 

Not helped by my recent afternoon organising all my photos into neat digital files. I tumbled right down memory lane to the time when it was just him and me, and the places we visited, the hills we climbed and the books we shared. Lockdown or no, I will be giving him a hug goodbye before he goes. 

 

In other breaking lockdown news, I took a pair of scissors to my fringe in between meetings on Tuesday and instantly regretted it. Usually I trim mere millimeters off so it rests just below my eyebrows, hiding my massive forehead and enabling me to see, but I'd got fed up with seeing all that hair, so grabbed the blunt kitchen scissors and hacked off a centimetre, without factoring in the spring-back effect. 

Oh dear. Released from the weight of itself, the rest of the fringe has sprung up even further, leaving me looking perpetually surprised and slightly lopsided. I find myself tilting my head to one side in Zoom meetings, trying to disguise it. It'll settle down and grow back again, I know but my eyebrows are seriously traumatised by the sudden exposure and my neck is developing a crick in it. 

Really, it's just a symptom of wanting something to change and I'm craving a bigger chop to my hair all over. I'm thinking to the ears, nothing too drastic (I shaved my head once in the mistaken belief I would look like Winona Ryder with her pixie crop - I very much did not), but enough to rid me of all this hair. I keep picking up scissors and putting them down...N may have to hide them before the week is out. 

My attempts at sourdough have all failed miserably. The starters I started refused to develop, lying sulky under a sour brown liquid and giving off a smell that no mother could love. I do not have much luck with bread making under normal circumstances. My loaves always resemble dwarf bread (see Terry Pratchett for that running gag) and could potentially be classed as weapons if dropped from any height over 2 foot. So I called it a day on that Earth Mother dream and ordered some instead. I will feed back (pun fully intended) if it's any good. 

I did once think I'd be an Earth Mother sort of person: keeping chickens, baking bread, hoard of angelic children being homeschooled around me. Then I discovered that chickens smell (and are quite deranged), I can't bake a bread worth eating and children really get in the way of your reading time. And I don't think clogs are acceptable footwear. Besides, I'm not a one for labels - they always seem too much to live up to. 

All photos from a handful of the museums, galleries, hills and beaches I've visited with the Kid. Yes, I am milking this.

My Week in ... sights

I don't know about you, but I've been working with a lamp switched on all day today. Now I'm finally looking up from the screen, I can see that outside is as gloaming as outside, bar a pool of yellow light that makes the surrounding houseplants glow. 

And speaking of sights, here are 7 of mine that I'd like to acknowledge from the previous week. Well, no one wants to acknowledge the sight of their bin unless necessary, surely?

Little Mabel is now allowed outside: she's throwing herself around the garden, ears pricked and eyes wide with joy at every waving dandelion or bumbling midge. Although it's comical and delightful to see, I'm terrified she'll discover there is an Outside The Garden and will head over the fence to explore the wide world. 

My Dad, from a respectable distance, on his birthday. 71, although in my head, he's still 40. 

The skeleton of trees, no longer hiding their modesty with leaves, along the tow path. I like seeing bare branches of oaks and horse chestnuts reaching up into the sky, or the willow's just brushing the surface of the canal. 

Fairy lights going up in windows. Yes, it's still only November. Yes, we all need the cheer that fairy lights bring. I'm putting mine up at the weekend. 

Some truly awesome dark skies that made everything look as though it had been outlined in black ink and set against an almost purple backdrop. 

Anemones! Glorious purple brave flowers still unfurling their buds because it's unreasonably mild

A gorgeous icy foggy morning that airbrushed the houses and made Mabel sneeze when she sniffed the frozen grass. 

Scrolling through photos from the past, I can see that only a couple of years ago, Novembers were always frosty. Walking my dearly-departed hound in the early hours with only a hint of dawn on the horizon to light our way, we'd crunch over icy grass, watch our breath mist the air and marvel (well, I would, he was less bothered on account of being a dog) at the finely traced lines of frost on leaves. I miss him and I miss those mornings. But I do enjoy not being woken at 5am by an animal who has no concept of the clock changes.

Scene from a previous life. Oh give me a misty, frosty

morning over a humid summers one, any day. 

Holding Myself to Account

Way back in June, following a series of killings of unarmed Black Americans and the Black Lives Matter protests that took place all around the world, I made a pledge that once a month I would buy and read a book by a Black and/or Asian author in order to educate myself and hopefully make a positive change in the way I knew best. 

How did I do? Well, in June I started reading David Olusoga's Black and British: A Forgotten History. A confession: I am still reading it. It's so well written that it's the one book I feel guilty for not finishing but as well as being very erudite, it's also a dense and chewy read. I can't whip through at my usual speed, I need to give it the time it deserves, so I am, a few pages at a time, alternately grieving and furious over the stories told, regularly picking my jaw up as I go.

July was Lemn Sissay's My Name is Why, which I talked about in my July reading round up. I'm still taken aback by the grace and forgiveness Sissay demonstrates at every turn of his fate. 

This month, I have read Atul Gawande's Being Mortal (oh my, that book!) and have treated myself to Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat. I also have Bernadine Evaristo's Girl Woman Other, which I'm hugely looking forward to.

After that, I have a list of authors I want to read: Children of Blood and Bone, Negroland, The Wife's Tale for starters. 

How do I think I'm doing? Probably not well enough but it is a start. I am still reading Toni Morrison's Mouth Full of Blood, which like the Olusoga, is a dense read. She was so fiercely intelligent that I feel almost humbled to read her and again, I feel it needs more than my usual cracking pace. A few pages at a time and the pause for reflection. 

Pausing for reflection is always good. Certainly better than screaming into the void. 

 And practically? Plans are afoot to incorporate diverse stories into new museum displays, not just women but examining trade routes and the roads our foods travelled to reach us. And we're working with Don't Settle, an initiative that brings young people of colour into museums to challenge rhetoric and create sustainable change. I'm hugely excited about both these activities. I can't bring people back to life or change historical events, but I can damn well make changes for a better future. 

All it takes is a willingness to be vulnerable. To allow others to rise.

Highgating it outta there

For some reason, it was decided that the hottest day of August would be a perfect day to spend wandering around Highgate.

Actually, I know the reason why: we'd arrived in London the day before for a 40th birthday party and, as we were in the North London area, the Boyfriend was extremely thoughtful (despite the kind of hangover that makes you want to pull your own brains out and replace them with a cold cloth) and tagged on to the Sunday a trip to Highgate so I could fulfill a dream of many years standing.

The weather was not so thoughtful. There were no cool breezes, there was no smidgeon of rain to alleviate the suffocating heat. There was a veritable rush for the crypt in the cemetary just because it was several degrees cooler in the dark than it was outside. Frankly, I think we'd have rushed in if there had been zombie hordes awaiting us inside: fine, eat my brains, just let me lie down in the cool while you do it.

Actually I would not as zombies are my one irrational phobia. Although, having read Zora Neale Hurston's account of meeting an actual real zombie in Haiti (Tell My Horse), I'm not sure it is an irrational phobia.

But I can feel the question hovering behind the eyes of anyone reading this...why spend a gorgeous summer day in a cemetary?

I wish I knew the answer to that.

I suppose it's the mix of architecture, peace, surprising flashes of nature and social commentary that I love and that make graveyards, especially the big old Victorian ones, so appealing to me. Or it could be that, from a small age, a regular occupation when staying with my Nan was to go visit the small village cemetary where she would lay flowers for her father in law and own mother, reserving a little bit of spite for Doris, her unforgiving (her son married beneath himself when he took up with the baker's daughter) mother in law. Truly all life is contained in these places.

My sister and I "adopted" a small and neglected grave of a young girl, Rebecca, almost hidden in the corner by hedges. We pulled out the weeds, begged flowers from my Nan for the rusty pot and generally chattered about childish things to the tiny headstone. You could say that we were always morbid wee things, although my sister seems to have grown out of it these days.  

Anyway, enough memory lane. To the present day and Highgate. Gosh that place is beautiful. We paid our respects to Douglas Adams (it would have been rude not to leave a pen) and Karl Marx before heading to the west side and the guided tour. 

A confession: I am not much of a fan of the guided tour. There, I've said it out loud. That's despite having worked for a museum where the only way you could access the building was by guided tour (it was the exception to my own rule). I find that you have to stand for too long in one spot, that you don't get to see the bits that are most fascinating, that the chance to just sit, soak up the atmosphere and stare around you is missing.  

However, wandering on your own is distinctly not allowed in Highgate. According to a friend of mine who's PHD means she spends a lot of time wandering around cemeteries, and who has been allowed unescorted access to Highgate, there are quite a few holes in the ground, falling tree branches and other dangers which mean 1000s of people doing it is a health and safety red tape nightmare to be avoided. Much like the holes in the ground. So I can understand it, but knowing there are vast spaces I didn't see fires my curiosity. And I wish I'd been able to pay my respects to Lizzie Siddal.

And now, nearly a month on (another confession: I started this post a week after coming back but life has a way of getting in the way of my plans just recently), I imagine that the heat has dissipated and those huge trees, creators of so much of the H&S nightmare, will be starting to change colour. I'm trying to come up with a plausible reason for visiting North London again... I'd like to go back, do another tour, see more of the east side, not be viewing it all from the wrong side of a night out.

But is is my favourite cemetery? No, that space is reserved for Key Hill in Birmingham, an oddly isolated place where it suddenly grew silent around me (and a former colleague found evidence of a voodoo ceremony), and Haworth, not isolated at all, thanks to it's central location and the hordes of Bronte worshippers. But there is something quite special about Highgate nonetheless. I can understand why so many people have written about the place. Next on the bucket list of graveyards - the Pere Lachaise and Arnos Vale. Just not at the same time.

The Happy Things Round Up

Okay, I'll admit it. Even I'm struggling to find the good about this week (*rests head in hands briefly when remembering who's just got the top job of running the country*) but it is out there, I promise. 

1. Facebook is not necessarily all evil, stolen data and cat videos! Sometimes it's a force for good. See how the people of Aleppo are keeping their histories alive. 

2. A wonderful piece of craft, combining the words of the most excellent Michael Sheen with a whole-hearted swear, all in lovely stitches. If only embroidery had been like that at school. 

3. Something to bring a happy tear to your eye. A Twitter thread (yes, I know they're a bit of a bore but in the absence of a blog to send you too...) about LGBTQ acceptance and growth.  

4. For those of us who have mothers with opinions on what we wear...you ain't seen nothing till you've seen the WhatsAppMama Instagram account.  

5. Lucy Ellman has a new book out - hurrah! I've loved her work since Man or Mango: genuinely funny, inventive and take-no-prisioners writing. Long-listed for the Booker, but don't let that put you off. If you need shaking out of a reading rut, she'll do it.

5a. It's published by the amazing Galley Beggar Press. Support small presses where you can - they take risks where other, bigger, publishing houses won't. 

6. And finally, this. Because we need love around here, and lots of it. Plus it's going to look awesome in the bedroom when I've finished decorating in there...